Fear sits heavy in your gut like an anchor pinning you down
to? a
sinking? vessel. Your mind tries to ignore this feeling, but your stomach refuses to settle. Suddenly, you are disturbed by violent screams coming from your much-loved mother.
Consider using "mum" instead of mother. Mother is rigid, quite sophisticated, borderline pompous. If you want to create a more fun and casual (relatable) relationship between mum and the reader, then mum is a better option than mother. If you want to keep that distance, then by all means stay with mother.Fear renders you rigid.The door of your room bursts open and before you know it you have been picked up by strange men in uniform and are being aggressively dragged out of your house and thrown into a corroded truck with several other terrified teenagers. You roar out to your mother until your voice is hoarse.
I really love your use of "roar" here - super powerful She is weeping on the floor
, her head buried into the dirt. All you could do is watch; watch your life change irrevocably in the click of a rifle reload. Gone. Your family is now a memory.
I think you should bring this down by dropping a line. Maybe put "gone" and "your family is just a memory" on two different lines, with considerable spacing between to emphasise the drama. Eg:
..your life change irrevocably in the click of a rifle reload.
Gone.
Your family is just a memory.
*story continues...
I think pairing the two sentences in the middle there works really well, but spacing between them could work too. It's just about playing with your form to enhance the suspense and emotion that the reader is experiencing. And trust me, right now I am really engaged!Tears burn down your cheeks, streaking the dirt. You hear a boy across from you ask why we are captured. An official speaks
for you. New line for new dialogue. “you are now one of us, fighting in war, and you will do as we say otherwise you will be killed”. You only heard stories of these events; little did you know you would experience this at such a young age. You are forced to accept your reality, death otherwise awaits. The truck stops and your heart sink
s into your stomach and can’t believe your eyes. Thousands and thousands of adolescent children are being prepared to battle in war for a cause that is not known. You are about to become a child soldier.
Maybe we could break this up, again with the purpose of heightening the drama? Perhaps something like: "You are a child. Now you are too, a soldier." I think that this way you're giving the reader the respect to connect the two themselves, which I think has more of a meaning than just feeding it to them. Let the reader come to their own conclusion and it will be more impacting! Lumps choke your throat the moment an intense grip embraces onto your arm. An officer injects a syringe into your bloodstream and
through panicked breaths, you question
while panicking what this was
. and he He whispers “nothing to worry about, I have chosen you to be all mine”.
Dialogue needs to be on a new line. Blankness descends, breathing quickens.
I like that you don't identify the breathing here as being my breathing. It adds a more universal adrenaline to it! Feeling lightheaded, you collapse into the soldiers arms, carrying you into a confined, dark room.
your Your mind is hazy and oblivious of what this man is about to do to your sacred, untouched temple. He enters, while forcefully digging himself into you, although you lay in complete paralysation. Your temple has been dramatically vandalized and deprived of purity and goodness which will never be able to repair itself from this horrid occurrence. Several hours have past and you gradually wake up to agonizing pain and maps of blood pattern the ground and your head a fog from the drugs. you then come to a realization that your transition has transpired. Get ready for duty, child soldier.
This section confused me because I thought temple was the head, then I started thinking that temple was a euphemism for a genitalia and I'm being assaulted...then I think it's the head again? The "enter" part really threw me here. Consider rephrasing this Months have passed and the persistent consumption of illegal substances has you addicted and day by day desensitized to the severity of the civil war. You have fallen pregnant since the incident and have been robbed of your childhood.
Ok now she's pregnant, I don't know if the temple is a temple on the head or if it is a euphemism? One of the officers forces you to trek an exceedingly arduous journey with desert like circumstances in exploration of nearby water springs. You were on the verge of death. Your mouth was so parched that you could barely swallow saliva. The harsh conditions are too extreme for you to continue and arrive back empty-handed, trembling with fear awaiting your punishment for not accomplishing your duty. You begin to suffer stomach pains and plead the father of your child to lead you to hospital. He intends on taking you to receive hospitalised treatment.
Drop a line here for a change of scene.Upon arrival, you are requested by the nurse to lie down and as her complexion whitens with alarm you hear "your baby is dead". the nurse speaks in urgent tones to a cluster of doctors. Like synchronised swimmers they swivel their heads in unison to look at you. Lifted. Wheeled. Airborne.
This short succession deserves its own line I think! Before next nightfall you've been de-tubed, cocooned in sheets and covertly transported to an airbase.
Arriving in a new shiny land where you will encounter your unfamiliar family for the first time. The moment you paced into their home, you envision flashbacks of your biological parents before all these catastrophic events unfolded. Like a bungee rope, your heartbeat yo-yo's in your chest
I think the heart itself yo-yoing is stronger than the heartbeat doing it!and it snaps when you realise you've farewelled your relatives.
Your foster mother
is in the pristine kitchen preparing food upon your arrival. Your heart skips a beat the moment she turns around. You stare in disbelief. You cannot comprehend with what your eyes are witnessing. “MUM!” you shriek out as you frantically sprint and firmly latch your arms around her as if informing her to never let go.
Dialogue = new line.“Oh, my baby” she sobs gripping onto you so tightly.
New line for new speaker. “How did you get here?” You ask her, confused.
New line for mum again.'I couldn't continue living life there with my only child missing
with in the civil war making the living conditions appalling, I decided to begin a new chapter here'. Oh mum, I believed I would never see you again, I'm so grateful we found each other. Me too my sweet daughter.
Rediscovering my family in this new land makes my soul soar. Hello Australia, goodbye child soldier.