Ended BYC Writing Prompts! A Short Story Contest

[Blue Raptor]

Winners announced here!​

This contest is brought to you by our BYC Sponsors
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BYC Writing Prompts! A Short Story Contest
Ends May 28th, 2023
​

Have you ever envisioned a storyline, but never been able to write it down? Have you ever had the urge to put to words a plot scene or to give an awesome character the perfect backstory they deserve? Well, now you can!

The Process:

• Write your short story based on the genre of a prompt of your choosing. Here are some suggestions:
  • poultry, western, fantasy, mythology, adventure, comedy, mystery, thriller, nonfiction, fanfic, sci-fi, fairytale, recount, crime, historical, cyberpunk, utopia, dystopia, survival, pirate, drama, apocalyptic, robots, dragons animals, birds, medieval
• Write your short story based on the prompt of your choosing.
• You can use another site for writing, then copy and paste your story and post it as your first, second, third, or fourth entry here on this thread.
• Include the prompt & the title of your story at the top of your post.
• Limit your story to 1,000 words (we don’t want to tire out the judges).
• Make sure your story is clearly worded with proper spelling & grammar. Read your story carefully to ensure you haven’t made any errors.
• One member can post up to four Short Stories! One story per post, please.

Prizes

Place	Prize
1st	$50 BYC Store Gift Certificate or 1-year PFMs ($60 value) for themselves or a friend.
2nd	$30 BYC Store Gift Certificate or a 6-month PFM ($35 value) for themselves or a friend.
3rd	$15 BYC Store Gift Certificate or a 3-month PFM ($20 value) for themselves or a friend.
4th	1-month PFM for themselves or a friend.

BYC Store Gift Certificates are available to winners in the United States. If the winners are outside the United States, they will be awarded the PFM instead.

Rules:

1. All stories must be written by you. NO copyrighted content or plagiarism is allowed!
2. Four entries per member. An entry is *one* story.
3. Proper spelling and grammar count.
4. Include the prompt & the title of your story at the top of your post.
5. All stories must have at least 200 words. We know we can get carried away with the stories, too, so please keep the maximum amount of words at 1,000.
6. Illustrations and pictures are allowed as long as they were taken/made by you.
7. Please spell-check and grammar-check your stories. We won’t just be judging the quality of the story, but also the grammar.
8. Copying and pasting your writings from another site is allowed.
9. Your story doesn’t have to be a new work, as we know most stories would certainly exceed our set word count. Your entry can be a section or two from an already complete work of your own writing.
10. All content should be rated G and suitable for all ages.
11. ALL stories & pictures MUST be uploaded to BYC and not hosted on other image sites, personal websites, etc.
12. Prizes are limited to one per person per contest.
13. All BYC rules apply: Terms of Service (Rules)
14. Entries will be accepted until May 28th, 2023, at 11:59 PM Pacific Time.

Sample Entry:

Prompt: Poultry
Title: The Rooster's Song

The rooster had always been criticized for his crowing. The other animals on the farm claimed that his voice was too loud, too shrill, and too obnoxious. They tried to ignore it or even drown it out with their own far quieter songs.

But the rooster refused to give up. Every morning, he woke up with the sun, standing on the highest perch he could find, and crowing as loudly as he could. His song was filled with passion and hope, joy and optimism. He sang of the new day that lay before them, the bountiful harvest that awaited them, and the endless possibilities they could achieve.

At first, the other animals tried to ignore him, but slowly, they began to listen. They heard the rooster's words, and they felt a sense of hope swell within their hearts. They realized that the rooster's song was not obnoxious, but rather inspiring.

And so, they began to join in. The cows lowed, the pigs grunted, and even the mice squeaked in tune with the rooster's song. They harmonized together, creating a beautiful melody that rang out through the farm.

And so, the rooster's crowing was no longer a source of criticism but rather a source of inspiration. It had united the animals and brought them together, and they knew that as long as they had the rooster's song, they could overcome any challenges that lay ahead.

