This short story for my fiction class is actually more of a test run for a larger story I plan on writing later. Any feedback for these first 13 is greatly appreciated.

The boy sat in the far corner of his cell. [Why do we need to
know about staring out the window? I’d think sitting in the far
corner tells about as much though you could add some cell detail
in place of the neutral “his” cell. Bare cell. Dark cell.
Tiny cell. Empty cell. Dirty cell. Any of those tell more
about how he must be feeling in a more subtle way than that his
face was covered in shadow. As I understand “beats,” it is a
matter of focusing on the right details and letting extraneous
one go.

Correct,” was the simple, detached reply. [Here you don’t need
to tell the reader that the single word was a simple reply.
That’s obvious. That’s overcontrolling the reader. And the
detail that it was detached is kind of obvious, too. Those
details do not really add to the tension here, but get in its
way.

Hmmm…your detail about how most patients here… That really could
be put up in the first paragraph. It is a better detail. It
also increases the tension and in its present position it is long
and breaks up the fine work you have with the dialogue.

And repeating the here – I’m here – doesn’t sound right. Well,
not to me. After his one word reply before, why is he suddenly
so wordy now? Beginning with “because” sounds more realistic.

Here’s what I meant. Not what you want, I suspect. But how much
is left out that really needed to be right there in these lines?

The boy sat motionless in the far corner of his cell. Most
patients contained at this level constantly made loud noises or
shook convulsively. He did neither. I walked toward him,
unnerved by his silence.
“Daniel Jenkins?” I asked.
“Correct,”
“Why are you here, Daniel?”
“Because I did something too well.”
He turned his face toward me, and I saw his deep set eyes, one blue and one green.

Ummm, you know, I think you shouldn't put both the "pain" and the two colored eyes in this line. You're bringing two very different ideas to the reader that do not connect. I think the two colored eyes is more interesting. AND...if you move the 'because" line up so that there is no gap between it and the question, the moment is stronger. Then the turning the face to the pov is part of the answer and opens up the pov's analysis of the pain at more length.

Anyway, just my thoughts on the matter.

Otherwise, thanks for the comments. I'm glad that it hooked most of you.

Please let me know whether you would like to read more or not. As soon as my teacher gives my story back, I would be happy to email copies to any who are interested.

Arriki: I have changed a couple things based on your suggestions, but I was a little afraid of losing some of POV character's personality, which is critical to the story. Thanks for the comments, though, because it made me reread what I had carefully .