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[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: The Vampire Rumour\n\nGenre: high-school\n\nWord Count: 1488\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about a character who thinks they have a sun allergy." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "It’s an unholy place, the school bathroom. There are sounds and smells best described as unnatural. The fluorescent light shines moon bright and casts my skin porcelain white. I seem to blend in with the wall tiles, hand basins and cubicle doors.\nThe water from the tap is warm and I splash my face to try and freshen up. It's been a strange few weeks. My classmates seem to be laughing at me more than usual and I can’t get a handle on why. \nThe sound of tissue paper being pulled from a dispenser emanates from a cubicle behind me followed by the waterfall of a flush. Jack emerges and stands beside me. He’s a friend, of sorts, I do his science homework, so he tolerates me more than others.\n“What's up, Vamps,” he says. He squirts soap from the soap dispenser into his palm.\n“Why does everyone keep calling me that?” I say.\nHe lathers his hands with the soap and rinses them under the tap. “There’s a rumour going round that you’re a vampire.”\n“That’s crazy.”\n“Why does your skin blister in the sun then?” Jack grabs a hand tissue and carefully dries his hands and fingers.\n“It’s called solar urticaria. Obviously.”\n“Whatever,” he says and throws the wet, crumpled up tissue at my face. “See you later, Vamps.” Then he’s gone.\nI shake my head and sigh. Vamps. There are worse nicknames I suppose. I can embrace that one. \nThe bell goes for History class. Damn. I’m going to be late. And everyone is going to see me being scolded by the teacher. \n*\nI walk home after school. It's not far. Just ten minutes up and down a hill and over an intersection with a pedestrian crossing.\nThe sun is shining and different things are enjoying its warmth. Vivacious green leaves with chlorophyll transforming light into life-sustaining energy. Cats stretching and sleeping on porches in their favourite sunny spots. A child’s train bed sheet drying on a clothesline. \nI’m at odds with the natural world. For me, the sun’s rays cause nothing but painful welts. Even for such a short walk home, I have to cover my entire skin with clothing. Trousers are tucked into socks, and long-sleeved shirts are tucked into long feminine gloves. A balaclava covers the head and neck and dark sunglasses protect the skin around my eyes. I sweat profusely. In colder weather, mist steams from my back. No wonder my schoolmates think I’m a freak.\nAnd it's not just my school mates. The lady at number 62 does too. She makes the sign of the cross whenever she sees me. And quickly shuts her door. Maybe she thinks I’m a vampire as well. Like what Jack said today. The rumour that I’m a vampire. It’s crazy talk. \nCould it be true? Like, for real? I’d know, wouldn’t I? I’d remember being bitten and the transformation. No way you’d forget that. \nPerhaps there are things about me that fit the rumour. Enjoying blue steak. A strong dislike of garlic. My pointy canine teeth. But these are mere coincidences, for sure. I laugh out loud to myself given these ridiculous musings and realise my laugh sounds quite evil. \nI’m home now. The sweating has made me thirsty. I open a carton of blood orange juice from the fridge and drain its contents dry. I run upstairs, strip off to my underwear, and lie on the bed to cool down.\n\nIt’s not much later that my parents get home and, unusually for them, they aren’t arguing. \n“Edward,” my Dad calls up the stairs, “can you come to the living room? We need to talk.”\nWhat’s got into them? They never want to talk with me like this. Usually, they’re just telling me what I can and can’t do. I throw on a shirt and some shorts and lurch downstairs.\nThe living room has three huge windows, each coated with a photoprotective film that blocks the UV light that scorches my skin. Mum and Dad sit on the white couch and I take a chair by the windows. They’re holding hands. Their faces are solemn.\n“Ed,” Mum says, “we know you’ve been having a tough time at school.” She stops, mid-sentence. Her face reddens and she grips Dad’s hand a little harder.\nDad takes the cue. “We’ve been putting off telling you this because we’ve been worried how you’ll take it.”\n“Take what?”\n“First, just know that your mother and I love you very, very much and nothing will ever change that.”\n“What is it?”\nDad leans towards me. “Son, we adopted you when you were just a few months old.”\n“What?”\n“We were holidaying in Romania at the time and saw you at an orphanage and arranged an emergency visa and were able to get you home with us.”\n“Romania?”\n“Yes, Romania, in the Transylvania region at the time, isn’t that right dear?”\nMy Mum, or the person I thought was my Mum, nods mutely and stares at the ground.\n“So, who are my real parents?”\n“Your biological mother died after giving birth, exsanguinated.”\n“And my father?”\n“He died in a tragic wooden steak accident.”\nI am silent for a moment. My Dad starts to clean his glasses. My Mum just stares at the floor some more. “That’s great guys.” I stand and walk out and say over my shoulder, “Call me when dinner’s ready.” \nI walk as normally as I can to my room, but once there, sink my head into the pillow and, I’m not sure why, start to cry.\n**\nLater that evening, after a muted dinner where no one spoke much, which wasn’t that different to usual, I sit on my bed and ruminate. My parents watch TV downstairs.\nOpposite my bed is a small television where I play video games. In the opposite corner is Pikachu, a hamster whose whole life involves eating, sleeping and running on a wheel and never getting anywhere. Kind of reminds me of my father. A door to door salesman who can spend all day outside and never get burnt. He usually comes into my room and jokes that it's been turned upside down by a robber looking for cash. Of course, it's just that I use the floor as my wardrobe.\nWhy did they not tell me when I was younger that I was adopted? If they mentioned it when I was like two, then it would have just been a fact of life and no big deal. But to wait until I was fifteen to tell me? My entire life has been a lie.\nI throw an empty cup from the bedside table against the wall opposite and, instead of smashing, it just bounces off the wall and falls to the floor. If I were a vampire that wouldn’t happen. It would have smashed into a thousand pieces and taken out half the wall. If I were a vampire I wouldn’t care about being adopted. If I were a vampire I wouldn’t care about whether I had friends. I would just take what I wanted, did what I wanted. I wish I was a vampire. I want to be a vampire.\nMy eyes turn to Pikachu, our pet hamster. He’s scratching around in his cage and doesn’t know the bloodlust that is building. There’s arteries just inside his neck. If I bite hard and taste his blood, I’ll know once and for all that I’m a vampire. \nI grab him and ease him out of the cage. I hold his head in one hand and body in the other. I bite.\nSeveral things happen at the same time. The first is that Pikachu bites me back, hard, on my hand, and it hurts like hell. The second is, I get a mouth full of fur, which tastes disgusting, and a bit of blood, which tastes even worse. I fling the door open and run to the bathroom. Pikachu scurries downstairs. I’m at the sink flushing my mouth out with water. My hand stings.\nThere’s a shriek from downstairs. My mum shouts, “It’s bleeding on the couch!”\nI grab a plaster from the cupboard for my hand and run back to my room. I’m panting hard and sit with my back against the door and catch my breath.\nI don’t know how I’ll explain to my parents why I bit the hamster. I’ll try and put it down to the shock of what they told me. The bite was just my way of processing it. Hopefully, Pikachu is okay. It was nothing personal.\nAt least I now know that I’m not a vampire. Even if I was, I certainly don’t have the stomach for it. Perhaps I’ll just adopt the goth look for now.\nI glance out the window and can’t help but see a bat, which seems to shake its head disapprovingly, drop from a tree and fly away." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: The Trunk\n\nGenre: historical-fiction\n\nWord Count: 2173\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story featuring an element of time-travel or anachronism." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "The Trunk\nBy Gina Burke\n“Wow, this yard sale has a lot of cool stuff, doesn’t it, Ethan?”\n“Oh yeah. It’s great. There are some tools I want to check out on that table over there. I’ll meet up with you.”\nCarly enjoyed watching her husband excited at yard sales like a child on Christmas morning. Not only did Ethan love a good yard sale, but he also loved to collect just about anything. As Carly watched her husband inspect everything that would undoubtedly end up in one of his collections, she chuckled and thought, True, I’ll eventually need a second home to store all of Ethan’s so-called treasures, but it makes him happy, which makes me happy.\nAs Carly perused the seemingly endless folding tables of items, she thought maybe Ethan’s love of unique finds was beginning to rub off. She already had her arms full of various treasures by the third folding table. She didn’t even want to venture a guess as to how much Ethan had accumulated by now. Just as she expected, she caught sight of him on the far side of the yard, arms overflowing. He peered over his goody pile, looking around for his wife. “Carly, come here. Check this out.”\n “Just a minute, let me put these things down.”\nThe woman hosting the yard sale saw Carly’s full arms and hurried over to help her. “Looks like you’re a little full there. I’m glad you like my items. My name is Heidi. Can I relieve your poor arms?”\nCarly let out a huge sigh. “Oh, yes, thank you. I’m Carly, and you have some great things here, Heidi. I’m surprised you want to part with them.”\nHeidi placed Carly’s items in a plastic bin and looked at her solemnly. “My husband passed away last year, and these things are what he’s collected over the years. It’s just too painful to see them day in and day out. I decided to hold a yard sale so others could enjoy the things that meant so much to my husband.”\nCarly responded empathetically. “I’m so sorry for your loss. I know others will enjoy your husband’s collectibles. Would you excuse me? My husband has spotted yet another thing he can’t live without.” Heidi’s laugh was contagious, and Carly found herself laughing as she hurried to Ethan to take some of his “must-have” items and rest his weary arms. “What’s up, hon?”\n“Look at this trunk. It looks quite old. I thought it would be something you’d like. What do you think? They’re only asking five bucks.”\nCarly knelt to inspect the trunk. She agreed it would offer some storage but was more intrigued with the craftsmanship. “Oh, Ethan, it’s perfect. Let’s get it. Why don’t you place your things inside it for now?” As Ethan put his items in the trunk, Carly walked to pay.\n“Heidi, is there anything you can tell me about that trunk over there? We want to buy it. The craftsmanship is exquisite.”\n“You know, I know the story of most every item my husband had, yet I know virtually nothing about that trunk. We’ve had it in the attic for as long as I can remember. We’ve just never had much use for it. Sorry, I can’t provide any information about its history. My husband always thought it was special for some reason. I do hope you enjoy it.”\nCarly looked over at the trunk. “I can’t tell you why, but I have a strange feeling it’s exactly what we need. Thank you, Heidi.” Carly told Heidi to keep the change and headed toward her SUV to load the items.\nEvening fell, and for some reason, Carly could not pull her mind from the trunk she bought today. “Ethan, is there anything you’d like to store in the trunk?”\n “No, hon, I thought you’d want it for your things. Put in it anything you’d like.”\nCarly spent the last hour listening to her husband’s rhythmic breathing. Since sleep wouldn’t come, she thought she’d get up and inspect the trunk. It’s an old, beaten-up trunk, and Carly has no idea why she feels so drawn to it. She decided to put mementos inside, things that hold special meaning to her, so she tucked a few items inside before heading back to bed. She chose the love letters she and her husband had written when they first met and the prescription glasses that were her father’s favorite on top of the letters. Since his passing, having his eyeglasses brought Carly comfort.\nThe next day brought with it brilliant sunshine. Carly has been looking forward to this day for quite some time. She loved touring around Old City, Philadelphia. It’s where she met Ethan. Every year on the date they met, they go into the city and visit the museums and restaurants they went to on their first date. “Where do you want to begin today, Ethan?”\n“How about The Franklin Institute?”\n“Ooh, yes,” Ethan responded excitedly. “My favorite and they have a great gift shop.”\nThey had a wonderful afternoon together. Carly came home with a few souvenirs, as she does every year. She decided on a replica Declaration of Independence, a book on the inventions of Ben Franklin, and a small Liberty Bell. “Carly, are you going to store your keepsakes in that trunk?”\n“I am. I’ve decided to only put meaningful mementos in it, and our yearly date is always memorable.” Carly kissed her husband, then went upstairs to store them away.\nThe following day Carly brought a few more keepsakes to the trunk. As she lifted the weathered lid, she immediately smiled. “What is he up to, that joker?” Gone were the love letters and her father’s glasses. In their stead was a note. She opened the folded stationary to read, “The items are fascinating. Please send more.” Carly couldn’t help but laugh. She left the open trunk to find Ethan. “Hey, goofball, where are my things?”\n “Huh, what are you talking about? What things?”\n“Oh, come on, Ethan. Where did you put the letters and glasses that were in my trunk? Fun prank, though.”\n“Carly, seriously, I didn’t prank you.”\n“You didn’t leave this note, you’re saying?” Ethan took the note from Carly and quickly read it.\n “Car, I didn’t write that. Maybe you have a pen pal.”\n“Good grief, Ethan. Well, I guess we have a mystery on our hands.”\nHe winked at her. “Maybe.”\nCarly knew he had to be pulling her chain, but she wasn’t sure why. She let it go and decided to wait and see what else he’d do. It had to be Ethan. Unless there’s a ghost with excellent penmanship, no one else lives with them.\nCarly brought the bag of souvenirs over to the trunk. She decided to play along and grabbed a piece of stationery and a pen. She sat on the floor before the trunk and wrote: “I’m glad you like my keepsakes. They are very special to me, so I would appreciate it if you’d place them back in the trunk.” She put the Franklin Institute's souvenirs in the trunk under the note, then closed the lid. She told herself she was playing along with her husband’s antics, but her intuition told her not to be so sure. She knew it didn’t make sense, but something inside told her it was true. She took the note and added, “My name is Carly.”\nShe went about her day but made it a point to pay attention to where Ethan went in the house, hoping to catch him in the act and prove her intuition wrong. When Ethan left for the store, Carly headed straight to the trunk. She lifted the lid expecting to see everything just as she left it. Her original items were again there, while the most recent souvenirs were gone. All that was there was another note.\n“Please tell me about the most recent items. I borrowed them for inspection. I will return them once you explain to me where you got the signatures on the document. Is it some parlor trick, or are you a thief? Is there something you want? Please respond post haste. S.D.”\n“S.D.? Who is S.D.? It couldn’t be Ethan, could it? Carly wondered. No matter who it was, Carly needed to know what was happening. The signatures on the Declaration of Independence? A parlor trick? A thief? She didn't understand. Carly knew that if someone played a trick on her, she’d be a fool to respond. Her curiosity was winning, so she picked up the pen to continue the conversation.\n“S.D., I have no idea what you’re talking about. The signatures? It’s the Declaration of Independence. It’s a 250-year-old document. Everyone knows what it is. I don’t know what you think I stole. I most certainly paid for those souvenirs. Who are you? If this is a prank, it’s no longer funny.”\nCarly placed the note in the trunk and paused.\n“S.D. Who could that be? She wondered. If this was Ethan messing around, she knew he'd want her to figure it out. But who would he be pretending to be?\nShe sat, thinking. The person referred to the signatures on the document. She wondered if he was referring to one of them. She looked up the document on her phone. None of the people’s initials were S.D. The note accused Carly of stealing. Stealing what? She wondered. What do my souvenirs have in common? Ben Franklin. He has something to do with all three of my souvenirs. The Declaration, the Liberty Bell, and the book on Franklin’s inventions. But S.D. What does that mean? \"\nCarly had a crazy idea. She heard her husband enter the front door, returning from his store trip. She thought she’d figured out if S.D. was her husband messing around, so she climbed into the trunk and lowered the lid. Huddled inside, she planned on popping out when he came in and opened the trunk. She quietly waited as she heard footsteps getting closer. She was ready. She could jump up and tell her husband that his gig was up any second now. The trunk slowly opened. Carly jumped up, ready to surprise Ethan, but found herself face to face with someone completely unexpected. She completely froze. “Dear God. How is this possible?” She voiced. “You’re, you’re… Benjamin Franklin.”\n“You’re who left the items in the trunk, I presume?”\n“Yes, I am. I’m Carly. I’m from the year 2022. I’m not sure how this magic is possible, but it seems I traveled back in time.”\nBen helped Carly out of the trunk and motioned toward a chair by the hearth. “Mr. Franklin, you signed your letters to me, S.D. That’s Silence Dogood, correct?” Carly asked as she sat, stunned at this turn of events.\n“Yes. That’s my signature when I wish to remain anonymous. How do you know about that?”\n “You’re one of the most famous people in American history. Your inventions and writings were the basis for the advanced modern conveniences we all take for granted in my time.”\nBen stood. “Those books you sent, those were about my inventions?”\n“Well, yes. You’re truly one of the greatest minds in history.”\n“I appreciate knowing that. I only ever want to better humankind.”\n“Well then, you’ve definitely achieved that and then some. Did you read the books and see how your inventions and thoughts have shaped our world?”\n“I am extremely grateful for whatever magic that’s allowing me to see my contributions to the world and what the world is like three hundred years in the future. Thank you, Carly. I want to do something for you. Is there anything you’d like?”\nCarly scratched her head and pondered the question. “Would it be too much to ask to have a few items signed by you?” Carly’s heart sped just thinking about meeting Ben Franklin and being able to take home proof.\nBen smiled and headed toward a small writing desk. He picked up a leather-bound book and walked back to Carly. “How about this? It’s one of my journals. I have many, and if it pleases you, I’d like you to have it.”\n “I’d be honored to receive such a gift if you're sure.” Carly absentmindedly rubbed a stray tear. Benjamin Franklin has always fascinated her; this encounter is nothing short of a divine miracle.\nCarly took the signed journal from one of her heroes. She pulled her cell phone out of her pocket and handed it to Ben. She explained what it was. He was fascinated. “I want you to have it,” she said.\nBen shook her hand and thanked her profusely. Carly climbed into the trunk, said goodbye to her hero, and squatted so Ben could close the lid. A moment later, the lid opened, and her husband was standing there. “Car, what are you doing in the trunk?”\n “Ethan, you better sit down. I’ll get you a beer. Trust me; you’re going to need it.”" } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Out at Night\n\nGenre: high-school\n\nWord Count: 1695\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story that begins in the light and ends in darkness, or the other way around." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Kate stood quickly as the bell rang and slung her back pack over her shoulder. It was Friday and she couldn’t wait to get out of this hell hole people called high school and into her brand new Mustang convertible with her best friend, Marie. They were heading to Seattle to see their favorite band play - a trip they had been planning for almost a year. \nKate was in her Senior year at Riverside High School, located in a small Historic Oregon town. The school year was almost over and Kate couldn’t wait for what was going the be the most epic summer ever! One, three month long party before she headed off to college! Kate and Marie had planned for college together since they were in middle school and finally, their plans were coming to fruition. They were getting out of this old town and heading to Sacramento State in California in the fall! \nKate and Marie had been best friends since Kindergarten. The two of them together had always made quite the impression on the people around them. It wasn’t just because of their looks – Kate being tall and lean with flowing curly blonde hair and Marie with her perfect complexion and glossy dark hair – but, it was also their personalities. They balanced each other out perfectly. Kate’s bold confidence leant itself naturally to Marie’s intense wit and sense of humor. Wherever they went, they drew attention to themselves. And, they liked it that way.\n Kate slammed her locker shut just as Marie approached.\n “You ready to get outta here, girlfriend?” Marie said, bouncing on the balls of her feet with impatience. \n “I could not be MORE ready!” Kate enthused. They linked arms, backpacks on one shoulder and headed toward the exit. They pushed open the doors into the bright afternoon sunlight. Both girls breathed in the fresh air and smiled with delight.\n “Does your mom know we’re leaving right after school?” Kate asked as she opened the driver side door of her cherry red convertible.\n “She does. She just wants me to call her once we’re on the road to let her know we’re okay.”\n “My parent’s said the same. Soooo protective. Don’t they realize we’re practically adults? I mean I’m going to be 18 in a week.”\n “I’ve tried explaining to my mom that we can handle ourselves, but you know how it is, ‘You’ll always be my little girl, Marie.’” Marie said, imitating her mother. Kate laughed, tossing her head back and letting the sun warm her face.\n “Ready, bitch?” She asked turning to Marie and positively beaming.\n “Let’s do this!”\n******\n“We need to stop for gas.” Kate said eyeing the gauge on the dashboard. “We’re practically on ‘E’.” They had been on the road for almost 5 hours and the sun was beginning to set. They had closed the hood of the convertible about an hour into the drive – the wind in their hair losing its thrill and becoming quite irksome after a while. They’d gone through most of their music playlists and podcasts and were anxious to get to the hotel.\n “It looks like there’s a gas station at the next exit.” Marie said, pointing at a highway sign depicting the nearest pumps. “We’re about 1 mile away.”\n “Good.” Kate sighed. “I’m ready for a break. How much longer does it say we have until we’re at the hotel?” She glanced at Marie’s phone alight with Google Maps navigation. How did people ever get around before modern technology?\n “About an hour.” Marie responded with a yawn.\nA mile later, they saw the exit looming ahead. The sun had gone down completely, leaving them with only the faint glow of the moon and their headlights to light their path. It was a typical cloudy night in Washington, no stars to be seen. A light drizzle had started and the girls were happy they thought to put the hood up a while back. Kate slowed down as she took the exit toward the gas station. Approaching a fork in the road, she looked around realizing she’s wasn’t sure which way to turn. There were no signs to point her in the right direction. Hell, there weren’t even street lights to help guide them. \n“Hey, will you enter the gas station into Google Maps so I know where I’m going?” Kate asked Marie. “I feel like we’ve entered the Twilight Zone. I have no idea which way to go.” \n “Yeah, lemme try.” Marie tapped the screen of her phone a few times. “ Um, it’s acting super weird. It looks like it keeps trying to re-route us or something. Like it can’t figure out where we are.” Marie is looking at her phone, confused. She gave it a couple hard hits on the side and shook it, as if that was going to have any effect.\n “Well, I don’t see any road signs or anything, do you?” Kate said, a little anxious.\n “No.” Marie looked around through the windows. “Just make a left here and drive for a bit, I’m sure the gas station will pop up. If not, we can turn around and go the other way.”\n Kate turned left at the fork in the road and drove for another mile or so.\n “I’m getting a really weird feeling, Marie. Everything is dark. Where are all the street lights? There’s not even a traffic light in sight. It doesn’t look like there’s a gas station within miles of here and the car is running on fumes.”\n “Pull over.” Marie said, trying to keep her voice from shaking. Kate veered the car toward the right hand side of the dark road, putting the gear shift into ‘park’ and turning off the car. Once they had stopped, they look around, gathering their surroundings. The road is lined with trees for what looks like miles.\n “I thought you said there was a gas station at this exit.” Kate said. She didn’t mean to sound accusatory, but the fear that’s brewing in her gut makes it come across that way.\n “That’s what the sign said, Kate, I swear.” Marie replied defensively.\n “Well, all I see are a lot of damn trees.” Kate said, loudly.\n “Okay, listen. Let’s just search for the nearest landmark and head in that direction.” Marie said, looking down at her phone. “What the hell?” \n “What?” Kate urged. “WHAT?” \n “I don’t have a signal. Um… Check your phone.” Marie is trying to keep her composure. Kate lunged for her phone, charging in the middle console.\n “Nothing.” Kate said, sounding on the verge of tears. “Should I just start driving? What if we get lost? We’re going to run out of gas! What if we can’t find our way back?”\n “I don’t know… let me think for a sec…” Her words were cut off as outside the windshield she saw a dark shadow cross in front of the car. “Did you see that?” Marie is staring wide-eyed.\n “What?” Kate asked, still looking at Marie. She follows Marie’s gaze but there is nothing there.\n “Something… moved.” Marie whispered.\n “What kind of something?” Kate said hysterically. “Like an animal? What the hell are you talking about?”\nMarie didn’t answer, rather she pointed straight ahead at two dark figures now standing in the distance.\n “Holy shit!” Kate screamed. “We have to get out of here!” She turned the keys in the ignition but the car wouldn’t start. “Come onnnn.” She said, her voice full of desperation.\n “Kate, hurry! What’s taking so long?” \n “It won’t start!”\nThey heard a whooshing sound, and saw what looked like shadows swooping toward them. Within seconds, the figures were at the car - one on each side. Kate and Marie could see them clearly now and noticed that it was two men. Both tall - one with dark eyes and black hair with a strong, broad build. The other one blonde with piercing blue eyes and a slim physique. Both had pale, almost translucent skin and were the most gorgeous men Kate and Marie had ever laid eyes on. Not knowing why – maybe because she thought these men could help or maybe because she wasn’t in her right mind – Kate rolled down the windows. \n “You look lost.” Said the dark haired one. He had a British accent and a voice as smooth as silk. \n “Can we help?” Said the blonde, with the same silky accent.\n “How… How did you get here so fast?” Marie stuttered. “I saw you all the way over there, and then you just… appeared here by our car.”\n “I don’t know what you’re talking about, little girl.” The blonde said, smiling without any trace of kindness. “What you’re saying isn’t possible. We were just out… hunting when we smelled you. We just couldn’t resist coming to say ‘hello.’”\n “What do you mean, you smelled us?” Kate said, her voice barely a whisper.\n “You smell like nothing I’ve ever smelled before. Like innocence and joy. Like a summer night after a thunderstorm. Would you agree, Isaac?” The dark haired man said, leaning in toward Kate and closing his eyes.\n “It’s like heaven, Saul.” The blonde, Isaac, said still smiling the same eerie smile.\n “And, who hunts at night?” Marie demanded, poking holes in their story.\n “Oh, we only come out at night.” Saul smiled, his eyes boring into Marie. \n “Are you gonna hurt us?” Kate whimpered, tears streaming down her cheeks. She reached for Marie and gripped her hand tightly. \n “Why, what makes you think that?” Said Saul, teasing.\n “Well, you keep talking about how good we smell… like you want to… eat us or something.” Kate couldn’t believe her own words. The two men laugh. Kate had never heard a more sinister sound in all her life. \n “Well, my darling girl. You couldn’t be more right.” \nThe beautiful features of both men seemed to radiate as they opened their mouths – where two sharp, gleaming white fangs had appeared. Their eyes alight with glee and hunger as they leaned suddenly into the open car windows to feast.\nKate and Marie screamed – the sounds piercing the once silent night." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Emperor, Do You Back The Coup?\n\nGenre: historical-fiction\n\nWord Count: 1709\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story that includes the line “I can’t believe we’re arguing over this.”" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Isao’s youthful legs burned from kneeling since dawn. It wasn't acceptable to shift positions in front of the Emperor. In three years at the palace, the divine one had never spoken to him, yet had never complained about him either.\n\nThe sovereign had been woken early to receive General Honjo and Minister Yuasa, who arrived with news of a coup. Soldiers filled with nationalistic fervor had mutinied and overrun the capital.\n\nThe barrel chested General Honjo stood ramrod straight in a uniform covered with medals. He bellowed, “The Righteous Battalion has taken over Parliament, and requests that you rule the country directly, and we as a nation put an end to this farce of politicians and political parties.”\n\nNext to the General, Minister Yuasa advised in a more solicitous tone, “Emperor, may I suggest we judiciously weigh events and follow the protocol which has protected the very survival of this Court for thousands of years.”\n\nGeneral Honjo retorted, “Indecision would be foolhardy. The rebel forces support you the Emperor, for now.” He bowed to the Emperor and walked out, rapping his walking stick on the ground in front of the courtesans. \n\nIsao shuddered but didn’t flinch. That would not be acceptable in front of the divine ruler. Minister Yuasa left shortly after the General, and the room fell silent.\n\nNormally, the Emperor had never addressed junior courtesans, but today he curiously scanned their faces. His eyes stopped on Isao.\n\n“What is your name and position, boy?”\n\n“Heavenly Emperor, I am Alternate 2nd Assistant to the Vice Chamberlain, Isao, at your service...”\n\n“That’s enough,” Hirohito said curtly, “take your body out of this court and go seek out what’s happening in the city and report back to me. You are not to tell anyone you are on an errand for the palace, understand?”\n\n“Yes, yes.” Isao fumbled with his words, confused how to reply at the right level of politeness after being spoken to so directly. Isao bowed deeply and walked backward out the entrance door, and kept walking backwards until he exited the second chamber.\n\nOn his way out of the palace, he heard a voice booming from the Chrysanthemum hall. General Honjo was discussing politics with Minister Yuasa out of earshot of the Emperor.\n\n“It's unbelievable in 1936, today’s Modern Girls are wearing Western clothes and dresses above ankle length. If things continue this way, who knows what the country will be like by 1940!”, General Honjo said.\n\n“But General, when the people began to eat ice cream and drink coffee back in the 1920s, everyone said THAT would be the end of Japanese culture. Now look, it's 1936, and Japanese are still eating sushi and drinking miso soup, aren’t they?” Minister Yuasa said.\n\n“You know that's not the same thing as the moral decline of our young people,” shouted the General louder.\n\n“I can’t believe we’re arguing over this. There’s a hostile army outside the gate.”\n\n“That’s not a hostile army. The Righteous Battalion wants to bring back the old traditions, Duty, Honor, Respect.”\n\n“They are brainwashed recruits led by fanatic officers. They will bring nothing but chaos.”\n\nTheir argument over modern morals and military ethics rattled around through seemingly unconnected topics. Isao thought of the imported American washing machine installed below the Servants Quarters.\n\nIsao wouldn’t get any useful information from the General and the Minister, just one-sided dogma. He needed to find people who could give him information free of high rhetoric. Working class people.\n\nIn the annex, he removed his silk court robes and wooden slippers and put on a gardener's working clothes. Outside the palace building around the corner from the main gate he saw a policeman smoking a cigarette. \n\nIsao bowed ever so slightly as is the habit of the common people, then lit a cigarette of his own.\n\n“So, how bad is it out there?”\n\nThe policeman hissed air in through his teeth, the Japanese gesture for a difficult situation.\n\n“It depends on if you think young people can shoot straighter than old men.” The officer tried to laugh as he touched his glasses. “There are 700 soldiers out there that look fresh out of bootcamp. And they’re being led by a manic officer who keeps shouting nonsense about the divine emperor’s destiny.”\n\n“Umm.” The Japanese language has many words for stating vague agreement.\n\n“And they shot the Prime Minister dead at 5am today.”\n\n“That is not a small deal,” Isao said. The Japanese language has many words for understating extraordinary events.\n\n“This is not a good thing for any of us,” said the policeman, who had lived a life of service and looked resigned to whatever fate had in store for him.\n\nIsao thanked him politely and bowed, much lower than the first time.\n\nIsao did his rounds and confirmed with a few other people what the policeman had said, then returned to the Emperor’s reception hall.\n\nWhen he had his opening to speak he said, “Emperor, a military uprising has indeed taken the capitol, and they have men at the Sakashita Gate”\n\nThe Emperor of Heaven nodded and said, “Tell me the worst part.”\n\n\"They have assassinated Prime Minister Okada.”\n\n“That’s not a small deal!” the Emperor’s passive expression slipped into something more human and anxious, just for a second.\n\nIsao pondered that for decades the court’s main focus was on occupying and distracting the Emperor with tea ceremonies, receptions, awards for school children and soldiers, meetings with foreign dignitaries. They did all this because when the Emperor occasionally turned his attention to trying to direct the nation, through Imperial edicts and so on, it would cause problems for the people who actually ran things, and once the Emperor moved on to another distraction, everyone would need to do a lot of work to minimize the repercussions afterward.\n\nBut now, they might possibly need the Emperor’s active leadership.\n\n“The rebels have another request, to have a meeting to ask for your support.”\n\nThe Emperor stared at Isao with his calm smile.\n\n“How many soldiers do they have?”\n\n“700, with rifles.”\n\n“How many do we have?”\n\n“50, mostly with pistols.”\n\n“Tell them the Emperor does not have time today and will see them tomorrow.”\n\nIf they were fighting to have the Emperor elevated to a higher position in the nation, they certainly couldn’t turn down his rescheduling request, could they? On the other hand, if they had just shot half the government dead they could also change their mind about who they wanted to support. The Emperor thought warily of General Honjo.\n\nWhile the emperor was thinking, Isao looked at the morning newspaper full of yesterday’s uneventful news. It was dated Feb 26th 1936.\n\nThe Emperor got his attention again.\n\n“History repeats! The same thing happened in 1932. They shot the Prime Minister that time too.” The emperor made a throat cutting gesture.\n\nIsao tried not to laugh. After three years of tedious paperwork arranging receptions for people who would never return to the palace, at least this was exciting.\n\nLater in the morning, the police commander Isao had met with earlier let him know that the rebel forces who went to assassinate Prime Minister Okada were holding a picture of the Prime Minister. His brother-in-law, in the house at the time, unfortunately looked very much like him, and they shot him instead. They shot the wrong man and were parading his body in front of the Prime Ministers house.\n\nThe real Prime Minister was hiding under a bed in the servants quarters and awaiting a chance to escape. The house was still surrounded by soldiers from the Righteous Battalion.\n\nImmediately after Isao received this news, he requested a reception with the Emperor.\n\n“The Prime Minister has been located alive, and is in a safe location.”\n\n“Where is he?” the Emperor asked Isao.\n\nNo one had trained Isao for this occasion. If he told the Emperor and the Emperor let the Prime Minister's whereabouts slip to someone like General Honjo, his end might come about swiftly. And if the Prime Minister was dead, the Emperor would have no choice but to accede to the rebels' demands. \n\nIsao bowed with regret. “I don’t have that information.”\n\nThe Emperor nodded and said, \"Now that the Prime Minister has been saved, I order the full power of the Japanese Imperial Army to crush the rebellion with haste.”\n\nWith the Emperor's word, the gears of the Japanese State swung into action. A police operation rescued the Prime Minister from under his bed. Then the vast bureaucracy who collected salaries and didn’t spend much time thinking about political idealism followed their new orders. Police opened armories, the Army marched in Divisions, the Navy moved warships and landing forces. The next day, the 2,000 rebels found themselves surrounded by 20,000 government’s soldiers. When the rebels heard the rumble of the Army’s tanks moving into position, they surrendered without a fight.\n\nThe Emperor was relieved. If the Righteous Battalion had gotten their way, he would have been appointed the administrator of the nation. All that deciding of mundane details would have been deeply tiring. After greeting the new parliamentary session and giving them his divine blessing, he could return to gardening.\n\nWhen you can receive the glory without getting blamed for everything that goes wrong, that's a far better option.\n\nThree weeks later, Isao, 2nd Assistant to the Vice Chamberlain, busied himself helping to prepare another awards ceremony.\n\nThe Emperor addressed the soldiers of Tokyo’s 1st Army Division, the source of the Righteous Battalion who had all been returned to their posts, and commended them for their patriotism and loyalty to the Emperor. In acknowledgement of their dedication to the nation they were to be sent to Manchuria on the glorious mission of defending the Japanese empire from the treacherous Russian Bolsheviks.\n\n**\nIn the coming years, Isao was sad to see that after the supporters of the Righteous Battalion had been purged from the Army, in order to absorb the popularity of their movement, the previously less militant Army bureaucracy adopted much of their aggressive rhetoric. The Emperor, beholden to the Army’s support, could no longer question their actions in China as he did before, and Isao watched as the nation slowly moved toward senseless war." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Spotlight\n\nGenre: high-school\n\nWord Count: 1744\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story that begins in the light and ends in darkness, or the other way around." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "I hold my arms tight against my body, pushing down on the pockets of my coat, confronting the chilly midnight breeze. The beaming full moon casts a soft, timid glow on the lawn, a blue-hued light that’s just enough for me to see my shadow, and the faces of a few people around me. I’ve arrived alone, late and empty handed, and already the sour smell of spirits makes my eyes water. Like a snapshot, everyone’s a bit idle, one of their hands clasping a clear plastic cup from the top, the other one maybe a cigarette, maybe something else. Time trickles by with a shake and a clink and a slurp, with a glow and a puff and a plume of smoke. My friends said they might come, but the lack of updates has me thinking they’ve called off the night. It’s a tough pill to swallow, and I look forward to when I’ll be leaving more than to the hours that await.\n I’m far too analytical and rational in the early stages of the night, but before I let the boredom sink in someone stumbles into me, reeking of raspberry vodka and Sprite. Her worn, frazzled denim coat is damp around her collar. Why so serious, she asks, I’m tired, bored and grumpy, I reply, fuck it, have this, she says, sloshing some liquid onto my face. It all happens too fast, but I realize a drink is the only way I’ll loosen up, so I take the flimsy cup and down its contents, gazing up at the moon as the elixir flows down into my mouth. I hold it in for a moment, feeling the sweet sting of the berry alcohol jab at my tongue and claw at my cheeks, before swallowing it in one hefty gulp. It burns a little, then a lot, and I groan with a wry smile on my face. I promise myself that that’s it, that I won’t be making a fool of myself, that I don’t need to drink to have fun. \n I start walking away aimlessly again, leaving Groggy Girl to fall on her knees in the absence of a supporting pillar, and come across Adam (is it Adam?), who's excessively sober. He can’t drink, he tells me, or his parents will kill him. I laugh it off and slap his shoulder. He raises an eyebrow, barely noticeable in the morphing contours of his moonlit face. We aren’t friends, I quickly remember, and maybe the shoulder slap had been a little awkward, or uncalled for. But whatever, I suppose; anything goes as long as he thinks I’m drunk. The slurp surely hasn’t got to me yet, but I like to pretend I’m a smidge less of a grumpy bitch.\n I stumble away from Adam, purely owing to my clumsiness, but feel multiple hands tug at my own coat, holding me back. Turning around, I see a group of three other girls with a guy in the middle—his arms wrapped around two, his shit-eating grin failing to masquerade his insecurity (a fact I find hypocritical of me to look down upon)—shaking their drinks in my face. I’m uncertain at that moment, but I think I smell something sour, something that should be inside a stomach. One of the girls stretches out her bottle of beer to me, but I refuse, the sour smell intensifying as the cuff of her jacket nears my nose (I do suppose, however, that she hadn’t been the victim, rather that she must have helped a friend get the alcohol out of her system instead). The one who isn’t being hugged hands me her carton of spiked juice, claiming it’s nothing but pure fuel, and begs me to try. I want to refuse a second time, not because of her smelling bad, but because I know full well that alcohol takes a while to make itself cozy in my bloodstream; but the tanginess of the orange and the sweetness of the raspberry—sweet, sweet, Judas raspberry—and the tickle of the spirits call to me in a primitive, sinister way, so I snatch the carton and take a hesitant sip. I chuckle, swallow with a grimace, and hand it back, but she insists I carry on. Fair enough, I say, and cock my head back again, like I’d done the first time, because it makes me feel cool. Once I’ve gulped it all down again I laugh at nothing with the group as they turn to head towards the darkest, most far-flung edge of the backyard, trampling over a couple of lifeless sacks with kneeling guardian angels by their sides. A gust of wind carries towards me the rancid smell of vomit.\n I scan the area again when I remember that my friends were supposed to have arrived by now, but I can’t see their silhouettes near the beer-pong table, lit up garishly by the LED speaker, nor by the pool, which glimmers a mellow green and precedes the couple of dudes having a piss onto the bushes behind it, nor in the lovers’ corner or spread out on the outdoor couches next to me. My legs ache a little since I haven’t sat down in a while, so I lean against a column and continue to stare blankly at my surroundings. The moon looks brighter now, and stings my eyes a tad if I look directly at it. From where I stand, the giggles of the inebriated, the corny pick-up lines that work only when under the influence, and the moans of a victim of a hickey are drowned out by the bass-boosted club music which shakes the air. I sigh and check the time. I’ve still got a while to go, but I don’t lament it. Instead, my foot taps along to the bassline and I clap my hand against the column to the rhythm of the beat, and pucker my lips as if I were making a funny face to myself. My head bobs soon follow.\n After a while of inactivity I see Groggy Girl again, making her way towards me across the dewey grass. She looks to have swapped her cocktail for a bottle with an ominously dark concoction collected at the bottom, but looks gleeful and awake, her fists above her head pumping to the music. This time, instead of letting her catch me by surprise, I step out to meet her in the middle of the backyard, punching at the air like her. But with my first step comes a kick to the temples, and in the most cliched way my vision tumbles. Fuck yeah, I yell to her, each successive step of mine a little looser, a little less secure. What’cha got there, bitch, I ask her, but not offensively or angrily, and she chuckles back and shakes the liquid around. Magic, she says, or something of the sort, but slurred, and she warns me. It’s really hard, it’s really concentrated, it’ll make you cry, pussy, she tells me. I let out a defiant cackle and take the bottle to show her how it’s done. I wince immediately with the putrid, unholy smell coming from that bottle, but knock it down the hatch regardless. It stings and burns, more than anything I’ve had all night, and makes my tongue want to eject from my body and writhe to its death, yet I clench my teeth and swallow hard, agonizing within, roaring with dominance, as Groggy Girl and I belly-laugh at my pain. \n Once I’ve risen again, Groggy Girl cups my chin with her hand and brings it to her face, dancing seductively and staring into my eyes. I try to hold back, but my head almost rolls off of my neck, and my legs sway into a vague jig, and my arms wrap around her waist, and we’re dancing to some horrible song about raunchy sex and whooping and rubbing together. She makes a move, but I’m hesitant to reply, the last semblances of reason and prejudice in my mercilessly pounding head telling me I can’t possibly make a move on Groggy Girl, because my friends would mock me to no end, because my friendship with her would collapse into a mangled mess of emotions and awkwardness and memories of a secret sloppy something something in the lovers’ corner, away from prying eyes but in full view of the moon’s spotlight.\n Perhaps unfortunately, perhaps not, my inhibitions fail to restrain me and I answer her advance, my drunk breath stinking of death. My body reacts as expected, but she’s into it, and I look at her and what I’m doing and what she’s reaching for, taking in the midnight blue sights before closing my eyes and hoping for the best. In doing so, however, I lose my balance, and my head lulls onto her as my body topples forward, the two of us locked in a slobbery embrace and hobbling clumsily in whatever direction desperate to stay on our feet. I let go of her halfway through our endless fall, realizing in the blur that my pants are undone and hoping the moonlight is faint enough to not reveal more than I would were I sober, and eventually fall on my face, my shoulder digging into the moist earth, the bitter soil making its way through my teeth onto my dry, pasty tongue. I twitch slightly, and a couple of hands grip my sides and flop me on my back, the muddy dew seeping through my clothes and making the rest of my body as wet and dirty as my stupid, pathetic face. I open my eyes, closing one as the dirt on my eyelashes sprinkles into it, and I finally see the shapes of my friends against the waning gleam of the full moon. I can’t see it, but I imagine the contempt on their faces as a surge of acid kicks its way through my throat and out onto my face and the rest of my body. A chill runs through my spine as the wind picks up again. The same rank, revolting, sour smell returns, this time fresher and more present than before, covering me; the drums of the migraines hammer harder all over my head. And yet, as my eyes close, the midnight shimmer fading to black, my world twisting and turning on its back and on its head and back again, I feel nothing. \n Only God knows when—or if—I’ll feel again." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: It should have been easy\n\nGenre: high-school\n\nWord Count: 2106\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story that begins in the light and ends in darkness, or the other way around." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "I thought it would be easy. I thought that I would never have to think about them again, that once they were out of my life they would be gone and I wouldn’t have to be thinking about them in the middle of the night.\n It’s not like they were bad people. The opposite, actually, they were my best friends. We shared laughs and food and heartbreak and homework answers. All through middle school, they would save a seat for me in the cafeteria and sat beside me. They talked to me, as friends do, and I opened myself up to them, and they to me. They had unknowingly pulled me back from the edge many times.\n But that was all five years ago. A quarter decade away. I’m a freshman at Yale now, a whole nother continent. I had long ago gotten rid of the dorky bangs and wire-framed glasses. I study late and wake up early. I have a tinge of an accent that my friends make fun of me for. I have a good life here, now. But then how come I can’t let them go?\n It all started eight years ago. I was as nervous as any sixth-grader was on their first day. I was shy then, but not as much as I would be later. On the bus ride there I sat next to Annabelle. She had gone to my elementary school and I didn’t know her well, but I didn’t want to sit alone. I slid into the old seat and absentmindedly picked at the duct tape holding part of it together. I smiled at her and said hi, but the rest of the ride was in silence.\n When we got put into the same English class, I was relieved. She grinned at me like we were old friends. We sat at the same table and got to talking. I think what drew me to her was her loud personality, which perfectly contrasted my quiet one. We sat together at lunch and she introduced me to her other friends. I noticed The Twins walk by our table and they sat with us too. I was relieved that two of my friends from fifth grade were here with me. \n We were not a Hollywood friend group. That’s the first thing that came to my mind just now when I thought of them. Li from dorm 208 says that journaling is putting whatever it is on your mind onto paper. Although she didn’t recommend doing it at 2 am in the morning in bed with a pot of coffee. My roommate would be mad, but she’s out late partying, so I have the whole place to myself. I opened the curtains so I could see the city skyline. It’s so beautiful right now, but it’s so devoid of stars. The lights from the movie theater next door are making everything in my room blue. I like it. It sets the mood.\n We were not a Hollywood friend group because we weren’t all super close. I had play dates (or “hangouts” as I would insist to my parents) with only one girl, and only a few times. The main place we all hung out was in the lunchroom. It also doubled as the gym, so the floor was wood and there were always basketball hoops looming over our heads. Our friend group was large and loud. We talked about everything and anything. We arm wrestled, spun coins, and frantically finished homework that was due next period. The Twins taught me chess and we always raced to our classrooms after lunch. I never won, but in my defense, they cheated.\n Seven years ago. One of the main things I remember about seventh grade was being very sad or very happy. The Twins, two of my best friends, had moved away the year before. Back then we didn’t have phones, so we couldn’t keep in touch. They left me with memories and nothing else. I never saw them again. That might be what started it. I began to get even more shy and withdrawn. I got good grades but never talked in class. The only time I would really talk outside of class was in the lunchroom, one of the best parts of my day. \n My friends didn’t think I wanted to hang out with them after school. I was too nervous to ever ask, even if they were my friends. So they didn’t think I would care if they hung out without me. Or if they made plans in front of me. Which they did, all the time. I told myself that I didn’t care, that I was too cool for that. You ever notice how the most convincing lies are the ones you tell yourself?\n I feel like a mess. I mean, who stays up this late at night not partying? Yi is blasting music from next door but I don’t care enough to tell her to turn it down. The theater’s lights are flickering, and it’s making my eyes hurt. I wish I could go back to sleep, but I can’t. Call me a drama queen, I truly can’t hold all of this in anymore.\n Six years ago. In eighth grade, I struggled. They split the advanced math class in half. I was placed in class two and hated it because class one said that our class was dumber. It sounds stupid now, but my confidence was already failing then, so I took it really seriously. To make matters worse, I didn’t have a class with any of my friends, so the lunch room was the only place we would talk. The thing is, our conversations were based around class. We didn’t have anything to talk about anymore.\n I had one friend that loved science. Yes, we were kind of geeks. You have to understand first that by eighth grade our friend group got too big for one table. We split into two. Most of my friends were at the “main table”, while I went with my science friend to the other one. I spent the whole period eating lunch in silence while she talked with her other other friends that I didn’t know and only spoke if she talked to me. I think at that point I was just done with the school, with the memories. Like every other middle-schooler, I just wanted to be a big kid. So when graduation rolled around, I was relieved. I hugged my friends that I had already become slightly estranged from and we promised to keep in touch. We promised to hang out in high school. We didn’t know that we were lying.\n It’s dark now. People always say that the night is blackest before dawn. That’s why they call it the witching hour. I would be scared, but my dreams scare me more. Maybe if I write it all down, if I get it all out of my head they’ll stop. I have to keep writing. I have to, even though my silent tears are splattering the pages and all the memories that I’m dredging up don’t want to see the light. Or rather, the darkness. Even the movie theater’s lights are out.\n The worst part is, I knew it would happen. I prepared myself for it. I talked to them less and we stopped texting. By the time we all hugged at graduation, I no longer felt like one of them. I was ready to start being a grown up. A high schooler.\n Five years ago. The summer between eight grade and freshman year. It was the summer it all changed. My parents discovered some great business opportunity in San Francisco. 2,922 miles away from my home. They told me the news gently, but they didn’t expect me to be happy. They didn’t expect that the news would reassure me, didn’t know that a fresh start was all I had wanted and more. \n Jersey Heights was a big high school. There was a very small chance that I would have had any classes with my old middle school friends. And they were all far more social than me. I had images in my head of eating lunch in the library alone, surrounded by all the other lonely people. I had images of running into them in the hallway as we awkwardly fumbled for conversation. I imagined four long years of never making friends, of pushing everyone away because “I was fine being alone”. \n Which might have been why I didn’t tell them.\n I told absolutely no one that I was moving. I had no one to text, anyway. I thought about it a lot but only after we had packed all of our things and gotten onto the plane and then it was too late. The first day at my new school was everything I had hoped. I made new friends with new hobbies and new stories. My classes were harder than middle school, but I hadn’t felt the dim hopeless of last year and the darkness that had surrounded me. \n I thought it would be easy to let them all go. And for the first few weeks, it was. I was happy in my life in a way I hadn’t been for a long time. It was like a boulder had been lifted off my back. I was free.\n Then the dreams started. I seemed to get them every week. It was always the same: seeing my old friends in whatever strange scenario my mind had cooked up- the playground, grocery store, Sephora counter turned haunted house. We would greet each other as if time had passed since we last saw each other yet we remembered like it was yesterday. We would laugh and talk and tease. Every time, I would tell them I was sorry for leaving and not telling them. And they would forgive me, every time. We would play like we were 13 again. Then I would wake up with a start and a sadness would dawn on me, so profound and deep that it would leave me with a sorrow I couldn’t shake all day. Sometimes the dreams would stop for weeks or months, then suddenly I would wake up with my face wet with tears because I had seen them again.\n Maybe it’s a closure thing. I never said goodbye to them, not really. They only found out because one, only one person texted me and said she was worried because I wasn’t at school. I was momentarily stunned by a wave of guilt before I explained what happened. An awkward conversation commenced, and by the end of it I was trying hard not to cry. I was trying hard not to cry because I realized then that I would never see any of them again. \nI would see them having fun on social media and pretend I didn’t care. I never unfollowed them because I held a stupid string of hope that they would reach out to me. That I would be able to see, from far away, what they turned out to be. I saw Annabelle get into that art school she’s wanted to go to ever since I knew her and my science friend go off to college with a boyfriend I had never met. They saw me fly to England and get into Yale. I wonder if they’re happy for me. I wonder if they remember me.\n Because somewhere down in my proud heart, I miss them. I miss them every day. I miss the times we had together and the times we could have had. I miss them when I see our old photos. I miss them in my dreams, where they appeared tonight. But I can’t do this anymore. It’s been five years. I can’t hold out hope that I will see them again. I mean, we’re totally different people now. I doubt they would even recognize me.\n The sun is coming up now. My God, it’s beautiful. My coffee pot is empty. I want to sob from relief. For five years, I’ve held all of it in because I didn’t want to forget. I couldn’t forget, not when my brain has burned their names into my head and I can still remember the shade of green on Annabelle’s favorite sweatshirt. People call them growing pains. I call it the curse of memory. \n I’m going to sleep now, even though my pillow is wet with tears. I was scared for so many years that I would forget my old friends, but I’m ready now.\n I’m ready to let them go." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Dollymops\n\nGenre: historical-fiction\n\nWord Count: 1033\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story that includes the line “I can’t believe we’re arguing over this.”" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "(Content Warning: Mentions of death and prostitution.)\n\n\nThe whores of London affected the lives of every woman in Victorian England in one way or another. Susan Merrick might have joined their ranks had she not been born into circumstances so fortunate.\n\nThroughout her childhood, she was prejudiced against the dollymops by her mother, whose main objection seemed to be their showy outfits. Her mother cast the strumpets in a particularly unsympathetic light; ensuring that Susie would never wind up like them.\n\nBecause Susie never needed to work, she didn’t realise that whoring was about as lucrative as it got for a lower class woman. Especially in comparison to the grunt work of a seamstress; glued to the loom for days on end, forfeiting sleep. \n\nOnce she was a grown and married woman, Susie became less preoccupied with her disgust at the whores, and more concerned that her husband might be using their services. This was because Tim would return home after nanty narking in the local tavern, smelling a little too exotic as he climbed into bed. \n\nSusie's husband’s hedonism continued into the winter of 1868, when London entered a cold snap. As a lark one night, Tim’s drinking pals put him in a wheelbarrow and carted him around in the snow. It was all fun and games until their neglect proved to be fateful. \n\nAs was their wont, Tim’s pals fled Greenwich park for the warmth of the brothel when they felt their loins stirring; leaving him unconscious in the barrow. Tim was as tight as a boiled owl; even the cold couldn’t wake him up so that he could stumble home. He stayed passed out all night, then passed on—dying of exposure. A resident discovered him the next morning; a river of vomit frozen to his chest.\n\n\n\nThat same winter, Susie was stopped in the street by police officers demanding to do unsavoury things in the name of the government. Because a steep rise in STDs had been affecting the country’s workforce, the government was intervening.\n\nA junior and a senior officer cornered Susie in an alleyway, demanding that she submit to a spot check. The senior officer was tall and towered over her.