Harmony Kent's Blog, page 56

“Fiction In A Flash Challenge” Week #12 NEW Image Prompt. @pursoot #IARTG #ASMSG #WritingCommunity.

Hi everyone!

I hope you’ve had a good week. I don’t know about you, but I’m looking forward to the weekend. My muse developed a very weird mood today, and I have a bit of flash fiction for you, entitled The Dead Hour.

The image prompt comes from Soooz’s blog: https://sooozburkeauthor.wordpress.com/2020/08/07/fiction-in-a-flash-challenge-week-12-new-image-prompt-pursoot-iartg-asmsg-writingcommunity/

 

The Dead Hour

 

The station clock. Stuck. Seven minutes to midnight.

And bang … I’m awake again. Same time. Every. Single. Night.

I need sleep. Without the glorious restorative powers of deep slumber, you can’t hold me responsible.

 

Even in the glare of these harsh fluorescents, my eyes remember the comforting soft glow of the olde-world clock—the promise of simpler days. A kinder era. I’m a girl born way behind my time. Would that I could go back.

 

I have FFI, so I’m dead already. I know that. Fatal Familial Insomnia is no joke. But my life still matters. I still matter. Don’t I?

 

I’m down to a mere 30 minutes of rest in every 24 hours. Each day sees my brief period of respite fall by a minute more. Tomorrow, I’ll achieve only 29 minutes. No matter when I lay my head down to sleep, and regardless of how long I go under for, I always awaken at seven minutes to midnight. What have you done to me?

 

You promised you would help.

 

Already, my eyesight fails me. My memory too. What will I lose next? By now, we can’t call it sleep. Not really. Always, I’m aware of the lights. The torturous ticking of the clock. Even with all your drugs, you’ve lost all control over me. Can you not see that?

 

Three burly men slam open the door, burst in, and hold me down. By now, I’m used to such rough attention. How often do I have to lay here, passive and unresistive, before you trust me? I hold my breath. Wait. Here he comes. The fourth guy, wearing a full hazmat suit, complete with sealed helmet. An elephant-sized syringe gleams silver in the white, sterile space. Idly, I watch as needle pierces flesh and plunger plunges. The vile goober empties into my veins.

 

Nobody speaks. Not one word. Eerie, this silent dance we perform each and every night. Always as the clock strikes twelve. The new dead hour. Like you, I used to believe that the dead hour fell between 3 and 4 am, when most people are apt to die in their sleep. Also the time when folks slumber deepest. Hah. The irony.

 

The days pass.

 

28 minutes

27 minutes

26

25

…

10 minutes

…

9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 …

 

The station clock. Stuck. Seven minutes to midnight.

And bang … I’m awake again. Same time. Every. Single. Night.

I need sleep. You can’t hold me responsible.

 

How can you have just one-minute’s worth of sleep? Preposterous. And yet here we are. Again.

 

Tonight is different, though. All these nights, you’ve believed I’ve suffered hallucinations. They’re real, I tell you. I have precisely seven minutes before the goons give me the needle. Sixty seconds before the big hand moves onto six minutes. I have to make every second count.

 

Are you with me?

 

Or are you against me?

 

The silence terrifies my withered body. Did I get it wrong?

 

Resolute, I close my eyes and slow my heart to beat in time with each tick, tick, tick.

 

The amber glow from the olde-world station clock comforts, beckons, and offers escape from this nightmare. With long-practiced ease, I swallow my tongue. My best hope is that you’ll believe I died trapped in this shallow shell of flesh and blood and bones.

 

I know better.

 

The clock. Seven minutes to midnight. My doorway from this house of horrors. My soul soars.

 

In the station, a crowd awaits me. When I land, their applause deafens. Now I know why only my bed was occupied. Why the other fifty lie empty. All your failures are here. With me. Angry.

 

Contrary to what you thought, our sleep deprivation enhanced our powers instead of destroying them. Fire dances across my fingertips. Nerves tingle. Three seconds left.

 

My insomnia, and your cruel treatment, have left me devoid of the compassion you might once have expected from this gentle soul that was I. When you’ve stripped everything away, what’s left?

