More Adventures with Lady Yaga

This year, I finally decided to participate in the NYC Midnight 100-Word Story Competition. They really should start calling it Drabble Competition. Round 1 will close in about three hours, and I've just submitted my story.

I got the following assignment from the competition organizers:

Genre: Action and/or adventure

Action: Piggybacking

Word: germ (can be a part of a word or derivative)

At first, I wanted to continue with my Russian absurdist world story. But after I sent it to a friend for feedback and we talked about it, I decided it wasn't good as it didn't have dialogue and the readers and judges might not have enough context to understand the story. For example, my friend thought the story was a spy story involving two women when in fact it's an absurdist/magical story with two characters: the old witch named Lady Yaga and the protagonist, the Prince.

Thus, I crafted and submitted a totally different story. I'll publish it here after the Round 1 results are announced. But why let a good Drabble go to waste, right? So here's my non-submitted entry:

Lady Yaga got spooked again.

We argued in a dark alley. Just as I thought my eloquence was germinating an agreement, she noticed a civilian courier eavesdropping on us. She bolted, unimaginably fast for her age. I jumped onto my bike, chasing her.

I lost her seconds later. I couldn’t believe she escaped again! Suddenly, I felt an added weight on my bike. Turning around, I saw the old witch balancing herself on my back wheel axle. Oh, the chutzpah on that woman, piggybacking me on my chase after her!

She grinned, snapped her fingers, and disappeared in a puff.

For fuller context, here's my original long read setting up the absurdist universe where it all happens:

It happened so that just before I entered NYC Midnight 100-Word Story Competition, I published a story here on how to write Drabbles, completely oblivious that Round 1 registration was closing the same day, March 20. Immediately after I published "How To Write a Drabble," my email pinged a notification about the NYC Midnight registration deadline. Algorithm or a coincidence? - You decide, but it was a little eerie for me.

Please wish me luck and I wish you happy writing as well.