\n\n‘Madam. We need to check you for venereal disease. If you’d kindly direct us to your place of residence, we can do this in private.’\n\n‘You’re not checking me for that. I’ve had no symptoms, whatsoever.’\n\n‘It could be latent, Madam.’ The junior officer said, fingers wriggling near the truncheon at his waist. ‘The contagious diseases act demands that we check.’\n\n‘You won’t find anything. I’m no strumpet,’ Susie said.\n\nThough she sounded confident, Susie wasn’t sure she was actually clean when she recalled Tim’s possible brothel visits. Determined not to submit, she used every fibre in her being to stand straight and look the officers in their eyes.\n\n‘We’re having a look, Madam--whether you like it or not,’ they said.\n\n‘You are not touching me. I can’t believe we’re arguing over this! Be on your way, you couple of mutton shunters.’\n\nOne of the officers pinned Susie to the alley wall, while the other one callously defrocked her in front of the gawking market goers. The junior officer took his time inspecting Susie’s crotch with very cold hands.\n\n‘Can’t see anything, Sargent. But I think we’d better take her in. Just to be sure.’\n\n‘Right, you are,’ the senior officer said, winking. ‘It could be dormant. Bring the car around.’\n\n\n\nThe officers took Susie to Greenwich Hospital, where she was given sweat baths and rubbed with mercury ointments for twelve days. She felt rather more ill than before-- on account of the mercury--but was deemed clean before discharge.\n\nUpon returning home, Susie remained asymptomatic. She was now more convinced that Tim’s tallywhacker had not been syphilitic; so was by turns grateful and infuriated. The coroner’s report still hadn’t arrived--did they bother carrying them out on people that had frozen to death?\n\nThough it was humiliating, Susie’s hospital experience hadn’t been for naught. She became sympathetic to the plight of whores for the first time in her life. She had more empathy for the plight of every woman who was being subjected to wanton spot checks wherever and whenever officials felt like it in the crackdown on venereal disease.\n\nTo take a stand, Susie joined the Ladies’ Association against the Contagious Diseases Act, in 1869. It would take 17 years for the repeal to be granted, but eventually, there were no more humiliating spot checks.\n\nThe Ladies’ Association welcomed working girls to their group as a means of support and better understand the situation. Before her incident in the alley way, Susie wouldn’t have been caught dead fraternising with Carol--part time seamstress, part time whore.\n\nAfter everyone else had left the meeting, Susie struck up a conversation with Carol while they polished off the leftover tea and scones. Carol tried very hard to act lady-like whilst sipping her tea in the presence of a middle class woman like Susie. And Susie could tell. She informed Carol that extending one’s pinkie whilst drinking tea was outdated and elitist. \n\n‘The raising of the pinkie need not be perpetuated if different social classes are to respect one another.’ Susie said, raising, then lowering her pinkie with her other hand. ‘Anyhow, which brothel do you work in? Is it Greenwich?’\n\n‘Yes, Miss Merrick.’\n\n‘Did you ever come across a man named Tim?’\n\n‘Is that him who crooked from collywobbles?’\n\nCarol looked embarrassed for using such crude slang, but Susie didn’t mind.\n\n‘No,' Susie said, 'Tim froze to death in a wheelbarrow.’\n\n‘Oh, yes. . . such a shame. I never did get to meet him. Neither did any of the girls in the brothel. He seemed like a nice fella.’\n\nSusie’s eyes softened, and sparkled proudly as she contained a trembling smile. \n\n‘His mates always came rutting,’ Carol said, ‘but he stayed outside. Never came in once.’\n\n‘He didn’t?’ Susie’s grin filled the width of her face and a rush of joy filled her abdomen. \n\n‘Oh, no. He seemed much too respectful, like.’\n\nAs she sipped her Earl Gray thoughtfully, Susie said to Carol,\n\n‘That was my husband—the drunk.’" } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Ivy and Shadows\n\nGenre: high-school\n\nWord Count: 1275\n\nPrompt:\n\nSet your story in a countryside house that’s filled with shadows." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Griffin Cecil- June 15th- On the plane.\nFrom Asenapine to Ziprasidone I’ve taken them all. None of them have helped much. Shadows still lurk in the corners of my vision and words that aren’t mine interlace between my thoughts. My mom thinks that me going to stay at my grandfather’s countryside cottage in England this summer will help. She says it will be a good idea to “detox” before I go into my senior year of high school. Whatever “detox” means. I really don’t think she understands. Just because I go from our home to a sunny countryside cottage doesn’t mean the shadows will go away. The cottage will just fill with the shadows I carry. My mom doesn’t understand that, she’s not the one with paranoid schizophrenia.\nI guess I don’t care, I don’t have anything better to do and I guess going to England seems cool. I lost almost all my friends last year anyway. When I was diagnosed. I think they all think I’m insane. That’s what the voices say anyway. One of the voices whispers seductively in my head, “Griffin, all of your friends think you’re a schizophrenic deranged psychopath. You should just never talk to them again.” I believe the voices. That’s why I’m writing this journal. I have this whimsical notion that maybe writing in this journal can take the place of my friends. At least a journal doesn’t think you’re crazy.\nGriffin Cecil- June 16th- At grandfather’s cottage.\nThe countryside cottage while beautiful doesn’t make me feel much better. Everything feels so odd here. People drive on the wrong side of the road, I don’t understand half of what people are saying with their accents and dinner is called tea. The only thing that remains familiar is the shadows that stalk me.\nMy grandfather isn’t much for talking, not that I’d want too anyway. The last time I saw him in person was when I was 5. He reminds me vaguely of the chubby henchman in One Hundred and One Dalmatians. Big nosed and bushy eyebrows. The voices say don’t trust him. So naturally, I don’t trust him.\nMy mom says its unhealthy for me to define myself by my schizophrenia and to spend more time doing things I enjoy, but I’m honestly scared. The voices in my head tell me that everyone is judging my every action, everyone is out to get me, and the shadows stalk my every move. My mom tells me those thoughts are “delusions” and unreasonable, but I’m not so sure. This new place almost seems to make my hallucinations and my “delusions” a thousand times worse. Like the ivy that thrives on the side of my grandfather’s cottage its only continued to grow.\nGriffin Cecil- June 17th- At the marketplace.\nMy grandfather goes to grab whatever groceries he desires and barter with the sellers at the market. I’m left to wander around and explore, but instead I stay put by a small fountain in the square and watch the people blabber to each other as they go about their day.\nI feel uncomfortable sitting here and anxiety begins to bite at the core of my being. A voice in my head whispers “You are so out of place here; everyone sees you and wants to hurt you.” The shadows begin to creep closer slinking along the floor. I don’t understand why I had to go here. My mother sent me here to die, for the shadows to strangle me. The shadows will just smother me like the brick wall being smothered by the ivy. The shadows are so near they are almost devouring me. I’m scared…\nGriffin Cecil- June 17th- Hiding in the cottage’s bathroom.\nI was practically carried to the car from the market. I had what my doctor called a psychotic attack, and my whole brain felt like everything was all at once so clear and then it felt all confusing and muddled. Voices overlapped with my own thoughts. I felt like I wasn’t in this world at all, and I panicked. I when I panicked, I apparently fell backward into the fountain.\nWhen I got back to the cottage the shadows crept in around me threatening to reach their arms out toward my ankles. I rushed to the bathroom in an attempt to escape them and locked the door. My grandfather is knocking on the door and asking if I’m ok. I don’t respond at first. I can’t tell if he really is talking to me or it’s just a hallucination. I yell anyway “Go away! You don’t understand!”\nThe voices are overlapping again, and I struggle to keep my thoughts on my writing. I would say there are about five voices all arguing with each other. I haven’t told anyone this, but I’ve given them names. Veronica is the angry paranoid female voice in my head. She often tells me that other people want to hurt me and kill me. Paul is a male voice that sounds a lot like my father. My father and my mom got divorced when I was 7 because he was an alcoholic and abusive. Paul often tells me not to trust people, that nobody cares about me and I’m nothing. Antony is a tinny male voice that sounds a lot like a game show host, he always agrees with Veronica and Paul and often says things that are very unkind. I do have two good voices though. Ruby is a soft kind voice and sounds almost just like my mom. The only problem with her is that she is often quiet enough the others speak over her voice. She sometimes sings though. Sometimes it’s annoying but sometimes it helps. Finally, we have Quentin. Quentin is… how do I put it. He is passionate to say the least. He talks like Shakespeare and often says good things about me. They often argue making it awfully hard to focus.\nThe cottage is quiet now, I assume my grandfather has given up and went to sleep. I should probably go to my room. Maybe the voices will quiet down for long enough for me to fall asleep.\nGriffin Cecil- June 18th -Sitting under the big sycamore tree.\nThough I don’t trust my grandfather. I feel bad he’s having to deal with me. I’ve written him up as if he’s not a person with feeling and I’ve let the voices get to me. This morning he was especially quiet, and I felt nervous. Was he trying to send a message to me maybe? I brush the thought away. He’s walking out to the tree where I sit now. I wonder what he wants.\nGriffin Cecil- June 20th- At grandfather’s cottage.\nI took a break from writing for a couple of days because I found someone I could talk to and express my thoughts and be understood. My grandfather came to me that day under the tree and told me that he himself has paranoid schizophrenia, and that he does understand. I was shocked, I asked if my mom knew. She did. My mom didn’t send me here to die and be smothered by shadows, she sent me here to have someone who understood me. She sent me to stay with him knowing that I wasn’t the only one who lived their life seeing hallucinations. She sent me knowing I wasn’t the only one who heard voices and he had his own voices in his head. She sent me knowing he felt the same way I did and was managing to live a semi-normal life.\nMaybe if he can live an almost normal life…\nI can too?" } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: A Little Off the Nose\n\nGenre: historical-fiction\n\nWord Count: 1682\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story that includes the line “I can’t believe we’re arguing over this.”" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Fiametta clenched the linen sheet draped around the painting. Where in God’s name was he, she thought – or rather, His Excellency? Out of the corner of her eye, Fiametta could just spot her manager, Signore Giulio, glancing at his pocket watch. Fifteen minutes after noon had come and gone. Though His Excellency had demanded that Fiametta complete the portrait in a bare two weeks, it seemed that Bishop Antonio Cipriani took a more leisurely view of his own time.\nFiametta sighed as her brown eyes wandered to the quadro riportato artwork overhead on the palace’s arched ceiling. The Palazzo Cipriani was among the most beautiful in Rome, owned by one of its most influential families. Late or not, His Excellency had greatly honored Giulio’s small workshop with a commission. If the bishop approved Fiametta’s finished piece – please God, let him be satisfied, she thought – it would join the ranks of dozens of masterpieces housed within the palace’s marble walls. Fiametta was breathless at the prospect of her portrait joining the likes of Caravaggio, Titian, and Poussin. So every ticking second on Giulio’s watch stung Fiametta like the pangs of purgatory.\nThe sharp squeal of a door sent a shudder down Fiametta’s spine. She and Giulio whipped around toward the gilt doorway they themselves had entered only a half hour prior. A young manservant, liveried with the bishop’s familial crest, strode towards the artists. He offered them a curt bow – quite sufficient for greeting commoners.\n“Signore, Signorina,” he declared, “kindly follow me to His Excellency’s chambers.”\nFiametta and Giulio trailed the nameless servant through a wide corridor until he ushered them into a sitting room. The anxious pair hovered in the doorway as he announced their names to the man who Fiametta was now desperate to see. She snatched a breath as another servant appeared and pulled the painting from her sweating palms. At last, the first servant motioned her inside. \nAfter a deep curtsey, followed by a bow from Giulio, Fiametta spotted the portrait (still carefully veiled) on a large easel between her and an oaken dining table. But her eyes jerked towards the figure in voluminous purple robes seated at the table’s head, who now peered curiously back at her: Bishop Cipriani. For once, Fiametta held her tongue; it was incumbent on the Bishop, who vastly outranked her, to open the conversation.\n“Signore Giulio, Signorina Fiametta,” the bishop began, “it is a pleasure to welcome you back to my home. I confess myself overeager to see my first portrait in these vestments!”\nI’ll bet, Fiametta thought, for God only knows how much you paid in bribes for that purple cloth…\nBut Giulio’s sharp squeeze on her shoulder directed Fiametta to the easel. She drew her shoulders back before she reached for the linen covering.\n“I trust that Your Excellency will be pleased with the final portrait,” she pronounced, on a paper-dry throat, before pulling the covering off of her work.\nFiametta held her breath as the linen slid to the floor. She fixed her eyes on the wall behind the bishop, waiting for a gasp, a hum, any utterance which might convey its – her – fate.\nBut the silence stretched, interminably, like the ticking of Giulio’s watch only moments before. Fiametta’s gaze dropped to her patron, who stared blankly at the portrait. Her palms broke out in sweat again as the bishop rubbed the stubble on his chin. Finally:\n“Your approach is interesting,” he mused.\nFiametta’s jaw clenched. Though only twenty, she knew well enough that such a banal statement could be fortuitous – or calamitous.\n“Interesting, Your Excellency?” she replied.\n“Is that a smudge?” he snapped back at her, pointing to the upper right hand corner of the painting.\nFiametta quickly inspected the spot in question. “That is a cloud, Your Excellency.” Her eyes narrowed. “There are usually clouds in the sky, you see.”\n“What are those?” he demanded, shoving his finger towards an archway surrounded by coral blossoms.\n“Gladiolus, Your Excellency,” Fiametta explained, a bitter edge rising in her voice. “They symbolize integrity and strength, as Your Excellency requested.”\nA low hum answered her. “But why are there deer? There, in the forest behind me!”\nFiametta glared at Giulio, who glanced back with a pained expression.\n“Those are not deer, Your Excellency,” Fiametta explained. “They are stags – as Your Excellency requested.”\n“Really?” the bishop asked. “They look too frail, if you ask me. You should make them more muscular!”\nFiametta’s jaw dropped.\n“And my nose,” the bishop continued. “My nose is all wrong!”\nGiulio gulped loudly as the bishop turned back to them.\n“See, there,” the bishop pointed, “my nose shouldn’t be so bumpy. Make it flat.”\nFiametta’s front teeth dug into her tongue as she stared at the petulant man before her.\n“My stomach, too,” the bishop continued, “you could perhaps tighten it a bit, while you’re at it.”\nFiametta opened her mouth to reply, but Giulio stepped forward to intervene. “Your Excellency,” he began smoothly, “the changes you are suggesting would require significant adjustments to the painting. If applied, they will increase the final cost considerably and take some time to...”\nBut Bishop Cipriani interrupted him with a raised hand. “You don’t think my belly is that large, do you?” he queried Giulio.\nFiametta stewed in her anger as Giulio wasted several more minutes debating the exact girth of the bishop’s belly, then explaining “materials cost” and “artistic license” to the discontented papal prince. \n“I can’t believe we’re arguing over this,” she hissed under her ragged breath. Without another thought, she reached for Giulio’s arm.\n“Your Excellency,” she said warmly, “please rest assured! I will be glad to apply all of your recommendations. We will return with the final product in a few days. It will be no trouble at all to complete the commission to your utmost satisfaction.”\nAt once, the heavy frown flipped into a broad smile. “Splendid!” the bishop replied. “I will anxiously await your revisions, in that case. A blessed afternoon to you both.”\nFiametta curtsied as Giulio gave an astonished, bumbling bow before she dragged him by his shoulder toward the door behind them. As they strode out of the palazzo, painting in hand, Giulio leaned toward Fiametta.\n“How will you do it so fast?” he whispered. “What he suggested would mean practically starting over!”\n“Trust me,” she answered curtly, striding ever faster ahead of him.\n“Trust you?” Giulio stammered. “How can you possibly…”\n“Leave it to me,” Fiametta spat at him. “Make no mistake – His Excellency will be delighted with the final product!”\n***\nLike clockwork, Fiametta and Giulio retraced their steps back to the Palazzo Cipriani only three days later. As they climbed the marble entry steps behind more liveried servants, Giulio glanced nervously at Fiametta’s iron expression. But she merely flipped her chin and stared straight ahead – refusing to allay his anxiety with a single reassuring word.\n“You are quite sure His Excellency will be satisfied?” he finally whispered in her ear, desperate to gauge her reaction. “We desperately need the commission, Fiametta. If he refuses to pay…”\n“I told you,” she answered firmly, “he will be delighted!”\nGiulio gaped at her. “You’ve only had a few days. The man won’t pay for shoddy work!”\nFiametta grinned slyly. “Oh, he’ll pay.”\nIn moments, the pair – one smiling, one shaking – were ushered back into the elegant sitting room to face His Excellency. The bishop, once again, perched at the head of the massive wooden table – as if he had never left. But this time, Fiametta did not wait for him to speak.\n“Your Excellency,” she began brightly, “we greatly appreciated your thoughtful comments on the original portrait. Bearing those in mind, I executed all of the changes which you recommended. I think that your suggestions have marvelously enhanced the overall quality! I have no doubt that you will concur.”\nThe bishop smiled and nodded warmly. Without further preamble, Fiametta pulled away the cloth.\nAt once, a cold sweat broke out on Giulio’s forehead. His eyes darted between Fiametta, the painting, and their patron – back and forth, to and fro, in absolute disbelief. Giulio stared at the portrait: the flowers, the stags, the nose, the stomach, in mounting horror.\nNothing was changed. Every detail was the same.\nGiulio’s breath turned to rasps as his gaze shifted to Fiametta. She glanced blandly at him, before shooting a triumphant smile toward the transfixed bishop.\nAt last, His Excellency broke the tension with an extended “Ahhhhh…”\nThese were the sounds that Fiametta had waited days to hear. Her smile widened as Giulio swallowed sharply beside her.\n“Indeed,” the bishop continued, “I completely agree! The adjustments are flawless, and a vast improvement, to be sure. And rendered so proficiently! You can hardly tell where the revisions are from the original, but the difference is night and day!”\nFiametta nodded graciously to the bishop. “We are most appreciative, Your Excellency,” she added. “Nothing is more important to our small establishment than the satisfaction of our generous patrons.”\nShe then turned her wide smile on Giulio, whose eyes bulged as he quickly composed himself.\n“Indeed, Your Excellency,” Giulio chimed in, “we are always happy to undertake any effort needed to ensure our clients’ complete gratification.” He sealed the sentiment with a strained grin.\nThe glowing bishop clapped his hands as he stood up to examine the portrait more closely. “Indeed,” he replied, “I am most gratified, and delighted to accept the portrait. My servants will finalize the transaction, in full, and I will instruct them to include another dozen scudi over your earlier price as my thanks for your additional efforts.”\n“Your Excellency is far too kind,” Fiametta replied silkily. “Truly, the effort was really no effort at all!”\n“Nonsense,” the bishop answered. “It was clearly well-earned!” He took Fiametta’s hands in his. “You are wonderfully talented, my dear. Do not ever doubt your superb instincts.”\nFiametta laughed, and looked directly into the bishop’s eyes. “Indeed, Your Excellency. I never do, and I never will!”" } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Rose in the Dark\n\nGenre: high-school\n\nWord Count: 2971\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story set in a city where the power suddenly goes out, leaving everyone in darkness." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "\"Sheeeeesh,\" I heard for the thousandth time coming from my sister's cellphone. It was Saturday, and the two of us were cooped up inside. Mom had been called into work, so we decided to waste our days away playing on our phones.\nMy phone dinged, letting me know that I only had five percent battery left, and I groaned, \"Hey, Hannah, you done with the charger?\" She murmured a reply I couldn't quite here, so I spoke up a little.\n\"Yo, Earth to Scatterbrain, you done with the charger?\"\n\"I said I wasn't using it, dipwad, open your ears,\" Hannah grumbled, hardly any louder than before. I creased my brow.\n\"Didn't you tell me your phone was low?\" I replied, worming out of my comforter on the floor below her to find the USB-C. Hannah set her phone on her chest, and scowled at me.\n\"Uh, yeah, I did, but I just didn't ever move to grab the charger. What's your percent?\" She said, reaching out to grab the charger from me, but I swiped it away before she had the chance.\n\"I'm at five, so let me get it for a few minutes,\" I snapped slightly at her, already hooking in my phone. After I set it on the table and released it, Hannah had already unplugged it and prepared hers. I reached up to resist, but she pressed her foot to my shoulder to keep me at a distance.\n\"Chill, Rose, my phone just died. I need it more than you. Go grab the one from the kitch-\" she was cut off, both of us jumping out of our blankets as the lights shut off with a loud whirring.\n\"Woah...is it storming out?\" I said to Hannah, shoving her foot slightly as I rose from the carpet. She leaned over the back of the couch to check the window just behind, and shook her head.\n\"No...it's a normal, nice day outside. Maybe the breaker flipped?\"\n\"Nose goes on checking,\" I shot quickly, pressing my index finger to the tip of my nose. I received a groan of frustration from Hannah, but she shimmed out of her blanket and off the couch without fighting any further.\nI stole her spot on the couch, even going so far as to swap our blankets, and began playing on my phone. A few minutes passed, and my phone died before Hannah got back. I chewed on my lip impatiently, and just as I decided to go check on her, I could hear her feet stomping through the kitchen.\nI sat up slightly, propping myself up on my elbows, and peaked at her. She spoke, \"Not sure what happened. None of the breakers were off, but I flipped a few on and off to see if anything would change.\"\n\"I didn't notice anything,\" I replied, and she shrugged.\n\"Call Mom, or maybe Uncle Rick, maybe they know what's up.\"\n\"I would, but I...well kind of drained the rest of my battery,\" I said with a shrug, and she furrowed her eyebrows at me.\n\"Really? Ugh, whatever. Get up and let's go see if Mr. Holten can do something for us,\" Hannah said, turning back into the kitchen and half storming, half power-walking out. It didn't take me long to catch up to her, and we both made our way out of the side door.\nMr. Holten, our next door neighbor on the right side, was already on his way out of the door when we entered his yard, and he gave us a smile. Hannah and I exchanged a glance when we noticed the frustration in his eyes.\n\"Hey, Mr. Holten, did you lose power?\"\n\"Sure did. Guessing I'm not the only one. You girls okay?\" Mr. Holten's gaze turned to us, and I smiled while Hannah replied.\n\"Yessir, just a little annoyed. Can we borrow your phone to call our mom? Both of ours are dead,\" she said, and Mr. Holten handed off his cell to her. She stepped aside to make the call, and Mr. Holten grumbled, more to himself than me.\n\"Damned wiring in this neighborhood is older than the dirt. I've been telling the H.A. that we've been needing a tune up,\" he said, running his hand over his long, black beard.\nHannah returned with his phone, and he nodded to both of us. \"I'll get to calling the electric company. If you girls need something, just knock.\"\n\"We will, Mr. Holten. Thank you,\" Hannah said with a smile, and the two of us trotted back to the front porch. Hannah settled onto our bench swing, and I sat beside her. She lazily set her arm over my shoulder, and we sat in a comfortable silent for a moments.\nWe watched our neighbors all come out of their houses, talk to each other, occasionally wave at those further away, or us, then return to their house. No one seemed to concerned, and for a second, I thought I saw a neighbor's television on.\n\"It is a really nice day,\" Hannah murmured, and I turned my attention to her. Her pale face and brown eyes were lit with a smile, and her black hair was pulled into a messy bun. I grinned at her.\n\"A little hot for my liking, but sure,\" I said. We'd always been a little different, but still very close. People often said we looked like twins, despite the fact I was three inches shorter than her at only a year younger. Still, I loved her, and knew she loved me.\nAfter a few more minutes of quiet people watching, she finally rose from the swing, and started off the porch. \"Why don't we go to the park or something?\" she recommended, and I scrunched my face up.\n\"Eh...sure, why not? It'll give us something to do,\" I said, and sat up from the bench. Once I was off the porch, she nudged me slightly, pushing on my back as if to hurry me along.\n\"I'm going, Hannah! Sheesh...\"\nThe park was only a few blocks from our house, right outside the elementary school, and right across the road from the high school. It had a jungle gym, complete with two slides - one straight and the other a spiral - monkey bars, and a very small rock wall on one side. There was a set of swings, four total, and a few seesaws opposite of those. On the very edge of it all was a short, lazy obstacle course that didn't get much use.\nHannah and I immediately noticed that all four swings were occupied, and I couldn't help but shoot Hannah a grin when I recognized one of the boys - Brad.\nBrad was Hannah's classmate - another junior in the grade above me - and her biggest crush. The two of them were good friends, but Hannah was still flustered by him. It was pretty obvious he liked her too, but neither of them had ever made a move. He had dusty brown hair, which covered his forehead down to his eyebrows. His eyes were a crisp golden color in the light, but a darker hazel indoors.\nHe was handsome; I could see why Hannah liked him, but he was a total dork, too. Still, the guy was fun to be around.\nBeside him, on his left, was another boy, Eric, who was in my grade, and a total butt head. He had strawberry blonde hair, with grey eyes. He'd be handsome too, if he didn't have such a big nose, and a permanent grin on his face all the time.\nHe bullied me a lot, but I kind of enjoyed it. I'd always been more of a tomboy, and he was always fun to heckle back.\nJessica, Eric's older sister, was on Brad's right. Her blonde hair was pulled up in a high, tight pony, and her bright green eyes lit up as she looked over at Hannah and I and smiled slightly.\nShe was very sweet, very pretty, and very quiet. When she talked, though, it was meaningful, and her voice was soft, but still demanded attention.\nAnd I had a huge crush on her.\nThere were times it felt like she was flirting with me, not to mention Hannah teased me about how oblivious I was. Maybe she had a crush on me, too...\nTo her right was another boy, one of my friends, Jacob, who I'd known since kindergarten. I trusted him with everything. I'd come out to him before anyone else, even Hannah. Even after admitting he had a crush on me for a long time, he still never made it weird, and had even tried to be my wing man on a few occasions.\nHannah and I stopped just out of reach of the swings, with Jacob and Eric competing to see who could swing highest, and I called up to them, \"It doesn't matter how high you go. You're both losers on the ground.\"\nJacob slowed slightly grinning at me as he swung back, then forward over my head again. I could hear Eric snort though, and he replied, \"Lot of talk, coming from the biggest loser on the ground or in the sky.\"\nHannah laughed, her cheeks flushing slightly when she noticed Brad looking her way. I scowled at her, but shook my head with a grin when I noticed Jessica laughing softly. Jacob and Eric finally slowed their momentum and gave us all a chance to talk. Hannah spoke first.\n\"Did you guys lose power at your places, too?\"\n\"We did, but we were already here,\" Jessica replied shortly.\n\"Yeah, Jess and I met Brad out her half an hour ago. Jacob showed up a little before you guys,\" Eric said, and then looked pointedly at me. \"I guess you were following him, huh?\"\n\"Stow it, Helmsey. We were bored, so we came here. Just a bad chance you were here, too,\" I sneered, and he glared back at me. I heard Jessica giggled, and I could feel my cheeks warm.\n\"Well, cool that you guys are here now. My dad says that the power went down because a transmitter burnt out on our grid,\" Brad said, gesturing off into the distance. \"He and his crewmen are working on it now.\"\n\"So you guys are just swinging now?\" I asked, leaning against the pole between Jessica and Brad. I was deeply aware of Jessica watching me from the corner of her eye.\n\"Mostly. Getting kind of boring now, I think,\" Brad said, but he smiled a bit. \"Jess and I came up with an idea before you two showed up. Wanna hear it?\"\n\"I'm game,\" I said, and looked back at Hannah to see her nodding in reply.\n\"Cool. Jess?\" Brad turned to let Jessica take over, and she shrugged before she spoke.\n\"Nothing special. We thought playing hide and seek around the school could be pretty cool,\" Jessica said softly, leaning her head on the chain of the swing, her eyes glowing playfully as we looked each other. I thought I noticed a blush on her cheeks. I'm certain she noticed it on mine.\nEric was the first to reply, \"Hell yeah, that sounds awesome! Not it!\" Quickly, everyone was ringing in until Jessica and I were dubbed the seekers.\n\"Shoulda known it would be you, slowpoke. This will be too easy,\" Eric said, and I bucked up to him, causing him to jump slightly. Brad, Jessica, Hannah and Jacob laughed, while Eric scowled.\n\"Alright, we'll count to fifty. The school is pretty big, so that should give you time to get to the other side pretty easily,\" Jessica said, and got up from the swing, waving me over to the side of the park with the obstacle course on it.\n\"Better get moving guys! We're counting now,\" Jessica held up her phone, showing that she'd set a timer for fifty seconds. The other four scattered, with Eric and Jacob running around the right side, and Hannah following Brad around the left.\nAfter watching the timer for a few seconds, Jessica looked up at me and smiled. \"So what were you doing before this?\" She said coolly, and I felt my stomach twist in literal knots.\n\"Oh...nothing really. Hannah and I were just playing on our TikToks,\" I said in reply, realizing how lazy and lame I sounded. To my surprised, Jessica minimized her timer and pulled up her TikTok app.\n\"I should have know. You sent me a lot,\" she replied with a small quirk of her lip. I blushed and shrugged a little.\n\"Most of it's lame, but you can find some gems if you dig enough,\" I said, laughing to myself awkwardly.\n\"You're funny, Rose,\" was all she replied, and when I looked up, her lips were curled up in a gentle smile that made her eyes twinkle. I was probably redder than a strawberry, and felt all too grateful when the alarm went off.\n\"Ready or not, here we come,\" I murmured to her, and her smile widened slightly, her teeth peaking through. She seemed excited.\n\"I bet I know where Eric hid. Let's go that around the left side and check under the bleachers at the football field,\" Jessica said, and I trotted beside her on the sidewalk.\nWhen we arrived at the football field, I was trotting a bit ahead of Jessica, until I felt her hand on my arm. I turned back to see her smiling at me, and I returned it shyly.\n\"Sorry, I didn't mean to leave you behind,\" I said, laughing. She laughed as well, and when I turned back around, she pressed against my back and covered my eyes.\n\"Uh...Jess, what are you doing?\" I asked.\n\"Humor me for a minute, okay?\" She whispered in my ear, sending a chill down my spine. I wasn't sure what was going on, but with Jessica that close, I wasn't about to complain.\nShe led me forward for a little bit, until the grass of the field gave way to the track, then back to grass as we reached the bleachers. Jessica finally tugged me to a stop, and I stood awkwardly. After a few seconds, she spoke again.\n\"Alright...open your eyes.\"\nI did, and underneath the bleachers stood Brad, Hannah, Jacob and Eric, as well as Brad's dad and my mom. Behind them, were five long pieces of paper, spelling out 'P-R-O-M-?'\nI felt a lump in my throat, and was unsure how to react. I wasn't entirely sure what I was looking at until Jessica stepped in front of me, and took my right hand in both of hers. My eyes found hers, and I saw them cloudy with nervousness, and yet filled with confidence.\n\"I was wondering if you'd be my date to prom?\" She said, without hesitation. It was so attractive. I heard the question echo in my head for a few seconds before I found my arms around her neck, and my lips against hers.\nJessica didn't jump, didn't move., like she knew I was going to kiss her. Her lips were soft, warm, and inviting. The kiss was deep, passion filled, her lips dancing with mine, until finally, reluctantly, we both pulled way.\nI had to catch my breath for a moment, and I leaned with my forehead against hers. After enjoying our embrace, I laughed softly, more at myself than anything else, and finally spoke.\n\"Was that answer enough for you?\"\nShe replied with another kiss. It was shorter this time, a quick peck, but still as sweet. It left me wanting more, but I smiled patiently and looked in her eyes.\n\"I'd love to, Jess. More than love to,\" I said, feeling multiple emotions bubbling to my chest. Suddenly, I was startled when everyone began to cheer, and I remember that we had an audience. I grinned at everyone, blushing madly.\n\"How? How'd you set it all up?\" I turned back to Jessica, covering my cheeks shyly with my hands. \"And how long have you been planning this?\"\n\"Just a week or so. I just knew I wanted to go with you,\" Jessica said, and looked at Brad's dad.\n\"Brad asked me if I could cut power to your house for fifteen minutes - with your mother's permission of course - just to get you outside,\" he said, and Hannah picked up from there.\n\"I told you I was using the charger so that you would run out of battery, and wouldn't have an excuse to say no. When I called Mom at Mr. Holten's, I was actually calling Jess and Eric to get Jacob and Brad together.\"\n\"I know it was probably a bit too weirdly elaborate, but the whole thing sounded so fun when Brad and I were brainstorming it,\" Jessica said, holding my right hand in both of hers. I pulled it free and wrapped my arms around her shoulders.\n\"I...I'm so embarrassed, but so happy. Thank you, all of you,\" I said, looking around at my friends, then back to Jessica. \"Can I ask you one thing, too?\"\n\"Yes, I'll be your girlfriend,\" Jessica murmured, reading my mind before kissing me softly again. She didn't linger long, knowing that everyone was still watching. I pouted noticeably, and she laughed at me.\nFinally, the two of us joined the others, and I turned to look at Mom, who was just now putting her phone up from filming. She had misty eyes, and pulled me into a hug.\n\"So Mom, I'm guessing you didn't get called into work. Did you come just to film?\" I said, pulling away, but leaving my arms around her waist.\n\"Well, that, and you've only got a couple of weeks now until prom. I'm taking you, Hannah and Jessica prom shopping!\"" } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Her\n\nGenre: high-school\n\nWord Count: 2036\n\nPrompt:\n\nEnd your story with a truth coming to light." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "“One glance at her was all I needed to know she was the one.” I wrote in my diary. “.…. well not literally of course! I’ve known her since elementary school. I know her favorite color- Purple-, her favorite song album- Folklore by Taylor Swift-, and I know the more detailed events like what her dream job is (artist). I could go on and on. I would but I don’t want to portray myself as a stalker, for I am just a lover. AND tomorrow’s the big day, this is what I’ve been working so hard for! This is the day I capture my diamond, my true soulmate, the light in my darkness...I mean it!” \nI finished writing the last of my entry before tucking the diary under my pillow. This morning would be busy -yes, I write my diary entries in the morning- but it would be well worth it. So far, I had weightlifting, cardio, homework, and I’d be picking up the flowers for my Juliet all before twelve pm. Her name’s not Juliet but I feel like I’m her Romeo. Everything I do is for her. Valentine’s day is tomorrow, and I’ll make her mine! \n“Gregory, if you want a ride to the gym come down now,” my mom yelled to me, “I’m getting groceries, so it’ll be in the same direction.” \n“Five minutes,” Mom I quickly replied as I changed into my gym gear and packed my bag. \n“So, what’s got you so happy, today?” My mom said to me as I climbed into the front seat. \n“Nothing, I’m just glad I could finally sleep in,” I replied. \n“Lie!” My mom said winking. “It’s a girl, isn’t it? I knew my Gregory would fall head over heels for a girl one day just re-” \n“Mom!” I exclaimed. “Nothing's official yet, don’t jinx it.” \n“Fine.” My mom slyly said back before igniting the car’s engine and starting our trip. \nI arrived at Planet Fitness with my workout on display via my phone. \n I was feeling more pumped than usual- literally and metaphorically. Honestly, I did enjoy lifting weights and all that, but I couldn't say I’d do this if it wasn’t for her. She told me she likes 'strong guys' last year, and since then I’ve been building up myself to be just that. These workouts are brutal but they’re well worth it. \n“What’s up Gregory,” My gym friend, Brad, said to me. “You look like the happiest man alive, or should I say, teenager?” \n“Really funny Brad,” I replied while smiling, “I’m just excited to be here, and don’t forget I’m only seventeen for a couple more months.” \n“Hey, no need to get aggressive.” Brad laughed as he replied. “But let’s go out there and kill this workout.” \n“You know it.” I grinned back. \nWe quickly warmed up and began the task. \nCurrently, the lift was nearing its end and getting no easier. \n“C’mon Greg, one more rep!” Brad shouted to me. “You got this.” \n“Arghh.” I sounded while finishing the rep. My thoughts flooded towards her...knowing I had done well today meant I was a step closer to winning her over. \n“Good work today, bro,” Brad said to me, patting me on my back. “How about we head out for lunch in a couple hours? A new spot just opened up and I’ve heard some good things about them.” \n“Sorry bro, I can’t make it,” I responded, “I gotta knock some things off today.” \n“As long as you're not talking about any girls,” Brad winked, “You’re too young, kid.” \n“Good one,” I laughed. “Anyways, I’ll see you later, have a good one.” \n“See ya,” Brad replied. \nI left, knowing Brad would probably knock off another workout to kill time...terrible for his gains, but he preferred the pain over anything. \nMy mom offered to pick me up after her food shopping trip, but I figured it’d be easier if I walked to the Walmart across the street to buy the flowers and chocolate. I could ride the bus home today. \nUpon entering the store, I realized I could buy my future wife (maybe I’m getting carried away) some chocolate as well. “Now, what did she say her favorite brand of chocolate was,” I thought to myself. “Ahh, Hershey’s Kisses.” \nI picked up the chocolate and glanced around until I found where the flowers were located, all the while feeling nervous about the big day.\n “Well, she did say roses were her favorite,” I thought as the bouquet of roses glistened in my hand. \nThe line was short, and I was quickly able to check in and check out. The cashier had smiled at my purchases, but surely, he didn’t know who or what these were for! \nAfter getting home, I still had an hour of free time before cardio- look there’s nothing wrong with cardio but I remember five months ago she said, “I like guys with 6 packs” (I even wrote it down as proof), so even though I’m not its biggest fan, it only makes sense that I do it. \nTaking out my notebook, I began to doodle pictures of my family...my family with her of course! She was the queen, and I was the king. I even drew a castle in the background for better emphasis. There would be three children because that’s what she told me her preference was. “Her smile just gets me nervous -even in this not-so-good drawing.” I thought. “Nothing else in this world makes me feel like this. I hope she feels the same way. I want her forev-” \n“Ding ding,” My alarm sounded, indicating it was time for my cardio workout. \nI got up, quickly changed, and began my favorite 30-minute ab challenge video on YouTube. I was doing it in my room today because I wanted to finish my sketch in between the breaks. “Maybe I can show these to her when she’s mine,” I grinned to myself. \nI got through the next thirty minutes without much difficulty, and when it hurt the most, I thought of her. No pain could ever surmount the energy she provides me. I also finished the drawing which didn’t turn out too bad, but my work is far from being considered “artsy”. \n“Time for the best part,” I groaned to myself. It was never fun to do homework, but I would be able to send her pictures of the work I did. She's the only person I let copy off me, and she’s worth every risk. \nMy thoughts slowly began to drift towards her as I started my homework:\n\"I just wish she’d text me more, but she’s always busy. She only ever holds convos when she wants something from me, but that’s okay, she’s probably just nervous to text me. I remember looking up dating advice on YouTube and it said that girls act shy around guys they like. On Friday, she seemed nervous at school, so she must be preparing to ask me something. On a side note, we talk way more at school than anywhere else... I don’t know why. I would text her right now, but she told me she was going somewhere and needed privacy. Whatever that means.\" \nLater \nThe reason I started my day so early was so I could make tomorrow perfect. I’m going to execute everything flawlessly from what I say to her in the morning to when I ask her to be my valentine at lunch. Though I won’t say how long I’ve been talking to myself and staring in the mirror in anticipation of the event (out of embarrassment), I will say the sun has set. \n I smiled at myself in the mirror confident this new me would win her over. I weighed 15 pounds more (all muscle) since last year, changed my hairstyle, new clothes, even ditched my old friends that didn’t fit her criteria just for this to work. There’s no way this doesn’t go in my favor. \n“Hey Google,” I said as I returned to my room, “Play Folklore by Taylor Swift on Spotify.” The best way to start a conversation with her tomorrow, like usual, would be to mention one of the songs to her. \nNext day \nI woke up with my clothes and gifts laid out, ready for the big day ahead of me. My nerves were at a high, but I was also confident I’d pull through. A part of me felt like this was my Superbowl, and one I couldn’t lose. I put too much into this. \n“I won’t be writing much today but for good reason!” I wrote in my diary. “Today’s the day I make my move and take home my princess.” \n“Who are the gifts for.” My mom asked as I opened the door to leave for school. \n“A special someone,” I remarked. \n“Good luck honey, tell me how it goes,” My mom replied. \nSadly, the bus ride to school felt off. I was prepared for everything, but nothing quite clicked. The cloudy weather just made the scene gloomier. \nLunchtime \nSo far, I haven’t seen her all day which is odd because she usually takes the same route to her locker every day. I know this because that’s when I say hi to her. I’m feeling a bit down, to say the least. \nGlancing into the cafeteria, I see the table she usually sits at with me is empty (well, it's with her group of friends and my new group of friends but same thing). It’s like a spotlight is emitting it in the already bright area. \n“Where could she be,” I thought to myself as I desperately looked for her location. If I didn’t make my move now, I wouldn’t have another opportunity. \n“Ahh, there she is,” I mumbled, seeing her tucked into the back of the cafeteria. Her skin and face seemingly glowed. Was she an angel? \nHer back was turned to me as I walked up to where she. My fingers fumbled with the zipper on my backpack as I went to grab the flowers. \n“Aww Brett of course,” I heard her say to my friend next to her. What were they talking about? \nBuilding my confidence, I opened my mouth to speak but stopped open seeing her stand up. Was that a box of chocolate by her side? \nShe reached forwards and wrapped her arms around Brett, kissing him and leaving me shocked. How didn’t I know about this? \nEvery part of me shattered and my heart no longer swelled with affection. I needed to get out of here. \nI quickly turned around, feeling lost and distraught as to who I was or what I was aiming for. \n“Hey Greg,” I heard her say, “Where are you going? Don’t you want to sit with us?” \n\"Yeah man c'mon,\" Brett said.\nI never looked back and, instead, made my way into the restroom. The emptiness I felt was equivalent to nothing I had ever experienced before. It was as though a hundred right hooks annihilated my chest. I had done all of this for a girl that didn’t see me as anything more than a friend. \n“Why..” I cried out. “Why did this have to happen?” \nI sat there for some time, realizing that no matter how much one tries to change themselves to win over another person, it will never work if that person doesn’t want them back. \nI snuck out of school early to stand in the rain. It was a feeling unlike one I had perceived in the past. A mix of relief and sadness poured out of my system as I stood there crying. My body felt like it was on the brink of collapsing, my vision was clouded with tears, and my nose was clogged with snot. However, I was still alive. \n“Maybe she wasn’t the one after all,\" I forced a smile as the tears came out, “But I wanted her to be the one for me.” \nThe rain eventually stopped as I began my walk home. I didn’t know who I was anymore or what my goals were in life. However, a sense of hope-filled my body, and I understood it just wasn’t meant to be." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: “Attack of the 50ft School Lunch!”: A Miller South Teens Short Story by Tori L. Day\n\nGenre: high-school\n\nWord Count: 2180\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story set in a city where the power suddenly goes out, leaving everyone in darkness." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "It’s nighttime in New York City. The lights were bright and the city was busy as usual. At the Crowne Royale Hotel, Mason moved the table out of the living room and placed pillows and blankets on the floor. Finn was in the kitchen making popcorn and getting the sodas out of the cooler. Sam was roasting cocktail wieners in a crockpot and preparing a special sauce to go with them. Mason was getting the tv together when he heard a knock at the door. He went over and opened it to find the girls at the door.\n“Hola, senoritas,” he greeted warmly.\n“Hey, you,” Xenna said, giving him a kiss. “It’s everything ready yet?”\n“Not yet. We’re just finishing up.” He calls to the bedroom. “Hey, guys. The girls are here.” \nDylan comes in and hands Mason a DVD. “Hey, here’s the movie.”\n“Perfect. Are the snacks almost ready?” \n\"Almost,\" Sam replied while preparing the wieners on a tray.\nWhile the girls were making themselves comfortable in the living room, Brian and Kardierre came in from the bedroom wearing pajamas and carrying pillows. Bree and Essence help carry the snacks into the living room.\n“It's great that Chief Walter gave you guys the weekend off,” said Bree.\n“I know,” Xenna added, grabbing a handful of popcorn. “After what happened last week, we definitely need the break.”\n“Movie’s on,” Mason announced. “Finn, come on!”\nFinn came into the living room, carrying the tray of weenies. “Sorry. I was trying Sam’s wieners.”\n“Well, guys, this is it.” Mason sat down next to Lexi. “The first week where we have the time off and now, it’s finally here. Let the movie night begin!”\nWhen the teens cheered, the lights in the suite went out all of a sudden. The tv was off and the crockpot stopped humming. Soon, every building went dark, leaving the city completely powerless.\n“Hey!” Finn exclaimed. “Who turned out the lights?!”\nXenna turns the flashlight on her phone and walks to the balcony. “It's a blackout. The entire city’s without power.\"\n\"Happens every year during nights like this,” Dylan added.\n“I better call Ralph and see what’s up.” Before Mason could dial for Ralph, he heard a knock at the door. “That must be him.” While the teens turned on their flashlights, he went over and opened the door for Ralph, who was carrying a clipboard and a flashlight. \n“Hey, Ralph,” Mason greeted.\n“We were just about to call you,” Finn added.\n“No good. All of the phone lines are cut off. There’s no power in the hotel or anywhere in the city.”\n“Care for a cocktail weenie?” Sam hands him the tray of wieners. \n“Oh, thanks.” Ralph takes the tray and begins to munch on a wiener. Anyway, what have you guys been doing?”\n“The chief gave us the week off, so, we decided to have a movie night.”\n“That is until the power went out before it started.”\n“Well, I’m sure the power will be fixed soon.”\n“It better,” gripped Sam. “I’ve spent 6 hours making those wieners.”\nWhile Ralph sat down, Mason looked out the window as he thought of a way to pass time with his friends. “Y’know,” he began. “Being in a blackout like this reminds me of when we were at Miller South.”\n“We had a blackout at Miller South?” asked Finn.\n“Yeah. Remember, it was the same day we fought off that mystery liver monster?”\n“Oh yeah. I remember now.”\n“ ‘Mystery liver monster’ ?”\n“It was a creature we encountered when we were students at Miller South,” Lexi explained. \n“Wait. Is that why you, Mason, and Finn came to English smelling like gravy?” asked Kardierre.\n“Yep.”\n“So, how did you fight this ‘mystery liver monster’ ?” asked Xenna. \n“Alright. It was a humid, summer morning. It was so hot, people were coming to school on camels, right? So...”\n—————————————————————\n(Flashback to Miller South)\nKardierre, Bree, and Essence were sitting together in English when Mason and Finn came in. \n“Me and Mason got there, we sat down and greeted our friends. Lexi was in piano at the time. The rain was picking up just as the teacher walked in. While he talked, I heard Essence whisper to Bree about how handsome Jacob, one of our classmates, looked...”\n“Well, he really did,” said Essence.\n“...Kardierre heard their comment and rolled his eyes...”\n“Show off,” Kardierre grumbled. \n“Okay, where is this going?” Xenna interrupted Finn’s story. “Where’s the part where this mystery liver monster tries to eat you?”\n“I’m getting to that,” Finn replied. “Anyway...”\n(Back to Miller South)\n“At the same time, the lunch ladies were preparing the liver for Mystery Liver Monday. Now, usually, the liver is supposed to be soaked in a vat of chicken grease for an hour.”\n“Why?”\n“I don’t know. They say it makes it tender. Outside, the rain started to really pour down. We’re taking Hurricane Katrina rain. Suddenly, lightning struck one of the antennas on the roof and made the lights in our classroom go out. In the cafeteria, since the electricity went out, the vat holding the liver was off as well. Then, the lightning struck the antenna again, this time, making the circuits travel from the roof into the vat. After the lightning struck, the lights came back on. The vat of liver was up and running and the lunch ladies resumed their work...but not without a horrible realization.”\nSuddenly, a greasy arm poked out of the vat and grabbed onto the side of the pot. Then, a massive grease ball tipped over and spilled the mystery liver on the floor. When it was out the grease ball morphed into a hideous monster and roaring at the launch ladies!\n“Wait!” said Dylan. “So, you’re saying at your school, your lunch was Frankensteined into a monster by lightning?”\n“That’s exactly what happened!”\n“Okay, you guys cannot be serious,” said Xenna.\n“Trust me, hun. It’s as real as these cocktail weenies.”\n“So, what happened next, Finn?” asked Brian.\n“Oh, I’ll tell you.”\n(Back once more to Miller South)\nA scream was heard and all of the lunch ladies ran out of the cafeteria and the monster proceeded to wreak havoc in the room. The custodian arrived at the scene and alerted the principal. \n“Ms. Wilson!” he cried on his radio. “Come in, Ms. Wilson! There’s something in the cafeteria!”\n“Meanwhile, we were in class talking about the boring tale of Romeo and Juliet when our principal came on the speaker.”\n“Attention, staff, and students. There’s a gigantic monster composed of mystery liver on the loose! Please stay calm and exit the building!”\n“Me and Mason were really confused. A mystery liver monster? I swear this is starting to be a fictional book. We all got up and went out of the room. Everyone was moving towards the stairways and out towards the parking lot. In the hallway, we ran into Lexi. She was still in her wheelchair before we graduated.”\n“Thankfully, I got to walk the stage using crutches.”\nFinn and Mason ran over to help wheel Lexi to the elevator. \n“Hey, you heard the news, too?” Mason asked. \n“Yep. And to think, fighting zombies was ridiculous,” Lexi quipped. \n“Mason. Mason.” Mason turned around to find Ms. Wilson behind them. “You think you can take down that...thing?”\n“Can do, Ms. Wilson,” Mason replied.\n“I’ll go, too,” said Lexi. \n“You sure?”\n“Ms. Wilson, I’ll be fine. A little broken leg won’t slow me down.”\nThe two friends looked at Finn for his response. “Alright, count me in. You’re gonna need the help you can get.”\n“Good luck.”\n“Got it. Let’s go.” The three teens loaded up on the elevator to the ground floor and went down the hall to where they found the monster trying to devour Jacob. \n“Hey, fatty,” shouted Finn. The monster turned to them. “Why don’t you pick on someone your own size?” The monster sneered and dropped Jacob. Mason and Lexi glared at Finn. “Oops.” \nThe monster then charged at them, forcing the teens to retreat towards the cafeteria. Mason wheeled Lexi inside and he and Mason locked the doors. Then, they went into the kitchen and used a set of hand towels to tie the handles together. They huddled next to Lexi. \n“Alright. What do we do now?” \n“I got it.” Mason got out his phone and dialed Bree’s number. Outside, Bree was with Kardierre and Essence when her phone rang. \n“Hello.”\n“Bree, it’s Scott.”\n“Mason, why are you still in the building?”\n“Don’t you remember? I’m still the protector. Now, you think you can look up how to get rid of grease on the internet?”\n“I can try.”\n“Thanks.” He hangs up just in time for the monster to barge in the cafeteria. It then kicked the door down and trudged into the kitchen. Mason pushed Lexi’s wheelchair out of the way while Finn began to fight back. He used a bowl of potatoes to throw at the monster, but it caught them with his mouth every time. Mason grabbed a chopping knife and ran over and stabbed the monster, making it screech.\n“So, you killed the monster, right?”\n“Well...not exactly.”\nTurns out, the knife got stuck in the monster’s grease and absorbed it inside of him. It then appeared in its hand and the monster threw it at him. Luckily, Mason dodged it and the knife landed in a wall next to Lexi. While the boys were busy, Mason felt his phone ringing. \n“Lexi, here!” Mason threw his phone towards his friend. “It’s Bree!”\nLexi answers the phone. “Bree?”\n“Hey, Lex. Where’s Mason?”\n“He’s busy. Finn, carving fork!”\n“I see it!” Finn uses a cutting board as a shield. \n“What’s up?”\n“Well, I found on the internet that vinegar can dissolve grease.”\n“Vinegar?”\nSuddenly, the monster grabbed Finn by the leg. “Bro, help!”\nMason grabbed his friend’s hoodie and tried to pull him back. “Lexi, what did Bree say?”\n“She said vinegar can dissolve grease!” \nLexi looked around the cabinets and in the pantry until she found the vinegar in a big bottle. The monster now has both of the boys in its grasp. He held them up over his mouth and lowered them down into his gaping maw. Before the monster could eat them, Lexi threw the vinegar onto the beast and it began to bubble and pop until melted away. When the monster was gone, the boys fell into the brown puddle, much to their chagrin.\n“Ugh! I’m packing my own lunches from now on.”\nLexi wheels over and helps Mason and Finn up. “You guys okay? That was very close.”\n“We’re soaked in mystery liver gravy...” This comment made Lexi laugh.\n“Oh, you think that’s funny?”\n“No, I’m not laughing,” she said through chuckles.\n“She’s laughing. She’s laugh-you know what?” Suddenly, Mason tipped the wheelchair and Lexi fell into the brown goop, followed by the three teens having a gravy ball fight.\n—————————————————————\n(Back to the hotel)\n\"And that's how we saved our school for the-umm...third, no, forth...well, that's we saved our school again. The end.\"\n“What a unique reputation you three have,” said Dylan.\nSuddenly, the lights in the hotel and in the city came back on, much to everyone’s excitement. \n“Finally, back to our movie,” said Mason.\n“Well, I better head out.” Ralph hands Finn the tray. “I have to check on the other guests and make sure they’re alright.”\n“See ya, Ralph.”\n“Bye, Ralph.”\nWhen Ralph left the suite, the teens resumed their movie night when Finn heard something bubbling.\n“Hey, you guys hear that?”\n“Sounds like it’s coming from the crockpot,” said Lexi.\n“Oh, yeah. I forgot to turn it off before the power went out.” Sam went to the kitchen and was about to turn the pot off when a greasy hand popped out of it. Suddenly, the weenie grease spilled onto the counter and morphed into a medium-sized monster. \n“Uh oh!”\n“Sam, get the vinegar!” Mason ordered.\nSam looked into the cabinet to find the vinegar when the monster jumped off of the counter and went after the teens. As they scurried out of the room, Finn opened the balcony doors as Lexi grabbed a broom out of the closet and swatted the greaseball out of the suite. After Finn closed the doors, the monster jumped over the railing and landed on the sidewalk, and landed in front of the main entrance. The teens watched as it wreaked havoc in the city.\n“Sam,” said Mason. “What exactly did you use to make your wieners?”\n“Easy. I use a special rub for the cocktail sausages and then broil them in chicken grease.” The teens looked at him, dumbfounded. “What?”\n“We should probably do something,” Brian suggests.\n“...tomorrow?” Finn asked.\n“I’m good with tomorrow,” Lexi replied.\n“Tomorrow’s fine,” Dylan added.\n“It’s just one grease monster,” Xenna stated.\n“I agree,” said Mason.\n“It’s not like Godzilla or anything.”\n“Mm-hmm.”\nAt once, the teens nonchalantly went back into their suite and resumed their movie night while the cocktail grease monster continued with its rampage." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: What Really Happened\n\nGenre: historical-fiction\n\nWord Count: 1352\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story in which a miracle happens — or everyone thinks it did." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Content warning: Death\n\nWhen you came home from Vietnam in one piece, people called it a miracle. Not that you blamed them. Growing up, you attracted bullies and beatdowns like a magnet. You were never the biggest, the toughest, the strongest. You, who could loop your middle finger and thumb around your wrist and still have room. Quite a few bets were lost the day you stepped off that plane in Los Angeles, dressed in fatigues and feeling the way you looked.\n\nThe homecoming was not what you had expected.\n\nAt home your mother greeted you with a batch of sugar cookies shaped like hearts and frosted with buttercream American flags. Your father opened a bottle of champagne that made you scream when the cork popped. When you retired to the Adirondack chair on the porch, your neighbor Mrs. Hayworth glanced over her picket fence, shook her head, and called you a \"baby killer.\"\n\nBut mostly people called it a miracle. That was their word, never yours. You never bothered to correct them.\n\nSometimes, though, you wondered what word they'd use if they knew what really happened.\n\n*\n\nYour deployment story isn't special.\n\nOne day you drove to the local Chevron and sped off with a tank full of gas and two lottery tickets. Later, huddled around the tear-stained kitchen table with your parents, you discovered you lost the drawing but won the Vietnam draft lottery as a consolation prize.\n\n\"I don't get it. It's one in four odds,\" your father kept saying, voice straining to be heard over the sound of your mother's howling. \"Why you, of all people? I just don't get why.\"\n\nThe next day Mrs. Hayworth's son, Robert, received the same draft notice. The two of you sat on your porch comparing letters. His was legible, unmarred by tears, and issued the same order to meet at the Eastern Greyhound Bus Station in three weeks.\n\n\"That sure is something, isn't it?