Reviewed in association with The "Flights of Fantasy Group"  August Review Raid.
Good story fit for an English high school class textbook, though a bit formulaic.
This isn't meant as a harsh critique. For context: while I'm an ESL speaker, I used textbooks and materials for students with English as their primary language meant for one or two grades below expected. Not being a fan of grammar (in any language), I was always attracted to textbooks with stories - and therefore, I got familiarized with short stories of both recognized and lesser recognized authors meant for children and teenagers.
When I read halfway through the story, I recognized this language and story structure. This is especially good in a short story, as while things like description, pacing and content are necessary, understanding the story itself is more so. Though I didn't read the book until after high school, I got a huge The Giver vibe, as both protagonists are effectively trained to fulfill a destiny for their hometown. In The Giver, the reach is lower (the town where the protagonist and the previous Giver live) and the stakes are relatively high; in this case, the reach is much larger and the stakes are immense, as life and death are literally on her hand.
Sijile is built with a destiny and a conflict as befits any Chosen One protagonist. She's following on the footsteps of her predecessor, trained for a purpose, and while most attempt it, only she's capable of executing it. Her journey is fairly easy to follow - she was trained from youth to be a warrior, an expert in both unarmed and armed combat, as she has the task of defeating the gatekeeper. She's given training in other aspects, such as reading and writing, but her primary purpose is to fight - and as soon as she can be considered an adult, she's sent to fulfill her destiny.
The first part is very good - it details aspects of her youth all the way to her adulthood, reflected in the narrator describing the former while seeing a snapshot of the latter through her birthday. The other characters, while minor, are well-defined - Doran as the closest thing to a father figure, Jessup as the one who seems to know more than he appears, Maku and Issu explicitly mentioned as grandparent figures and treating her with kindness. The preparation for her journey is solemn, almost ritualistic, but it hints the reader that something's off.
Once the second part of the story starts - her entry through the door and what she finds - the story begins to weaken. I can't say much as I haven't seen the image prompt (you mention it is for a contest, after all) but it does no justice to the set-up. The message is pretty crystal clear - the masters don't expect her to return, there is mention of sacrifice - but it contrasts harshly with how the first part sets up everything. You expect this conflict with the gatekeeper, but Sijile notices way too fast how it doesn't do the effort of fighting, but instead reacts to violence and responds accordingly. Rather than question why, she accepts her destiny and allows herself to become a sacrifice, therefore saving her world.
At a certain level, I could agree with her decision. It explains why all the men failed while she succeeded - they chose a path of violence and received their just reward. Through her metaphorical (and perhaps literal?) death, Sijile becomes an avatar of life. The themes of sacrifice and altruism are very evident, and that is something I support - trying, at the very least, to be selfless in order to improve the world.
However, while it has a happy ending of sorts - Sijile returns to a world that was renewed with life, able to see the fruits of her sacrifice as an avatar of sorts - it hides a very pessimistic future. Sijile isn't the first of the Last Children, but most importantly, won't be the last. Sijile will return, but in the next thousand years, the same thing will happen again, and there will be another Last Child meant to do another sacrifice to start everything anew. It suggests the world is locked in a cycle - a cycle that involves one sacrifice every thousand years to avoid imminent extinction.
Upon examination, this is a terrible future. A world locked into a cycle of life and death, a world locked into - possibly - stagnancy because of that cycle, isn't a very positive world to live. And what affects it the most is that Sijile is built as a potential response to that, but in the end she doesn't. Sijile could've gone through with her sacrifice - it is, after all, subversive in that the sins of Men seem to be related to war and violence, as men can't resolve the situation because of their warlike nature (note how I capitalized Men to refer to the species, compared to the lowercase men to refer to the gender). But Sijile, upon noticing how to deal with the situation, accepts it without question. Thus, while it works to show the cycle of life and death in this world, it doesn't work to question it. The Last Child before Sijile would be essentially Sijile herself, and her successor will be the same. It suggests an inescapable cycle with a caveat that the sacrificial being sees the fruit of her labor.
