Flash Fiction Short #1 from my panel at ConFusion, 1/22/23
Today at the ConFusion sci-fi/fantasy convention, I participated in a Flash Fiction panel. Now I’ll be posting them here for everyone to read. Thanks to my great audience for the really awesome and hilarious prompts. These stories were written with a time limit of 7 minutes, and I haven’t edited or changed them aside from transcribing my messy handwriting and fixing some spelling.
#1 - Dragon, Seed, and Lake St. Clair
I saw it floating. At first I thought it might be a piece of fluff or a leaf. No. It was a seed. Oddly flat and long. Maybe a pod?
I waded into the water and grabbed it. Huh. It was warm. Not what I would have expected from something in Lake St. Clair in January.
I stepped back, stomping the water from my Bogs. If anyone caught me sticking my feet in the lake on my lunch break, they’d probably call the cops.
“What are you?” I asked the seed.
It pulsed in my hand, growing even warmer.
I peered at it. Was it growing?
A low growling noise erupted from the seed, and I jumped, dropping it. When it hit the ground, it cracked. Steam billowed from it, blinding me and stinging my eyes.
“Thank you, mortal,” a sonorous voice echoed through the mist. “For years I have floated these Great Lakes, trapped in the magic seed. Now I am free to grow.”
As the smoke cleared, I beheld a tiny dragon, no bigger than a kitten. It spread its wings and flew off into the sky.
