Melody Starring didn't know what to think when a little girl shows up at her doorstep two months before her wedding, asking Melody to pretend to be her mother. Will this end well or in disaster? Written for TEGSA 2026.

Sean opened his eyes and blinked. This wasn't his run down apartment. There was a hand on his stomach. He lifted the quilt. Clothed. He breathed a sigh of relief but it didn't last long. He didn't remember last night and the woman lying beside him wore a gold band. Sean recalled his homeland, the place where he wasn't identified by his yellow skin of small eyes. Something like this would have disgraced his entire family. He tried to tip toe out of the bed and leave. That was when the woman stirred. "Where are you going this early Sean? It's Sunday. Everything is closed." the woman mumbled. Sean Thomas woke up in a strange woman's bed, a married woman's bed but the moment the woman woke up she started calling him her husband. She insisted that Sean had been the one who married her. She even took Sean to a building that they apparently co-owned. It was a Jazz bar smack in the middle of downtown Manhattan. But it couldn't belong to Sean who was an immigrant worker and dirt poor. But the woman insists that Sean is her husband and Sean wants that lie to be true. Esther David met Sean through an online dating app. Then the COVID struck and they were both confined to their countries. When Esther's grandmother died, she and Sean got married online through a pastor in Canada. Then Esther waited. When she finally meets her husband, he has a different last name and claims to not recognize her at all. Who is Sean David and where was he?

#1 in cozy-21/7/26 #3 in mythicalcreatures-31/7/26 Stories are not meant to be read. They are meant to hatch. In the hidden village of Brimblewick, stories are as valuable as money. Every tale told with genuine wonder leaves behind a mysterious egg in the Story Hatchery. When the story is shared once more, it hatches into a magical creature that nourishes the village in ways no one fully understands. Here, memories have feathers, hope has paws, and even the wind pauses to listen. Twelve-year-old Nell has spent years recording Brimblewick's quiet miracles-the way the Morning Chorus greets the dawn, the habits of Story Hatchlings, and the little pieces of magic everyone else takes for granted. But one morning, the Chorus falls silent. No eggs appear. No stories hatch. And for the first time in living memory, Brimblewick begins to starve. As whispers of greed, ambition, and forgotten wonder creep into the village, Nell must discover what truly gives stories life before the last tale is lost forever. Because stories don't just change people. They keep the world alive. (TEGSA 2026)

The dead have started calling the night shift. Mara Voss only wants to get through another understaffed night at Haus Abendruh-and make sure the dying Wiebke Tamm does not spend her final hours alone. Then an unplugged radio begins broadcasting The Last Request Show. Each song is dedicated to someone inside the care home. Some requests come from the living. Others come from people who have been dead for years. And with every song, the radio reveals another buried memory, unfinished love, or truth someone hoped would disappear with them. When Wiebke dies halfway through the programme, Mara realises the broadcast is not only speaking to the dying. It is speaking to everyone left behind. Before the tenth song plays, Mara must uncover what the radio wants-and decide whether remembering the dead is an act of love or another way of refusing to let them go. Because in Haus Abendruh, death is not the end of the night shift.

~ She has a mother's heart but a selkie skin ... and it is calling ~ On the twenty-fourth birthday of her daughter, Lena remembers the life she once abandoned for love. How wild and free, how very different it was. The roar of the ocean stirs her blood. Selkie whispers are calling her home. With her husband dead and buried, her daughter engaged to be married ... she's not needed here anymore, is she? Surely, she can retreat to the ocean now? 🦭🦭🦭🦭🦭🦭🦭🦭🦭🦭🦭🦭🦭🦭🦭 this story is write for #tegsa2026 @officialTEGSA 🦭🦭🦭🦭🦭🦭🦭🦭🦭🦭🦭🦭🦭🦭🦭 CW‼️ Perhaps a bit of smut 😬

(Updates Sundays) After her father dies, Tara realizes she has nothing to live for. Sometimes, she thinks of it as a curse, but when she realizes there is a reason for everything, she cannot wait to see what will happen next. She struggles with grief, but not in the way you would expect. She explores through nature, animals, and even her own sister helps her through it. Until Tara realizes her sister might face the consequences she doesn't deserve to face. Was her wish a gift or a curse? Read to find out!

TEGSA '26 ... Broken and bereft of everything he ever loved, the king was ready to welcome death. But his nightmare was only beginning. Bound to a Queen who has vowed to make his existence a living hell, Evreux finds his grief weaponized against him. It shall be twisted by his own wife until the people he swore to protect will view him as the kingdom's greatest enemy. •☽✧˖°˖☆˖°˖✧☾• He was ruthless. He was beloved. He was feared. That is the great King Evreux of Sepphora. But everything changed when he had to tie the knot with a manipulator in disguise. Evreux always dreamed of becoming a great ruler who will protect his kingdom from anyone or anything that threatens to ruin it, even from the hands of the people he held dear. Lauriel, the clan leader of one of the most powerful tribes, strives to take control of him to gain the power she thinks she deserves all her life. Caught between them is Eowin, an assassin ordered to end the king's life. As the King's life transforms into a living nightmare, Evreux must find a way to save everything he loves, especially his beloved daughter, even though it might result in his own demise.

A self-declared villain is disturbed in the night by a stranger begging to be his henchman. He makes the mistake of entertaining her request, changing both of their lives forever. Villain x Henchman TEGSA2026

gorgeous cover and banner by the talented @sugararmy07 "The biggest lie they ever told themselves was that it takes a villain to kill a heart, when all it really takes is five teenagers who are too tired to look out." 𐚁 Two years ago, Sydney Gallagher took her life. Today, her elder sister, Maia, rules the social hierarchy of the prestigious Eastleigh College as the undisputed queen bee along with the school's golden boy, Aris Callahan. However, beneath their pristine appearances and perfect smiles, are their circle of five starting to crumble under the weight of their individual guilt. No one is to blame for the tragedy, yet each friend remains haunted by their own failures, convinced their own limitations must be what struck the fatal blow. To survive the trauma, each friend, bound by betrayals, rivalries and hostility must come to terms with the weight of their choices, or let their collective blame destroy the remaining lives left in Sydney's wake. 𐚁 WRITTEN FOR THE 2026 TEGSA AWARDS

The useful are respected; the useless are thrown away. That was the first lesson his father had taught him, and the one he'll never be able to forget. Arin Davos has spent most of his life trying to fit in with his family, hiding away every aspect of himself that would make him an even greater disappointment, from his inherited magic to the direction of his affections. He didn't hide them well enough. With the neighboring royals about to pay a visit to their storm-torn country, Arin's half-sister Savina quickly sets her mind on one thing, and one thing only: marriage to the prince of Belarune. But she needs Arin's help to succeed, and with his closest-guarded secrets held over him, he can't help but comply. One wrong word to their father, and he would lose everything he'd fought so hard to protect. When a foreign mage rumored to be the prince's closest friend arrives, he seems to be the answer to Savina's plans. However, the more time Arin spends around him on his sister's orders, the closer they grow, until he starts to see the possibility of a life where he no longer has to hide. But the calm never lasts for long, and when the storm finally breaks, Arin will have to choose between the family he has spent his life trying to please and the future he never dared believe he deserved. - - - - - - - - This is my entry for TEGSA 2026. We're currently in the first draft stage, and I'll be posting as I write, with minimal editing. I can promise decent grammar, but you might still stumble upon some inconsistencies and plot holes, which I'll try to clear up during edits before the end of the contest.