Before the Pattern Breaks

Some good stories appearing on the site lately :D The beginning of this one is very well-written and the main character is obviously very absorbed in her fractals (whatever they may be). Solely focusing on my dream seems to push me into a loop but the rest of the story develops well. It’s intriguing to think that Covid could have been predicted based on analysis of historical pandemic patterns (actually, the last big one Spanish Flu – which actually started in the USA but you know how some people are – was in 1918 and I read these things come around every century or so).

The short sentences add to the tension and it’s nice to see Quinn come back into the story. The ending is just painful, so well-written and well-linked to the beginning (was the dream a self-fulfilling prophecy or a premonition? We’ll never know…). One thing you could have done – but I’m glad you didn’t – is have more memories of the main character with her mother to make the ending more heart-wrenching but I think it was tragic enough. Your use of the sources appears to be good and thorough and the true information blended nicely with the story.

Good job on this one. It was well-planned and written and made a nice closed loop. It could have been expanded more: the main character could have tried to warn government officials of the impending pandemic and the scale it would grow to, but within its limits it was very well-done. I would rate it a 6/8 because of its fairly short length but within that length you did everything well - like Mizal said, this would have been a great entry for the recently-finished Edutainment contest!

this is a great story that the author has obviously put serious work into. i like the premise but would have loved it to go on longer. i played for two different endings which both made sense given my choices. there were a few spelling mistakes but nothing major. overall, i'd love to see more from this author in the future.

Damn, too bad you missed the contest, this would've been a decent entry. Interesting subject, could be longer but honestly I'm impressed enough at someone showing up knowing how dialogue punctuation works.