The End is Coming

Title: The End Is Coming
Author: x brobeck
Genre: Drama | Tragedy | Teen
Rating: PG-13
Type: Fanfiction

"In the quiet of the pitch black classroom, the only sounds were the shaky breathing of the nervous occupants and the occasional brush of fabric against the wall. Twenty-two people, including the teacher, were pressed into the far corner. As one, they jumped at a series of resonating bangs and screams."

Set against the backdrop of an undergoing school shooting, The End is Coming is an empathetic, intimate look into the lives of a group of victims as the tragedy unfolds.

The apparent narrator, Ryan Ross, sets the scene with the most shocking yet riveting of descriptions -- by giving the reader a play-by-play of the sounds they experience, the gunshots, the screams – then, the silence. He explains how the group he is with is huddled together, listening as their world unravels at the seams within a few short minutes.

Ryan’s attempts to comfort friend Spencer whilst blindly reassuring himself that their friends - Ryan's boyfriend - are unharmed is a devastatingly poignant portrayal of the fear and distress such a disaster brings; how one seems to cling to hope rather than uncertainty in times of trial and tragedy. The grief Ryan seems to hide so well from the others is subtly revealed in his inner narrative, in the uncontrollable fear he doesn’t want to expose but eventually can't contain. It is a particularly human representation that will strike a chord with even the most steel-hearted of readers.

x brobeck has absolutely outdone herself with this eloquent, quietly powerful one-shot. She incorporates the most perfectly unassuming of back stories that has the reader connecting almost excruciatingly to her characters and the realism they exude with every aggrieved sentence. This is a story that has the potential to stay with you for a long, long time.