And what's worse is that every learned individual seems to know it. Perhaps, if the masters were revealed as genuinely ignorant of what happened, things would be different - but they're accomplices to the grim nature of the cycle. Doran intentionally hides the truth from Sijile so she has no other choice but to accept her fate; Jessup feels so wracked about what he effectively sends his adoptive daughter through, knowing that all his lessons are for nothing because they're not meant to do anything, that he reacts in a way Sijile (and the narrator) notice. And Sijile, who proves to at least question the intentions of the masters, doesn't question the gatekeeper.
This, I feel, is where the story is at its weakest. Sijile was trained for a purpose, yet given ineffective tools - a sword and armor that would've done nothing, cryptic clues that require deciphering and only become obvious after facing the challenge. She has a questioning nature that fades away as soon as she realizes the futility of her training, that she can't exploit to help the next Last Child to finally break the cycle. It has the potential to be, if not the last iteration of the cycle that finally breaks it and provides the world with everlasting life, the one that leads to that purpose. It sets up a promise that falls flat as the protagonist, rather than question the why, accepts tradition unfailingly. And yes - she's given a happy reward, but knowing that the world will cycle again to its destruction and end up with another girl facing the same challenge.
Now - perhaps the image prompt required this sacrificial act, which effectively makes the premise unescapable. And the story has an unambiguous happy ending, as Sijile effectively survives her sacrifice and saves her world. However, it still suggests that her sacrifice will not be the last, as it wasn't the first, and that her victory is short-lived.
(For another bit of context - this story resembles a lot the plot of Final Fantasy X, in particular that of the game's deuteragonist, Yuna. She's trained to become a Summoner - one who summons powerful beings that are created from humans who willingly accepted to become these creatures to aid the Summoner and fulfill their purpose. Yuna seeks to achieve the Calm, an event where a Summoner stops a rampaging creature called Sin and grants the world a measure of peace - but not forever, as Sin eventually reappears and threatens the world. At the climax of the story, Yuna reveals to the audience surrogate and protagonist, Tidus, that the Summoner effectively acts as a sacrifice, as the act of killing Sin involves creating one final summoned creature with immense power to destroy it, only to die in the process. Furthermore, it is revealed that this cycle was manufactured, as the first of the Summoners who created the Calm still exists as an undead gatekeeper who demands the Summoner sacrifice one of their Guardians, their traveling partners, to become that powerful summoning being - and the death, further revealed later, is because the essence of the very thing they face, Sin, takes control of the summoning being and reforms from it. And all of this is to perpetuate a cycle of stagnation to stifle innovation and enforce faith and tradition. The contrast with this story, of course, is that the protagonists fight against this destiny and deal with Sin through different means - and that involves an event that wracks Yuna as she's forced to fight against all the beings she bonded up with. Even if it's from a game, this twist in the Chosen One/tradition storyline becomes memorable as the protagonists fight against their destiny by effectively choosing a third option.)
Now, I will point something out. Using the two examples I gave for purposes of context, I feel there's a meta-reason for choosing this outcome. Hiding the prospect of a grim future caused by a world caught in a death spiral that can only be restarted is clever. Or perhaps it's not intentional, and perhaps this is just an interpretation I gave it due to the stories I've been interacting with. Perhaps I'm overthinking it - and that's just fine. Perhaps the sacrifice of Sijile has no further meaning other than act as an example of the importance of sacrifice and altruism. And here is where the story is at its strongest - when it invites discussion from the reader. Regardless of whether the intention was to hide a dark story within a feel-good one, or whether it is a straightforward feel-good story, the way the story itself is structured invites discussion, and perhaps an alternate way to see things. That it drove me to a deep analysis of the themes within the story serves as a testament to its appeal.
And that is why it reminds me so much of a story meant for an English class. It's just designed to invite the reader - in this case, probably a child or a teenager - to analyze its content and think about the nature of the sacrifice and perhaps to ponder what would they make if they were the Last Child. It's designed to invite for discussion while being an easy read. (Tell me, was that the intention overall? Because it's either devilishly clever or a very happy accident!)
Anyways, I apologize if this review extended far beyond where it should, but good stories demand good, deep and lengthy reviews. I could go for the minor grammar errors (like "aksed" instead of "asked" in the second sentence, or commas I feel are missing), but these are the least of the worries, and as I said, I really don't like grammar even though I recognize it's worth.
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