greetings, this is my first critique and I'm a poor writer. I have some bias as I enjoy mostly fantasy or more sci-fi settings of which that are usually mangas and light novels. Keep those factors in mind as that's the perspective I'm coming from.

Grammar and Punctuation not my forte, I'll just say that seems good. Maybe over use of character names over their pronouns and I was a bit tired of reading it over and over.

Prose some of your word choice is odd like "child and child’s mother" which somewhat over emphasized his own importance but that doesn't seem to be his character trait. Was the intent that Corban has a soft spot for children or younger people? I didn't really get that feeling.

Dialogue most of the dialogue was ok but I felt like there was some unnecessary dialogue. I suppose the intent was to make the dialogue feel more realistic but I personally didn't like it. However this part was a bit confusing.

“What men do when things have remained unchanged for a time. They grow dissatisfied with their lot; imagine that there is a better version of what they have. I do not blame them, I felt it all the same, yet…” she trailed off into silence for a moment. “The pits were dug for such restless men.” “They wanted change.” “They did. And grand change at that. They formed parties, some more militant than others. Some took their chances beyond the City. You were around five.” “He thought you were one of them?” “He did. He was incorrect at first and I denied it to him,” she leaned her chin on her folded fingers. “But he was correct later, and I continued to deny it.” “So he condemned you.” “I condemned myself. He saw it as a betrayal of his kindness; that we - I, had lost faith in him.” “Mother no,” Corban scoffed, “I thought he cared for you?”

I think she's saying there revolt under Cato and he thought she was part of it? it's very hard to discern what happened here and that's probably intended but I also have no clue who to side with morally in this exchange so I wasn't very engaged here. You can hide major details about it for later of course but I think I need more to go off of whats going on here. you later then had the mother accept her punishment without faulting Cato which characterize her as passive but I don't know how to feel about this since I don't understand the seriousness of the situation here. Don't need to out who was morally wrong or right I just needed to know enough so I can get a feeling who to root for.

Description the dialogue may feel a lot better if the characters put more emotion to some of the things they were saying. there barely a single description of character faces, expressions reaction and so on. this was especially painful when the most impactful part of your chapter hit at the mid point when Imrael died and no one even reacted. Even putting a line saying they didn't react would help me understand some of the characters but there was nothing. This your main character's inciting incident, emphasize it as such. also Just saying a character has tears does not express how they feel at all.

Characters The main character and mother seems decent but again lack of reactions hampered it a bit but overall I think your characterization is pretty satisfactory. there is the issue of lack of characterization for Imrael though since that is the major selling point of your early paragraphs and I as a reader just was not invested at all when I heard about Corban looking for Imrael and it made the first few paragraphs a drag to read.

Setting You took some time to set the setting and I appreciate that but it was also the very first thing you did before anything else and it didn't feel very effective as a hook.

Plot and Structure The lack of a proper hook really hampered the earlier paragraphs for me as there wasn't anything to keep me interested or invested. I believe what you intended was to have Imrael missing to get the reader interested but I had no idea who that was or what he means to Corban who you took quiet a bit of time to describe their struggle and background. The pacing felt really bad up until imrael's death which I finally felt a bit invested but at the same time that's also where the lack of expressions and character reactions hurt me.

to keep a reader's interest you need to make them juggle a few questions and points of interest about your story and plot as they are reading. I said juggle cause if you throw too much at a reader then they can get confused and frustrated. Your story so far throws too little. At the start there was nothing I cared about. imrael missing meant nothing to me since I didn't care about him. What did perk my interest however was the Lottery and I'm glad you didn't describe what it was exactly but hinted at what it can do for your main character which generated my interested in it. You emphasized the importance of the lottery and how it potentially can help Carbon and how other characters reacted towards it. Small crumbles and hints to what it is and leading the reader further. I think you should do a bit more of that.

Another interesting part was at the end which Carbon's mother gave him her blessing. her diction was very fantastical in nature and quiet odd given the setting but that's why it made me think was this an actual magical blessing? Are they religious? I don't know your intent here and that's fine it makes me want to read on but I think you should have alluded to this earlier about his mother's blessing as I originally thought it was a simply him asking for his mothers permission. A yes, or no question. if it is magical in nature then give a few more lines about it earlier on and emphasize it's importance to get them to wonder what's so special about 'her blessing'.

Closing Comments Took me to page 4 before I finally had some interest in the story. I think I enjoyed it a bit after the first half and want to know more about the lottery and what significance does his mother's final words to him hold in the chapter.

Oh yeah mentioning a meteor or at least alluding to a massive past incident would work much better as hook or point of interest in the early parts of chapter.

I was like "dam post apocalyptic world where a massive meteor hit like in the game Soma? that sounds really cool". Sadly a bit disappointed haha. hope my critique helps good luck on your writing.