\" he said, folding and unfolding your notice. He had the same ghostly peach fuzz as you, the same aimless wonder in his eyes. You were both barely nineteen, lost in the world and yourselves. \"Graduated high school a few months ago and now this.”\n\n“You don’t really believe in this war, do you?” you asked.\n\nRobert noisily crinkled your draft notice, bent the paper at impossible angles to create winged objects—birds and airplanes. With each bend you watched more words disappear: “Selective Service” and “President of the” and “Jedediah Springer.”\n\n“Does it change anything if I do or don’t?” he said.\n\nCars whizzed by on the next street over. The sun hung high in the sky but the air wasn’t warm. A gentle breeze swirled around you, hitting your tree and coating your yard with fallen autumn leaves.\n\nYour heart fluttered like one of those leaves when you said, “What if we don’t go?”\n\nRobert stopped in the middle of unfolding your letter and stared at you. “How do you mean?”\n\nYou forced yourself not to gaze into Robert’s eyes, not to admit something that was even more terrifying than the thought of being armed in a new country in less than a month. You looked at his legs, pale and hairless. “What if we ran away? That way we wouldn’t have to fight anyone. We could do it, I bet.”\n\nA moment of silence passed. Then another. It wasn’t until you looked up that Robert spoke.\n\n“See, that’s just like you, Jed,” Robert said. He was still staring at you. “When things get tough, you want to run away. You always think that's the easiest solution.\"\n\nYou knew he was right, so you said nothing.\n\nRobert said, “I’m not like that. I’m a fighter. When things get tough, I’m going to fight right back, no matter what.” He transformed your letter into a paper airplane, then tossed it. It landed in your lap, heavy with meaning. You were still unfolding it when Robert stood and returned to his home, disappearing behind the white picket fence.\n\nThree weeks and one Greyhound bus later, he was being shipped off to fight against Vietnam, and you were right there with him. As always.\n\n\n\nYou didn’t realize until months later that being stationed in the same platoon as Robert in Vietnam was both a blessing and a curse. At the time, you saw it only as one of those.\n\nUnlike you, he had a fraternity with the others that you envied, an easiness that made the soldiers there forget why they’d traveled thousands of miles to wade through foreign soil and a sea of discarded bodies. He carried his rifle as though it were a third limb. He wasn’t shy in the group showers, nor did his eyes linger on the other men.\n\nYou watched him the way you watched cartoons on television when you were both just a decade younger: enchanted and charmed, but with a sense that trouble was lurking behind every corner, that things could go wrong at a moment’s notice.\n\nAnd then they did.\n\nOne month near the end of your service, the enemy attacked in the dead of night. You were crouched in the moonlit foxhole with Robert and another soldier named Patterson, two years older and five times braver. It was too dark for you to see anyone else. The night air echoed with the pop-hiss of gunfire.\n\nWithout thinking, you reached for Robert's hand and he let you keep it there. Then everything went quiet.\n\n\"They're reloading,\" he whispered as the night grew calm. His voice was light as a zephyr.\n\nPatterson took this as a signal for action and sprang up, aiming his carbine at the veil of night. He'd fired four shots before his weapon fell to the ground, and his body soon followed. A murky puddle trailed down his cracked forehead in the moonlight glow.\n\nYou tasted bile rise and bubble in the back of your throat, but forced yourself to keep it down. Robert swore under his breath and shook off your hand. He steadied his rifle, fingered the trigger, gulped.\n\n\"Ready?\" he murmured, making the decision for the both of you.\n\nYou weren't.\n\nYou weren't ready to fight for your freedom, or die for your country, or tell Robert how you truly felt about him.\n\nAnd then it didn't matter because you realized he'd been telling the truth all those months ago on your front porch. He was a fighter.\n\nRobert closed his eye and took aim at the same time his enemy did.\n\nThat's the last thing you saw, because you soon realized he'd been right about something else: When things got tough, you were a runner.\n\n**\n\nWhen you came home from Vietnam in one piece, most people called it a miracle. Your parents baked you cookies and toasted your heroism. Your friends clapped you on your weathered body and felt the fatigue shifting in your bones when they hugged you. To them, you were brave, courageous, a fighter. \n\nBut you’ve never forgotten Mrs. Hayworth, who moved away soon after your return. You’ve never forgotten how you came back and her son didn’t, how she looked at you over that white picket fence, the barrier that divided her private world from yours, and said you were a “baby killer.”\n\nAnd though you didn’t kill any babies in Vietnam—your bullets hadn’t been the cause of anyone’s death, because Robert said it best: you were never a fighter—you couldn’t help but feel responsible what happened to her son. Even now, years later.\n\nOn the day you came home from Vietnam, you found your crinkled draft notice on your bedroom desk where you left it. You blew on it and watched the dust motes dance in the filtered sunlight. You felt the creases in the thin paper, remembered Robert’s fingers folding the lines in delicate angles and shapes. You copied his handiwork, bending the notice along the ghostly edges of its former self until all the black words disappeared under the wings of a paper airplane.\n\nThen you opened the window, threw your hand back, and took aim." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: A BLINK INTO THE FUTURE\n\nGenre: high-school\n\nWord Count: 1874\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story that begins in the light and ends in darkness, or the other way around." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Cami stared at him relentlessly while Josh was busy holding hands with someone else. She got out of the class and rushed to the restroom to hide her barging tears. She tried to convince herself not to cry but her inside was screaming like a howling storm. She looked into the bathroom mirror banging her clenched fist rapidly on the sink. \n - \"Why can't I be pretty enough for him? Why did you make me so ugly?\" \nCami wailed helplessly. She felt a clench in her heart that she used to feel every time she saw him entering the classes late, riding his bicycle after school or doing a science project together. But this time it was different. This time it didn't create any happiness. Rather it was like a quicksand that was engulfing her into the dungeon of sadness. She put her hands on her temple to calm herself, to get this all out of her head. She was literally digging her nails into the palms to transform her mental pain into semi circular physical scars. \nCami wiped her tears and glanced at her watch. It was already 5 in the afternoon. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. It was almost time for the results. She splashed some water into her face to look less miserable. \nCami got out of the restroom when she heard June was calling her out, \n -\"Hey, Cam!! Check your phone, it's already 5... \" \n June was looking way too excited. On the other hand Cami replied her quietly -\" Calm down, it's only 5, they are not going to publish the results before 5:30.\" June could see the despair in Cami's eyes.\n-\" What's wrong? Are you worrying about the results?\" \n- \"No,\" Cami sounded pretty distracted. I'm not worried June, I'm just feeling exhausted with everything that's happening around me.\" \nJune noticed Josh on the other end of the hallway standing in front of his locker with some other high school punks, probably talking about some stupid party they had last night. \n-\"Cam, is that jerk face bothering you again? Tell me and I'll knock him down right now.\"She already started to make a fist. Cami giggled a little in her head at her best friend's reaction. \n - \"No, no. He didn't do anything. Let's not ruin the day talking about him, okay! And besides, it's probably my fault. He has always liked Valerie.\" Cami tried to stop that conversation right away. \n - \"Are you kidding me? It was never your fault. He isn't worthy of you, Cam. You think he likes Valerie!! He doesn't like anyone. He's just a piece of crap only eyeing for his advantage. Trust me, one day you'll throw your platinum records at his face from your private jet.\" \n - \"Okay okay \", Cami grinned, \"We'll see about that. Let's just not get too carried away.\" \nCami picked her songwriting book from her locker. She could literally hear her palpitations. She wanted to get into that show so badly. It was a competition for young and aspiring songwriters, fighting for the record labels to officially take their first step into the music industry. She rummaged through the pages to calm her adrenaline rush by looking at her songs. \n - \"It's already 5 past ten and you are still not checking the website. They are going to publish the results anytime.\" June babbled everything on one breath. \n - \"You are getting way too excited sweetie. Let's go to the bus station. They have opened a new refreshment store there. Maybe the free fro yo sample they are giving can cool you down.\"She took June's hand and dragged her out from the school. \nCami pretended not to notice Josh and Valerie in the front gate walking together home. She turned the other way and locked her eyes at the afternoon sun ray drenched reddish cloud. Suddenly she felt a warm feeling inside her heart about something she didn't understand. \n - \"Cam, your mom still doesnt want you to be a songwriter?\" June broke the silence. \n -\"No, she still believes I'm not exactly the perfect cut out for this industry. And I should choose something more practical as my career. She doesn't want to sit on some uncertain mountain of worries. She thinks art is well enough for hobbies but not good enough for taking it up as a profession.\" \n - \"But you are so good at this Cam. I'm pretty sure your mom is going to understand that someday.\" June tried to cheer her a little bit. \"You know what!! I can see it, I can see it all. Five years from now she'll be the first person to accompany you in your world tours.\" June smirked like a shining light slitting through a cracked glass.\nCami nodded her head with a doubtful smile. She loved to hear about all these fantasies June created in her head. Cami used to believe in fantasies too. She had a fantasy of a normal family life but her parents got divorced when she was nine. She fantasized about Josh and he broke her dream castle within a blink of an eye. She dreamt of being a songwriter but until now she got rejected two times in a row in that songwriters’ battle. So fantasies didn't take a stop at Cami's station. But when June babbled about the successful career Cami might have someday, she couldn't cease her imagination to paint a picturesque view of that. This was the third time Cami participated in that songwriters’ battle. And this time she wanted to get in at any cost. \nCami's chain of thoughts was interrupted by the notification bell of her cellphone. She unlocked her cell and the time was exactly 5:30. Her heart was beating so loud even June could hear it. She opened the website to check the list of selected songwriters. \n - \"Did you find it? Did you find it?\" June was almost peeking over Cami's shoulder to check the results. \n-\" No need to peek anymore. I didn't get in.\", Cami said patiently. June snatched the phone from her hand to check the results again. She continued babbling about their crappy judgement and how Cami definitely deserved a place but Cami could hardly pay attention to her. She felt devastated inside. It was the third time she was rejected from songwriters’ battle. She thought maybe her mom was right. Maybe she wasn't meant to be a songwriter. Maybe this battle was never her to win. A little drop of tear rolled down her cheek. \n-\"I'm telling you Cam, the whole judgment panel is corrupted, you are one of the best songwriters I've ever listened to, believe me. Let me get you some free fro-yo to cheer you up\",June went to the refreshment station to uplift Cami's confidence that was completely shattered into pieces just a few moments ago. \n\"When did everything get so complex\" Cami absent-mindedly asked herself. She drowned so deeply in her thoughts she didn't even notice someone was calling her from behind. Suddenly she felt a tap on her shoulder. She turned around to find out who it was. \n - \"You are Cami, right?\" An elegant woman in her mid thirties was smiling at Cami. She was looking at her with a strange but warm stare Cami couldn't possibly explain. Cami was a bit surprised at first. She tried to reminisce her from the back of her memory but she definitely knew she never encountered that woman. \n -\"How do you know my name?\" Cami asked her with astonishment. \n -\"No big deal. It's written in your backpack.\" She then handed out a red paper wrapped package and said - \" My debut album just entered the charts of billboard top 10 and to celebrate this success our whole team wanted to give away some of the audio cds to some young musical talents like you.\" \nCami took the package.She laughed at her fate. \"I just got rejected for the third time in a songwriting audition and a stranger thinks I'm worthy for a free cd. Woah!!. What a day!! ,her head voice was shouting in despair. While opening the wrap she continued asking her sarcastically -\"And I assume you considered me a worthy musician just by looking at my guitar case.\" \n - \"No, I've known it all along.\" She smirked a bit. Cami twitched her eyebrows at her reply. She unwrapped the package and inside it there was an audio cd. She took it out to take a look at it. Her eyes completely froze as soon as she glanced at the album cover. It was Cami's childhood picture sitting on the swing set in her old house, her dad bought her when she was five. It was the only picture she saved it carefully in her journal that reminded her of old days. The album was named 'Cami Cooper' with luminous red cursive font. Eighteen songs were listed on the back of the audio cd with a beautiful picture of that woman standing in front of her. Cami was completely bewildered by the situation. She stared at the woman with utmost surprise. She wanted to ask her a lot of questions but she couldn't utter a single word. This time the woman handed her a note and said \"Open it Cami, you didn't lose the battle.\" Cami took it from her. She was still awestruck. She opened the note, it said, \"Just check the website once more at 5:45.\" Cami unlocked her cell phone. It was perfectly 5:45 in that clock. And to her surprise she could see a new notification was blinking at the top corner of her cell screen. She quickly clicked on it. It was the songwriters' battle. The website notified about publishing five more names who got direct chance to work with a renowned record label for their extraordinary talent in songwriting. This was a new surprise from the show organizers for this year to inspire young talents. She hurriedly clicked on the list and there it was. Cami couldn't believe her eyes. She got in. She finally got in. Tears rolled down her cheeks. She was so perplexed with the situation she didn't understand a bit about what was exactly happening. Cami suddenly noticed the first song of that album. It was named \"Far away dreams\"-the song Cami entered in this year's songwriters’ battle. She couldn't belive any of the stuff that happened in last 10 minutes. Cami took the audio cd and hold it firmly to her chest. Suddenly she could hear June's voice telling her -\" Here's your fro yo girl. Now cheer up a bit. You have got a lot of songs to write. You have got the perfect elements of heartbreak to write a hit. By the way who's that lady talking to you? \" June pointed at the woman. Cami grinned at her and said \"I didn't lose the battle.\", she handed June the new published list on her phone. June hugged Cami so tight, she was practically squeezed in her loving arms. With the corner of her eye she peeked at the fainted shadow of her future self, walking away, disappearing little by little, hopefully into the future." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Maggie\n\nGenre: historical-fiction\n\nWord Count: 2497\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story about a character learning to stand up for themselves." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "[WARNING: Contains very offensive language, but it was necessary for the story.]\n\nJanuary 23, 1976\n\nJo Thomas was on the couch watching the CBS news out of Seattle. His wife came out from the kitchen where she had been drying the last of the dinner dishes. \n\n“Anything on the TV about him?” she asked.\n\n“Cronkite gave a short memorial at the end of the newscast, then they played a bit of ‘Old Man River’”\n\n“He hated that song.” she stated matter-of-factly. “They had tributes to him all day on the CBC. You’d think he was Canadian.”\n\n“Do you want a drink?”\n\n“After I finish putting away the dishes. I’ll just be a minute. Why don’t you pour them? . . . Put on his tape.”\n\n*******\n\nMay 18, 1952\n\nJo’s father, Daffyd Thomas, had a lot of work to do making sure everything was set up properly for the concert. As the event organizer for the International Mine Mill and Smelter Workers Union he was used to organizing conventions and picket lines, this was very different. Union activist, actor and world famous singer Paul Robeson would be giving an open air concert for Canadian workers at the Peace Arch Park. \n\nThere was a catch - by presidential decree Robeson wasn’t allowed to leave the United States. But, they had found a way around that draconian measure.\n\nPeace Arch Park, just north of Blaine Washington, straddles the border between the United States and Canada. Within the park, Canadians and Americans were free to wander about with no regard to which side of the border they were on. This freedom wouldn’t apply to Robeson, who would be restricted to the US side of the border.\n\nA flatbed truck, parked on the US side of the border, would act as his stage. Robeson would be performing in the US to an audience sitting in Canada. A roped off area behind the trailer served as a rest and security area for the performers and the staff. There were chairs and picnic tables setup. A US union was providing security. \n\nUnknown to them at the time, the FBI had been sent to provide extra security. Hoover [J. Edgar Hoover head of the FBI] did not want a repeat of the riots that occurred when Robeson had appeared in a concert near Peekskill New York. He vowed there were to be no incidents at this concert. Not that Hoover had any love for Robeson, he just didn’t want any distractions during Eisenhower’s run for Presidency. He didn’t want anything that would look bad in the newspapers.\n\nThey were just getting ready to leave for the concert when the phone rang, there was a problem. There were always last minute problems - this one wasn’t a big one, but it did need a bit of diplomacy.\n\nDaffyd knocked on his son’s bedroom door.\n\n“Getting dressed.”\n\n“That’s OK” He opened the door and stepped into his son’s room. “I need a favor.”\n\nJo looked up at his Dad. He was wearing his ‘I hate to ask you to do this BUT . . . ‘ look. Jo’s heart sank. Whatever it was, it wasn't good.\n\n“I just found out a friend of Mr. Robeson is going to say a few words before the concert. And” - Jo knew there would be an AND - “he is bringing his daughter.”\n\nJo didn’t need to hear the rest of what his Dad was saying. He was asking him to babysit some kid for the day. You don’t grow up in a family of union activists without developing some negotiating skills - this would look good next time he asked his Dad to use the car.\n\n“Sure Dad. Be glad to help.”, anticipating getting the car for at least the next few weeks.\n\nThe rest of the morning was a bit of a blur. His Mum, Lynn, had made a basket lunch. She always packed too much, more than enough for two people. (His parents would be having lunch with the VIPs - Jo would have to look after himself.) She put a blanket along with the picnic basket in the back of the car. By 8:30 they were on their way. His Dad wanted to get there early.\n\n“We are expecting between 2,000 and 3,000 - so parking may be a problem.”\n\nAbout 10:30, Jo was helping his Mum finish setting up the tables in the tent where the VIP’s would be having lunch when his Dad came to get him. Mr. Robeson’s friend had arrived early.\n\nDaffyd introduced Jo to Mr. Robeson’s friend and his daughter, Margret. Jo just stood there - tongue tied. She was not what he had expected. \n\nHe had never thought of himself as shy. Some girls had even said he was too forward. Then again, he had never met a girl like Margret before. She was absolutely stunning. Slim and almost as tall as him she exuded self confidence. She just stood there smiling at him, waiting for him to say something.\n\nHis Dad broke the silence. \n\n“Why don’t you take Margret over to the concession booth and get a Coke?”\n\n“Call me Maggie.” She turned and headed towards the booth.\n\nOn the way to get a Coke, Jo finally found his voice. \n\nOver their Cokes they went through the usual ‘getting to know you’ talk. They found they were both over achievers with high expectations. She was in her senior year at high school, had already been accepted at Howard University but, she was confident her application to Harvard would be accepted; he was a freshman at the University of British Columbia but was transferring to McGill University in Montreal in the fall; she was Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday; he was Nat King Cole and Tony Bennet; they both liked Paul Robeson.\n\nAfter about half an hour he reached over to hold her hand, fully anticipating it would be batted away. \n\nIt wasn’t.\n\nAs they walked around the park he told her of growing up in Wales, the war and moving to Canada in 1947; she told him about life in Georgia; her mother dying when she was eleven and moving to Washington DC one year later. \n\nThey continued walking and talking. Talking about everything and nothing, not paying attention to where they were. Their wanderings had taken them deep into the US side of the park.\n\nSuddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, there was a large man in front of them. He was about an inch taller than Jo and at least fifty pounds heavier. He stopped about two feet in front of Jo, his fists were clenched, his breath smelt of beer and was spouting pure hate.\n\n“You n* loving Commie bastard. You don’t belong here. Go back to Canada and take that n* bitch with you.“\n\nFor the second time that day Jo was speechless. This was so far out of anything he had ever experienced he was unsure of what to do.\n\nNot Maggie. She didn’t flinch. She was cursing him out, she wasn’t backing down.\n\nWhen the stranger turned towards her, Jo stepped between them. Maggie hadn’t let up, she was still cursing this brute. \n\nThey stood there toe to toe. Jo had never been in a fight before and didn’t want to start now. He just wasn’t sure if he wanted to turn his back on this lunatic.\n\nMaggie was suddenly silent. He could feel her tugging on his jacket.\n\n“Let’s go. We have to go.”\n\nThere was more than fear in her voice, there was absolute terror.\n\n“Let’s go. We have to go.”\n\nA hand came down hard on Jo’s shoulder. He hadden noticed the State Trooper that had come up beside him.\n\n“Are you trying to start a riot boy?”\n\nTurning to face the Trooper, “It wasn’t me, he's the one that started it.” pointing at the stranger.\n\nThe Trooper released Jo’s shoulder and took a step back, his hand was now resting on his weapon. The stranger had backed off even further. Maggie was beside him. She was trembling remembering what her father had drilled into her ‘Don’t run!’ when the thing she wanted to do most was run and find her father.\n\nJo realized his mistake almost as soon as he said it. \n\n“Are you sassing me boy.”\n\n“No Sir” \n\nJo and the Trooper stood eyeing each other. A small crowd had started to form. \n\n‘At least he won’t shoot us with this many witnesses around’ The thought of him and Maggie being taken to the Blaine jail was not very appealing either.\n\nAnother person was entering the fray. He was holding up a badge.\n\n“FBI . . . This is a Federal park officer. This is my jurisdiction, I will take care of these two.”\n\nThe Trooper was angry, he didn’t like having his authority being challenged. He took out his anger when dispersing the crowd that had gathered. Maggie wasn’t sure if she should be scared or relieved. She decided to be relieved. \n\nThe FBI agent was also angry. Angry that he had been assigned to watch Maggie and that he had to usurp the Trooper’s authority. ‘The locals wouldn’t like that’\n\n“Get back to the security area behind the stage and STAY THERE. And, for Christ’s sake don’t hold hands.”\n\nThey walked back to the security area in silence. There were a few other people in the area, they found a table in a corner away from everyone else. Jo finally broke the silence.\n\n“You were more afraid of the Trooper than that lunatic.” It was more of a question than a statement.\n\nShe looked up at him. Speaking so softly he could barely hear her.\n\n“I had a cousin back in Georgia, he was only twelve. . . . He saw a Trooper watching him from his car. . . . He got scared and started to run” She was sobbing. “The Trooper got out of his car and shot him in the back.”\n\nHe passed her his handkerchief ‘Screw the FBI’ he thought. He reached across the table and took her hand. They sat there for about five minute. Maggie looked up.\n\n“I’m OK”, she lied.\n\n“Mum packed a picnic basket. Will you be OK while I go and get it?”\n\nShe nodded.\n\n“You sure?”\n\n“Yes”, she lied again. “Go and get the basket. I could use something to eat.” That wasn’t a lie.\n\nThe 2,000 or 3,000 people his father had expected had grown to between 25,000 and 30,000 with cars parked as much as three miles away. Having to walk around the growing crowd, it was over a half hour before Jo got back with the basket and the blanket. He kept going over the events in his mind. It was one thing to read about racism in the newspapers, it was quite another to experience it first hand. Racism existed in Canada. He had seen it in the way the Chinese students were treated. But, never like that. \n\nAs Jo set out the items in the basket, Maggie spotted her father. She ran over to him, threw her arms around him, and told him of the morning's events pointing to Jo and the FBI agent, who was now standing at the end of the stage.\n\nHer father went over to the FBI agent and thanked him for rescuing his daughter. Then started towards Jo. \n\nJo was standing at the end of the table. He didn’t know how much trouble he was in. He was supposed to show Maggie around, not get her attacked. He was wracked with guilt and completely surprised by what happened next.\n\nHer father stuck out his hand. A bit confused, Jo shook his hand.\n\n“Son, it wasn’t your fault. Just remember, it is different down here.”\n\nHe turned to his daughter.\n\n“They have a buffet lunch. Do you want to join me?”\n\n“No. I would rather have lunch with Jo.”\n\nHer father smiled “Stay safe” Then walked toward the tent where lunch was being served.\n\nHaving their lunch sitting side-by-side at the picnic table, the morning's events were beginning to fade. As Maggie finished the piece of apple pie Jo had cut for her, she turned to him\n\n“He was right, you know. It wasn’t your fault. . . . It was my fault - I knew better than to hold hands with a white boy.”\n\nJo was shocked, skin color had never been a part of the way he viewed the world. He was saddened that this girl, who he was falling in love with, would view the world that way.\n\nHe sat for a minute then, looking her in the eye, “It wasn’t your fault. . . . Don’t ever think like that. . . . Please, don’t choose who you like based on their skin color.” He wanted to say ‘love’ but thought the better of it.\n\nHis mood lightened.\n\n“If people get that upset seeing us hold hands . . . . imagine what they will be like once we are married!”\n\n“Married!” she sputtered. Then laughingly “In your dreams.” punching him on the shoulder.\n\n‘Yes’ he thought. ‘You will definitely be in my dreams and probably my nightmares too.’\n\nThe opening acts had started, except for them, the security area was empty. Even the people in charge of security had moved to the front of the stage to watch the show. Jo spread out the blanket. They were quite content where they were, sitting side by side on the blanket.\n\nToo soon the concert was over. Jo and Maggie had exchanged addresses and phone numbers and were standing with their parents saying their final goodbyes. Paul Robeson came over.\n\n“Daffyd, Jill. Thank you - this is much more than I ever expected. I wish we had some time to visit but we have a train to catch.”\n\nThen turning to Jo.\n\n“I hear you had quite an adventure this morning”\n\nJo’s parents looked puzzled, he hadn’t told them of the day’s events yet.\n\n“Remember to always stand up for what you believe in.”\n\nRobeson turned to leave, Maggie and her father joined him. They had just gone a short distance when Maggie turned around, ran back to Jo, kissed on the cheek, then whispered\n\n“Get your degree. I would never marry a dropout.”\n\n*******\n\nJo gets up, gets two glasses from the cabinet and pours two bourbons. ‘The second best thing to come out of America.’ Getting some ice from the fridge, putting the tape of Paul Robeson’s songs in the cassette player he heads back to the couch.\n\n “Joe Hill”, their favorite song, had just started when Maggie joined him on the couch.\n\n“What are you thinking about?” she asked.\n\n“You have to ask?”\n\nShe smiles “No - I guess not. . . . Would you really have fought that guy?”\n\n“I like to think so.”\n\n“He would have whooped your sorry white ass.”\n\nHe smiles “It would have been worth it”" } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: memories of a house once upon a time\n\nGenre: high-school\n\nWord Count: 1025\n\nPrompt:\n\nSet your story in a countryside house that’s filled with shadows." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "People forget I have lived elsewhere. What is more astounding are some of my memories of people and places? Take, for instance, an old country house that people say is so wonderful. I remember it in a parallel reality. The story there was more shadowy. Less wonderful.\nThe country house was right behind Club Missouri in Williston, North Dakota. That Club has or had or will have no less than fifteen ghost stories. Why? Some twenty or twenty-two people had died there over the past thirty years. Bars in the country are mysterious.\nBut this is a story about the country house behind the Club. It was a large country house. Used to be a farmhouse prior to the city or town growing consuming it.\nThere are many stories I remember about it. I suppose the one that it involved me with makes sense to start with.\nI was a dishwasher at the Club. I went outside after the dishwasher heat had made the kitchen area unbearable.\nThis was a big night for the Club. People were coming out to have their Halloween fun. Dressed up as demons, nurses, etc.\nI had just wiped the sweat off my forehead when I heard the howling.\nTrying to figure out what was going on, I looked. Down the hill in the farmhouse I could see two dogs. One was lying on the ground, the other one howling.\nTrying to figure out what to do. A flash occurred, and both dogs were on the ground. No longer howling. Wondering what I had just seen, I watched. A huge hog with red eyes I could see came out of the underbrush and ate the first dog that was on the ground.\nNow this did not sit well with me. So I ran down the hill. Foolish. But I am me. The hog or pig turned on me. The other dog made it to its feet and ran away. Now running down hill sometimes I can not stop. I ran right into the hog. And poof. Poof it was gone.\nThat kind of freaked me out.\nI went back to work. After washing plates. I asked about the hog. The cook laughed and said I was an idiot to stop the ghost pig. He then went on to tell this story.\nThe house had been owned by a bachelor that hated certain types of people. Who or why? Remember this was in the early 1970s. Hatred of people was acceptable. The bachelor hated migrant workers. Specifically, the tale went that he would hire them. Work them hard and on pay day take them to a valley just south of the river. Where he would shoot them in the head and bury them.\nI scoffed at the story. However, later on another person told the similar story. So I went to the library to see if anything was amiss. Sure enough in the 1920s. The story had it that one of the first serial killers in the area had murdered five migrant workers.\nReading more into the story, I found out that instead of burying the bodies like the tale told me. He had actually fed the bodies to his pet hog.\nThat weirded me out a bit. The newspaper described the trail in detail of how the man would feed the people to his pet hog. The paper went on in full detail. That paper said a verdict was expected on Friday in the trial. When I went to look up on microfiche, the Friday paper of the 1920s it was not there.\nThe next microfiche newspaper I could find read something dealing with a county fair. And how a hog had broken loose in the fairgrounds. It had terrorized everyone there and then disappeared into smoke.\nSeemed like I owed the cook an apology. So, I gave my two weeks’ notice at the Club. Having found a job at the Salt mines.\nA few months went by and a couple of work friends and I went to the Club because they had a live band that night. The band was playing “Riders in the Sky”. Just then, the couples on the dance floor were interrupted by two dogs running like something was chasing them. It was amusing, but to me I was a bit taken back. I was pretty sure one of those dogs was the one I had seen a few months prior.\nNo. There was no ghost hog present. When the dogs left, the music got started again. In walked five migrant workers walked in. How could I tell? Their clothing and style.\nThey sat down and did not order anything that I could see.\nNow this is that matter-of-fact tone of a ghost story. Remember that paper I had read? Well, it had shown a photo of the man on the trail. For the world of me. He walked right into the bar, too. And I think I fainted. He walked to the table with the migrants and sat down.\nLet just say I left at that.\nSeveral years went by. Let’s be honest, I am not into ghost stories. People would invite me there and laugh at my facial expression of saying no thank you.\nThen one Halloween night I went there with a lady friend. We danced. We drank. And about the same time I had left in the first story, I could swear I heard a dog howling in the night. Sent shivers through my body, I suppose.\nThe shadows in that Club were interesting. No, I did not see the hog or dogs again. I did hear about what happened, however, to the kids that dared each other to go into that old country house one Halloween.\nThe story has it. Of the five that went in. Two were now locked away in the mental institution and two were no longer the top dogs of their school, having dropped out and started to live like bums. And the fifth one?\nTheir story has it. That the hog with red eyes dragged her off into the brush and her body was never found." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Like the Sunrise\n\nGenre: historical-fiction\n\nWord Count: 1108\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story in which a miracle happens — or everyone thinks it did." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Amos threw his weight on the bellows one last time, then wiped the sweat from his forehead. He grabbed a poker and shoved it into the fire. One of the logs broke apart into a hundred scintillating embers; the other resisted. He jabbed it harder, and a spark landed on his arm, right where his glove ended. He hissed and dropped the poker. It clanged to the floor. \nHe rubbed at the tiny burn, then picked the poker up and placed it back on its hook. He returned to the bellows. \nThe shop was sleeping. No matter how much noise he made, even clanging pokers until they sounded like city bells, it slept. The forge blazed, but quietly. The firelight glinted off the tools hanging from the walls. The shadows were grey. The hammers were still.\nThe door opened. Early morning sunshine streamed in. Life entered—so did a middle-aged man with hands of rock.\n“Good morning, Master.” Amos used the poker again and succeeded in getting a fine bed of coals. He closed the door on the forge and stretched. Two pops sounded from his back, and the man grinned.\n“Good morning, Amos. Ready for another day?”\n“As long as it doesn’t bring too much work,” he joked. They both knew it would be busy day; it was always busy. And that was a good thing. His master had a wife and four children to feed. Amos had his mother. \nThe morning stretched on. It grew hot. Even with the door wide open, it was stifling. There was no breeze. Customers came and went, getting everything from plows to pots repaired. It was nearly time to stop for the mid-day meal when a farmer came in with a horse that had thrown a shoe.\nAmos greeted the horse and led it into the stall while his master exchanged pleasantries and news with the farmer. The horse was tall, probably seventeen hands, and a strong beast. He tied it to the post and offered it a handful of oats. \nThe horse’s head swung to the side as noise erupted on the street. Amos could hear the shouts of boys going home for lunch and scowled. The noise quieted as the group passed. \nHe patted the horse’s shoulder and made his way slowly to its rump, then ran his hand down its leg. The horse responded by lifting its hoof. Amos inspected the exposed bottom. There were still two nails stuck there, so he pulled a pliers from his apron pocket and grasped the first one. \nThe boys returned, and a dog’s barking mixed with the noise they caused. It sounded like they were chasing it. The horse snorted and shifted. Amos let go of the hoof he was holding to get a better grip. The horse put weight on it before he could raise it again, and it gave a sharp whinny of pain. \nThe dog ran into the stall then, still barking. The boys halted at the door. Amos opened his mouth to scold them when a blur of movement caught his eye. \nThe horse’s hoof smashed into his chest.\nHe flew across the stall and smashed against the doorpost, then crumpled to the floor. \nThere was no air. His lungs heaved. His mouth worked like a fish out of water. His muscles clenched as he tried to force sense into the spinning world around him, trying desperately to suck in the air that was all around him but as impossible to get as if it were all a million miles away. \nHe couldn’t die. He needed air. The corners of his vision faded to black. His body convulsed, but all his lungs did was expel what was in them: something warm and wet that ran down his chin and neck. \nHe was empty. \nThe world was empty. The pressure was gone; either that, or it was evenly spread out over his whole body. No, he didn’t have a body. He was shapeless. He was emptiness itself. He was just him, with nothing to hold him inside. \nThe thought crossed his consciousness that he should feel liberated. He was floating. He was weightless. \nHe was stuck. There were others here, stuck, in this big, empty place. He didn’t know how he knew that; he couldn’t hear, couldn’t see, couldn’t feel. It was like being submerged in the colour grey. \nThey were waiting, he knew. \nBut waiting for what? \nThe answer came to him as naturally as if it had been his own thought. They were waiting for what all sleeping souls wait for. The sunrise must come eventually. It was inevitable. \nBut right now, it was grey. And they waited. \nSomehow, Amos still knew himself; or rather, who he once was. He remembered his mother. He remembered his father—who was here, somewhere, waiting with everyone else. \n“Young man.”\nThe words, voiceless and soundless, reverberated deep in his soul somewhere, and he knew something. Something other than grey. \nHe would not have to wait. \n“I say unto thee, arise.”\nHe heard those words. They fell upon his ears—he had ears!—like summer rain. \nSenses flooded him. He had a body. He was lying down. He opened his eyes—eyes!—and saw a blue sky above him, with big white clouds. He took a breath. He could breathe! His chest expanded, painlessly, effortlessly, filling him with life and vigour. He sat up.\nThere was a crowd around him. The thing he was lying on shook, and he recognized two of his friends in front of him. They stared at him, white, trembling beneath his weight on the bier. \nA man stood beside him. It was someone he had never seen before, but there was something in his eyes—something like a flaming sunrise. He smiled and reached out a hand. Amos took it. Based on the callouses, this man was a carpenter. \nHe helped Amos off the bier, and his friends slowly lowered it, empty, to the dusty road. Amos looked at the man, but he was looking at his mother. Amos looked at her too. \nShe was pale in her dark tunic. Her eyes were red and her cheeks were wet. She raised shaking hands to him, and he ran to her. He leaned down to his mother and embraced her tight enough that she would know he was real. He was alive. \nShe laughed, and cried, and laughed again before finally letting him go. Amos turned to the carpenter, but he was gone.\nThe people said his name was Jesus, and that he was a prophet, but Amos knew more. That man was like the sunrise. He was life. He was inevitable." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: The Shadow Man\n\nGenre: high-school\n\nWord Count: 2491\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story set in a city where the power suddenly goes out, leaving everyone in darkness." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Summer. Always a time for cookouts and pool parties, park visits and fire pits. It was always a cheery time. Even in the city. That was what Jeannie loved about summertime. Aside from the three month break she got from school and everyday brought something new, Jeannie loved the joy that dripped off of everyone like melting cherry popsicles dripped off of messy children’s chins. Like fingers, tongues, mouths and t-shirts stained red from the cooling treat. Jeannie loved the warm summer air and the occasional cooling rain showers. She loved the gentle breezes and the constant smell of flowers and people grilling. It was her favorite time of year. Every ache that weighed her down all year suddenly lifted away as soon as the school bell rang on the last day of school each year.\nJeannie lived in a pretty apartment downtown with her mother. Her parents had gotten divorced when she was really little. She almost doesn’t remember a time when they all three lived together. Her father lived in the commercial district of the city. Most of Jeannie’s friends lived either on the outskirts of the city or in dinky little apartments in the slums. Jeannie was lucky that her mother had a well paying job. They didn’t live in a high-rise like her father did but they at least had a three bedroom. Even luckier, the landlord didn’t charge them much for it. Kind of helped that her mother and the landlord were not only old friends but were seeing each other on the down low. Their landlord, Mr. Luca had been trying to get his divorce from his ex-wife to finalize for the past few years. Jeannie’s mom and Mr. Luca hadn’t started seeing each other until about six months ago. A few years ago, Jeannie’s mom had housed Mr. Luca in her office that doubled as a spare room. He’d showed up on their doorstep limping and covered in cuts and bruises. There were two very defined claw marks down the middle of his face, one over each eye. Mr. Luca had stayed with them for a few days so that his wounds would heal. Then her mom convinced him to leave his wife and file for divorce. She even talked him into applying for full custody of his two toddlers. The claw marks down his face never went away. He wore them like battle scars and kept his head up even when people started to stare.\nJeannie could even agree that the attractive older man deserved better than the abuse his wife doled out on him. In the past three years since then, there had been a battle for custody of the toddlers and Mr. Luca had almost lost but the matching clawed scars on the children’s bodies had been the tipping point. All custody privileges were taken from Mr. Luca’s wife, which set her off in the middle of the courtroom. Jeannie and her mother had gone to the hearing for moral support. After that hearing the judge and jurors had taken some time to decide on the divorce. That was over a year ago. Mr. Luca was starting to lose faith. If it wasn’t for Jeannie’s mother, he would have caved in a long time ago. Even Jeannie could see how good the two of them were for each other.\nJeannie was sat looking over Mr. Luca’s toddlers. It was one of those days where she had to babysit overnight. The kids were at her apartment and were to be sleeping in the spare room. The sun had set a long time ago and she was busy getting the two and four year old ready for bed. The clock that hung on the wall in the bathroom ticked just past eight forty-five and the kids’ bedtime was nine. The little ones were splashing around in the bathtub and playing pirates. They were both clean but Jeannie couldn’t bear to stop their play to make them get out.\nWhen the water ran cold and the toddlers started to complain, Jeannie helped them out of the tub one at a time and dried them off. Step by step she got them each dressed in their favorite pajamas and bushed the tangles out of their hair. Mr. Luca’s oldest, Jodie, insisted that he could do it himself but complained when he pulled his hair too hard. The two-year-old, Sasha giggled when Jeannie took the brush from her brother and gently cleared out the tangles in the four-year-old's pretty blonde curls. When it came time for Sasha to get her hair brushed, she jumped at the opportunity and sat her little butt on the floor in front of her babysitter gleefully. Jeannie loved her wild spirally red curls. They hung so nicely around her face when it was dry. The seventeen-year-old wished her oily, bob-cut hair would look that good with such minimal effort. \nHair brushed and pjs on, Jeannie collected the two children - one on her hip and one at her side - and led them to the spare room. Once they were tucked in at opposite ends of the daybed, she pulled a children’s book off one of the shelves next to the desk and started to read them to sleep. Slowly, but surely the two children faded off to sleep. Jeannie kept reading the book until she was sure that they were both fast asleep. Then she tucked the book back onto its shelf and quietly crept out of the room, pulling the door shut behind her. Back in the living room, the teen set out to watch some YouTube videos on the tv. \nA few hours passed by with no troubles. The kids were fast asleep and her mother wasn’t due back until morning. The more time she spent with Mr. Luca’s kids the more comfortable she felt about her mother’s relationship with him. Jeannie had always been an only child so the thought of having siblings made her immeasurably happy. When her father got remarried when she was twelve, Jeannie was overwhelmed with the idea of having a bigger family. Her grandparents on both sides had both passed away when she was pretty young. Not that it mattered to her because she never saw any of them. Both sets of her grandparents disapproved of their children having children. Jeannie’s mother got pregnant with her when she was in her last year of high school. Against their parent’s wishes, her parents eloped and moved away after graduation. Jeannie never got to meet her grandparents but that didn't matter to her much. Her father had a younger sister but she was in jail for possession of a large amount of cocaine. Her mother had been an only child herself.\nWhen Jeannie was fourteen, her step-mother - Jenna - got pregnant. Jeannie never had any issues with her step-mom. Jenna had always been super nice to her and the teenager genuinely thought that she and her father were good together. She didn’t have much to compare it to because she didn’t really remember her parent’s relationship all that well. She had a half-brother on the other side of the city and he idolized her. Jeannie loved her brother, half or otherwise. She always volunteered to babysit whenever she could. The teen loved kids. So when her mother and Mr. Luca started seeing each other and he won custody of his kids, Jeannie was over the moon. All she could think about was her mother and Mr. Luca getting married and all of them moving into his super nice, rather big apartment on the top floor.\nCatching herself daydreaming again, Jeannie turned her attention back to the video she’d been watching only to find that she didn't know what was going on at all. She reached for the remote to restart the video so that she could pay more attention this time. She hit the rewind button one time and everything went dark. Confused, Jeannie pressed the same button that her finger was on. She thought that it might have just been trick wiring, maybe a blown fuse. Jeannie waited for her eyes to adjust to the sudden darkness that surrounded her, even turning toward the window to find the light that would guide her to the fuse box down the hall. However, when her eyes found where the window should have been, there was nothing but darkness blanketing the city like a heavy fog. A city-wide power outage. Jeannie was never afraid of the dark. She always believed that there was no difference between light and darkness. It never bothered her to be curled under the blankets in bed in a pitch black room. But then again, she’d never known darkness like this.\nThere had been power outages more than a few times growing up but none of them had been this complete and it had certainly never been this dark when power failed. Power outages had always been a reason to get out of the house and do something fun with her mom. Sitting out on the balcony and playing card games or building a puzzle. Jeannie had never been alone when the power went out. If she was being honest with herself, she wasn’t alone then either. However the darkness of her apartment had never been so consuming. She couldn't even see her own hand when it was inches from her face.\nJeannie knew her home like the back of her hand but she couldn’t even see her hands in that moment. Her mother was staying over with Mr. Luca in a really nice hotel to celebrate his birthday. The landline didn't even have a dial tone and there was no way that the seventeen-year-old could find her phone in the darkness that enveloped her like a suffocating, toxic gas. And, come to think of it, her phone was dead the last she knew. Now it wasn’t getting charged so there would be no way she could call and check in with her mom.\nMaybe fear was infectious because she’d never felt this sweaty-palmed anxious in the dark before. She’d never felt so consumed in the night. Never felt so suffocated by air. Was she actually claustrophobic despite what she always told her friends? When did the night start to feel like a mixer tying all of her nerves and muscles into knots? When did gravity start to feel so heavy as it pressed down on her? How were those kids able to sleep in a darkness such as this? Should she be checking on the kids? Where did that flashlight go that they kept for emergencies? Wait, would all the food in the fridge spoil before the power came back on? What was creeping around in the corner of the room?\nWait, there was something in the corner of the room?! A terrified squeak left her lips before she slapped a hand over them to keep herself silent. If there really was something lurking in the dark, Jeannie definitely didn’t want it to find her out. There was no way that the teenager was going to get up from where she’d curled in on herself on the couch. Her dark eyes never left the moving shape in the corner of the room. The terror got the best of her and she kept frozen in place, knees to her chest and one hand over her mouth. How she longed to be fast asleep and completely unaware like the toddlers were in the other room. The brunette was beside herself with fear. The only thoughts running through her head were of how stupid she’d felt for never fearing the dark before and self-depreciating reprimands about how she was almost an adult and afraid of the dark. She had just resigned herself to the fact that she was about to die - if not from the shadow lurking around her, then definitely from the way her heart raced without pause.\nSuddenly, the lights cut on and the video she’d been watching blared at her through the tv’s speakers. Jeannie gasped so hard that she started to cough. When she finally caught her breath, she found that the shadow that had been haunting her was only her cat, Autumn. The feline pounced at her owner, curling up in the teenager’s lap and starting to purr like a motorcycle engine. Jeannie sighed in relief, petting the cat grateful for her support. Deciding not to watch the video anymore, Jeannie turned it off and tried watching her favorite movie to calm her down. Just as the movie started, the landline rang and scared both teen and cat out of their seats. Leaning over the arm of the couch to answer it, Jeannie noticed her mother’s cell number spread across the LCD screen. The seventeen-year-old almost dropped the phone entirely in her haste to answer.\nHearing her mother’s soothing voice talking to her down the line calmed her almost completely. When Mr. Luca’s voice sounded in the background, the brunette nearly passed out with relief. Even more relaxing was the sound of her father’s voice, closer to the phone and her step-mother’s laugh at Mr. Luca’s joke. With her family safe and soothing her back to reality, Jeannie looked up at the time on the analog clock that hung over the tv. Her eyes nearly popped out of her head when she realized it was well past midnight and the power had been out for close to three hours. She didn’t realize that so much time had passed that she’d been petrified in her place. With gentle reassurance, her parents and Mr. Luca eased their girl to peace. When he finally hung up with them, Jeannie felt worlds better. There really was nothing there in the dark that wasn’t there in the light.\nJeannie continued her movie and fell asleep about halfway through it. Unbeknownst to her, a dark looming shadow stood over her as she slept. It’s inky black shape undulating maliciously. And it’s dangerous, glowing red eyes flashing playfully. A deep, whispered, dark laugh brought goosebumps up on the teen’s pale skin. With one last look at his prey, the shadow figure disappeared while Autumn hissed at the place he once stood. In the morning, Jeannie was awoken by her mother and Mr. Luca arriving back from their night out. A little concerned, her mother ran her fingers gently over the three fading scratch marks down her arm. Suddenly the children in the other room screamed in unison, telling tales of a \"shadow monster\" in the corner of the room. Little Sasha even claimed that he’d been watching Jeannie sleep. The two-year-old started crying harder when she saw the scratch marks on her babysitter’s arm. She exclaimed that the Shadow Man had marked her. That she would never be safe in the dark ever again. And the funny thing about it, she was right… \n~Fin" } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: IRONY\n\nGenre: high-school\n\nWord Count: 2197\n\nPrompt:\n\nEnd your story with a truth coming to light." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "I saw my schoolmates gush over how splendid I look as I got off my Bugatti La Voiture Noire that was driven by our most trusted driver and the car itself was led by other two cars driven by bodyguards. I can't blame them if they look up to me that much, If you didn’t know me you’d probably think that I was a prince that was living the best life. I have the good looks, the money and I’m smart, what else could I ask for? They gave way for me when I entered the university, they were whispering nonsense to each other, and avoided my eyes as if pretending that I don't know it was me they were talking about. I let them feel my presence as I keep my cold unbothered look, I don't know if what they're whispering about is something good or is something against me but I long learned that ignorance is bliss and whatever they talk about or however fast the rumor about me spread only I know myself at the end of the day.\n\nLunchtime easily came and I saw a group of people crowded in front of the bulletin board, then I was reminded that they would post who would be the Summa for our batch and I honestly couldn’t care less. I was about to leave and keep myself away from the noise of the canteen when I saw Julianna Trinidad, the senator’s ever beautiful and angelic daughter who was unfortunately clinging onto the man I once called my friend, Lucas. “Congratulations Kevin, you deserve that spot,” He said with such a fake smile and I only replied with a cold look that could pierce right through him and a nod, others look at him as if he’s such a warm kind person who humbly accepted his defeat when I honestly think he just got used to it since he has always been a loser. I nodded at him as I proceed to go to the top of the school to get the silence and peace of mind I’ve been craving.\n\nLucas Del Valle is the son of my father’s great enemy in politics and even our mothers were not very good friends I was keeping my distance from him at first and made sure he felt that tension but he kept bugging me trying to be friends. And sadly, I was fooled by his words such as ‘Let’s not be like our parents, ‘I don’t want to enter politics anyways’, ’I’ll be your true friend and I’ll be by your side’. I couldn’t blame him though even my father told me to keep my friends close but my enemies closer but I should’ve done that to him first and I shouldn’t have been stupid enough to be fooled by a Del Valle.\n\nSo, when I got the chance to ruin him the way he ruined my trust I did it and I was ‘hella’ better than him. He wanted to be the Summa so I purposely did better at him in class, He wanted to be the student body president so I ran and won, He wanted to be the captain of the soccer team so I joined the team and did better than him, He wanted to live a life free from his father’s expectations so I did everything my father expected me to do so that the expectations on him become higher and all of that just to make his life harder than it already is. All of that because he deserved it, I will defeat him the same way my father made his father felt like a total loser. Not one Del Valle can trample down my family’s name and even if he feels like I’m being too much he should know that I haven’t even started yet, what he broke is my trust and I’m going to remind him how I felt like a total loser when someone I trusted so much was the one who ruined my entirety, I’m going to let that thought haunt him down forever.\n\nMy day actually started ironically normal for me to end up in such a decision right now. I woke up with my mother on her phone with the business partners and my father introducing me to his visitors who happen to be his co-senators. I greeted them politely as they complimented how great I was doing at school and asked how I was able to maintain being the top student amidst helping both my mother and father with their business and political life. Honestly, I don’t know as well. I don’t know how I was able to cope and I don’t know if I even have a choice considering I’m an only child, they made me sat down and talked about their political strategy in slowly letting me enter their world. They talked about their plans and left me hanging and quiet, their plans about me are plans that are not needing what I have to say, they started asking my father who he wanted me to marry for a business merge when I excused myself to go ahead and go to class.\n\nI wasn’t always like my father who craved power, authority, and money I used to be full of joy and innocence, I only wanted a quiet and simple life away from here but the pain everyone caused me killed my old self and I’m done mourning for him, this time It’s them who should grieve. I was only 5 years old when I first heard my father command his men to take the life of his enemy in politics and my naïve-self look for excuses for him, that maybe he had to do that or else we would be killed or maybe that person was the evil one and that my father was just defending us. I was 8 years old when I saw with my two eyes my mother’s affair with my father’s brother and during that time I couldn’t even find any excuses for my mother and that opened my eyes that my happy, normal and kind family was not what I thought it was. I was 12 when my father suddenly arrived home one day with a bag full of money that he immediately put in his safe, a few weeks after that a barangay captain of our town was removed from his position with the accusations of stealing money from the barangay’s budget. I was 15 when my mother conspired a fire in one of our restaurants in broad daylight when it was full of innocent customers just to get its insurance on that same week innocent people were put to jail for committing arson, a crime they clearly did not do. And I was 17 when I saw my father become the senate president beside my mother and me and together we act like a picturesque family everyone would envy, A senate president father who commits his life to serve the country with his faithful wife who supports him and a son who will follow his footsteps. That image just makes me want to vomit.\n\nI finally arrived at the top of the school and I looked around, I left a letter that says I have sent a flash drive to a well-known news company and in that flash drive is a video of me exposing all of my father and mother’s lies and if that fails I have a sent a scheduled email with the same content to many news reporters.\nYou may be asking what the hell I’m doing and why I’m doing that, and to answer your question, I don’t know. I don’t have a fucking clue on what I’m doing but I’m doing all of that because I’m about to jump off a building on the day that has the best weather we’ve had all year. That’s ironic, isn’t it? I’ve been reaching out for years, yet now is the only time anyone will notice. That’s ironic. I’m about to die at school yet I don’t want to seem like an attention seeker, that’s ironic. Lucas loved me and is now happy with another girl while I’m miserable. That’s ironic too.\n\nThe top of the school was always a place Lucas and I could be found. Nobody else ever bothered to go up, so we were alone. This was the one place I could be open with him. To love him. In a place like here, where being with the same gender is social suicide, this was a small sanctuary for me. Now, it just provides memories of our relationship. It was here that I first kissed him. It was here that I explored every inch of his soft skin. It was here that we’d talked about moving somewhere else on graduation day, and getting a small place to ourselves. I could recite all the pretty lies Lucas told me. I believed it then. And although I hate him for leaving me, for dating a girl seemingly just to spite me, for whispering those same promises to her, I miss him. I miss his voice, his smell, his laugh, the feel of his skin against mine, all of it.