Here are the SHORTLISTED stories in this year’s MEGASAGA competition. Which would YOU give the £100 prize to?

The rules: stories have to be 100 words exactly, including the title. These are the submissions we have decided to put to the judges; if yours isn’t included, please don’t be despondent! It takes courage to submit an entry to a literary competition. We had several very good stories to choose from, and only one prize. Alas!

The WINNER will be announced in about a month’s time, Keep an eye on this website….

1)

Raging Sea

There I was enjoying the open world that was the sea. I was captured by the calmness, the peace and breezing air that the sea provided. Then a rude awakening awakened me, the sea raged at me, current shooting at my boat, everything that was loose in the boat was thrown around. The sea had turned on me, I hanged on to my boat for dear life and just as soon as the sea raged, the thunderstorm settled and the sea as once beautiful, the calm water looked innocent but most of all I survived the raging sea.

2)

Beauty 

I could taste the salt in the air and knew I had to get to the ocean, to sail across the turquoise water, being hypnotized by its mystical motion.

I thought about the lapping waves. My boat and I, like a remote island, surrounded by a mass of water. 

The gentle rocking of the boat, the ominous sky, the wind blowing through my hair… The most magical dream, that became a reality…

3)

Be Warned

 The oceans are mine! I have lived in their depths for longer than your kind has existed. In earlier times I have come to the surface and drawings of me destroying your wooden ships can be found on older maps. But they are incorrect in so many ways. I am much, much bigger than depicted. Up to now, I’ve been prepared to live alongside your kind, but your wanton pollution is ruining my world. Cease now or I will surface near your cities and destroy them one by one.

I am the Kraken and you have been warned. 

4)

Unchartered Waters: A Tale of Resilience in the Pandemic 

As relentless waves crashed upon the shore, a parallel unfolded throughout the world. The untamed sea mirrored the unstoppable spread of the Covid pandemic. As the virus surged through nations, the tides of uncertainty engulfed lives.

People faced isolation, confined like the ebb and flow of the tides. Amidst the darkness, a glimmer of hope emerged. Humanity’s resilience prevailed as the sea finds calm after the storm.

With united efforts, vaccines became the lighthouse guiding us toward brighter shores. Like the sea, the world adapted, emerged stronger, forever changed by turbulence.

5)

“SOMEWHERE BEYOND…”

You are all powerful, you laugh at us within your undecipherable expanse.

You are power and give life and happiness, you are what some call a god, always

there, always roaring, the sounds you make a constant murmur in our ears, reminding of

your presence.

But you take.

Without mercy or compassion.

One second you promise , the other you steal.

What joy you gave, is so quickly transformed in sorrow and despair.

And my tears will join the rest of what you stole, in your rolling, crashing waves.

Grant my final wish: May I forever stay lost.

6)

Captivity

Between me and the sea, merely wood. I don’t know how thick it is. There is more between me and sky. I know it’s wood because when I knock on it, it makes the noise of a deep catarrhal throat. When I run my fingers over it, sometimes it intrudes thin pins of pain into my flesh, which break when I try to remove them.

How do I know my horizontal world is  sea and my vertical world is sky, outside the wood? Sky and sea trickle in.  Crack, crinkle and intrude like clues as to who I am.