I knew that it was hot but who knew it could get this warm. I felt a drip of sweat fall against my chest as I turn to my right side. I heard a crackling sound outside my door. As I flip back on left side I see the flickering shadows upon on the walls of my dark room. That’s when it happened; all the chaos and disaster struck my life at this moment in time. “Get out April! The house is on fire!” I heard my father’s cry but was it was droned out quickly from the fire trucks wailing sirens. I pulled my long sticky legs up to my chest, pressing them so hard that my breasts could have been bruised. I had to get out but I was too scared to make a move for the window. All that my brain could process was that I was history; my life was soon going to flash in front of my eyes.
The heat was starting to become unbearable, as the smoke filled my lungs which had me gasping for the air left in my room. I heard something hit my window, another bang, the glass shattered as I screeched rocking back and forth not knowing what was happening to me. A big… thing climbed through my window holding its’ gloved hand towards me. I stared at it coughing from the smoke fluttering through my body. I felt my body grow limp as the masked creature lifted me off my bed and out of my room. Who knew that I wouldn’t ever see it again? I passed out after that and the last thing I remember was that masked man pulling off his helmet and mask looking deep into my eyes, pushing the hair matted onto my sticky, forehead. Time has passed know and god only knows what had started that fire. Maybe it was a white boy, the ones who called my brother a nigger everyday. I don’t know why but I always have had a feeling that the person that set our house in flames was out to get us. Martin was a good kid, always listening to the gospels looking out for us all and what a legend he is today. How that hot day changed us all. That day only remains in my memory… so clearly that I can almost see it...
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125,005 Literary Works • 672,804 Reviews
Good Morning/Afternoon/Evening/Night(whichever one it is in your part of the world),
Hi! I'm Knight Hardy here on a mission to ensure that all works on YWS has at least two reviews. You will probably never see this but....Imma do this anyway.
First Impression: Well this one was a terrifying short piece that you've got here. It does a wonderful job capturing emotions and displaying the sort of terror that you would experience in a situation like that so even if it is really short it clearly has a message and a pretty strong one at that.
Anyway let's get right to it,
Umm "Sticky legs" is kind of a weird description. It could totally just be me but it just sounds super weird to me. Other than that this is a pretty intense opening scene actually. It certainly does a really great job pulling me into it. It does a wonderful job with grabbing the reader's attention and the overall pacing of the whole piece does a really good job with conveying the whole shock factor of the action that is taking place and all this is very nice to see.
That is a pretty chilling end to this pretty short little memory that you've presented here. I sincerely hope that this is completely fiction and has nothing to do with something that happened to you in real life. This certainly sounds terrifying and I am thinking maybe that this masked creature thing is actually a fireman that this person's imagination is twisting due to the fact that she is suffering some pretty heavy trauma from the fire. And you do a really good job conveying the terror factor of all that is going on here.
Aaaaand that's it for this one.
Overall: Overall I think was a really written little piece. Its got some really nice descriptions especially for the emotions and despite being short it does its job really well and really effectively.
As always remember to take what you think was helpful and forget the rest.
Stay Safe
Harry
Hey Jess! I liked this and I liked how the story turned out to be about racism - on some level.
Doesn't really make sense and doesn't grab the readers attention like it should as a first line. Try re-phrasing or changing completely. Also, your tense is wrong.You could mention the month and what the temperature should be. For instance:
I knew that June in Mississippi could get warm, but the blistering heat was odd. Obviously change the date and place to suit your story.
I think you left a few words out here. Should there be something after 'on'?
You skip tenses again here. It needs to be put back into past tense.
New line for speech.
This confuses me. Would you really phone the fire-brigade before telling your kid to get out the house? I'm sure you'd know if your house was on fire well in advance to when the fire-brigade actually get there.
Aw, Jess, you can do better than 'thing'. You go on to describe him as a creature - which is good - do so here.
It's good to have the twist and some sort of reason behind the fire but you are info dumping. Try to break this up - get rid of anything unnecessary and don't swamp your writing down at the very end.
Overall this was good and I wish you the best of luck for the contest!
Alainna
xxx
Hello, jessiieeboo,
You've got a story here, rather than a poem, so I'm going to move this to Other Fiction.
Happy writing!
-Leja