\n\nI messed it up. I honestly believed that my family, despite them being like that, would love me no matter what. But ‘I’ll always love you' didn’t include if I came out loving another man specially if that man is the son of their competition. My one confession is what brought on the beatings. Usually, I would wear long sleeves and pants to cover my mother’s rages. But today, I couldn’t find the energy to hide them so I took off my uniform coat and folded my long sleeves. Bruises create an array of purple and blue down my arms. I understand her though. I can’t bring her grandchildren or carry on the Benitez legacy. The shame that society would place on her would be too much for her feeble heart. So, I understand.\n\nI glance down at my watch. Five minutes until lunch ends. I shuffle towards the ledge. It seems to beckon me. For months, I’ve been able to fight it. Today, I’m too exhausted. I crawl up until I’m standing on the ledge. Below me, is a soft field of grass. I look up to the sun. Although it is warm, I can’t fully feel it anymore. I can understand what it is that I’m about to do, but I feel totally numb. I understand the gravity of my current situation, but I don’t feel fear. Anticipation, perhaps. But no dread.\n\nMy mind wanders to my funeral. Who will attend? Certainly, Lucas pretending to care. I snicker at the idea that he’ll bring Julianna. That would be a wonderful irony.\n\nSuddenly, a tear escapes my eyes. I’m slightly shocked. I haven’t cried since Lucas left me. It’s a nasty feeling, crying. I shake my head slightly. I’m not going to cry right before I jump.\n\nI should let my final thoughts be happy memories.\n\nI think about the time Lucas and I laid on this roof, looking at clouds, and talking about the future like we had one together.\n\n“Hey Lucas, you know I love you, right?”\n“I love you too, more than you can imagine”\n“Tell me about what we’re going to do after we graduate.”\n“Well, the day we graduate, we’ll board a plane. Maybe to the US, who knows. We’ll find a place that will accept us. We’ll get a small little house, with daisies in front, just like you want.”\n“And dark wood flooring, not lightwood, because a certain someone likes to spill drinks on the floor”. Lucas giggles. “Where’s the lie?” I break into laughter.\n\nI turn, so I’m no longer facing the courtyard, but instead, our roof. I close my eyes. At that moment, a final gust of wind provides me the push I need just as the bell rings. I’m not falling through. I open my eyes. I’m flying. The warm sunbeams against my face. A sharp pain floods through my body. I blink, and instead of soaring through the sky, I am laying in the grass. I hear a scream, and hear people rushing over. My eyes, although open, can’t see anything but bits and pieces of the scene unfolding around me. I can’t catch any of the words the students are screaming at each other. I could swear I hear a familiar voice approaching, but I’m not sure. The same voice grabs my shoulders and demands that I stay with him. I catch a glimpse of the hazel brown hair I’ve grown to both love and hate.\n\nLucas.\n\nSorry, my dear. I’m already free. I take a breath, and as I exhale, I can see the scene from above, as if I am floating above my body. Lucas’ hazel brown hair is covering my face. I gag a little. I’m not looking so great. Lucas screams at a student to call for help, then turns back to me, or what used to be me.\n\n\nI’m free.\n\n\nGoodbye, Lucas.\n\n\nI’m sorry." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: The Cole Bros the Greatest Show on Earth\n\nGenre: historical-fiction\n\nWord Count: 1590\n\nPrompt:\n\nSet your story in an oracle or a fortune teller’s parlor." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "My family, the Renbargers, had always been cursed with bad memory. Almost to the point of feeling crazy, where me, my dad, or my grandpa would put something down and immediately look down and it wasn’t there. My grandpa said it used to happen to his dad and his grandpa. Dates, events, and facts would just completely vanish from memory. The men in the family were always faithful and kind to our significant others so the memory thing was tough for the ladies in the family but I guess bearable. Even my girlfriend gets upset at my terrible memory, and thinks me telling her that I’m cursed is dumb and that I just don’t want to take blame, which is understandable. \n\nBut one day as a kid, I had asked my grandpa about it and he told me that we have actually been cursed, then begins to tell me a story. I guess back in the early 1900s, a traveling circus was decently common especially in small towns on the way to bigs ones. He tells me that his grandpa, Heinrich Renbarger, immigrated here from Germany to start a new life after the recession his family had endured in Germany during the Napoleonic wars, the religious constraints, and the difficulty to make money. He immigrated here to Indiana and found a job working in construction of houses. He had worked with the company for many years. Somewhere in the middle of that he met my great, great grandma, Florence. Fell in love, got married, and have been together for a long time, no kids at this point yet. She was American, big blue eyes, dirty blonde hair and met him at a pub down the road, she had always praised him and supported through his journey here. They knew each other’s quirks like when she would read him his horoscope in the newspaper in the morning. “That is hogwash” he would always say, a skeptic if you ever met one.\n\nOn his way to work, there was an open field about a few acres, surrounded by forest except for the view from the street.\nThey would sometimes hold state fairs, little carnivals, and every other Sunday, farmers markets. He drove by this field everyday both to and from work. One day he goes to work and he sees large structures and tents laid in the field. He finds it interesting, he wonders what they could be doing. After a long day of work he’s coming home later than usual. Coming down the street he sees a glow of lights and passes by the field he slows down to read the sign, in huge letters it says “The Cole Bros the Greatest Show on Earth”. “Oh a circus!” He says to himself “Florence is gonna love this.”\n\nRushing home, sees Florence in the kitchen and walks to her “guess where we are going tonight” she says “ I don’t know, dinner? That’s good because I didn’t cook anything”\n“Even better” he responds \n“We are going to the circus!”\nHe sees her face light up, her eyes getting wider, as if he was watching it in slow motion. “Really?!“ she exclaimed. Heinrich says “Yup slap on your face and we are going”. She’s says “well I’m not doing all that, but I will change” emphasizing the “will”\nSo maybe 30 minutes pass by and they are ready to go. They get in the car and to her surprise, it was pretty close. Heinrich then begins to mention how he saw them building it on the way to work. So they park, a quirk Florence had was how Heinrich would always park enormously far, even when there was spots closer, but she is just happy to be here so doesn’t say anything this time.\n\nThey get out the car and start walking towards the entrance. It was a whole festival ground with little sideshow attractions, games, and food vendors. In the back was a humongous tent ,where it was pretty safe to say, that’s where the main show takes place. They just enjoy the time there, laughing, eating pretzels, and playing games. They walked to a table, where you had to throw a ball at a 3 stack of almost wood-like bottles, two on bottom one on top. “ This thing is so rigged” Heinrich scoffs but notices Florence has got a little glimmer in her eye for a something on the prize wall. “Well why not?” Heinrich puts some money on the counter and attendant gives him three baseballs. The distance from the counter to the target was maybe fifteen to twenty feet, first throw hits nothing but air far left of the target. “Strike one!” The attendant shouts.\nI better focus he thinks to himself, picks up another ball and sends it with a hurling throw, knocks off the top bottle.\n“So close but strike two!”\nHeinrich looks over at Florence, stares into her hopeful eyes for a moment, she smiles. He turns to pick up another ball, grips it tightly, lines up the shot, and bang! Knocks em all off to the surprise of the attendant as well, begrudgingly says “okay, okay pick a prize” Heinrich turns to Florence and says “ go ahead honey, anything you want” She points to a powder blue little elephant with small doll eyes.\n“Thanks for my elephant” she says while grasping the stuffed animal tightly\n“Aye, lucky throw” he responds\n“You should give yourself more credit”\n\nSo they walk towards the gigantic tent to to the price stand and buy two tickets. They see a spectacle of things from, lions, elephants, fire breathers, to trapeze artists. The show was about an hour long, so, they are walking out, Heinrich looks over his shoulder to see that they are prepping for another show already. They start walking towards the exit and see a stand that they don’t remember seeing before. It was small, a deep purple, with gold crescent moons printed on it and on the outside there’s a little stand up sign reading “Where will your life go, come see if you would like to know”\nFlorence is excited, while Heinrich rolls his eyes. “We have to go in here!” She says “but do we actually?” replies Heinrich.\n“ Yes!” She exclaims. \n\nAfter some slight convincing they agree to go inside. Inside, the only light source is a large warmly dimmed glass ball in the middle of a small table with three wooden chairs, one on the other side of the table and two right in front of us. The tents inside was like a lenticular print of black and grey, like the ones that move depending on your angle.\nBehind a curtain on the other side of the table a slim young lady reveals herself, wearing a purple head wrap heavy blue eyeshadow, and red lipstick. She was brunette and looked like as if she could be in her mid twenties to early thirties. She sits at the table and tell us in a Russian-like accent “My name is Lavinia, do you wish to have your fortunes told?” “interesting accent“ Heinrich says pontifically, Florence forcibly nudges his arm. “ I see you are a skeptic, that is fine, let me start with your fortune eh?”\nHeinrich looks at Florence, at her hopeful eyes, “sure” Heinrich responds as he puts some money in a jar to the right of the set up. She notions for him to sit and for his hands on each side of the glass ball, Heinrich obliges. “Close your eyes while I look into my crystal ball as I unfold your forthcoming”\nSome humming, some light flickering from the ball, and what sounds like ocean sounds pass.\n“Hmmm I see, you will have a death in your family or a close one to you”\nHeinrich is taken back, “We pay you and that’s the kind of garbage fortune you give?”\n“I am only reading what the signs and the crystal ball is telling me” she responds\nMore agitated Heinrich gets up and slams his hands on the table “Do you think it’s funny to say things like that to people!?”\nFlorence grabs his arm urging him to calm down. Heinrich had many people he loved pass away through his life and hearing someone tell him, who he believed to be just an entertainer, genuinely upset him. Out a fit of bitterness, Heinrich knocks over the crystal ball, hitting the side of the pay stand and shattering to the floor. Florence still grasping his arm, the fortune teller gets up slowly, “I lay a curse on your family name Renbarger, you will forever be cursed with fleeting recollection, like a mist of remembrance, you and every son born of that name!” Then Lavinia looks at Florence with what seemed like a pittance of benevolence, and says “You will forget everything you need” as she catches eyes with Florence for a moment “but not everything you love.” She finishes then Heinrich grabs Florence’s hand and storms out of the circus.\n\nI ask my grandpa “so that’s the curse? Wait how did she know our last name was Renbarger? Is that even true?” My grandpa responds “Only if you can believe it, some say it could just be a hereditary thing with us, but hey you never know” \n\n“So what happened grandpa did someone pass away?” I ask\nMy grandpa just gets up dusts his overalls off, and walks out to the barn, we didn’t speak that whole rest of the day." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: One of the Abandoned Boys\n\nGenre: historical-fiction\n\nWord Count: 1931\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story in which a miracle happens — or everyone thinks it did." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "[Content Warning: Claustrophobia]\n\nEast Side, London, 1889.\n\nCharlie sobs into the dark. He doesn’t want to be one of the abandoned boys. \n\nWhen Patch got stuck, Master Smith left him in there for a week until the landlord complained. They had to break the wall with a hammer to get him out. Charlie hadn’t seen it, but the other apprentices said they found him curled up like he was asleep, but all stiff-like. Patch didn’t sweep any more after that.\n\nCharlie’s knees are level with his chin, his head presses against sweltering bricks, and the brush he was holding is wedged against his backside. \n\nStuck.\n\nWiggling around will only make it worse, so he stays still, thinking. How to get out? \n\nLittle Johnny got stuck once, and he said you just had to suck in your belly real small and push off with your feet. But Johnny isn’t called little for nothing, and besides, he was only five-and-a-half when it happened. It’s usually the older boys who get stuck. \n\nLike Charlie.\n\nAnd most of the time, a stuck chimney sweep is a dead chimney sweep. \n\nHis thighs are already cramping up. His left arm is free, so he uses it to push down on one knee, trying to unfold his leg. It won’t budge. His right arm is still pinned above his head, right where it was when he dropped the brush. Somehow it landed behind him, and the bristles poke into his back painfully.\n\nHe reaches upward, feeling for a loose brick to pull himself up with. The chimney is so dark he can’t tell the difference if his eyes are open or closed. His fingers brush a soft clump of soot, and it falls onto his face. Already mid-breath, he pulls some into his lungs, and the coughing fit that follows reverberates up and down the shaft. The effort leaves him gasping for air. \n\n“What’re ye doing up there? Faster, or I’ll burn yer backside raw,” Master Smith hollers from below.\n\n“Help,” Charlie chokes out, but the gloom dampens his words to a whisper. \n\nAcrid smoke singes his nostrils, and heat licks his bare feet. The fire is meant to make him work faster, but since he can’t move, all it does is scorch the bricks around him. His neck is already blistering from being pressed against the chimney shaft behind. He squirms in panic, but only gets himself wedged deeper. \n\n“Help,” he screams. “I’m stuck. Master Smith, I’m stuck, sir. Please help.”\n\nThe echoes sound like a hundred ghosts are with him inside the chimney. The thought makes Charlie’s stomach churn. What if he isn’t the first sweep to get stuck in here? It’s so dark he would never see a ghost coming.\n\nIt takes him a minute to notice that the bricks have cooled.\n\n“Stuck, are yer?” Master Smith shouts.\n\n“Yes, sir. Please, send help,” Charlie shouts back.\n\nThere is no reply at first. In his mind Charlie sees the Master contemplating; a fingertip running through his soot-stained beard as he leans on his bundle of sweep brushes. Thinking about how much he’d have to pay to train another chimney sweep. \n\n“Try and get out,” the Master says.\n\n“I can’t. I’m really stuck, sir. Can someone pull me out?”\n\n“You out of yer mind? Can’t risk losing another one. And yer not even my best sweep. Try and get out, boy.”\n\nCramps and coughing forgotten, every inch of Charlie’s skin prickles with fear. \n\nHe doesn’t want to be one of the abandoned boys.\n\n“Please, sir. Anybody. Little Johnny, he’ll help me. He will, sir. Please,” Charlie cries. \n\nBut the Master is already gone.\n\nTears run stark lines through the soot on his face. Snot dribbles out of his nose and into the back of his mouth until he spits it down the shaft. He wipes his face with his free hand, but it only gets gritty specks into his eyes. Blinking really fast just makes it worse.\n\nCharlie cries until he’s sure all the water in his body is gone. His tongue is dry, and his throat makes a rough scratching sound whenever he swallows. Whatever came out of his nose has dried all crusty-like. It pinches his skin whenever he sniffs, which is often. His legs are numb, the bristles in his back feel sharper, and his toes feel like hot pins are poking them. The cramps have spread to his pinned right arm and the back of his neck. \n\nIt was evening when he first scrambled up the chimney; Master Smith said it would be a quick job before Christmas supper. Now, tummy rumbling, Charlie is sure he’s missed all the fun. Christmas is the only day of the year the costermongers give out apples and oranges for free. Carol singers roam the streets and, for once, everyone is smiling. \n\nHe strains his ears, hoping to catch a stray note of music, or any hint of the world outside. All he can hear is his heartbeat and the ragged breaths keeping him alive. But how much longer? He needs food and some water. And he needs to piss.\n\n“Help,” he screams, once, twice, a dozen times more. The chimney shaft magnifies his voice and his fear with it. The echoes are louder now, as if the ghosts are closing in. The bricks are freezing cold. He thrashes about, free hand scrabbling against the walls, but he is no less stuck than before. The walls close in around him, suffocating.\n\nA warm heaviness fills his trousers, spreading to wet his belly and drip down from his toes. Shame smothers Charlie even worse than the soot. If he ever gets out, the others will never forget he pissed himself. Somehow it’s worse than the idea of dying here.\n\nCharlie sobs again as he drifts away. He’s just like Patch.\n\nHe’s one of the abandoned boys.\n\n\nO little town of Bethlehem\nhow still we see thee lie!\nAbove thy deep and dreamless sleep\nthe silent stars go by;\nyet in thy dark streets shineth\nthe everlasting light.\nThe hopes and fears of all the years\nare met in thee tonight.\n\n\nCharlie wakes to pain, but he blinks, confused. It is not the pain he expects. He is still stuck, unable to move anything except his left arm, but the cramps throughout his body have faded away to numbness. The brush still pokes him from behind.\n\nThe pain that woke him is from his head. Something hard had fallen from the shaft above, bouncing off his head before nestling neatly on his knees. \n\nHe feels for it in the darkness. His fingers brush something firm and rubbery. When he lifts it to his nose, his stomach growls in response.\n\nBread?\n\nA whoosh echoes from above, like a breath of air, followed by a dull sliding sound. The thing sounds big, but, expecting it this time, Charlie sticks out his arm to block its path. He sets it in between his knees and his chin, feeling all over for the shape. \n\nA bottle?\n\n\"Help,\" he screams, tilting his head back. \"You up there, help me get out!\"\n\nOnly silence responds, darker than soot.\n\nHe calls up the shaft again and again. No response. A sob escapes through dry lips as he looks back to the heavy package on his knees.\n\nThe cloth wrapped around the outside is thick and all soft-like. It might be wool. He’s seen it before, worn by the fancy rich people. Charlie’s first thought is that he’s not the biggest apprentice, or the oldest, or even the best, so one of the others is bound to take it from him.\n\nThen he remembers he’s abandoned.\n\nHe pulls the cloth across to cover himself. It sits awkwardly, but warms him all the same.\n\nThe bottle is big and heavy and has a cork in the top. Charlie rips it out with his teeth, sniffs the liquid inside. It has no smell at all.\n\nWithout a second thought, he gulps down so much water that the bottle isn’t heavy anymore. Worried, he shakes it, but the sloshing sound makes him feel better. The bread follows, gobbled up in seconds.\n\nDespite himself, he feels better. His body begins to hurt again, as if it now has the energy to remind him that he’s stuck. The weight of the bottle on his knees is a comfort.\n\nHe waits for something else to fall down the shaft. Hours pass. He stays awake as long as he can, but knowing he’ll fall asleep eventually, he folds his left arm over his head for protection. Time and space lose their meaning, since neither of them seem to change.\n\nThe next time bread arrives from above, Charlie is awake and waiting. He plucks it out of the air and wolfs it down with the last of the water. A second of regret comes and goes, then, to his surprise, another chunk of bread lands on his knees. \n\nAs he chews, Charlie tries moving again. Still stuck. Worry gnaws at him. How long can someone live all squished-like? What if the food makes him fat and even more stuck? \n\nHe shudders. What if the ghosts are sending food to fatten him up for their supper?\n\nHe doesn't scream for help again.\n\nOver what must be days, food and water come through the shaft three more times, but Charlie’s hunger overcomes his fear. He scoffs bread and chugs water until his tummy rumbles again, this time for another reason. He whimpers in shame, unable to hold his night soil any longer. It smears into his trousers and the watery parts trickle down his ankles. The smell has him wrinkling his nose in disgust. \n\nThe pain in his limbs is unbearable now, a deep ache that makes him weak all over. He bows his head, tears falling again, as he thinks about living the rest of his life in his own muck. \n\nWhen they find his body, the other apprentices will laugh and point, saying Charlie pissed and soiled himself to the tune of Ring a Ring o’ Roses. \n\nMaster Smith will shake his head, muttering that he was good for nothing anyway. He’ll find another chimney sweep. \n\nCharlie will be forgotten, and that’ll be that.\n\nAbandoned.\n\n*\n\nA soft thud wakes Charlie, so soft he thinks it’s his own heartbeat at first. But it’s not inside his chest. It’s coming from somewhere else, all muffled-like. \n\nThud. \n\nIt’s louder. He’s awake now, looking about in panic, even though there is nothing to see.\n\nThud!\n\nThe entire chimney shakes. He cries out in fear, and fear turns to anguish when the half-full bottle of water topples over before he can grab it. Since he hasn’t replaced the cork, all the water pours onto his already-sodden trousers. \n\nThud!\n\nCharlie buries his finger in his ear, terrified. He shakes his head over and over. When he imagined the ghosts coming for him, he thought it would be all quiet-like, sneaking through the dark. He never thought they would break the whole chimney down and rip him to pieces. \n\nTHUD. \n\nThe next one is even louder. Fine powder spills from the wall to his left, tickling his nose. He wriggles around and something sharp bites his backside.\n\nTHUD. \n\nSomething cracks. He shuts his eyes tight and waits for the pain. Which bone did they break? Which part of him will they eat first?\n\nTHUD!\n\nHe screams and screams and screams and screams. \n\nTHUD! THUD! THUD! THUD!\n\nThe bricks to his left shatter, and all Charlie sees is blinding light." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: The Librarian and the Baby\n\nGenre: high-school\n\nWord Count: 2587\n\nPrompt:\n\nStart your story with a stern librarian scolding two characters for making noise in the library." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "“Enough giggling already! This is the second time I warned you!”\n“I’m sorry. It's just that...”\n“I don't want to hear it,” Ms. Bickhaus interrupted me.\n“OK, we’ll stop.”\n“Thank you.” Ms. Bickhaus walked away.\nI burped again.\n“You're a naughty little boy,” Beth said.\n“Yes… I… am.” I burped.\n“Stop!”\n“Ok, I’ll stop now.”\nShe continued working on her paper.\n“That girl has big boobies!” I whispered in her ear.\nI saw a glimmer of a smile before she covered her mouth and waved me away.\nI pulled my lower eyelid down so red showed.\n“Oh, my God!” she whispered. “I’ll tell your Mommy you were naughty in the library and you’ll be in trouble.”\n“Yeah, right!”\n“Try me.”\nThe bell rang and we closed our books. \n“Jade, Beth, come here,” Ms. Bickhaus said and we walked up to her desk.\n“I expect better behavior from you both next time, you hear? Or I’ll suspend you two from the library.”\n“OK, we'll behave from now on,” I said.\n“You two have a good day!”\nWe left.\n“It’s a good thing you're cute!” Beth pinched my cheek.\nI giggled.\n\n“Hi, sweetie, did you have a good day?”\n“Yes, Mommy.” I took my yucky pants off.\n“Good boy! I bet you need a dipy change.” She grabbed my hand and took me into my room.\nShe changed my diaper. “All better!”\n“Thanks, Mommy.”\n“Did you get in trouble at school today?”\n“No, Mommy.”\n“Well, Kathy told me you were giggling in the library.”\nKathy was Ms. Bickhaus’ assistant and Mommy’s friend.\n“I have lots and lots of homework to do.”\n“Jade…”\nI put my thumb in my mouth.\n“Tell me or you’ll go to the naughty boy corner!”\nI said nothing.\n“OK, it seems you don’t want to behave!” She grabbed my arm.\n“OK, I was giggling in the library!” I blurted out. “It's not my fault.”\n“I don’t care whose fault it is! I want you to apologize to Ms. Bickhaus tomorrow.\"\n“I already did.”\n“Oh, well, be considerate of other people. Many are probably trying to read or study. Respect Ms. Bickaus. Like every job, being a librarian can be stressful. People return books late or not at all. Some put books in the wrong place, which makes it really inconvenient for her and everybody else. So, it would be nice if there was one less\ntroublemaker for her to deal with.”\n“I didn’t realize being a librarian was so hard.... I‘ll be more considerate.”\n“That’s my widdle boy!” She patted my diaper butt.\nI giggled.\n “Hi, Jade, how are you today?” Ms. Bickhaus asked.\n“I’m good. Just looking for a book for my book report.”\n“You're good?”\n“I mean I’m doing well.”\n“Oh! That makes more sense. I’m glad you're doing well.”\n“Thank you. I'm sorry for my behavior yesterday. It was immature of me and won’t happen again.”\n“Water under the bridge.”\n“Thank you.”\n“You’re welcome.” She smiled. \n“I'm going to look for a book for my book report now.”\n“Any idea what you're looking for?”\nI shook my head. “No.”\n“What are you into?”\n(Besides the stories Mommy reads me at beddy-bye-time.) \"Uh, I don't know. I’m not much of a reader.”\n“What movies do you like?”\n“Uh, I don’t watch movies.” (Except for Elmo in Grouchland, Curious George: Royal Monkey, Babar…)\n“Don't watch movies?”\nI shook my head.\n“You're pulling my leg, aren’t you?”\n“No.”\n“You're not giving me much to go on. Do you like sports?”\nI shook my head again.\n“What about sci-fi?”\n“No.”\n“Historical fiction?”\n“No.”\n“Romance?”\n“No.”\n“British literature? Historical fiction? Chick lit?”\n“No.”\n“Well, what do you like?”\nI shrugged.\n“How am I supposed to help you, then?”\n“I dunno.” I put my thumb in my mouth.\n“Jade, are you sucking your thumb?”\nI yanked it out.\n“I heard about your infantile lifestyle.”\n“Yeah, pretty much the whole school knows.”\n”May I ask you why?”\n“I just like it.”\n“What's it?”\n“You know, being a baby.”\n“Does It make you feel happy?”\n“Yes.”\n“Oh.”\n“I’m sorry I was sucking my thumb.”\n“Don’t be. It's what you like.”\n“Yeah.”\n“But, I’m going to ask you not to do it here.”\n“It slipped.”\n“I know.” She paused. “But, you're in high school.”\n“OK, it won't happen again.”\n“Good, now, let's find you a book.” She walked over to the popular American bookshelf and looked. “How about a classic?”\n“OK.”\n“If you want to read a classic, I suggest you read The Great Gatsby.”\n“Is the end sad?”\n“Well…’’\n“I don’t like sad endings.”\n“You're probably going to have to read it at some point in high school.”\n“What's it about?”\n“Follow me… or better yet, look it up on your phone.”\n“Are you sure?”\n“Yes, I allow students to break my rules sometimes.” She winked.\nI pulled my phone out and googled The Great Gatsby.\n“Make sure you read the synopsis and not the plot.”\n“Mysterious millionaire Jay Gatsby… passion with Daisy Buchanan… OK, I’ll read it.”\n“Excellent!”\nI read on. “Aww…”\n“What?”\n“It says F. Scott Fitzgerald died believing he was a failure.”\n“Yes.”\n“That’s sad.”\n“Well, this book is still read. I think there have been three movie adaptations.”\n“Wow! I call that a success!”\n“Yes, well, Paradise sold well, but his other novels failed.” She went back to her desk.\n“That’s too bad.” I pulled the card out.\n“Yes, but at least he’s remembered for this book.” She stamped the card. “Here you go! I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!”\n “Hi, sweetie, how was your day?” Mommy said as I walked in. She took my pants off, respecting my preference to be in my diaper and shirt.\n“OK, Mommy, I’m going to my room.” I rushed in, jumped into my bed, grabbed Mr. Woofums, and started reading the book. It started with a guy named Nick Carraway talking about his moral compass; how he doesn’t judge others.\nSince I revealed myself to be a baby, I get judged, but I learned not to let others bring me down. I was not sure if I judge. I make fun of people, like when I was on a choo-choo train and saw a man with a silly red mohawk. He looked like a rooster and I was tempted to crow at him, but I didn’t because he would've probably pounded me into applesauce.\nI turned the page. “OH NO!”\n“What is it, Jadie-Wadie?” Mommy walked in.\n“This page had a tear at the bottom.”\n“Oh, how unfortunate!”\n“Maybe I should buy Ms. Bickhaus a new book.”\n“That’s a great idea. Well, you read and we’ll get her a new one.”\n“OK, Mommy. I love you.”\n“I love you, too.” She kissed my cheek and left.\nI continued reading.\n\nMommy came in a half-hour later. “How's my busy widdle boy?” She tickled my feet.\nI giggled. ”Stop! You’re gonna make me pee in my diapy!\"\nShe stopped.\n\"Thank you! I started reading and it's pretty good.”\n“Good I’m glad. I read it when I was in tenth grade and it was OK, not my kind of book though, but, I'm glad you like it.” She patted my diaper butt. “Have fun reading, sweetheart!” She left.\nI continued reading.\n “Jade, din-din!” Mommy called.\nI glanced at my yellow smiley-faced clock. Oh, wow! Have I been reading for four hours? “Coming!” I said. “Here, Mr. Woofums, save my place while I eat.'' I laid my stuffed dog on the book so it wouldn’t close, and ran out.\n“You've been quiet all afternoon.”\n“Yes, Mommy, I’ve been really reading!\"\n“I know. that's good of you.”\n“Mommy, Can you take me to Barnes and Noble?”\n“Sure, sweetie, tonight?\"\n“If it won't be too late.”\n“It's only eight. We can go after I feed you.”\n“Really? You sure you're not too tired from work?”\n“No, honey I’m fine.”\n“Are you sure?” I started tickling her armpits, getting her back from earlier.\n“Yes.” She tickled me harder, and harder, causing me to fall onto the floor, giggling.\nShe stopped.\n“Thanks, Mommy.”\nSo, Mommy fed me and changed me, then we left.\n\nAt Barnes and Nobles she asked, “Do you need me?”\n“No, Mommy.”\n“OK, I guess I'll pick a few things up at Sprouts. I'll be back in an hour.”\n“OK, I love you!\" I kissed her.\n“Love you too. Bye-bye!”\nI closed the door and she drove off. I walked in and up to the front desk.\n“Hi, my name's Hogar. Can I help you?”\n“Do you have The Great Gatsby?”\n“I’ll .check.” He turned and browsed on the computer. “Yes, we do, would you like me to get it for you?”\n“Yes, please.”\nHe stood up and walked towards the American classics.\nI followed.\n“Your shirt rocks by the way!”\n“Thanks.” I looked down at my Thomas the Tank Engine shirt.\nHe went down the aisle and looked. “Let's see… Gatsby… Gastby… Gatsby… Ah! Here it is!” He pulled the blue book out. The correct edition and everything!\n“That’s perfect! Thanks!”\n\nAs soon as Mommy and I walked into our house, she took my shorts off.\n“Thanks, Mommy!”\n“It's bedtime, little one.”\n“OK.”\nSo I brushed my teeth and Mommy tucked me in.\n The next day felt like an eternity! In world history, Mr. Lemon gave a lecture in his boring, monotonal voice. My friend kept poking me every time I dozed off. Then in P.E., Coach Moffatt gave us a thirty-question pop quiz! It was easy, but long! \nAt lunch, I couldn’t find my friends, so I sat alone and pulled the sandwich Mommy made for me out.\n“Whatcha eatin’?” Beth asked me, sitting down.\n“A bologna sandwich.\"\n“Ooh! Yummy!”\n“Ever felt like the day is moving slowly?”\n“Yeah, three weeks ago, I had a gymnastic competition after school. I was so excited and nervous, and the day is dragged on and on and on.” She grabbed my sandwich and fed me a bite.\n“Oh.”\n“Just chill and the day will be over before you know it.”\n“Thanks.”\n“No prob. Hey, do you think your mommy will let me babysit you sometime?”\n“Maybe.”\nI took her advice and quit urging the day to be over. It worked. I paid attention in Latin II and in science, I participated in a group.\n Mommy was still at work when I came home, so I rushed into my room. Homework took longer than I expected because there was a couple biology questions that gave me a headache. I normally breezed through them, but I just couldn't wrap my mind around them. Finally, I finished just before Mommy came home and called me in for din-din. She fed me a bottle and burped me.\n“Thank you. Where’s your bag?”\n“Oh, it’s on the table in the living room.” \nI walked in and saw it. “Thankies.” I grabbed it.\n“You’re welcome. You have an hour, then it's beddy-by time.”\n“OK, Mommy.” I kissed her, adjusted my Paw Patrol diaper, and carried the Barnes and Nobles sack into my room. I pulled the book out and tossed the sack. “Google, play This Old Man.”\n“OK. Playing This Old Man”\nCheery music played as I grabbed the scissors and paper. I cut a small square out. I bent the top flap and folded it. Then pressed down. Then grabbed the glue sticks and pasted it on the side.\nI folded it, over then did the same to the other side. “With a knick knack paddy wack give a dog a bone, this old man came rolling home,” I sang.\nI turned the glue bottle over and squirted a zigzag inside the cover of the new book. Then I laid the pocket on it and pressed. “There!”\n“Jade! Snack time!” Mommy called and I toddled in.\nSometimes, Mommy feeds me something extra yummy before I go ni-ni because I’m special. \n“What have you been doing? You’ve been so quiet.”\n“Working on a project.”\n“What kind of project?”\n“I’ll show you when it’s done.”\n“Ooh, I can’t wait!” She picked me up. “Oof! Getting heavy!” She carried me to the table and sat me down. “What yummy snack do I have for you tonight?”\nI giggled.\nMommy’s phone played some song I didn’t recognize.\nShe grabbed it from the counter and answered it. “Hello?” She paused. “Oh my\nGod! Is she alright?... Oh, thank God! Well, give my best wishes... OK, thank you.\nBye.” She put the phone down. “Jade, Ms. Bickhaus had an accident.”\n“What?” My heart sank.\n“She’s OK, but she did fall from her ladder and broke her leg.”\n“Awwww!”\n“I know, sweetheart.”\n“Do you know what hospital she’s at?”\n“No.”\nTears welled up in my eyes.\n“Sweetie, what’s wrong?”\nI started wailing.\n“Oh, honey, it's OK. She’ll likely be back at the library again in a few weeks.”\nI worked really hard on her book, and I can’t give her it tomorrow? \"WAAAHHH!“\n“Hush little baby, don’t you cry. Mommy’s gonna sing you a lullaby.”\nMommy’s singing didn’t help. “WAAAAHHH!”\n“Do you want your binky?” She left me screaming my head off. \nIt's not fair! Tears ran down my heated face. \nMommy rushed back and stuck the pacifier in my mouth.\nI stopped and sucked.\n“There we go.” She picked my teenage body up and her hand passed through my hair. “Better?”\nI nodded as the rubber dummy soothed me. I sucked on the binky as Mommy wiped away my tears.\n“Now, tell Mommy what’s wrong,” she said and pulled out the pacifier.\n“I… was… going… to… give … her…” I sobbed.\n“Give her what, darling?”\n“A new copy of The Great Gatsby!”\n“Oh, yeah! I'm sorry, sweetie!\"\n“I even made a new pocket!”\n“I’m sure you can give her it when she recovers enough to go back.”\n“But I wanna give it to her when I’m done reading it!”\n“How far are you?”\n“About three quarters through.”\n“Wow! You’ve been really reading! You like it?”\n“Yeah.”\n“That’s fantastic, darling! You can tell Ms. Bickhaus you liked it so much you couldn’t put it down!”\n“Yeah, I can!\"\n“I’m so proud of you, my little guy.” She pinched my cheeks, and I giggled.\n\nAfter snacktime, I went back and glued the pocket on. “There. Done!” I grabbed Mr. Woofums. “What do you think?” I held him over my work.\nShe’s gonna hit the ceiling!\n\nThree weeks later, I walked into the library. “Ms. Bickhaus, I finished The Great Gatsby.”\n“Wonderful! Did you like it?”\n“No.”\n“Oh, well, it’s not for everybody I supp—“\n“I loved it!”\n“Well, great! I’m glad you loved it! Have you done your book report?”\n“Yes. Mr. Malone let me give it early, and I got a one hundred.”\n“Wow! Really?”\nI pulled my paper out.\nShe took it from me and read it. “Jade, this is wonderful! I didn’t know you were such a great reviewer!”\n“Thank you. My mommy — er, mom says to do my best!”\n“Well, you’ve got a good mother.”\n“Thank you.” I reached into my backpack. “I got you something.\"\n“Huh?”\n“A couple pages were ripped, so I bought you a new copy.”\n“Oh, you shouldn’t have.\"\n“Open it.”\nShe did and gasped. “You glued the pocket on.”\n”I made a new one.”\n“What?”\n“I made a new pocket because I wanted it to look nice.”\nA tear welled up in her eye. “You did this for me?”\n“Uh-huh.”\n“Oh, Jade!” She paused. “That’s very thoughtful of you. Thank you.” She hugged me." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: The Fortune Teller's Daughter\n\nGenre: historical-fiction\n\nWord Count: 1400\n\nPrompt:\n\nStart your story with a character saying “I can see it now.”" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Content Warning- reference to murder\n\n“I can see it now, how I’ve been misled, as clear as day. It’s true I killed the fortune teller’s daughter, but she made me do it.”\n\n“Is that so?”\n\n“I’m a God fearing man, sir. Ask anyone and they’ll tell you I’ve never harmed a person before. Never in my life.”\n\n“Indeed.”\n\n“Mr Hopkins, I beg you- listen to my account and make right the wrongs that have taken place. Only you can save me from the gallows. I don’t deserve to die!”\n\n“I’m here to find out the truth, Thomas. I’ll do it not for the shillings your father’s paid me, but to see that evil is rooted out and destroyed. It’s my moral and professional duty. Perhaps you could start by telling me how it is you came to know the fortune teller and her daughter?”\n\n“The fortune teller goes by the name of Anne Burridge, and her daughter is… was... Keziah. You’ll have passed their cottage coming into town- it’s the ramshackle place with the sinking roof. Anne makes a living from her gift. She can see visions by bringing a trance upon herself and looking into a black stone ball. The ball's a strange object, carved from obsidian, which she came by from an Egyptian pedlar.\"\n\n“What do you mean…visions?”\n\n“People round here visit Anne before making important decisions about land sales and marriages. She’ll take out the stone ball and tell them what the future holds- you know, whether the decision is a good one or not.”\n\n“Are these not matters to discuss with the Church?”\n\n“Of course they are, Mr Hopkins. It’s just that most people trust Anne because she’ll have helped out when they’ve been sick.”\n\n“Go on.”\n\n“You see, Anne also gathers herbs and roots for when people need cures. Keziah assisted with their preparation.”\n\n“Exactly what type of cures?”\n\n“Anne makes ointments for aches and tinctures for fevers. She helps with other ailments too… for women. They go to her for private matters, and call for her when birthing pains start.”\n\n“This is most interesting. Tell, me, Thomas, were you seeking a cure from Anne and Keziah Burridge?”\n\n“I was, Mr Hopkins, but not for myself. My mother has a boil that won’t heal, and she asked me to go to their cottage and fetch a poultice for it.”\n\n“And that’s how Keziah and you became to be…together?”\n\n“Exactly. I was waiting in their cottage while her mother fetched herbs from the garden. Keziah offered me water, and I took some. She said she was thirsty too, and she came up close to me to drink from a tumbler, so close I could see her throat rippling as she swallowed. Her bare foot was touching my boot.”\n\n“And then?”\n\n“She asked if I wanted my fortune told. I didn’t know she could see visions too, but she told me she was learning to do it. She said to meet me in the woods because the visions would be clearer if we were alone, and to bring a small token in payment.”\n\n“For what reason did you want to know your future, Thomas? A good Christian should trust in God’s plans.”\n\n“I know, sir. I wasn’t really interested in seeing my future. But don’t you see- Keziah had already started practicing her sorcery on me. It was as if I were under a spell and compelled to meet her on the pretext of having my fortune told.”\n\n“Did you tell anyone about your arrangement?”\n\n“I did not. I was ashamed of the feelings she made me have. I had an unbearable craving to see her- I couldn’t think about anything else.”\n\n“And the small token?”\n\n“Keziah’s sorcery lead me to sin. After I brought home the poultice, I went to the chest my mother keeps under her bed, and I untied a pearl from the necklace she hides there for safe keeping. I’ve never stolen so much as a breadcrumb before, let alone something from my own mother, Mr Hopkins. I was not of my own mind, and I weep to think of it.”\n\n“I see your remorse, Thomas, yet it’s a fraction of the pain and suffering you’ll find in Hell, if God judges you unworthy. Tell me about your meeting with Keziah.”\n\n“She was waiting for me in the woods. Her hair was unfastened and tumbling about her like a black cloak. There was a red shawl bundled in her arms, from which she unwrapped her mother’s obsidian ball. I could see then it was an evil thing, full of darkness and sorrow. She laid the shawl out upon the leaves and placed the ball upon it.”\n\n“And what of the pearl?”\n\n“I took it from my pocket and put it on the shawl. Keziah licked her lips and snatched it up to hide it in her dress. When she smiled her teeth were like a row of pearls, just like my mother's necklace, hidden there in her pink mouth, and I couldn’t take my eyes from her. That’s how strong the magic was. She began to gaze from the ball, to me, then back to the ball again, her dark eyes teasing me all the time, and I felt hunger pangs for the taste of her skin.\"\n\n“Did she tell you of any visions, in the way her mother is reported to do?”\n\n“She said all she could see was my heart, and that it looked every bit as black as obsidian. She told me if I wanted her to look in the stone ball again, I should bring another pearl. And then she threw back her head with laughter. She was laughing at me.”\n\n“What did you do then?”\n\n“I felt a fury burning me up from within, like the devil himself was trying to burst out of my body. I let out a cry and put my hands around her throat. I pulled her face close to mine and the breath that I squeezed out of her was hot and sweet. She fell into me then, and my reflection stared back at me from her empty eyes. I only meant to give her a scare, but it was the magic, sir. I couldn’t stop because she’d called upon the devil with that black stone ball, and he’d have surely taken away my soul if she'd lived.”\n\n“I fear your soul has indeed been in terrible danger. You must make penance for the temptation you’ve succumbed to.”\n\n“But will they hang me, Mr Hopkins? Please make them see it was her fault. She made me do it, by summoning Satan.\"\n\n“I’ve weighed up what you’ve told me with the utmost attention. It makes my heart heavy to hear of such wickedness, but listen I must, for God’s work must be done.”\n\n“I have all my trust in you to do God’s will.”\n\n“Let it be known, then, that Anne and Keziah Burridge are witches who have made pacts with the devil. By what other means would they be able to divine the future and make magic potions? As Anne is still living, she shall be put on trial, and we will use pricking needles and swimming tests to determine her guilt. The devil will bite down hard on her tongue, but she’ll confess eventually, and then she’ll hang.”\n\n“And what of Keziah, sir?”\n\n“It’s written in the Malleus Maleficarium that witches blight others for their own gain. I've seen it often times before, and many of the witches I've charged have admitted as much- once they're persuaded to talk. Your mother’s boil was without doubt the work of Keziah Burridge, all part of her scheme to bring you to her, spell-struck, with the stolen pearl. It seems you had no choice but to save yourself from her wicked designs with your own bare hands. You've shown some weakness of character, for which you must pray for forgiveness, but you’ve committed no crime. I’ll inform the Magistrates of my decision without delay”\n\n“That’s exactly how it happened, Mr Hopkins! I knew a man of your wisdom and experience would see the truth. My father will be waiting to shake your hand!”\n\n“Thomas, you did indeed kill the fortune teller’s daughter. But you’ve helped purge the world of certain evil, and for that we can all now sleep a little sounder in our beds.”" } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: An Assignments' Horror\n\nGenre: high-school\n\nWord Count: 1068\n\nPrompt:\n\nSet your story in a library, after hours." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "SpaceHuman's Note: TBH, I didn't have much time to submit this, so it is kinda rushed. I kinda like the plot, but as I said, it could have been done better. If there are any grammar mistakes, feel free to let me know. K bye :)\nI bang the keys on the library computer, almost killing my enemy, but they continue to jump around the map and eventually shoot their bullets. They hit me in the head, and my avatar falls to the ground. I moan and go back to the homepage, ready to play a rematch. Suddenly there is a soft tap on my shoulder. A middle aged man is looking down at me, his rosy pink lips smiling.\n\"Miss,\" he begins, \"as you know, this is the public library, so I'm sure everyone would appreciate for it to be...a tad bit quieter.\"\nI nod quickly and turn back to my screen. Seeing that I understand, the librarian glides back to the desk, where a lady waits to check out books.\nI look outside the window at the sky. The sun will be setting soon so I turn off the computer and get ready to go. My backpack is put on, and I'm grabbing my coat from the creaky stool, when my speech notebook falls from my bag. Then I remember why I came here, and I curse at my laziness and stupidity. My speech competition is tomorrow. I anxiously bite my nails, and settle back into the chair. The realization that I still have not picked out my poem to memorize, dawns on me. I check the time at the corner of the screen and my eyes widen. Less than an hour remains until the lights are shut off, and the doors close and get locked for the full moon night.\nI quickly scramble out of my chair and dash to the shelves of poem compilations. I flip through the book to a short poem I like. The poem our class picked had to be at least a whole page, so I spend the next forty minutes saying lines aloud and practicing.\nLastly, I type it up as instructed, and my face falls. I bite my lip and try as hard as I can to not throw something. I wince at the two lines still left at the bottom of the document pages. I could cheat and add some words to the poem to make it a whole page instead of having to rechoose. But I couldn't risk getting a bad grade.\nTo see my badly explained situation to you all, I have to memorize a page long poem by tomorrow. I could bring to library book home, but I have the maximum number of books checked out unfortunately.\nAfter sitting in the library beanbag for countless minutes, reading lines upon lines of verses, I have come to a conclusion. I turn to the security cameras and put myself at an angle behind the chairs and stacks of books. I cross my fingers and pray the cameras' puny eyes can't see me.\nI mark my position and sprint to the bathroom while the security guards do their check and make sure no one is still here. I hear the glass doors shut, and the guards say their farewell to the other guard doing the nightshift. The clicking of the lock signals to me I'm good to go.\nI creep along the walls to my spot, where my poem lies. I spend a few minutes typing it up, and reading it over and over until I understand the tempo. I note pauses, and when to emphasize words. I almost stand up to make a presentation, but the red flashing lights indicating the guard is watching me makes me squat back down.\nI want to see the guard, to make sure he isn't eying the cameras too carefully. Then I scowl. How could I possibly get out of the library? I couldn't just leave or the cameras would catch me. Going in the morning would also be a mistake, because the morning library guards would catch me in bed hair. I decide to leave when the guard goes to the bathroom in the morning. In the meantime, I recite, I read, and I repeat.\nI have just recited the whole poem with no errors for the first time. How could I say I'm not joyful? The clock says 3:00 in the morning, so I could say I am also chipper about getting out of here.\nSuddenly I hear a yell. It's deep pitched. I get out of my position and walk smoothly to the office where the guard is. But the seat is empty. Great, I've been sitting in a beanbag for a man who isn't even watching. But I saw him come in. I saw him greet the other guards. He's not in the bathroom. I raise my eyebrows and I'm about to head back to my spot, but a dot of red liquid catches my eye. Next I'm about to scream, because little beady eyes stare at me in the corner of the janitor's closet.\nI breathe heavily. I want to leave now, but I don't know where the keys are. I hear more breathing, but now it isn't just coming from my panicking lungs. I stare near the entrance to the closet, where more drips of blood await.\nA true main character would lick their lips and eagerly investigate. I am different. The sound coming from me is a cry and a high pitched yell combination. I flail my arms and fly through the window. As expected, the alarm goes off. But it doesn't matter, because the guard isn't there. The wailing sound of the alarm will have to be reported by pedestrians.\nI run faster than I ever have in my life. I pull my hood over my head and my wide eyes, wanting to forget what I have seen. The next thing I know, I'm in the safety of my bed.\nx x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x\nI wake up tomorrow ready for school. I'm reading the headline when I scream.\nPublic Library Window Shattered And Guard Left Dead." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Steps on the Mountain\n\nGenre: historical-fiction\n\nWord Count: 2959\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about a character who’s expected to follow in someone’s footsteps." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "The great stone slab shifted into the earth with a heavy drum, fitting into the grooves as though it had always rested there, nestled against the mountain. Dried clay churned out from beneath it, small rocks scraped its underside. It groaned, stilled, and settled. \nThe man released his grip, wiped his palms, peered down at the long gray stone. Beads of sweat shimmered across his dark forehead, sinews bulged from his forearms, breath filled his lungs, escaped, and caught the breeze. “One more step,” his voice resounded--deep, sonorous, gentle. “One more step, added to the many.” Behind him, curving down the shag rockface, patched with pale green grass amidst the sea of sunset-brown, the staircase coursed like a vein across the mountain. It followed his gaze, wound steadily downward through thin layers of cloud and swashes of mist. Wound to the base of the cliff. There, the stones were worked with lichen, pocked with the time-mark of rain, smoothed by the wind of centuries. \nIt was a day's walk to the foot of the great mountain, a walk on slick earth and shifting gravel, a walk in careful avoidance of the steps. The man worked his way down, bare feet sliding along the loose dirt, catching and rebalancing in the clusters of thin-rooted grass with familiar ease. He did not look to the ground in his descent. Rather, his eyes were distant, watching the mountain range, the sun casting its watery light upon the jagged perch. His feet worked their way over small rocks, hardened clay, the cool stone of the bluff, leaving, all the while, the flat even slabs untouched. \nNight drew in. Wind lapped up the slope, over bald spans of stone, through tall wiry grass; with it came shadow, and the mountain was lost in darkness. The man found his bed beneath a thin outcrop, a plate of dark rock jutting up and out, pointing to the distant peak above. He cast his eyes along the stone’s path. The mountaintop was a silhouette cut from the moon. Light seemed to pool by its edges--pale and fickle. Seemed to find the lineal paths carved by ancient rain, pour down the cliff, catch and break like rapids over the rock. It found the steps, and cascaded from one smooth slab to the next. He slept. \nThe sun climbed above the distant peaks as his foot met earth at the base of the winding staircase. He paused, looking for a moment to that first slab--that first stone laid lifetimes ago. Where time had eaten at its edges, where plants had found purchase at its base, where a beam of sunlight cast a long sheen across its surface. Unwalked, untouched beyond its initial placement, sacred as that to which it leads: the mountaintop--the unembellished holy place. \nHis son was sitting a few strides away, shaded by the outstretched limb of a large tree, legs crossed, hands busy. With each swing of his arm the hammer bit into the flat of the chisel, tore a length from the coarse stone on which he worked. Shards of rock piled around his feet where the crude slab was propped. He swung again, the chisel dug in against the stone, echoed through the space--a high, metallic sound. He looked up, set down his tools, wiped the dust from his lap, and stood with gentle ease. “Hello, father,” he said. “How fared the mountain?” \n“It was kind,” said the man. He walked from the base of the steps, coming to greet his son. They met arms at the wrist and pulled together into an embrace, loomed back and peered at one another. Their black hair was mirrored, one shot with gray, the other sleek, shining in the sun. Their features matched: high cheeks, a long thin nose, a sharp jaw, soft kind eyes wrinkled slightly at the corners. \n“I have carved three more steps in your absence,” said the son, gesturing behind him to the base of the tree. There, between a tangle of roots, the stones rested side by side, shaded by the canopy of leaves. “The villagers have left you food, it is in the basket.”\n“Thank you, my son,” said the man. He moved to the base of the tree, ran a hand along the smooth surface of the stones. “Danzin,” he said.\n“Yes, father?” \n“How old is your son, my grandchild?” \n“Thirteen when next the moon changes. It is then time?” The son asked. \nThe man nodded. “It is. You will leave for the mountain at nightfall. I will have your wife bring my grandchild, and I will teach him to carve the stone as I have taught you.” \nThe son nodded. His mouth formed a flat line, a mix of sadness and satisfaction twisted across his face. This was the moment of facing one’s fate, one’s destiny. The moment of crude awakening, long awaiting coming to shuttering fruition. The father remembered it well, and he smiled at his son. \n“Walk in the night so you may lay the stone beneath the sun. Carry it well, as you have shown to carry yourself. You know the path, Danzin.” \nSoon, it seemed, the stars threatened the sky. The sun gave way, the moon rose. The man had left the small plateau--the landing from which the paternal staircase spiraled up, climbed steadily, carefully towards the peak. He made way to the village below, to his daughter, to his grandchild. He thought of his own son, of his father, of the steps--innumerous, ever-growing. He thought of his grandfather, his poba, and how he had learned the chisel, worked the stone. His lips curled, his eyes ached; the man whispered a silent prayer, and smiled at the future. \nThe son lay foot to the shifting slope, the ancient stone braced upon his back--carved and chiseled by his hand, heavy in its holy opulence. His arms burned beneath the fading light, his head rang, his chest beat like a thousand drums. The steps disappeared above him, masked by cloud. The rocks slid beneath his feet, gritted and churned with each step. He thought of his son, of the day he was born, of the chisel now passed down to him as it had been so many times before. He thought of his father, of his strength, of how each of his steps yawned forward and planted, always sturdy against the earth. He looked to the stairs, to his purpose. He looked to the mountaintop, and saw what it promised. He smiled. \nThe man reached the village as the last hints of day fell atop the distant mountains--a sheath of pale light pushed down by the cycle of time. The village rose from the foot of the hill. Humble houses stood small and pressed together. Children played as the man passed. He saw families, recognized friends of long ago. “Poba,” they muttered with bows, deep nods, smiles. The man nodded in return. He swept through the street, the dirt flat, steady underfoot, the weight missing from his shoulders; it now rested upon his son. “Poba,” a woman said; he gave a small bow, continued on. The door to his family’s home was open, cracked inward, the light cutting through, dashed across the floor. He entered. \n“I am here to see my grandchild,” the man said in his deep voice. \nTara turned from the end of the room, where she worked to prepare a platter of tsampa and rice. “Father,” she said, smiling. “It is good to see you.” \n“Hello, Tara,” he returned. “You as well.”\n“What brings you to the village?” Her face drew in, “Is Danzin well?” She asked. \nThe man pursed his lips thoughtfully, paused. “He has taken to the mountain, to lay the stone of his ancestors, to set the path of his children and theirs.” \nShe nodded slowly, hesitantly. “You have come for your grandson,” she said, her eyes falling to the floor. “He is not yet thirteen, father of my husband.” \n“He is old enough,” said the man. “Send for him, Tara. It is time.” \nShe bowed. “Yes, Poba.” \n“I will be waiting at the mountain’s foot, bring him by first light.” \n“Will you not stay the night?” Tara asked.\n“Too long I have slept without a roof . . . I find the stars are to my liking. Be well, my daughter. I will give Danzin your prayers.” He smiled softly, sourly, “Your son will be safe, do not fret.” \nShe pushed a smile onto her face, however fleeting, nodded, and turned away. \nThe man sat, cross-legged, eyes closed, hands touching the roots of the great tree. A dark blue seeped into the black of the sky, cast an antithetical veil of illuminant shadow upon the earth. He heard the brush of feet on grass--the padding approach of Tara, her son in step. She spoke. \n“Father,” she said. “I have brought your grandson, Yonten . . . as well as food, from the villagers.” \nThe man opened his eyes, looked up at the wife of his son, her child--his black hair so alike to his father’s, his eyes the same green as his mother’s. Tara turned her face, so as not to meet his gaze. Her cheeks were red, lips curled into a tight line. \n“You cry, daughter?” The man asked.\nShe did not answer, her chin tucked to her chest, a silent sob shaking her body. \nThe man stood slowly, pressed a calloused hand to her shoulder. “It is a great honor, sweet Tara, that the blood of your husband has gifted young Yonten. It is because of your family--because of you--that the people of our village shall one day kneel and pray atop our sacred mountain. It is the work of lifetimes. May your heart be full with this knowledge, my daughter.”