I grip the chain-link fence like it's my lifeline. The metal beneath my fingers is cold and rusted, and stings my scarred skin. A strong wind blows back my longish hair from my face. Above me, the sky is grey and cloudy, as the sun refuses to show itself. Beneath, the ground is concrete, hard and lifeless, like the guards here. Hot tears fall from my hazel eyes and drip down my nose to the floor.
I miss my life in the real world.
I miss the feel of the heat on my face, the gravel beneath my feet, the smell of the earth.
The say this place is a sanctuary.
It's really a prison.
My anger overwhelms me and my hands begin to glow.
Fire.
Maybe I can burn my way through the fence. There's no point trying to dig under, considering the ground is fucking rock.
My hands begin to steam and the metal links start to glow a fierce orange colour.
They refuse to melt.
I curse under my breath and step back, staring at my hands with narrowed eyes. I am a freak, I say in my mind. There's no point lying to myself, not here, not ever. I can never convince myself something that isn't true, Just face facts and truth, no lies.
I sit on the floor, head down, staring at the dust swirling around me.
There is no life here, just grey and death.
I will not escape.
This is 'The Home'.
I am Alex.
I am here.
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125,013 Literary Works • 672,844 Reviews
Interesting.
You can use a bit more description of your character - what other physical features does she have besides long hair? And some more character development -all she seems it kind of numb and a bit sad and angry that she's at 'The Home' - and background - how did she get there?
Other than those, though, this is a really great story - very intriguing
Keep writing,
Alzora
Hi there!
Firstly, what I did like about this piece is that you managed to make it extremely powerful. Your use of short sentences, etc, really made it stand out and the whole thing packed a punch!
Unfortunately, the power felt slightly diminished without context. This, as part of a longer story or novel, would be more powerful for me, I think. Though it's written well, and though I enjoyed it, the whole thing felt like a prologue or an excerpt. To really work, I generally feel like short stories need to have more of an arc to them - they need to, obviously, tell a story, and that's what I'm not getting here. We're hearing part of a story, and therefore it seems incomplete. I'd like to see you incorporate this into a longer piece. If you don't want to do that, and would prefer to keep it shorter, then why not try to turn it into a more vignette-y style piece - it feels like that slightly at the moment but you could improve on that.
One thing that stuck out to me is your continued use of 'I' at the start of sentences. At times, it seemed right, but I think you need to tidy that up and try to vary your beginnings so that the entire piece flows more. Another thing I'd really like to see improved is your description. In places it seems a little bland and short, whereas I think you could expand on it more and create a vivid picture for the reader.
Hope this helps somewhat, PM me with questions.
-Amy
Like Dudette I like the shortness of this piece but I think there are bits where it would have been wise to add a bit more description for example
there I think you could have done a bit more like instead of just saying it was long, you could tell us -the reader- how long it truly was.Also half the time I had no clue what was going on. It seemed interesting but you didn't explain any of what was going on and it was very confusing. I definitely think you should expand on this piece.
Hope this helped in someway,
Anger
Hey there!
This is pretty short, but I liked it. I would suggest that you up the rating though, for your use of a swear word.
I did find some nit-piks -
I'd suggest maybe adding 'it' before 'stings'
I think this would have more of an effect as three seperate sentences rather than a run on sentence.
I think 'The' should be 'They'
I think you should add 'of' after 'myself'
The comma should be a full stop.
***
Overall, I think this is okay. Are you thinking of continuing it? It doesn't really work as a stand alone piece as there isn't enough backgound to make it a short story. It could be flash fiction I suppose, but I'd like to see what happens next. I still have unanswered questions like who is Alex? How did they come to be where they are? What is 'The home'? Does she/he have some sort of power and why? If you continue this, I think it has the potential to be good
I hope this helps!
xDudettex