I learned something early from Ficly comments….I’ll try to share it with you the best I’m able:

Stick with personal and soft or impersonal and hard.

Hard: I had gotten
Soft: I’d gotten

Hard: I was not
Soft: I wasn’t

Hard: I have
Soft: I’ve

Hard: must not have
Soft: mustn’t have

You mix them both together, choose one and stick with it.

It doesn’t make to much sense when you see it in writing but when you speak ‘em out loud, you’ll see what I mean.

The story: Fantastic! I love how you mention that those people watching him are either tired of him taking risks and don’t care, or that he’s convinced them he’s invicible, “Oh, he’s done this a million times”. But here he his…no shark, no surfboard to the head, no lightening strike…the undertow’s got him, amazing. Sometimes, for professional athletes, it’s the simplest mistake that kills them, like a well- seasoned hunter accidentally killing himself with his own gun.

Great Job!

Comment correction: It doesn’t make too much….

Great feedback, the distinction you pointed out is something I may’ve been aware of but didn’t realize how significant it was to readability until now. Thanks a lot!

Very cool piece, and I definitely appreciate the sequel, especially as it wound vastly different from where I was going in the first bit. Loved the tension in the first half building up to what is going to happen to this daredevil. Great ending too, really suggesting something more sinister than just, “Oops, didn’t count on the undertow.”

I think the hard, contraction-less verbs make more emphasis, the same way you used it in the last line and it really does add to that final bit.
This was a fantastic piece of writing!