 

[the_peanut_coop]

Prompt: Sci-Fi
Title: Shimmersitus

Thomson Jen started with loving hate at the little worm that he held between his fingers.
“Oh, you little scoundrel. Just another bad streak from the gene pool. Almost had me there.”
Frustrated fingers crushed the little parasitic worm, blood pumping faster, boiling like liquid oxygen at room temperature. Containing his anger was not an option. He threw the infuriating tank down to the ground, whirling around to leave.
Suddenly a glimmer showed in his peripheral vision. He froze, and, turning around, he found that he truly had made a huge mistake.
“No!” the cry jolted through his veins like an electric shock as he saw it. The perfect specimen, the most well-bred creature that cost him many years on the island, and it was dead. Punctured right through its parasitic heart, slowly spewing a shimmering liquid out onto the dirt and the floor of the research cabin.
“The blood isn’t clotting- it’s dead…” Thomson whispered, his voice rasping against his empty heart and stomach.
He knelt on the ground, picking up the thin, clear body and frantically searching for another. Just one more perfect worm, he thought.
There was none. He sat there, his head in his hands, wishing to break the quiet.
The chopping of enormous blades sounded through the air.
“A helicopter!” Thomson jumped to his feet, putting the limp worm in his front shirt pocket. He threw open the doors of the lab and ran up the stairs, flinging open the trapdoor and running out into the sunlight. He waved his arms wildly, closing his eyes to the sun. The noise of a megaphone pierced his ears.
“Sir, please remain calm. We are sent from the United States coast guard and are fully equipped to assist you back to our country.”
Thomston stopped running and flailing his arms and tried to remember what it was like to be with other people.
“Oh, hello!” he said, pausing in between his sentences awkwardly as he tried to convey his message. “I have been… waiting for you! When is now?”
The female coast guard looked him up and down, exiting the helicopter. “‘Now’ is 2030. We have to get you to a hospital, so please come with us.”
Boarding the helicopter, he contemplated this. Seven years? He asked himself. Aloud, he said, “I’ve been on that island for longer than I thought.”
“We know,” said the woman, as the helicopter took off. “Your research submission mail was lost in the process of getting to the CDC, we only recently recovered it. Your research is far too dangerous. We’ve come to shut it down.”
“What?!”
“We are sorry that you have been left there for so long. You will be compensated.”
“All the money in the world couldn’t compensate for what I’ve been through. Disease, starvation, I’ve been a centimeter away from death all of those years, with one purpose, and now you’re destroying it?”
“Mr. Jen, please try to take your attachment from this situation. We’re doing our job.”
Thomson slumped sadly into the helicopter seat, anger brewing inside of him. But he couldn’t lash out at the woman. He couldn’t hit his rescuer. Hitting things was for crazy Thomson who was stuck on an island. Now he was Professor Jen, and he was going to stay calm and allow his research to be destroyed.

** Six months after the discovery and rescue of Professor Jen**

Thomson leaned against the door, attempting to block entry from the people banging on it.
“Please, sir, my son is coughing glitter!” “Professor Jen, We heard you might have a cure, please open the door!” “Thomson Jen, what do you have to say to the public about the newly dubbed ‘Shimmersitus?’ ”
The press! Thought Thomson hopefully. He opened the door and pushed his way through the people towards the reporter and his cameraman.
“I know nothing about the disease.” Thomsen said flatly to the camera. “Just because I was one of the first patients to test positive for Shimmersitus does not mean that it had anything to do with me or the island that I lived on. That is all I have to say.” Thomson whirled on his heel and stomped back into his house.
The banging didn’t continue, which made sense, but the sudden silence outside was intriguing. Then, on the floor, he saw his demise. A trail of glitter had led from his shoes, out into the hall, and back again. He braced himself.
“It’s the plague!” “Get off of the porch!” “Don’t breathe it in!” “Call the police!”
The glitter wasn’t blood, Thomson had found after he had come home, but eggs. Billions of the smallest eggs, all meant to be breathed, eaten, or absorbed in some way into a host. If it were eaten, it would begin to take over the digestive system and then move to the rest of the body. If it were breathed in, it would continue to the respiratory system and then eat the body from there, and so on.
It was a dangerous and contagious parasite, but Thomson couldn’t stop letting them breed. Something inside him (the parasites) forever said, “Not yet, just let the project go for a little longer.” After making the discovery about the eggs, he incubated the glitter until they all hatched to become parasites of their own, and his project was reborn.
The parasites that had made their way to his brain, both metaphorically and physically, wiggling and shining with glee. The world would never be rid of them. Glitter was far too abundant, and the inevitably of it hatching loomed over society like death itself. The glitter that was spread to the halls, or coughed up at hospitals, or donated through blood would all one day be another parasite, and make another billion pieces of glitter. The world’s most vicious cycle went on with no end.

 

[Blue Raptor]

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Come join us!

