I just read this blog about the manhattan project and now I'm sure enough about it to say I finally got the picture you had in mind when writing this:

"Men had been told that the scientists thought there was a small chance for the bomb to set off a chain reaction that would ignite the nitrogen and oxygen in the atmosphere, killing all life on Earth. As the bomb was primed they sat in the site chapel, crying."

Before, I hadn't made the connection to scheduled tests, which made that 20 sec line really extra weird to me, and had assumed this to play in our present. If there's any clues towards time and place I still don't get them..
But with that context I think I like your story even better now.

I love the atmosphere you've got going on here. It felt like just the right blend of spiritual, slightly somber, and peaceful to me.
Getting a look into your characters' emotional states was super interesting as well. Both the man's mix of resignation and acceptance, and Father Paul just continuing as he always has before coming to realize there's something more going on felt very genuine and satisfying to read about.

The mystery about the man's identity I'm split on. Initially he seemed like some mythical power, now, with the whole picture, I think he's an engineer who helped develop a doomsday weapon (something atom bomb 2.0 like.) Overall, it mostly added a bit of uncertainty, and I'm not sure whether that's a good thing. It helps with the air of mystery I think you were going for, but what I liked most about your story was how steadfast the characters felt, the calm and certainty with which they faced their end.

So I think this story would've been even stronger without the whole mystery stuff - even more so cause of the "you have about 20 seconds" line. That seemed like it was supposed to fuel this air of mystery, but to me felt like something a teenager trying to sound cool would say.

To me, putting the birth of jesus in a modern setting was a nice idea, and the really interesting part was thinking about our society in the context of this biblical story. That's what you caught my attention with.
But the "there's too much distrust" thought wasn't enough to hold it for long. The second part about the "three strangers" felt like it just spelled out what I already had imagined after reading the first one. I lost interest there

Also I have to agree with the others: the relatively simple and repetitive sentence structure coupled with wordings like "but at the same time she pretended" and "He blames the federal administration" gave me the impression this article wasn't from a professional newspaper.

I'm a sucker for vivid characters like these and as someone who enjoys learning about writing but doesn't actually write much this story hits close to home.

I did enjoy this one a lot, even though I'd been taking the story at face value when I was reading it - e.g. Benny seemed like a really friendly dude at first, but Dean's negativity did influence my opinion of Benny (and I only recognized that after reading Ranmilia's comment.)

What I liked: how you showed the two knowing each other in and out by having them think in similar ways and sometimes even continue each other's thoughts.

What I didn't like: I'm too confused about their background and their situation to really get what these things they talk about mean to them. I get that they've got some human sacrifice thingy going on, but why? Where does their conviction come from? It could all just be superstition - and that'd be fine - but lines like "whatever passes for dawn in this place" make it seem like there's a lot more going on. Like there's stuff going on that's really important to the two, and that I have absolutely no clue on.

What I liked: how you showed the man being swept along in the currents of his life. In particular how he didn't seem to even make any decision about whether or not he wants the cats around - to me he seemed to just go through the motions and do whatever. Kick them? Feed them? Get them removed? Whatever. (I didn't feel like anyone or anything made the decision for him, but like he just went with his gut.)

What I didn't like: the "I want just one more minute" moments didn't seem like he this-is-important-to-me-wanted it, but rather like he only it'd-be-nice-but-whatever-wanted it. Guess that's the flip side of the man appearing so indifferent.

Also what Dolfus Doseux said.

>>Syeekoh
I know exactly what you mean.

I too like to read my stories to others until (round) parts of them decide they've had enough and leave :P

Thank you all very much for your feedback. I may have failed hard with this story, but your comments gave me some specific things to look into and work on. So that's a win in my book.

Why did this go wrong then?

Basically Scramblers and Shadows summed it up perfectly: I was trying to write a novel-sized tale in the space of a short story, and started without knowing exactly where I was going. Not having a grasp on story structure, grammar, and formatting didn't help either.

I mostly just went with what seemed like the obvious thing for my characters to do, then changed and added parts in an effort to make it make sense, but in the end I failed to communicate central points like what I had imagined the setting to be like, or that Emily was masking as both the League and Madame Morrow, for the excitement, the fame, and the money that'd come with the boost to her husband's career.

