Birbs

By N. WS. Jokela

31 stories from July 2021, many of them made to expand already existing worlds. This collection is full of birbs, some of them tangible, some holographic and some merely nominal. There is also a good deal of death and destruction all the way from individual characters to whole universes.

• Language: English
• Publisher: N. WS. Jokela
• Release date: Dec 22, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005139513

N. WS. Jokela

N. WS. Jokela, more commonly known as WindySilver, is a Finnish IT student and a hobbyist artist fighting a war against procrastination on the losing side. When her free time is not taken up by things like reading, procrastination, video games, watching series or more procrastination, she mainly writes sci-fi fanfiction and original flash fiction of various genres. While she dabbles in a lot of things ranging from digital art to jewelry to plants to whatever catches her interest, writing is her persistent forte.You should not give her yet another crazy flash fiction challenge to take part in because she simply cannot say "no" to it.

Book preview

Introduction

Hello there, reader!

I'm happy to see that you've chosen to pick my latest Flash Fiction Month collection. This year, I challenged myself to multiple different things over the course of July. First of all, like last year, I challenged myself to write no fanfiction and to write in already existing worlds whenever the day's prompt or challenge or the need to get a 55er out fast did not direct elsewhere. In addition to that, I chose one of the community challenges that were gathered for the month – a challenge of my own making, Birds of a Feather: Every single story must include a bird of a species of your choice, fictional or real-world (although real-world birds are encouraged), and each day you must pick a different species. On all the weeks other than the first one, we also received optional weekly sidequests from Hydra, in this order: focus on dialogue, write three stories with different pacings (one with fast pacing, one with slow pacing and one with a bit of both), with two stories of the week planners must write by the seat of their pants, pantsers must plan before writing and those who mix the two approaches must invert the way they do the paths and get rid of any filter words you don't need.

Since many of these stories are based on my previous work, you may want to check out what I have written before from my website. I will be posting 2021 compilations of my story worlds over the Christmas holiday as at the time of writing everything is scattered between DeviantArt, WordPress and my own files, not to mention different events and years.

In any case, I hope you'll enjoy this collection. Stay tuned for my non-FFM collections as well, as I will work on them from now on!

1: You Just Won't

Challenge: Write a 55-word story where the main character's actions must be rooted in fear but you are not allowed to tell that the character is afraid.

This story was inspired by a close call I had while driving on the day before FFM started. I probably should not have formatted this story for this collection on the day before heading out on a long drive alone because it brought up the anxiety I used for writing this. And I feel that it may have jinxed a similar situation that occurred during the aforementioned drive...

You look at your car. It's fine. You heard nothing unusual — except a bananaquit singing — while driving. You see no new damage. The tires are undamaged as far as you can tell too. The car is fine, and it will take you wherever you want if you just hop in and drive.

You just won't.

2: A Hidden Bruise

Once Raiyo was absorbed in the day's tutorial and mostly still, Levi was free to observe the younger man. Now, he was able to confirm that the splotch he had spotted on his newest coworker's cheek was indeed a bruise. One half of him wanted to ask where it had come from, the other half to just stay quiet and mind his own business. Interfering with others' business would only cause more trouble than it was worth.

It was easier to stay silent. As long as Raiyo did not bring the cause of the bruise up to him, it was none of his business.

A part of him hoped that Raiyo would not make any kind of trouble that was not related to work his business at any point.

Uh, Levi?

Levi startled. Yes?

Do you mind if I take a quick bathroom break? It won't take long, I swear. Raiyo twisted his hands, unsure where to put them.

Oh, of course not. Go ahead. Levi made an effort to smile, but it felt too fake to be convincing.

Raiyo made an awkward smile in response. Thanks.

~~~

Raiyo leaned against the sink and took a few breaths, trembling. Being under Levi's silent watch was even more unnerving than the earlier days. Maybe it was just that he was hiding his bruise and Levi was close enough to spot it if he was attentive enough. Maybe it was just the fight and lack of sleep last night. Maybe it was the magpie that stole his bread while on the way to work. Maybe it was...

Fuck it, he hissed through his teeth, took yet another deep breath and left the toilet. He had to keep this job, and that meant not taking long extra toilet breaks.

Everything all right? Levi asked out of courtesy when Raiyo returned to the desk.

Eh, yeah. Just... just too much coffee in the morning. Raiyo forced a chuckle out of his mouth, but he could tell that it was the most unconvincing lie he had told ever since he dropped out of school last time.

This time, Levi's smile was more