this should be battle of the round. big props to pent for throwing this together on such short notice.
everything there is fairly even - rhyme schemes, use of language, technique.. it's terrible that one person has to lose.
i usually do full breakdowns when i want to give feedback and criticism to each writer. you've both (almost) left me with nothing to do here.
pent gets the victory on imagery. no surprises here, his story is about a particular scene and the exuberance of life that is drawn from it. by contrast, kannon's is about an experience that requires references to characters and thus needs to spend the limited lines on filling them in. pent wins the descriptive portion of the battle on that by default, so it isn't even a knock on kannon.
otoh, nick tells a story. pent obviously isn't seeking to do much of that, and likewise, kannon wins by default here due to the aim of the piece.
so it all comes down to which is more important.. the impact of tugging on the feels or the technical mastery that can make a person exist in a scene created purely with words? hell if i know.
@
Certain, i'm voting this a tie.
and an fyi for @
Pent uP - if you'd left the title out, this could have been about an impulsive suicide.. and that would have edged it for you.