Round 1 of NYC Midnight's Short Story Challenge 2022

I entered the NYC Midnight contest for the first time this month with the Short Story Challenge. There were over 6000 writers entering this first Round! 

How it works: 

• writers are divided into groups of around 28 people
• each group gets a prompt of Genre, Subject, Character
• within 8 days each writer submits a story with the prompt in under 2500 words
• then the top 5 from each group will advance to Round 2 in April.

I was nervous about getting a Genre that I'm unfamiliar with like Romantic Comedy or Political Satire, but I lucked out with a great combination of prompts:

Genre: Fairy Tale

Subject: Nidification (= nest-building)

Character: A Shut-In

I came up with a story titled: "The Tale of Starling"

Synopsis: After a seamstress dies, her orphaned teenage daughter gains a bothersome magical ability to summon twigs from her hands. She is forced to deal with the never-ending pile of branches and her growing fears of the outside world.

I'm looking forward to the Round 1 results to see if I advance to Round 2!