Hello, and welcome to the final round!

The best paragraph was written by: TheWordArtistBooks

However, we would like to keep the suspense and not reveal the total points up to round 3.

For the fourth and final round, you'll have to write a short story (250-5k words) following this prompt: It's been exactly 48 hours since X {protagonist's name} read the message of the fortune cookie. Within the first hours, they managed to make a short plan. Now, being away from the few friends they have, they must decide who they can trust. Who sent the fortune cookie? Was it a friend or their biggest enemy?

Running against time, X is faced with a series of dilemmas and secrets of the past. Will they survive?

Rules

Your protagonist is the protagonist of the third round (the one with the fortune cookie). You can use the message of the previous round or you can invent a new fortune cookie message. 

You'll have to start the story at the 48-hour mark given on the prompt, but you can show what happened before them. 

You can use the first or third pov.

You can have an open end (or not). We want to give you the opportunity to continue the story if you wish to in the future. 

You can post the short story on your account, but you'll have to mention it was written for an activity hosted by The Gemme Community. We would also love to add it to our Anthology Book (with your approval, of course).

Submission

Preferably: Send a Google doc to [email protected] or a link to a file in DMs.

Submitting in comments is also possible. However, it will be a bit difficult to read it that way since it will have to be sent in multiple comments.  

Points

15 for submitting on time

10 for following the rules

x/10 grammar/punctuation

x/10 relevance/cohesion

x/20 plot

x/20 character development

x/10 reader's enjoyement

Deadline: 2nd May, Midnight, GMT

If you need extra time, let us know!

Good luck!