\n“Yes, father,” she said dully. \nThe man frowned. “You are not losing a child, you are gaining a man. Your son will one day return to you, and through the streets he will be praised. People will call to him, Poba--wise one, grandfather--for he will have served them all in his selfless duty.” He looked down at his grandchild and smiled. “Come, Yonten, it is time.” \nThe young boy looked to his mother, touched her hand, and nodded. “Yes, Poba,” he said softly. \nThe sun reached its pinnacle in the sky. Heat blurred the edges of the plateau, wafting up in waves, etching its warmth upon the stones. There was no breeze cast down, broken and fierce from the mountainside. There were no clouds to shield the beams of light in their piercing descent. Sweat dripped from the young boy’s forehead, his chest heaved, and his arm swung, lofting the hammer. A long chip of rock came off with the metallic clang of the chisel. \n“Very good, child,” said the man from his place at the base of the tree. \n“Thank you, Poba,” said Yonten, breathing heavy. Then, after a pause, “Grandfather . . .” \n“Yes?” Said the man. \n“Is my father up there?” He asked, pointing to the mountain, to the winding steps. \n“He is, child.” \n“Laying the stones?” Yonten said, looking to his grandfather. \n“Yes,” he said. \n“Why?” \nThe man smiled slightly. “One day you will have a child, Yonten. Perhaps, you will have many. Those children will father and mother their own. In the time of my grandfather, our village was a cluster of houses, a length of farmland. In the time of his grandfather, there was but a hut, shared by the few who chose to live in the valley--a small community, close and codependent. Since then--those many generations ago--your ancestors have laid these steps. One by one, carved with intricate care, the slabs were set into the mountainside; they have formed the staircase that climbs before us. All this, these centuries of labor, so that one day there may rest a temple upon our holy mountain. All this, so that your children’s children may one day find god within themselves, the god that lives within all. Do you understand, Yonten?” \nThe boy looked to his grandfather, face thoughtful, one hand clasped to the other. “I do, Poba,” he said, voice quiet, unsure. \n“You will,” said the man. “It is on the path of servitude that one finds exaltation--the path to the mountaintop that one finds holiness. It is the greatest gift to build the temple, and the greatest honor to worship within. Now, return to your work.” \nThe sun had sloped, the tallest of the distant mountains reaching up to touch the lowest of its points. Golden light floated gently down upon the flat, where the steps ceased, and the tree grew. Yonten set down his hammer, lay the chisel to its side, and wiped the sweat from his brow. His grandfather slept beneath the shade of the leaves, hands cupped in his lap, the breath coming in and out of his lungs. Yonten watched him for a hesitant moment, moved slowly through the grass, testing the man’s rest; he did not stir. The young boy cast his eyes to the stairs. His father was upon them, somewhere far above, veiled by the late day haze, and the low-set clouds. He walked carefully, quietly to the base of the stone slabs. Peered down upon that first great rock, carved when the village was but a hut, his grandfather had said. He brought his foot up and stepped upon it. He felt the grooves beneath his toes, the soft smooth lines left by weather and time. They reminded him of the lines on his grandfather’s face, the streaks of wrinkled age, the gaunt shallows of his cheeks. He lifted his foot, and stood upon the second step. Up and up he went, one stair at a time, just as they’d been set. The path to the mountain is where holiness is found, his grandfather had said, so why not walk it and return? What need is there for a temple when god should come to you through the stone? He did not doubt his grandfather’s wisdom, he merely saw the path more clearly. He need not do much more than walk and god would come to him. \nYonten walked for a long ways. The steps changed beneath his feet, he felt the shift of one man to another, of father to son. Each stone was different, carved by an ever-shifting hand. Carved from adolescents to adulthood, from course to masterful, and back again. He could not feel the rain on these stones, the places where the wind lashed and tore--these were young. \nHis legs ached from the climb, clouds passed him by, wind swept across his bones. He had not found any god hidden within the rock, he noticed. There felt nothing sacred about his walk beyond its cultivation. Was his grandfather a fool? His father? Spending their lives upon this cliff, laying stone to dirt for monotonous eternity. There was no temple at its peak, and he would die long before there could be. A meaningless practice, he thought. Why had his mother let him leave? \nThen, above him on the rockface, balancing on patches of sliding dirt and shifting rock, was his father. They met eyes, and Danzin yelped. “Yonten!” He said. “Off front the stones, they are sacred!” \nThe young boy looked down, confused, then back up at his father, struggling along the side of the mountain. Hurriedly, he jumped from the rock, caught his balance on the side of the staircase. \n“What are you doing on the steps, Yonten?” His father shouted down. “Where is your grandfather?” \n“He is sleeping,” said the boy. “I did not know, father. I am sorry.” He looked as though tears may come, his eyes swelled red. “I did not know,” he repeated. \nHis father reached him on the slope, catching himself with a hand. “You should not be here, Yonten. You should be working the chisel,” he said. \nHis son looked to the dirt. “I do not want to carve the stone, father. I find it pointless.” \nDanzin gave him a long look, eyes soft, considering. “You have thought about his,” He said. \nThe boy nodded. “I understand grandfather sees holiness in the path, in carving the stone and laying it to the ground. I do not. I will see no temple atop the mountain in my life. I will have no place for my prayers. God is distant here, I do not see him.” \nDanzin smiled slightly. “He is all around, my son, look.” He gestured in a sweeping circle. Yonten did not seem to understand. His father breathed and spoke gently. “You need not set stone upon this mountain, my son. But understand, you will always lay steps. You may choose where, and how, but always you will lay steps. With every action, every choice, you are building a path--a staircase upon which others may walk, or may leave to time’s decay. For generations, your ancestors have chosen to lay their paths as one upon this cliff. Hoping, one day, we may reach that enlightened peak. You have the choice to continue along their path, Yonten. But you may also begin upon your own. If god is what you seek, I say this is as good a place as any. However, you may seek what you will and where you will it. Do you understand, Yonten?” \nDanzin’s foot met earth at the base of the staircase. He paused, looking to that first slab--that first stone laid lifetimes ago. Untouched beyond its initial placement and the feet of his son. From under the tree, Yonten smiled up at his father, hands wrapped around the hammer and the chisel, a large stone propped before him. \n“It is time,” Danzin said, and Yonten smiled." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Live in the Moment\n\nGenre: high-school\n\nWord Count: 1288\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about a character who meticulously catalogs everything in their life, until something disrupts their system." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Scritch scratch scritch scratch. I leaned against my locker at school, writing down every detail from chemistry class into my thick fuschia notebook.\nMax dropped his pencil at 11:27.\nAlice forgot her chemistry notebook and missed out on the lab project.\nThree people were absent today.\nAnd on and on my list went. This notebook was almost full, so I put a note reminding myself to go out and buy another one after school. Across the hall, I noticed a girl drop her glasses and quickly wrote that down as well. Finally, I put my chemistry books into my lockers and headed to the lunchroom.\nYou may be wondering why I document everything that happens. It's because I'm afraid to forget everything. Writing every little thing down makes it feel like my memories are secured and I can always go back to them when I feel like something is slipping away. A lot of people look back on their lives and can't seem to remember the little things, so I write everything down to prevent that. I will obviously always remember big events in my life, but I want to have everything written down, no matter how small or insignificant it seems. If I were to ever lose my memory, I could just read my notebooks and everything would be the same. Sometimes, documenting everything that happens can take hours on end, but I feel a sense of accomplishment and tell myself it's worth it. You see, when I was little, I used to do everything so freely and never note things down. Now I wish I had so I could see every moment vividly again. I'm just too scared to forget and lose everything.\nWhen I enter the lunchroom, I walk over to a little table in the corner where I usually sit and wait for my friend. In a couple minutes, she comes over with a tray from the hot lunch line.\n\"Hey, how was chem?\" Olivia asks, taking a bite of the mashed potatoes.\n\"Good,\" I say as I jot down everything on the plate and what the people around me are wearing and discussing.\n\"Oh come on, are you writing down every single thing in that notebook again?\" she says, sounding exasperated.\n\"Well, yeah, I do every day. And I told you, I want to remember everything,\" I reply, my head still down.\n\"But you need to learn to live in the moment and enjoy things, not just note them down. Charlotte, every time I ask you to come somewhere fun with me, you're always writing in that notebook and it feels like you aren't actually there.\"\n\"I would regret it later on if I didn't. I don't want to look back and forget something!\" I say heatedly. We have this conversation every day. Every. Single. Day. It was getting kind of old. I kept trying to explain my thinking to Olivia, but she never seemed to understand. What's the point of enjoying something when you won't remember that moment of joy in a couple years?\n\"You will remember everything that's important though!\" Olivia says. \"It doesn't matter if you forget how many people were present in your high school classes, or every little activity you do.\"\nI ignore her and keep writing.\nThat day after school, I ran up the stairs upon opening the door and enter my room. I flop onto my bed and make a list of everything that happened on the bus. When I was done, I heard my mom open the front door, so I ran down to greet her.\n\"Hi, Mom! How was work?\" I asked.\n\"It was tiring, so I'm glad to be home!\" she said, putting her work bag down. I quickly jotted down: tiring day at work for Mom.\n\"Do you want to help me organize some old pictures into albums?\" she asked.\n\"Sure,\" I said since I had nothing better planned.\nWe went downstairs into the basement and my mom dragged out a box from the closet. Sitting down, she opened it up and pulled out some photographs of me when I was graduating middle school. That was a year after I'd started writing down life's details.\n\"Do you remember how the teachers threw water balloons at all the kids that day?\" Mom asks laughing.\n\"Oh yeah! I remember writing that down!\" I say. See, this is exactly why I catalog things into my notebook!\nMom's smile fades and she puts down the pictures. \"Charlotte, you need to stop having your head in those notebooks all the time. You aren't really enjoying these events in life if you're just worried about getting them documented. You are given life to enjoy, not to watch.\"\n\"I know that,\" I say. \"But isn't it more important to remember things for when you are old?\"\nOur conversation gets cut short when my dad pops his head in the door and says, \"I'm going to start making dinner!\"\n\"You should get started on homework,\" Mom says. \"I'll call you downstairs when dinner is ready.\"\nI go upstairs to my room and pull out my fuschia notebook to write down the afternoon's events, then started my homework.\nBeeeeep beeeeep beeeeep! The fire alarm was going off and I could smell smoke.\n\"Charlotte! Come downstairs!\" my dad yelled frantically. I sprinted down the stairs and found my parents standing at the bottom with the front door open.\n\"We need to go outside! There's a fire!\" my mom said. The three of us ran out and I turned around to see a column of fire blast up from the back of the house. I gasped.\n\"How did this happen?\" I asked, shaking.\n\"I had kept a dishcloth next to the stove while the pasta was boiling and it caught on fire when I went downstairs for some sauce!\" my dad said. My mom had called 911 and was talking to the operator with tears in her eyes. I couldn't believe it. Our house was gone. The place I had lived in my whole life. Suddenly, I remember all my notebooks. They were still in the house! This was too much for me and I ran away from the scene of my burning home towards the town park with my parents calling after me.\nAs I sprinted through the streets, I thought about all those years of detail I had put into those books. All those memories were now lost on paper. When I got to the park, I leaned against a tree and sank down to the ground crying. Across the lawn, I saw a little girl and her parents playing with a puppy. They were all smiling and laughing. Watching this made all the memories of me writing in my notebooks come flooding back. Olivia and Mom were right. I had always sat in the background and watched life happen, but I never lived it. I was so afraid about losing precious memories, but I never actually enjoyed them or made them worth it. I counted the moments but I didn't make the moments count. I had lived in that home for my whole life, but in the past few years, I hadn't lived, I had only written about living. Losing the notebooks was a sign that I needed to start living in the moment and making every second memorable. Remembering every little detail isn't important if you still remember what brought you joy. You will never forget the things that make you happy. I got up from the grass and walked back to my house. I would start by helping my parents get through the situation with our house and throw away those notebooks even if they weren't burnt already." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: The Worst\n\nGenre: historical-fiction\n\nWord Count: 1813\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about a character who wakes up in their past life, or as a future reincarnation of themself." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Saint's pits. I'm Marina again. Marina is the worst. Her tone is nasal, she can't see anything, and she seems brainless. And she lives in the medieval age, where everyone smells. Bad. They all smell terrible. Women are expected to stay home, have babies, and be boring, basically. \nI wake up in bed next to Alan, Marina’s husband. My husband. I am Mariana, or I was, centuries ago. \nIt’s not that I actively remember my past lives. I have moments of Deja Vu like everyone else, but honestly, I think those are just momentarily misfiring synapsis. \nNo, instead, I have the super annoying gift? Ability? Superpower? Whatever you want to call it. I go to bed in my own bed, as Krissy, and every once in a while, I wake up in one of my previous lives. \nSometimes this can be fun. Helena lived in the west during the 1800s on a ranch with Joe, her husband. They were good teammates, and as her, I've wrangled cows, lay wrapped in Joe's arm on a pitch-black night under a sky brilliantly adorned with stars, and shot rattlesnakes for the fun of it. Being Helena makes me feel, strangely enough, alive. Even though Helena’s been dead for a long time.\nBeing Mary is okay too. She sailed the seas with her father in the 1700s. They were pirates by trade. As Mary, I've swum with sharks and made men walk the plank. Mary's feisty, and I never know the words that will come out of my mouth.\nJosephine is almost as bad as Marina. She lived in a convent in the 1600s, and every single time I've been Josephine, I've had gruel for breakfast and bread for dinner. I sit in silence, or clean in silence, or walk the halls in silence. Sometimes I wish I could just open her mouth and scream.\nBut I can't. When I'm in my past lives, I'm living those past lives as they were. I'm trapped in a body just along for the ride. I can think my own thoughts, praise be, but I can’t control my body or mouth. Their lives go on as they did, and I get to watch.\nThat's one of my biggest problems with Marina. While Mary chops vegetables in the scullery, I use the limited field of vision to look around. I use my ears to listen. I study the scene. When she's making a man walk the plank, I watch his face, the flashes of emotions. I also watch everyone else and try to get an idea of what they are thinking. \nI use it all for research, and when I wake up the following day in my own body, I use all of it. I write realistic historical fiction because I've been in the past, and people eat it up. It's my living, my bread and butter.\nBut stupid Marina can't see anything. Her vision is limited to a hand's length away. Initially, I felt sorry for her, but she's just so annoying I no longer have any pity. How could I once have been her? The only thing Marina is useful for is she causes me to self-reflect. Do I sound that nasally? If I had no access to education, would I decide to be a dim-wit? \nMy day as Marina drags on. She’s up early and adds wood to the fire, singeing her hair in the process. I inwardly sigh. This happens frequently. She makes porridge and feeds Snotty, Sleepy, and Brash, otherwise known as Samuel, William, and Hammish, her three boys. Alan wanders in, scratching his gut. At least, I think that's what he's scratching, and for a moment, I'm glad I can't see any closer. Snotty, Sleepy, Brash, and Gut-Scratcher leave to go do farming things, and Marina spends the day cleaning their small hovel, weeding, feeding the few scraggly hens, and generally being boring. The boys troop back in for a dinner of hearty, onion-flavored water, and Marina goes to bed, her stomach aching in hunger. \nI woke up the following day, my stomach aching as if I hadn't eaten. When this ability began, I worried I was missing actual days, but I don't. I ate dinner last night as Krissy, went to sleep, and woke up the next morning as Krissy. But somehow also spent an entire day as Marina in between.\nI often wonder, when I am them, where are they? Are they there, thinking their thoughts, and I'm there too? Or do they go somewhere else?\nIt's weird; I'm never them as children. This ability started five years ago, and I've only ever been them at my age then and upwards. \nThree weeks pass. I wake up as Helena. “Yessss,” I say inside my mind, excited to see what Helena is up to today.\n\"Hello?\" A voice says. I would have pooped my pants in fear if I had a body. I feel like whatever part of me is there in Helena cringes and tries to squeeze into a corner of her mind. \n“Hello?” The voice says again, and to my surprise, I recognize that nasally tone.\n“Marina?” I say in shock.\nThere is a long pause, so long that I begin to think I imagined the entire thing. Then the voice speaks again. “Yes. This is Marina. Who is this?”\n“This is Krissy,” I respond without even thinking. Then I mentally shake my mind’s head. She’s not going to know who I am. I’m the current life. \n“Oh,” she says, but in a way where there’s a ton of meaning crammed into that oh. And in a way that makes it sound like she knows exactly who I am. But that’s impossible, right?\n“Do you know who I am?” I ask, stupefied by this entire situation.\n\"Yes,\" she answers simply as if that is enough of an explanation.\nI feel my mind self shaking. \"How do you know who I am? You're one of my past lives.\"\nIt’s like I can feel her shrug. “And you are one of my future lives.”\nI'm swirling down a drain of questions and confusion. \"What? How? What?\" Is all I can manage to get out.\nShe sighs and speaks slowly as if speaking to someone very dim-witted. \"You are one of my future lives. I've lived as you. So yes, I know who you are.\"\n“I only go back to my past lives. How do you go to your future lives?” It suddenly occurs to me that Helena is a future life for Marina. How is this possible?\nI feel like Marina is muttering things like slow-brained and boring under her breath, and suddenly I recognize her tone. She's talking to me the way I mentally speak to her in my head when I am her. \"Do you…do you not like me?” I ask. \nAnother sigh. \"It's not that I don't like you…well, yes, I don't like you. You speak in such a high-pitched tone it hurts my ears. You have no regard for family or even relationships. You spend most of your time sitting in front of a box, making weird characters appear with your fingers while drinking a noxious black liquid. Your posture is horrific, and you smell. Bad.\"\n“I don’t smell!” I squeak. Do I speak in a high-pitched tone?\n“You smell of fake things. Your smell hurts my head,” she says.\nMy perfume. She's talking about my perfume. I shake my head in disbelief and laugh. \"Your tone is nasally, and you aren't intelligent. And you smell,\" I retort. \nIt's like she takes a step backward. Then suddenly, her voice is right next to me. \"I can run a household. I hold my family together. I gave birth to three strapping boys, all still alive. Not just alive but thriving. I can make meals with whatever ingredients are available. I can make candles and embroidery to trade for things my family needs. Do not tell me I’m not intelligent.”\nI recoil as if I've been slapped. I'd never stopped to consider any of those things. I thought her life must be awful because it seemed horrible to me, but to her, it was simply her life, and she was making the most of it. She saw herself as thriving in it. \nCould I say the same about my own life? She was entirely correct; I spent most days in front of a computer drinking coffee and writing. I have very few friends, I don't have a relationship with my family, and I don't even have a cat. \nIf I had a body, I would be curled in the fetal position right now, rocking back and forth and contemplating my life choices. Was I so stuck in my past selves and their lives that I wasn't even living my own? \nSome part of her must sense this. It feels like she moves closer. When she speaks, her tone is softer. \"It's not too late, you know. At any point in time, you can choose who you want to be. Women in your time have so much more freedoms, so much more choice.\" Her voice sounds slightly envious. \"You can choose to live.\"\nShe's right. Imagine that, me taking advice from Marina. \n\"I don't understand. This has never happened before, me being able to talk to another version of me,\" I say like I’m brushing off my momentary pity party and getting down to the nitty-gritty.\n“Have you ever tried talking aloud before?” She asks.\nNo, no, I have not. I admit that to her that reluctantly. \n\"Sometimes, two of us visit the same life at the same time. If you want to talk, call out. Some of the others are very fun to talk to.\"\nI can imagine. I’d love to be able to talk to Helena. Or Abigail, or Rachel. I feel excited by all the possibilities. The possibility of talking to my past selves. The opportunity to incorporate all of this into my writing. The chance of getting a life.\n“But I still don’t know how you are here or in my life. How do I get to visit future lives?”\nShe explains it, and it's all so simple I can't figure out how I didn't see it before.\nWe watch the rest of Helena's day together, sometimes talking, sometimes silent. I learn we have a lot more in common than I thought.\nAfter a long period of silence, Helena is getting ready for bed when I speak again. \"Marina? I'm sorry about what I said before.\"\n\"I am sorry for what I said, as well. You have more spunk and personality than I thought, and I look forward to seeing if your life gets more interesting.\" She's quiet for a moment. \"And Saint's pits, at least you aren't as bad as Margaret.”\nThere is that. Margaret is the worst." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Make It Stop\n\nGenre: historical-fiction\n\nWord Count: 1502\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about a character who wakes up in their past life, or as a future reincarnation of themself." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "I've never considered myself to be special. I'm not extraordinary in any way. I wake up everyday, go through the same routine over and over, take care of my family the best I can, and end my day by losing myself in a good mystery book. The only notable thing about my life is that I have a reputation for being the girl who hates rain. I'm often mocked and ridiculed for canceling plans if the sky clouds up. It's not storms or thunder or lightning that scares me, simply the rain. The anxiety that it causes requires me to plan my whole life around the 7-day forecast.\n\nI know it sounds ridiculous but it's been that way my whole life. I'm not even sure when it started, but when the rain starts to fall, I feel my chest tighten and my heart race and my breathing changes completely. I've tried talking to friends about this issue but it's often brushed off. \"Life's not waiting for the storm to pass. It's about learning how to dance in the rain,\" they say as if it's that simple. I even tried therapy once, but no matter how deeply we dug into my past, the source of the problem could not be identified. So when it rains, I just stay inside and try to drown out the sound. It's really the best I can do.\n\nUnfortunately for me, it's spring time right now which means there's an ungodly amount of rain and my anxiety has been running wild. As I sit propped against my nest of pillows in my bed, my husband's snoring just keeps getting louder and louder. I pause between the pages of the book I'm reading to glare at him as he sleeps. \"Of course he can sleep, \" I think to myself as my anger begins to rise to the surface. \"He just adores the sound of rain. Says it's relaxing.\" I take a deep breath which ends in a sigh. I shouldn't be so angry at him. It's not like it's his fault that sleep evades me this time of year. But still, it would be nice if I could read in silence for just a little while.\n\nJust as he rolls over and the snoring stops and I try to locate my place in the book, I hear it... the ever so faint sound of rain drops tapping against the window. \"Ugh!\" I groan and toss my book to the side. \"I give up!\" I say out loud as my frustration finally gets the best of me. My aggravation doesn't even phase my husband who has once again rolled over and is snoring. I turn off my lamp and cover my head with my pillow. \"If you're going to snore, it would be nice if you could at least snore loud enough to block out the rain sounds!\" I think as I pull the pillow tighter over my ears.\n\nI can almost block the sound out as long as I pull my pillow close, but it's already too late. I can feel my heart racing in my chest and I feel sick. As my breath becomes shaky and irregular, I consider taking the pillow off of my head but I know that would not help the anxiety I'm feeling right now. Why am I like this? Why do I have to be this weird? Why do the raindrops feel like an endless torment? I just don't understand.\n\nI walk myself through some anxiety breathing exercises and eventually drift off to sleep. It's not a restful slumber. It is one that feels like I'm constantly in motion. Like I am being jerked from one side of the universe to another. It's the kind of sleep that you just can't wait to wake up from. And soon that's exactly what I do.\n\nI feel a drop of water hit my face and it startles me enough to gasp for air. I wake up suddenly and abruptly and try to sit up in my bed but I can't move. I try again, thinking maybe I'm experiencing sleep paralysis and everything will start functioning soon, but as I attempt to raise up, I can feel the tug of leather against my wrists. I try to kick because I know nothing else that I can do but I find leather bands around my ankles too. And there it is again... Another drop of water hits my face.\n\n\"Why?!?\" I scream in anger.\n\n\"You know exactly why!\" A gruff voice answers as another drop splatters against my face.\n\nI open my eyes to see a man standing over me and a crowd mocking me as I suffer. Everything seems so different but somehow so familiar. The man directly above me looks pleased with the pain and torment that I'm feeling. In the crowd, I see faces so familiar that they seem like friends even though their actions say different.\n\n\"Why don't you just confess and that way the real torture can start?\" the man says with evil grin.\n\nSuddenly, it's like the world comes into focus... like snapshots of my life are being shown to me at lightning speed but it's not the life I remember. It's like seeing a movie in fast forward. It feels real but at the same time it feels like a fantasy. Drip. The coldness of the water as it runs into my eyes makes me realize this is no dream.\n\n\"I didn't do it! I swear I didn't!\" The words flow out of my mouth as I deny an accusation that I am still trying to sort out in my head. Deep down, I know they think I did something terrible. A snapshot appears in my mind of my husband... no, wait...that's not my husband. Is it? Drip. I feel the memories of a lifetime together bubbling to the surface but this is not my life. The memory movie reel ends with a vision of this man that I feel is my husband lying in our bed with his lips turning blue. Drip.\n\n\"I didn't do anything to him! I love him too much to ever harm him!\" Suddenly, I can feel myself mourning for this man whose name I don't even know. I can feel my heart being ripped into shreds as I remember shaking him and trying to wake him up. I remember the warm tears as they ran down my cheeks when I realized my best friend was gone. Drip. The cold water hits my forehead once again and runs down to my eyes where the warm tears once were.\n\n\"All right then, lady, I guess we'll keep going.\"\n\nDrip.\n\nThe constant and unpredictable drops of cold water remind me of rain. Rain? I realize the thought of rain doesn't scare me anymore. Drip. Nevertheless, I feel my anxiety rising as I lie strapped down, unable to move, and completely helpless against the innocent drops of water that are stealing my sanity.\n\n\"Please! I loved him!\" I believe the words that I'm saying because I feel them so deeply in my soul even though I don't understand why. Drip. Tears began flowing from my eyes and add to the wetness of my face. I can't handle it anymore. My breathing is so deep that it hurts my chest and I feel my hands trying to shake even though they are unable to move. Drip.\n\n\"Please! Make it stop!\" I scream as I try to gasp for air.\n\nThe world goes black. All sound stops. It is terrifying and peaceful all at once. I feel as if I'm floating through the universe again but this time at a much slower pace. I feel as if I exist but only barely.\n\nDrip.\n\nAs my breath finally catches, I jerk awake and sit straight up in bed. I frantically look around and see my husband still asleep beside me. I hold my breath and listen for the rain and hear nothing. Feeling relieved that it was only a dream, I lie down on my pillow and close my eyes. And just when I convinced myself that my anxiety had got the worst of me, I feel it. Drip. I open my eyes without moving the rest of my body and I realize the dream felt too real. It felt more real than the moment I'm living in right this second. I can remember my parents' names from another lifetime, my closest friends and my favorite shoes. I can remember the songs that I sung to my children even though I've never heard them before. And I can remember seeing my husband's grave covered with fresh dirt as I wept beside of it in the pouring rain.\n\nAnd I remember my death. I remember the torture and the mocking and the feeling of being terrified and being at peace all at once because I wouldn't have to live any longer without my husband.\n\nAt least not in that lifetime.\n\nDrip." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Lost down Memory Lane\n\nGenre: historical-fiction\n\nWord Count: 2497\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about a character who wakes up in their past life, or as a future reincarnation of themself." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "“Betty, wake up, it’s starting!”\n“Come on dearie, you don’t want to miss it!”\n\nThe words come through slowly, thickly, like they’ve waded in honey. Sticking together, they seem to make little sense. Still, I open one eye and then the other.\nThere she is, radiant even as an image on a glass screen; the satin gown seems to glow with its gold and silver threads as if she’s been dipped in a pot of light. That dress, it looks like it’s been spun from my sweetest dreams, perhaps the dreams of every girl watching. Who wouldn’t want a dress like that? To be helped into it, heavy yet soft, rustling rich folds; turning this way and that, catching your reflection in a gilded mirror before its beamed out to the whole nation and beyond.\n\nI look down at my fidgety legs and wonder where my grey smock dress has gone. Perhaps Mum has taken it for darning; the fabric’s worn so thin, soon they’ll be nothing left to hang a stitch on. A hand- me- down, it’s more patch than pinafore and I wish for the hundredth time that I could have been bought a special dress for the Coronation.\n\nMy big sister Joan bustles over, edging herself next to me, no doubt trying to get the best spot in front of the box but there’s no way I’m giving it up.\n“Bugger off Joan!” I snap, pushing her hand roughly away. A scream of pain catches my attention briefly, and out of the corner of my eye I see the teacup wobbling in its saucer and the brown liquid splash onto the carpet.\n“Now no need for that language Betty.” I hear her reprimand, but I smile to myself as she recedes from view; the prime spot is still mine. I gloat over my small victory in the pecking order of age. It’s short- lived. My legs are all jittery, jumping about like they want to be coupled up with the eight fine horses now arching their necks and tossing their manes on the screen. Except my legs and feet won’t stop pawing the floor, while on the television the beauties have quietened down and are meekly being harnessed up.\n\n“Quiet lads,” I tell my knees. “Settle down or it’s back in the box for you.”\n\nThey ignore me like they always seem to do these days, and so I push my hands into the bones of my thighs, leaning forward to stare harder at the horses on the telly set. I want to see if Tink is there, my gypsy pony. I can still almost feel his breath, warm on my palm, snuffling up the carrot I’ve pinched when Mum’s not looking. I wish I could bring him more, but I’d be sat on the doorstep with the milk bottles for a month if Mum caught me taking them, so I can only chance one now and then.\n\nIf wishes could come true, they’d take the shape of bales of hay and buckets of oats and bran; they’d spill from my head with a sloshing sound. Filled to the brim, I’d lug them over to him- watch him snort into his feed and blow on his water-and he’d be mine instead of some other girl’s pony. Yes, I’d wish me Tink, even over that gorgeous gown.\n\nOf course, I know Tink isn’t there; how could he be? He’s flecked brown and white, more a cow with a mane than a thoroughbred. The horses on screen are pure grey, bred to pull a gold state coach all the way to the Abbey; trotting in time, their hoof beats write the fairy tale of our time: a young woman crowned queen. I thought I was too old for Once upon a time, but watching Elizabeth step lightly into the carriage, crowds cheering her on, flags waving, I feel like I’m being tucked up as a five-year-old, Mum asking which bedtime story I’d like from the big book of tales. I hug the memory tight. \n\nJoan is back, one hand wrapped in a bandage, mopping at the floor. I don’t know when she turned so house proud, there’s more tea stains in this old carpet than the original rose prints, but I let her get on with it, sponging the cloth into the brown blossom. I give her a commentary while she’s at it.\n\n“Cunningham and Torey, Noah and Teddy.”\n “And who might they be Betty? She asks through laboured breaths, the stiff blue fabric of her dress straining with the effort of scrubbing the floor.\n“Boyfriends?” quips someone behind me, probably my younger sister Mary. She’s been on the dig for gossip about boys ever since Joan started going to the Pictures with some lads from her class. But me? Surely, she doesn’t think I’ve started chasing the lads round the playground! I ignore her and continue naming the horses:\n“Eisenhower, Snow White, Tipperary, McCreery.”\n\nI’d thought the place was empty except for me, Joan, and I suppose Mary, but the room erupts into howls of laughter; whoops of merriment make enough noise for a hall of people. I clutch the arms of my chair and whip my head round to see who’s making the raucous din; I want to tell them to pipe down or you’ll scare the horses.\nStrange faces flash past as I turn frantically from one unfamiliar face to another.\n\n“Snow White!” howls one, “funny name for a fella!”\n“It’s a long way to Tipperary, it’s a long way to go,” sings another in a broken voice.\n\nA stranger’s hand, wearing my wedding ring, grips my arm rest and I feel the chair rock forwards and backwards like it’s sobbing.\n\n“There there, Betty dear,” soothes Joan, putting the cloth, stained brown now with the spilt tea, on a side table next to me. “No need to be making a fuss. Just ignore them.”\n\nShe places a smooth hand, slightly damp from the cloth, over my trembling one and turns to look over her shoulder.\n\n“Sabryna, is it visiting time yet? Shall we start getting them ready?”\n“Ten minutes still. I’ll get the trifle out and start plating up the sandwiches. You alright here alone for a bit?” asks Sabryna, and I think I recognise her as the Snow-White comment woman. Joan nods and turns back to look at my hand, worrying at a loose thread on the arm rest, unravelling it slowly.\n“Now would you like to tell me about those boys?” She asks me, gently folding my fingers into her own. “You said Teddy. Was he your best boy before Dave?”\n“Dave,” I manage, as her hand strokes mine, perfuming the air with the scent of soap and disinfectant.\n\nI would like to say more, but the words seem to stick to my tongue. I would like to peel them off, one at a time, like pulling sweets from their wrappers and offer them to her. Instead I suck each one long and slow: like how there might have been boys before but never best ones; never one for a lifetime; one to put a plain gold band on my finger, making me feel as special as her- Elizabeth- that girl who they’re crowning now.\n\nJoan doesn’t speak either. Her tongue seems gummed up too as she dabs a tissue under my eyes, pulling another from her pocket to wipe at her own.\n\nThe picture on the screen fades and another face stares out. It’s lined with age, hair as silver as the gown had once been. A stranger peers out from the balcony, at the street parties with their miles of Union Jack bunting and cake stands set for a British afternoon tea. I shake my head as if that will adjust the set to a picture I can understand, and turn to Joan.\n\n“Where’s she gone?”\n“Where’s who gone Betty?”\n“Elizabeth.”\n“The Queen? She’s there dearie; they’ve finished with the footage from her Coronation. Wasn’t she a picture back then! Next up are the Red Arrows, I think. You know, the planes with their coloured smoke.”\n\nThe words make smoke trails in my mind; looping and curling, the traces fade to nothing.\n\nI'd like to throw the chair and shatter the lie on screen; but my legs are openly shaking now and I know I can’t get up, let alone hurl the furniture. I glare at the imposter Queen, ignoring her eyes, staring serenely out, just as they did on that day in 1953. I look instead at her mouth and wonder if she ate the lovely young Queen; whether she has eaten my whole life as well.\n\nI want to prise more words loose, dig my nails underneath and lift a few free, but a noise outside disturbs me. A wireless somewhere is playing “God save the Queen,” and a man I don’t recognise stands on quaking legs, supported by a walking stick, and salutes the television.\n\nJoan tuts but moves quickly over to help him back into his seat.\n\n“Tom, Tom, no need to play the Colonel here!” she laughs, “you’ll be firing the salute next!”\n\nWhen she returns, she stands right in front of me, blocking my view of the box. Stooping down, she places her hands on my shoulders and I feel her long dark hair tickle my cheek.\n\n“He’ll be here soon Betty. You ready for visiting time?”\nI shake my head. Visiting time? In our house?\n“It’s alright pet,” she says warmly, straightening the cushion behind my back, “it will be the usual thing, just with a dollop of trifle and a coronation chicken sandwich thrown in.”\n\nI don’t know what she’s talking about. Struggling to make sense of these spiralling words before they fade without a trace, I notice the badge pinned to her blue dress. It says Angelia.\n\n“Where’s Joan?” I blurt out, and before she has time to answer I continue, panic finding the words for me.\n“You’re not Joan!” How did I not notice before? This woman looks nothing like my older sister!\n“Sshh, sshh Betty, don’t start up, not today of all days and now of all times- visitors about to step through the doors.”\n“But where’s Joan gone?”\n\nAngelia’s face falls and I wonder if I have asked her this before; she looks so weary, like she’s repeated the answer many times. I feel like a clumsy child; I’ve dropped the answer, broken it. Or perhaps it’s rolled away, like an empty cup slipping under a sofa. I feel like if I reach far enough, I could pull it out, but by the time I do, the need for it will have long passed.\n\nThe person I thought was Mary is back, pushing her wide hip against the door, holding it open so she can carry two trays loaded with sandwiches and a large glass bowl. She’s beaming as she breezes into the room.\n\n“Well, Ladies and Gentlemen. Look who’s here to see you all!”\n\nFollowing her in, bobbing faces on a sea of bodies, are people I think I have seen before. One face separates from the swell and swims into focus; eyes smile out like they did that day he slipped the ring onto my finger for the whole church to see.\n\n“Dave,” I manage, as he bends down and kisses the top of my head.\n“Hi Mum, couldn’t let you celebrate without me; Sabryna and Angelia have promised me this will be bigger than the party at the palace.” He waves to the two of them, laying a long table with plates and trays of food. They wave back, easy in their recognition.\n\nMartin, it’s Martin, of course it’s Martin not Dave; but his eyes…I stare into them, convinced my husband is in there somewhere.\n\n“And look who I’ve brought to see you. Someone else who likes a good party.”\nWith a peppering of freckles and the piercing stare which always belied her age, a little girl steps out from behind her father: Mary.\n\n“Hi Granny. You remember me don’t you.”\nIt’s not a question, which is just as well as I don’t know the answer. Thankfully, Martin helps me out.\n\n“How could she forget you Olivia!”\nAs soon as the name has left his mouth, it chases my phantom younger sister out of the door, still laughing at the trick she’s played on me. Of course, it’s Olivia; she sounds nothing like that mischievous Mary!\n\nJoan, wearing Angelia’s badge, is back, handing out bowls of trifle to us all.\n“An extra big one for our Betty, who’s got the sweetest tooth amongst the whole of the residents!”\n\nThat sounds about right, although my days of crunching on sherbet lemons and cracking the hard shells of mint humbugs are long gone. This sweet mess of cream, custard, jelly and fruit is easier for me to suck on; it slips through my gums and it’s like swallowing every birthday party I’ve ever had. I plunge the spoon in and I’m four, clutching the gift of my first doll; I dig the spoon in again, swallow, and I’m five, first school bag strapped firmly to my back; again, and I’m gulping down my sixth, all my new class mates singing happy birthday dear Betty, happy birthday to you!\n\nI scrape that bowl with the spoon. If I could, I’d lift it to my face and lick the smooth white ceramic clean; I’d swallow until I was fully me again.\n\n“Well that did the disappearing trick!” laughs Martin, taking the bowl and handing it back to Angelia.\n\nOlivia has finished her trifle too. Putting the bowl on the side table, she pulls a bag onto her lap. She takes out, one at a time, two little toy horses: one is a beautiful jet black; the other is brown and white flecked, just like my Tink. With her intent eyes, she watches my hand edge across the blanket on my lap. Smiling, she trots the two horses, one in each hand, over to me; the little gypsy horse nuzzles my hand before she gently pushes it into my palm.\n\n“Granny, did you use to like horses?”\n“Your Granny was horse mad, just like someone else I know,” laughs Martin, although it could be my Dave, with his deep belly laugh, shaking his head as I come back from the stables, straw in my hair and a smile on my face as big as a stable door.\n\n“Were you really Granny?”\n“Tink, wasn’t it Mum? The horse you learned to ride on?”\nI nod happily.\n“Oh, tell me about him Granny! What did he look like?”\n\nOthers spoon trifle, wave flags and watch the Jubilee, but I grip the little horse firmly and start to talk. Slowly at first, worried the words will stumble, but then faster and faster: walk to trot, canter to gallop, until we’re racing- mother, son and granddaughter- together, on a trip down memory lane." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Life of a cherry blossom\n\nGenre: historical-fiction\n\nWord Count: 1577\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about a character who’s expected to follow in someone’s footsteps." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Toshiro galloped across the battlefield, his stallion’s hooves thundering in the quiet reverence that had descended when the last swords were sheathed. The rhythm was soothing, assuring him he would soon see his lord. The generals’ reports he had gathered were not the only reason he stood in the stirrups and kept urging his mount forward. They were not even the most important reason. \nTrusting his horse to pick the best way back to the camp, he loosened the reins and looked around. The last rays of the setting sun painted the grass scarlet as if paying tribute to all the blood that had been shed. Cherry trees in full bloom shrouded the hills on both sides, their delicate beauty seeming to defy the violence they had been forced to witness. \nA storm of pale pink petals swirled in a gust of wind, clinging to blood-stained armour and blades as if seeking to conceal the bodies of those who perished. \nThe battle was far from over, but rules of engagement dictated there would be no fighting from sunset to dawn, so both sides had a chance to take care of the wounded and get a night’s rest before facing each other again. \nLord Uematsu Kagetora, the Dragon of the West, was the fiercest leader in the Empire. The third decade of his life had barely begun but he was already a legend. Toshiro had served at his side since before the young warlord took over their clan ten years ago. Nobody dared to oppose his father’s decision to choose him as heir. \nBecause the new daimyo was born trapped in a female body, he always pushed himself to extremes to prove his worth. That gained him fearful respect all over the Empire and fanatic devotion from his own men. \nToshiro’s attachment to his lord went beyond what was appropriate for a retainer, to a more personal territory. Although he suspected the Dragon of the West was aware of that, it had never been acknowledged, so he had not dared to act on his feelings, not wanting to betray his lord and ruin their relationship. \nUematsu Kagetora took monastic vows right after he restored peace in his province in his first successful campaign. He was always alone. Toshiro had never seen him with a man or a woman. Did he think affection would destroy the fierce image he worked so hard to maintain? Or… maybe… he wasn’t comfortable enough in his body to pursue intimacy? The children he had adopted over the years guaranteed the future of the clan, so nobody questioned his choices. \nToshiro slid from the saddle and patted his horse’s neck as he handed the reins to one of the soldiers guarding the large tent. He took a deep breath, calling forth his usual restraint, and went down on one knee in front of the fabric-covered entrance.\n“My lord, I gathered the reports.” \n“Come in, Toshi.” His lord sounded content but exhausted.\nThe inside of the tent was lit by a single lantern, warm yellow light fighting to chase away descending darkness. Lord Kagetora knelt in front of the ancestral altar, cleaning his sword. His armour was displayed on the stand against the wall, but he still wore the same kimono, the cherry branches blooming on the sleeves and back now stained with blood, giving them a ghastly appearance. \nWhose blood was it? Was his Lord wounded?\nA wave of worry rippled through Toshiro, but he remained silent. Asking such questions would be too disrespectful. For a while, only the rhythmical sounds of the blade being polished broke the silence. \nFinally, Lord Kagetora sheathed his sword, placed it on the stand in front of the altar, and bowed with reverence. His movements were unusually slow and stiff. \nToshiro’s jaw tightened at the realization. \nWhere? Shoulder? Arm? Side? There was no cut in the silk… An arrow? \nHe cast his eyes down, trying to repress the questions and the need to take care of his lord. He did not want to offend his pride. \n“I already know the reports, Toshi,” Lord Kagetora said, still with his back to Toshiro. “More than that. I already sent a messenger to the Takemori, offering a way out without more crippling losses.” The young lord paused, steadying his breath. \nWas he in pain? Or did he just hesitate to reveal his plan? \nToshiro struggled to keep his calm, as a tide of fear crashed over the receding worry. His fists clenched in anticipation of the words about to come.\n“They agreed. Tomorrow at dawn, I shall ride with fifty men.” His lord spoke lightly as if talking about going to dinner, but his stiff, perfectly still posture betrayed his real feelings. “And it will be over, one way or another.” \nToshiro exhaled sharply, his composure shattering. “But, my Lord… If you ride, you will be the main target…. You are wounded… Please, you can’t…” \n“Toshi, stop.” Lord Kagetora’s voice was still calm and tired, but there was a note of steel lurking underneath that everyone in the Uematsu clan had come to know so well. Their lord was willing to listen to his generals’ advice unless it concerned the ways he pushed past his own limits.\n“My father accepted me as his son when I was only five years old. He trusted that I knew who I was. When I was seventeen, he deemed me worthy to succeed him, and my clan accepted me as their future leader without question. They have loyally followed my command since my father’s heroic death. I won’t be able to face my ancestors if I send my men to battle without my sword leading them.” \nLord Kagetora paused, seemingly lost in thought, his fingers stroking the sleeve of his kimono. \n“We admire cherry blossoms precisely because they scatter in the wind before their beauty fades.” \nToshiro had no answer to that. His heart screamed in despair, but he understood. There was more to it as well. If Lord Kagetora went with the fifty, their morale and courage would be unmatched. Every one of them would prove his worth tenfold because they would be protecting their beloved commander, fighting at his side. \nThe Takemori might waver too, seeing the legendary warlord himself riding into battle. \nLord Kagetora had already announced his will regarding succession, so the clan was safe no matter the outcome. But a part of Toshiro refused to accept the possibility that…\n“My Lord… may I be one of the fifty?” His voice carried the weight of his determination to serve and die together with his daimyo.\nPlease, let me fight by your side!\n“You are much more than that, Toshi. You are… the one.” The young lord finally turned to face Toshiro. “Tonight… stay with me… please.” \nToshiro had never seen such vulnerability in his lord’s eyes or heard so much emotion in his voice. Those few words… They were like drops of water that announced the ocean behind the line of trees. A depth he never suspected was there. He barely held back tears. \nSo his lord did know. Not only that. He felt the same. \nFor a brief moment, the upcoming battle lost all meaning. He took off his swords and approached Lord Kagetora, wrapping his arms around him. “I would never leave you, my lord.” All his repressed love and devotion poured into each word. \nLord Kagetora rested his head on Toshiro’s shoulder, his body relaxing in the gentle but firm embrace. For a moment, the only sounds were their intertwined rhythmical breaths and Toshiro’s racing heart. \n“I know, Toshi. I know.” The Dragon of the West raised his head to look at him, their lips almost touching. “But I never…” \nToshiro silenced him with a finger, barely containing the tsunami of emotions–his love mixed with desire, while respect and loyalty fused with the need to protect his lord from the world. \nHow was he supposed to express all that? \n“I’d give my life for you, my lord,” he whispered, his words followed by a tender kiss. “You are safe with me,”\n***\nToshiro woke up in the cold darkness. The lantern must have burned out sometime during the night. Faint light peeked in through gaps between the walls and the loose fabric of the entrance. His eyes adjusted to the dark, allowing him to take in the details of his surroundings. His lord’s armour and swords were gone. So was the source of warmth that still lingered on his naked skin. \nHe wanted to chase after his daimyo, but a small cherry branch placed over a single sheet of rice paper stopped him as effectively as if it had been an actual tree barring the exit. \nInhaling deeply, he steeled himself before picking up the paper, resolved to accept his lord's choice. \nLoving the Dragon of the West meant showing enough respect to let him go.\n“A life of conquest is but one cup of sake. \nA life of thirty years passed in a dream, \nNot knowing what life is, nor death. \nUntil you woke me up. \nThe cherries will bloom again next year. \nForty-nine is rebirth.” \nTears fell on the paper one by one, washing away his lord’s elegant handwriting, but the words would be forever carved in Toshiro’s heart. \nThe Dragon of the West gave him a gift beyond anything he ever expected. \nAnd this was not just a death poem. \nIt was a lover’s farewell." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: This was fun until...\n\nGenre: high-school\n\nWord Count: 1166\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about a character stumbling upon a library book that changes the course of their life, for better or worse." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "I am Ben da Costa. I am 15, and I live with my mother and my younger brother in the St. Inez neighborhood of Goa. My dad left us when I was 2, so I have no memories of him.\n\nIt all began last month when my brother caught the flu and had to skip his classes for a while. The little punk’s a weakling if there ever was one. Me? I’m tough; strong as a bull, never so much as had a stuffy nose all my life. Anyway, he asked me to return a book to the school library. I had avoided that gloomy dungeon so far, but my mom threatened she would cut off the internet if I didn’t.\n\nI wanted to punch her.\n\nI entered the library, making some of the nerds look up in surprise. I walked to the librarian’s corner, dropped the book on the counter, and said, “My brother borrowed this last week.”\n\n“The librarian will be back in a moment,” he replied without looking up from his paper. He had thick nerd glasses on.\n\nI stood there, not knowing what to do.\n\n“Nice, so you’re going to stand here and breathe down my neck,” he said, his eyes still glued to the crossword he was trying to solve.\n\nAt this point, I would've loved to batter his face to a gooey pulp. But I walked away. The library was unfamiliar territory, so I didn’t want to venture too deep and get lost on my way out. But I also didn’t want to sit anywhere too close to the bookworms. Eventually, I went to the farthest end which still offered a view of the exit.\n\nI was bored and itching to check my texts but there had been way too many confiscations lately and I didn’t want to spend another week without my phone.\n\nA noise from behind the shelf as if something had fallen off a shelf. I went around the bookcase to the other side and found a thin, black book lying on the floor. I picked it up. On the first page, it said: ‘100 Easy Spells to Torture your Enemies’. There was something written at the bottom - looked like Sanskrit or maybe Tamil. We weren’t taught either.\n\nA 100 ways to torture your enemies? I nearly laughed. As if I needed a book for that. I thumbed through it - it was barely 50 pages in all. I stuffed it in the inner pocket of my jacket and kept walking.\n\nA few minutes later, I saw the librarian back at his desk. The rude dude was no longer there. I returned my brother’s book and headed home.\n\nAfter dinner, I went straight to my room. I had forgotten all about the book - but there it was, sitting in the middle of my bed. Did I keep it there? Had someone been in my room?\n\nI picked it up and opened it. The book carried two spells on each page. There was one to give a guy a heart attack and another to stop someone from breathing altogether. One claimed to induce scary-ass hallucinations. And so on. All you had to do was clear your mind, speak your enemy’s name, and read the spell out loud. At the end of each page, there was one spell - it was the same for all - to reverse the magic and set things back to normal.\n\nThis seemed stupid. I threw the book back inside my bag and slept. \n*\n\nEYES BULGING, FOREHEAD COATED WITH SWEAT, lips turning a nasty shade of blue.\n\nClutching hopelessly at his throat, the boy looked so pathetic even I felt shaken for a moment.\n\nI knew he wouldn’t last long if I didn’t act. So I did. Air resumed its life-giving flow in and out poor Nick Braganza’s tortured windpipe. Colour returned to his skin, and he crumpled to the floor in exhaustion, still panting hard.\n\nNick lay sprawled down there until someone helped him up, asking, “You alright, buddy?” He nodded weakly. Others who had been watching him twist and turn were also moving closer to him, trying to understand what had just happened.\n\nI gathered my stuff and began to leave.\n\nIn the last 30 days, I had done this to 12 different people. Anyone who’d ever rubbed me off the wrong way paid.\n\nOn Tuesday, Chris Mendoza, captain of the athletic team, suddenly veered off track in the middle of his 100-meter sprint and crashed into another runner. Rubbing his eyes like a mad man, he started yelling, “I can’t see; I can’t see anything!” Then, just as suddenly, he could.\n\nOn Thursday, Martin Samuel, the fat fellow who breathed too loud and sweated like a pig, fainted in horror as - and I made sure nobody was around when this happened - his teeth fell out and scattered all over the floor. When he woke up his pearly whites were back where they belonged, but I doubt his mind will ever be the same again.\n\nThen it was the library dude’s turn. I spotted him in the cafeteria, eating his soggy hamburger and talking to someone I didn’t know. I recited the spell. Boom. The guy started imagining creepy crawlies all over his body, under his skin, in his nose and mouth. He threw up violently, pushed hard at the table, and fell on the ground, scratching all over and screaming his lungs out. For a good minute and a half, he writhed on the floor as a man possessed.\n\nAnd so it went on. Tony Ranganathan. Reuben Ganesh. Principal Mahalingam. Josh Almeida. Kris Gonsalves. Nick Braganza. Poor Nick Braganza.\n\nIt was all fun for a while until it wasn’t. I was running out of people I really wanted to hurt, so I had to start picking people at random.\nThen Nina Miranda joined my school. Hated her right away - for someone raised in a sad little children’s home, she acted damn special - raised hands at every question, joined all the clubs, dressed like a fashion queen. I had found my new target. \n\nMy first female target.\n\n*\n\nIt was almost closing time. She started to gather her books when there was a sound from behind a bookshelf.\n\nA book on the floor. She picked it up. All blank pages, except for a picture at the end. It was hazy but it looked like a boy trapped behind a glass wall, screaming in horror, as if for help? He looked eerily similar to someone she had seen earlier. Couldn’t remember who.\n\nShe leafed through the book again and noticed the little text at the bottom of the first page. It was in Hindi:\n\n“Mahilaon se saavdhaan. Mantra ulta padega.”\n\nWhat rubbish, Nina thought. \"Beware of women? The curse could backfire?\" What does that even mean?\n\nCarelessly shoving the book in an empty slot, Nina walked out. \n\nShe never noticed letters slowly reappearing on the pages." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: The Statue of Osiris\n\nGenre: historical-fiction\n\nWord Count: 2881\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about a character who keeps ending up in the same place." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "London, 1892\nIf he hurried, getting into the museum would be easy. Reginald Coleridge made brisk pace through the streets of London, inky, midnight darkness spilling heavily over the buildings and seeping into recesses and alleyways. Outposts of warm orange light glowed from windows and streetlamps, staving off the twilight and enlightening styx-black puddles. He was used to this trip by now, had been making it regularly for the past few months. The regularity furnished Coleridge with some degree of confidence - for every undetected trip he gained an extra morsel of nerve - yet the compulsion to make the trips remained the same, if not markedly stronger each time.\nHe was only a few minutes late. He pressed on, angled into the drizzle, hands stuffed into his overcoat pockets and bowler hat tipped forward, through mostly vacant cobbled streets. Ornate, white stucco-clad Georgian buildings loomed on either side, aloof, perhaps judgemental. Occasional shadowy pedestrian figures or black carriages glistening with raindrops passed by, prompting flashes of nervousness as Coleridge did the utmost to project an air of casual inconspicuousness. He strode forward with as much purpose as he could muster, until the tall streets yielded and gave way to the grandiose British Museum, at once resplendent and imposing in its Greek-revival stonework.\nColeridge swallowed and took a deep breath. Threatening as the building seemed, he had found a chink in its stone armour, and in the complacency of its guards. He knew of an entrance, and of a gap in the security shift pattern. Bolstered by his experience of many previous successful infiltrations of the museum, he stole across the road and fell instinctively into his task. With adrenaline and bated breath, stealth and purpose, he found his way, once again, into the building.\nHis footsteps echoed in the dark, cavernous interior, shrouded as it was in perfect, delicate stillness. They punctuated the silence like footprints in smooth, wet, undisturbed sand. Coleridge found his way to the staircase, carefully fumbling his way up to the first floor. He traipsed along empty corridors. Past glass cabinets and along hard tiled floors which rang a resounding ‘clack’ with each step. Soon he felt the familiar doorknob, and pushed his way inside, wincing, muscles rigid at the creak before slipping in and closing the door with a conclusive, dull thud. He exhaled shakily and wedged the door from the inside.\nAfter a few moments, he took off his coat and satchel, from which he retrieved matches, some small candles and a lantern. With a scrape he brought a match to light, dispersing a tiny glow across the chamber; the orange haze spread more generously once the lantern was lit. The room was not particularly large. It housed Egyptian artefacts, acquired from various British exploits in Egypt – confiscated from the French much earlier in the century, or taken during the recent archaeological surge which Coleridge had in fact been a part of. The ceiling was high, and the warm light danced across beautiful ancient Egyptian frescoes and wall paintings, dispersing through glass cabinets and bathing the contents, illuminating enrapturing turquoise shabti figures, canopic jars, and unflinching statues. A theatre of surreal animal-human deity faces stared back at Coleridge as he slicked back his hair and ran a finger through his moustache, preparing for the task at hand.\nIt took no time at this stage to find what he was looking for, he had returned here enough times; the life-sized, basalt statue of Osiris in the middle of the far wall, stood on a podium. It still terrified him. Its glaring stone eyes stared him down, set within a cold, judging, seemingly angry face, crowned with a monumental headdress and complete with a jutting false beard. He collected the candles, and a whip from his satchel. He removed his jacket and shirt, fingers shaking slightly over the buttons, unceremoniously dumping them next to the rest of his items. He walked over to the statue. Laid out the candles in a semi-circle around it, lighting each one. He stepped within the candle circle. Then dropped to his knees. Whip in his right hand.\nWith a piercing, resounding crack, Coleridge flicked the whip across his own back before the statue. He grunted mutely, repressing the urge to eject a scream. He felt the familiar split, the warm, small trickle of blood. Regardless of how many times he returned to this spot and repeated the ritual, it still felt the same. He always whipped six times in all, one for each shot. The statue stared back, seeing his guilt, yet still unforgiving.