The State

As soon as Alica smashed through the wooden door, she raised her pistol and pulled the trigger three times. For several seconds afterwards, she remained motionless, frozen in that instant after the last deafening shot. Her gun was still aimed at the would-be assassin’s chest, her eyes still focused on the cold, steel barrel.

When they unfocused, she saw his face. No longer a blur against her weapon’s crosshair, the dead man’s expression looked much too alive. The sun had darkened his skin to an almost copper shade. His jaw was covered with a thick, grimy black beard and his red lips were slightly parted and relaxed. His head rested against the dusty wall and his smiling eyes were looking slightly down and to his right, lost in a good memory from long ago. His left hand still clutched the barrel of his sniper rifle.

Alica could not stand looking at him any longer. She aimed once again and shot him in the face. She holstered the pistol and walked toward the apartment’s only window.

From there, she could see the panicked voices of the crowd that had gathered at the City Square one block away. Ten thousand had come on that day to see their Vuren speak.

[This message has been edited by N. Machiavelli (edited May 21, 2005).]
 

But even if I did, I think I'd have a problem with it. You start with a sudden violent act, but you hadn't yet developed a character that I cared about. I wouldn't go past the first 13 lines...
 

There's a whole lot of action here but as Elan says, nothing to care about, and without more of an understanding of the situation, I'm not sure what I'm supposed to think. I'm not even positive I'm supposed to be rooting for Alica.

I was also thrown by the description of the happy corpse; that didn't seem right.

Good luck with this.

 

Blasting away at the face of a dead man...just not professional, nor is bursting through the door and then standing motionless while focusing on only one target. You generally can't see the barrel of your own pistol if you're sighted in properly, even if you could you wouldn't focus your eyes there during a CQB situation.

Facial expressions of relaxation and reminisence don't tend to survive three bullets in the chest (assuming she shot him where she was aiming). Chest wounds can incapacitate very quickly, but they don't kill instantly or anything like that. And if the guy is going to die from bleeding out or whatever, allowing him to regain his smiling eyes and whatnot, well, that takes time that you don't indicate here.

The identification of the "City Square" being "one block away" sounds a little fuzzy to me. Also, ten thousand doesn't seem like a really big crowd, not big enough for a guy important enough to have bodyguards or whatever running around killing his assassin (apparently after the fact, anyway).

There are also the problems with poor presentation already mentioned.
 

That doesn't mean that you can't take a third shot after your first two (bang bang...bang), by the way. But that third shot will usually be a distinctly aimed shot from the first two, usually a "coup de grace" shot to the head of an already disabled target. That's a no-no if you're trying to avoid leaving a "signature" on your MO, by the way. Double tap followed by a single kill shot indicates a very skilled individual. That's probably not the problem here. It's just that everything is a bit like that "crosshair" reference. There are pistols sufficiently accurate and powerful that it isn't totally stupid to have a scope attachment. But something like that would definitly be addressed and justified, and it isn't.
 

I also agree with Survivor about the strangeness of her focusing on only one target. Shouldn't she scan the room to see if there are anymore bad guys (although she seems more like the bad guy) around the room.