New Worlds

The mysteries of the night sky have fueled storytelling since the dawn of time. The celestial bodies above tell a tale of the past while beckoning us to step into the future. What might that future hold? Commercial space travel? First contact with alien lifeforms? Technological advancements that extend the human lifespan to 500 years?

The Prompt:

For this Challenge, look to the stars and write the first chapter of an exciting new science fiction story. We are providing the first sentence to get you started. Be advised, space explorer: you must use the sentence below to start your mission into the unknown.

Here's the first sentence:

As long as your story begins with this line, every detail is up to you. The sky is the limit—or should we say the galaxy’s edge? Good luck out there. See you on the other side of the universe.

For your story to be eligible, it should be between 600 and 5,000 words and adhere to our Community Guidelines. Stories published on Vocal and entered into the contest up until August 16, 2022, at 11:59 PM EST will be entered for consideration. Official Rules for the Challenge can be found here.

The New Worlds Challenge is exclusive to Vocal+ members. To learn more and upgrade to Vocal+ visit https://vocal.media/vocal-plus.

To be eligible to win the grand prize, second place, or runners-up prizes, you must be over the age of 13 and residing in a country where Stripe is available at the time of entry. A complete list of countries where Stripe is available can be found here—winners will need to have a Stripe account created and connected in order to receive the prizes. For this reason, entrants located outside of any of these countries will not be eligible to win.