 

[cluckmecoop7]

Following

 

[Amer]

Prompt: Fairy Tale
Title: The Beggar's Unicorn

Once upon a time, there was a rich man. He had fine clothes, a large house, and all the luxuries that he had ever wanted. He also had a great amount of gold stored away in the safe in his cellar, and another fortune in the bank.
One day he was taking a stroll through the town market. It was crowded with stalls and people jostling to buy and sell. Beside one stall stood a hunched beggar. His clothes looked like they had once been fine, but now they were ragged. He carried the tired look in his eyes of someone who has watched helplessly as his prosperity slipped through his fingers. He looked up at the rich man, noted his rich clothing, and muttered “He’ll do.”
The beggar approached the rich man. “I have something no one has ever offered to you before, truly, it will be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for you,” he said.
The rich man turned, wondering what this beggar was trying to swindle him into buying. “What is it?” the rich man asked curiously.
“A unicorn,” the beggar said simply. To the rich man’s great astonishment, when the beggar tugged on a rope, a gleaming white unicorn strode out from behind the stall where he stood. She was tall, slender, and beautiful, with a twisted, pearlescent horn sprouting from her forehead. “Probably the last of her kind. They’ve near died out. Partly because they’re hunted for their healing horns, but mostly because of their diet. There just aren’t enough diamonds and gold lying around anymore, so they all starved. I’d hate to see Pearl languish like that.”
The rich man knew immediately that he had to have her. For who else in the world owned such a magnificent creature? “How much does she cost?” he asked. He was prepared to pay any price.
He expected the beggar to demand millions, but instead, with a twinkle in his eyes, he said, “All you must pay is a penny and a promise.”
The rich man was confused, but he pressed a penny into the beggar’s palm, though he felt it was robbery to take the only thing of any worth from the beggar for such a paltry amount.
“What you must promise me is this,” the beggar continued. “Pearl will always be well taken care of, and she must be protected from hunters and robbers. They’d do anything to get her healing horn. She only eats gold and jewels and promise me that you will never give her any less than she needs.”
“I promise,” the rich man said. What was a little gold for such a marvelous beast?
The beggar looked at the gleaming penny sitting in his palm with a smile. “You’d be surprised to hear that this is the first penny I ever got in return for my investment in her.”

The rich man walked home joyfully with “Pearl” trotting behind him.
When he arrived home, he proudly showed his prize to his wife and explained her rather particular requirements.
“Looks more like a white elephant than a unicorn to me,” was all she could say.
The rich man guided her carefully to his stables and put her in a stable with the softest straw and fed her with a bucket full of gold he retrieved from the great safe in his cellar. She ate ravenously, and the man wondered how she could have lived with such a poor man. Barely, probably. He felt fortunate that he could provide for Pearl and felt obliged to hire a guard for her to keep her safe from robbers at night.
The rich man quickly discovered just how expensive it was to own a unicorn. She ate like a horse, and even a pound of her food was worth a fortune. Soon he found that all of the money in the safe in his cellar had run out. He began to dig into the money he had in the bank.
But the rich man never considered getting rid of her. The longer he owned Pearl, the more he felt responsible for her. No one else was capable of caring for her like he was, and he didn’t want such a remarkable species to die out.
He considered restricting her diet but remembered his promise to the beggar. He was thankful she had only cost a penny.
The money in the bank was running dangerously low, but the not-quite-so-inexhaustibly-wealthy man still needed gold for Pearl and to pay her guard.
So he made the difficult decision to downsize. It started off easily enough.
He could sell a few extra horses, could get rid of some of the clutter in his home, could do without the furniture in the guest room upstairs.
But even all that hardly fed Pearl for a day.
So the man reduced the size of his estate.
Every day he got poorer and poorer. His wife left him. It was long since he had sold his large house when he found himself penniless in a tiny stable that he shared with Pearl. He realized then that he didn’t have anything left to give her. The last drop of his gold had run out.
He knew what he had to do. He tied that old rope around her neck, the same one he had brought her home with, and took her to the market. The man leaned against a stall, looking no better than a beggar. Maybe that’s why the stall owners pitied him and allowed him to stay. Maybe that’s what he was now. A beggar.
Please, take this unicorn. That’s what he wanted to beg. He didn’t think long about the price. Any more would be a robbery.
He waited until he saw a man that seemed fit for the undertaking, dressed in rich crimson silk. “He’ll do.”
“How much?” the rich man would ask.
“A penny and a promise,” the beggar would reply.

