For Furthemore 2023's flash fiction contest we had 24 hours to write a 1200 word or less story that combined at least two of the past themes of the con. A working idea came about that put together Boldly Going Forward, Cubicle Jungle, Cryptozoology, and Fantasy in the Sakura Forest. This was what resulted after a few hours fleshing out the idea and then severely cutting it down. Did I get a bit too ambitious with it? Probably, since the first draft came in at 1900 words. I did get it under the limit but it likely shows since some scenes were much shorter than originally planned.

At some point I may take an actual editing pass at my first draft to show what had been the full idea. I didn't place in the contest so I figured I'd toss it up here for a bit of a laugh. At least it demonstrated to me that I could actually try to get back into fiction writing after a decade.