First up, we have a bit of a tense issue. Nearly every sentence you have begins your with a past tense verb, followed by a present tense verb or adjective, for example
“The demon
frowned, his eyes
flitting around quickly,
surveying the area, as his slightly pointed ears pricked up, causing his head to tilt in one direction.”
You should establish what tense you want to set your piece in so it doesn’t distract the reader. I needed a solid sense of time. Other grammatical issues popped up as well such as incorrect use of semi-colons and ellipses. An ellipsis is used to symbolize where you have left something out something and plan to come back to it, not when you are taking a pause. A few of the places where you placed a semi-colon would have been more appropriate with a colon instead.
Another thing that bothered me was the imagery in certain points. What exactly does “burning flesh” taste like in the air? And how do cinders explode on one’s face? Cinders are particles of ash and so the image of them exploding just doesn’t sit right for me. I would consider revising some of your imagery so that is has a solid, picture in the reader’s mind. Some of the description just didn’t set the scene for me.
My next point is that I don’t believe you chose a very good starting point for your plot. You begin the story at the aftermath of a raised city with no explanation as to
how the area got to this state. This story would have a lot more depth and potential if you chose to open with the pillaging and destruction as it would explain a great deal more about the important questions such as: Where exactly
is this place? What has happened? Why did it happen? Who were involved? And, most importantly, why is it important? You’ve presented me a single frame from what could be a very interesting scene. Without context, this piece means next to nothing. Too much was left unsaid which gave this piece a really hollow feel, for example, see the sentence below:
“This was not work for him; he was so talented, so promising; and yet he was the government's dog.
What was it that he had done? It was so very long ago… None of it mattered now”
Why would you introduce such an important trait about this character and then dismiss it without explanation? To me, it just appears sloppy, as though you’ve gone “Oh I could tell you about why this bad-a** demon was banished from society and his fall from glory. I could also tell you why his is now rummaging through the ruins but I’m too lazy to.”
Furthermore, the characterization in this piece is rather bland. In short stories, your sentences should either propel the action, or assist characterization. There was a rather dense paragraph that you spent describing all the details about what Mitsukai was wearing and what colour his hair and eyes were. To me, this was a waste of time. What the demon is wearing gave little away about his character and it certainly did no justice to explaining how this scene has come to be, or what was about to unfold.
Now this second character you introduced, I am not sure what your intentions were, but he comes off as rather useless. There is no dialogue between him and the demon. He just sits there and does nothing before Mitsukai throws him over his shoulder and takes him away from the scene. What compelled the demon to take this boy (which, by the way, I don’t consider 13 or 14 young. In most societies, that is when boys come of age so making him appear so defenseless and pathetically vulnerable was pretty weak.) Adding a lot more depth to this character and the relationship between these two characters would also give this piece a big lift.
In short, I love the potential in this piece, but I feel it needs a lot of work and expansion to make a truly interesting story. This seems more of a prologue than an actual story so please work on making a cohesive beginning, middle, and end of the plot.
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