 

[Crestcrazy2]

Prompt: Sci-Fi
Title: Shimmersitus

Thomson Jen started with loving hate at the little worm that he held between his fingers.
“Oh, you little scoundrel. Just another bad streak from the gene pool. Almost had me there.”
Frustrated fingers crushed the little parasitic worm, blood pumping faster, boiling like liquid oxygen at room temperature. Containing his anger was not an option. He threw the infuriating tank down to the ground, whirling around to leave.
Suddenly a glimmer showed in his peripheral vision. He froze, and, turning around, he found that he truly had made a huge mistake.
“No!” the cry jolted through his veins like an electric shock as he saw it. The perfect specimen, the most well-bred creature that cost him many years on the island, and it was dead. Punctured right through its parasitic heart, slowly spewing a shimmering liquid out onto the dirt and the floor of the research cabin.
“The blood isn’t clotting- it’s dead…” Thomson whispered, his voice rasping against his empty heart and stomach.
He knelt on the ground, picking up the thin, clear body and frantically searching for another. Just one more perfect worm, he thought.
There was none. He sat there, his head in his hands, wishing to break the quiet.
The chopping of enormous blades sounded through the air.
“A helicopter!” Thomson jumped to his feet, putting the limp worm in his front shirt pocket. He threw open the doors of the lab and ran up the stairs, flinging open the trapdoor and running out into the sunlight. He waved his arms wildly, closing his eyes to the sun. The noise of a megaphone pierced his ears.
“Sir, please remain calm. We are sent from the United States coast guard and are fully equipped to assist you back to our country.”
Thomston stopped running and flailing his arms and tried to remember what it was like to be with other people.
“Oh, hello!” he said, pausing in between his sentences awkwardly as he tried to convey his message. “I have been… waiting for you! When is now?”
The female coast guard looked him up and down, exiting the helicopter. “‘Now’ is 2030. We have to get you to a hospital, so please come with us.”
Boarding the helicopter, he contemplated this. Seven years? He asked himself. Aloud, he said, “I’ve been on that island for longer than I thought.”
“We know,” said the woman, as the helicopter took off. “Your research submission mail was lost in the process of getting to the CDC, we only recently recovered it. Your research is far too dangerous. We’ve come to shut it down.”
“What?!”
“We are sorry that you have been left there for so long. You will be compensated.”
“All the money in the world couldn’t compensate for what I’ve been through. Disease, starvation, I’ve been a centimeter away from death all of those years, with one purpose, and now you’re destroying it?”
“Mr. Jen, please try to take your attachment from this situation. We’re doing our job.”
Thomson slumped sadly into the helicopter seat, anger brewing inside of him. But he couldn’t lash out at the woman. He couldn’t hit his rescuer. Hitting things was for crazy Thomson who was stuck on an island. Now he was Professor Jen, and he was going to stay calm and allow his research to be destroyed.

** Six months after the discovery and rescue of Professor Jen**

Thomson leaned against the door, attempting to block entry from the people banging on it.
“Please, sir, my son is coughing glitter!” “Professor Jen, We heard you might have a cure, please open the door!” “Thomson Jen, what do you have to say to the public about the newly dubbed ‘Shimmersitus?’ ”
The press! Thought Thomson hopefully. He opened the door and pushed his way through the people towards the reporter and his cameraman.
“I know nothing about the disease.” Thomsen said flatly to the camera. “Just because I was one of the first patients to test positive for Shimmersitus does not mean that it had anything to do with me or the island that I lived on. That is all I have to say.” Thomson whirled on his heel and stomped back into his house.
The banging didn’t continue, which made sense, but the sudden silence outside was intriguing. Then, on the floor, he saw his demise. A trail of glitter had led from his shoes, out into the hall, and back again. He braced himself.
“It’s the plague!” “Get off of the porch!” “Don’t breathe it in!” “Call the police!”
The glitter wasn’t blood, Thomson had found after he had come home, but eggs. Billions of the smallest eggs, all meant to be breathed, eaten, or absorbed in some way into a host. If it were eaten, it would begin to take over the digestive system and then move to the rest of the body. If it were breathed in, it would continue to the respiratory system and then eat the body from there, and so on.
It was a dangerous and contagious parasite, but Thomson couldn’t stop letting them breed. Something inside him (the parasites) forever said, “Not yet, just let the project go for a little longer.” After making the discovery about the eggs, he incubated the glitter until they all hatched to become parasites of their own, and his project was reborn.
The parasites that had made their way to his brain, both metaphorically and physically, wiggling and shining with glee. The world would never be rid of them. Glitter was far too abundant, and the inevitably of it hatching loomed over society like death itself. The glitter that was spread to the halls, or coughed up at hospitals, or donated through blood would all one day be another parasite, and make another billion pieces of glitter. The world’s most vicious cycle went on with no end.

I love this! I literally have one very similar on Google docs! Lol

 

[the_peanut_coop]

I love this! I literally have one very similar on Google docs! Lol

Oh lol
I definitely didn't hack into your account

 

[awkwardkale]

I might have to join this competition! Love everyone’s entries

 

[Sally PB]

Following!

 

[Lacy Duckwing]

Awesome contest @Blue Raptor! Following!