And while our judges work on reading your contributions for round 4-1, we have the next prompt ready for you AprilJester, BrianMullin0, elveloy, johnnedwill, Wuckster wdhenning, FifthMusketeer, stars_and_all:

Inspired by a beautiful pine cone that just fell from a mighty tree (and luckily missed me...)

...we ask you to write a story based on the following quote:

Your story must qualify as speculative fiction for this round and be written in English. It can be a maximum of 1000 words long.

The deadline for Round 4 - 2 is Saturday, December 28th 2024.

Find the mandatory submission form in the inline comments here >>>>>

Please, add a link to your story in the comments to this chapter, so your fellow competitors can find it.

Have fun with this challenge and happy holidays!