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Holly Karlsson

storyteller + mountain roamer

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fantasy

After the Bath

Feb 17 2019 Leave a Comment

He watches me, leg rising from the tepid bathwater, as I step down onto the tiled floor. I flip clear my wet, caramel hair and look back at him, seeing his eyes slid down my tattooed spine and linger on my backside. I reach for my robe, but he seizes it in quick fingers, and folds it over his arm.

“You’re like a Degas painting,” he says, his smile pure honey. “Woman in a bath. You know it?”

“What do you want, Noah.” I turn, and he sees I’ve released my claws.

“I got a job for the wolf.”

(Inspired by a Edgar Degas painting & written for The Prediction. Challenge words: caramel, Degas, seize )

Tagged: 100 words, challenges, fantasy, flash fiction Categorized: Fiction

Orphan

Feb 16 2019 Leave a Comment

Telan held the brittle shard of ice candy in her tiny, dirt-streaked palm, and tried not to cry. 

“Do you not like it?” the young woman asked. Her accented voice was confused, as she stared at the orphan.

“I-I do,” Telan said quickly, swiping at her eyes. “It just reminds me of Papa.”

“Ah.” The woman knelt and placed a hand on Telan’s shoulder. Her sculptured face seemed more metal than flesh, the skin painted gray, and her eyes shiny inside rings of black. “Memories make us weak, little one.” 

She stepped closer, blocking Telan’s view of the blood-washed courtyard.

(Written for The Prediction. Challenge words: brittle, orphan, sculpture)

Tagged: 100 words, challenges, fantasy, flash fiction Categorized: Fiction

Poison

Dec 13 2018 Leave a Comment

I could feel my bladder loose, as he stared at me with dead, gray eyes. A different time I might have felt shame, but all I felt now was terrified confusion. He was dead, wasn’t he?

The contagion had done little to detract from his beauty. The purple scars looked more like filigree grafted atop his skin, than the ravages of poison.

“Don’t bother begging for mercy, Anna.” 

Mercy. Mercy was already lost to me.

“I will burn them all, Anna. I will raze them to the ground.”

He was wrong, like before. I had already destroyed them.

(Written for The Prediction. Challenge words: contagion, graft, mercy)

Tagged: 100 words, challenges, fantasy, flash fiction, horror Categorized: Fiction

Shut Up, Josie

Dec 03 2018 Leave a Comment

Bell eyed the mountain with all the affection of a half-starved cat contemplating revenge. She shoved herself upright, wincing as the torn skin of her knees stretched and complained. Her backpack lay half a foot away, the extraneous contents Josie had insisted she bring, scattered across the mossy stones, and muddy ground.

“One way to be weaned off hiking forever,” Bell grumbled.

“Did you break anything?” The voice floated beside her ear, hopeful, familiar and insufferable.

“Just my pride.”

“An indelible mark, perhaps?”

Bell grabbed the skull, and scowled at the empty sockets. “Shut up, Josie. We’re almost there.”

(Written for The Prediction. Challenge words: extraneous, indelible, wean)

Tagged: 100 words, challenges, fantasy, flash fiction Categorized: Fiction

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After the Bath

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I'm Holly, a speculative fiction writer who roams and writes in the Pacific Northwest with my husband, children, and a dog we're fairly certain is a shark.

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