estepheia | Nearly finished!!!

Whoohooo, yesterday I wrote the first draft of the last 4 pages of Four Fear. Today I typed these pages into the computer and tweaked and tinkered. Theoretically, the story is done now.

myfeetshowit started to beta V.1.0 (i.e. the version posted in my LJ), but it will take her a while to reach the end of the story. Which is why I'll post the last chapter unbeta'd. Most of the changes she suggested so far concern replacing weak verbs with strong ones, and making the POV more consistently Xander's. I took those suggestions into consideration while writing the last chapter.

I have only one problem to solve before I can post: Do I cut off the last two paragraphs or don't I? The fact that I'm asking myself this question is probably a 'yes', but I'm not sure. According to Nancy Kress's Beginnings, Middles & Ends an ending should not be too open or ambiguous:
A successful denouement has three characteristics: closure, brevity and dramatization.
I want to tie up a few dangly endings (which means abandoning the main character's POV) but I don't want to spell things out too clearly. Baah.
Well, I'll probably post the ending I have right now, and then I'll do a poll and ask the readers if they think the last two paragraphs should get the axe.
Anyway, I'm excited that it's done. 24.200 words in all. Too long to be a short story, to short to be a novel. I guess it's a novella, not just because of its length but also because it concentrates on a single suspenseful event/evening. There's no concrete symbol, no item that encompasses the whole theme of it - but I just had an idea how to make an image I use throughout more prominent and conrete and visible. I will have to insert a little scene in the middle, that's all. Something I can do when I give it the final polish.
But what counts today is that the first draft is done done done!!!! *dances the conga through the house*