Ellie’s End: My Winning Entry

Chel Owens

Last year, I helped judge one of the contests for Carrot Ranch. Reading through the entrants taught me two things:

  1. People don’t read instructions very well.
  2. More people ought to enter!

I therefore challenged myself to enter all of the contests Charli posed for 2019. Imagine my surprise when she posted one of my stories as a finalist. I thought I’d place in all of them!

In all seriousness, entering contests is difficult and subjective and …wait. You all know this because of my Terrible Poetry thingie every week. Charli knows. A superhuman in her own right, she posted a spot-on description of writing, contests, revisions, and letdown.

Read it.

Oh, and here is my ONE entry that ‘won.’ I’ll schedule one contest entry for each of the following days, now that we’re allowed to.

—–

Ellie prided herself on her independence. Nothing, no one could affect her -certainly not internet whispers or radio station warnings.

She left for work with her earbuds in. She returned to her lonely apartment in the same way. She never listened to the wind, the silenced birds, nor the ever-increasing beeping of impending doom.

In fact, one might say that Ellie was the least prepared for the aliens when they came. No matter -hers was a quick and painless death, immediately decomposing in the stomach of Earth’s attackers. It was those silly survivalists who dragged out humanity’s inevitable demise.

 

©2019 Chelsea Owens

22 thoughts on “Ellie’s End: My Winning Entry”

  2. It’s a good story. I love how it ends.

    Like you, one of my stories ended up as a finalist, and here I was thinking all mine would place too…. tch tch!

    I published my winning entry a couple of hours ago, though I’m not sure about the others. I might rewrite two of them as expanded stories. Maybe. I’m also currently wondering if I should have entered the vampire three act story I also wrote instead of the one I did enter… I’ll never know.

    Liked by 1 person

  4. Well Done! I love the ending. And I am betting a slew of those survivalists lives had been elongated by proper diet and exercise and were waging war with the aliens at a ripe 113 years of age!!

    Liked by 1 person

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