Tick.
Tock.
Tick.
Tock.
The slow barrage echoes down the empty hallway, bouncing off the battered lockers and the scuffed tile floor. Heavy footsteps clank closer; you huddle under a teacher’s desk, hoping, praying.
Metal glints at the doorframe; claws, long and spindly, bite into the soft wood.
Tick.
Tock.
Millie is an aspiring Australian author with far too many finished stories collecting dust on her harddrive, who is finally trying her hand at this whole being published thing.
Nicely done. Leaves room in our imaginations to fill in the blanks.
I was writing about microfiction and how it must not become an uncomfortably terse story summary, but has to sound almost leisurely in pace. The value of devices like repetition even where you have the tightest wordcount constraints. This story is a good example.