Still, what surprised me most about all this, was discovering that I don't have an idea what a short story is. I can't say in what way other than length one would differ from a regular book - so that's another thing I'll look into before I chime in on a short story round again.

It's a beautiful story, no doubt, but I'm not entirely sold on the way the princesses talk to each other. They seem to see each other as equals and completely trust each other, and Twilight seems remarkably sure of herself.
Now I don't have any problem logically believing that this would be the way they behave after a hundred years as fellow princesses, but when I read this story I didn't get to see all those years. I just found a Twilight that had grown up so much that she didn't feel like the character I know anymore.

To make it easier to connect new Twilight to old Twilight, maybe cut back on the really informal stuff like "that wasn’t like, her thing", and have her retain a bit more of her old insecurities - e.g. Celestia's approval always was a huge deal to old Twi, and new Twi could express at least a little regard for it.

I very much like stories that manage to take me by surprise with fair and interesting twists. That is to say, the switch from silly comedy to sincere origin story was an outstanding point of this piece to me.
Still I believe that while the comedy was beautifully silly, and that switch was just to my taste, the evolution of Cythylla and Idy-yaa into Celestia and Luna would have needed more room to really unfold its huge potential.

I'm missing a lot of emotion here.
After Megan's death I'd expect something like 'gone-forever-sadness' or 'peaceful-passing-relief' from the characters, but Sophie doesn't seem to react at all, and I don't get to see the rest of her family. Twilight offers a token sad look, but she doesn't even seem upset about losing the one person able to save their world from 'the evil'.
Luckily (for Equestria) that problem is fixed immediately: Sophie gets her granny's power and goes dimension hopping.

Sadly (for me) that resolution felt unsatisfying. There's so much untapped potential in that conflict. For example, if Sophie had a reason for going to Equestria other than "the amulet just spark'd me, might as well save your world now", then she could have an adventure on which she earns the amulet's power. If she went to Equestria without its power available, then the villain might even have a chance.

All in all I'd say this piece reads like the introduction to a 'human fights evil in Equestria' story. It has a whole lot of potential, but doesn't manage to catch my interest by itself.

Everything the three say ("They're tired" / "The horses?" / "back home") points me towards them all being from earth.
The name drop points towards her being from Equestria.

If I read this as her being from earth, the story would have made much more sense to me, and leave basically no questions, if that was any other name (e.g. Jack) instead.
If I believe the one piece of additional information that I can get from the name drop (her being an Equestrian) then the conversation those three had sounds wrong to me.

That is to say: even more wrong than it sounds to me already. Like FanOfMostEverything the subject matter of this piece made me want to think extra hard for some specific point I can dislike about it - which really was no easy task.

Beyond what everybody else mentioned, I've got problems with both Celestia's and Harshwhinny's motivation (or lack thereof,) that make this story unbelievable to me.
I'd need at least some pointers to what reason Harshwhinny could have for being so angry at the princesses, as well as to why Celestia could possibly focus so much on Harshwhinny. Have the two even met in the Equestria games episode? I don't remember. And if Celestia simply dislikes her for being a 'pompous, vacuous snit', then why single that mare out when she's got a city full of nobles surrounding her?

To me this story reads like the result of a writing process similar to mine during the last writeoff:
Being struck by an idea for a scene (Harshwhinny excluding the Princesses from the games / Celestia's bitching about it) and then writing that down without spending enough time thinking about what happened that led up to the scene.

So a can of coke for the low price of spending the rest of your days wondering whether or not you wasted your wish? It's a beautiful fresh take on the genie scene. Also I guess the last person wished for a sandwich?

I read this out aloud without having gone over it before, and the one time I stumbled over the words was because I read over a syllable in the last verse. The rhythm's great.

Until the "Why?" I felt this was a really tense and interesting scene. I mean, good obedient citizen #4284383 being confronted with the big bad ghost? How cool is that? And even though he knows he should run and call the government, there's a person in front of him. He can't help but wonder why any person would choose to be so evil, so he asks: "Why?"

And the huge, intimidating ghost puts on a smile and pulls out his flip chart. "Boy am I glad you asked."
At least that's what it felt like to me.

I very much liked sitting in that fast food worker's head and looking out through the foggy windows that are their eyes.
It had some atmosphere. Most of it felt distant rather than hellish, but I believe that's what you were going for.

Also where'd you come across the "risible idea" idea? I've never ever seen that word before.