The premeditated selfishness is chilling – quite a pragmatic character.

I feel that a much larger and longer story is implied – but this stands alone well. The prolonged deception and what would seem ease with the murder might suggest this is not the first occasion he has had to utilize violence to facilitate the removal of an uncomfortable situation/problem.

Dark! “The gun slowly withdrew itself from my pocket to face her.” Interesting how the character accepts none of the responsibility.
The line: “the lake was approaching”, although strange at first, also shows that he isn’t really in control.

I agree with Rose that this does seem to be part, or even the end, of an extended story.

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Your story has an ambiance, like an atmosphere, no doubt due to the setting details. It’s mysterious. I like the description of the shot echoing in the trees but I can’t figure out what happened exactly. The way I see it he’s finding out that the baby is his child, genetically speaking, and this angers him enough to withdraw his gun and fire off a shot, a shot that does or doesn’t draw blood I don’t really know. Feel free to correct me, or let it speak for itself if that’s what you intended. I would like to know more about the story—the brevity of the ficly strikes again!

It went from what I imagined to be a romantic story, with two people running away so they can be together, to a murder… I think. It was unexpected, and I liked it!

This was so strange! And scary. It does have that “middle of the book” feel to it but it just fires up the curiosity of the reader so it’s good. :D

Like Tad said, the atmosphere is well done. At points, though, so much description got either heavy on the adjectives or awkwardly phrased (I’m talkin’ bout “With the thought of our plan to run away, I anticipated our meeting with grim certainty.” Just strange syntax. And some unnecessary descriptors like “white” paper, and that he “wasn’t surprised.” We already know he wasn’t surprised—he told us that it contained the answer he already knew.)

Anyway these are minor quibbles in what is otherwise a solid snippet of fiction.

Wow! Awesome story. I love how you manage to put so much story and emotion into just this little bit of text! This is really, really well done.

Interesting. I had to read it twice to really get it. Although I understand his reasons for his actions, the central character comes across as a sociopath. “You must die so that my life doesn’t change.” Selfish, entitled and ultimately a coward. I despise him so in that you succeeded in making an interesting character.

I have a couple theories of what just happened and for some reason I don’t think either of them are correct. One is that she wanted to be killed and wanted her son taken care of / her husband to be blamed. Or this man was hired to kill the person the envelope about and killed the woman as well so that there were no loose ends.

I had to read it a couple of times, too, but that could just be me being slow combining with the limits of the 1024-character format.

Good build-up with a (literal) killer twist at the end.

Like Abby, I found the language to be quite passive, but I also agree with her that this contributes to the protagonist’s abdication of responsibility for his actions (in addition to Abby’s observations, I note that the truck stopped all by itself too). In this story, it works, I think.

…contributes to the perception of the protagonists abdication…

I like how disassociated the MC is from his actions. It definitely helps strengthen his sociopathic nature.

I think I was as startled at the end of the story as his victim was. Poor baby-mama…

Ohboy…

Well, at least he was….

Ok I have no idea. Aha, but still. This is awesome.

So the main plot is straight forward. We can agree on that. I would call out Tad and say that the speaker’s decision to kill the woman had nothing to do with anger. He was angry, yes, but he was always going to kill her. The story is generally well written, but I feel like more information is needed to really understand the story.

A chilling scenario, and the mood and portent come through nicely.

I think somewhere in ‘dirt country road’ there’s redundancy so you could potentially drop either adjective. The last statement is a run-on, and I think it would read even better, more cold, detached, and despondent to have it as distinct sentences.

Well set scene with a bit of mystery and “what’s going on?” feel throughout.

I can see a whole story springing from this. So interesting, I really want to know what else is behind it.

Obviously motives are at question. I need to know more.

Damn what a cold blooded cat. I can’t say I necessarily like what happens in this story, but it’s well written and pretty suspenseful I like it.

I could see a continuation, maybe with the son growing up to question his origins. A bit of backwoods generational noir? Well done.