\nHis mind drifted back to Egypt, a year prior in 1891.\nThe robbery had gone horribly wrong. Coleridge and fellow officer Samuel Howard clumsily ran from the tomb, clutching canvas bags stuffed with artefacts, feet uncertain in the sand, breath ragged from panic and exertion. After what felt like an age running across the dunes, they collapsed upon reaching the pre-ordained spot, frantically dumped the bags in the pits they had dug and covered them with sand, before hotfooting back to the main expedition camp and into their tents, ready to pretend nothing had happened. It was not long after dawn broke that news of some commotion at the tomb began to make its way through the encampment. Coleridge had tried in vain to sleep. All he saw were the eyes of the statue.\nThis was a British-led archaeological expedition, now centred around the recent excavation of a hitherto undiscovered tomb dating from the New Kingdom, in the Valley of the Kings. And people were saying it had just been robbed. Not fully, mind, but a proportion of smaller items had gone missing. Nevertheless, it was not a total disaster for the excavation leaders. There were still ample treasures to make the trip worthwhile, of import to Egyptian history. Such is what Coleridge had expected; the robbery had been his idea initially, and he had planned it on such grounds; in the grand scheme of things, a few missing treasures would not be terribly missed. Why then, shouldn’t he and his friend Howard - who was soon won round to the raid – take advantage? It would mean far more to them than to the expedition as a whole.\nThe two were fairly high-ranking officials on site, and a week earlier had seen the opening of the tomb for the first time in over three-thousand years. As the leading archaeologists filed in and took stock of the contents, it was immediately clear that this was no ordinary find. It was enough to fill a whole floor in the British Museum, and a starscape of gold and shimmering colours dazzled in the lamplit antechambers. Nobody had ever seen anything like it; such was the magnitude of the discovery that Coleridge’s ostensible principles of conservation – of archaeology as a means to elucidate history - folded upon sight of the treasure. All he saw now was a life of wealth set out before him, if only he was ready to take the chance.\nHe deliberated for a little while, but eventually resolved to do a small raid. It should be simple enough, he had thought. In and out, don’t take too much, bury the loot until the most opportune time to send it back to England. He was high-ranking and sufficiently well-known on site not to raise too many eyebrows, and if he did it quickly enough, the treasure could be out of the tomb before it had been properly catalogued. Then resale at various auction houses shouldn’t raise too much suspicion. He confided in Howard, the only person who he felt was at once trustworthy and duplicitous enough for such a venture. Within just a few days the plan was in place.\nThe guards had been easy, far more so than they had expected. Coleridge had found them milling around site, let loose his silver tongue and promised them a cut of the takings if they agreed not to be at the tomb entrance during their particular shift. Wasn’t it terribly unfair, he had said, that only the top echelon of the expedition would receive any returns from the tomb’s discovery? This oratory was more than enough. All that was left was to source some equipment; some lanterns, bags and a revolver; just in case anybody needed to be threatened, he thought.\nOn the agreed night, at the agreed spot, Coleridge found Howard, dust scarf around his face, clothes tugged by the prevailing wind. The two were quiet as they trudged across the dunes, the full-moon hanging stark and white against the twilit sky flecked with stars. Light winds scattered thin gusts of sand across the peaks and troughs. The night was cool and dark blue. It seemed as though even the gods and sleeping pharaohs were unaware of the presence of the two men, yet all the same, Coleridge’s heart was in his mouth as he rounded upon the tomb. The guards, though, true to their word, were absent, and the prospect of success – somewhat closer now - imbued the two with a steely resolve. Coleridge made his way to the makeshift door, set up by the workers, guarding the tomb. Opened with a key. Then crouched in after a brief, wide-eyed glance over the shoulders.\nLeaving the door for Howard, Coleridge immediately set to taking out and lighting a lantern, and lowering his own dust scarf. With trembling hands, he held the light aloft and advanced down the entrance corridor and into the tomb. Sand and rock soon gave way to radiant white walls, decorated lavishly with paintings of deities and scenes from life, saturated with rich colour, as fresh as the day the tomb was sealed. Two dimensional gods and monarchs presided over the frescoes, arms outstretched, other figures depicted smaller in varying stages of subjugation. Hushed and crouched, the two crept onward, until the corridor opened up into a main chamber, upheld in the centre by two rows of square columns twinkling with gold leaf and luxurious with hieroglyphs. Branching off from various walls of the main chamber were a series of antechambers. Hand on his revolver, not breathing, Coleridge peered into each room. Only when he was certain nobody else was here did he deflate the tension with an exhale, quickly reach for his bag and tersely say to Howard that they only had ten minutes.\nThe tomb had only recently been discovered and so most of the treasure was still in place. Some had been moved, some boxed, yet most was still here. As Howard quickly made way for the burial chamber, accessed through the wall opposite the entrance corridor, Coleridge turned around. There, against the wall of the main chamber, next to the corridor passage, was the statue. He was immediately arrested, as it seemed to stare back with glowering eyes. It was Osiris, god of life, and the grim stone expression seemed to be angry, at the defilement of the tomb. Momentarily transfixed, Coleridge shook his head and dismissed his fragile state of mind. His eyes began roving for the pickings of greatest value. All the while he felt the statues eyes boring into him.\nA few minutes had elapsed, bags had filled, and both were now in the burial chamber when they heard a voice. Perhaps Arabic? Then, in a thick local accent, an inquisitive, tentative ‘hello?’. The two froze and stared at one another. In the shaking voice and the approaching lamplight, it was possible to imagine the nervous stance and the slow walk of the approaching figure as he came down the corridor, each careful footstep a knell ringing around the tomb. Coleridge and Howard ducked for cover as the figure entered the main chamber. The figure was stood in the central section when Coleridge gulped, popped out from cover, and pointed his revolver square at the new arrival. He was clearly a worker, barely twenty, who must have seen them enter the tomb, or perhaps grown suspicious at the lack of guards or at the orange glow of light emanating from the entrance. His eyes immediately grew to the size of saucers and his hands flew up. Coleridge was trembling; this was not supposed to happen.\nThen there was a change in the worker. His eyes narrowed, and his mouth opened slightly in realisation of what was happening. The expression hardened and brows furrowed. Thief! He cried. Coleridge felt a wave of hot panic coursing through his being. Then a sharp intake of breath. Recognition. ‘Mr Coleridge! Mr Howard!’ Then all of a sudden, the worker frantically turned on his heels and bolted back towards the corridor. His gait was angular and his arms flailed as he ran back towards the entrance, and with him ran all of Coleridge’s worst fears. Of detection, of dismissal, of disrepute, of punishment and of poverty. And the fear – and soon rage - came in full force, with each haggard step the worker took.\nThe shots, though alien in hindsight, flew instinctively with calculated, murderous accuracy from Coleridge’s revolver. The scene, which seemed to have been playing in slow motion, fell back hard into reality as the workers body careened off balance and crumpled across an object, red splotches spreading across his pure white robe. Coleridge shakily stood up and moved towards the corpse. With dread, he saw that it had spread over the feet of the statue. Then a blur, as he dropped to his knees, hands to his head, as the whole tomb seemed to shake around him and the statue’s face seemed to curl into a venomous, soul-eating picture of malice. Howard’s incomprehensible shouting and manoeuvring and a ringing in the ear were all Coleridge could make out as the chamber drifted into soft-focus, all except Osiris’ piercing, penetrative basalt eyes which pervaded everything, surrounding and engulfing and omniscient, reaching into every fibre of his being, judging and hating. There and then he firmly believed he was cursed, that the statue had seen him and his murderousness, and that the old gods were present, and frothing with fury, ready to smite him. His body felt puny and infinitesimal as he moaned and writhed on the floor.\nA sharp kick from Howard stopped the chamber from spinning. He thrust Coleridge his bag, and warned him that they needed to go, now. Carried by nothing but survival instinct, Coleridge followed Howard out of the tomb, stumbling and panting. The run across the desert was hellish. Osiris was following them, Coleridge cried. His face was in the night sky, his stone form kept shooting out from the sand in front of them, he was behind them as they ran from the tomb. They reached the pits they had dug, and in the brief respite Howard was saying something to Coleridge, but his voice was echoing. It was something about trauma and stress, about Coleridge merely hallucinating, then something practical about the fact that people likely didn’t hear the shots, but that they would certainly find the body soon enough. Yet Coleridge still could not see anything other than the statue, even after they had found their way back into camp and into the safety of their tents.\nColeridge had eased marginally over the coming days and weeks. The missing treasure and the murder had been attributed to some local gang of bandits, likely escaped by now. Howard had ensured the bags were discreetly and securely delivered to England. The two left Egypt within a few months. Slowly, the rest of the findings from the tomb were catalogued by the excavation expedition and sent to various places, with most ending up in the British Museum.\nBut that night never really left him. When Coleridge heard that the statue had found its way to England and the museum, he felt a supernatural compulsion to visit and supplicate. Although the initial stupor had subsided and he could function from day to day, the visions and nightmares, when they came, were as vivid as that night in the tomb. Any time during his waking hours, Osiris could invade his mind, that god of life before whom he had taken life. He was left white, sweating and shaken, sometimes in public, as the god came to admonish his sins. Something primal pulled him to the statue once it arrived in England, and he felt the need to profess his guilt before it in the hopes that the visions would subside. The first time he crept into the museum and performed the first ritual, the guilt seemed to ease and ebb with the blood drawn from the whip, and Osiris did leave him alone for some time. But the god returned. And so too did Coleridge return, to perform the ritual again. And so it continued, as the urges became more frequent and the ritual seemed to offer fewer days of respite each time.\nHe was now comfortably off with money from the treasure haul (sales were managed by Howard), although he spent little of it, fearing it would worsen his mental state. He was soon to be married, and to take up a new post at the foreign office. But every day the urges to return to the statue grew stronger." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Written in his catalog\n\nGenre: high-school\n\nWord Count: 1845\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about a character who meticulously catalogs everything in their life, until something disrupts their system." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Ever since Mico was a young child, He was force to make a diy catalogs about his life. So basically everyday of his life was written in that catalog. His parents are famous people. His Dad is a famous actor while his mom is one of the most prettiest lady in the world.\nHe was force to become perfect and his parents are the one who choose what decision he will make. He and his siblings doesn't like it but they're not allowed to give their opinion because they might put into a lot of trouble.\nAfter the school, they are not allowed to go hangout with their friends. They didn't even have the chance to look at the moon for so long. What a bad life they have.\nOn the other hand, Missy, daughter of one of the famous director in the world is having the great life. Her father doesn't force him to do anything. She get the chance to choose her own decisions and if she get the wrong decision, her father will never ever scream at her.\nOur two mai characters are living in the same world but not in the same routine. Where they ever find each other?\nMissy's P.O.V.\n\"Missy! Let's go. We need to leave now.\" Cal said.\n\"Coming right up dad!\" She replied and walk downstairs.\nShe is wearing a jeans, a cute croptop and a sneakers.Typical teenage shy girls'outfits. They both enter the car and started driving. When they reach the school, Missy was a little hesitant to get out of the car.\n\"Are you sure you're not mad dad?\" She asked and kinda nervous about her dad's reaction.\n\"I'm not mad, It looks good on you. Your body your choice. And if they ever tell you something that's not acceptable, just call me.\" Cal replied and pat her shoulders.\n\"Thanks dad. Do your best at work!\" She said and get out of the car.\n\"You too sweetie!\" Cal replied.\nMy dad was doing better at his work and he decided that he should transferred me to a private school. I don't know how to interact with other students. So I went to the library to avoid people. I grab a fantasy book and sat beside a boy.\n\"Why are you sitting near me?\" The boy asked.\n\"Because it is my seat choice.\" I replied.\n\"You don't know me, aren't you?\" The boy asked.\n\"You're not that dumb right? I'm a transferee why would you think I know you?\" I replied to him.\n\"My parents are one of the famous people! You must be a scholar.\" He proudly said and insulted me.\n\"And what's wrong for being a scholar? That kind of mindset is trash. You're studying at a private school but you don't know how to treat people equally.\" I replied and left.\nMico's P.O.V.\nI was writing an update on my catalog when a girl sat beside me. She was the braviest scholar girl I met.\nI stood up and follow her without her knowing. She's a great target to expose and make her life suffer.\nShe was walking into a....\nVIP THEATER?! How can a scholar girl enter the vip theater? It is only exclusive to rich and famous students. In her case, I don't she's a rich student with a simple outfit? She can't be.\nI also go inside the theater and sat a little far to her. I also saw that a girl sat beside her.\nMissy's P.O.V.\nIm now at the theater room and a girl approach me.\n\"Missy Torres right?\" The girl asked.\n\"Yes? How do you know me?\" I asked her.\n\"Your father makes great films and I'm such a fan of your works and show. Can I get an autograph?\" She said nervously.\n\"Oh thanks. And sure I can give you an autograph I guess.\" I replied and get the picture of me and signed in it.\n\"Thank you! See you around.\" She said and left.\nWhat a cute girl she is. I noticed that someone is looking from far.\nI decided to go outside the theater and hide somewhere to see who's spying on me.\nI hid at the back of the door. And a guy came out so I grabbed the guy's arm and hair and kicked the back of his knees. And made him fell to the floor.\n\"Why are you following me?\" I asked him and I looked at the guy.\nI-it's t-the guy from the library. The heck this man. Why is he following me!\n\"No scholar girl are allowed at a VIP THEATER.\" He replied.\n\"Well I can enter the theater. The theater is a big deal to you huh?\" I said and enter the theater again.\nI noticed that it was 8:25 am and my class is 8:30. I need to hurry. So I ran and find my classroom. When I found the classroom I was 10 minutes late.\n\"Looks like Ms. Torres is late for 10 minutes. I'll give you an exception for today because you're just new here. So now introduce yourself.\" The professor said.\n\"Missy Torres, 18 years old.\" I said and they all looked at me like they never expect me.\n\"As in the daughter of the famous director?\" The blonde girl asked.\n\"Yes. And one of the famous actresses.\" I replied and take my seat.\nI still hear whispering when I reached my seat choice.\n\"Hi Missy. I'm Patrice.\" She introduced herself.\n\"Oh hi Patrice.\" I replied and smiled trying to be approachable.\n\"Your dad and my dad will work together on a new project so I think we'll see each other often.\" She said.\n\"I guess? And why do everyone is looking at me like studying here is a big deal?\" I asked to her.\n\"All of them watched your dad's films and also your films. They were all a fan even the boys.\" Patrice replied.\n\"Then why does that guy over there doesn't know me.\" I asked again and pointed to the guy I saw at the library.\n\"Except him. His parents are both famous, so they're forbidden to be friends with others. Too bad for them.\" She said.\n\"Why?\" I asked again.\n\"You're interested aren't you? I don't know either. But some says, it is because of his mother who want to protect their name.\" She replied again.\n\"Oh. What a great reason to imprisoned a teenage boy like him.\" I said to myself.\nThe class went well and I pretty sure I'll enjoy learning in here. Patrice went home early and I was waiting at the shed outside the school when all of a sudden. A boy tripped in front of me. I tried to help him but he grab his stuffs and ran away. But he forgot a catalog?\nI tried to come after him but it was too late because his parents pick him up.\n\"Missy!\" My dad called my name so I didn't got the chance to gave the catalog.\n\"Dad!\" I said and rushed over to the car then went inside.\n\"How's school?\" He asked while driving.\n\"A little fun!\" I replied.\n\"A little? You don't like there don't you?\" Dad asked.\n\"No. I like the school but this one boy is bothering me.\" I replied.\n\"Why? Did he do something?\" He asked again.\n\"Nope. It's just I kinda feel bad for him. Do you know the Brooklyn family?\" I asked to him.\n\"Yeah. Why?\" He replied.\n\"Oh nothing. I just want to ask.\" I replied and stop myself from asking so many questions.\nWe got home and dad is cooking dinner when someone call on his telephone.\n\"Uhm hello? Who is this?\" I said.\n\"It's Giselle Brooklyn. I was just wondering when are we going to meet again?\" The lady said.\n\"Just a minute.\" I said and call dad.\n\"Dad!! Someone's looking for you!\" I said.\nHe gave me the spatula and he talk to the lady.\n\"Hi. Oh about the meet up we can set it tonight at the set and I'll also give the script.\" I heard dad said and ended the call then walked towards the kitchen counter.\n\"It is mom isn't it?\" I asked.\n\"What?\" He also asked.\n\"On the phone earlier. It is mom.\" I said waiting for his answer.\n\"Just come with me at the set. I can't leave you here.\" He said.\nI nodded and ate my food while thinking of something to do there.\n\"Look, I'm sorry for choosing that you should come with me. Are you upset?\" Dad asked.\n\"No dad. It is mom, the lady you have a meet up later and I don't think she'll like me there.\" I said trying to hold my tears.\n\"She won't be bother that you're there. And it is my set in the first place.\" He said.\n\"I'm lucky to have you dad.\" I said and smiled at him.\n\"Now give daddy a hug!\" He said and open his arms widely waiting for me to hug him.\nI stood up then walk to him and hug him. Who would have thought that this cold man will be a soft father.\nAfter we finish our, I wear my simple dress and put a light makeup then went downstairs. Dad was waiting for me as usual.\n\"Let's go then.\" I said excitingly and ran towards the car.\n\"Excited much.\" Dad said and smiled.\n\"Not that much.\" I said and go inside the car.\n\"So, are you bringing the catalog at the set?\" Dad asked.\n\"Yeah.\" I replied.\nMico's P.O.V.\nI was sitting at a bench while my mom is talking to someone. Thinking about how long I'll be here. When all of a sudden, Cal Torres and his daughter arrived. I think she saw me and she look away. A good way to avoid contact. Our parents left and we're stuck in the bench.\n\"Hi.\" I said.\nShe didn't even replied and throw a catalog to me. Then leave. I looked at the catalog it was the catalog I dropped at the waiting shed.\n\"Why do you have this?\" I asked.\n\"Cause you're clumsy.\" She replied and grabbed my arms then she ran and I forcedly ran.\nWe're now at the rooftop of the building and the moon... It is beautiful than anything.\n\"Look at the moon.\" She said and pointing her fingers exactly where the moon is.\n\"And?\" I asked.\n\"You haven't look at the moon. I've read one page and now you can look how beautiful the moon is.\" She said with a serious face.\n\"Okay. Thank you for showing me how beautiful the moon is.\" I replied and smiled.\n\"If someone's forcing you to do things remember this quote.\" She said.\n\"What quote?\" I asked.\n\"Standing up on simple things is not forbidden! It's better if you'll do something that letting it ruin your happiness.\" She said and pat my back before leaving.\n\"Why are you telling me this?\" I asked again.\nShe stopped from walking away and turned around \"To encourage you.\" She said and ran away." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Stolen Soul\n\nGenre: historical-fiction\n\nWord Count: 3001\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about a character who wakes up in their past life, or as a future reincarnation of themself." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "I sat down on the dead, wilted grass beside Alyssa. Soccer practice had just ended, and Lyss and I were waiting for my mom to pick us up. I was staring at a tree dreamily, watching the orange-red leaves gravitate.\n\n “So, what do you think? Should I do it or not?” Lyss asked. \n\nUgh. I hadn’t been listening, but I didn’t want to hurt Alyssa’s feelings.\n\n “That sounds like a great idea, Lyss! You should definitely do it”. \n\nLyss burst out laughing, and I could feel my cheeks burning red. \n\n“I knew you weren’t listening! You never do!”. She said it jokingly, but from the look on her face, I could tell she was hurt. \n“I’m sorry Lyssie.” That was a nickname I called her sometimes. “You know I get distracted easily. Anyways, what were you talking about?”. \n\nShe smiled. “I was talking about this new store at the mall, it’s called Dressorama. Everyone’s talking about it. Wanna go today? They have the cutest outfits, it’ll be fun!” I gulped. I hated shopping, and Lyss knew it. The idea of spending a Friday night looking and trying out clothes made me want to gag. \n\n“Rats! I wish I could go but I promised mom I would help her with some chores.” I was a bad liar, and Lyss knew me well enough to know when I was lying. She frowned, then mumbled “It’s fine”, and looked away. \n\nBut I knew it wasn’t fine. Lyss and I were drifting apart. We used to be close, and have sleepovers at each other's house every other week. We knew each other’s deepest secrets and had the same interests. We even used to pretend we were real sisters. Ever since my parents got divorced, it felt like her dad was mine too. \n\nThings started to change when we started our freshman year though. Lyss was one of the popular kids and had a different friend group. I knew she tried to include me as much as possible, but it just wasn’t the same. I think deep down, we both realized that our friendship was breaking, but we didn’t dare to admit it.\n\n “How about we go tomorrow, Lyssie?” I blurted out suddenly.\n\n She shrugged, and just then, my mom arrived in our black Toyota. \n\n“Sorry I’m late, girls! The traffic was horrible today”.\n Lyss and I sat next to each other.\n\n “It’s alright mom”, I said. \n\nLyss still wasn’t talking and began drawing something on the window. Mom gave me an is-something-wrong-look. I sighed. Lyss was trying to save our friendship, but I wasn’t making an effort to. I knew Lyss could’ve ditched and ignored me when she got new friends, but she didn’t. She was a loyal friend, which made me feel even more guilty. There was an awkward silence for a while, but we finally reached Alyssa’s house. I nudged her shoulder and whispered, “see you tomorrow at the mall?” She plastered a little smile and replied with “sure”, and left. As we were driving home, mom looked at me through her rearview mirror and gave me a worried look. \n\n“Is something going on between you and Alyssa, Cassidy? \n\n“No”, I lied. \n\nWhen we arrived home, I helped mom prepare dinner. Tonight we were having spaghetti and meatballs, my favorite. The warm and luscious aroma of the meatballs filled my house, almost making me drool. \n\n“Cass, I know you’ve been busy with schoolwork lately, but I think we should do something fun tonight. Do you want to see a movie after dinner? It’ll be just you and me.” \n\nI wanted to groan. I was planning to spend the night in my room, reading a book I had borrowed from the library. I was about to refuse my mom’s offer, but I knew she would be upset if I did.\n\n “Sure, mom”, I said. \n\nShe smiled from ear to ear. Unlike me, mom always smiled. We ended up watching a comedy film that made me laugh so hard that I almost choked on my soda. In the end, I was glad I went. I hadn’t had that much fun in a long time. \n\nDespite the warm weather that afternoon, it was a chilly night. The sky was overcast with dark, gloomy clouds, and the wind blew angrily from all directions. Rain bucketed down as if the sky was sobbing, and the eerie screams of the wind echoed through the field behind my house, like frightened children. Unlike most people, I enjoyed this weather. After working a bit on my history essay, I decided to get ready for bed. I opened my window and inhaled the earthy aroma. Cold droplets of rain landed on my bare skin, but I didn’t mind. Then, I heard a ding from my phone. It was a message from Lyss. \n\nSee you tmrw! Is 2:00 pm okay? \n\nI text her back immediately.\n\nthat works! :)\n\nI was still dreading tomorrow, but I felt a lot less guilty and upset now that Lyss and I were on good terms. That night, I fell asleep to the rhythm of the raindrops and the hoots of the night owls. \n\nThe peace didn’t last long though, because I woke up in the middle of the night with unbearable pain I couldn’t describe. \n\n“Mom!” I shrieked. \n\nShe didn’t hear me. I tried pulling myself out of my bed, but it only caused my body to hurt more.\n\n“MOM!”, I yelled loudly.\n\nWithin seconds, mom rushed to my room. She had dark circles under her blood-red eyes, and I immediately felt bad for calling her. “What is it honey?” she mumbled tiredly. “My..whole body. It hurts.” I gasped for air. My throat was closing up, and it felt like something was stuck in it. I felt a sudden intense, sharp pain in my muscles as if someone were stabbing me. I tried to speak, but it came out as a croak. The last thing I remember that night was mom frantically dialing 911. \n\n\n . . .\n\n\nI woke up, panicked and confused. “W-where am I”, I say out loud. There is nobody else in the outlandish bedroom. I then realized that I didn’t feel any pain. I stand up and pinch myself. Am I dreaming?\n\n “Mom?”, I whisper-scream. I look out the window and don’t recognize any of my surroundings. It then occurred to me that the bedroom I was in looked like something from the past. It was a Victorian-style bedroom with a fireplace. The bed was small but high, and the wallpaper was florally patterned. There was a wardrobe with a flamed mahogany front, and a chair upholstered in a beautiful fabric. Above the chest of drawers was a mirror. I tiptoed towards it, and upon seeing my reflection, I audibly gasped. I was wearing a pale blue dress with a tight bodice, a high neck, and a buttoned front. It looked like something straight out of the movie A Noble Intention. My hair was held at the back of my neck with a knot, and curls cascaded down my forehead. “Hello! Is anyone here?”, I yelled. But as soon as I heard my voice, I was in shock. It sounded angelic, almost like a mid-Atlantic accent. Any moment now, you’re going to wake up. This is just a nightmare. \n\n I scream at the top of my lungs one last time.\n\n “HELP!”\n\nThis time, I hear footsteps heading towards my room door. A middle-aged woman enters. She was wearing a spring-green decorative dress with ruffles, pleats, and ribbons hanging down the sides. She looked adequately similar to me, except her hair was held up high with a chignon.\n\n “Oh, Minnie! You’re alive! Why, Dr. James said you would never wake up!” Minnie? Is she talking to me?\n\n“Um, my name isn’t Minnie. It’s Cassidy. Do you know where my mom is?” I say. I begin to hyperventilate. This couldn’t be real. Maybe I’m in a coma. That's the only reasonable explanation, right? \n\n“Minnie! What has gotten into you? You must be still sick, that's what. I’ll go tell John to bring Dr. James. Now, you ought to get some rest. It’s splendid that you have finally woken up. I reckon your sisters will be delighted when they hear the news.” The woman turns to leave, but I stop her.\n\n “I’m sorry, but what is your name? And what year is it?” I ask, befuddled.\n\n “Oh, this is far more serious than I thought! Minnie, I am your mother, and the year is 1886.” \n\n1886?! That was over 100 years ago! This can’t be happening. Wake up, Cass. \n\nI pinch my arm one more time and come to a conclusion. This was not a dream.\n\n\n . . .\n\n\nDr. James arrived an hour later. He was an old man with a snow-white beard dressed in black garb. He looked shocked when he saw me. He checked my pulse and did a few other examinations. “Well, Mrs. Miller, it seems that Minnie Elizabeth is not ill. She is in excellent health,” he said firmly. Mrs. Miller looked angry and proceeded to argue with the doctor. “She asked me who I was, doctor! Certainly, there must be something very dreadful wrong with her!” Dr. James leaned back and sighed. “Mrs. Miller, I can assure you that she is in splendid health”, he said curtly, and with that, he left. \n\nI began to sob. I’ve read books and articles about people who remembered their past life, but was it really possible that I, Cassidy Jane Smith, had woken up in the life of Minnie Elizabeth Miller? My head began to spiral, and I crawled into the small bed, crying my eyes out. \n\n“Now, don’t cry dearie. You will be well in no time”, Mrs. Miller said assuringly. I fell asleep almost immediately, as the bed was surprisingly comfortable. When I woke up the next morning, I almost forgot about everything that happened. The fact that I was living in 1886 hit me hard. Is this where I’m going to live for the rest of my life? \n\nI missed mom and Lyss. I began to cry again. \n\nI suddenly came to an important realization. If I’m in Minnie’s life, does that mean Minnie is in mine? The thought horrified me. I needed to get out of here. \n\n\nI decided to do some investigating in Minnie’s room. She had an abundance of fancy dresses with puffed sleeves and draped fabrics. Additionally, she owned many boots, bonnets, and hats decorated with colorful flowers. In the chest of drawers, were her books. Some of them included Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë, Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott, and Bleak House, by Charles Dickens. Well, I guess reading was a similarity we shared. I also found a book labeled “Diary”. \n\nI touched the rough leather cover and traced the letters with my fingers. I was about to put it away, but I couldn’t resist. After all, if I was supposed to be Minnie, I needed to know all about her. I carefully opened the diary. The pages were thin and delicate. It was a little difficult to decipher Minnie’s messy cursive handwriting, but I was able to make out most of it. For the first few pages, Minnie talks about her everyday life. She wrote about her friends Ethel and Margaret, her teachers, her older sisters who were married, and even her enemies.\n\n It wasn’t until around the middle of her diary that things started to take a turn. Minnie seemed upset about her life. She rambled about how it was repetitive and talked about how she wanted adventure and excitement. On one page, however, she wrote something that astonished me:\n\n “Dear diary, do you think it would be wicked of me to want to switch lives with someone of the future?”\n\nI read it three times. Could Minnie really be capable of doing something like that? \n\nJust then, I heard footsteps heading towards my room door. I quickly stuffed the diary into the drawer. I decided that if I was going to do more investigating, I needed to act like Minnie. \n\nMrs. Miller entered the room with a warm smile on her face. “Good morning, Minnie. How are you feeling today, dear?”\n\n“Awes- I mean, splendid. Just splendid, mother.” I walked into the dining room, where there was a large walnut hand-carved table. On the table, there were strawberry preserves, fresh bread, and cheese. It smelled delicious, and I was starving. I made sure to practice proper table manners, just like how they did in those old movies. Mrs. Miller looked satisfied.\n\n “Well, I suppose you're back to normal, dearie. I was terribly afraid you wouldn’t wake up, you know. Mrs. Wilson and some of the other ladies down at Woodville said there was no hope! I daresay they’ll be shocked when they find out you’re well and sound.”\n\n After eating, I washed my dishes and went to my room to get changed. I wasn’t used to wearing large, fancy dresses, but it reminded me of when I was young and used to play dress-up with Lyss. I picked out an extravagant, pretty sky blue and white dress. It was high-necked and had puffed sleeves. The ruffles, pleats, and draped fabrics added weight to the gown, but I didn’t mind. I matched it with a pair of white half-boots and a white hat with baby blue periwinkles. I braided my hair loosely and tied it with a silky blue ribbon. I examined myself through the mirror, pleased. In Minnie’s diary, she wrote explicitly about her passion for dressing up and going to evening parties. Even though the dress was uncomfortable, I needed to replicate her so Mrs.Miller wouldn’t suspect anything. \n\nI headed over to the drawers and carefully took out the diary. I flipped towards the last few pages and began to read. Her entries became repetitive. She seemed desperate to change her life and wrote dreamily about how she longed for thrill and danger. Her diary was an outlet for her anger. On the second last page, I read about how she was willing to do anything to go on a dangerous quest. \n\nI took a deep breath and paused. A part of me felt deep sympathy for Minnie. Her life seemed like a record player on loop, and all she wanted was to have a purpose. An ambition. A meaning. \n\nI closed my eyes and flipped to the last page. \n\nDear Diary,\n\nThe time I have longed for has finally come! I have learned a secret spell, but I am waiting until mother leaves for Woodville until I perform it. The spell will supposedly take me to the future, and I will switch lives with my future self. Oh diary, I ought to have a delicious time! Just imagine all the adventure and fun I will have. But do not worry, for the spell is reversible. All I have to do is fill my shoe with a drop of my blood, spin in a circle three times, and recite:\n\n Hither and now, I am an unhappy soul. Bring me to the future. Bring me now.\n\nI know it is wicked of me to switch lives with someone, but I am desperate! \n\nYours Sincerely,\nMinnie \n\nI was speechless. So it was Minnie who was behind this after all. I felt a whirlwind of emotions. I was distraught, angry, and confused. It was selfish of Minnie to do such a thing. I was relieved that she left the spell in her diary, though. I took a deep breath. I needed to make an important decision. If I performed the spell, Minnie would be back to her normal life. She would be devastated. But, this wasn’t fair to me. I missed mom, my comfortable clothes, and Lyss. I was going to perform the spell. \n\n\nMrs. Miller had left to purchase some cotton and silk. Now was my time. I snuck into her grand room, where there was a king-sized bed, a mahogany vanity, and an extravagant wardrobe. The room was decorated with pristine ornaments and flowers, and like Minnie’s room, the walls were covered in floral wallpaper. In the corner of the room was a wooden rocking chair, and beside it, was a wad of thread and two sharp sewing needles. I took one of the needles to Minnie’s room, braced myself, and stabbed my finger with it. Blood quickly tricked down my finger. I frantically grabbed one of Minnie’s red victorian shoes, and let a drop of blood fall to the sole. \n\nI spun in a circle three times, and recited: Hither and now, I am an unhappy soul. Bring me to the future. Bring me now.\n\n . . .\n\n\n\n“Honey?! Are you awake?”\n\n“Huh? W-where am I?”, I responded. I slowly opened my eyes and found myself looking at my worried mother. Her eyes were red from crying, but as soon as she saw me, she smiled.\n\n“Cass! You’re awake!”, she exclaimed.\n\n“What happened to me, mom?”\n\n“Well, you fell and knocked your head. I’m glad you're back to normal, though. When you woke up at the hospital on Friday, you were acting so strange! None of the doctors knew what was wrong with you. I knew you and Alyssa were supposed to go to the mall, but I explained everything, so don’t worry.”\n\nI hugged my mom tightly. I knew instantly that I was acting ‘strange’, because it wasn’t me. It was Minnie.“I’m feeling a lot better now. Let’s go home.” \n\nAs soon as I came home I rushed to my room and plopped on my bed. On my bedside table, I found a note.\n\nDearest Cassidy, \n If you ever find yourself reading this note, please understand that I made a grave mistake. I despise it here. I miss my dresses, books, and most importantly, mother. Yet, I forgot how to perform the spell! I suppose living here will be my punishment unless the spell is somehow reversed.\n\nYours,\nMinnie" } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Karate Kid\n\nGenre: high-school\n\nWord Count: 1038\n\nPrompt:\n\nStart your story with a stern librarian scolding two characters for making noise in the library." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "The fragile wood of the table enveloped the lazy yet muscular young arms. It doesn't seem like a nerd who spends hours in his own house called the \"Library\". Likewise with the clothes, the upper part of the sweater on the left side of the chest is bearing the letter \"C\" in light brown capital, the shoulders are brick red, the sleeves are white, and the training pants. What a young woman's dream jock. Her hair is curly but regularly blonde. The book he read was very thick, contrary to his appearance. Her feet are tucked tightly into the bottom of the table. Not to make it look neat, but so that it doesn't look like the right leg is lifted horizontally to offend the left leg. The dull paper of centuries he held very tightly as if it was a gift from his ancestors who were still one lineage. I don't know what he was thinking. Next to him was a friend who was the opposite of him. Starting from his appearance, his seriousness in reading books, as well as the way he sat stiffly beside his mind that was imagining about a collection of black letters which to him looks like a collection of fun movie clips. Jock was named John. He is very uncomfortable with the existence of kid who are opposite to him. Pointing his hand toward the skinny man's collar right in the middle of his white collar he said, \"Can you get out of here, Ted?\" Ted, who didn't feel defeated, grabbed John's long veined arm without fear and replied, \"Is this your place?\" John, who has an ingrained oppressive soul, immediately hit Ted, right in the nose. Although physically John is superior, but for reflex matters, Ted has very observant eyesight that far exceeds John's movements, which are the average adult male. Immediately Ted demonstrated his martial arts skills, namely the thousand-step stance which was nothing but the direction of the librarian sitting on the side chair. A middle-aged man with split mustache, hair neatly combed towards the lower left. His eyesight is sharp, wearing a narrow shirt with a gray tie that chokes his long neck. \"Please sir, my friend was planning to hit me.\" The man named Mr. Herdick. It is not uncommon for John's friends to wonder that the two syllables in the name of the murderous librarian are separated. They laughed out loud. Without realizing it, at the age of 60 years, the supernatural abilities that are generally owned by infants to toddlers around 5 years old, reappear in their old age. Indeed, most parents at that age have several behaviors that have been experienced when they are children and slowly fade away from adolescence to adulthood, but they reappear in old age, such as being irritable, happy to watch children's cartoon shows, difficult to process speak into a series of precise and easy to understand sentences. Actually Mr. Herdick had realized this from the beginning, right for a moment they entered the library together by coincidence with a drastically different purpose. John wanted to find a girl to talk to and hang out with, while Ted wanted to satisfy his thoughts on how to make friends despite his lack of nervous talk. Not infrequently he was bullied by a group of popular girls at his school. I do not know where his pride will be placed. Mr. Herdick immediately stood tall like a ceremonial commander, thrust his arms forward parallel to his direction, then said, \"Come with me!\" John was satisfied. There was a big cheeky smile on his chubby cheeks. Apparently Mr. Herdick led Ted to the school warehouse. Pak Herdick is a retired military officer who works as a Marine Corps of the Navy. He was fired at the age of 50 because he accidentally fired a cannon into the sea which caused a huge explosion under the sea. At the camp, he was taught mixed martial arts, dominating the Tang Soo Doo style of karate. In Ted, he is taught several techniques that really function to beat enemies effectively and efficiently, not relying on perfect techniques with a pleasing style. Thanks to his extraordinary abilities, he can teach his knowledge with a very unique method that suits Ted's lack of muscle memory. Mr. Herdick immediately told Ted to get a rag complete with a small light blue bucket. He told Ted to wipe the clean floor with a rag. Ted, who was confused, just obeyed the librarian's orders, who was both angry and quiet. Ted's wrist was held tightly by the librarian's very rough hand, it felt as if his hands were twisted. Mr. Herdick shows how to wipe it in a full circle motion. By pretending to be a professor he said, \"Wax on\", “Wax off”.\nMr. Herdick shuffled Ted's sluggish wrist, twiddled it, lifting him up and down vertically. Straight, smooth, more dance-like than martial arts. He trained Ted for 3 hours without stopping, John fell asleep in the library while leaning his left ear towards the thick book he was reading. Three hours passed, Ted returned to the library. John hasn't woken up. Mr. Herdick immediately told Ted to take this opportunity to knock out John. First, Ted dragged Johnn's heavy body slowly into the hall, which was only about 3 meters from the library. He put it on the stage covered with the magnificent red tira. John's friends, named Tommy, Jerry, and Seth saw that this was not accepted. The three of them followed Ted from a distance. Mr. Herdick put full trust in Ted who had just learned through his extreme methods, not a single martial arts gym practiced that way. On the left side of the stage there seems to be a door to the history class which is also empty, because it was already school time. Ted kicked John's body down the classroom, then kicked him awake. After waking up, John went berserk. However, his body was already bruised from the kicks from Ted, so he fell back. Ted noticed the sound of John's friends' footprints, so he immediately ran away and returned home, leaving John who was seriously injured with black circles around his eyes." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Throw An Apple At It\n\nGenre: historical-fiction\n\nWord Count: 1214\n\nPrompt:\n\nRepeat the same line of dialogue, from the same character, three separate times." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "“If you see something green, throw an apple at it!” My grandmother shouted out of the blue and it scared the crap out of me. I was maybe eight at the time, and I genuinely had no idea what she was talking about, but she said it with such seriousness that I was afraid to crack a smile at the insanity of her words. \n“What?” My confusion eventually overwhelmed me and I simply had to ask. \n“Didn’t your mama ever teach you it’s not polite to stare?” She tisked at me. “I sure know I taught her that lesson.” \nI loved my grandmother. She was a bit of a kook at times, but she had a great sense of humor and a secret zest for life most people knew nothing about. \n“Yes, Ma’am,” I replied respectfully. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to stare at you.” \n“What were you looking at anyhow?”\n“I was just thinking about how tall you were and I hope I grow up to be just like you,” I smiled at her. The expression on her face changed to one of bemusement. \n“I don’t know that I ever did grow up, Honey.” She chuckled a bit, patted my knee and smiled. It was remarkable that a woman in her early 70’s could appear so young when she smiled, showing off every single one of her own teeth. We trundled down the road in her old car, the radio playing so softly I could still hear the gravel of the long private drive crunch beneath the tires. \nShe still had that same car ten years later, but the drive had been exchanged for a paved road in a small town. My grandfather had passed away several years before, but my grandmother was still a live wire. I was legally considered an adult by then, but we were both just kids at heart. I knew we would always be that way, my grandmother and I. She was my best friend and I adored her. \nBy the time we reached the store, we’d touched on about eight different interesting subjects for random future conversations, but not digging deep into any of them. She let slip that she’d been engaged to be married before she met my grandfather, and I knew I needed to get more of that story out of her as soon as I was able. It was a delicate matter that I’d need to ease my way into slowly, though. \n“Grandma, do you think I’m like you at all?” \n“Oh dear me. More than you realize,” she grinned. Her aging eyes sparkled with that hint of a secret life once more. She was so mysterious, but her secrets were locked away in her heart, possibly to never be exposed. \n“How so?” \n“You and I are cut from the same cloth. You got your secrets and I got mine. And I think you know well enough to not pry into other people’s business.” Her glance met me and she winked swiftly. I knew better than to pry, no matter how badly I wanted to know about her first boyfriend. “His name was Arthur, he was a pilot” she admitted. “That’s all I’ll say about it today.” Swift as a woman of half her age, she got out of the car and closed the door. \nI jumped out of the car and ran around to catch up to her. I had a million questions, but I couldn’t figure out where to start. She had said that was all she’d say about it, but how could I coax her into telling me more about the mysterious Arthur? My grandmother spoon fed me a cliff hanger and just walked away like that! I walked beside her, occasionally glancing up at her and pondering what I could say or ask that wouldn’t be a direct question but still lead her to give me more information on her mysterious past. I kept falling short in my attempts. \n“Hey, Manda,” she prompted me at a low whisper. My heart raced. Was she about to tell me something I was dying to know?\n“Yes, Grandma?” I asked in a low whisper to match.\n“If you see something green,” she paused, glancing down at me, “throw an apple at it.” \n“But I don’t have an apple,” I joked back at her. I’d been waiting ten years to use that childish retort, but it fell somewhat flat. She kept right on strolling through the store. “So what does it mean,” I asked her. I didn’t understand the saying and I knew I probably never would. \n“What does what mean?” Grandma grinned, knowing that she was teasing my curiosity mercilessly. \n“If you see something green?” \n“Well, Dear, you’re staring so hard at me I have to wonder if I have a boogie hanging out of my nose.” She winked, patted me on the shoulder, and kept right on going. \n“So you want me to throw an apple at your face if you have a booger?” I was thoroughly confused by her sometimes. \n“Well,” she shrugged, looking down at me. I never did grow up to match her frame. She was nearly six feet tall and even at her age, she looked as though she had been a remarkably beautiful woman in her youth. “Do I have a boogie,” she asked me.\n“No, Ma’am.” \n“Then, no, don’t throw any apples at my face.” She chucked in her usual way and we continued on with our shopping.\nAnother ten years passed before I got the letter that day. She’d passed away and I was heartbroken. She was my best friend. But she’d made provisions before she passed away. She made sure that the letter would be sent to me on the day of her death. I loved her dearly. As much as I wanted to be like her, I knew I’d only ever stand in her remarkably tall and powerful shadow. But her letter somehow delivered a sense of comfort. I still take it out and read it now and again. \n“If you see something green,” it starts, “throw an apple at it. I love you, Manda. Don’t ever forget that, and stop trying to be like me. Just be like you.”\n“His name was Arthur,” she continued. “He was brave and strong and kind. And he was a bit of a kook if you ask me. But I loved him dearly too. We didn’t get married and you’ll receive a box in the next few days that will tell you the whole story. The road we left behind was filled with adventure and love and excitement. I hope you do something special with it. Maybe you can turn it into one of those books you love to write someday.” \nI reached over to the coffee table and picked up one of the fake apples in the wooden bowl, tucked her letter back under it, and smiled. My grandmother, the wing walking, high flying, Arthur loving, adventure having, crazy kook of a lady she was would be thrilled to know that I’d done exactly what she had figured I’d do someday. I finally wrote her story, “The Road We Left Behind,” and planned to deliver the first copy to her mausoleum later on that afternoon." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Risk\n\nGenre: high-school\n\nWord Count: 2143\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about a character stumbling upon a library book that changes the course of their life, for better or worse." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Risk\nBored bored bored. Martin was sick to death of his room. Why on earth had he picked that puke-green shade of paint? His parents had warned him he’d get tired of it – but even they could not have foreseen a time when he’d be spending fourteen hours a day in here. Every waking moment, apart from the one hour of exercise that they insisted he take outside. And meals, of course.\nMeals were a bit of a problem. Not that he wasn’t hungry; it was just that mealtimes involved sitting across the table from his dad and watching him not eat. He got it that his dad was worried about his gran, but what good would it do to starve himself? Martin felt a bit badly, though, asking for seconds. Made him look like a heartless pig.\nFunny how hungry he was. There wasn’t much you could do in an hour of exercise – especially since his parents refused to let him join the game of footy that he knew his friends were having most days on the field -- so it wasn’t that. Must be the boredom. \nMartin went downstairs for a snack. It was something to do.\nHis dad was at the kitchen computer, pretending to work. He was a chef in a local restaurant, being paid most of his wage to stay home and ‘develop new menus’. Well, it kept him busy for maybe a quarter of every day. The rest of the time he spent ringing his mum, reading up about Covid, and worrying. He was growing visibly thinner.\n‘How’s Gran?’ Martin forced himself to ask.\nHis dad shook his head. ‘I didn’t like the sound of her breathing when I rang her just now.’\nMartin began to pay attention. ‘You mean she’s getting worse?’ \nHis dad’s mouth opened and shut again. By some marital magic that Martin had never quite understood, his mother appeared at that moment in the kitchen doorway.\n‘Perhaps a little,’ she said calmly, ‘but this disease has a certain trajectory. It gets worse before it gets better.’\nTrajectories. That was his mum all over, thought Martin. If there was a graph or a number involved, everything was manageable. Well, in her job that was probably true. Martin’s most fervent desire for his own future was not to follow his mother into accountancy.\nBack in his room with his sandwich, Martin logged on and checked his assignments. Damn it – three more tasks! What was with these teachers, anyway? You’d think they’d be glad of the break, and instead here they were loading themselves down with marking – if, that is, anybody bothered to do the work. He knew for a fact that neither Harry nor Ethan had turned in a single thing since Lockdown began four weeks ago. Maybe they didn’t have a mum who checked several times a week. Martin sighed, and opened his English task.\nRight – this looked easy. All he had to do was join the online library, and produce a borrower number as evidence. Oh, and borrow an ebook. Nobody said he actually had to READ it. \nMartin scrolled idly through the catalogue, looking for a book that might not send him to sleep should he happen to crack it open. Something on gaming, maybe? \nThe search brought up more than gaming. What was this? Gambling: A Study in Risk. Now that looked intriguing. Martin was quite interested in risk, although he’d never told his mother. He got his ability with numbers from her, but his interest in risk must have come from somewhere else. Maybe from his Gran, who had ‘had her fling’, she’d told him with a twinkle in her eye, before she’d met his sober grandfather and settled down. Martin vaguely remembered that worthy man, and was glad that Gran had had some fun before marrying him.\n‘My real heart-throb was Harold,’ she’d told Martin once as they made fudge in her kitchen. ‘Oh, he was such fun! Crazy, but fun. Used to gamble on the horses, he did. Promised me a diamond necklace if he ever had a big win.’ \n‘Did you ever get the necklace?’ Martin had asked curiously.\nHis Gran had laughed. ‘Fat chance! But we danced until dawn, many a time…’ Her voice had trailed off into memory.\nAnd now she was lying in bed ill, and her dancing feet were still. On impulse, Martin clicked on the book and downloaded it. Might be interesting to figure out why her Harold had never had any luck on the horses.\nMartin borrowed another book as well – with a title that wouldn’t startle his English teacher into reporting him as a Safeguarding concern.\nThe whole subject was fascinating. It was no wonder people lost, the way some of them gambled. Picking a horse for its name, for God’s sake. You had to be scientific about these things. \nHis mother put her head round the door. ‘Still up? It’s nearly midnight!’\n‘Just doing my English homework,’ said Martin.\nHis mother eyed him. ‘Lights out,’ she said, and Martin decided not to argue.\nAt breakfast the next morning, his father ate nothing at all. His mother was unusually gentle, not even remarking on the perils of coffee on an empty stomach.\n‘Your Gran called the ambulance last night,’ she explained to Martin. ‘She – she was struggling to breathe… The hospital’s just rung.’\nHis father got up abruptly and left the table. Martin could feel the blood draining from his face.\n‘I thought – I mean, people have been saying it’s just like the flu –’ He stopped. He remembered his father’s obsessive internet surfing, and realised that he had not been paying attention. \n‘Can we go see her?’\nHis mother shook her head. ‘Martin, have you spent the whole of the last month under a rock? Haven’t you heard about Covid restrictions in hospitals?’\nMartin stared at her in horror. ‘Are you saying even Dad can’t go? But – she’s his mum!’\n‘Not unless – not until –’ His mother stopped, and covered her mouth with her hand.\nMartin pushed his chair back and ran, leaving his breakfast unfinished on the table.\nBack in his room, he tried to make his smarting eyes focus on the book. At first the words swam and danced – and then suddenly, they snapped into focus.\nWhy shouldn’t he try it? If he won, he could use the money …how? His parents would wonder where he’d got it. He’d need to spend it on something they’d never know about.\nIt came to him like a burst of light. He would buy his Gran her diamond necklace.\nMartin started small-- just amounts that he could bear to part with. He followed the advice in the book, although with actual sports cancelled you had to proceed a little differently. He surfed madly for tips. He submitted no schoolwork at all.\nHis first few bets yielded a modest return; he only lost once. He was good at this! He had his mother’s skill with numbers plus his Gran’s flair for risk. He was a combination of winning factors.\n He saw Gran a couple of times on Facetime, but to be honest it was a bit grim. They were trying to keep her off ventilation, which Dad said was a good thing. Too many people who went on ventilators died. But the little oxygen tubes that were helping her breathe didn’t seem to be doing much good, and she couldn’t say much without gasping for air.\n ‘Don’t you give up, now, Ethel!’ said her mother fiercely, and his Gran had smiled weakly and promised to go on fighting.\n Martin went upstairs soberly. His Gran needed a reason to keep on living – something that would give her a lift. Surely a diamond necklace would do the trick – but his winnings, gratifying though they were, were building up very slowly. He’d googled the cost of diamond necklaces, and while he had no idea how much the long-vanished Harold would have been willing to spend, he could see that in order to buy anything more than the tiniest pendant he would need a much bigger win. That would need a bigger stake – more than he had in his account. And time was running out; he could hear that in his grandmother’s laboured breathing.\n Well, there was a way. He’d proven he was good at this. So he would take the money from his Gran’s account, which was lying unused at the moment. He knew her access details; he’d overheard his dad talking her through transactions dozens of times. And as soon as he’d bought the necklace, he’d replace the money. Simple.\n Martin logged into his grandmother’s account, chose his virtual horse carefully, and made a substantial bet. \n The next six and a half minutes were the longest of Martin’s life. He wondered if a person’s heart could actually take this much exercise without coming to harm. He could smell his own sweat. And then -- the feeling as his horse pulled away from the rest of the field, the rush of elation as it crossed the finish line first -- Why would anybody do drugs? Why didn’t everybody just bet? There was no rush like it. And there were his winnings, nicely tucked away in Gran’s account.\n That was Sunday. The next day, Martin bet on another race. He bet on two races on Tuesday, and three on Wednesday. He never staked his whole winnings – which was just as well, because he lost one of Wednesday’s races. But his lucky streak remained, largely, unbroken. Or his skill, as Martin preferred to think.\n On Thursday, Martin placed the order for the necklace.\n It was a collar-type necklace – more expensive than a pendant, but more suitable, Martin felt, for a grandmother. He gave the shop his grandmother’s hospital and ward number, and added a card – for an extra £4.00 – saying simply, ‘From an admirer’. That should give his Gran a new lease on life!\n And now the need for money was over – but he still had to replace the original stake. Martin played more races. And more. He wasn’t winning all the time now. He refused to come out for any more daily walks with his mother. He had to repay that money….\n On Sunday morning, his dad was woken by a call from the hospital. He should come in now, right away. Martin’s mother steered his dad to the car and drove him off, calling out to Martin that they’d ring him. Then Martin was alone.\n He’d not quite believed it – not really. Not even after seeing her with those oxygen tubes. Not his Gran. She was too – too alive, too full of fun. She should be making fudge and dancing until dawn, not gasping out her last breath in some hospital ward.\n Martin knew it didn’t matter now, but he wished he could be sure she’d got the necklace.\n ‘She knew me,’ his father said, gripping Martin’s hand tightly. ‘She kept trying to talk. I think she knew she was going … She said your name, a couple of times.’\n There was a lump the size of a racing saddle in Martin’s throat. Speech was impossible. \n His father took a shaky breath. ‘After she was …gone,’ he said, ‘the nurse gave me her things. And you’ll never, never guess what was in them.’ He looked over expectantly at his wife and son. Neither of them – for differing reasons – made any attempt to guess.\n ‘This!’ said his father, producing an elegant box like a rabbit from a hat. He opened it reverently, and there, nestling on blue velvet, was the diamond necklace. ‘See the note? ‘From an admirer’! Imagine that! The nurse said she was chuffed to bits when she opened it – wore it for most of the next day.’\n ‘But who on earth could have sent it?’ asked his mother.\n Martin said nothing. He was seeing a picture of his Gran, propped up in her hospital bed and smiling, with a diamond necklace around her neck and a flood of memories inside her head. \n His father sighed. ‘I suppose I’d better get onto all the business side of things,’ he said. ‘Registering her death, stopping her account – all that weary palaver.’\n Martin’s heart stood still. He excused himself in a whisper and went up to his room. He sat at his computer and took a deep breath.\n The picture of his Gran rose before him. Smiling, on her last day on earth, because someone had given her – at last – her diamond necklace. He did not regret a thing. But now –\n Martin switched on the computer and began, with grim desperation, to try to cover his tracks." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: You Have To Be Cruel To Be Kind\n\nGenre: high-school\n\nWord Count: 1891\n\nPrompt:\n\nStart your story with a stern librarian scolding two characters for making noise in the library." