The Forest of 5 Paths | Short Story Contest

“There’s nothing more frightening – and exciting – than getting lost in a forest. There is a journey towards the light, and you’ve got to go through the dark to get to the light. That’s what the forest is all about” 

– David Farr

   With only a lantern in hand and a gloomy path before you, you mourn the loss of your brother's sword. Now and forever trapped in a dragon's belly. 

   The thought of his distress when he learns that his only friend, (his sword, not you, of course), is gone for good makes the high chance that you'll never get out of this forest alive not seem so bad.

   Your lantern clicks and clanks as the handle bangs up against the hold of the lantern. This and your exasperated breaths echo through the forest and ring in your ears. You've never been the stealthiest traveler, but now more than ever how you wished you were.

   The trees tower over you like sickly thin giants, starving for water and light that the night wouldn't provide. Reaching out with their branches for anything they could grab onto. Scratching your arms, ankles, and face.

   You try to keep a steady pace, however, with each sound the forest groans and whispers, your feet drag and stumble.

   You hear a faint noise similar to a whistle and your eyes franticly search for the sound's source.

Was it the trees, or something behind them? 

You shake your head and try to get a hold of yourself. You thought you were much braver than this. Spending day after day chasing and slaying dragons, a simple journey through the forest should be nothing to you.

   But even so, in the endless expanse of towering tree trunks, creeping branches, and a dimming lantern as your only companion, you feel about as brave as a deer when locks eyes with a hunter, between the crucial moment when the hunter's arrow is released and has hit its target.

   You close your eyes for a moment in an attempt to slow your heartbeat. The forest can't be too big right? Otherwise, you would have heard about it from the local travelers. They never missed the chance to talk of something out of the ordinary.

   But you are of course wrong. You know very little about the forest, and even less than you thought.

   You open your eyes just in time to stop yourself from slamming into a tree. Your heartbeat pounds in your ears. Where had it come from? Just a moment before you were heading straight down a path.

   You turn all-around you, trying to see if you somehow stepped off the path slightly. But the path is nowhere to be seen. Just thick brush of black and dark green.

The feeling of being lost sinks in, sending shivers down your spine. 

Something cold brushes against your shoulder and your lantern's flame dies out.

You feel the temperature drop and darkness encompasses you.

March's Theme is...

5 mini short story contests!

Five contests, Five prompts, Five winners.

With the last of the Dragon Slayer articles submitted and finalized, we are switching things up with something fresh and exciting.

Below there are 5 short story prompts, all related to a theme. Which in this case, (as you may have guessed from the post's image and that little, short story excerpt), is the forest.

Write and submit a short story based on one or more of the prompts, and whoever writes the best short story using that prompt gets their story published on KP!

There will be one winner for each prompt, so five winners in total.

You can use one prompt and submit a single story, or you can write and submit multiple stories, each one using a different prompt.

Underneath each of the prompts there will be a regularly updated score of how many stories have been submitted for that particular prompt.

This is to help you know what the competition is like for each of the short story prompts! The fewer submissions a prompt has, the more likely you will win with a story submitted under that category.

Ready to get into the prompts? Here they are!

Short Story Prompts

#1. Here Today, Gone the Next, They Don't Send any Texts

Your group of friends goes into the woods every day to hang out. However, one day a friend doesn't show up. You don't think too much of it until the next day another friend is missing. Each day one less friend shows up until one day you walk into the forest alone.

#2. My New Roommate is a Mop

There is only one person in the entire school that doesn't bully you and who is actually kind to you. But you know nothing of him, except that he lives in a house in the woods outside the city. One day he leaves a book behind at school and you decide to return it to him. You travel to his house, and his mother thanks you for returning her son's book. She offers you food and you accept. Soon after eating, you get drowsy. Next thing you know, you are tied up in a dark closet.

#3. Tell me About Tomorrow until it Doesn't Exist

There is a tree in a forest that you know a little secret about. Every day a little inscription carves itself into the trunk of the tree and predicts one thing about the following day. From small things like how his best friend will wear sneakers tomorrow, to what the winning lottery number is. You are pretty happy about this super-power-like knowledge from the tree, until one day the inscription on the tree says you will die the next day with no explanation on how.

#4. No. Those Pokémon Cards are Not For Sale!

Your possessions mysteriously start disappearing, from books and clothes to cash and your great aunt's antique tea set. What's makes it more unsettling is that you live alone. One day when you are walking through the forest, you see a treehouse and you happen to catch a glimpse of something familiar through the windows. You climb inside the treehouse and find all your missing items along with something even more shocking.

#5. Deer family, I will Avenge You

You are a deer that can shapeshift into a human. You stay in deer form most days, but you love to shapeshift to talk with the humans who sometimes walk through the forest. All goes well until you talk with a man and find out that he is a hunter. But not just any hunter, he was the same hunter that killed your family.

Requirements

Step-by-Step Submission Guide

Articles to Help you on your journey this month

Look, writing a short story is daunting enough, but add on the fact that other people besides yourself will read it? This is no easy task.

You may feel curious about participating but doubt yourself and feel a bit lost and confused on where to even start. 

So, to help you out here are five articles that will give you some help and guidance on all things short stories.

Writing short stories is one of my favorite ways to push myself as a writer and take my imagination and characters to new places.

I hope you dare to explore deep into the forest and find inspiration and creativity to write amazing short stories.

Comment any and all questions you have about the contest below, and until next time, take heart, be courageous, and keep writing!

~ Kathleen Ramm