keep up the good work

I agree with Mark G that some of the sentences were long and cumbersome, slowing down the pace. There were a lot of commas, and some of them were misplaced (which for me really interrupted the flow of the scene). Here is one way you could take out some of the commas (although some of the sentences are still pretty long):

My other main concern is you have the little boy thinking: Oh well, everything will be all right.

Um... I need to know more about the kid to buy into this line of thinking. If this is not a stranger, but is in fact an abusive dad/boyfriend killing/hurting his mom, then you are not showing your MC (assuming the little boy is the MC) in a realistic mindset. Kids raised around domestic violence lose their ability to trust early on. They know when shit is going down, and that it's going to be bad. There is no one I know who has grown up in homes with abuse (and I know a few of them) who ever ONCE thought, during a violent episode, that "things will be all right." A child raised around that loses his/her ability to believe everything will be all right, ever, pretty damned early in life. Trust -- or the lack of it -- is a learned behavior.

The good is that a reader can instantly recognize the situation -- generally speaking, most people like things which they are familiar with. The bad is that a reader can instantly recognize the situation as having been done before, all the while recalling several similar scenarios in various stories and movies, etc., right down to the "don't leave this room no matter what you hear" part. I actually blame TV and movies (especially Quentin Tarantino's movies) for overdoing this type of scenario/beginning; indeed, it's probably permanently ingrained in our society's consciousness by now. Not to mention that in real life some families actually experience similar events.

All of that said, there's nothing wrong with familiarity, but it does present a challenge to the author to present the information in a way that seems new or fresh. Which brings me to the point I truly wanted to make:

"High Drama" at the beginning of a story, such as this fragment's presentation, may not be desirable in engaging a reader. In my opinion, while this type of intro tends to work well for movies and TV (both media often assume we have incredibly short attention spans, by the way -- and maybe we do), it usually doesn't work in written stories, even short-short stories. One thing you might consider is rolling back the story's start to just before the child and mother experience this nightmare. In other words, creating a sense of dread that hooks is far better than creating a dreadful nightmare right from the start.

And we have no idea who is killing the child's mother, which may be the point of this introduction. But prior to this scene, the mother certainly knew that something was going to happen, and therefore she told the boy to stay in his room. The boy doesn't need to know who's doing the killing (if that's your intent), but if we see his mother's fear through his eyes (creating tension and dread) before he's huddled in a room, then we'll engage with these two characters far more than we can by being thrust into a middle of a scene without context. So that's what we need: a little context before the drama begins. Just a little. Not necessarily pages of setup.

What were the boy and mother doing right before this happened? Consider starting there...

Good luck.

I like the idea of starting a little before the attack, that way I can get more of what is going on, and the setting. I don’t want to focus too much on the boy and his mother, because the story is actually about the killer, but through the boy’s eyes. I just need this scene to show the boy’s hatred toward the man that killed his mom, and how he has to struggle with that through the rest of the story. I will have to take another shot at it, when I have time and probably when the overall short story is done.

He wanted to run out there and save her, but he was just a boy . . .

Seems unlikely a boy would think "I am just a boy" to himself. I'd just omit that phrase.

My mom can’t die, who will take care of me . . .

Seems unlikely a terrified boy would think in such a calculating way when his mother is screaming. I know what this terror feels like (by analogy, fortunately). It isn't about what might happen in the future; it isn't about someone taking care of *me*; it's about the terror that someone might happen to Mom, right now.

quote:

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I just need this scene to show the boy’s hatred toward the man that killed his mom, and how he has to struggle with that through the rest of the story.

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I don't think you need this scene for that. Showing hatred and knowing why are two different things and can be developed numerous ways. You could conceivably create an outstanding intro hook by starting later and showing the boy's hatred for the killer in various ways, which might create suspense and mystery (as long as things are not needlessly withheld of course). Seeing Mom die isn't necessary. We only need to know that the killer killed Mom; we certainly don't need all the gory details to effect the boy's hatred, not in real time anyway.

But then again, starting earlier and showing the gory avoids a flashback (or the temptation to write one) later in the story. It all depends on how things are developed, character interactions and so forth.

Really, don't think you absolutely have to show this scene for us to understand the boy's plight, because there are about a million-plus ways to do what you want without it. What is important is that the event happened. Whether it is shown is, of course, completely up to you.

Stories always seem like one big puzzle, and can be put together in any order you want. But anyways thanks HSO, your comments helped out quite a bit.