- The style was pleasant to read and you made the piece short which kept the reader from drifting off with the languid tone. I think you missed your chance to slap the reader out of the general, ‘last dying gasp’ feeling of the story though. You covered the heat and thirst and fading senses, but you never slapped the reader back to life as the character was murdered.

- You had him drift off into– “He felt as if he were ascending, rising into these heavens, then, as the boughs which carried him aloft began to wrap around him . . .”

- And then the whole tone of the action shifted, but the tone of the writing really didn’t–

“he felt his arms break; his spine snap, and finally, as the pinprick points of light fell to black, his skull crack and collapse.”

- You described the action, but you missed the struggle, the horror, the sudden–heart stopping terror of the victim. Without that the tale loses its power-punch at the end. Hunts, conflicts, and struggles all have drama. A fly being swatted does not. ‘And it was smashed’ is correct, but its limp biscuit writing.
- Just make sure you write your action with drama and you’ll add a lot more power to your stories.

And, he felt his arms break, but didn’t feel pain? Didn’t feel terror? He’s the most dispassionate victim I’ve ever seen. Very difficult to identify with him.

There’s no horror in a tree eating a dude unless the victim conveys it to us. No struggle? No sense of doom, of helplessness? The reader shrugs.

–dj

‘lying’ half buried / they’d skirted the storm or ‘risen’ /

I think it was the punctuation more than anything else that made this piece stutter for me.

This story could easily be extended – with more foreshadowing and flashback – into a unique horror piece.