BITS BY MELISSA BOBE

The elevator lights flickered, and Charlotte shifted her weight anxiously. A hollowness lingered in the leg she’d been favouring, and she looked down to find a few more bits of—it had to be tissue, didn’t it? What else could it be? Now she scrubbed with her hand at her leg, slapping away scraps which again seemed to want to stick before resolving to float down to the elevator floor.

Bits is the twenty-ninth of the announced features included within the pages of The Needle Drops... Volume One; a flash fiction piece you just can't quite shake off. With Flash Fiction, we aim to highlight smaller pieces rampant with imagination and experimentation.

On a cold winter’s night, Charlotte enters the lobby of her apartment building only to find herself trailed by a curious scraping sound. It isn’t very far to her tenth-floor dwelling, but Charlotte realizes more than just a chilly breeze may have followed her in from outside, and reaching her own front door becomes a challenge more harrowing than she ever could have imagined. Bits engages the familiar experience of a woman trying to make her way home unscathed in a world that isn’t content to let her do so.

"Bits engages the familiar experience of a woman trying to make her way home unscathed in a world that isn’t content to let her do so."

Melissa Bobe is a speculative fiction writer living in New York. After several years of teaching college writing and literature, she now works as a librarian. She is also a Municipal Liaison for the New York City region of National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), and enjoys cheering on the writers of her local communities as they attempt their own creative feats.

Melissa has short fiction in Wyldblood Magazine and the steampunk fairytale anthology Clockwork, Curses, and Coal. She is currently at work on the sequel to her debut novel, Nascent Witch, as well as more short stories to thrill and chill her readers.

You can keep up with her on Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr, and Pinterest @abookbumble. You can find out more about her books Nascent Witch, Electric Trees, and Sibyls at abookbumble.com.