Hello there! I get Cricket Magazine every month, and every time there is a writing contest, either poetry or short story. I thought I'd enter, because I've never done it before. This month's theme is "New Beginnings". I was inspired by this month's magazine cover, which is a robin next to a nest of eggs. A little note before we start: I enjoyed having the word limit (which was 350 if you're wondering), surprisingly. Sometimes I ramble on with my writing, and it turns into something I don't like. The limit gave me a reason not to just write useless stuff. (Disclaimer - this is all my work. I wrote this story, it's my idea, I am not asking for feedback on it [in fact, I'd appreciate it if there was no feedback, since that might drive me to edit it and then I would get help from someone], I simply put it out for entertainment purposes.) Eggs aren’t supposed to break. Especially not my eggs. I had dreams for those eggs. Until they were smashed along with the beautiful pale cyan shells freckled with dark blue spots. The eagle flaps away, cackling, clearly pleased with its evil deed. Seething and devastated, I fly back to the nest, where one egg rests undisturbed, no cracks to be seen. But the pale cyan shell does not adorn the outside, and there are no dark blue specks splattering the egg. Instead, it is a plain gray egg, with no spots. Confusion swirls in my head. This is not my egg. Why would it be in my nest? Why would the eagle destroy all of my eggs and leave one that doesn’t belong to me? I think about pushing it over the edge, but the feeling I know too well of losing my eggs stops me. This egg is in my nest. It’s mine now. I ruffle up my feathers and plop down onto the egg. I can tell it’s about the same age as my other eggs were, due to hatch any day now. And so, we progressed like this for several days, the egg safely nestled under me. Soon, I could feel the chick wriggling around and tapping on its shell. Slowly, I stretched my legs and stood, pausing to hear the crisp crack of the egg breaking. A small beak poked out of the small hole. A head follows, complete with a few wet feathers along the top. The little chick tumbles out of the shell, rolling around a bit in the nest before coming to a stop in the middle. I smile, the overcoming happiness that’s happened only once before, last spring with my first clutch of eggs. I vow to make this chick mine, and to love it like I would love any other chick born from a pale cyan egg with dark blue specks. Thanks for reading! I appreciate it so much, and I'm so grateful there are actually people who enjoy my writing, (albeit like 10 lol) and that motivates me to keep doing it. :) wow that was a lot xD Anyways, I hope you enjoyed this story!! Bye for now <3 ~ Pine
