Compress a Novel Scene into Flash Fiction

You've got a scene from something bigger and want it to stand alone at a fraction of the length. This finds the one core worth keeping, lists what to imply, what to cut outright, then rewrites it as flash fiction at your target count. The discipline of saying it in 500 words instead of 2,000, done with a plan.

I have a scene from a longer work that I want to compress into a self-contained flash fiction piece of {TARGET_WORDS} words. Here is the original scene: {ORIGINAL_SCENE}. Perform the following steps: (1) Identify the one emotional or narrative core worth preserving. (2) List every element that can be implied rather than shown. (3) List every element that must be cut entirely. (4) Rewrite the scene as flash fiction, preserving the core while stripping everything else. (5) After the rewrite, annotate any techniques you used to do more with less, including compression, subtext, and specificity of detail.