10/10. I'm not 100% sure you've had enough nice things said about this yet, even though there's a bunch, so let's see..... You
crushed the perspective on this, especially Terra's italicized parts. The story was obviously always going to go a certain way, given the challenge, but it felt amazingly credible anyway -- this isn't just a challenge piece, it's a real story, and a great one. You've got this thing down.
And because you're doing so great, I'd like to share some ideas about style choice. These aren't 'corrections' and shouldn't be treated as such -- you don't need those from me. My red pen is on the shelf. This is blue-pen stuff. Let's start with a big-picture idea.... You're splicing in a narrative with a homework assignment in (what feels like) a very cinematic style. The italics sound like voice-over framing device sort of things -- "This is why I'm telling the story, and this is where I am when it's over." That
works, and there's no need to change a thing. You
might have considered telling the whole thing in Terra's perspective -- because Terra's perspective is strong enough to handle it. What I mean is, instead of breaking into third-person narratives, potentially just write the whole story in english-paper format, as she remembers it, as she feels about it, all in
her mind. It would be a very different story if you'd done it that way -- instead of detailing the events, you'd be much more focused on the emotional impact. So the thing to think about is, which do you prefer? The events are tragic and interesting enough to justify the third-person narrative, but the emotional devastation is valuable too. There's plenty of other ways you could've approached it too, like, maybe she's been called in to the teacher's office over her bad paper and they're having a conversation about the assignment -- that would open the door to emphasize the disconnect from other people. Basically what I'm driving at is, you're at a level right now where the structure of your story is a conscious choice that impacts the meaning, and there's lots of ways to take advantage of that.
Next a brief thought on sentence structure -- again, nothing wrong with how you're doing it. I mean technically grammatically fragments are taboo, but screw grammar. Fragments are cool, when they're useful.
My personal feeling is, periodically, you probably should've tended towards run-ons instead. I'm really thinking of just one part near the top:
Soft, feminine footsteps. A woman’s feet danced around on the floor. Graceful and fluid. Twirling from one place to the next with the movement of a ballerina. Her bare, smooth legs moved to an unheard rhythm. Only heard by her. Sweet melodies passing through a white chord to her ears.
I can't say I know much about dancing or women, but dammit,
I KNOW PERIODS. ... That came out wrong. Lemme re-punctuate that real quick:
Soft, feminine footsteps. A woman’s feet danced around on the floor, graceful and fluid, twirling from one place to the next with the movement of a ballerina. Her bare, smooth legs moved to an unheard rhythm, only heard by her -- sweet melodies passing through a white chord to her ears.
Why have I done that? Simple: we're dancing around the sentence, graceful and fluid, twirling from one image to the next with the flow of a ballerina's dance. This is the part where you can break rules to send your message better, and the message is flowing -- so why not let the sentences flow too?
EDIT: One more thing. This one, I'm tempted to reach for the red pen. In the shooting scene, there's a very sudden transition from Kaelyn's to Harris's perspective. I sorta picture this scene through a camera lens, and if I was directing a movie, at that moment there'd be a long, slow camera pan to Harris, to put the viewers into HIS head instead of hers.
It doesn't really do that here...... Not to say you CAN'T do that in writing ever, but like, Idunno. It jumped out at me a little while I was reading and felt out-of-place. Whether that's a problem or not, as well as how/if it needs to be fixed, I mean, your thoughts are as good as mine. But I thought I'd call attention to it anyway.
That's it, that's all I got. OH -- I like the way you write dialogue. We don't need any he-said-she-saids in there and you were wise to leave them out. Okay, THAT is all I've got. Great job.
EDIT: I lied, I had one more thing, adding it now