Your Story 41: Winners!

Prompt: Write the opening sentence to a story (25 words or fewer) incorporating these three words: Cinderella, midnight and behave.

Thanks to everyone who voted on WD’s Your Story 41! Here are the results. The winning entries, in ranking order, are as follows:

1. She’d promised her parents she would behave like Cinderella at the ball, but by midnight, Shari had lost more than her shoe. (Lore Campbell)

2. Like some twisted Cinderella tale, my captor gripped my ankle, shoving the midnight-colored glass slipper onto my bloody foot before whispering, "You will behave.” (Lisa Packard)

3. That midnight, after Charlie cracked the Cinderella Code, he knew that he had to behave like an anonymous dead man—unseen, unheard, and untraceable. (Mary Cooney-Glazer)

4. He expected me to behave like Cinderella at the ball, but it was after midnight, and I’d already planned his death. (Randi Flynn)

5. Ignoring my vow to behave, I shot daggers at Daddy’s latest bimbo, her midnight velveteen sheath and Cinderella pumps overreaching all boundaries of funeral decorum. (Jo Harris)

6. Their star quarterback wouldn't behave, and the Wildcat's Cinderella story abruptly ended with a midnight ride in a patrol car--not a converted pumpkin. (Michael A. Dize)

7. It was only midnight, and after the latest work of the Fairy Tale killer, a corpse with “Cinderella” carved into it, Wilson’s ulcer wouldn’t behave. (Philip Abbenhaus)

8. “Cinderella missed her midnight pumpkin ride,” said Detective Steele as he examined the body of Miranda Foray, a debutante who preferred to behave less elegantly. (Christine Noonan)

9. By the last virgin midnight, admonitions to behave had long evaporated, and Cinderella tasted only roses soaked in brandy so rich that her throat burned. (Anna Levy)

10. Midnight laughter shattered the stars, while the moon, offering a Cinderella glow, questioned if ill-fitting loves could behave. (Irene Ramos)