Short Stories 2020 (Prompts/Contest Entries)

Stories for several comps/collabs, amalgamated into one collection.

Two of them actually placed in their respective sections (yay!):
-Mysterious Ways - 1st place, @PsychologicalNovel's "Wake Up In the Morning" comp (June 2020)
-The Listeners - 1st place, Last Summer 2020 collab in the @WarriorGoddess section (July/August 2020)
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-'The Flower Hunter'. Loosely based on the folklore of seductive water sprites, particularly the Vila (a Central European version of Rusalka). Written for @AfterDark's "Mirror, Mirror" contest (Mar 2020)

-'Mysterious Ways'. A young woman wakes in the wrong version of her bedroom. Or is it so wrong after all? ('You wake in a strange place, possibly as someone else.')

-'The Listeners'. Morial and her fellow Spirit Listeners work hard to maintain the balance between nature and mortals; until, one Summer, Morial is accused of upsetting that balance herself. ("I know what you did last summer". The prompt features as paragraph nine in my story.)

-'Between the (Spread)Sheets'. An accountant and a trader play cat-and-mouse in a City firm. (@Crime's 'Deceptive Detective' Aug 2020: one criminal goes undercover to expose or be exposed by another.)

-'The Unexpected Message'. A missed phone call proves momentous for a young art historian. (@AmbassadorsUK/@Fanatsy/@WattpadFairytales's 'Underground Tales' contest Nov 2020: pick a Tube station - King's Cross/Angel/Seven Sisters/Knightsbridge - and imagine what lies below which is connected with the name. I chose Angel.) The only real thing in this story is the Museum of London (which has an excellent Roman gallery, btw); any coincidence with real heritage experts - or indeed the unrealistic probability of such a find - is my fault.

-'Cyclopean Arches'. In the year 3542, an advance exploration party finds some interesting ruins. (Nov 2020. 'Underground Tales' (again): King's Cross.)