Hi Jan. Wanted to comment on your 'fic.
First, your prose is good. That can't be said of many first-time
writers. It's always a pleasure to read people who know how to form
paragraphs.
The story bothers me, not because of its apocalyptic nature (I enjoy a
good thermonuclear blast as well as the next person), but rather I
didn't feel any urgency to their running. Without knowing who they were
running from, or why, takes the edge off of it a little. Plus, the
arrow bit seemed strange. Bombs...and arrows? Better if it had been a
bullet wound or a laser hit or something not anachronistic.
Also, the motivation for the suicide seems a little thin. Maybe some
descriptions about the despair he was feeling. Like when he's running,
he's thinking about all the people he's failed, but he still has Akane
to keep him sane, if only they could escape. Then she trips, and his
sanity begins to slip, because he realizes that they may not make it.
And then she dies, and is glad not to be a burden, and he loses it.
*That*, I think, would make the story. Build up to the suicide at the
end, and you'll get a much more powerful climax.
Just my thoughts, of course. Take 'em or leave 'em, it's what the FFML
is for. :)