Title (4/5):
It is a redundant title that can mean so many things. Thus, for the attention grabbing factor, the title may not suffice as well, BUT as we go past the title and move into the story, it’s a beautiful title that fits perfectly with your story. There are many ironic factors to the title when related to the story as we see that in real life, Himchan is alone, abandoned, brutally beaten until he meets his death. And even until death is he really alone. However, he creates this alternative reality to keep himself happy, to keep him sane and away from the real world of cruelty. And it’s in that world he dies with his friends caring for him, urging him to hang on. It’s where he grasps the concept that he’s not alone. I just thought it was great. Amazing job with it :)

Appearance (5/5):
The poster, which isn’t necessarily a poster, helped in clearing things up. I guess it depends on the reader reading it as well, but in my opinion, I thought it was great in that you guided the reader to think this isn’t the normal story but that we are going to enter into the mind of a person with mental disorders. Some people may not think the poster is necessary or reveals too much, but I like it. As for the format of the story and whatnot, it’s great. You successfully distinguished the real world from the alternate reality by differentiating the font style (italicized vs not italicized). The overall format looks great. There was nothing that looked out of place nor hurt my eyes. Great job :)

Foreward/Description (8/10):
The description was great in my opinion. I really liked how you put in the four words that describe Himchan’s state of mind. So there were two things I wanted to talk about, which are my interpretations before and my interpretations after I read your story. I will start with my thoughts before I read your story. When you gave a short description of how Himchan’s life represented escape, I was kind of thinking how it doesn’t really show escape. Well, this was also before I even knew this was Himchan’s mindset. And when I read the rest of it, I thought of the usual “oh, this is one of those abuse stories”. HOWEVER, after reading the story and coming back to it, it all made sense. His definition of escape was to create the alternative reality, thus the days bleed into each other where reality and the alternative reality co-exist together as how you demonstrated throughout the story. I thought that was very clever.

As for the foreward, it would have been great if you could have given the reader a little snippet of your story. I could see that your intention was the twist at the end. Perhaps mislead the reader a bit more by giving them a little bit of the abuse. You don’t even have to include the name of the character if you want to save the name until the actual story starts. Maybe you could give a little scene where he’s getting whipped and emphasize the feeling of lonliness and despair, that he wishes for escape and death through the series of whipping on his body. I don’t know. It’s just an idea but I really think it could help in your story’s attraction.

Plot/Storyline (18/20):

The plot very well managed to keep my attention. You definitely developed your plot, with a good introduction of the characters and made it so that both the reality and alternate reality were both very realistic. You did a great job weaving through the different worlds of the mindset without making it any more complicated than it needs to be. You had me wondering just what was happening and it had me guessing which was the actual real world. In addition, there was a time where I was thinking it was all flashbacks until I read the italicized parts on their own and the non-italicized parts on their own and saw that the world kind of overlaps. It was a really awesome set up and I think the story was very open to interpretation if I’m not mistaken, right? It seemed like a semi-open ended story and I thought it was pretty good. Plus the ending was just great. I wouldn’t have thought it was an actual hospital that did all that. I mean, I do hear that psychiatric institutes tend to neglect its patients (at least from the movies), but honestly I thought it was like his abusive father or something until we got to the end to see that it may have been a doctor or staff member. It was, again, somewhat of an open-ended ending as you left it so that the reader thinks whatever she/he wants with what is given, and I just really liked it overall. I also really liked the little cut-out of the newspaper layout. Makes the story more realistic. Amazing.

