CLEAN UP - DIGBEJOY GHOSH

The room lies empty in the dark, a diffuse glow filtering through the window. The old bed in the corner covered by pale sheets seems damp at night. In a chair across the room he lies sunken in gloom. A bead of sweat runs down his forehead and falls onto his lap. The book he was reading stays near his feet where he dropped it three hours ago, its pages sometimes fluttering in the draft that blows periodically under the door.

His face begins to contort suddenly. His brows knit into a frown, his closed eyes twitch rapidly.

“It’s coming for me! I know it is. I can feel it in my chest. In every pulse that beats in my veins. The lump in my throat forces its way upwards and all I can do to force it down is grind my teeth. I can't feel my legs anymore, don't know how long I've crouched next to the bed. Too afraid to get up and run. What’s the use anyway? There is nowhere that it won’t find me. Nowhere I can hide. It is all powerful, all consuming. The evil that’s inside it is pure, untainted by human emotion. It’s precision deadly.
It approaches now.”

She tries hard not to show it. That anger that swells in her guts. You can tell by the way she clenches her fist and unclenches it suddenly when she smiles at you. She turns paler than she already is, her sharp nose cutting an angry line across her thin face. With her hair pulled back tightly, her expressions appear even more pronounced. The eyebrows twitch a little when she speaks, with all the calm of a storm in the sea. As she leans on the table in front of her, it tilts a little and then wobbles some.

The rain begins to fall suddenly. Large isolated drops at first, then a complete blanket that covers the streets in grey. She doesn't know what to do. She looks for shelter, first left, then right. For as far as she can see there are buildings with no way of entering them. She begins to run anyway, as if that would help in any way. It only makes things worse. The water stings her eyes, gets in her nose and flattens her hair against her head. The loose shirt is drenched almost instantly clinging to her skin like glue. Fighting to ignore all this, she keeps running. A large puddle looms up ahead. As she tries avoid it, her foot catches a stray branch and she falls with a large splash onto the street, which looks more like a stream now. Covered in mud, she picks herself up.

AVY COMMENTS:
While the writing itself is good and descriptive and also emotive, what do you think is the main problem with this piece which does not allow it to actually become a short story?
The two characters – what is their relationship. There are moods and actions for each, but how do you make them come together?
It it is there in the story, I cannot recognize it. Can you show me what is really going on?
What is hunting the guy? Why is she running? Where do the meet and how? That would be your plot.