Ink on my skin, paper replaces.... i think would flow a little better. The stay's seems to break the rythms of the piece. Cheers, James

This is an excellent start to a longer story. I think, if you want to keep it a short story, the prey should be a little more important than a scout. As is, its good though, so keep it if you are going to extend the piece. There was a slight disconnect when the boy solider ends up in the grips of the assassin. I didn't see him coming. Didn't know how that boy ended up at the point of the bowie knife. Easy enough to fix with a paragraph or two of the assassin's pulse quickening when he sees hi...

Read the piece outloud, there is a few places where the typos and grammatical errors will pop out. Including "was was." I liked how you built suspense. I liked how you started right off in the middle of the torrent. I didn't love the epilogue. Keep it if you will, but work on having all that come to light within the prose. Why is your traveler putting himself through all this. What got him out there on that icy cold ledge in the first place. What drives him? Is it to keep him from becoming me...

I feel the dialogue does not mesh with the prose surrounding it. The time jumps may be intentionally, but there is a discord i feel, between the then and the now. If you were to extend the piece, i'd work on setting up two separate spaces... one for the present and one for that otherworldly aspect you are going for. Its a bold move for a short piece, having the two voices, but if you keep the two delineated, you should be okay. The corona reference i didn't love. Product placement and all tha...

With the image of the pastor bleeding, followed by "the saw whirred loudly," i was a little disappointed. Its good that we don't see the saw chop his arm off, but could you give the apparratus a little more time than "the saw..." I'm not seeing in my head how a run of the mill saw could severe a mans arm off at the armpit, in addition to cutting his ear. I'd like to see it, if your looking to add anywhere. I don't love the prose beginning. I believe its because i'm getting three distinct narr...

tenses. you shift from past to present from sentence to sentence, that would be a good thing to look at in revisions. You don't have the energy to cry, but there is a sense that this piece is being written. what is it being written on. who is it written to? who would care? who is going to miss you? who is going to care to miss you enough to read this missive? Put some sort of crappy raft in the piece. incorporate the dehydration more, sun burn. Why have you survived so long when others perish...

what pains has the narrator gone through to bring her(?) to the brink of the sink. why does the reader care so much that this may or may not be the last thing ever mentioned about the character? present tense is a good choice for the piece. it gives a sense of immediacy that the past obviously can't convey. I'm curious as to the title. I almost read this as "well, she's (he's...) drowning anyway, so how could what he or she is doing be better than drowning, but then i saw what drowning was be...

the voice is there. i think if your going to be crass, be balls to the wall crass, and you do it well. this feels like a first page rather than flash fiction. either way, good work so far. what will this narrator do now? whats the conflict, the story arc? This is good, really good, for urbis. Write more of it. Jim

I liked this story. The only grammatical note i have is to delete "audibly," its assumed. I think, to be contest worthy, you might want to add a little bit more to the situation at hand. Get rid of the "mourning" bits, they don't add as much to the story word for word (its great for a longer piece though). Cheers, James

This is well written, has a distinct voice and flow, and has obviously been thought through. i feel like you can change the "did you know my brother well" interaction to be a little less cliche. I knew that question was going to be asked before we even got into the house. Also, that last paragraph is a little melodramatic. It felt a little bit like a soap opera ending. Cheers, James