I think as a storyline it is quite cheesy but that's not a problem, just my opinion. In terms of writing style I think you need to tone down the descriptions, they help flesh out the action, but as the story continues it begins to feel overabundant and takes away from them as a whole. Perhaps try to tone them down - this would mean that when they are used they become alot more striking. In terms of errors, ". And it stopped." shouldn't really be a sentence. But that's all I could find on my read-through. The pace of the story seems to be linear, this is just personal preference, but I like quick and abrupt changes of pace and tension, it makes it much more of a "rollercoaster ride", if I were to describe it shockingly badly. Also, as a final note, I find the name Alan hilarious, it's just so boring (no offense all the Alan's out there). I always find if trying to write a passage where you want a particular feeling portrayed, listen to a piece of music which makes you feel like this, then start writing, it will make your passages much more self contained and add to the story as a whole by having the feeling of each passage being there for a reason, some part's seem to trail off and not have an encompassing theme. Anyway, that's all the criticism I could think of, I think you have done a pretty good job, keep working on it. EDIT: - Short Story Here is a short story a friend of mine wrote, I think it's pretty good, quite different, but maybe it could spark some ideas or something.