Who wants to see...

[Spastic waffles]

Ok, rewrite #1. I'm expecting more than one. Don't we always? Haha

Rewrite #2. Changed the ending. I like it better than the first attempt, although it's still not perfect.

The opening sequence of Shadow Child.

It was impossible to breathe. Each gasp brought only agony. Amaya had begun to cough, her body’s desperate attempt to expel the poison, but it did no good: each lungful of smoke and char she expelled was simply replaced with another. Sweat poured down her small face.
The tears flowed freely, whether from the stinging smoke or the fact that she had just hit another dead end, Amaya did not know or care. Every minute she spent in this place meant that the searing flames got higher and stronger. There was a copious amount of food for them here: they ate the piles of careful notes on the tables and licked up the sides of the metal work tables in order to get at the chemicals atop them. They ate, and they thrived, simply to go off in search of more sustenance. The flames were insatiable, their hunger was never abated; it only grew.
Amaya froze, instantaneously spellbound by a small popping noise that had begun slightly to her left. As the noise became more insistent, she shook herself out of the trance, forcing her tired legs to move once more. The popping stopped, and for a split second Amaya breathed relief: before a force hit her back that was so strong, she was thrown several feet into the air, landing with a cry on her already aching knees.
With an effort, she raised herself and continued her relentless searching. She had been through almost every hallway in the place, yet still she found herself trapped inside. There were no exit signs here. She was half convinced there was no exit, only room upon room of sinister looking equipment, files, and chemicals. No door, when opened, ever revealed an escape.
Amaya was outrunning flames that overtook the hallway behind her almost as quickly as she ran through it. Rooms directly to her right were already beginning to catch fire. She screamed as something exploded in the room directly to her left, with a surge she managed to narrowly miss the flying glass being expelled from the room. Her size was an advantage her: the seven-year-old frame had less surface for flying objects to hit, and her lack of height put her further under the suffocating smoke. But if she didn't get out soon, the flames would overtake her.
Her head spun. Her young mind told her nothing but to keep going, keep running toward where the exit should be. It had to be up ahead, because there was nowhere else. She called upon every ounce of strength left in her to keep her tiny legs pumping, to keep her body moving forward.
She opened what had to be the last door in the building and was immediately rewarded with a lungfull of cleaner air. She began to cough in earnest, finally clearing her lungs. The biggest explosion yet rocked the ground under her feet. Amaya let out a petrified cry as she stumbled, but she somehow stayed upright as she continued to run away from the horrible flames and heat. She was sobbing freely now, unsure of what might happen next. She had nowhere to go: the building burning behind her was all she had ever known. She collapsed in a field, her whole body shaking violently. She was close enough that the heat from the blaze still touched her.
Seventeen-year-old Amaya awoke with a jerk, gasping for breath as her seven-year-old dream self had been.. Sweat covered her entire body; she had kicked off her blankets as if the heat in the dream were real. Amaya shivered as the moisture covering her quickly made the cold in her room unbearable. She pulled the covers back around herself tightly, but her eyes remained wide open, darting restlessly around the room. She lingered on the posters on the wall, the chair in the corner, books on the shelf, finally resting on a picture she always kept on her bedside table, of herself and her parents, smiling at the beach on their last summer vacation. Her breathing slowed several moments after her eyes found the picture.
Amaya jumped as her door swung open.
"You had the dream again, didn't you?" Her mother looked concenred even through her sleep-dazed state.
Amaya nodded, she did not yet trust her voice. She must have screamed during the dream and woken her mother. A knot of guilt settled in her stomach alongside the fear that was firmly lodged there. Her mother knew she had this dream often because of all the times she had been woken in the middle of the night; what she did not know was that only about half of the time she dreamed did Amaya scream. She spared her mother the added worry of knowing just how often it occurred.
Amaya's mother was at her bedside now, smoothing her hair from her damp forhead. She pushed away the guilt and fear and attempted to focus only on her mother's touch and voice. The images of the dream, however, were imprinted in her mind, and even as she drifted back into sleep flames were dancing on the back of her eyelids.  

[Serenity Reed]

Okay. I've got some beef.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FavUpD_IjVY

It's okay, but I still feel like it could have been executed a lot better. There's a lot of telling in comparison to showing, especially in the last paragraph.

