[ PI ] Pripyat 's Labyrinth - FebContest

Full disclosure: when you mentioned that your story was based on another writing prompt, I went ahead and searched for that thread, thus spoiling the surprise for myself. Whoops... 
 
 Anyway, the story was magnificent. The love that Rie and Yeatu share for one another is clear, and the relationship between the brothers provided good motivation for their characters. It would n't have been as believable for Rie to run into the Labyrinth to save a business partner, for example. 
 
 I also did a quick Google search on radiation poisoning, as I do n't really know too much about the specifics. Wikipedia has a handy chart that shows which symptoms occur at different levels of radiation, and how long a person has to be exposed before they start showing said symptoms. Rie shows pretty consistent signs of radiation poisoning at around the 2-6 Gy exposure level. I do n't know if that's what you were going for, or even if that's an accurate level ( there are a lot of different predictions about how long Chernobyl will stay dangerously radioactive ), but it was pretty cool regardless. And even though I can objectively know that he's being exposed to dangerous levels of radiation, reading the story from his perspective really does make it feel like a mysterious, evil magic that's creeping up on him. The Geiger counter seemed like a mystical relic too, which for all intents and purposes it was, I suppose. 
 
 One of my favorite scenes is where Rie discovers the dead body, which becomes animated and stabs him in a hallucination. I'm a little embarrassed to say that I actually had nightmares about that part of the story. It was genuinely frightening and haunted me for hours after I read it, even before I fell asleep that night. So thanks a lot for that.; ) 
 
 There were some issues with comma absences in your story. Just something I wanted to point out. I'm not perfect about grammar/spelling/punctuation either, so I'm not holding that against anybody. 
 
 This was the most imaginative story in your group. You established the setting very well, and I liked the religious imagery. Very strong entry, in my opinion. As I'm not an editor, I'm only giving you my impression, but I liked it a lot! 

