Snowflakes
short story, drama, fantasy, fiction
Published on:
Jun. 4, 2008, 1:23amWord Count:
1718Last Edited:
Jun. 4, 2008, 1:50amWork Description
It's a common idea that winter is a magical time of year. The snow covers up the dead plants, making everything pure. But what if the snowflakes from the sky were actually much more than ice crystals that fall from the sky? This story is a postulation at what they may be.
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The light hit him full in the face. He flinched away at first, but then turned his eyes to drink it in. The silhouette of a massive guard eclipsed the luminescence before he could fully adjust to thesudden change.
“Up, scum.”
The prisoner complied as quickly as his screaming nerves would allow him. The latest lash marks across his back and legs had just begun to heal. Standing up only caused the delicate newskin to tear. Waves of agony twisted through his body, but he managed to keep it offhis face. He
cleared his throat.
“Is it time for --”
“Did I say you could talk?” The guard snarled. He planted the butt of his spear in theprisoner’s stomach, knocking him back into the fetid straw. “Don’t remember saying that. Come t’think of it, I didn’t tell you to grab a seat, neither. So, scum, up and out.”
I can’t take this much longer, thought the prisoner. But he did as told and shuffled out of the cell as fast as his ankle chains would allow.
“C’mon,” said the guard.
The guard followed him down the corridors of the dungeon, prodding if the pace wasunsatisfactory. The prisoner could hear the shouts and screams of people being tortured behinddifferent doors. The Usurper’s viciousness, well documented before the coup de tat, had only grownsharper as a response to power.
How many of these people are innocent? The thought made him wretch, and he collapsedagainst the slimy wall to dry heave.
The guard laughed. “Good thing you ain’t et anything recently, eh? That wall don’t need more decorating.” He gestured with his spear, but did not make to poke the obviously ill prisoner. “Enough dallying. Keep going.”
The tunnel began to slope upward toward a pinprick of sunlight that made the torchlightthat had hurt the prisoner’s eyes before seem like the gloom of true night. A dull roar began tofilter down. An officer in gleaming ceremonial armor met them.
“Here he is,” said the prisoner’s escort.
“Unmarked?” asked the officer, looking the prisoner over quickly.
“Well, not marked where you can see,” the escort chuckled cruelly. “Just like one of me own little ones, ya might say.”
The officer looked unimpressed. “I’ll take him from here. Back to your duties.” He spun on aheel and began to stalk off, military precision oozing out of his skin. The prison guard jabbed theprisoner once more and then ventured back into the dungeons.
The prisoner regained his balance and walked into the arena.
It was just as he remembered. The arena was the highest building here in Capital. It couldhold all of the metropolis’s population, as well many from the surrounding hamlets.
Deafening waves of hisses and jeers swept down on him. He waded through them as best hecould. All for the bread and shows. Why do the people always sell themselves short? The officer, not sensing his charge, turned and grabbed his arm.
“What are you doing?” the officer yelled. “Whatever clemency His Excellency might have felt has evaporated by now.” He grabbed the prisoner’s arm and began dragging him toward the royalbox.
They stopped several hundred feet away from where the Usurper would be. A squad ofsoldiers swept in to keep the prisoner from attempting to fulfill his once failed mission.
Emperor Gravinus the first stood to a thunderous cacophony of fanfare and cheering. He raised his hands up in appreciation. The crowd grew silent, waiting for words from the Slayer of Freedom.
“My people, we are here to celebrate that the most recent attack failed,” he said, his voiceechoed through the stadium. Magic filled the ears of the audience, ensuring perfect sound to each
attendee.
“Standing before me is the walking pustule who dared attempt to end my illustrious reign,” Gravinus roared. He pointed his finger straight at the prisoner. A red beam of light shot out and painted a dot on the prisoner’s forehead.
“And now, we shall see him admit his guilt!”
The prisoner tried to resist. He could not reveal what he knew. His co-conspirators must liveto try again. She must live.
But his rebellion was too late. Waves of nausea washed over him as the red light left hisforehead and shot up into the sky. It erupted into
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I really enjoyed this. I don't usually get time to read multi-pages works on this site, so I'm glad a had a chance today. Before I get to the line-by-line / editing stuff, some good things and some bad things.
Good things: I think you did a really good job of distinguishing
speech patterns between characters. It came off as more than simple
word choice; you portrayed the attitudes each character would have
in their speech very well. Also, I liked your science-fictiony,
ominous names of things and places 
Bad things: I agree with the above commenter about first person. It would clear up some confusion. The only problem with that is the fact that he "dies." Can a first person narrator die, and the story still go on? I'm not sure. Also, I felt that you had way too many paragraphs. The separations for dialogue made sense, but sometimes you seem to have gone a little crazy with the enter key. Lastly, and this is obviously a typing thing, if you read back through the story you'll notice a lot of spaces are missing. There are lots of words that got linked together.
Now. Moving on:
He flinched away at first
The word away seems unnecessary here. You can't really flinch any way but away.
Emperor Gravinus the first stood to a thunderous cacophony of fanfare and cheering.
I think first should either be capitalized, or you should use the Roman numeral I. The phrase "thunderous cacophony," on the other hand, was perfect. Great description.
He raised his hands up in appreciation.
This is the same as flinching away. I think the up is implied by raising.
...resounded through the coliseum where positively crushing...
Looks like "where" should be were.
The emperor turned and looked at the prisoner. He shrugged, smirking.
This was really my only big pronoun confusion. When I first read that, I thought the prison was smirking, but that doesn't really make sense, so I'm assuming it's the emperor?
"Maybe Cassie hasn't look out the window yet," she said, muffled by the pillows."
The " after pillows looks like a typo. Also, I think if you said "her voice muffled by the pillows" it would make a little more sense.
I hope some of this helped. I really liked the idea of the man
turning into the snow - very creative. Also, I really like your
writing style, especially, as I said before, the way you give each
character a distinct voice. Well done 
I just wanted to follow-up on something dnmtwhlsrbm brought up in this critique, he agreed about the first-person point of view but the problem at the end when the main character died the last part wouldn't work, when I read the story I took the change over as kinda meta-physical where the man who died was either watching the family sence or was the dad. But I guess that's what makes it an interesting story because people can see it different ways.
Hey guys, thanks for your comments. I'll definitely keep them in consideration as I look at editing. I did want to point out something that the last little bit about the snow falling and the father and daughter going out to build a snowman. It's supposed to come off as a bit morbid. They're going out to play in the main character's remains. So, since the main character is there in the scene (but in a substatially different form), I think first person could work.
You beat me to it, Jay. I was just coming back to comment on how I loved that they were going to play in his dead body, of sorts. I know he didn't quite die, per se, which is why I put the word in quotes in my critique, but I wasn't sure about the snow knowing what was going on inside the house. I'm sure you could tweak it to make it work though. I like the image of the kid picking up the narrator's "dust" and hurling it at her father..
I really liked the concept of the story about the snow and it's cleansing effect. While I did not like the "twist" ending as you had set up several other plot threads and they seemed to me to be left open. I will say I do like the writing at the end. It was by far the best in the piece because it was easy to visualize in my mind. I had trouble with the first part because of the excessive use of pronouns because most of the characters where not named. The thoughts and feelings of your main character were important to the story but somehow felt out of place, have you thought about writing this in the first person? It would help eliminate a good part of the pronoun confusion that impacted me.
You should also take a closer look at your dialog attribution. For example in this passage:
You could have taken out the attribution in the middle and just had "Stop! You knew....the first time" she said.
Keep working it you have a really good idea here!