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For Wednesday writing, I’m taking part in the Power of Tension Blogfest.

Here’s what the host Rachel Morgan wants bloggers to do:

Give us an excerpt (up to 300 words) from your manuscript or recently completed work (or just a random scene) that just drips with tension and will tie us up in knots wanting to know more. It doesn’t matter what the piece is about, as long as it screams tension.

The following is my entry, and since the blogfest asks for a warning, I’d give this an M18 for violence. You’ve been warned!

You can participate till the 27th, go Here to find out how.
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I mean to kill. I know it is only a matter of time today, I’ve chosen my spot well.

A man on the hospital escalator going down watches a woman on her way up. A staircase separates the two escalators, perhaps for busy doctors who can’t get enough cardio into their week. The man turns, raises his head to gaze at her trim little figure. She does not notice him watching her, nor does he know  I hold him in my sight.

They’re not who I’m after, my finger on the trigger, in an unused office in the opposite building.

But they are rather like the couple I’m waiting for, a doctor and his erstwhile nurse. They were busy screwing the brains out of each other as my boy lay dying. I found them, but by then it was too late.

They will come in soon, and the doctor will take the stairs along with his two-year-old son. Both the parents are blond, so chances are the son will be too. Two blond heads and a small, soft one in between.

Through my scope, each hair of that boy’s head will be visible, down to the pinkish bald spot on the downy little head.

With no warning, that head will spatter on his parent’s sleeves, their legs, shoes. They will smell blood, steel, death, loss.

My pistol sits ready beside my sniper kit, for I have another spatter to create. Wonder how it’ll look on this cream wall behind me.

The last four years I’ve lived for this day—this one will be for you, my boy. Wherever you are, I hope you’ll be watching.

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Damyanti Biswas

Damyanti Biswas is the author of You Beneath Your Skin and numerous short stories that have been published in magazines and anthologies in the US, the UK, and Asia. She has been shortlisted for Best Small Fictions and Bath Novel Awards and is co-editor of the Forge Literary Magazine. Her literary crime thriller series, the Blue Mumbai, is represented by Lucienne Diver from The Knight Agency. Both The Blue Bar and The Blue Monsoon were published in 2023.

I appreciate comments, and I always visit back. If you're having trouble commenting, let me know via the contact form, or tweet me up @damyantig !

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