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Charlotte ate green peppers all day long. Both Joy and Greta stared and openly groaned at her in disgust. There she went again in the cafeteria, treating the joy of the spiciest food in the world like it was an ice cream sundae that had come to life. On days like these, Joy Conwell could literally groan out loud. If she didn't want to flunk AP Calculus, she had to get her sorry ass to the library as fast she should say Taco Tuesday. It was definitely more entertaining than someone whose idea of fun was eating a horrible vegetable.\nBoth of them couldn't wait until they could leave the cafeteria to go to the library. At least it was better than seeing unentertaining students feed their selves.\nWho even wanted to take Calculus? She had better things to do than study a useless subject that wasn’t worth learning about. The thing about Joy was that she didn’t believe in sucking up to others; it was more fun to tear them down instead. Another wise woman in her orbit was none other than Greta Beth Wilford. Her hacker name was “Indigo” back in the day. Joy went by her own nickname: Vanity. With those two names in sync, both girls created the rock band, Indigo and Vanity.\nUsually, the two devious comrades were always able to cause havoc and create fear in the incompetent souls of others. There was nothing that could tear these two feisty ladies down. High school would be brought down to ashes, just like the rest of this burning rock. Word around Justice High School was the fact that a small but stern librarian ruled the library with an iron fist. She once made three juniors cry so badly for making noise that they didn’t stay around to attend their senior homecoming.\nHow could anyone justify treating children like this? Joy couldn’t take it any longer. If she couldn’t pass her Calculus course, she and Beth might as well make some noise to enjoy.\nThe Lucy J. Beauvoir High School Library had been found in 1908 by some old French fart named Jacques Beauvoir. Honestly, Greta didn’t know the name of the founder herself. She braced herself for seeing the face of Abigail Harper, who was known around her campus as “The Nagging Hag.” It wasn’t even an exaggeration. Abigail had been born in Tennessee, then she moved to Lansing, Michigan when she was twenty-three years old. Now at twenty-eight years old, she had the face of a forty-five year old woman, overweight, not caring one iota about her physical appearance. Dark circles under her eyes remained permanent with no concealer to get rid of them.\nAnother year, another long agony of entitled preppy adolescents not respecting the library. The sardonic tone that captured Abigail’s disdain for children still remained on her mind as she walked towards the Lucy J. Wells Public Library. While its mahogany doors didn’t lose any of the magic, she was able to make sure that everything would remain in tip top shape. Just because she didn’t have a backbone didn’t mean that the whole entire staff had to struggle in this unappreciated institution. Sadly, she was also aware of Joy and her dictatorial ways. Abigail could even recall that fateful conversation that the two young women had when the school year of 2019 started. She was able to manipulate Abigail into giving her a B instead of a D for Intermediate Art. Abigail caught onto it though. Coincidentally, Joy, the cunning former student from art class thought the advice Joy was giving her became so divine in her mind that she wrote it down in her barely filled scarlet diary on March 24th, 2019.\n“You could make a living doing that kind of thing.” I suppose I could, but I had never thought about it, until then.\nPerhaps that was the day that evil had entered her bones. Maybe it had always been deep inside of her soul. If evil messes up everyone’s perky lives, why not join the side of the villains? No one could save Joy Conwell but herself. Besides, she would be King, or in her case, Queen of the Heap.\nThe clock above the bookcases was about to ring. At 12:30 p.m., Joy and Greta were about to wreak havoc on the library. The first step was so juvenile, yet so worth it. Both of them ran down the different aisles of the books. Greta ended up in the category of Young Adults; Joy was in the category of Sci-Fi Fantasy. Joy shot her fingers up and went one, two, three, and both girls slammed the books down yelling, “Freedom!”\nThud!\nAbigail was aghast. She could expect childish behavior from seven-year-olds, but a couple of teenage girls? That was unacceptable. To think that she thought her former colleague Tom was a man who used to be very immature. What was she saying? He is still immature to this day. Both ladies smirked as she shook her head at herself.\n“Why can’t the two of you just grow up?” She didn’t bother putting her finger up towards her prune lips.\nTom lost 25 bucks at the races. He was an old acquaintance back from Boston University when they were both aspiring English majors. The horseracing tournament was an intense one. Despite being in their early 20s, they had already known the thrill of a horse winning a race. Abigail still had that competitive streak in her as well. Most people would find it perfectly insane that a woman would compare herself to a horse, but she felt elegant when she did. Gambling on the other hand was something that Abigail had never participated in. Thanks to Tom’s insistent whining, he bet her that if he won 25 bucks, he would see her groan in agony as she dealt with entitled teenagers. However, if he lost, he needed to become a stripper at Tonya’s Strip Club on Reagan Boulevard. Even though it felt good to see Tom embarrass himself on stage, that didn’t get her out of being a librarian. Budget cuts were bad enough. So she couldn’t risk her job for that.\nAnother arsenal up her sleeve was the woman in 3B. It was originally an abandoned room that allowed high schoolers to get in all sorts of mischief. When the library was forbidden from rebellious pranks, the woman in 3B could put an end to it all. To make matters worse, Joy and Greta had never gotten in trouble a day in their lives. Joy’s father, Wren Conwell, used to own a lot of stocks in the Wall Street market. When the Wall Street crash of 1987 occurred, he lost most of them, but one was still kicking. The woman in 3B took a long drink of her red wind and said, “He was skating on thin ice—that’s all I can say.”\nThin ice? What did that even mean?\nThud!\nShe turned around to see a lamp on the ground. Abigail couldn’t handle it anymore. She still couldn’t trust the woman in 3B. Was she a friend or a foe?\n“Well, Ms. Harper, I can see that we will enjoy making your life a living hell.”\nShe was trying her best to not cry in front of the ladies. The last thing she wanted was her supervisor giving her grief for not giving these girls any consequences.\nHer lips trembled as she spoke. “If you girls don’t leave this library right now, I’ll go…”\nGreta slammed her hand on the right side of the wall. “You’ll go where? Back to that godawful Michigan farm where the closest thing you had to luxury was a farmer’s overalls? My friend has a wealthy father than can fire you right on the spot.”\nJoy Conwell straightened her natural fro out, her makeup immaculate as always. As she walked slowly towards Abigail, her eyes had a snide appearance about them. Her Louboutin heels would always remain spotless as well.\nShe leaned close towards Abigail. “She’s right, Harper. You can’t chase us down. We’re like the demonic girls from Carrie, but a hell of a lot scarier.”\nTears finally fell from her face. The redness in her cheeks didn’t help matters either. She always turned red whenever she was overwhelmed by unnecessary conflict.\nNighttime had come over. The woman in 3B had never contacted her throughout the day. No one had even known about her incident in the library. No matter how hard she tried, no ounce of authority roared through her. Turning on the television, Abigail planned to wash this horrible day off of her.\n“We’re coming to you live from Beauvoir High School, where two teenage girls had been reprimanded by a librarian. Twenty-eight year old Abigail Harper has been employed at the local high school library for roughly three years. Despite the fact that she wasn’t an experienced librarian, seventeen-year olds Greta Wilford and Joy Conwell…”\nBitchy Conwell, you mean. Abigail exhaled loudly towards herself. Who gets this wound up over a child? How were these girls even able to get onto the news? Her head was completely spinning. She saw the newscaster, Mark Frederick, with a concerned look on his face.\n“She was so cruel….we just wanted to read books in her library. I even wanted to point out that tear in her dress, but she was already having a hard day, and I didn’t want her to feel even more embarrassed.”\nAbigail’s eyes were still entranced by the television. Greta hugged her with a compassionate smile, even though all she saw was venom. One thing still confused her though: When did she have a tear in her dress?\nShe went over to her bathroom mirror. Nothing was torn on top, so Abigail decided to look downwards. She walked over towards her bed, and hiked up her skirt. Lo and behold, a single tear of her red dress was scene. It was even a small tear, it was a tear large enough to see her underwear. She freaked out. How long was I out in public like this? Did anyone else see? They must have cut me when they were violating my personal space!\nAbigail took everything to not scream at the top of her lungs. The girls, the news story they were able to manipulate within their own twisted narrative…it was too much. She screamed in a guttural tone, never wanting to let go of her rage. The final tear in the dress was officially her breaking point. A tear in her favorite dress from her deceased husband, Wilfred Torrington III, was clearly a step too far. . As quickly as the tears came, they stopped. She rose up from the floor, splashed water on her face, and went to her desk. On top of her desk was a ripe apple. The apple was succulent enough to taste. It wasn't much of a task, but it would maintain Abigail's sanity against her vengeance against the two spoiled brats who dared to damage her family name. Afterwards, she was able to put on some red lipstick from Revlon in front of the bathroom mirror to feel confident again. These girls wanted war? Fine. They got a bloody battle ahead of them. Nothing would tear Abigail Harper's spirit ever again." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: A rose by any other name (would it smell as sweet?)\n\nGenre: high-school\n\nWord Count: 1730\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about a character stumbling upon a library book that changes the course of their life, for better or worse." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, business, events and incidents are the products of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.\n\n\n\nLiezel Magno-Tan takes much pride to her family surname. The Magnos are well-known political dynasty that primarily resides in the suburban Marikina City nestled in between more prominent metropolitan cities in the Philippines. Combined with her father’s corporate empire that continues to be a giant in the tech business, Liezel lives a very comfortable life. The Magnos has managed to hold several political positions as well as establishing and managing a now historic string of banks that has led to their affluent lifestyle. Her mother marrying very well was another brick that cemented their family’s prestige. They live in Marikina even though they travel around the region in their shiny Mercedes-Benz and Rolls-Royce that are carefully air-conditioned to protect the passengers from the hot and sticky city air because of their ancestral roots in the city.\n\nBetween the family, there's been one previous president, a couple of senators and a few slightly distant cousins who are congressmen thrown in the mix; there are also well-known artists wearing their name like a fashionable designer bag they carelessly hang around their elbows. The connections her family has are limitless, they have friends all over the world. Her older sister even spent a year in Sweden with almost zero trouble with the DFA because of a good word with the Wallenberg family whom are fond of their mother.\n\nLiezel is not unfamiliar with the reverent stares she gets in the international school she goes to; the subtle superiority she holds. No one quite reaches her level, and she is accustomed to this treatment. In fact, she rather enjoys it. Nothing compares to the feeling that nothing she does will get reprimanded but instead is showered with praise; that every mistake she makes can all be erased in the school record. She knows she is envied among her peers, but mostly, she keeps her distance. She couldn’t stand most people and their lies to get close to her. She values honesty and integrity, two values that their family stands for: Ante omnia vero. Truth before all else. \n\nThere is comfort in knowing that her family name is a safety net that even when she trips and falls, she has something to land on. Her mother and father are relentless in providing her a good education and ensuring that she enjoys the privilege they have to the full extent. With school however comes annoying and boorish assignments such as a detailed report of their family history. Despite having this information publicly known, her teacher has insisted her to research her family tree, which she found incredibly irksome.\n\nWith her school uniform on and her family name in tow, she walks up to the Marikina City Library to check the public record of her family registry to complete her assignment. She didn’t want to go to these lengths for some boring schoolwork, but her teacher specified a ban on internet use to encourage either talking to relatives or research for written documents. Liezel certainly didn’t want to talk to her grandparents, because after recent events they were currently out of the country-living in Singapore, her mother and father-in Shanghai on business. Her mother’s probably in a spa, relaxing. Her sister was nowhere to be found in the house and her only piece of advice when she texted her was to head to the library.\n\nTo be frank, she wasn’t completely oblivious to her family tree. Her great-great whatever of a grandfather was a haciendero, the landlord who owned most of the land in the city and whose position was bequeathed by the Spanish crown. He was the first city’s gobernadorcillo, the town’s first mayor. No other prominent family can claim this title. A Magno’s signature can even be found in the Malolos Constitution, the first time the Republic of the Philippines was established; her family succeeded in integrating themselves to importance and the rest is history. Wikipedia has extensive sources online to corroborate her family tree, but to the library she grudgingly went.\n\nIt was late afternoon and the library was only open until four in the afternoon, but when she climbed the steps leading to the library’s glass doors, the security guard wordlessly opened the door while wishing her a good afternoon. The bright fluorescent lights in the library immediately assaulted her eyes and as she blinked owlishly to adjust, she stepped toward the information desk where a young woman wearing a green sweater was seated and typing in the computer. “Hi, I’m Ms. Martinez, one of the city librarians. How can I help you?” She looked up and blinked twice, recognizing immediately Liezel by the many publicity photos released every year and that her family has a hall named after them in the library, complete with a family photo. “Ms. Magno! What a wonderful surprise! Are you here to discuss this year’s charity ball for the library?”\n\nEvery year the Magno family hold numerous events to keep up with donations and to remind people who exactly funds their new sports equipment, classrooms, scholarships, laboratories, and even clinics; the library is part of this as well. Liezel didn’t care about any of it, she finds it tedious but still necessary in flaunting her family's importance. “Not exactly. I’m sure someone will get in touch with your office soon, but that isn’t what I came for. Will you direct me towards my family registry?” Liezel asked, looking at the librarian and inwardly judging her unkept hair. She kept a passive face but the judgement was clear in her eyes. It isn’t that hard to comb hair, is it?\n\n“Of course! Please follow me, miss,” she clambers ungracefully off her seat and began to walk towards the elevator, her heels clicking on the tiled floor. “You’re lucky the elevator works today, most of the time we use the stairs,” she jokingly said. Liezel gave a sound of interest but didn’t reply. She wants this done five minutes ago. They enter the elevator and there’s the usual music that fill the pneumatic void between the two. It’s Valerie, which Liesel finds tolerable but now listening to it, she finds grating.\n\n By the time she’s advising her to get a good lawyer, they arrive on the fifth floor which is thankfully air-conditioned. “Here we are! Now I know the book your looking for is 097 in the Dewey Decimal System, but let’s type it in the archive to get the complete listing,” she walks toward a similar information desk with the same beat up computer and types. Liezel waits on the other side, side-eying the clock that reads its quarter to six in the evening. She gets a pen and writes down the numbers on a neon pink Post-it and says, “If you need me, I’m sitting right here.”\n\nLiezel takes it without speaking to her and walks towards the shelves and shelves of books, helpfully labelled at the sides. Thankfully, her teacher reviewed the Dewey Decimal classification to them which meant she was at the right shelf immediately. The book was right in front of her and was relatively new, which was normal considering that the book was republished a year ago. The sanitized version of her family’s history is public and was mostly used for research. Of course, it would’ve been more legitimate to use the original family registry but that was off-limits to the public, even Liezel. It was kept in the House of Representatives alongside several primary documents.\n\nAs she reached for the book, her eyes glanced upon the Complete Collection of Influential Families in the Philippines which was right beside it. This book was an anthropology of many more families like Liezel’s, but opening and turning to the table of contents made it clear that the Magno section was clearly the thickest. The book’s author was a historian who investigated similar political dynasties in the country and was only able to print a few copies before families sued him for libel and slander. The book was never to publish again, with the cases piling up against the author and their publishing house. Liezel has never seen this book before and only has heard of it through eavesdropping on conversations. It was probably surprising that the library even had a copy, but it still looked brand new. She had every intention of turning it over to the librarian for its immediate removal when she decided to take a peek.\n\nShe grabs it and quickly hides between the shelves. It’s probably against library rules to take pictures, but Liesel was not in the mood to stick to the rules. She was curious why her mother didn’t want her to read this and she wanted to know why her grandmother gave her a quick reply of not nosing into adults’ business when she asked her what was going on. She couldn’t connect to the internet and she didn’t have her phone or laptop. For two days she was just existing in her house without even knowing why its banned and how it turned their entire household upside down. She scans the sections, reading quickly and determining which facts were necessary in finding the truth. She was done double checking and was closing the controversial book when a certain footnote stops her harried movements. After a couple of minutes staring down at the page, she did not hesitate to tear off the end of the page with the searing footnote. She crumples it and takes the book she came for as well as the one she was holding. Both were medium sized books, but for some reason the paper she stuck in her pocket was heavier than both of them combined. She walks toward the librarian to loan the books.\n\nThe Magnos have been contested many times as the town’s founders. While it is undisputable that Francisco Magno was the first gobernadorcillo of Marikina, there is one primary document dated prior to Magno’s ascension to power by another name. This name remains anonymous as the document was considered false by the government at the time of its discovery which curiously enough was during President Alfonso Magno’s term. The document was not disclosed to the public." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Till then...\n\nGenre: high-school\n\nWord Count: 1073\n\nPrompt:\n\nSet your story in a library, after hours." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "No one knew I came here. Sneaking out from house wasn't a problem, well as long as going out through the main door could be called 'sneaking out'. The home was supposed to be a place where you feel like you belonged. In the spiritual sense at least. And I was never home at my house. One thing I was waiting for was to break out of my house, live somewhere away from anyone who knew me, someplace where I could carve out my own niche.\nNo, my parents were perfectly happy and in love with each other. The kind of love where you feel incomplete without the other. The kind of love that I knew, I would never get. They loved me. So much...so much more than normal. They wanted me to be involved in all their decisions and moments. They also expected me to reciprocate the way they thought. From whom I talk, to what I should be doing, what I should wear, how I should act out or speak or do, everything was decided by them, and I never went against it. Some would say that I am being ungrateful, some would say selfish, some would say ' it is how it is ', some would say 'there are way too many serious problems in this world for us to be concerned about this petty issue of yours'. But you never know how or what it feels like unless you are in their situation.\nThis was one of my reason...or justification, as some would say, for me being here, at one O'clock at night, on the grounds, nestled between the history section and the manuscripts section of the town library, gazing into the half damaged volume of some book.\nThe first time I came here was three years ago. I was scared...terrified. The shadows felt so real,like someone was here,waiting to pounce on me. I was roaming through each of the sections, waiting to find the perfect one. the first day I sat between the childrens' books. It was too colourful to match with the sombre tone of the night. The experiments kept repeating for that entire week,until I came to the place where I am sitting. There was still half of the library to experiment, but this was meant for me...also the lighting was good! I was pretty sure, I wasn't the first one to break into the library. And neither will I be the last. This place was welcoming its doors to everyone. And this place provided a sense of belonging to most people in this town. Everyone called it theirs, but alone it stood in its grandeur not being owned by anyone, but letting them live in their fantasy.\nAs a kid I was never the one for library. I was wild, to put it in a mild way. Sitting silently for fifteen minutes was a herculean task for me, except when i was out in the open. My friends used to be the shape-shifting clouds, the grass, and Flash, my dog. My mother used to be so upset with the fact that while all her friends' kids were playing, I was busy being the oddball. Finally she was convinced that it was because of Flash that I was reluctant to make friends. So she gave away Flash to someone. That was the first of the many people I had to loose, because of not fitting the checkboxes my parents had. The hardest hit I had to take was my best friend, who was always there for me when I was bullied and teased was disapproved by my parents. It was the first time that i stood up to them...three years ago. I still don't know whether it was a rebel tendency to come here, or a need to be somewhere else.\nEmily was a good witch.Beautiful, strong-willed and bold. We were strangers until we hit off. She stood up for me in front of my biggest bully, and from then on, that girl has always been my rock. I was extremely nervous for the day, when my mother and Em were supposed to meet. And the moment they did, I knew the outcome. The glint of disapproval was there in her eyes, which unsuspecting Em could not grasp. The justification given by my mum was that she was too unfocused for me, and would lead me astray! The irony was hilarious. When I said, I could not...will not stop talking to Em, all hell broke loose. The chaos and tears were though not unfamiliar, was still hard. But unlike the other times, all I felt was disgust...for which I felt guilty enough.\nI started going to the library from that day onwards. to escape the drama of life...i guess. I didn't come here to read and it definitely was not the silence that led me to. This was something that I had to do, something about finding myself, moving away from doing things expected of me and away from the safety blanket of familiarity. To prove to myself that I was not like my parents, and to convince myself of my individuality. It made sense when I thought of it, but ain't I dwelling on it? am I letting this influence me negatively, which was the opposite of what I set out to achieve?\nSitting here in this dark passage with just the soft light shining above me, surrounded by the smell of old books, I felt like a small child, scared about everything around her. I felt incompetent, small...the feeling was overwhelming.\nIt was almost time for me to go back. This was my usual time to go back, with a promise to return. But tomorrow I know things would not remain the same. I wouldn't sneak in or come hideaway here and dream of what could be. But for now, I had to go back. Back to where I would be loved. Back to where I would spend hours feeling guilty about all the thoughts I had. Back to the place where I had to face my fears and start to stop faking things. Back to where I had to make my dreams a reality or stay chained in my cage forever.\nBut I promise to come back, not to hide, but to relish the taste of my victory. To thank this place now filled with the sound of my harsh breath. Till then..." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: The Pianist & The Mobster\n\nGenre: historical-fiction\n\nWord Count: 2797\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about two people who form a bond with each other through music." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "On a good day, my mother would say she loved my father; but on a bad day, when she was pouring wine down her gullet, she’d say she wished she had never met him at all. As my father had left when I was approximately two years old, any knowledge of him had to come from the two people in my life that knew him: my mother and my grandfather. My mother rarely talked about him, so the most information I could pull out of her was that he liked music and that the locked office in our house was his. It was only after my mother died that my grandfather told me he was a professional pianist who got too heavily involved with the mob, inevitably leaving after getting one too many promotions. I was ten when he told me that, and I suppose that information was what led me to be a professional hitman.\nIn hindsight, wanting to get into the mafia just on the premise of possibly finding my father was stupid, but I was determined to see my plans through. Well, when I was younger, at least. Over time, after I had gotten quite good at the art of killing someone and leaving no traceable evidence behind, I lost sight of why I had originally started on this path. It just became my form of income, and the trail of bodies that were left behind grew my reputation as Oz \"Genie\" Stokes. If someone wanted to wish their \"problems\" away, all they had to do was hire me, and that was exactly what Don Giovi Vittorio did.\nHe hired me for three months to silence anyone he wanted and requested I stay in the Vittorio family home during this period. It was an unusual arrangement, but Don Vittorio was well known for being a paranoid and unique individual. The only reason I even agreed was because of the hefty sum I was going to be paid. While I didn’t know it at the time, my choice to take that job would become one of the best decisions I ever made in my life.\n~~~\nI had moved into my room at roughly one o’clock on a Monday and finished unpacking in about thirty minutes. There was nothing on my agenda for the day, so I decided I’d spend my time reading, but my heart just couldn’t get into my favorite H.G. Wells novel about an invisible man. I found myself staring blankly at the pages, rereading lines over and over, and sighing as I slowly grew more frustrated by my lack of concentration. Inevitably, I snapped the book shut and rested my head against the bed frame, closing my eyes as a scowl formed on my face.\nFor a moment, I thought I was dreaming as the soft sounds of a piano drifted in the air. It was as if I was back at home again when I was just a child, laying down quietly on the couch as my mother played a vinyl record of some famous pianist; but the scratching noise was missing, and the woman who once listened to the songs with me was long gone. I had to strain my ears in order to recognize the song as Erik Sadie’s Gymnopédie No. 1, and a desire to listen more clearly grew with each passing second.\nI dragged myself off the bed and wandered through the many halls and rooms until I found the person I was looking for; although, I was not entirely sure what I expected. The drawing room was identical to the others, with the exception of a Steinway grand piano, a beautiful instrument with an extreme price tag. Most pianists could only dream of playing such a piano, but here this man was, playing it as if it was an old friend, and perhaps it was.\nWhat was surprising about the pianist himself was that he looked kind, something rather out of place in the house of a mafia don. He must have been in his sixties, at least, gracefully thin and with the presentation of a long-time butler. His face, while angular in feature, maintained a gentle aura, and the concentrated gaze of his green eyes was somehow softened by the glasses that perched on his nose. I had no idea who he was, and yet, I had felt like I had known him all my life.\nMy eyes drifted closed as I leaned against the frame of the door, absorbing the sound of a seasoned pianist and his perfectly tuned instrument. How rare it was to find a man who could make the melancholy of that song sound like it was his own, as if he was the creator. There was a story being built in my head, one that I couldn’t know but could certainly feel. It was the soft embrace of a long past tragedy, a tragedy that’s outcome changed everything.\nIt was beautiful.\nI never opened my eyes for the hour I was there listening, and if the pianist had noticed my presence, he never acknowledged me. When I did allow myself sight, he was gone without a trace.\n~~~\nFor some reason, I couldn’t bring myself to question Don Vittorio who he was. Instead, I learned the pianist’s schedule. He started at exactly two o’clock in the afternoon and played for precisely one hour, never less and never more. For two weeks, I was there when I had the time, leaning on one of the door frames and silently listening to him play. His song selections were never boring to listen to and drove a variety of emotions through me. Each session felt like one long story, with each song telling a different part of it. Some were happy, some were sad, and others were angry. I wondered what kind of life this man had lived for him to play the piano in such a way. I believed it must have been an adventure.\n~~~\nOn the Monday of the third week, there was a steaming cup of tea on the table when I arrived. It was also the first day he looked at me, even if it was just for a mere second. He removed his gaze from the piano as I settled into my spot, capturing my stare before my eyes closed and drifting pointedly to the beverage. I blinked owlishly at the subtle invitation, entering the room and taking a seat. \"Thank you.\" He only nodded. The tea was surprisingly just to my liking, and as the warm liquid slid down my throat, I was filled with a sense of peace.\n~~~\nTwo weeks later, in the midst of one of his sessions on a Friday, he remarked, \"Do you play?\" His voice, unlike his perfect presentation, was strangled sounding. Each word sounded painful to be spoken and was difficult to maintain at a normal speaking level. It was then that I finally noticed the bullet hole scar on his throat when he tilted his head to look at me.\n\"No, but my father did.\"\n\"Did?\"\n\"He’s likely dead.\" He brokenly hummed, his gaze returning to his piano.\n\"Loss is difficult, living or not.\" There was no truer statement, and I had a feeling this man had lived that truth both ways.\n\"Who taught you?\"\n\"Self-taught.\"\n\"For how you play, that’s incredible.\" A smile tugged at the edges of his lips as he nodded gratefully.\nWhen he finished his performance for the day and I went to return my cup to the kitchen, he asked, \"Want to learn?\" This time I smiled.\n\"Please.\" He pointed to his wristwatch and held up a single finger.\n\"No late.\"\n\"Of course.\"\n\"Worry not about… schedule.\" He pointed at himself and then tapped the side of his forehead. I nodded in response, watching him leave before making my own departure.\n~~~\nOver the following six weeks, I learned that playing the piano wasn’t as easy as the professionals made it look. However, the pianist was patient as he walked me through the basics with little phrases and many hand motions. Thankfully for us both, I was a visual learner, so his teaching style was perfect for me. While our conversations during sessions were usually quite one-sided, I learned a lot about him. He was a quiet man by nature—only made more obvious by his handicap—and passionate about music. I discovered that he wrote his own pieces and was fortunate enough to hear more than a couple of them; albeit, they had the tendency to be more somber in nature. That was another thing; a sense of somberness seemed to follow him wherever he went. I struggled to understand why, but the pieces of his life were beginning to form before me.\n~~~\nThere was one day that he missed his lesson with me: a Tuesday. While disappointed, I assumed he had something to do besides play the piano. After all, he was in this house for a reason, even if I didn’t understand what exactly for. What was strange, however, was that I managed to catch sight of him in the halls for the first time. He was furiously trying to wipe his hands clean as he speed-walked to an unknown destination. On Wednesday, headlines in the papers talked about how \"Ghost\" had struck again. Ghost, as the press named this individual, was assumed to be a hitman for the mob, characterized by his clean kills—victims were drained of their blood—and zero signs of a second presence. The nickname was fitting; the victims as pale as a spirit, and the murderer \"nonexistent.\"\nHe was off when I met him for lessons. There was no tea made, and his piano playing was on the verge of erratic as he soared through Prelude and Fugue by Bach in C minor. It didn't take a genius to guess what had happened. I placed a hand on his shoulder, shaking him out of his reverie and making him awkwardly hit the wrong note. He yanked his hands back as if he had been burned before looking at me.\nI had never seen a man look so lost and distraught in my life.\nHe sighed before removing his glasses, covering his eyes with his free hand. \"... Sorry.\" I frowned and sat beside him.\n\"Don’t apologize. There’s no need.\" He drew his hand away from his face and offered a weak smile. We stared at the keys of the piano for several long minutes, not daring to touch them. \"So... ‘Ghost,’ huh?\" He grimaced and put on his glasses. \"I’m not judging you. I mean, you know what I do. Just surprised. I expected to do all the hits while I'm here.\" He pursed his lips and pointed to me.\n\"Small fry.\" He turned his finger toward himself. \"Big fish.\"\n\"Should I be insulted?\" I asked jokingly, trying to lighten the mood, but his own remained unchanged. If anything, he receded into his mind more.\n\"Giovi trusts little. Known him years.\" He clenched his jaw, his hands curling into fists. Worried, I gently bumped him with my shoulder to make him look at me again and offered a small smile.\n\"You gonna be okay?\"\n\"Never desensitized completely. Takes a while… for normal.\"\n\"Then why keep at it?\" In an instant, something in him changed.\n\"Love.\" There was a fierceness to his eyes that I had never seen before, and his gentle demeanor was burned away by his determination. For whomever he held his love for, he would do anything. Of that, I was certain.\n\"That person’s lucky to have someone like you.\" I barely caught the flash of surprise that passed by him, and by the heartfelt smile that followed, I knew my comment seemed to provide him with some semblance of peace. Leaving the topic there, we began our lesson.\n~~~\nThe last day I spoke with him was the day my contract ended. I spent the morning packing up my things, planning to leave shortly after collecting my payment. However, it felt strange to know I would be leaving the place I had been living for the past three months, and that I would be unable to meet with the pianist at exactly one o’clock in the afternoon. Normally, I didn’t feel anything special when my time with a particular family ended, but I would miss the Vittorio family home, I would miss the pianist.\nThere was a knock on my door when I was nearly done with my packing. The pianist was there when I opened it, a satchel in hand. He held out the item and said, \"Payment.\" I took the satchel from him and briefly checked through the contents, finding a multitude of envelopes stuffed with bills. Pleased, I gave him a nod.\n\"Thanks.\"\n\"Gift, too.\" I arched an eyebrow at that, not having seen anything other than envelopes and cash. \"Look at home.\"\n\"... Alright, thanks again.\"\n“Your plans?\" I shrugged, tossing the satchel onto the bed and continuing to fold the rest of my clothes.\n\"I’ll do what I always do when I finish a contract: set up another one with someone else.\"\n\"But wish to?\" I hadn’t asked myself that question in a really long time. Did I truly want to keep doing this? Keep killing for cash? It paid well, yes, but there were nights where I woke up in a cold sweat from nightmares of the people I murdered begging for mercy.\n\"I’m not sure what else I’d do.\"\n\"Plenty, I’m sure. You’re clever.\" I laughed a bit, briefly glancing at him over my shoulder.\n\"You flatter me.\"\n\"Merely truth.\"\nI hesitated before remarking, \"I don’t have a degree.\"\n\"Neither did I… before this. Did quite well.\"\n\"And yet you wrapped yourself up in this gig.\"\n\"My consequence.\" His answer surprised me, making my hand hover over one of my shirts. \"I made dangerous… mistakes. Led me here. Must stay to… keep someone safe.\"\n\"That sounds rather counterproductive.\"\n\"In a way.\" He let out a huff of a laugh. \"It’s complicated.\" I slowly began to fold the clothing item.\n\"Are they worth it?\"\n\"More than anything.\" I didn’t have to see his face to know that same blazing conviction was etched onto it. I couldn’t help but smile at the thought, putting the last item into my suitcase and zipping it closed.\nFacing him, I stated, \"Good.\" He returned my smile, and I walked up to him, holding out my hand. He shook it firmly. \"I’ll never forget you.\" His grin somehow brightened, and he clasped my hand with both of his. His gaze was intense but kind, an unusual combination.\n\"Goodbye, Oz.\" He left before I could get in another word.\n~~~\nAfter I said farewell to Don Vittorio, a song from the pianist followed me on the way out. It was one that I had never heard before, containing a gentle melody with the somberness that clung to him. Although, there was more to it this time. There was a slight sense of hope that followed, as if what was happening had a sweetness to the apparent bitterness. This song was a goodbye that was long coming but accepted nonetheless. He was wishing me well, and I could only pray that he knew I was wishing him the same.\n~~~\nI returned home with a heavy heart, only sifting through the cash out of habit and obligation to ensure I hadn’t been underpaid. Four envelopes in, I found a skeleton key with a tag that said the following:\nThe office is yours now.\nPractically flying off the couch as my mind ran a million miles per minute, I sprinted through my home to the locked office that had been haunting my mind for all the years I had known it was my father’s. With a deep inhale, I delicately inserted the key, praying that I wasn’t losing my mind and that the pianist was exactly who I thought he was.\nI nearly cried when I heard the click.\nMy father’s office was the most wonderful thing I had ever seen in my life. There were music sheets absolutely everywhere, a desk tucked into the corner, and walls lined with shelves upon shelves of vinyl records. As for the centerpiece of what might be considered a room of pure chaos, there was a Steinway grand piano. It was layered in dust from the many years of unuse, but I could tell that it was once someone’s muse. Carefully stepping over the piles, I made my way to it. I sat down where he once did, lifted the lid, and made my way through the first song he taught me how to play: Gymnopédie No. 1." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Another day\n\nGenre: high-school\n\nWord Count: 1318\n\nPrompt:\n\nStart your story with a stern librarian scolding two characters for making noise in the library." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "\" Boys! I will not say it again. Libraries are for…” Mrs. Millers starts. \" Reading and studying,” the boys and I say in unison as we finish the sentence for her. We look at each other, then burst out laughing, causing some of the kids to look up from their books. Others just look at us in disgust. Mrs. Miller shakes her head. She’s probably tired of us making a commotion in the library. Every Friday, James and I and some of the other guys come to the library to play our usual Table Battle. We play football and other sports but it is never fun when you win and get nothing for the prize. After a session of the sports we choose, the winning team has to dare the losing team a challenge and if they don’t do it, well, they buy the winning team lunch off-campus. \" Which sport is it today,” James asks. We all look around to see if anyone has an idea. \" Maybe we can…” I start but I trail off. \" We can what, Alex,”? Hayden says looking at me. \" I was thinking if we can do basketball again. I know, that we did it a few days ago but it has good advantages for the teams to win.” I look at them. James seems to be considering it but the others have a blank look. \" I guess we can do it again,” Hayden says looking at the others. They don’t seem to mind it. We start by pushing our tables together so we can face our opponents. The tables screech loudly causing Mrs. Millers to look up. When she sees us moving the tables she comes storming in our direction, angry. I can almost see flames coming out of her ears. \" And, exactly what, do you think you’re doing,” she says. She looks at me when she says it. I give her an innocent look but she knows better. \" You know what, what I am this close to kicking you guys out of this Library” again, she looks at me as if I’m the only one she’s talking to. \" Now, I’m going to go put new books in the young adult fiction aisle. And if I hear another word from you guys, I am straightway gonna kick you out,” she warns us. We watch Mrs. Millers walk away and once she’s out of earshot, we look at it each other. \" Maybe we can do this in another place,” Christen says nervously. He looks at us and finds us staring at him. He recently joined our group, so James and I prepped him with the rules. \" Really, you seriously want to back out now,”? James looks at him in a dangerous way. I put a hand on Jame’s shoulder so he could calm down. James and I hit off when we were merely third graders. He always had a serious temper issue, so almost anything could fire him up. \" No, no. I was just saying that maybe could play somewhere else since you know…” He trails off. \" Look dude, I understand you trying to be kind and all, but Mrs. Millers is too soft-hearted to kick us, little kids, out.” I assure him. He doesn’t seem convinced but doesn’t say anything. I order the boys to start moving the tables again. This time luck is on our side because the table barely screeches. But it does groan. I take out the game boards and the little basket to shoot our balls in. Soon the boys and I are laughing at the opposing team which contains, James, Hayden, Lewis, and Reo. Us on the other hand are Christen, Xander, Chase, and I, Alex. James attempts to throw the little ball in the hoop but I snatch it out of his grasp. He sits there stunned, and by the time he regains his senses, I’ve already scored. Xander sings the score while he passes the ball to Chase, who travels with it instead. \" Dude!” We all chorus. The opposing team seems so happy that they finally get a chance to shoot in the hoop. \" Sorry,” he says sheepishly. We let the opposing team shoot their turn before we start again. Hayden shoots the ball right into the basket. \" Let’s go, baby” he high-fives Reo. Now the opposing team has caught up to our score. One more round and one more round to win for the opposing team to lose I think. Hayden has the ball and he passes it to James who is quick, but I am quicker. I grab the ball which I quickly pass it on to Christen. Once the opposing team has their attention on Christen I walk closer to Christen which he quickly notices. He swings the ball left then right and then left, but this time passes it to me. I hold on to the ball as I run and am about to dunk it in the basket when Reo blocks it. He quickly steals the ball and starts dribbling back to our basket. Xander closes on to Reo and finally can pluck it underneath his fingers. He starts to dribble back when he sees James gaining upon him. he quickly passes the ball to Chase who passes it on to me. I dribble the ball all the way to the opposing team’s basket. And as soon as I see Hayden running to stop us from winning, I dunk the ball into where it belongs. Our team cheers loudly, which again caused the other kids who are reading or studying to look at our table. I am guessing Mrs. Millers heard all the racket coming from our direction because the next thing we see is Mrs. Millers stomping toward us. \" That’s it. I warned you, and you didn’t listen.” she says making Hayden and Reo stand up by their hoodies. They stand up and we follow in action. Now, most of the kids in the library are watching us. Some even have smug looks on their faces. I just wish I could punch that look out of their faces. \" Aw c’mon,” I protest. \" You know we were just having fun.” She looks at me then points her little skinny finger at me. \" You heard what I said. I am not going back on my words.” \" But isn’t that the same thing you said last week, and the other before that, and the one before that one.” I say fanning an innocent look. I can tell she is trying to look annoyed but I still see the smile she is trying to hide. \" Yea, yea, whatever. I’m saying this the last time.” she says. I look at her and smile. I start packing up my stuff and then the boys, as well, start packing their belongings. I stuff the game things in my backpack and zip it close. I put my backpack on one shoulder. I go to Mrs. Millers, and I kiss her on the forehead. Then I tell her what I always told her when she kicked us out. \" You know I will always be back.” I say it in a low voice so only she hears. I see amusement in her eyes. Then I walk over to my friends who are already exiting the library. I hear Xander ask Christen \" So what type of off-campus food do you like? Because those fellows will be paying our luxuries today.” Christen laughs. James and Hayden laugh as well. I look back at Mrs. Millers, who is shaking her head and returning to her usual spot, behind the counter. As with any other Friday, the sun is shining outside. I smile and join in the laughter with my friends because I know it is just like another day." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Ms. Begley\n\nGenre: high-school\n\nWord Count: 1263\n\nPrompt:\n\nStart your story with a stern librarian scolding two characters for making noise in the library." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "The Vampire king Belthazar tenderly embraced his human lover, the fair maiden Norah, his eyes burning red hot with sheer passion for her. The Red Moon shone brightly down upon the two from the balcony of Belthazar's mighty castle. Wolves howled and owls screeched within the distant forest outside the castle.\n\"Oh, Norah, I may be undead, but you make me feel so ALIVE!\" said Belthazar.\n\"But Belthazar, our love is forbidden! You are a Demon, and I am a Human!\" Norah lamented, hot tears falling from her eyes.\nBelthazar held his fair maiden's face in his hands, gingerly wiping the tears from her eyes. \"Humankind will never understand what we have between each other. Your people may not accept our love, but if they do not, you do not need to live in their village any longer. You may spend the rest of your days with me in my castle! You would be waited on hand and foot by my servants!\" offered the Vampire King.\n\"Oh, Belthazar! I love you so much!\"\n\"Oh Norah....\"\nBelthazar and Norah then embraced one another in an enamoured frenzy, Norah running her dainty fingers through Belthazar's thick, Onyx-black hair, and Belthazar running his talon-like fingers through Norah's platinum-blonde hair.\nIt was at that point that a loud banging noise came from the door in the main entryway of the castle.\n\"It's the Villagers! We must flee!\" Norah gasped.\nBelthazar ordered his Demon Servants to hold back the invading horde of villagers.\nBelthazar looked deathly serious at his beloved. \"You must leave this place, my love. They believe I have abducted you...It is me they are after, not you!\"\n\"I will never leave without you, my darling! We either escape together, or we die together!\" Norah declared, her hands crossed over her heart.\nIt was at that point that there was a loud, sharp thud coming from the door in the main entryway into the Castle. The Villagers had breached the gate. The Demons would do their best to drive the townsfolk out, but they would never stop coming back to try again.\nBelthazar had no other choice but to do something drastic...\n\"FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT!\"\nMs. Begley shot upward and gasped. The High School Librarian's focus was oh so rudely drawn away from her novel \"Forbidden Love Under the Red Moon\" and drawn instead towards a loud, chaotic commotion in the School Library. Ms. Begley walked towards the loud chanting to see Freshmen, Sophomores, Juniors and Seniors forming a spectator's circle with two Senior boys in the middle. She shoved her way through the circle to see a Junior laying shaken on the floor, visibly crying and not fighting back at all.\nMs. Begley pointed at the three boys \"YOU, YOU, and YOU! What is the meaning of this racket!?\" She asked sternly.\n\"Hector took my sunshades!!\" said the first boy, Rick.\nMs. Begley knelt down in front of the crying Junior laying in a fetal position on the floor. \"Is this TRUE, Hector??\"\n\"I....I....I was going to grab a book for my homework when I bumped into Rick and my...my glasses fell off...when I tried to pick them up I...I accidentally grabbed Ricks' sunglasses. Rick shoved me down on the floor and said \"Those are my Shades, you idiot! It's bad enough your people take our jobs, now you have to take our shit, too?\" and then Rick and his friend Mitch punched me and kicked me....\" Hector whimpered.\nMs. Begley pointed at Rick and Mitch. \"Rick Thompson! Mitch Powell! I will NOT tolerate causing a ruckus, assault of a student or Racism in ANY way shape or form in this Library under MY watch! Principal Arnold's office NOW!!!!!\" She yelled.\n\"Oh, come on! That's bullshit! He started it!\" Mitch argued.\n\"Do I have to have the Police drag you kicking and screaming to the Principals' Office???\" Ms. Begley threatened.\n\"Yes, Ms. Begley...\" Rick and Mitch muttered, walking dejected to the Principals' Office, dreading what kind of trouble that they might be in for this.\nMs. Begley pointed at the circle of student spectators. \"And the rest of you! Get out of that Spectator's Circle before I send all of you to Principal Arnold's office, too!!\"\n\"Yes, Ms. Begley....\" Muttered the crowd.\nThe students returned to either reading, returning books, checking books out, or left to go to their respective classes or wherever else they would be going.\nMs. Begley helped poor Hector back onto his feet and picked up his glasses for him.\n\"Let's get you to the Nurses' Office, alright, Hector?\" Ms. Begley said.\nThere was a pause from Hector, followed by \"Alright.\"\nAnd so the Librarian walked the Junior Student to the Nurses' Office, then brought Hector to Principal Arnold's office, knowing that finishing \"Forbidden Love Under the Red Moon\" would have to wait until the Principal was informed of what happened in the Library. Principal Arnold called Rick and Mitch's parents and the Police over the assault.\nAs soon as Ms. Begley returned to her station, she grabbed \"Forbidden Love from Under the Red Moon\", sat back down in her desk chair, and said to herself \"Alright, now where was I again? ....Oh, yes, that's right!\"\nThe Vampire king Belthazar tenderly embraced his human lover, the fair maiden Norah, his eyes burning red hot with sheer passion for her. The Red Moon shone brightly down upon the two from the balcony of Belthazar's mighty castle. Wolves howled and owls screeched within the distant forest outside the castle.\n\"Oh, Norah, I may be undead, but you make me feel so ALIVE!\" said Belthazar.\n\"But Belthazar, our love is forbidden! You are a Demon, and I am a Human!\" Norah lamented, hot tears falling from her eyes.\nBelthazar held his fair maiden's face in his hands, gingerly wiping the tears from her eyes. \"Humankind will never understand what we have between each other. Your people may not accept our love, but if they do not, you do not need to live in their village any longer. You may spend the rest of your days with me in my castle! You would be waited on hand and foot by my servants!\" offered the Vampire King.\n\"Oh, Belthazar! I love you so much!\"\n\"Oh Norah....\"\nBelthazar and Norah then embraced one another in an enamoured frenzy, Norah running her dainty fingers through Belthazar's thick, Onyx-black hair, and Belthazar running his talon-like fingers through Norah's platinum-blonde hair.\nIt was at that point that a loud banging noise came from the door in the main entryway of the castle.\n\"It's the Villagers! We must flee!\" Norah gasped.\nBelthazar ordered his Demon Servants to hold back the invading horde of villagers.\nBelthazar looked deathly serious at his beloved. \"You must leave this place, my love. They believe I have abducted you...It is me they are after, not you!\"\n\"I will never leave without you, my darling! We either escape together, or we die together!\" Norah declared, her hands crossed over her heart.\nIt was at that point that there was a loud, sharp thud coming from the door in the main entryway into the Castle. The Villagers had breached the gate. The Demons would do their best to drive the townsfolk out, but they would never stop coming back to try again.\nBelthazar had no other choice but to do something drastic...\nAuthor's Note: Bullying SUCKS! And so does Racism! No matter what color we are on the outside, we're all the same on the inside!" } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: The Light Outside\n\nGenre: historical-fiction\n\nWord Count: 2896\n\nPrompt:\n\nStart your story with the flickering of a light." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "June 2020\nA light flashed through the curtains of her bedroom. Alicia reached for the bathrobe in the chair next to her and pulled it around her.\nShe knew she would find the old man standing at the window\nShe padded quietly up the wood stairs so as not to alarm him. Alicia turned the door handle quickly. As she had expected, he stood at the window, pushing at the pane.\n“Jan,” she said, “stay away from the window, please.”\nHe turned around to face her, then growled like a bear. He waved his arms as if fighting her off. Yet Alicia, who was nearly six feet tall, prided herself on being afraid of very little.\nHe growled again, an animal noise, wild and low, and said, “They need me. They’ve come.”\n“Who’s come?”\n“It’s not for you to know,” he snapped back. In the semi-darkness, she saw his pale blue eyes dart toward the window.\n“They told me to tell you, ‘Not tonight.’”\n“I don’t believe you.”\n“That’s what they said.” She lifted her palms upward. “You can’t leave tonight.”\nAlicia didn’t know whom he waited for—aliens, conspirators, all old men had their demons.\n“You’re sure?” he asked. “Absolutely sure?”\nShe nodded and his body relaxed. Alicia had been his nurse for six months now and, he’d jerk up in the middle of the night when he saw a flash of light. It could be a passing car or a bolt of lightning. Any light would send the old man to the window.\n“Let me help you.” He allowed her to lead him to the bed. He was skin and bones now. He had a bad heart and nightmares plagued him constantly, so much so that she’d asked his doctor for sedatives.\nAlicia had worked with dementia patients before, was accustomed to their night terrors and their hallucinations, and the way they would scream in the night.\nJan was different, though, he didn’t have the typical night terrors. Rather, he would run to the window, certain that someone outside had beckoned to him.\nHe sat up in bed now, beads of sweat across his forehead. She pulled a vial of sedatives from her pocket, filled a glass with water in the bathroom, and said to him, “Jan, I want you to take this.”\nHe swallowed the pill and drank the water down in one gulp.\n“Would you like me to stay with you a bit? I could sit in the armchair.”\nHe shook his head, his eyelids dropping already.\n\nIn the mornings, he came downstairs for breakfast. Remarkably, he still insisted on bathing himself. She didn’t know how much longer this would last--many of the Alzheimer’s patients refused to bathe.\nShe suspected he didn’t want her to see the scars across his back. Once he’d told her that he’d gotten them in a car accident in Maine when he was very young but, even after all those years, you could tell they had been deep, painful wounds at times.\nShe rarely thought about her patients’ former lives. If you pried too deeply into their pasts, they often unraveled like wheels loosening from carts. The best thing was to keep them happy and comfortable. That’s what she told herself.\n“Good morning, Alicia,” the old man said when he walked into the kitchen.\nHe looked up at her. He had pale blue like some Scandinavians had. With his bronze skin and those eyes, she always supposed he was Norwegian or Swedish. He had the faintest trace of an accent but she couldn’t place it. Alicia had grown up in Camden, Maine, and she knew some French people from Canada, but they were the only Europeans she knew.\n“How are you this morning, Jan?”\n“I am fine,” he said, “what a lovely breakfast you’ve cooked for me.”\nExcept for his night episodes, he was always cordial, not like other patients she had had.\nEvery morning, she made him pancakes and bacon and squeezed his orange juice herself. He ate his pancakes with strawberry jam, never maple syrup.\nNow, he brought the fork to his mouth, ate his breakfast slowly, methodically, and she thought, as she often did, what a handsome man he was with his long, straight nose, and what her mother would have called “fine coloring.” Her own coloring was very different. She was half-Irish and half-Anglo-Saxon. She’d inherited her mother’s freckles and she burned if she sat in the sun for more than a few minutes.\nJan, though, couldn’t get enough of the sun, of the light itself. He soaked it up as if it were something rare. He’d sit sometimes well into the afternoon until the mourning doves came out and sang their songs.\nOn those days, he sat as happy as a child, watching the birds and the rabbits that nibbled the mint she grew by the deck. He laughed happily when Alicia came to shoo them away. “We are in the forest now,” he said.\nShe had no idea what he meant but supposed he referred to a forest from his childhood. They never talked about his episodes either. Sometimes she wasn’t sure whether he remembered what he had done. She locked the window every night and she’d always managed to catch him before he unlocked it.\nWhen he finished breakfast, she asked, “Shall I take you outside now?”\n“Oh yes,” he said, “outside where the air is fresh. Don’t you love the fresh air?”\n“I do,” she said and took his elbow as he pushed himself from the chair.\nTogether, they walked out to the wooden deck.\nThe sun shone through the clouds. The deck stood just above a garden with lilacs and white roses. Alicia assumed Jan must be quite rich because he had a gardener care for them.\nShe settled him in the Adirondack chair and set up his Audible for him. He liked to listen to Stephen King novels. She thought that the books might contribute to his night terrors, but he complained bitterly when she suggested he might like something a bit “cheerier.”\n“Now don’t you get any ideas from Mr. King,” she said.\n“Mr. King,” he asked, a line forming across his forehead.\n“Mr. King, the writer.”\n“Oh yes,” he said, “Mr. King. You like him, don’t you?”\n“No, you like him.”\n“I do?” he frowned.\n“You do, you listen to him every morning. You’re listening to The Shining now.”\nHe smiled as if he’d remembered suddenly and then looked over at the roses that shook in the breeze. Sometimes she would watch him, a range of expressions running across his face.\nAlicia knew little about his life, only that he’d been married and that his wife had died over ten years ago. She’d had one sister who had a daughter named Susan. Jan’s niece paid his bills, managed his affairs, and made weekly phone calls to inquire about his health.\nLately, Susan had asked whether Jan should go to a nursing home, but Alicia suggested they wait a while. She knew he loved the cottage in Maine with its gardens filled with lilacs. After he sat outside, he’d talk about how sharp the salt air was and how he and his wife had loved to sail.\nHe could remember so much about his past and then he would forget the name of the author he was reading.\nAlicia stacked his dishes in the washer and watched him from inside the kitchen. He sat quite still, his hand clutching the iPhone in his lap, white hair blowing in the breeze. A sparrow landed not more than a few feet from him but he didn’t seem to notice.