Published August 11, 2014
The two boys entered the Night Academy's auditorium and sat down with the rest of their class. The coach came into view and he quickly gave a glance to the two. He walked towards them with dread on his face. He knew what was to come of today's pairing. "Today the two champions shall fight. The rules are the same as always; to win you have to kill," he stated. He wouldn't, couldn't look at these two boys knowing that he would call it off, but he couldn't afford to lose his job because he had kids of his own. "Drake and Fin please go get ready," he told them looking at the ground. The students stared in shock as the two best friends walked into the changing room without a single word uttered.
"I will not be disgraced, I am telling you this now, you shall surely lose," Drake sneered at his friend. He had his reasons for saying it so cruelly. He knew Fin would go soft on him because they were best friends. Fin glared at Drake, he was furious at Drake for saying those words to him. He did not liked to be doubted. He would fight and go for the win, but he had forgotten what he would lose. They marched out of the room and stood a distance from each other. The couch yelled go and they were off.
Metal clashed against metal causing sparks to fly. The two sword fighters jumped back seeing that it was foolish to wait until the opponent weakened. They examined each other from a distance, watching and waiting for a mistake that would cost them this match. Their classmates stared, wondering how these two friends could possibly even allow this match to have happened. They didn't know why they didn't fight the coach against the match, but maybe it was because they had know that they still would have had to. Drake feared for what the outcome would bring, for the it would surely bring both pain, but Fin just cared about winning, he didn't think about the consequence. He didn't realize that this was something he would not be able to change.
Drake decided the result and showed an opening where Fin would be able to attack. Fin lunged and thrust his sword mercilessly into his friend's flesh. Everyone let out a yell as Drake fell to the floor. He stared at Fin with a smile on his face. He pulled the sword out of his heart and said, "The rules wouldn't have changed, if one of us has to go, I'm glad it was me." Fin stared horrified at what he had done. His thoughts cleared from the anger he once held for his best friend. He should have known that he hadn't meant it, Drake had never once doubted Fin in any of choices. The knights stood up and walked over to the corpse. They were to used to watching kids die. They also knew that it was better for the other kid that the body wasn't there to remind them of what they had just done. Fin watched as they dragged his friend's body out of the room.
He fell to the floor and cried, yelling to the sky. He knew Drake was right, the rules were there, but it did not change the fact that he was now deep in sorrow, for he had killed his brother. For that he was sorry.
Points:
Time spent:
IP address:
Canary word: Present
Possible AI signals:
Original Text:
Are you sure you want to delete this comment? This cannot be undone.
Mark this comment as a review? Points will be awarded to the poster.
Your comment was posted, but it wasn’t long enough to count as a review. Reviews need about four complete sentences (at least 250 characters). Try writing another review that explains your thoughts in more detail — the author will appreciate it, and you’ll earn points for it.
137,435 Literary Works • 672,020 Reviews
Good Morning/Afternoon/Evening/Night(whichever one it is in your part of the world),
Hi! I'm here to leave a quick review!!!
First Impression: Well this one was quite an academy there...I almost wonder if it was meant to be titled "Knight Academy" and not "Night Academy" and hmm...well its quite a brutal way to test out someone's skill and seeing one friend having to kill another is always quite sad...well...more details down below.
Anyway let's get right to it,
Oh well, that is quite an action packed thriller for a start there, oh wow, just getting things started off with a straight up death match, and this one's going to happen between two best friends, you can't even begin to imagine the kind of emotions you would have to deal with in order to go through with something especially in a situation like this where there doesn't appear to be any kind of real way out of this.
Well it looks like he's going to try and just make his friend mad at him to make sure its going to be a fight where they're properly going against each other rather than taking it easy on each other, well that's certainly an interesting prospect there. Wonder why he would make such a decision, at any rate it looks like they're going to have to start that horrible fight now....oh dear...let's see how this ends up going for them.
Hmm...well I suppose that looks like at least one of the friends is only focused a hundred percent on coming home with the win there, he doesn't appear to be thinking of his friend too much. Well, now that's certainly a very interesting detail to put there, and their friends all being very surprised at seeing what is unfolding before them and the fact that its a death match between friends also adds another layer of mystery here as to why these two didn't say no. Well...this is all shaping up to have a pretty interesting conclusion here, let's see how that's gonna be I suppose.
Oof...well I love the little bit of description there to show that final blow as it happens, definitely plays into that fight scene really well, loved how that went..and then that moment when he realizes the magnitude of what had happened there, well that was quite a powerful one, as he truly realized what exactly had happened and the fact that there was no going back on it. And then...the way the knights just matter of factly deal with it, clearly nails home how common this is to see...well that's definitely a horrifying way to chose a victor there....truly some crazy customs those are.
And we have ourselves an ending that is very appropriate to that kind of situation, one can only imagine the kind of sorrow that could come with having to perform an act like that to someone who's a friend so close that you call him a brother...phew...well...that was quite a story.
Aaaaand that's it for this one.
Overall: Well...this was quite a powerful little story here this one...its definitely showcasing what must have been a terribly taxing emotional event there and that ending fits it just about perfectly here.
As always remember to take what you think was helpful and forget the rest.
