The sounds of sirens echoed throughout the whole area. Yellow tape surrounded the burnt corpse that remained on the crisp grass. Policemen and firemen were scattered throughout the scene as some of the policemen were investigating a vehicle that smelt of burnt rubber and smoke from a fire. A man was looking at the corpse with a sad expression on his face. All he could do was just cry, just let the tears fall down from his eyelids to his chin. How did this happen? He thought as he opened up his right palm, showing a necklace in a shape of a pair of angel wings. The necklace had an engraving permanent on the wings. Together forever. He thought again and closed his eyes, praying for the person who had died on the day of April 24, 2003.
Earlier that day.
“Matthew!” A man turned as his eyes glowed brightly with a grin surrounding his face.
“Hey, Lann!” Matthew waved at the man who was towards him. Lann Branders. Lann had an angry expression on his face as he held up his phone, showing a picture of Matthew smiling at a girl. “WHO IS THIS GIRL?!” Matthew chuckled as took Lann’s phone slowly, looking straight into Lann’s eyes. “That’s my cousin, you silly.” Matthew pressed his lips Lann’s very gently, wrapping his arms around Lann’s waist. “I only love you, y’know. Don’t be jealous so much.” Lann looked at Matthew and averted his eyes away from him, blushing lightly. “W-Well, I have been in love with you ever since we were kids so yeah. I can’t help it.” Matthew chuckled once again and pecked Lann’s cheek lightly, intertwining his fingers around Lann’s. Lann looked up at Matthew and then growled angrily. “Why do you have to be taller than me?!”
“It just happened that way, silly.” Matthew smiled gently at Lann. Lann crossed his arms and turned away. “Anyways, let’s get back to work. This park isn’t going to clean itself.” Matthew gripped Lann’s left shoulder. “WAIT!” Lann looked at him as he flinched. “W-What?” Matthew grinned at Lann, showing off his dark brown eyes. “Kiss me.” Lann blushed lightly as he pulled Matthew’s blondish hair, feeling a little annoyed. “G-Get back to work, you idiot!” Lann started walking away. “Alright… Boss.” Matthew grinned as he started walking towards the opposite direction of where Lann was going. That idiot! Being so lovey dovey at work. Lann thought to himself as he noticed a man standing in front of a building Lann was headed to. “Mr. Branders, babe, you are finally here!” Lann looked up at the man and scoffed. “Well, well, if it isn’t Kirsh.” Kirsh smiled at Lann and wrapped his arms around Lann, hugging him in a warm embrace. “I missed you, my love.” As Kirsh leaned in close to Lann’s face, Lann quickly slipped away from his arms and glared at him. “What the heck?! I told you before, Mr. Tennir, I have a boyfriend!” Lann scoffed once again and started heading inside the building behind Kirsh.
Kirsh lowered his eyes a little as he clenched his fists tightly. “You will be mine, Mr. Branders.” Lann went into a room and sat down in a chair that was behind a huge desk. “That Kirsh. I told him I didn’t like him that way, so why bother?” Lann sighed softly and laid his head down on the desk. I only love you, Matthew Vanity. Only you. Lann smiled gently as he shut his gently, falling into a deep sleep. Matthew was walking down to where his car was, parked next to an old building that looked over a few hundred years old. As Matthew opened the car door, he noticed something in the passenger seat of the car. He lifted it up with his right hand. It was black and cube-shaped, showing a piece of it flashing red on and off as it beeps. “What th-…” Something exploded. It came from the thing that was in the palm of his right hand. Matthew fell down to the ground, fire surrounding and burning his skin. His car was on fire too, smelling like burnt rubber and smoke went up to the sky as people looked up at the sky, murmuring of what was going on. Lann was walking outside, holding a stack of papers in his hands as he noticed smoke up in the sky. “What the heck? Wait… that’s where Matthew’s car is.” Lann dropped the papers and ran straight to the path where the smoke was. As Lann got there, he gasped as he noticed Matthew on the ground, breathing ever so softly. Little by little. “L… Lann…” Lann got on his knees and looked down at Matthew, shocked of how Matthew looked. “Matthew…”
“Lann… I’m sorry…” Matthew coughed a little and smiled sadly.
“For what… y-you idiot…?” Lann’s eyes was filled with tears as his voice start to crack.
“I must go… I… I lov.. Love you… La-…” Matthew stopped breathing and closed his eyes slowly as his body started to get pale. “M-Matthew…?” Lann eyes widened as tears fell down on his face.
The next day.
The clouds were gray and the rain drops fell from the sky as Lann stared at the ground, as a stone was in front of him saying ‘Rest in Peace, Matthew Vanity.’ A man walked up beside him and placed his hand on Lann’s shoulder. “What do you want, Kirsh…?” Kirsh sighed softly and ran his fingers through Lann’s hair. “How are you feeling…?” Lann looked up at Kirsh with sad eyes. Kirsh looked down and sighed once again. “I hate to do this… but…” Kirsh gripped Lann’s arm and pulled him into a deep kiss on the lips. Lann’s eyes widened as he pulled away from Kirsh, glaring at him intensely.
