Hello, dizzy_bowler_books!! I read the entire story from start to finish, and these are my thoughts.

First impressions:

Title: It's a simple title but interesting, it makes you wonder what secrets and what's going on which is kind of good for the story

Cover: It has nothing to do with the story but it kind of gives dark vibes which are good but it needs to be taken up a notch to be attractive

Summary: It's not there, you just wrote it's a school project but you need something that will attract the reader enough to start reading

Technical Issues:

Grammar: There's a lot of grammar mistakes. There is no full understanding of the tense you used cause they're all there. I don't know what's in the past and what's in the present.

Examples:
Chapter 1: "Why is my here" which doesn't make sense even as a question
"Sweat dripped" > dripping
"I think as I throw..." > thought (This was made multiple times
"Time grew longer" >grew shouldn't really be used in this sentence
"My eyes instantly notice..." >noticing or notices
"I slam the shovel off his head" > down or into
Chapter 3: "The pile off him" >from him

There are more but these are just examples.

Spelling: Not as many mistakes as grammar but in Chapter 1 there's "realifes" which is supposed to be "relieves" and what did you mean by "tourtens" in Chapter 3.
"Ye" should be "Yeah"
"There" should've been "They're" because you're referring to clothes
Chapter 4 "Resuring tone" > "Reassuring"

Punctuation: there were too many full stops for no reason.. Smack the end of the sentence (a full sentence); however, you break a lot of sentences, and there were no commas whatsoever.

More technical issues:

🌟 Something I didn't like was how busy the chapters were, due to all the paragraphs stuck together. There should be spaces between paragraphs (like a line in between) to even have a relieving effect on the eye.
🌟 The chapters were too short

The heart of the book:

Characters: usually short stories contain one main character alongside it to more with maximum 3 minor characters. In your story, a lot of names were mentioned and I had no idea who these people were, I also didn't understand what the character is doing and why he was doing it. HOWEVER, the character's name "Hunter" really fits the situations and the story.

Conflict: where is the problem? The only problem I understood was their mom's, other than that, I have no idea.

Pace: because the chapters are too short the stories pace is so fast, confusingly fast

Emotions: most of the time it was the character explaining how he feels. There are actions to do when ways to act when you're feeling a certain way. For example, instead of saying angry, break something, clutch hands into fists. Instead of saying sad, cry. So, instead of explaining stuff, act upon it.

Logic: why was the character in the opening scene murdered? who was he? why did these people die? how did they die?

Chapter Endings: I didn't feel hooked or that I want to complete the story due to my confusion.

Suggestions:

-Usually, short stories are 10,000 words long, you can write 1,250 words per chapter which would give you space for more description so the story would be clearer.

-You didn't need to make a chapter just for the lyrics of the song.

-I suggest you create a paragraph form in the chapters.

-For grammar: Download Grammarly keyboard to help you correct the grammar and spelling.

_Stick to one tense except when you HAVE to change it for thoughts, flashbacks, etc.

-Don't spoil the concept of the chapter in the chapter's title

-I also suggest you don't focus mainly on making everything mysterious, everything has a reason, to be able to make the person relate and feel for the character you have to show what's inside them, not everything is a mystery. You focused too much on the mystery to the extent that you forgot the purpose of the story. You need a STRONG reveal in the last chapter, a shocker.

-The story has soooo much potential but it needs to be put in more effort cause it could really be amazing

-I finally suggest not using a lot of full stops and more commas or semicolons. Also, pick the words and descriptions that best explain the situation.

Rating: 4/10

If you have any questions, you can DM me ❤ Thank you so much❤