This week I’m doing things a bit differently. These prompts will stay up and open until next Saturday. However there will be a slight change in plans. This time, I’m opening up the doors a little bit more. I’m opening up your options. You may choose from the following category:
Flashfiction – Limit of 100 – 500 words
Short Fiction – Limit of 500 – 1500 words
Short Serial – 3 – 5 chapters, limit of 1000 – 3000 words each chapter
Choose any one of the three to write for. Short Fiction and Short Serial will be posted on another page, but will be linked on this page. I am excited to see what you come up with. As always, each entry needs to have the following information included when you submit it:
– Prompt Choice
– Category
-Word Count
– Name
– Twitter Handle
For short Fiction and Short Serial, if you have stories posted online, please include the link to your profile.
The Prompts:
While these are quote pictures, the quote does not have to be included in the piece that you write.
Prompt #1
Prompt #2
Freedom in Words 
– Prompt Choice: #2
– Category: Flash
-Word Count: 399
– Name: Heather
– Twitter Handle: @everydaybella89
My eyes burned as I studied the lines, beautiful if only for the fact that they bore witness to his strength.
I ran my fingertip along the thick bands of scar tissue across his back. This is the closest that he’d let me be to them.
Silvery-white stripes crisscrossed his back from his broad shoulders to the shallow dip just above his hips. I could not count them.
He had told me.
The punishment for trespassing—six lashes.
The punishment for turning down the master of the prison—eight lashes.
The punishment for spying—twelve lashes.
Twenty-six lashes. They had almost killed him, leaving him covered in blood, gore, and torn muscle. He had been dumped outside the prison like refuse.
Here in the warmth and comfort of our home it was easy to forget how pale he was when they brought him to me. He had shivered, pale and frail on the bed, covered in his own shit and choking on bile.
My palm smoothed across the raised ridges of his back, eliciting a moan. I knew what they meant to him, a mark of his misbegotten loyalty. The earl should have pulled him out of there after paying a ransom. Richard had only spied at the earl’s request.
They told me he hadn’t resisted when they had tied his hands to posts, accepting each lash mutely.
“They haven’t scared you away yet?” his voice light and jesting.
He was a terrible pretender.
I threw off the blanket in which I was wrapped, stretching myself along his back—skin to skin, strength to strength. “You could never scare me away. Neither could anything that they do to you.”
“Elisabeth.” He sighed my name like a prayer. “The things that I’ve done. I’m never going to be whole again.”
I kissed his ear before nuzzling into his neck. “They can only take from you what you let them.”
He shook his head, his face a blank mask. “There’s something missing. I don’t know what it is but I can’t find it. I’m lost. I think part of me got left behind in that prison yard and I don’t know where to find it.”
Knowing not what to say, I held my tongue and listened to his breathing and the crackling of the fire.
I wanted to be strong for him—but how do you convince someone that their strength is still inside of them?
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Prompt Choice: 2
Category: Flash
Word Count: 323
Name: PFK
@DasBaiyo
“Shit!” I hissed.
“What?” Derek replied, affronted
“It’s nothing.” I mumbled.
But it wasn’t. Every single time it happened it was the same. It was like being boiled in acid, the pain almost unbearable. But bear it, I did.
He would never understand. No one did.
“Sir, are you all right?” a voice inquired.
“Just fine, only a bit winded,” I mumbled.
Later that night as I got ready for bed, I took a good look at myself. First the inconsequential; my face, I could use a little more sleep; my chest, I definitely could lay off the dessert a couple night a week; but finally I got to what I was looking for.
Those damn scars.
On my neck, a comparatively innocent red line. But still it hurt every time anything touched it, like I was being electrocuted without limit.
My chest, a few misshaped lines here and there, with holes from the surgical thread visible, too. But the problem wasn’t what was superficial. Those were just normal looking stitches, nothing to stress or worry about.
The tubes and various junctions that they helped cover were much more important or sinister. I knew they were there. I was reminded every single minute of my life how much they affected me.
A sudden movement, an unexpected blow or maybe just sleeping in the wrong position; they all just reminded me how much those things were a part of my life. It also reminded me how important they were.
If things went bad, they went really bad.
First vomiting, dizziness, dsisorientation and finally surgery. Of course sometimes it didn’t even occur in such an orderly fashion. Regardless, it would involve months of rehab, if not longer.
I would have to rebuild my life, piece by piece, crumb by crumb.
But it is, what it is. That’s my life.
The next day he asks, “Are you good?”
Even though I wanted to lie, I nodded.
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