You're also pretty redundant. The opening sentence uses 'hot', 'searing', and 'heat' in succession, which pretty much mean the same thing. There doesn't seem to be much going on here, either. I'm pretty sure it's the telling that you've got going on. If I'm meant to get the feeling of terror for the dream, I'm not really getting it. You state that it feels real, but don't show that it feels real to her.

And you totally say she's seven, and then switch to five.
...Biggest is spelled wrong in paragraph three. 8U

I'm sure that you could cut out a lot and streamline it. It just seems clunky and ineffective right now. I'd assume this was your first draft. 8V  

[Serenity Reed]

Aw, Waffles, no no no. Don't think that. I'm 19 and I still write things that sound like they were written by an idiot! It's just a matter of practice.
Listen. You probably think 'I have no talent', right? Well, that doesn't matter.
Talent means you didn't have to work for being good at something. You don't need blood sweat and tears to have talent. But you do need it (mostly tears) to have a skill! And trust me, if you choose writing as the main one, your thoughts will almost always be about the tears, because you don't get better overnight.

We post here for the sake of improvement, right? You wouldn't own this guild if you didn't believe you could get better, right? Have a little faith, Waffles. You can do it. =3 It doesn't matter if it turns out ridiculous or stupid the first few times--you'll get it right eventually. I believe you can--not because of anyone's talent, but because you are Waffles, our fearless leader. And even if you aren't fearless, I know you're brave. It doesn't matter who you impress. As long as you want to get better, you will improve. I know you can do it.  

[Spastic waffles]

Thanks, hon.

Sorry, I kinda snapped last night, and apparently minor constructive criticism was something I was not prepared to handle. You're right, of course. I'm gonna go smack it around until it resembles something presentable.

Now, could you explain to me what you meant by the fact that I was telling, not showing?  

[Serenity Reed]

Well, since I can't recall any exact answers, here are some links that it explain it very well, with examples. =3

http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/publish_your_short_fiction/29408
http://jerz.setonhill.edu/writing/creative/showing.htm

That said, it's a problem I've seen a lot, even in my own writing. Just yesterday I found a whole bunch of paragraphs that needed reworked so they stopped telling. It's something you have to be ridiculously aware of, and eventually you'll get the hang of it. =3

Snapped? You mean like the time I broke my pencil after bursting into tears because I was so tired I couldn't draw a face correctly? 8U  

[Spastic waffles]

Yeah, that's about right. I started screaming at my sister and burst into tears because she broke my England mug.

Granted, it was my freaking england mug.  

[Spastic waffles]

Serenity, am I at least making progress with the rewrite? I tried very hard to do the show not tell thing.  

[Serenity Reed]

I'll have to look at it in the morning when I'm not lying down half asleep, okay? XD  

[Spastic waffles]

Okies.  

[Serenity Reed]

I think your only problem now is that you're a bit long-winded. The same actions take place, but you've taken a lot more time to get through them. While slowing down is usually a good thing, I think you've slowed a little too much. It seems like you were struggling to figure out what to write; any time this happens, it's a bit of a clue as to 'you've written too much'. This sequence needs a bit more urgency. So, next time you edit, cut some stuff out to sharpen it up. You've got some nice imagery here--which was also true of the previous draft--but it gets lost under all of the words.

As for the ending--the last few sentences are straight up telling. I think that's where you've raised your red flag. "She jumped at every passing car and hooting owl. She had been having this nightmare at least once a month for as long as she could remember. Not the slightest detail ever wavered." See, this isn't being shown in the story, you're just explaining it to us. The same goes for things like 'seven year old frame' and 'seventeen year old Amaya' and 'horrible flames'.

You can do it! Don't give up. You don't need to go overboard; keep it simple. =3  

[Spastic waffles]

I don't know that I'm going to be able to get away from saying outright that she's had the dream once a month for as long as she can remember, it's a detail that I could only show by repeating this sequence throughout the novel, which was not in the plan.

I'll probably drop out the "not the slightest detail ever wavered" part entirely, but (spoiler alert) that needs to be in there somehow, because it becomes important later. Then again, when it comes up later, it will probably be apparent, so maybe I can just leave that part out. Hmmmm.

Sorry, that was more for me than anyone else. XD
 

[Serenity Reed]

Sokay. You'll figure it out eventually, right?

Maybe she keeps a diary or something about each dream. That would be character and exposition at once. 8U Or something like that.  

[Spastic waffles]

Erm...I don't really like that. Sorry, it just doesn't fit. She wouldn't do that.  

[Serenity Reed]

Hey, it's just an idea. =/