[One-Shot] Five Seconds

[Coroxn]

~Five Seconds~

Ashawn walked into the brightly lit ballroom. His camera flashed like all the other reporters', capturing every moment of the President's visit. Ashawn's own president eagerly shook the famous leader's hand. He saw the bodygaurds, tall and intimidating, analysing everything. He gulped.
One walked over to the reporter's corner, eyes staring at them all. The brute shifted his position, leaning against a pillar. Ashawn gulped again.
If he were going to do anything, he had better do it now.

He slipped one hand from his camera to his pocket, and pulled out the grenade's pin.

Five second timer. Five seconds to live.
Ashwan's face portrayed nothing of the swirling emotions within.
He took a step past the reporters and the bodyguard stood up and stared him down.

Five
Five Seconds Left, Five Seconds to Live.

Five years being groomed, five years, being raised for the slaughter. Five years under his father's thumb, five years gone forever.

Ashawn walked briskly to the huge bodyguard, wearing a nervous, inquisitive look, like he wanted to ask the man a question. It must have worked, because relaxation flowered across his face. Maybe he dealt with a lot of stupid questions from reporters. Maybe not.

It didn't really matter.

"Hey-" Ashawn began, hearing his own accent slip into the English.

Four

Four Seconds Left, Four Seconds to Live.

Four siblings raised for the same purpose, told the same message, fighting for the same war. Learning how to deal damage, how to hide feelings, how to work a bomb. How to kill.

Ashawn headbutted the bodyguard in the nose, and kneed him betwixt the knees, driving him back. The bodyguard staggered , hands up too slow to stop Ashawn's heavy camera catching the side of his head. And the ape went down.

Three

Three Seconds Left, Three Seconds to Live.

Three hours of sprint-training a day, because his revolutionist father knew that you could go only so far using false identities and stealth. Only so far, before people would see he was too close. He'd have to run the rest, and avoid the desperate grabs of men paid to risk their lives to stop him.

Ashawn broke into a sprint, past the mix of somebodies and nobodies, barging past them all. He broke out of the crowd, just meters away. Some men turned his way, he aimed the camera directly for them and clicked. Light erupted into their eyes, forcing their pupils to dilate, earning him another precious second.

Two

Two Seconds Left, Two Seconds to Live.

Two murders under his belt. Two evil, evil, politicians, both fighting vehemently against everything he should believe in. The first in a dark hotel room, hand quivering as he pulled the trigger, body trembling as he felt the blood wash over him.

The other during a bright, festive parade. Crowded street, public occasion. Ashawn had tossed a clunky green canister under the car and ran. A bright flash, a loud bang and a rain of steel, fire, and-

Blood.

The bodyguards reacting wildly, stunned pupils making it impossible to be effective. Ashawn leaped into the stage, clawing up like years of training had taught him.

One

One Second Left, One Second to Live.

One beautiful girl who would only love him if he died for the cause, one beautiful girl whose hair shone even brighter than her eyes, a girl who was witty and clever and wonderful, but who could never return love to anyone but a martyr.

Ashawn wondered, now, if this was a lie on her father's part to manouvre him here. Too late now, if so.

Bodyguards fired mad bullets at him, too late, and he cried out in pain as they entered his skin, splintering bones and severing muscles.


The two presidents gaped at him as he staggered to them, taking them to the floor with a lunge. The pain brought him to tears, but he knew it wouldn't last long. His president gaped at him, open mouthed, trying to figure out what was happening.

Ashawn was sure he never would.

A bang.
A flash.
And then nothing.

 

[Blastoise Fortooate]

*general applause*

Good job! Very well written and the pacing is brilliant. The beginning is a bit boring, but it very quickly jumps into place and the rest was very nice. You're missing an apostrophe on 'reporters' near the top though!

 

[Monoking]

Wooooow. This is the kind of thing I try to write, then fail miserably. Good show! Jolly good show!

 

[ArtemisX]

When I read this, I was left speechless. I... still am. An excellent story, and a good portrayal of what could be going through the mind of a suicide bomber as he does his duty.

Wooooow. This is the kind of thing I try to write, then fail miserably. Good show! Jolly good show!

I, uh... yeah. I wish I could write something like this. (Though I should say I wish I thought of something like this. .-. )

 

[Zero Moment]

0_0

This is amazing.
I may even go so far to say that it's amazpectaculwesome.
No, I have no idea how that is pronounced.

 

[Butterfree]

Interesting. The format in which you tell the story, with only these short flashes to explain the terrorist's motivation, works pretty well for it; we can fill in the blanks. And the "countdown" gives it a sense of rhythm that you maintain well while keeping up the tension in that slow-motion way.

The beginning, before he activates the grenade, though, feels a bit flat; it shows that you were kind of awkwardly just trying to get it over with to be able to get to the interesting part. Sentences like "Ashawn walked into the brightly lit ballroom" are boringly routine. I think this bit would work better if you focused less on Ashawn himself in this bit, actually - describing the ballroom, the flashes of the cameras, the presidents, the bodyguards, etc. without really mentioning the POV character or his nervousness - and then letting it just take the reader by surprise when you suddenly get to the narrator deciding it's now or never and pulling out the pin of a grenade in his pocket. You're keeping most of his emotional state a mystery anyway - the random establishment of his nervousness with all the gulping at the beginning feels kind of out of place when we're left to guess at the rest of the "swirling emotions within" from his brief stream-of-consciousness in his final five seconds. The beginning section could also benefit from being shortened - all you really need to do is establish the scene so that we know what's going on when we get to the five seconds.