Kirsh pulled out a pistol from his left pants pocket and held it up to Lann’s chest. “You have two choices. Be mine or die…” Lann started shaking in fear and looked up at Kirsh. “To think killing Matthew will only make you mine, but I guess I have to force you to be mine.” Lann’s eyes widened once again as his heart started to pound rapidly. “You… killed him? You killed… the one I love…?” Kirsh smirked as took one step closer to Lann, having the tip of the pistol pressing against his chest. “I had to… he was in the way of the person I love… you, Lann. I love you! I wanted to be with you!” Lann took a step back then started running back to the building where he works. Kirsh started running after Lann as he starts shooting at him. Bullets kept missing Lann. Lann ran inside the building and quickly grabbed the phone that was hanging on the wall by the door, dialing 911.
“Hello, police department.” A woman answered the phone call as Lann started screaming through the phone. “I found the killer of Matthew Vanity! He’s after me! He has a pistol and he’s on his way here now! At the park!” Kirsh burst inside and held the pistol towards Lann. “It’s over…” Bang!
The next morning.
Lann opened his eyes slowly and looked around the room. “Where… am I?”
“You’re in the hospital, Mr. Branders.” A policeman was sitting in a chair beside him. “We got him just in time too. He shot your arm and you blacked out. He’s in prison now. He won’t come after you again.” Lann smiled a bit and looked down at his hands. Matthew… you can rest in peace now. I love you… forever and always.
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125,007 Literary Works • 672,814 Reviews
Hey xRAINBOWQUEENx,
Some of these are small things, some bigger ones, but I hope that they all help.
I’ve just read this and I have a few suggestions to make as to what you could do to improve it, so I’ll post them here in a review.
First thing - I know this is probably the YWS formatting and not you, but this would be easier to read if the paragraphs were spaced out properly! If you’re writing in Microsoft Word, you can go to the “replace” tap and enter ^p next to “find what” and ^p^p next to “replace with” - if you copy and paste the story and then post it on YWS, all the paragraph spacing should still be there. Another thing: I noticed that there were a few places where you didn’t start a new line for a new speaker. I found this annoying- it gets confusing when there are three different people all speaking in the same line.
What do you mean by “a grin surrounding his face?” That doesn’t really make sense. Also, it seems a bit strange; is the man who turned around Lann, and how can he have an angry expression on his face when he was grinning just a moment ago as he called Matthew? Or was it an angry grin? It would be better if you explained just what this “angry expression” was, and made this clearer.
The “starts” should be “started” - you randomly changed tenses in the middle of a sentence.
This irritates me, and that would probably stand for a lot of other readers. I understand that you’re trying to get Lann’s anger across, but there are better ways to do that than using capitals and overusing punctuation (when have you ever seen something like this in a book?
There were also a few sentences here which I think need rewording; they sound a little clumsy or the wording just doesn’t seem quite right:
Honestly, you might as well just say “he was sad.” Be more specific: what is[/is] this “sad expression”, exactly? How is he standing, and how is he holding himself? You can tell a lot more about what someone is feeling from these things. Just saying that he had a sad expression on his face doesn’t tell me anything about him as a person, and doesn’t really tell me all that much about his emotions either.
This needs to be reworded.
Again this could do with rewording. In the first sentence, you switch tenses again and the order of the words seems off. In the last sentence, you repeat the word “sky” when you don’t need to. And, honestly, is seems a lacking description of an explosion: surely there was a lot more to it than that? You could describe the sound, the heat, the colours, the sensation of being burnt alive, the smoke…this could be so much more detailed, more vivid, and more real.
The ending also doesn’t seem quite right. The main thing that bothers me is the fact that Lann immediately smiles and thinks this - this might be his reaction eventually, but after being shocked by all that’s happened, I doubt he would react so positively. Even if this really is his reaction, I think that again you need to go into a bit more detail; what did he really feel: relief, maybe? How did he show this?
Overall — I did like some of this, but there is a lot that needs to be worked on. The basic idea is there: and the characters, each with their own different motives and roles in the situation. Although I never really understood Matthew. Was he really in love with Lann, or not? I got the impression that he wasn’t, but I might be wrong.
I do think this has potential: I don’t mean to come across as too harsh, but I wanted to mention everything that I could think of that you might be able to do or think about to make this better.
~Niebla
Sorry about the italics in the last part of the review. xD I'm not sure what happened there, but I can't edit it
I liked your story. It was a bit fast paced for me, and oddly romantic. I also noticed that you could have been a little more descriptive. The sounds of sirens echoed throughout the whole area... What area? Are they outside a building? In a parking lot? I don't know. It shows Matt looking at a corpse. What's the corpse look like. Was it mangled and burnt in places, exposed flesh glistening red and black in the burning light of the destroyed vehicle? or was it slumped over on the drivers seat, a single bleeding wound in its head that ended its life? Again, I don't know. You have to tell me these things.
All and all, the story was a bit fast paced, and seemed to be a bit rushed. Also, the whole "YOU MUST BE MINE" thing is more than a little bit cliche. I did find it interesting, NOT AT ALL BAD IN ANY WAY, that you made everyone gay. That was an excelent way to change everything up, make the reader think "wow, what an original concept."
This concludes my review! Good job. I'd give it a 8 out of 10.
This was an assignment for my creative writing class, and the area involved one of the places from where I live. It had to be a short story.