Stay Safe
Harry
Wow that was very deep. I a little confused though. Was drake his actual blood brother or were they just so close to one another as friends that he considered him a brother? If you could answer that then it would all make sense. The story was a very good one. It shows how much drake cared for fin. He didn't want to hurt him but one of them had to die so he sacrificed himself so that fin could become a knight and live on. He would've felt just as bad if it had been him that killed fin. I think this story shows true brotherhood. It was very descriptive about the sword fight and I liked that very much. I am a big sword fighting fan so I very much enjoyed that. Overall a enjoyable story. Please keep up the good work.
Thank you so much
they are actually blood related but they are real close to each other.
Whilst this story holds real potential, I feel its delivery could have been smoother in places. You ‘tell’ us an awful lot, for instance.
‘The coach came into view and he quickly gave a glance to the two.
For me this is just a little bit lazy. For a start read the sentence out loud. It’s awkward because view and two rhyme.
‘He walked towards them with dread on his face.’
Yes, it’s concise and to the point, that’s very good; however, give us some more. As a reader I want to be challenged, I don’t want you to spoon-feed me everything. I want the opportunity to judge for myself, to spot little indications that the character was feeling dread. You could comment on the characters facial expressions, or the way he walked, his demeanor in general.
‘The students stared in shock as the two best friends walked into the changing room without a single word uttered.’
This is better, I’m left with a clear image of the other students and the story is progressing. Actually, I do like your writing style. It’s to the point, concise, and you don’t fill the story with excessive descriptions.
‘The couch yelled go?’ – I am assuming that’s a typo.
Towards the end the story seems rushed. I thought you could ‘flesh’ it out some more. For such a build up the actual fight is over disappointingly soon.
Ultimately this a good story with lots of potential. I look forward to reading more of your work.
Ben
Thank you I'll work on it.
Hello!
) I would firstly suggest to give the reader a background. 
. I think you could even add to this and add more dialogue to get to know these characters. Also, don't forget the audience. You could make that become a partof the characters as well... I don't know, maybe a sister or a girlfriend is crying in the background, or she says something to one of them at the start. That could give your story more depth.
I think you have quite a cool idea going on here and I know it's a short story but there are a few holes that you could fill up in order to expand your story and make it even better. I think this has a lo of great potential.
For example, one thing that struck me was the whole fight in itself, taking place at a school with a coach who demanded it? That doesn't sound like it would be in our modern-day society so I started thinking your story was based either in the future or in a parallel world. Maybe I'm just reading in between the lines and it's actually that the coach is insane, but I think if you were to expand this story (which, again, I think you should
However, even though it's short, you still executed the characters quite well. You gave both your protagonists something that personalizes them if this makes any sense
Sorry if these suggestions seem annoying, I know it's your story obviously, just trying to help
I checked the other reviews and saw that they already pointed out the nitpicks, so I'll stop here.
Keep writing!
I do see what you mean about, thank you for helping
Hey! IamTraunt here to review!
Before I go into the storyline, I'll just go through some nitpicks:
You need a pause in here. I suggest putting a comma after 'stared' as the two verbs don't go straight after one another. It makes me think that you weren't sure whether to put one or the other
This could be a lot simpler. You contradict yourself a little by putting 'they don't know why' and then saying why. Maybe put:
Again, this could be so much simpler. Like so:
This was a little sudden. This was quite unrealistic to be honest. Wouldn't the others be shocked? Wouldn't it take a few minutes for the others to come to grips with what happened seeing Fin just killed his friend? They wouldn't immediately drag him away... Would they?
You also say this a fantasy story, so I'm assuming this is a life and death situation? Like gladiators? I mean, if it was really life we would be horrified that someone just killed their friend! I think maybe if you give hints in this to tell us the outcome of this maybe like: 'one would die and the other would be victorious'? We as a reader don't full understand this because the rules aren't laid out for us. Sometime we need to info dump so the reader understands. I just think you should ease it in a little. You just jumped right in without giving a reaction or a consequence.
Again with the two verbs. You need a comma after 'cried'. I could just imagine this.
His brother!? What? What would his family think and feel? Would he be rejected? Also, where is he? At some sort of boarding school? You leave us so many unanswered questions, I wish you'd set the scene a little. We really need the 5W's in our work (Who, what, where, why and when) to make it clear and understandable. I really did enjoy reading this but I didn't feel as if it was complete.
There was also the point of, why did his brother allow himself to die? Was it because he didn't want to kill his brother? Also, you mention that one wanted to win, which was Fin, but then you completely changed that and said he was horrified and deeply troubled. Maybe put 'he wished he hadn't wanted to win so badly' to clarify things.
What I did enjoy was the action in this. The fight being the action. It was a great lesson for people: winning is not everything. It makes you think and I liked that. It was clever.
Keep it up! Hope I wasn't harsh or anything
Thank you for your review, it was helpful.
Your welcome
besides... Helpful is my middle name XD
'one feared for the outcome would surly bring both pain' - there should be a comma between 'feared' and 'for'. 'surly' should be 'surely'.
You should take a line for direct speech.
I will try to review this, even though there isn't a whole lot to review. I'm not usually a fan of the super-short short story so I don't read them very often. As such, I'm not exactly an expert. But, in my opinion, you do seem to pull this off. You don't tell the reader much directly, except the bit about them being brothers. Maybe you could have Fin sobbing 'No, my brother! What have I done?' or something like that.
The only other thing that I think is missing is why they are fighting in the first place. I think you could insert this quite subtly around 'the rules were there' in the final paragraph.
For being so short, you had great characterisation. There wasn't a whole lot of setting but I just used the gym hall from my primary school as a backdrop.
Well done!