 

I turn and face the portal. Before it can close, I throw my flames of fury into the lab. Around me, my fellow victims do the same.

 

Two seconds.

 

We stand and watch it all burn.

 

One second.

 

It’s six minutes to midnight, and I’m free.

 

Copyright ©Harmony Kent 2020

I hope you enjoyed this bit of fun, and I’d love to hear your thoughts. If you’d like to take part, here’s the link again: https://sooozburkeauthor.wordpress.com/2020/08/07/fiction-in-a-flash-challenge-week-12-new-image-prompt-pursoot-iartg-asmsg-writingcommunity/

Here are the rules:

Please put it (or a link to it) in a comment on Soooz’s blog or email it to her at her email address. by DEADLINE: 4pm EDT on Thursday, August 13th. Subject: Fiction in a Flash Challenge. If you post it on your own blog or site, a link to Soooz’s blog page would be much appreciated.

She will be sharing all entries received, and, her own contribution on her blog beginning on Friday, August 14th.

Here is the week #12 Image Prompt.

Thanks to Bryce Barker for sharing their FREE IMAGE on Unsplash.

Photo by Bryce Barker on Unsplash

We hope the image inspires you! Come and join in the fun.

Find Soooz at …

My author page on AMAZON.

On Twitter.

On Facebook

On Goodreads.

By Email.

Author Harmony Kent Prepares New Release! | The Indie Spot!

Hi everyone! It’s Friiidddaaaaaaay! I hope you all have a great weekend. Today, you’ll find another rather spicy excerpt of Interludes 2 over at Beem’s place. I’d love ot see you there

Pre-order: Interludes 2 by Harmony Kent @harmony_kent

Hi everyone! Today, I’m partying over at Mae’s place. I’d love it if you could join us for another ‘sneek peek’ of my latest book, Interludes 2

Featured Author Harmony Kent @harmony_kent with her #NewRelease #Pre-Order ‘Interludes 2’ #IARTG #ASMSG #WritingCommunity – Welcome to the World of Suzanne Burke.

Hi everyone. It’s the middle of the week! Happy Wednesday. For another sneek peak at my latest book Interludes 2, you’ll find me over at Soooz’s place today

Yvette M. Calleiro’s Author Blog: Author Spotlight and New Book Promo – Harmony Kent’s Interludes 2

Hi everyone, you’ll find me over at Yvette’s place today with another naughty peak at my latest book

Harmony Kent Is Back! – Sarah Stuart – Romantic Suspense

Hi again! Okay, so it seems I’m all over the web today, lols. You’ll find another ‘sneek peek’ of my latest book Interludes 2 over at Sarah Stuart’s place today >>>

 

And Harmony has a secret, or she had from me. I missed her first collection of Erotica, and she has written a second! “This book contains explicit sex scenes and language hot enough to melt y…

Source: Harmony Kent Is Back! – Sarah Stuart – Romantic Suspense

Meet Guest Author, Harmony Kent… – Chris The Story Reading Ape’s Blog

Hi everyone! Happy Monday! I hope today finds you all safe and well and somewhat rested.

I’m thrilled to be up in The Story Reading Ape’s Author’s Hall of Fame and would love it if you could stop by … you might even learn something new about yours truly

“Fiction In A Flash Challenge” Week #11 NEW Image Prompt. @pursoot #IARTG #ASMSG #WritingCommunity.

Hi everyone!

I hope you’ve had a good week. I don’t know about you, but I’m looking forward to the weekend. My muse developed a playful mood today, and I have a bit of flash fiction for you, entitled In the Wild.

The image prompt comes from Soooz’s blog: https://sooozburkeauthor.wordpress.com/2020/07/31/fiction-in-a-flash-challenge-week-11-new-image-prompt-pursoot-iartg-asmsg-writingcommunity/. 

 

In the Wild

Exhausted, Teri stared at the burnt and broken tree while cold spray from the violent waterfall settled onto her exposed skin. With a raised and tired arm, she used her fingers to wipe sweat from her forehead and thought back over all the horrific miles she’d endured.

