Hollow by nanasway

Story Title: (5/5)

I really like the title; it gives off this mysterious vibe and also made me curious as to what kind of story it will be about. Looking through the word 'hollow', it has an angsty feel to it which is the main genre of your story. In a story, the title is the very first thing the reader catches so in order to have more views, etc you have to make it unique which you have done a good job of. The title also works well with your story. I can't think of any other titles that would fit the whole storyline. Well done.

Foreword and Description: (13/15)

The description is excellent. It's filled with descriptive words that can lure readers in. I do like how you didn’t dismiss the plot and rather gave vague ideas instead. It made me want to read your story and you didn’t give anything away so the reader can have something to look forward to. I think you did a great job with the description. The reason why I docked off a few marks is because of the foreword. Personally, I'm not really a fan of it. I was completely turned off with the excerpt that you gave. To me, the cliffhanger sounded awkward and predictable. When I read the line, "Her sister wasn't running late, nor was she staying at the grandparents; because her little sister was..." I could somehow guess that the sister is dead, and turns out I was right. Why don't you put the scene where Lay first met Raeni as the excerpt instead because I found it the most interesting part in your story. It was actually the eye-catcher that made me want to keep on reading your story to find out more about the characters.

Readability: (13/15)

Your story is readable to me. Your paragraphing is nice and clean and your sentence structures are very good. There's really nothing much to say about except for your spelling and grammar. I noticed a few errors that pretty much irked me when reading your story. You kept on writing Lay's actions and emotions with his name over and over again throughout the story when there are certain parts that you need to use the third person pronouns. Let me give you an example:

Packing the purchase into the plastic bag, Lay read up the total and turned to her when she spoke up. "It's not there," she had spoken with a soft voice that filled Lay's ear like an unheard melody. It took Lay a moment to realized what she had meant.

See? You repeated Lay's name thrice in the paragraph when you can simply replace a few of them with the third person pronouns. Here's the correction:

Packing the purchase into the plastic bag, Lay read up the total and turned to her when she spoke up. "It's not there," she had spoken with a soft voice that filled his ears like an unheard melody. It took him a moment to realize what she had meant.

Also, your spelling. It's just one minor mistake that the readers could brush off, but I'd like to correct it for you because lots of authors tend to get this wrong. You spelled the word 'woman' as in 'women'. Women is plural -- Many women. Woman is singular -- One woman. Same goes to man and men. Men is plural while man is singular. 

Characterization: (13/15)

The characterizations are well done. I love Raeni's character the most because she's pretty realistic. For someone who had lost her parents and a sister in a tragic way, it's believable for her to act like that. The only problem is how fast she got better from her delusions. She's been in that state for two years and it's weird how quickly she woke up from it. For someone who's pretty much in a trauma as her, I'm sure it will take months or even more to actually open up to reality and ask for help.

As for Lay, you did a good job with portraying his character too. I like how he lent out a hand to Raeni. It shows that he's very caring as a person to actually help someone who is utterly broken because usually, people will just push her away like nothing has happened. But I was quite unsatisfied of the fact that I have no idea what's wrong with him. The pills he's been taking, what are those for? I'd love to know more about him and what caused to him to be in that condition.

Originality: (14/15)

This story is not one of a kind but it's not cliché either. The ending was quite shocking because I didn't expect that Lay would die. Like I've said above, you didn't really specify what's wrong with Lay or what was the medicine he's been taking since the beginning so I just ignored it the entire time I was reading the story. The twist was a great idea to the plot. I like how there's no happy ending like in most stories I've read. 

Plotline: (24/25)

The plot is very sad and angsty. I really like how the story went from something simple in the beginning to something very unexpected in the end. I think your writing made the story way more interesting to read, though it doesn't really leave a lasting impression.

Structure: (10/10)

The flow is nice for a oneshot. It's not too slow or too fast either, so good job. Your writing style is also great. It's consistent for an angst fic, all the events you wrote have its own contributions to the story. I enjoyed it very much.