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CONTEST ENDED – Thank you for submitting your stories!

#245: Heavenly Bodies

On Monday, a total solar eclipse will pass directly over North America. Dubbed a "Great American Eclipse", huge areas of the continent will be plunged into darkness for four minutes. Miss it, and you'll have to wait another 20 years to see the next one.


Just like the millions of people who will watch on Monday, we've been looking up at the sky and asking questions about what we see since time immemorial. We've explained the movements of celestial bodies through myth, science, and ritual, and shaped our lives around them. This contest's prompts are inspired by this week's astronomical event, and the way objects trillions of miles away can impact us here on Earth.

This week's prompts

Set your story during a total eclipse — either natural, or man-made.

Fiction – 72 stories

Write a story in which a character navigates using the stars.

Adventure – 24 stories

Imagine an origin myth that somebody might use to explain an eclipse, or some other celestial event.

Fantasy – 48 stories

People have gathered to witness a once-in-a-lifetime natural phenomenon, but what happens next is not what they expected.

Mystery – 43 stories

Set your story in a world where astrology and the movements of celestial bodies deeply impact the lives of inhabitants.

Fantasy – 36 stories

Stories

“The Sun, the Moon, and the deep, dark Sea” by P. C. Lepelblad

Submitted to Contest #245

Before the Beginning, when the world was mostly rocks and beasts, and much less interesting but altogether more quiet—the Moon loved the Sea. She loved them most terribly. With every intake of her even breath, she watched the tide pull inexorably closer, and with every exhale, observed the lapping of their gentle waves. The Moon wanted nothing more than to speak to them, to learn the rhythms of their froth and blue. And so, after a long mustering of courage, she approached her mother: The Centre of All Things. "The Sea?" exclaimed her mother...

1 comment 1
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“The Legends of Maclaughlin Lake” by Roger Skrypczak

Submitted to Contest #245

As the big day approached, excitement about the pending total eclipse of the sun was building. It was early April, and several of our neighbors were heading South to get closer to the path where the moon would be directly between the Earth and the sun. That was not in my mom and stepdad’s plans, however. Nolly and Rob headed North to MacLaughlin Lake, where our family-owned cabin was located. It was time to de-winterize the cabin and get it ready for the beginning of fishing season. MacLaughlin Lake has been in the family for nearly one...

1 comment 1
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“The Incident” by Laura Nicole

Submitted to Contest #245

Oakvale was the type of town in the middle of nowhere with a church on every corner and a cracking main street filled with potholes. The type of town where everybody knew their neighbor and their neighbor knew everybody. And it was all I had known for the first eighteen years of my life. Up until after the incident.It started as a cold spring morning: the air hung crisp, and soft tendrils of mist wove through slumbering trees. The glass of the passenger seat window cooled the flush of my cheek. My fever was finally waning—for the past f...

8 comments 8
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“The Girl With Stars In Her Eyes” by Cedar Barkwood

Submitted to Contest #245

Trigger Warning: Death and psychotic illness and reactions. --- ---The doctors always told me that I was broken, that there was something different with my mind. I never believed them before I saw it…--- ---My name is Tara, I’m sixteen, I have one sister, two parents, and around thirteen psychologists, and four therapists. I have these dull green eyes, not bright leafy green, not insightful piercing green, no. Dull, sick green. I have choppy brown hair that curls, molding to the shape of my head.  I would kill somebody for my sister. I...

11 comments 11
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“Manmade Eclipse ” by Dov Kurtis

Submitted to Contest #245

The director was a perfectionist and everyone was always pissed at him. He’d do each take twenty thirty times over and wouldn’t let the people leave until they got it right. It had to be perfect. Now it was his best film yet and they were on the very last night. It took place in the desert at night on the roof of a car. There was a boy and a girl. “Kiss more slowly,” he said. Well they did it again. “That’s too slow. Faster.” Again. “Let me see it with the brights on.” Again. “Move the car. I want the moon in the background.” “Holy shi...

2 comments 2
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“Eclipse Day” by Jennifer Luckett

Submitted to Contest #245

  “Hasn’t it started already?” Randall teetered on the makeshift stand, and the protective glasses slid down his tiny nose.  “Don’t think so, Randy,” his older sister Jessie said, water dribbling from her watering can as she headed toward their mother’s vegetable garden. Intense sunlight dotted her forehead and neck with beads of perspiration. Jessie had abandoned her eyewear for the solar eclipse, dressing in a hurry to begin the morning chores, after their angry voices interrupted her sleep.  “Look, Randy, the...

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“Bodies in Space” by Angelica Sophia

Submitted to Contest #245

They say the moon controls our emotions. E-motion as invisible and real as electrons, protons, and neurons. That stuff life’s made out of, built on. The little things under the surface that collectively make and move masses bit by bit.  Elisa considered her feelings as the shadows around her began to collect and shift. A shadow for the shadow, doubled, darkness magnified. The eclipse was starting. That moment when the moon covers the face of the sun.  But, what was it to her? Why did she care? “C’mon everyone, let’s go outside,”...

