My internet connection is pretty bad for some reason, but I hope this will come through. The clear winner is Story A, well done Stargirl.
Like the others have said, the stories are at least a lot more coherent compared to Peng and Fresh. I'd like to think it's because they got a visual cue instead of a regular prompt, but both did try to capture the environment at least though with a bit of clunkiness.
Story A
Description stuff
I'm Dutch, I make clunky phrased sentences all the time, take this advice with a grain of salt.
Weathered stone isn't really rough. It's SMOOTH. Rain and pebbles are like sandpaper. They make stone very smooth. I think the best examples are seen in caves where most of the ground below is very slippery.
I do really like that you use a lot more evocative language in your descriptions to set an ominous tone. Perhaps it's due to the growing influence of YA novels, but new authors often are scared to put in some fancy poetic comparisons and such into their environments.
The mouth of the cave, if you could call it that, loomed above him. Most days it seemed to be just a lifeless carving, but today it seemed alive. The golden eyes flashed in the sun and cast small circles of light onto the ground below. Its mouth stretched into a grin, laughing at him, as he struggled up what felt like the millionth step.
This passage for example, pretty great. It feels threatening, I felt as if the writer intended it to be so. Comparing the opening of a cave to am animal/living creature is also clever (though admittedly done plenty of times before, still great tho). However, as much as I want to compliment your prose, I do have to point out that you have to be clear to the readers which object you compare which object to. A story isn't a poem haha, poems are allowed to be vague as shit, with writing it's better to be a bit clearer (unless it's intended to be this way yadayda exceptions to the rule, Louis Couperus yadayada)
"The golden eyes"
What do you mean by that? Is it the slight holes in the cave's ceiling? Is it a few rocks jutting out like some eyeball? Jewels embedded in it's outer wall?
P.S. You can leave out "the" in that sentence. If you say it out loud you'll feel that leaving out the particle makes the sentence flow better. Plus it saves on word count.
If we're speaking on saving word count, here we have another sentence that is honestly fine. I get what the author wants to tell me, but it can be written a lot more succinct and snappy.
the way his robe dragged on the ground behind him making a strange snake-like noise
The main question what you want to ask to yourself is: what do I want the reader to know? Snakes have lots of sounds. Do I want them to know that the sound is akin to how a snake moves through the ground? If so, then don't be afraid to just use the verbs that are associated with snakes with the robe. Slither, slide, glide, snake etc. OR do you want the readers to know that the dragging sound is akin to a snake's hiss? If so, just make the robe hiss or something.
It's kinda amusing that you did this so well in a later sentence:
It was a dry sound, a mix between a dog’s bark and an old man’s rasp.
wrong usage of words/very pedantic grammarly stuff/nitpick
He had a wife and kids, although if he was being completely honest he was pretty sure the wife was cheating on him and the kids hated him, and Maria called all his outings and beliefs bullshit.
Although is used in the beginning of a sentence. THOUGH is the word you want to use in the middle of a sentence.
The sculpture of the dragon seemed no closer than it had 10 minutes ago
Numbers from 1 to 20, write them with full letters. So fifteen instead of 15. Same with twenty, thirty, fifty, hundred. It's not necessarily wrong, but it looks better. Looks less cookbook-like. (Exception: writing dates. 1946 July 1st. Yeah, do use numbers.)
Galadriel and Gabriel, these names, they look a lot like each other. Please pick names that are different from each other or readers might confuse them with each other (unless this is also done deliberately for narrative purposes aka they siblings, part of their culture etc).
Cut the fat, leave room for steaks/stakes
One problem I have with the story is that I have no feeling where the story is gonna go till little over the midway point. That is pretty darn late for a short story though the way you set the tone got me hooked long enough to not be too annoyed by it.
Onto the main problem: I have a feeling that the middle part of the story meanders a little in stuff we don't need to know or introduces characters that aren't important.
Maria was one sour woman. She was attractive, he would give her that, but her temper was hotter than raging fires and she was never in a good mood. If Remus actually made it today he would be surprised. Getting here would involve convincing Maria to let him go and making it up to her when he got back if he wanted their marriage to last more than a month more.
After this aside Maria isn't mentioned again. Hell, she isn't even present during the whole story. You could've used these precious words to make a paragraph on WHY THESE CHARACTERS WANT TO AWAKEN SOMETHING AS DESTRUCTIVE AS A DRAGON IN THE FIRST PLACE.
Gabriel, our main guy has sacrificed everything for this egg and ritual. What did he mean by everything? We don't know. Remus certainly still has a family and kids and Gabriel too, so that cannot be it. Is it their lives, money, time, all of the above?
Gabriel once mentioned that he did this for his dad. What would an action like participating in a ritual result in a better outcome for his dad. Is his dad sick and he needs a cure? Is the dad some kind of mad priest and Gabe did it for religious reasons, us the dragon a murderous weapon that will avenge his dad's death. We don't know. Therefore it's kind of a struggle for me to care whether or not the dragon awakening will succeed.
One other lost opportunity is to have Gabe's hallucinations/visions be about his childhood with his dad. Or perhaps show him a future that he really wants to have.
In short: let us readers know what and why Gabe wants to do the stuff he does, what he thinks will happen if he succeed and what will happen if he doesn't or the worst thing comes to fruition.
For a story so short, I highly recommend to cut down the time focused on Remus and place the focus on Gabe's struggles OR just make Remus the main character/character of interest instead with Gabe as a narrator or left out entirely.
Tldr: cut fat, leave stakes.
the very confusing ending
bruh if you cut your wrist and bleed out so badly that you begin to hallucinate then how is Gabe still alive. He also an old man, so his survival is even more unlikely. Yeah, i know, killing off your main character is pretty overdone in short stories, but I'm legit confused what has happened.
With an abrupt snap of his head he was back in his body again. Some people looked as confused as he felt, but most people had a look of horror on their face. He glanced towards the center, hope catching in this throat. The egg was still there, but it no longer had its god-like essence that had captivated him. It was just a smooth stone, lackluster.
Apparently everyone is fine and alive? Okay it failed, but it doesn't seem like anyone is too badly hurt, no corpses and anything like that. Wouldn't a better emotion be like despair or disappointment?
Cutting your wrists and hitting an artery can fuck you up pretty bad, but oh well, now that the ritual is over, people can rush put to bandage up themselves and stop the bleeding.
conclusion
before I reach the 2000 word threshold and be as bad as Mystic, here is my final verdict. Story A is quite a good story for an author who just graduated out of middle school. The tone and mood is there and it is coherent enough that I got what's going on during my first read. Plus awakening a dragon egg through a ritual sounds like a neat story idea, smart of you to keep the scope small. I enjoyed the story!
Story B
Please punctuate stuff properly.
