“It’s 5 minutes to midnight!” chirped the clock.
“It’s 5 minutes to midnight.”
“It’s 5 minutes to midnight.”
The soft, damp soil gave in easily, a robot planted a mushroom into the soil. For this was the time to plant crops.
It looked at the tiny mushroom in awe, this tiny insignificant thing.
“It’s 2 minutes to midnight!”
“It’s 2 minutes to midnight!”
“It’s 2 minutes to midnight!”
The robot now left it’s farm, slowly walking back to the shed to recharge. Red lights flickered inside the shed eerily, pulsing on and off… on and off.
The insignificant mushroom planted had now attached to the soil. Its mycelial network crawled deeper and deeper, dissolving further and further, erroding away at the soil bit, by bit.
“It’s 1 minute to midnight!”
“It’s 1 minute to midnight!”
“It’s 1 minute to midnight!”
Suddenly, thunder clouds rolled in, their dark bellies dragging across the sky like worn funeral shrouds, and the world fell silent. No insects, no rustle of leafs, just a growing pressure in the air.
“Midnight”
Lightning struck the shed, setting the wood ablaze in an instant. Splintering, collapsing, smoldering. burning the whole shed to blackened bones, and with it, the robot charging inside. Its metallic body blistered, its memory banks wiped themselves to static. The robot’s frame buckled under it’s own weight, collapsing, it’s little green eye flickered once, then twice, and faded into the fiery inferno englufing the shed.
“It’s 1 past midnight,” the clock did not chirp.
Yeah I can see the reference to “we are 8 seconds to midnight.”
BTW you should probably explain the context because right now it seems a bit odd. So maybe add some of the context before you start straight into the story.
ok, thx
Does anyone have some feedback for me?
Oh right, so like btw, the mushroom represents nuclear weapons (the mushroom clouds)
And the clock represents the doomsday clock
You’ve anticipated my feedback. I was going to ask about the symbolism 🍄
The repetitive structures of the time references are effective at building tension quickly 👍
Now I know what your symbols represent, I feel the descriptions of the clouds evoke the relevant imagery in the readers mind.
Good work! Is this part of the dystopian story you were discussing?
Yea, but like it’s a standalone story (not the most coherent tho)
Thx for the feedback
What are the ways I could improve it tho? Or like where it was lacking