This is fantastic stuff! Line breaks are apt.

Good use of present tense, and a very emotive piece.

Wow. First person, present tense. Always my personal favourites. The surreal-ness of a dream world is brilliantly described here.

I really liked your sentence structure variation, although the average shortness creates a nice pace to the mind-action, as it were. Your theme of self-reassurance is also very clever, and helps create a character that’s easy to relate to.

I believe you meant: “waking up in A cold sweat” in the fourth paragraph. First comma in the second paragraph is unnecessary methinks.

This is really good though. You’re a really talented writer. I especially admire paras 1 and 3. Thanks for a great read.
Abby x

I honestly have lost the ability to write in first-person past-tense. I kept reverting back to present-tense until I just gave up and went with it.

Actually, I was a bit concerned about the sentence flow, which seemed a little too disjointed to me, especially in (strangely enough) the first and third paragraphs. Glad you liked it, though, Abby! (Also, I tried putting the ‘a’ in like you suggested, but I thought it kinda clunked up the flow a little so I decided against it. I sorta kinda like the way “wake up in cold sweat” runs. Thanks for the suggestion, though!)

Mostly, though, I’m just really pleased that you all understood this. It was confusing enough in my head, and I wasn’t sure how it’d come out.

I thought it was very well done in giving enough information to extrapolate the setting and events surrounding the character without taking away the focus.

Wow. There is such feeling here it made me shiver. I like A rueful smile. All these years and deep down, I’m still just a kid. Always making up friends to play with. I like to think I’ll always be the same kid, making up little friends to keep me company in the night.

Such beautiful imagery, and the simple language just enhances it. The vast darkness with flashes of distant bombs.

I’d say that kiddo doesn’t match the rest of the fox’s speech though, little of it as we have. It stalled me. But that’s an opinion more than anything. It’s still gut-wrenchingly beautiful.

Thanks for your kind words, I’m glad you like it! I’ve always loved the idea of imaginary friends, and I get a sense of comfort in thinking that maybe when the all years have gone by, I won’t be that different a person. Anyways, I think I see what you mean: ‘kiddo’ sounded all right in my head, but in words it kinda slows up the flow. I’ll change that around. Thanks!

Wow, like PJ said, what an emotive piece. There are so many great images here— the night pooling around the narrator, love that. I also love the reflections your narrator makes, how we’re all just kids after all. Lovely.

Thanks! I’m happy you enjoyed reading it.

You’re a champion.

HOLY SHMOW COW. THAT IS TOTALLY MATH!