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This story has a great premise but is in need of some editing, maybe another draft. At some points it was hard to follow and I caught a few spelling and grammer errors. Try cleaning up the dialouge a bit. I liked Korrina's chararcter, very intellegent yet innocent/naive at the same time.
SPOILERS
You have an interesting concept here but need a lot of work on the execution. I would guess that this is first or second draft given the way it reads. The first thing I'd recommend is a few more iterations of read/edit to clean things up a bit. Anything that doesn't read "smoothly", that you have to think too much to follow or stumble over as you read, is something that you want to change.
Here's an example of something else I noticed: "Two talked and played for the next hour. Lauren learned what happened between Zack and one of Korrina’s friend."
Those sentences represent two distinct things happening but don't really tell you anything about what happened. My suggestion would be to break them into two paragraphs and expand on what happened. Better yet, expand on the first part and hint at what Lauren learned while listening to the children play. You did a decent job of this with Korrina's power. There are hints that she has some means of bending people to her will without anything that actually reveals how she does it until the very end of the story. You're reveal there works pretty well.
On the other hand, the last two sentences need a little more. Lauran being bound to Korrina's mother because she knows the truth falls a little flat. I'm not sure if Korrina's dialog here needs to be fixed or there needs to be more on Lauren's realization that Korrina is right. Not sure.
Overall, I think you have a good concept, and a solid handle on your world. It reminds me a touch of the universe in Heinlein's "I Will Fear No Evil". You just need a bit of polish to get it into shape.
Definitely Keep At It!
Thanks for your input. This isn't the first idea I had for this city, but its one I thought I could get to work with the length I was given.
Bummer, for some reason your doc won't load and I can't read it. :(
There's good concepts here that you do really well to keep in the background with hints strewn throughout. The Dern family are written very well. Lauren is a good character for the reader to follow into the story. The story itself though just doesn't quite grab. I kept expecting it to hit the next gear, but it never did. You have enough left within the word count limitations to push it on, to turn those hints into something more. Really cut loose on what Korrina can do, and increase the tension and the conflict. There is nothing wrong with the ending itself, but it just needs more behind it for it to have the necessary meaning. I'd consider maybe re-working the beginning as well, those opening few paragraphs are pure scene-setting, and they'd be better dripped through the story much as you do with the hints about the Derns. There is a lot here that you do very well, and I think you might have a great story with just a little more work.
Thanks. I will consider these ideas more when I can expand more on the story.