I don't really get why you're capitalizing every word in the Five Seconds Left, Five Seconds To Live lines; it seems they'd work just as well if they were written normally. At the very least the capitalized "To" keeps distracting me. Am I missing something?

Ashawn headbutted the bodyguard in the nose, and kneed him betwixt the knees, driving him back.

The word "betwixt" feels really distractingly archaic here. These scenes are short and quick; they call for simple, basic vocabulary. Just use "between" unless there's a really good reason not to.

Also, I'm confused by the "One": seeing as she has a father, it seems this is a real girl, but it seems very self-defeating to become a martyr for a real girl, because being a martyr involves, you know, dying. Seventy-two virgins in Paradise, sure, but if he becomes a martyr that automatically means he won't be able to be with a girl who's still in the world of the living, so "you can't be with me unless you become a martyr!" basically amounts to "you can't be with me". Unless this involves marriage plans with her once she dies too, which doesn't really resemble any way I've ever heard of people thinking about the afterlife. It's too literal - generally, even when people believe in an afterlife, it has a symbolic sort of meaning to them. People don't really ever plan for an afterlife: they don't think of the afterlife as a real place where they can get on with their lives and continue doing specific things they want to do so much as an abstract state of idealness. Wanting the abstract state of idealness makes sense, but when people want specific things in the real world, they tend not to think of the afterlife as a place where they can also get those things.

So, all in all, that feels pretty weird as the ultimate reason for his martyrdom. Unless you meant they were real-world married on the condition that later he would become a martyr, but that doesn't really rhyme with Ashawn not being sure if that condition was really imposed by her or her father.

You also have a couple of typos: two commas have spaces before them, one lacks a space after it, and at one point you forgot the w in Ashawn.

Otherwise, this is pretty well executed and an interesting subject to tackle. Good job.

 

[Coroxn]

Thanks for the comments and review!

This was a story I wrote years ago, and then spruced up a little (and than another little and another little until it was nearly entirely different) for a national English competition my teacher is getting me involved with. His comments and yours will be taken into consideration for the final draft.

Blastoise Fortooate
Thanks! I agree that the beginning is a little slow, but it's only a couple of lines before the going starts to get good, I think, so hopefully it doesn't let the story down.

Richie
Thanks, my good man. A simply capital praise-giving on your part, I dare say!

ArtemisX
Thank you. I definitely think it's one of my stronger pieces, but it did take years to complete. If I put the amount of effort that went into this into everything, I would never leave my room.

Legendaryseeker99
Thanks for the comment, and don't feel embarrassed, I don't have a clue either.

Butterfree

It amuses me how similar your comments are to that of my English teacher.

The beginning is probably the worst part of it, but I'm sort of weary of changing it. It was written two or three years ago, and I don't want to cripple the story by introducing things badly. I'll see how I can change it to make it work, because it does need changing.

My English teacher also didn't like the archaic word, and whilst I was going to ignore him, I'll change it now. Overwhelming majority seems to think it's out of place.

I can't answer your question in regard to "One" because that was written years ago. Looking back over it, what I think I meant was that his doing this is what allowed her to love him, even if it resulted in his death, because she would forever more love and cherish his spirit.

Of course, maybe I just never thought it through, or twelve year-old me forget to have the part where they met up in heaven with a hi-five. It's been so long, death of the author almost applies.

Typos fixed, although even with ctrl-f I could only find one comma with a space before it.

Thanks, the review was comprehensive and I'll be sure to take your comments to heart when I write the final draft of this story.

 

[Butterfree]

The other comma with a space before it is here:

The bodyguard staggered , hands up too slow to stop Ashawn's heavy camera catching the side of his head.

It kind of makes sense if he just wants the girl to love him more than to enter into an actual relationship with her, but that doesn't seem to match with the fact he's becoming a martyr simply because her father says that's the only way she'll love him - that would imply he doesn't know her all that well, and if that's the case it seems strange he'd become so fanatically devoted to the idea of gaining her approval that he'd sacrifice his life for it. Having a huge crush and wanting to be let close to her, definitely - but crushes are a very two-sided thing, an "I want to get together with you" thing rather than an "I just want you to like me, even if we don't end up together and in fact I end up dead."

 

[DarkAura]

You also have a couple of typos: two commas have spaces before them, one lacks a space after it, and at one point you forgot the w in Ashawn.

There is also another typo; the 'w' and 'a' in Ashawn are swapped in this sentence;

Ashwan's face portrayed nothing of the swirling emotions within.

Sadly, this story did not give me much interest in it. Of course, the lack of excitement at the beginning is mostly why. Don't get me wrong, this is a pretty good piece of writing from something you made when you were twelve. If you spruce up the beginning, then it would allow the reader to anticipate what would come next and they would actually want to read on.