Bomb

[Nato4eyes]

Please note: This is my first short story, I was restricted to 500 words and was given a setting, character, time and challenge.



Bomb
Why would someone do such a thing? I thought. My name is Chandra. My current age is thirteen and four months. I have long blonde messy hair and bright green eyes. If you haven’t already guessed I am a girl. I live alone on the cold dank streets of Moor. I have been living like this for about a day trying to survive in the slums of Moor. To put it simply my life is like a hell.


***

It was just two days when I was living back in my wonderful house with my family. My family’s home sat on a neat little hill right outside of town. I am an only child living with just my dad and mom. I did not come from a very rich family, but it wasn’t too poor either. My life before the incident was pretty much average with anyone around my age. After school, I would go shopping with my friends or just go home and do the homework I got daily. Of all aspects that makes an average person is going to church. Church for me was excessively boring. Just so happens we had church today. “Why do we have to go to church dad? I asked annoyingly. “I don’t know. Go ask your mom.” He said. “Mom, why do we have to go to church?” I screamed. “It’s good for you.” She replied. “Can we not go today?” I asked. My mom replied with a straight “NO!” It was time to get ready for church and I waited for my parents inside the car. My parents proceeded out the front door and into the car. My dad started the car and then we heard a boom from a bomb. It was as if the sun had exploded. I heard my father yelling and my mother crying. When my senses came back to me I could see the little remains of our house. There was absolutely nothing left except for the small bits of pink drywall. I could also see the neighbors rushing over to try and help. Next thing I know I am knocked out.


***

I woke up at the local hospital wondering what had happened. I soon realized that I was now homeless and had nowhere to go. I asked the nurse who was tending me where my parents were. She said that they were alright and left to go and do some things about insurance. Sadly, they had canceled they’re insurance recently and they had no coverage. To make things even more worse we couldn’t afford to pay our tithes. This leads me to my current state out in the streets of Moor, looking for a way to survive.

[jlcox]

This would make an excellent prologue to a longer story. It's a shame you were limited and couldn't use more words to describe the explosion...

[hillwalker]

Well done for posting your first ever story on here.

It's a good discipline to have a word limit. It makes you think twice about what to include and what to leave out.

In the case of this story I think you pay too much attention to events before the explosion. There's a lot of irrelevant information - information about Chandra that doesn't make her any easier to picture in our minds.

I am an only child living with just my dad and mom. I did not come from a very rich family, but it wasn’t too poor either. My life before the incident was pretty much average with anyone around my age. After school, I would go shopping with my friends or just go home and do the homework I got daily.

This paragraph extract adds nothing to the story in my opinion. The title suggests that something catastrophic is about to happen that will change her life for ever. But the bomb itself is just an explosion. We know nothing about what caused it - why it was there in the first place - whether anyone was hurt... It's not a story about a bomb after all is it?

Then we have something about their insurance not being paid. I'd expect the aftermath of a bomb to be much more devastating.

It's a promising start, but there's much more you can do with the subject matter than this even with only 500 words.

H