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CONTEST ENDED – Thank you for submitting your stories!

#83: Tropical Getaway

Sometimes we all need a break from our current circumstances. When the world feels gray and lifeless, thoughts of warm beaches and sunny skies can sound more appealing than ever.

Travel has been hard to come by for a while now, but that doesn’t mean we can’t make an escape through our imaginations. So this week, let’s slather on the sunscreen, steal what daylight we can, and take our characters to the crystal beaches most of us can only imagine.

This week's prompts

Write about someone who goes to extreme lengths to get themselves to a tropical island.

Adventure – 91 stories

Start your story with someone emerging from the sea, and end it with them looking up at the stars.

Fantasy – 277 stories

Write about someone who’s lived on a tropical island their whole life and is leaving it for the very first time.

Dystopian – 83 stories

Write about someone who books a bargain vacation, only to be told when they arrive that they need to share a hotel suite with a stranger.

Dramatic – 148 stories

Write a fantasy story about water gods or spirits.

Fantasy – 227 stories

Stories

“The Last Entry” by Nyla N

Submitted to Contest #83

The waves brush against my sides; pulling and pushing me sideways, forwards, backwards, and under. I feel the strength of the current, hungering for something more. Never being one for open water, I run, the water parting as though it was softened butter. After what feels like an eternity, I emerge. My tiny feet leave light footprints in the gritty sand. My ankles become exposed to the chilly air as I distance myself and the shoreline. Feeling something slimy grazing my feet, I reach down to take it off and my eyes glance downwards by habit,...

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“The Girl From The Sea” by Luna Wood

Submitted to Contest #83

We pull her out of the sea as soon as we find her. She looks like she was about to go under. I stare at her as one of the crew members pulls her aboard. They bring her below deck and lay her down in one of the extra beds. The nurse sat in the bed next to her. After a little bit, the nurse shooed me out. I came back the next day. She was sleeping and shivering in her bed. The nurse had left. I threw a blanket over her. She calmed down a little bit. I left to go eat lunch and she was awake when I came back. "Hi." "Hi... where am I?" "You're o...

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“Island Getaway” by Lizzy Duffield-Fuller

Submitted to Contest #83

The day was endlessly blue, the heat rose in shimmering waves from the sand, painting everything with a golden glow, birds bickered in the treetops and I was utterly miserable. I scrunched my bare feet deep into the sands, feeling the grains congregate between my hooked toes and I sighed. Another day in paradise. I didn’t turn around as Tony threw himself down beside me, sending a spray of golden grains into the breezeless sky. “There you are, Celeste. Your mum’s looking for you.” I scowled at him but he only laughed. He never...

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“Human Fears” by Miruthulla Vaani

Submitted to Contest #83

A wood frame setting on a concrete block foundation. I have been living here for about 13 years but I had trouble falling asleep that night , my bed room was the entire top floor of our house. I promise sincearly that this has scared me for life and although I have looked into psychological explanations for what I heard and natural explanations for what occurred , the remain unsatisfactory. A Ghost is the soul or spirit of a dead person , my Grandfather told me about how. One time he was sitting in a chair in front of the house , he heard hi...

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“Gentle Waves of Love” by Katie Ingold

Submitted to Contest #83

Some adult content The gentle sway of the waves pushed me further inland as I floated along the surface of the water. My nerves threatened to overtake me the closer I got. Why did I hesitate? We’d met many times before. Since the day I found him floating on debris of his wrecked vessel, I couldn’t stay away. At first, I hid beneath the water and watched him walk along the pale sand, looking out towards me as if he searched for something. When he discovered the rocky coastline further down the beach, he would sit upon a c...

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“A Normal Day” by Prince .

Submitted to Contest #83

After a month off from writing, Prince, a teenager from a loving family, who wakes up every morning to live up his dreams, finally gets some time to write and participate in an online short story writing competition, that he hopes he will win some day. It is almost midnight and he can only hear himself breathing in his room. “Peace is what I want by the end of the day”, he tells himself. While selecting a soothing song on his mobile, he swiftly slides his head over the table and closes his eyes and starts to think what story is he going to w...

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“ The Moon Is Smiling Just For Me” by Connie Fisher

Submitted to Contest #83

I just arrived on this beautiful island, a dream realized of my Mother's planning and my living it. As not only her daughter, but caregiver as well, I was always the practical one, and Mom seemed to always be the dreamer. So she asked a promise of me that when she was gone, that I would do one thing, "Live A Dream!" Actually she never asked me what my dream was, she just sort of chose what her dream trip for me would be and so here I am, checking into a luxury hotel, for the first time ever on a real vacation, by myself. With a mixture of gr...

