Oct 22, 2023
Hello! I saw that you were new to the site and this was your first try at a contest (best of luck to you by the way) and writing something new. It takes guts to do both, so I hope you feel good about putting yourself out there like that :)
Since you asked for critique, I'm going to offer some advice to help elevate your work. Read what you wrote aloud to yourself. I think you'll find that some of your punctuation and sentences need adjustment when you do this. I also noticed an inconsistency with one of the pivotal parts of the story. You tell me it's (correctly) five words at the start but later change it to six at a different spot in the story. Be careful to make sure you don't have contradictions like that.
You do a great job of setting tone and creating an atmosphere, but I do wish it were consistent in the piece so I wasn't pulled out of it when I encounter certain lines. Here's an example of one you might want to adjust: Hours felt like days but then suddenly weeks felt like hours. You're implying that weeks feel like days which... they are.
Still, you did a nice job so don't feel discouraged. I think if you give this another editing pass and maybe tighten up the pacing a hair, you'd have a pretty solid story. Best of luck to you on the contest again!
