We hope you had time to recover from the last one and welcome you to Round 4 of the Ultimate SciFi SmackDown!

For this round, we give you four prompts. You will also have to write two pieces: 

✨ a short story of 2000 words maximum

✨  a poem of any length you wish

While all four prompts have to be used, we leave it up to you how you split them between the story and the poem. So, you might choose one prompt for the story, the other three for the poem. Or the other way round. Or split them by half. 

The important thing is that all 4 prompts are used, somehow, and that both, story and poem, contain at least one prompt.

(Huh, I hope this is clear, if not, just tag me in the comments and I'll try to explain.)

Now, the prompts:

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1) this picture:

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2) this word: (yes, I know what it means, and so do the judges)

Crepuscular 

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3) this song: (I totally don't let you pay for the fact it bugged me all week)

https://youtu.be/Rk_sAHh9s08

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4) this quote: 

"You need chaos in your soul to give birth to a dancing star" by Friedrich Nietzsche

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All stories and poems must be written in English, qualify as science fiction, contain the four prompts between them, and the short story must be a maximum of 2000 words long.

We only accept new stories and poems written for this contest. Also, the decisions of the judging team are final and won't be discussed.

From  this round, 4 of the 8 contestants will move on into the semifinals. In case of a tie, a repechage Drabble round will decide. (And we really hope we get to throw in this Drabble round at least once...).

To submit, add the direct links to your story and your poem in the comments to this chapter. The deadline for this one is Friday, 18th of March 2022.

And that's it, happy writing! May the creative force be with you!