Character Development (30/30):
No matter how big or how small the roles your characters played, you did quite a good job in delineating each character. We will start with Himchan, the main character. By creating this alternate reality where he has friends that care about him and where he could be the normal kid, Himchan tries to escape the harsh reality where he is alone in the psychiatric institute, abused and abandoned until he just can’t take it anymore. In the alternate reality, he is a pained kid that goes to school. The sun is shining brightly which contradicts with his current situation at the psychiatric institute but it really shows what his desires are: to go outside, to have friends, to not be alone. The fact that he keeps oscillating between the harsh reality and the sweet escape shows me, as a reader, that there is no REAL escape. Reality is real. He’s very weak-minded and just physically exhausted. Even in the alternate reality, he is injured in the leg and the bruises form as he is beaten in the real world, which kind of shows that there is an overlap between worlds. You did an awesome job really developing Himchan as he fought the reality before him up to his death.

Zelo and Yongguk act as really good friends that stick by Himchan all the time. Through the small descriptions of Zelo’s actions and words (him pouting if Himchan refused, him cheering when the other agreed, his small talks and competitiveness), Zelo was developed to be the happy, carefree young guy. Meanwhile, Yongguk’s protective nature is clearly presented as well (him telling Himchan to eat, him concerned over Himchan’s leg, him providing support for Himchan to lean on, etc etc). As for the minor characters, Daehyun, Jongup, and Youngjae, they didn’t do much but you made it so that they were still significant to the story. By having Daehyun and Jongup be a part of Zelo’s conversation and also showing how they were eating along with the rest at the café nearby the arcade really puts them in the scene and weaves them into the story. You brought up Himchan’s medication and incorporated Youngjae and his personality in there instead of just stating that he existed within the group. I just thought each character had its own role in building up the story. And honestly, I’m not an ardent fan of BAP but your character development really had me sympathizing with the characters, both major and minor. You did an awesome job in this section
 

Use of Language / Mechanics (17/20):

You have quite a strong grasp in the English language. Your sentences were of the variety, consisting of both simple and complex sentences. The description and imagery used to describe each moment, the pain Himchan went through, the flashes of oscillating back and forth until the very end, was exquisite. I mean at first it was a bit confusing but that’s NOT due to your writing but because sometimes it just takes a moment or two for the reader, or me in this case, to click with the story. And when I did, your writing was amazing. Regardless, you wanted me to be picky with language even though there wasn't much to be picky about. Just make sure you are clear with ambiguous statements as you mention who does what:

THINGS I CHANGED ARE IN RED

THINGS THAT NEED ATTENTION ARE BOLDED

Simple grammar errors and typos

1. One student broke away from the throng, shivering even in the warmth of a fast approaching summer. [awkward. Just use the common word “crowd”. Throng makes it sound like you just simply pulled it from a thesaurus. Not saying that you did or didn’t, but it just sounds awkward]
2. Zelo, Accustomed to the older’s quiet ways, Zelo cheered when Himchan pulled his hand free so he could intertwine their fingers. [I just restructured the sentence…or more like moved Zelo over because it makes the sentence a bit more easy to read since you are trying to explain that the main focus is Zelo cheering rather than Zelo being accustomed…right? Being accustomed is more of a description rather than the focus of the sentence so I just thought it was more clear to structure it the way it is…BUT either way works so it’s up to you]
3. “Zelo,” he whispered as the other stopped next to him, his lips upturned in a simile smile.
4. “Useless brat, can’t even walk,” the man hissed, more to himself then than to his captive.
5. Himchan whimpered as he felt the bruises forming on his skin, felt the blood dripping down his leg slowly beginning to dry.
6. Another, Zelo was loosely hugging from the back. [I just thought the another was unnecessary]

Ambiguity - ambiguous statements or words can lead to vagueness and confusion. You tend to have a couple of these throughout your story. I pointed out the obvious ones but try looking through your story once more to check for more.

