FIRST LINE FICTION PROMPT #110

The Prize Takes Home the Winner

A Halloween tale of a vanished brother and a message carved from beyond

BOO! Image by Copilot

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My blood turned cold when I heard my brother’s name called as the Pumpkin Carving Contest Winner; he vanished from this very festival last year. The applause died almost as quickly as it began. Nobody stepped forward. People exchanged confused glances beneath strings of orange lights. A few laughed awkwardly, thinking it was a joke.

But I knew better.

My brother Evan had disappeared exactly twelve months ago without a trace. The police found nothing. No one saw anything, and there was no evidence as to what might have happened to him. By winter, people had stopped talking about it and moved on.

Not me.

Judge Marlow stood frozen beside the contest table, staring down at the card in his hand. Then he spotted me in the crowd and motioned me over. “There’s something you need to see,” he said.

Minutes later, I stood inside Marlow’s tent as the wind rattled its canvas walls. He slid a weathered sheet of paper across the small folding table. “Someone slipped this under the flap this morning,” he said. “I…