A-HA! Trojan Horse?

Odd! I like how small the scope of this story is— it all takes place within this little space of floor you’ve focused on. It’s creative.

Congrats on the feature!

This has a delicious little horror vibe going on. What happened in the hole would explain everything but would have irrevocably damaged the story.

I do have some comments. As is the case with any comments that I make, take what you will and disregard everything else.

(a) ‘vermiculate and emaciated’ — two excellent and expressive words which deserve to be kept but they aren’t shapes. I’d suggest moving that phrase to follow follow the word ‘apple’.
(b) ‘inspect its surroundings’ — this phrase carries connotations of being somewhere that one has never been in before which wouldn’t apply in this situation.
© Some of the things that you’ve described the mouse doing are things that no real mouse would do. For example, no mouse would poke its head into a room without strained with all of its senses to ensure itself that there was no danger. Mice that freeze at creaks of the floor tend to be dead mice: mice run as fast as they can when the possibility of danger exists.

To be cont’d…

(d) ‘red shine’ — I wouldn’t think that emaciated apples shine.
(e) ‘whole’ — should be ‘hole’

The emotional horror of the situation doesn’t come across as effectively as it might. The mouse is both timid and bold in the 1st paragraph and I think that dampens the power of the 2nd paragraph. The 2nd paragraph doesn’t come across as powerfully as it might either. It’s almost matter of fact rather than scary.

I’d like to reiterate. There is a really good story there. I’m picking up vibes that run along the same vein as John W. Campbell’s short story, Who Goes There? but the scope (as Tad points out) is so much more interesting. I think that, with a bit more editing, you’d find the gold turning into platinum.

Also, you frequently begin your sentences with the word “it”. Try varying things by starting sentences with imperfect verbs (scurrying, rolling, eating) and by substituting synonymous words for your characters and objects (rat into rodent, creature, etc., apple into fruit, sphere, orb, etc.) and then supplying the necessary adjectives to retain specificity (apple into shriveled orb).
That said, I enjoyed the tight focus of the story, and the way doing so allowed space for ample description.

Thanks for the critiques guys (and for the congratulations, Tad) I took your comments into consideration and edited the story to something I hope is an improvement.