Alaska

[Stefan.]

----------

 

Cold. Dark. Windy. Rainy. They were the words which best summarise the environment.

 

A squirrel was grabbing a last nut off the cold, damp earth before cowering back into his little hole on the side of the cave. I don't think he's the only animal who is retreating back to its shelter. Wolves, bears, ants... nothing could bear these conditions, absolutely nothing. To the best of my knowledge, it has been around 5 months now. 5 months without human contact can take an unimaginably large toll on a person, no matter how strong their will power.

 

It should be any day now, I keep telling myself. Any day before they find me. Surely this storm will not last for too long, will it?

 

This was all her fault, she was the one who led me to this valley of doom. She said it was the money, she said it was for the good of the family... stuff her family, and stuff her precious, egotistically-earned money, it isn't going to help me now. The only thing that can help me now is the Lord and fate. But considering all the things that have happened to me so far in this hellhole, I probably have neither of them on my side.

 

'You can do it, Mike, you can do it. If the Sherpas in Nepal can do it, you can to,' I kept on saying to myself in an effort to build up hope of survival.

 

Wait a second, that was strange. I just heard something in the distance, about 200 metres from my present location. It sounded like a low, deep rumbling noise, similar to the sound of an airplane. I quickly got up from my seating position in the snow, despite hearing the cracks of my joints, and carefully inspected my vicinity in order to hopefully find that noise. I could see it now... its brown nose was beautifully polished by the harsh wind, and its long arms stretched wide open, ready to nestle you very tightly. The bird burst up quickly and flew away into its hiding place.

 

That's it, Mike, you've gone insane. What you thought was a plane was really a bird, and the bird turned out to be an illusion. There's no hope left, absolutely no hope. Any hope which you had has now been exterminated. You don't have a reason to live anymore.

 

My conscience was eating my up, I couldn't escape it. I'm on the verge of suicide now, and I don't think anything can save me. What am I going to go back to? More complaining from that bitch of a wife, and more death threats from the violent scum which populate this entire country. I've had enough. My creaking body can now finally have some rest. I only have a few metres to walk before I can finally say greetings to St. Peter at the gates.

 

As my body was crunched by the force of me crashing against the rocks, I bolted out of bed with beads of sweat steadily rolling down my cheek and my forehead. I turned to my left to find the bitch sleeping peacefully after another day of blowing some guy off at the officer.

 

Just one more day.

 

----------

 

It may not be the best, but loneliness isn't exactly my forte when it comes to topics. It's about a depressed police officer who, despite claiming to have a peaceful marriage with his wife, is distraught about everything that happens to him. He is very suicidal and every night he has a dream about about his possible death; this one was about him surviving a plane crash in the northern Alaskan wilderness during Winter.

 

I hope you enjoy it, and please provide some constructive critisism, because I'm not the best writer (I'm only 14 still) and I'm willing to learn as much as I can.

 

Sorry for the late entry, though, and sorry if it's too short.

[Hayden]

From the perspective of a fourteen-year-old it seems well composed. I noticed that a few times you phrased in a very specific matter, "about 200 metres from my present location". It may have been the character's vernacular but it doesn't seem like something someone would think to their-self in this context, but rather if they were writing in a professional journal.

[saltinespike]

A well-concieved effort, but you don't quite hit the nail on the head. Given, it is hard to write about isolation (and depression, in this case) when you've presumably never experienced it in full effect, but it simply did not convince me. Apart from that, you kept switching between past and present tense, and I spotted a few grammatical errors.

 

Please do not take this criticism personally, but in stride. Use it to become better, and keep up the awesome effort!

[Stefan.]

No worries, that's one of the reasons I entered the contest, to become a better writer. I see what you mean now; I wrote it pretty quickly and I didn't think it would be that good.

 

Thanks for the feedback.