Thank you all so very much for entering. The response was enormous! 14 ficlets and everyone made a supreme effort.

Firstly, since the standard was so high, I had to find a way of narrowing down the field and then finding a winner. I tried giving each one a score for use of colour, movement, picture quality and twist, but I found that the scores were just too close together. I had to search for a subjective way of judging and in the end I settled on whether the story gave me goosebumps.

With that said, here are the finalists.

The Painting by Skeet (Kermitgorf) – the little blind boy twist really caught me off guard.

The Big Picture by Wolfechu – I liked the final sentence of the scholars looking for the signature and the “cut-rate deity with a blank cosmos” made me smile.

Charcoal Drawings by Valley Fey/Pinprick – I always had a soft spot for little lost girls.

And the winner is: Charcoal drawings

Thank you all for participating you really did not make this easy!