In April, the Camp NaNoWriMo Young Writers Contest challenged writers to submit a 300-word story that began with a storm. From over 600 fabulous entries, we chose two Grand Prizes and three Honorable Mentions. We hope you enjoy reading them as much as we did! (For more stories, check out the Young Writers Contest forum thread.)

The wind and rain swirls around me. My tattered cloak whips behind me in the wind. My red dragon, Ember, whines next to me. Alexandria Knight here, beast tamer extreme. Lightning strikes next to me. I can tell immediately that it’s no natural lightning. It moves, scouring the ground, like it’s looking for me. Ember shoots a bolt of flame into the lightning. It dissipates. I touch the brooch keeping my cloak on to summon Shadow, my faithful wraith.

“Shadow, something’s wrong with this storm! It’s not natural.”

He towers over me, his dark, spectral form invisible in the night. I can feel his frigid aura. He looks up to the sky.

“It’s not a storm, Master.”

“Alex. My name is Alex. What is it, then?”

“It’s a lightning dragon.”

I look up at it. It has blue scales with yellow flecks, and electricity flashes every time it flaps its wings. It opens its mouth and another lightning bolt hits the ground next to me. Ember opens her mouth and I can see the fire in her throat. She looks up toward the sky. 

“Ember, no!” She closes her mouth and looks up at me. I mount her. “If I can get up there I can stop it.”

She takes to the sky and flies up to the swirling cloud surrounding the dragon. I lean forward, holding her horns.

“Stop!” I shout. “Stop!”

My spell is immediately over the dragon. Beast taming. Gotta love it. The storm is over as fast as it began. The dragon flies away. Ember lands. "Shadow, the sun!” I say. It’s almost dawn.

"It always comes,” he sighs bitterly.

Shadow transforms back into a dark cloak before its deadly rays hit him. I put my cloak back on and head home, Ember strutting behind me.

Violet is 13 years old, the eldest of 5, and homeschooled for her entire life. She’s been writing for 3 years. When she’s not writing, she can be found playing her vast collection of tabletop games, working on her illustration skills, and negotiating for more writing time. She lives in Illinois in a house full of people and her pet snake Athena, inspiration for Ember the dragon.