Her once-pristine Converse now lay in tatters around her cut and swollen feet. The trainers had never been meant for rugged mountain and forest trekking. One of the laces had snapped—too short to tie. On the other shoe, the sole flapped uselessly every time she took a step.

Her legs stung and itched, covered from ankle to mid-thigh in various bug bites and scratches from foliage unforgiving of her trespass. Mud and dirt and the damp green residue of the assorted local fauna stained the hem of her shorts. Her tee-shirt more resembled a soaked dish rag than an item of fashion. Meanwhile, her bra now served as a sling for her broken left arm.

Though it couldn’t possibly help her out of this dire situation, Teri revisited the events that had dumped her into the voracious, man-eating wilderness in the first place. Okay, so maybe she had been driving too fast. But, hey … over-the-top karma, anyone? Sure, she was fairly confident that she’d killed the deer in the road. But hadn’t crashing into the giant sequoia and banging herself up been repayment enough? Karma, it seemed, had other ideas. The little Nissan Micra had bounced off the tree and then rolled. Right off the edge of a cliff. More trees had broken the fall. Had kept her alive for this torture. And she’d even escaped the wreck before it burst into flames.

After assessing her injuries, Teri had made a sling of her bra and then done a funny crawling shamble on one arm and two knees to the pool at the base of the waterfall. Refreshed from the long drink of the chilly nectar, Teri studied the deep valley in which she’d landed. Sheer cliff walls surrounded her. Too steep to climb in her current condition, her only option was to walk down the valley and follow the stream.

The stream grew up and became a river, which must lead to civilisation soon, right? Before long, the terrain had forced her to forge a path far away from the rocky walls of the river canyon. And not long after that, tired, in pain, and disoriented from the knock to the head she’d taken, Teri had gotten lost.

A fresh pang of regret rolled sickeningly in her stomach—all that money burned. She reckoned the raid on the bank had netted her about a million. Now it was all gone. Nothing but ash and smoke mingled with the stench of burnt rubber, upholstery, and hot metal.

Again, Teri stared at the burnt and broken tree while cold spray from the violent waterfall settled onto her exposed skin. With a raised and tired arm, she used her fingers to wipe sweat from her forehead and thought back over all the horrific miles she’d endured.

At the base of the broken trunk lay the wreck of her Micra. After everything she’d endured, Teri had come full circle. Right back to where she’d started.

Exhausted, Teri slumped onto a moss-covered rock and wept. Far, far above, the mournful wail of police sirens scared the birds from the trees.

 

Copyright ©Harmony Kent 2020

I hope you enjoyed this bit of fun, and I’d love to hear your thoughts. If you’d like to take part, here’s the link again: https://sooozburkeauthor.wordpress.com/2020/07/31/fiction-in-a-flash-challenge-week-11-new-image-prompt-pursoot-iartg-asmsg-writingcommunity/.

Here are the rules:

Please put it (or a link to it) in a comment on Soooz’s blog or email it to her at her email address. by DEADLINE: 4pm EDT on Thursday, August 6th. Subject: Fiction in a Flash Challenge. If you post it on your own blog or site, a link to Soooz’s blog page would be much appreciated.

She will be sharing all entries received, and, her own contribution on her blog beginning on Friday, August 7th.

Here is the week #11 Image Prompt.

Thanks to Adrian Mato for sharing their FREE IMAGE on Unsplash.

Photo by Adrian Mato on Unsplash

We hope the image inspires you! Come and join in the fun.

Find Soooz at …

My author page on AMAZON.

On Twitter.

On Facebook

On Goodreads.

By Email.

Interludes 2 – A New Book from Harmony Kent

Hi everyone. Today, you’ll find me lurking at John Howell’s place hogging all the coffee and cakes. For another sneek peek at Interludes 2, pop on over. We’d love to see you

Guest Author Interludes 2 by @Harmony_Kent

Hi everyone! Today, I’m visiting Joan’s place to talk some more about my latest book. For another sneak peek, check it out >>>

 

Hey everyone. Today I’d like to welcome back Harmony Kent to my site. She has a new book coming up for release soon and is here to talk about it. Thanks so much for having me over at your pla…

Source: Guest Author Interludes 2 by @Harmony_Kent