2 comments 2
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“An Acceptable Offering” by Bec Newton

Submitted to Contest #245

Peeka slipped through the dense underbrush, the broad leaves of tropical plants sliding over his sweat slicked skin as buzzing, biting bugs hounded his trail. He tried to ignore their droning, knowing that they would not bite him through the sap of the maytu plant he had smeared on his naked body.The rains had finally ceased and the waterways were dropping to their usual levels but it had left a denseness to the air, thick and heavy in the lungs. But the oppressive moisture was not the only thing that arrived with the passing of the rains.A ...

6 comments 6
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“The Tail of the Comet” by LISA Brown

Submitted to Contest #245

Being pregnant was a trip. She was getting toward the end and in a few weeks she could drink coffee again. Yay! She was still thinking about what would happen after the baby arrived but figured she would come up with something. For now, she was living with her mother, Rebecca, helping with her business in exchange for room and board. Her mother was a self described empath. A psychic. She had customers and crystals. And business cards. At least she didn’t have a 1-800 number. Yet.Katharine sat at the kitchen table monitoring the phones, grudg...

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“The Child of the Eclipse” by Charli Adams

Submitted to Contest #245

I was born during the time when the moon stole the sun. They told me I was special because that day was special. My birthday became holiday for my people, but of course, that was after the initial fear and confusion caused by the events that day had been adequately addressed. On the day in question, just before I was born, the elders huddled in conference as darkness spread where light should have touched for hours yet. Their worry was like a wildfire, spreading through the village faster than gossip and amplifying my people's fear. They won...

3 comments 3
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“Because The Stars Vanished ” by Kaelyn Klaus

Submitted to Contest #245

Holly walks out from one of the tall towers in New York City. She sets her jaw as she walks out from one of the tall towers in New York City. She has had a long, hard few days of working to write an article about space but more importantly, the stars, and then when she finally turns it in…her manager says it’s too scientific. What does he want? Is it a fun bedtime story with kittens and teddy bears? It’s about space! It’s not a bedtime story, and it’s definitely not cuddly.   Being a reporter is difficult, but she can’t just q...

7 comments 7
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“A Tale for the Gods: Eos Lost” by Khadija S. Mohammad

Submitted to Contest #245

Artemis was bathing in her favourite pool with her dryad friends, when Apollo appeared. Though the temporarily blinding flash of light that came with his arrival was nothing new to Apollo's twin sister, or her nymphs, it still took them a moment to regain their sight. Recovering, they discovered Apollo already before them, shielding his eyes, as well as Aphrodite, who was looking oddly smug. Apollo's hand was over the eyes of young Hermes, his brother.Artemis sighed, and ushered the dryads out of the pool and into their respective trees. Ent...

15 comments 15
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“Filethelia” by Rubekkah Estero

Submitted to Contest #245

I know not what will happen when the power takes hold of me, though my father has been preparing me for this day for the past eighteen years.  I stand on the clifftops of Yapeche, my home for my entire life, and that of generations of Filethelias before me. If my destiny fails me here tonight, I may be the last.  The sun has finally fallen below the horizon, and the last colours are fading from the sky to be replaced by the dark of night. I glance down at the peninsula below me, where our men are locked in intense battle ...

4 comments 4
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“Bringing Back the Glow” by Bob Faszczewski

Submitted to Contest #245

       For hundreds of years residents of the Northern Hemisphere had romped throughout the summer wearing as little attire as possible in their local lakes and the world's oceans.       In 2929, though, the sun left the planet midway through the season and disappeared behind the haunting and oversized shadow of the Earth’s moon.     Solar eclipses had happened frequently, often more than once a year, several times during our home base’s long histo...

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“The Day the Gods Embraced” by Aeryn Goodspeed

Submitted to Contest #245

(Glossary provided at the end of the story.)Frræ looked up.The red eye of Wau peered down at him, Her solar rays beaming out somehow brighter than they usually did. Below Her, hanging low in the sky, Rau’s eye was encroaching.Frræ narrowed his eyes. The two celestial bodies rarely came so close together–it had been cycles since Rau had even been visible during the day. With His shadow toward the world, no one could tell the color of the moon’s surface. Everyone knew it was periwinkle, but right now it was black.“What?” Muræ asked behind him....

2 comments 2
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$250

Prize money

223

Contest entries

89

Stories

Ended on 23:59 - Apr 12, 2024 EST

Won by Olivier Breuleux 🏆

Title: Everything is Connected

Submissions must be between 1,000 - 3,000 words and will be approved and published on Reedsy Prompts within 7 days of the contest closing.

Read the full terms & conditions or check out the FAQ if you have any questions!

Prompts | Big Blue Hand | 2024-11

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