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“Fateful Vacation ” by Maraika!!! 😎

Submitted to Contest #83

Dinner at the Essington-Smith house was always a time of conversation, whether about how the world works, politics, or funny things that happened in their day. Today the topic was how people’s parents met. “Cassie’s parents met at a New Years eve party. It was love at first sight.” Sadie, the second oldest, said with a dreamy sigh. “Isn’t that so romantic?” Alyssa, the oldest,...

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“Mama's Special Blessings” by Keri Dyck

Submitted to Contest #83

The immensity of the sea rolled against her eardrums, resonating somewhere in her soul. The sky pulled her up, up, back into the air her lungs craved, but she pulled herself farther below the surface. Wren opened her eyes. The brine stung at first, but it was always worth it. Streaks of light pierced the greenish-brown water, always flickering and moving; but the focal point in her view, as it had been for the last four-and-a-half years, was her daughter. Eleanor had her eyes clenched tightly. Her little legs were wrapped a...

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“Ocean's Deep” by Day Goncalves

Submitted to Contest #83

I was ten, my mother took us to our beach apartment for the weekend. My brother was too young to remember, but I do, I do remember everything, and I know what happened. I've always felt a kind of transcendental attraction to the sea, I grew up in that apartment but we then moved to the city and since then we used it as a holiday house, attraction? sure, but not love. It had been a while since the last time we stayed there, my grandfather died, mom wanted to rest, to take a break from the busy life of the city, we ended up spending a weekend ...

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“Of Salt and Sand” by Cassandra Durnin

Submitted to Contest #83

Of Salt and Sand Your head finally, finally breaks the surface, with strong hands grabbing you by the underpits, half-throwing half-pulling you onto a wet, latex-like surface. The darkness swarms like a flock of angry crows, and everything burns with an icy cold. Your chest sparks to life in a rage of coughing, water streaming from your open mouth, and with it, the awful taste of salt and bile. There’s salted water in your eyes, and you have no clue who pulled you out, but none of that matters, none of it matters at all. Because now, a...

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“Bora Bora....” by Pamela Stanfield

Submitted to Contest #83

Today is the big day. After eleven dreadful years of working for a company who thinks of me as a number, not as a human with a beating heart, I'm finally out of this hideous place. No more corporate America. No more absurd weekly meetings. No more bonehead bosses who pit their employees against each other. No more backstabbing from my coworkers. No more being coerced into lying with a big, fat smile on my face. No more jokes I'm suppose to laugh at that aren't funny. No more contracts. No more bull malarkey. I'm FREE to be ME after today! Ma...

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“The Brightest One There” by Maryann Hammond

Submitted to Contest #83

The whole of my existence reduced to nothing. As I tried to open my eyes, the salt in the water stung them so bad I yelped; that only made things worse. Water rushed into my mouth and I quickly shut it. I tried to swim toward the surface but I didn't know which way to swim. I was so disoriented and lightheaded I felt like I was a feather floating in the wind.A feather floating in the windA feather landed on my nephew's nose as we sat down staring up at the clouds. "Eeekk," he squealed out; "Look Cara, Look." I glanced down at the little...

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“The Phoenix (Highmast series, flashback)” by Lizzy Duffield-Fuller

Submitted to Contest #83

Her lungs were screaming at her to breathe but Ryvette ignored them. As she was still submerged under the water, giving in to their tantrums didn’t seem like a good idea right now. Her muscles were screaming too, still stiff from the remnants of the poison draining out of her system. In fact, it felt like her whole body was a symphony of pain.Just a few moments more. I have to be sure. I’m not going back alive.Of course, drowning out here in the fetid wash of the corpse canal was not her preferred option either. Her hair, shimmeringly dark, ...

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“The Spirit Utopia” by Nakshatra Raj

Submitted to Contest #83

It was a brilliant day for Chris, the job he had been applying for three years had come to his doorstep in the form of an e-mail by the company’s director himself. ‘I’ll be a writer now!’ He exclaimed as he left his apartment and burst open the door of his red, not-so-ancient car. ‘I’ll write about all sorts of food, videogames … and especially that one - yeah, that one’s my favorite … I wish mom-dad were here and could see me.’ Chris’s mom and dad died last year in a car crash when they were on an energetic trip to see the giant ostriches i...

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$50

Prize money

826

Contest entries

0

Stories

Ended on 23:59 - Mar 05, 2021 EST

Won by Madalyn Meyers 🏆

Title: Burn Damage

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!

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