1. Not sparing the boy a glance, he used the hold on his the boy’s hair to throw him into a room. It only took him the man a minute to chain the shivering boy to the wall, his hands above his head. “Can’t do anything right, can you ? Next time…” he let the threat hang in the air, satisfied with the tears rolling down his face. [You have way too many he’s, his’, and him’s while having two males be present. Sometimes I wasn’t sure who you were referring what to. Try replacing some of them with the actual name or pronoun as shown. See how it clears up a bit?]
2. Grumbling about leaving their food unfinished, everyone left and made their way toward the arcade. He wrapped an arm around Himchan’s waist to support him when he noticed the other starting to lag behind. [Also note that if you start your sentences with a pronoun (he, she etc), it’s actually referring to the last person you mentioned. So in this case, the last “person” was everyone…so when you start your sentence with HE, who are you referring to? (I’m pretty sure it’s Yongguk, but I wasn’t sure so I really think you should put the name instead of just he to reduce confusion)]
3. He jumped at the contact, but relaxed when he saw it was just Yongguk. Because his body was so fragile, he Himchan was already tired and had to lean against the other. He knew Yongguk didn’t mind, and honestly he felt safe, protected, like this. As often as he wished he was alone, he was also glad he had made friends. Even if hanging out with them left him too exhausted to do much, it was better than being left with only his thoughts to torment him. [If you are ever describing the situation, state of the person, the action of the person first, the next word after should always refer to the person that the situation or state is describing. In this case, you described the state (because his body was so fragile), but the next word was he…if I were to follow grammatic terms, that HE would be Yongguk since he was the last person mentioned, but in this case we know it’s Himchan so I would indicate it as such.]

Flow (8/10):
Your mastery of grammar and the English language made the overall story VERY easy to read. I was very surprised at how well you transitioned between the two worlds and the way you managed to weave everyone into the story. This kind of overlaps with the character development section, but you made it so that each character was actually part of the story, not cut-and-pasted into the story. It was great. However, I just felt like towards the end, it just became really rushed. In the alternate world, he just had some disease, seemed like he recently went to the doctor to get things checked out, was prescribed medicine, and it was all good except that he’d get bruises every now and then. And then the real world kicks in to show that he’s near death. I just felt like when you transition back into the alternate world, you could have bled into the real world a bit. Shortness of breath, Himchan clutching his head, spasms, coughing out blood, something that would urge the others to take him to the hospital. Instead, you skip through that and they’re already on their way to the hospital only to have him die. I think if you spend a little more time with that portion, the story would be more than awesome. The ending was definitely a twist and it wasn’t mind-blowing, but it did catch me off-guard.

Reader's View/Enjoyment:
I am not an ardent BAP fan. However, the fact that this story allowed me to get to know the characters, all of their quirks and kinks, and see how they all had a role in the story was just phenomenal. That’s when I know that a story is good. It’s when I enjoy the overall story regardless of the characters, whether I know them or not. You successfully presented each scenario with such fluidity that everything just fell into place. There weren’t too many things (other than the one snippet close to the ending) that stopped me from enjoying this piece. It’s short but has a lot of content and deep messages. As a reader, I was able to dive right into Himchan’s mind, feel his pain, feel the concern coming from his friends, all the way up to his death. The plot itself was awesome as well. The whole development starting from just another school day with the sun shining bright, indicating a sense of irony as the world Himchan lives in is dark. There was a lot of ironic factors that I simply loved. It was just amazing. Great job with this story!
 

Final Score: (90.0/100)

Additional Comments:
This story made me look up BAP more in detail, haha. Like I said for the nth time, I’ve only listened to like 4 songs of BAP total. It was One Shot, Coma, Crash, and…I think it was Warrior? Yeah…but anyways, I wasn’t too interested in them but your story is about to make me reconsider lol. Regardless, great job with the overall story. It was a great read. Short but with a lot of content and meaning. It was just phenomenal. Look! You got featured! YAY! Haha. Congratulations. Please don’t forget to comment when you pick up your review. And PLEASE DON’T FORGET TO CREDIT. I saw you that you upvoted already and I am in deep gratitude. Thank you so so so much. I really hope this helped…even though all I did was more complimenting than actually critiquing your story. BUT IT WAS JUST THAT GOODDD! Haha. Great job :)
 

Review Credit to momodays09 from Midnight Sonata Cafe