So I Decided to Write a Short Story

This is not to say that I won't be writing the novel (lots of progress this past week with plot brainstorming, character building, and world building), but I saw a Sci Fi writing contest that I thought would be fun to enter if I can craft a short story for it. Word count can be no more than 2,500 words, which seems very constraining. But as a person who can tend to be wordy, I can definitely use such practice.