\nGod help us all, she thought, if he turns into Jack Torrance, I don’t know what I’ll do with him. She chuckled to herself at the thought of the mild-mannered old man turning into a deranged killer. She’d always thought of Jan as gentle as a lamb, not like some of her patients who had become so aggressive.\nShe loaded the dishes into the washer and when she had finished, she called his niece.\n“Is something wrong?” Susan asked as soon as she answered the phone.\n“No, no…your uncle’s absolutely fine. I just wanted you to know, though, that Jan goes to the window at night when he notices a flashing light.”\n“How odd. What do you mean—a flashing light?”\n“A car’s headlights or a bolt of lightning.”\n“How odd,” she said and then there was silence for a good thirty seconds.\n“Why would he do that?”\n“No idea whatsoever. Perhaps he’s hallucinating.”\n“Perhaps, but he thinks someone is coming for him.”\n“Really?” Alicia heard the concern in her voice or perhaps it was something else. She imagined Susan weighing the cost of having her stay with Jan versus the cost of sending him to a nursing home.\n“He’s fine other than that. He eats well, he’s no trouble.”\n“Except for trying to jump out the window.”\n“He doesn’t try to jump out the window.”\n“But he might—”\n“I’ll nail the windows shut. You’ll be able to take them out later.” She didn’t say what later meant. They both knew.\n“Oh, I suppose that will do, for now, I mean…. You take him to see Dr. Johnson next week?\n“Yes.”\n“Ask Dr. Johnson then. Ask him if we should put Jan in a nursing home.” She had only met Susan once but she struck Alicia as the dutiful type, the kind of woman who cared for a relative because she was supposed to.\n“I’ll mention it.”\n“Good,” she said, “what’s he doing now anyway?”\n“He’s sitting in the sun.”\n“Alone?”\n“I watch him. I stay only a few yards away.”\nShe sighed and said, “Aunt Julie said he would sit out every day in the garden when he was in Poland.”\n“He’s Polish?”\n“He was born there, yes. People think he’s Scandinavian or sometimes Dutch because of his name, but Jan is a Polish name, too.”\n“I hadn’t known that.”\n“Yes,” she said, “go ahead and nail his windows shut—if you must. And tell me what Dr. Johnson says.”\n“I will,” she said and then went upstairs and nailed the windows in Jan’s bedroom closed.\n\nJan spent most of July peacefully. He listened to novels outside, sometimes napping as the temperature grew warmer. In the evenings, they would have a cup of tea on the deck together.\nAt sunset one day, as the mourning doves cooed, she said, “Your niece said you are Polish.”\n“She shouldn’t talk about me.”\n“What?”\n“I said she shouldn’t talk about me.”\nHis face reddened and Alicia supposed he might be a terribly private person. Perhaps, though, it could be dementia. Her patients could be completely irrational at times. One minute they were laughing and the next crying. Jan clutched his hands hard around the tea cup until she thought he would break it.\nHe had one of his incidents that night. Alicia had been in bed for just over two hours when, at 2:00 a.m., a bolt of lightning flashed across the yard outside. She heard footsteps on the floor above her and she pulled her bathrobe from the chair.\nA wailing sound, the noise of a beaten dog, came from his room.\n“Jan,” she called, taking two steps at a time.\n“I can’t get out, I can’t,” he screamed, “they’ve locked me in.”\nAs she reached the top floor, she heard the sound of breaking glass and she screamed, “Jan!”\nHe stood at the window, poking his arm through the broken window, streams of blood running down his arms.\n“No,” she said, “They said it’s not time yet.”\nHe wailed like a child and then said, “When will it be time? We have to leave right away, but they’ve locked me in.”\n“Soon,” she said, “soon,” holding him and rocking him. His arms had only been cut superficially but she wrapped them in gauze and then she gave him a shot of midazolam as he sat in bed. He fell asleep as she swept the glass from beneath the window. She thought of taking him to the hospital but it was so late now and, if she were honest, she could barely keep her eyes open.\nBesides, he loved the cottage so. She would give him a few more days and, if he tried to get out again, she would suggest Susan put him in a nursing home.\nAlicia took a spare blanket and lay down in the recliner chair next to Jan’s bed. He slept the entire night, barely even turning over.\nAs dawn broke, she crept downstairs and made him pancakes and coffee. She heard him drawing a bath upstairs and, when he came down half an hour later, he asked, “What have I done to my arms, Alicia?”\n“You tried to get out the window.”\n“Did I?” His eyes opened wide. “I shouldn’t have done that, should I?”\n“No,” she said, “you could have cut yourself very badly.”\n“You might send me away for good.” Sometimes he surprised her with his shrewdness.\nHe ate in silence and she didn’t mention the incident again. When he was finished, she took him outside and said, “I think we’ll have you listen to Anne of Green Gables.” She felt slightly ridiculous when she selected this book—his tastes ran to the macabre—but for today, at least, it might prevent the nocturnal ramblings.\nShe left him with a cup of tea and he hummed to himself, a tune she hadn’t heard before.\nAlicia cleaned the kitchen, watching him from the window, and when she was done, she went upstairs. Usually, she cleaned his bedroom while he was in the house but today, she wanted to look at the folder he had tucked at the back of his desk.\nShe never snooped on patients but she told herself she was doing it for his own good. Perhaps that wasn’t true, but maybe there was something in the manuscript that would explain his reaction to the light.\nAlicia watched him from the window, saw him sipping his tea, and then he closed his eyes. She wasn’t sure whether he was asleep or listening.\nShe pulled the drawer open, rummaged through pens and pads of paper, and pulled out the file. She’d only seen it once before when he thought she wasn’t looking. He’d sat at his desk and she’d stood behind him watching as he flipped through the pages.\nNow she opened the manuscript and read it aloud:\nI was one of the prisoners sent by the Nazis to burn the bodies at Ponar. They had shot nearly 90,000 people and buried them in mass graves. We pulled them from the earth— our friends, our sisters, and our mothers—and placed their bodies on funeral pyres.\nThe Nazis didn’t want the bodies found, didn’t want their precious regime sullied. We knew once we were finished, they would shoot us, too.\nDuring the days, we burned bodies, and, in the nights, we tunneled with the spoons and files we took from the burial sites. It was our only hope for escape.\nAfter months of tunneling, we stuck copper tubing through the earth. The tunnel ran outside the camp gate, I remember fresh air coming through—air like the breath of life and the wonderful sunshine, our freedom.\nWe knew there were partisan allies outside the camp. We decided to make our escape on April 15, 1944, the darkest night of the month. But I was tired from digging all day and tunneling at night. I fell asleep until I saw a flash of light, my friend who had lit a match. “Come,” he said to me, “we must run now, Jan.”\nI was terrified but what other choice did I have? They would shoot us, too. “Come,” my friend beckoned, “come outside or you will die.”\nDogim, our leader, went first and thirty-nine of us followed. To go back, meant we would be shot.\nThe partisans had a secret camp at the Rudnitsky Woods. We figured that if we could only reach them, we would be safe.\nDogim and the first prisoners made it out safely but then the Nazis opened fire on us. We scattered and I ran as fast as I could, the sounds of my friends screaming, and dying beside me. But we ran through rivers and woods, stumbling from sheer exhaustion.\nThen I saw an S.S. agent who stood with his back toward us. “Kill him,” my friend said. “Use your file.”\nI’d saved a sharpened file from camp.\n“I can’t,” I said,\n“Everyone can kill. You must.”\nI crept behind the man as quietly as I could. I slit his throat as if he were a pig and watched as he bled out.\n“Come now, hurry,” my friend said.\nTwelve of us reached the partisans at Rudnitsky that night. Eleven men survived.\nI won’t tell my story while I am alive. I’m not proud of what I did. I did what I had to. The story I save for history.”\nAlicia tucked the manuscript back into the drawer. She walked to the window and looked out at the old man asleep in his chair.\nShe would keep his secret, too. Protect him as long as she could, it was the least she could do until the light no longer beckoned to him.\nEND" } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Library lovers\n\nGenre: high-school\n\nWord Count: 1050\n\nPrompt:\n\nStart your story with a stern librarian scolding two characters for making noise in the library." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "It was a bad morning for Sasha, she woke up late because she was reading the book from the library last night. She didn't catch the school bus so she need to use her bike.\nShe got up and went into the kitchen to grab some foods to eat for lunch. And then, there's her father sleeping on the couch hugging her mom's picture.\nIt was her routine ever since her mom died to a car accident. While she was riding her bike to go to school, she saw her classmate, Ali but she pretend she saw no one.\nAli and Sasha use to be childhood sweethearts not until they reached high school. Sasha is one of the nerds while Ali is one of the handsome guys.\nShe was late and according to the school's policy. Late students should go help the librarian arrange the books. So she went straight to the library and return the book she borrowed yesterday.\nAnd she grab the new books at the storage room and arranging the books at the right shelves.\n\"Just one book and I'm do--.\" She didn't get the chance to finish her sentence when a guy fell to her.\nThe books from the middle part of the shelves fall and hit Sasha.\n\"Hey Miss are you okay?\" A guy asked her.\n\"Do I look like I'm okay?!\" She yelled at the guy.\n\"I'm sorry. Let me help you with that.\" The guy said.\n\"I'm not asking for your help! You might do something that will make me start from the beginning!!\" She yelled.\nThe librarian went to where they are. And Sasha know that they're in trouble. As the librarian is walking towards them, Sasha is getting super nervous.\n\"Ms. Cali! What do you think your doing? And you Mr. I don't know who you are.\" The librarian said.\n\"I'm Bailey Brooklyn. And it was my fa---\" he was explaining but Sasha hit his back.\n\"You have no right to talk when you're not being ask. 3 weeks detention for Ms. Cali and Mr. Brooklyn.\" The librarian said and left.\n\"You're new here aren't you?\" Sasha asked.\n\"Yes.\" Bailey replied.\n\"That explains why you're being stupid!\" Sasha said.\n\"Look, I'm sorry.\" Bailey said.\n\"I don't need your sorry. Just get lost!\" Sasha replied and continue to fix the books.\nWhen suddenly she heard that someone burst in from the door. Bailey pulled Sasha in the darkest part of the library.\n\"What do you think your doing?\" Sasha asked in a whisper.\n\"I'm trying to save you.\" Bailey replied.\n\"From what?\" Sasha asked again.\n\"From my cousin, Ali.\" Bailey replied.\n\"Ali is your cousin?! Then that explains why you're a bad luck.\" Sasha said.\n\"I have no friends and even Ali hated me.\" Bailey replied.\n\"So what you wanted me to do?\" Sasha asked.\n\"I want you to be my friend. If that's okay with you?\" Bailey said.\nSasha nodded and went back to her tasks of arranging the books. While Bailey is assigned to clean the floors.\nAfter the detention is finish, Sasha and Bailey go looking for a bench to sit in. Then suddenly Ali appeared.\n\"Oh look, cousin, you got yourself a dumb friend.\" Ali said.\n\"Look at your friends, you have a lot of friends but do you think they are true. And let me correct you, the person you were calling dumb is one of the best student here and she's also your childhood sweetheart. Better back off cause I'll never let you hurt her.\" Bailey argue.\n\"Yeah yeah let's go guys, See you around dork Cousin and his db friend.\" Ali said and left.\nBailey was about to follow Ali and punch him but Sasha stopped him then they went to their class together.\nThat was the last class for the day, so they go to the bus stop to wait for the next bus to arrive then it suddenly rain.\n\"Sh**. Lucky I have my umbrella with me. Just use this.\" Sasha said and handed the umbrella.\n\"But how about you?\" Bailey asked\n\"I'm going to be fine. And I need to go.\" Sasha replied.\n\"There's no bus. How you'll get back home?\" Bailey asked again.\n\"I'm using my bike! Just bring the umbrella tomorrow! Bye!\" Sasha said and waved goodbye before biking through the road.\nSasha was having the bad day today. And then Ali's car. Stop exactly at her.\n\"Hey dumb! You wanna come inside the car.\" Ali offered.\n\"If I want to come inside your car I'll beg you but no thanks I hate you so no.\" Sasha said.\n\"I know I'm wrong, just don't go near my cousin.\" Ali said.\n\"Why would you tell me that? You have no right to tell me who I should be talking to.\" Sasha replied.\n\"I'll keep on bullying you if you come across him.\" Ali threaten Sasha.\n\"That's all you got? I don't care if you're keep on bullying me. It doesn't affect me anymore.\" Sasha argue back and continue to bike home.\nAli drove fast and it makes the water splash and now Sasha is covered in mud because of Ali.\n\"Calm Sasha calm down.\" Sasha said to herself.\nAs Sasha continue to bike home, she happened to cross a puppy that is covered in mud. She get off his bike and get the puppy then she put it on her bike's basket.\n\"Now I'll take care of you.\" She said and pedaling the bike as fast as she could.\nSo she got home faster but covered in mud.\n\"Take this.\" Her dad said and offered the towel.\nShe take of her clothes in one of the bush and take the puppy inside with her.\n\"Come down after you finish showering.\" Her dad said.\n\"Ok.\" She coldly replied and go into the bathroom.\nShe took a shower with the puppy and they're both clean when they went out of the bathroom.\n\"What now?\" She asked.\n\"I need to leave you here.\" Her dad said.\n\"And?\" She asked again.\n\"I'm leaving tonight.\" Her dad replied.\n\"That was so fast.\" She replied.\n\"But you had someone to come and accompanied you while I'm gone.\" Her dad said and take the bag then leave.\n\"As expected from him.\" Sasha said and sigh.\nTo be continue..." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: I am Nobody.\n\nGenre: high-school\n\nWord Count: 1850\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about a character who meticulously catalogs everything in their life, until something disrupts their system." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "I sighed and pushed aside all my homework on the desk. I pulled out a blue spiraled notebook and flipped to a blank page. 6:00 PM. I wrote the date then began my story for today.\n4/26/21\nI got up and made my bed. I then went to my closet and chose a green sweater and paired it with white jeans. I then went and got ready in the bathroom for school. My mom made me toast with butter and milk for breakfast. I slammed the milk and grabbed the toast. 7:45 AM. I was going to be late for school. I was really worried because I had a test 1st period today. I grabbed my backpack and sprinted to the bus barely catching it. 7:51 AM. I sat in the school bus and breathed out a sigh of relief. I had to quickly check my backpack to make sure I wasn’t missing anything, but of course I was missing something. I rummaged through my backpack again to see if I was actually missing my math notes. We were only allowed 1 notecard for notes. The notecard was tiny so I thought that it was somewhere in my backpack. With each passing minute I began to worry even more. 7:55 AM. The bus screeched to a stop yet my notecard was nowhere to be found. I cursed under my breath at my luck. Great I didn’t even have my notes for my test today. As everyone slowly filed out of the bus I looked around on the floor to see if I dropped it. Of course as Zack passed by me he pushed me over. Typical I sighed to myself. I lost my balance, but I didn’t fall down thank goodness.\n“Everyone off the bus now please!” My bus driver shouted. I got up and left the bus as slow as I could. 7:58 AM. Shoot. I was going to be late for class. I quickly navigated the familiar grey walls and slammed the door open. 8:00 AM. Right on time. I walked over to my seat as eyes turned to look at me. I ignored them though of course.\n“Time for the math test students! I hope you’re prepared!” The teacher smiled. I didn’t smile back. My stomach was churning. I forgot my math notes, I’m going to fail now. That sentence ran repeatedly in my head. The instant the teacher placed the test down on my desk I flipped it over to see if I could figure out how to do any of it. I looked through the test and everything looked unfamiliar to me. Dang it. I considered faking sick so I could leave early, but I’m not sure if I could do that because I don’t actually feel sick. Plus I’m a terrible actor. I looked back at the test and made up my mind. I would take it and hope for the best.\n9:50 AM. I placed my pencil down on my desk and raised my hand. The teacher stood up an walked over to me. She then took the test and did a cursory glance and muttered something under her breath. I swallowed loudly. From that reaction I probably failed the test. I spent the rest of the class period sulking of course. Zack leaned over to me and whispered, “Don’t worry. You did great” I leaned far back away from him and threw a glare. What did he know about failing. He got the highest grades in the class every single time.\n10:30 AM. Time for PE. I went to the girls locker room and changed into my gym clothes. “Guess what students?! We’re going to run the mile today!” My PE teacher gleefully exclaimed. I groaned again. Great. Its not like I hate running, but I’m just not in the mood for it today. I walked over to the start line and as soon as the teacher said go I was sprinting. I could sprint through the whole mile although I rarely did, but today was different. I wanted to be done as soon as possible so I could go home. After we completed the mile the teacher would always let us go early to do whatever we needed to do. I sprinted past the finish line panting. 10:35 AM. I grabbed my water bottle and let the cool water flow into my mouth. Someone was coming to the finish line. I squinted to see who it was. Zack. Of course it was Zack. Mr. Perfect-know-it-all. He got second place though. I smiled at the thought of that. Mr. Perfect got 2nd place in the mile run. I smirked to myself. As I headed back to the locker room the gym teacher congratulated me for getting first place and smiled a huge smile. That was a bit suspicious of course because the gym teacher rarely smiled. I shrugged it off and got changed in the locker room. 10:50 AM. My next period teacher wasn’t going to be there so I started walking home.\n“Wait!” Someone shouted. I turned my head around to see who it was and unsurprisingly it was Zack. I glared at him and continued walking. Zack sprinted over to me. I asked him what he wanted, but he didn’t say anything. He looked thoughtfully out to the clouds for a moment before saying, “You’ll be joining us soon enough. See you in a bit!” Then he sprinted off again. 11:25 AM. What did he mean. I actually don’t know. I was nearing my house so I pulled out my key and walked up to my door. 11:30 AM. I pushed the door open and headed up to my room. I was zonked from the running today in PE. Maybe I would take a little nap. I walked over to my bed and collapsed.\nI lifted up the pen and read what I had written so far. It looked pretty accurate to me. I still couldn’t believe I took a 7 hour nap though. That was insane. Although I did stay up really late last night actually. My stomach started grumbling at me. I was to lazy to cook anything so I went downstairs expecting my mom on the couch watching tv, but surprisingly the tv was switched off. I lazily walked over to the closet and pulled out my special hidden chocolate bar. I went back upstairs, but before going in my room I checked to see if my dad was in his usual spot sleeping in his bed. He wasn’t there. An alarm started going off in my head. My parents were normally home by now. Where were they? I shrugged it off again. My parents were probably working overtime or at the store or something. Yet that sense of unease didn’t leave the pit of my stomach. I went back to my room to continue my writing, but all of it was gone. I ran over to the table and flipped through the notebook. All my writing was gone. I frantically ran around my room looking all over for it, but it was no where to be found. I went back and looked at the notebook again. There was still 1 page with words on it though. I quickly flipped to that page to see what was on it. \n4/26/21\n6:03 PM. Alyssa comes back upstairs to her room. She notices all her pages are missing in her notebook except one page. She frantically searches for the other pages of her notebook. Her parents come back home. 6:05 PM.\nI quickly checked the time and sure enough it was 6:05. The door downstairs opened and from the voices she could tell that it was her parents. She went back to reading the note.\nAfter her parents head upstairs to watch a movie, Alyssa slips out the door. She rides the bike outside that is leaning on her mailbox. She goes to the school football field… Scenario 2: Alyssa doesn’t follow the instructions and she dies.\nFrom: Your best friend <3\nI gasped a little and felt faint. Who could her best friend be? She didn’t have a best friend. The only person who had ever really went out of their way to interact with her was Zack. Could Zack have written this? No way Zack would never do something like this right? Either way I didn’t want to die so I did what the note said. Once I heard my parents door shut I creeped down the stairs and went out the front door. The bike was there as promised and I hopped on and rode to school. I climbed over the football fields fence. 6:15 PM.\n“Well I was wondering when you would show up!” Zack said. He smirked at me and his face said that he knew something I didn’t. I ran over to him and punched him, but my hand touched nothing, but air. In fact my hand went right through him. What? How was that possible? Was he a hologram? He sighed and said, “Go over to the 50 yard line and stand in the middle of the 0 for 10 seconds.” I glared at him again, but I did what I was told because I was curious. 6:20 PM. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. The ground below me disappeared. And I fell down and down until I hit a pit full of foam blocks. Where the heck was I? As I got up I looked around and saw all the people staring at me. A woman with long black hair walked up to me. She looked around 40 years old. The woman looked a bit familiar, but I couldn’t place where from.\n“Hello Alyssa. Nice to finally meet you.” She said. I got up and punched her hoping with all my being that she wasn’t a hologram. She wasn’t. She stumbled back in shock and coldly smiled at me.\n“I guess I should’ve expected that.” She replied. I looked at everyone else to see if I knew anyone and sure enough they were all my classmates. But they were all looking at me with shock for some reason.\n“I’m going to be blunt with you dear, I’m not the type of person to beat around the bush so I’ll tell you exactly why you’re here. You’ve been chosen to work for the CIA. No one knows you exist other then everyone in this school and some high officials at the CIA. And yes this is including your parents. Your fingerprint is now gone, so is all the info on you that are in databases. So I guess welcome to the CIA. Zack will help you get used to here.” She stated.\nI was still in shock so I said back, “What if I refuse?” \nShe chuckled and looked at the rest of the students and they started laughing too. She then responded saying, “You cant dear. If you refuse, then lets just say there wont be a happy ending.”\nAnd that’s how I joined the CIA unwillingly." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: The lye of a century\n\nGenre: high-school\n\nWord Count: 1014\n\nPrompt:\n\nStart your story with a stern librarian scolding two characters for making noise in the library." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Too friends where getting ready to have a slumber party with a couple of people , when they noticed that they didn't have any good movies to watch someone texted them saying that they were going to be there in like a hour, one of the friends looked surprised because she could've sworn that she had a good movie to watch the other one looked disorganized because everything was going great until that one moment neither knew what they were going to do it was too late too go to the store but they realized that there was a library near by so they grabbed the library card and rushed out of the house and started to walk to library it was only a half a mile walk but they swore it was longer, they eventually got to the library they took a minute and sat down then they wen't inside they started in the kids section just to cheek to see if there was anything good to watch they couldn't find anything so they wen't to the third floor they looked around and still couldn't find anything so they when't to the second floor and looked around, they both grabbed some books they wanted and then they wen't to the movies they looked up and down the movies they found a couple of things but they weren't going to be able to watch them all, so they started whispering trying to figure out what to watch when all of a sudden a voice turned around and shushed them they were surprised because they didn't think that they were talking very load but they lowered there voices even quieter anyway, when all of a sudden he shushed them again they barely could hear each other there was no way this guy could hear theme but so they when't even quieter not really being able to hear each other one word came out of there mouth when he walked over to them this is the moment that they noticed it was a librarian, he walked over to them and yelled at them telling them that he shouldn't be able to hear them even though there was no was of him being able to hear them it just wasn't possible so they grabbed too movies and they went to go scan out, the guy scanned them out and when he when't to go scan the card it wasn't going through they noticed that there was no way possible they were getting a movie knowing that the guest would be showing up any minute and they still had to walk back to the house, so they just left and walked home luckily one of the guest brought a movie so they ended up having something to watch and they had a good night after that they played games they watched movies the too people told the everyone else what happened and they seemed surprised and confused too they never wanted to see that guy again but the next time they go they would make sure that they had other people with them so that they wouldn't have to be worried about much because they have more witnesses . The next time they when't to the library they brought more people with them but he wasn't there, but when the boy and the other girl left he showed up , the girl was with the guys brother and of coarse he started yelling at us the boy that was with the girl stood up and started yelling back iv never seen anything like this she didn't know what to do if she should not get involved or if she should get involved she didn't know what to do so she kinda just sat and watched the guy she was with got kicked out not soon after she left the library because she didn't want to deal with the guy who was yelling at her and all of her friends all because they were whispering to this day she doesn't understand why he yelled at her and her friends there teens there suppose to have a good time there supposed to be living out there high school life with only school being frustrating there not supposed to have to worry about weird guys at the library yelling at them at the library especially not in the teen space, yes of coarse there are people who they have to watch out for but they weren't thous people they don't get drunk our smoke our throw giant party's there just trying to live the best life they can without being trouble makers, anyway they haven't seen the guy since but that also because they kinda stopped hanging out a that library they switched to hanging at malls,parks,and more of coarse they still do fun stuff together this was like 3 years ago and everyone has changed but there still best friends and they will never stop being best friends they will be 90 and still doing things together all of them know it and if they don't well they will eventually.even if you do get yelled at our whatever always remember you have friends with you and that person can't bring you down only you can bring yourself down by believing it our by letting it get to you always remember you are always your own person and know one can take that away from you know matter what they say or do you are you, she turns to me and tells me how it still bugs her and how he maid her feel bad about herself and i say the same thing to her she doesn't believe it right know but she will believe it one day i promise her that i will make her feel better even if one of are friends are going through a difficult time we will all believe it one day.And always take care of yourself first by listening to music relaxing in a bath our drinking tea or something just do something for you." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Not truly in their hearts, but in their eyes.\n\nGenre: high-school\n\nWord Count: 1857\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about a character who meticulously catalogs everything in their life, until something disrupts their system." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "6:30 A.M. - Breakfast\n7:00 A.M. - Shower/Get ready\n8:00 A.M. - School\n3:00 P.M. - Homework\n4:00 P.M. - Relax\n5:00 P.M. - Start on Dinner\n6:00 P.M. - Eat Dinner\n6:30 P.M. - Clean up\n7:00 P.M. - Read/Watch Something\n10:00 P.M. - Try to Sleep\n11:00 P.M. - Pretend to Sleep\n12:00 A.M. - Check Messages and Time\n1:00 A.M. - Lay There With my Thoughts\n2:00 A.M. - Blink In and Out of Sleep\n3:00 A.M. - Sleep\n4:00 A.M. - Wake Up\n5:00 A.M - Check Messages Again.\n5:10 A.M - Put Makeup on my Face to Cover the Dark Circles. Again.\n6:30 A.M. - Breakfast\n\nI'm in first period Chemistry, trying to stay awake as Mr. Corrin explains our lesson.\nI look around and half the female population of class is on their phone, completely ignoring Mr. Corrin. The boys have fallen asleep or are making paper airplanes under their desks.\nThey all came prepared for this lesson, I did not. I would take out my phone, but I don't have energy to do anything but sit here. I would sleep, but I can't. Maybe in two days I will pass out from exhaustion. Then I can get some rest.\nWhenever I do get sleep, I always cherish it. I love sleep. It comes with vivid dreams and things that are so much better than my real life.\nWhat I would give to stay in my dreams.\nIt doesn't matter how long I close my eyes, sleep never comes.\nI pick at my nails and hide behind my waves of hair. I survey my class, envious of their ability to go about doing normal things teenagers do, without being plagued by lethargy. The only one who seems to be paying attention is the new kid.\nI haven't noticed him until now. Mr. Corrin doesn't introduce new students. He didn't introduce me six months ago, why should that change for any others?\nWith the sleeves of my oversized sweater I rub my face and sit up. I push back my dirty blonde curls to get a better view of him. I sit in the middle row and I'm second to the back. He is the second in the front on the left row.\nThe bell rings.\nFinally.\nI get up sluggishly, but still surprisingly fast. I just want to get out of here.\nI head to English. The one class I actually enjoy. Ms. Donatella is the best. She is young and wild. Her blonde hair is always tied up in a bright jungle style bandana and she insists we call her by her first name.\nI push the door to the classroom open and I literally drop into my chair. I rub at my face again trying to make out what the chalk board says.\n\"Young men’s love then lies, not truly in their hearts, but in their eyes.\"\nI roll my eyes. Ms. Donnatella is the biggest romantic I know.\nSomeone sits in the chair next to me. No one ever does, so I know I must look and see who it is.\nIt's the new kid from Chemistry. Figures.\n\"Hi, I'm Audric.\" He says.\n\"Everah.\" I say back. Then I fold my arms on the desk and nestle my head between them. Maybe he will leave me alone.\nOut of the corner of my eye I can see he wants to say something more, but he doesn't. Thank the stars.\n\"Good morning class!\" Ms. Donnatella says. \"As I'm sure you have guessed from the board, we will be continuing our discussion on Shakespeare.\nHer voice fades out, until . . . \"Everah?\"\nI look up, a bit startled. \"What?\" I can tell my tone is confused, because she gives me the look all teachers do when they know you haven't been paying attention.\n\"She asked you if you believe in love at first sight.\" Audric whispers.\n\"Oh, no. I don't. I believe you can be attracted to someone and be intrigued, but I don't believe that you can fall head over heels for them without having gotten to know them first.\" Ms. Donnatella nods, and I glance at Audric. \"Thank you.\" I whisper back.\n\"Of course. Um, if you don't mind me asking, are you alright?\"\nNo one has ever asked me that before. \"I— I'm fine. I just didn't get a lot of sleep last night.\"\n\"Oh.\"\nWe continue our discussion, Ms. Donnatella obviously arguing in favor of love at first sight.\nWhen the bell rings I head to the cafeteria. Audric follows me. If he decides to try and befriend me, I will have to engage in conversation. I would rather drag myself through these monotonous days talking to no one. I have my schedule, I want to stick to it.\n\"Is it alright if I sit here?\" He asks, motioning to the empty chair beside mine.\n\"I guess so.\" I mumble.\n\"People aren't very friendly here.\" He says, unwrapping a turkey sandwich.\nI don't eat, instead I bring my knees up to my chest and hug them. I toy with the rip in my jeans as I answer him. \"I know. I've been here for a few months and I think three people have said hi and that was it.\"\n\"I wasn't just talking about everyone else.\" He raises an eyebrow.\nThis surprises me. Does he mean . . . I'm not friendly? \"Sorry,\" I say, not even remotely apologetic. \"I slept hardly at all last night.\"\n\"It's alright, I suppose.\" Audric takes a bite of his sandwich, chews, and swallows. \"I can't expect you to become my best friend or something in the first five minutes of knowing you.\"\n\"No, You can't.\"\nHe picks at his food while I stare at the center of the table.\n\"So, you don't eat, and you don't sleep. Do you try and avoid breathing too?\" He jokes. Audric knows it's a serious thing, but for some reason he kids about it.\nI puff out my cheeks mimicking holding my breath. He laughs aloud and it makes me smile. He has a beautiful laugh.\n\"Where did you move from?\"\n\"Afton, Wyoming,\" He says. \"The heat here in Florida is a big change from up north.\"\n\"I can imagine.\"\nThe conversation comes to a halt again. I look at his eyes. They are a sparkling blue compared to his dark hair.\n\"You have intense eyes.\" I offer. I hate the pauses in conversations, so I always try to fill them, but I am slightly mollified at what came out.\nLike I was by his statement about me not being friendly, he seems surprised also. \"Your hair is comely.\" He compliments back.\nI want to laugh but I hold it in. \"Comely?\"\n\"Beautiful is too cliché for you.\" Audric smiles and looks down at his sandwich, then up at me again.\n\"This conversation took an interesting turn.\"\n\"I'm not the one driving it.\" He sips his water.\n\"A man of metaphors?\" I raise an eyebrow. Suddenly I'm not tired, or is he just distracting me from my fatigue?\nWhen lunch ends and I head to art, and the lethargy takes over my body again.\n\n3:00 P.M. - Homework\n5:30 P.M. - Relax\n6:40 P.M. - Start on Dinner\n7:10 P.M. - Eat Dinner\n8:00 P.M. - Clean up\n9:00 P.M. - Read/Watch Something\n11:00 P.M. - Try to Sleep\n11:30 P.M. - Pretend to Sleep\n12:00 A.M. - Check Messages and Time\n1:00 A.M. - Lay There With my Thoughts\n\nIt's 1:08 A.M. and the thing— or person I should say— that occupies my thoughts is Audric. He is awfully cute. With his straight jawline and blue eyes. Seriously. His eyes.\nI swore to myself I would never be this kind of girl, but I guess it's all a matter of meeting the right guy.\nThis is ridiculous. I met Audric today.\nHe just made an impression. A very good one. I tell myself.\nAudric, Audric, Audric.\nMy only sort-of friend.\nWe can be outcasts together.\nThe thing that confuses me most, is why he chose to talk to me. He was a talkative person with an alluring personality. He could talk to anyone. I am surprised none of the other girls have thrown themselves at him yet.\nYet.\nFor now he is all mine.\nRidiculous.\nThis is what happens when you don't get sleep, you find yourself thinking of things that will never happen. But if I do sleep, my mind will dream up things that will never happen.\nThe difference between thinking and dreaming is I can control my thoughts, dreams are out of hand, although they do reveal your desires.\nI realize I said I liked dreams earlier. Now, I'm not so sure.\n\n8:00 A.M. - School\n\nI sigh at my lunch table as Audric sits down next to me. \"So we're gonna make this lunch date a regular thing?\" I ask.\nOh. My. Stars. Did I really just say that?\n\"I wouldn't call it a date, but you're the only person I find remotely interesting. Did you not sleep again?\" He asks, noticing my dark circles.\n\"Insomnia.\" I say, blatantly, hoping to hide the embarrassment behind my factual tone.\n\"Oh.\" He eats his turkey sandwich, same as yesterday. \"At least you're eating this time.\"\nI nod. I had leftover meatballs from last night's dinner. It's the only thing my entire family likes, so we have it all too often. \"Just not breathing.\" I smile and hold my breath for five seconds, again.\nHe grins . . . and takes one of my meatballs. \"Hey!\"\n\"Did you make these?\" Audric asks, his mouth full.\nI bob my head shyly.\n\"Very good.\" And he reaches for another and I swat his hand away. \"Hey, I know an Italian place a few blocks from my house. We should try it sometime.\"\nI'm a bit taken aback, but it seems we both surprise each other. \"Yeah,\" I say. \"I think I would like that.\"\n\n6:30 A.M. - Breakfast\n7:00 A.M. - Shower/Get ready\n8:00 A.M. - School\n3:00 P.M. - Homework\n4:00 P.M. - Get ready to go to Dinner\n5:00 P.M. - Meet Audric\n5:30 P.M. - Eat Dinner\n6:30 P.M. - Talk\n8:00 P.M. - Stare intently at his mesmerizing eyes. I love his eyes.\n8:30 P.M. - Come Home\n8:31 P.M. - Endure my mother's nagging for details while trying to suppress a smile.\n10:00 P.M. - Try to Sleep\n11:00 P.M. - Think of Audric\n12:00 A.M. - Check Messages to see if there are any from Audric\n1:00 A.M. - Lay There With my Thoughts, most likely ones of Audric.\n1:45 A.M. - Sleep\n7:00 A.M. - Wake Up\n\nAudric threw me off a bit when I first met him. My daily routine and schedule was interrupted. But . . . Now I think I'm glad for it. I was living the same monotonous day, over and over again. But last night when I closed my eyes, I fell asleep, and this morning when I woke up, I decided . . . I do like to dream." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Dark Fair\n\nGenre: historical-fiction\n\nWord Count: 2859\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about a character who is trying to convince others to play a game." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "(Trigger warning: This story contains mentions of violence and suicide)\nThe Game began on a Saturday in the spring of 1932. The blue sky arched like the tents of the fair that had arrived the night before, unnoticed by the inhabitants of the small harbour town. It was the fishermen who first noticed the lights behind the hilltops and already an hour later the message was on everyone's lips.\nNow you have to know that pleasure rarely reached the southernmost tip of Cornwall. People lived on what they fished out of the rough waters in their cutters early in the morning or grew in their tiny gardens and harvested later. Most of them had two sets of clothes, one for the day's work in the numerous factories or tin and copper mines and one for attending church on Sundays. And if you could spare a few cents, you donated them at the collection, for there was always some poor wretch who needed the money even more urgently than yourself. Yes, all in all it was a meagre, often arduous life.\n\nSo, you can imagine that the arrival of a fair suddenly lifted the morose mood and sent young and old into a frenzy. The villagers all agreed that they did not want to be stingy on this day.\nThe little money that had been put aside for hard times was taken out of piggy banks and mattresses, the children were dressed up and coats and top hats were taken from the wardrobe. Then they made their way together to the hills where the fair had set up its tents.\n\nFrancis Hawken, a young man of twenty-two who had just completed his apprenticeship with the local master carpenter, cut a particularly handsome figure in his new pinstripe suit. His dark hair was neatly parted and bright blue eyes that usually held a mischievous spark stood out from under bushy eyebrows.\nThe suit had been an expensive purchase, a custom tailoring made of blue wool for which he had paid the tailor a whole month's salary. But when he had looked into the mirror that morning, he could not have been more pleased.\n\nFrancis was of marriageable age. He received a modest but secure salary and was thinking of leaving his father´s house and moving into a small hut near the coast.\nSince the girl he had long fancied had been promised to someone else, he had hesitated for a while to go ahead with his plans. But with the arrival of the fair, his determination had also returned and he found it was time to move forward. Life had to go on, after all.\nAnd so it was that Francis, like the other villagers, stood outside the wrought-iron gates of the fair on that balmy spring morning, craning his neck to catch a glimpse of the colourful tents and rides beyond. A small tin sign had been attached to the black iron bars, announcing in accurate letters that the fair would not open its doors until the noon hour.\n\nDisappointed sighs rang out in the tense silence and soon people were spreading coats and scarves on the lawn and settling down on them while the children sang a rhyme and passed the time with boisterous games.\nFrancis found a shady spot under a weeping willow, folded his arms behind his head and let himself sink into the soft grass as the sun very gradually climbed towards its zenith.\n\nWhen the church clock finally struck noon, he sat up and watched as the gates were opened amid loud \"Ah\" and \"Oh\" and people streamed into the interior of the fair in little groups.\nAs if in a trance, he stood up and followed the villagers. The sound of his footsteps was muffled by a thick layer of forest litter and everywhere there was the smell of candy floss, small cakes and sweets.\n\nFor a while he let himself drift with the crowd, wishing he had four more pairs of eyes. It was impossible to take in everything at once. There were flashing rides, stalls threatening to collapse under the weight of sweets and delicacies, small tents, hurdy-gurdies, singers and jugglers, shining horses, acrobats and fire-eaters. At one tiny stall he bought an apple pie, still warm from the oven, and kept an eye out for a familiar face. In the morning, he had thought he had spotted Deirdre Mellyn among the waiting crowd, a pretty girl with blonde curls and dimples whom he would have been only too happy to buy a ride on the fairy lights carousel. But when he finally spotted her on the arm of George Rosemergy, he took a different tack. He was drawn to a remote part of the fair.\n\nIt was less busy here and only occasionally did villagers stray among the workers' horse-drawn carts and battered caravans.\nIt was a small, inconspicuous tent that caught his attention. The tarpaulin was folded back at one side, revealing the dark interior. Curious, Francis stepped closer until he could make out what was hidden behind it. Only then did he notice the sign above the entrance: ENTER AT YOUR OWN RISK.\n\n\"Enter at your own risk,\" he muttered and traced the letters with a pensive expression. Apart from the sign, there was nothing to indicate that the tent was one of the circus attractions. It was plainer than the other stalls. No lights were flashing here, no music was playing and in general the place seemed deserted. Forgotten, like a worn-out pair of shoes left by the wayside. Nevertheless, or precisely for this reason, Francis could not avert his gaze. Just as he was about to duck to step under the canvas, a voice came from the depths of the shadows.\n\n\"Ahhh, a visitor. Come, enter. I promise I won't bite.\"\n\nFrancis stopped rooted to the spot as a man stepped into the narrow cone of light that fell inside the tent from outside. His pale skin seemed to glow in the darkness, almost silvery, as if he had bathed in moonlight, and his movements were as smooth as the silk scarf Francis had given Merrin Davies for her last birthday.\nThe man indicated a slight bow.\n\n\"Asmodeus del Vi,\" he said. \"It´s a pleasure to meet you... Come, please. Make yourself comfortable. I'll prepare some tea for you.\"\n\nFrancis hesitated. Strictly speaking, he was looking for a girl he could impress with the dapper suit and his saved-up wages. But if he was honest, he was in the mood for something else entirely.\nAsmodeus turned to him. A slight smile played around the corners of his mouth.\n\n\"No tea? How about a whisky? Or perhaps a brandy? I have a good vintage in stock.\"\n\"Thank you. I'll have the tea, please.\"\n\nWhile Asmodeus filled a kettle with water and placed it on a small cooker, Francis looked around curiously. The only source of light was a half-burned candle whose glow illuminated dozens of bundles of dried plants, herbs and spices hanging from the ceiling. They gave off a pleasant smell, tart like the herbal tea his mother had brewed on cold winter evenings. The memory stung him.\nBooks were piled up on a circular table and on roughly nailed-together shelves whose boards seemed to groan under the weight. A mirror caught his attention. It was about man-high with a gilded frame that gleamed in the candlelight. A magnificent piece, but unfortunately useless. For the glass was blind as an old woman's eye.\n\n\"I see you have discovered my mirror,\" said Asmodeus. \"It was a gift from my sister, Dina. They say it shows you the truth, past, present and future...\" He eyed Francis with pitch-black eyes.\n\"Tell me, are you an honest man?\"\n\nFrancis pondered. Was he an honest man? Could he in good conscience claim to always prefer the truth to a convenient lie?\n\"A liar would probably answer yes,\" he finally said. Asmodeus laughed out.\n\n\"Very good, very good. You know how to play the game.\"\n\n\"What game?\"\n\n\"Ahhh, that's the question, isn't it?\" Asmodeus walked over to the cooker and took the whistling kettle off the plate. Then he filled two cups with dark herbs, poured the boiling water over them and handed one cup to Francis. The second he placed on a small tray before sinking into an armchair.\n\n\"I offer my clients a deal,\" he explained, lifting a small velvet pouch that clinked softly. \"A very lucrative business, in fact.\"\n\n\"What is in the pouch?\" asked Francis. Asmodeus smiled, opened the little ribbon, slipped his hand inside and pulled three thick, golden coins out of it. Francis's eyes widened.\n\n\"Are these real?\"\n\nAsmodeus handed him a gold coin.\n\"As real as you and I, sir, make sure of it yourself.\"\nWith a look of disbelief, Francis bit down on the golden metal. Soft and definitely real.\n\n\"The gold is yours. On one condition.\" Francis listened up. What could he offer a man like Asmodeus in return?\n\n\"We'll play a game. If you win, you can keep the gold, plus everything you see in this tent. However, should you lose...\" Asmodeus paused, and now a cunning expression entered his eyes that sent a shiver down Francis's spine, \"your soul becomes my property.\"\n\n\"My soul,\" Francis repeated dazedly. \"How could I gamble away my soul?\"\n\nAsmodeus waved it off.\n\"That is a mere formality that should not worry you. If you abide by the rules of the game, you will be in no danger.\"\n\n\"Explain this game to me. Then I will decide whether or not to get involved.\"\n\nAsmodeus smiled and rose from his chair.\n\"Come, I will demonstrate the rules with an example. It's quite easy, you'll see.\"\n\nFrancis swallowed his discomfort and followed Asmodeus to the mirror that reflected the flickering candlelight. As he stepped closer, he noticed that the words Memento Mori had been carved into the frame. Memento Mori. Latin, he thought, annoyed that he had only attended primary school.\n\n\"Stand in front of the mirror. A little to the left... Yes, that's it. That's it.\"\n\nThe stained glass showed him his reflection.\n\"The mirror is able to see the truth. The whole truth. I am now going to ask you a question and your task will be to tell me what the mirror shows you. Do you understand?\"\n\nFrancis nodded, even though he would have preferred to return to the other villagers at this point.\n\n\"All right... Tell me, what do you desire most in the world?\"\nFrancis looked into the mirror. At first, he saw only himself, a tall young man, well dressed and cleanshaven as befitted his age. But then the milky glass before his eyes turned into a razor-sharp image. Only it showed not himself or Asmodeus, nor the inside of the tent, but a young woman.\n\n\"Merrin,\" he whispered, stepping up to the mirror. Carefully, he reached out for her, but as he touched the glass, the image dissipated and the mirror clouded until he was once again face to face with his own blurred image.\n\n\"Excellent!\" exclaimed Asmodeus, clapping his hands.\n\nFrancis blinked.\n\n\"What... what was that?\" he asked.\n\n\"The truth, sir, the truth. I asked you about your deepest longing and the mirror showed you the answer. All you have to do in order to win the game is to answer my questions honestly.\"\n\n\"And then you'll let me have the gold? What's the catch?\"\n\nAsmodeus's smile widened. He put a hand on Francis's shoulder and drawled, \"Four questions. Four honest answers. No catch. I promise.\"\n\n\"It's a tempting offer,\" Francis said. Very tempting. Too tempting. He would be a fool to let this opportunity pass. After all, there was no secret worth giving away thirty gold coins.\n\n\"Fine,\" he finally said, holding out his broad hand to Asmodeus, \"we have a deal.\"\n\nAsmodeus chimed in. It took all of Francis's control not to pull his hand away instantly. Asmodeus's skin was cold as ice and smooth as the stones he had fished out of the sea as a child. A sly smile crept into the corners of his mouth and Francis was overcome with the oppressive feeling that he had fallen into a trap.\n\n\"Well.\" Asmodeus pointed to the mirror in an inviting gesture. \"Shall we begin?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" Francis said, \"I am ready.\"\nAsmodeus chuckled softly. \"Oh, but you are never ready, my dear.\"\n\"Tell me, what are you most afraid of?\"\n\nTime seemed to slow down. For the first few moments he saw only himself, pale and nervous, while his heart pounded in his ears. He knew what the mirror would show him and yet he felt himself break into a cold sweat as the glass cleared and he caught sight of himself, his right hand closed around a leather strap. His arms were bloodied, his face bright red and his eyes shadowed by thick rings. At his feet crouched a young woman bending protectively over a child as he brought the belt down on her again and again.\n\n\"Tell me what you see,\" Asmodeus whispered.\n\n\"I'm older,\" Francis breathed. \"Drunk. And I beat my wife and child. They are afraid of me.\"\n\n\"Like father, like son, isn't it?\" Asmodeus's voice was soft as a breeze. Francis had almost forgotten that he was still standing beside him.\n\n\"Yes,\" he said. Like father, like son. And for a brief, fleeting moment, he thought he could feel the bruises and welts that his father's anger had left on his body so many years prior. But then he pulled himself together, clasped his trembling hands behind his back and tore his gaze away from the mirror's surface.\n\n\"Can we go on?\" The sharpness of his tone seemed to bring Asmodeus back to reality too, for a sly expression flashed in his eyes.\n\n\"Fine, fine,\" he drawled. \"Then look into the mirror and tell me about your darkest memory.\"\n\nIt was as if he was looking through a window into his past. The lifeless form of his mother swayed gently in the wind. Her face was pale as porcelain, her lips chapped and cracked, and a dark bruise shimmered through the almost transparent skin under her left eye. Francis opened his mouth. He tried to speak but the words would not come until he thought he would choke on them.\n\n\"It was I who found her,\" he finally brought out. \"On a crossbeam, down by the docks. Hanged. I think she just couldn't take it anymore. The beatings and threats, the constant fear she lived in.\" He fell silent, swallowing against a wave of nausea. He had shoved away the memories of his mother's suicide years ago. That door had been locked, like a secret that wanted to be kept. A secret he had just sold for a bag of gold.\n\nDisgusted, Francis turned away from the mirror, but as he was about to take a step aside, Asmodeus grabbed him by the arm and said in a dangerously soft voice, \"Remember the Game's stakes, Francis!\" Francis froze. \"I never told you my name.\"\n\nAsmodeus smiled. There was nothing human in his gaze any more.\n\"Look. Into. The. Mirror.\" Francis obeyed. \"Now tell me who you see.\"\nA strangled yelp escaped his throat as Asmodeus's eyes turned blood red. If he had been handsome before, charming even, he looked like a monster now. Like... \"The incarnate,\" he gasped. \"You are the devil.\"\n\n\"Asmodeus,\" he whispered. \"I am Asmodeus.\"\nIt was then that the scales fell from Francis's eyes. Father Williams had spoken of Asmodeus in one of his sermons last year.\n\"And fear also Asmodeus, the demon of covetousness, wrath and lust. For he leads you down the paths of sin.\" The Father's warning rang in his ears as he looked around at Asmodeus. He was almost surprised that it was not the devil's face that now stared back at him.\n\n\"That leaves one last question, doesn't it?\"\n\nOne last question and he could go his way. \"You made a pact with the devil,\" whispered a small voice in his head. \"Do you really think he would let you off the hook so easily?\"\n\nFrancis was shaking all over. He didn't care about the gold anymore. What happened to it no longer concerned him, for he would reject the prize. What he did care about, however, was the promise he had made to Asmodeus.\n\n\"Now. Answer me this one, final question and you are a free man,\" Asmodeus purred. \"What do you see in your future?\"\n\nAnd one last time Francis looked into the mirror. Dread crept under his skin as he saw what was reflected on the glass surface. He shook his head.\n\n\"No,\" he whispered. It was not possible, it could not be.\n\"The mirror always shows the truth.\" Asmodeus smiled. \"What do you see?\"\n\"I... I see…\"\n\n\nOne day later, Francis Hawken's broken body was found down in the bay. The tide had washed him up on the beach like flotsam, but when the sun rose, an attentive observer would have caught a glimpse of gold between his pale fingers." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Win Together\n\nGenre: high-school\n\nWord Count: 1031\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about a character stumbling upon a library book that changes the course of their life, for better or worse." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Xalix was disappointed to find out that Sal was shocked at the results. They had won the election and Xalix was expecting a parting mood, instead, he met a stunned Vice president-elect, who showed no sign of happiness. “Have you not heard the results?” Xalix asked.\nSal was certain they were not going to win the election. He had decided to be Xalix’s vice since he was Xalix's only friend. He thought it would be unfriendly for him to reject his friend’s request of being his vice.\nXalix was a shy and quiet lad who barely knew anyone apart from Sal. He often spent most of his leisure time at the library, not necessarily to read, but to avoid noise. His roommates saw him as a weird boy and wondered how Sal even managed to be a close friend of Xalix.\nXalix had made known to his neighbourhood friend Sal, when they went to high school, his intention of becoming the Students’ Representative Council president. Sal was certain Xalix will change his mind if he found out that it was a battle of popularity.\n“You do not talk to people to even be known, but you are dreaming of becoming a president,” Sal debated. “Famous? Who said you must be famous to win the election?” Xalix rebated. The longest debate, every day, these two friends tried to convince each other. To Sal, the election was a competition for the well-known, and Xalix stood no chance of winning. “Except you and I, who else are you certain that he or she will vote for you?” Sal questioned Xalix. “Everybody” Xalix replied. Sal laughed and said smiling, “Look Xalix, life is not a cartoon, just like their characters, their stories are also not real. Stop watching them.”\nConfused, Xalix went to the library that day contemplating if should change his mind. That had been his thought the whole day, and Sal's strong rebates kept echoing in his head. It was in this state of dilemma, Xalix stumbled over a library book and collapsed an entire lane of bookshelves. It would not have been so worse had the shelves fell backwards, but they fell forward emptying the books in them.\nAll eyes were fixed on Xalix until the librarian shouted that the library had closed, then each started packing to leave. “Who’s job?” the librarian questioned Xalix, “You or I? Looking at the librarian's rage, Xalix avoided replying. He slowly bent over to lift up a shelf and arrange the books, but the librarian instructed him to leave.\nIt had become news across campus. All knew the library had been closed for the day because a young man had collapsed an entire lane of bookshelves. Xalix returned to his room expecting to be mocked, but to his relief, nobody actually knew who had brought down the bookshelves.\nThe next day, he revealed to Sal that he had caused the library to close down yesterday, but nobody knew, so he should also keep it a secret. “You are obviously going to be revealed and publically shammed today and you think this is a secret?” Sal asked. “How?” Xalix asked back. “Really! You went to the library and caused a disaster, and you think you will go free? Obviously no.” “Alright, but how will the principal know my name? He does not even know who did that,” Xalix boldly defended himself. “You write your name on the library attendees' book when you go to the library, and obviously, being the last person, the librarian is going to give your name to the principal,” Sal elaborated. “As a presidential aspirant, you should be able to analyze such petty stuff,” Sal added.\nSal’s prophecy came to pass, and everyone in the school knew Xalix was the guy who caused the disaster at the library. His name had even been converted into a verb; ‘to xalix', which at Spintex High School, meant, to bring down.\nLater that day, Xalix made known to Sal how his words had caused all that was happening. “I thought you would encourage me to stand as the Students’ Representative Council president, and even run with me since I knew nobody, but you used your words ‘to xalix’ my hopes,” Xalix told Sal softly and left him,\nSal pondered over what Xalix said and quickly ran to Xalix to apologize. “You were right Sal, you did not want me to be defeated,” Xalix replied to Sal’s apology. “I am no more going to run as the Students’ Representative Council president,” Xalix added. Sal kept quiet for a few seconds and replied to his friend saying, “If you say I was right, then pursue the Students’ Representative Council president dream. I said it was a battle of the well-known, and now, you are popular, so go for it.” Sal looked with teary eyes into Xalix’s wet cheeks and hugged him saying, “I will be your vice, if we win, we win together, and if we lose, we lose together.”\nSal’s classmates kept telling him that he was wasting his time following someone who barely talked to anyone, and that he either quits or runs as the Students’ Representative Council president if that is what he really wanted. Sal’s classmates kept showing their displeasure with Sal being Xalix’s vice. “Yes, it is undebatable that Xalix is popular in this school, but do you think, that his popularity is for a good reason?” Sal’s classmates kept advising him.\nThese daily comments made Sal pessimistic and hence was shocked at the hearing of the election results. After Sal had explained why he was shocked at the results, Xalix hugged his vice and said, ”Your words made me stumble on the library book that day and changed the course of my life for the better. But, it did not change my behaviour, I was still a quiet boy. But you, being very friendly to all, including people like me, did the talking aspect. So we did not win only for my popularity, but majorly for your friendliness. Like you said when we were in the first year, if we win, we win together, rejoice, Sal, for we have won together.”" } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Rough Couple of Days\n\nGenre: high-school\n\nWord Count: 1008\n\nPrompt:\n\nSet your story in a library, after hours." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "They weren’t quite running, but they weren’t taking a leisurely stroll through the stacks either. It was dark inside the library; it was a moonless night and none of the indoor lights were on, save for the small lamp in the library office that never seemed to go out. The bookshelves were illuminated by the streetlights in the parking lot and Emma could see the dust particles floating through the air, but the musty smell of her favorite place in the school other than the locker room or the soccer field did nothing to calm her nerves. She could hear Zach breathing behind her and as petty as it was, it was starting to grate on her nerves.\nZach had been driving Emma home after a study session he had been hosting at his house; Emma’s car had broken down the previous week and was still in the shop, but neither of them minded. Emma paid for his vending machine coffee or Starbucks on game days to make up for the gas money, and Emma thought of Zach as good company, and he knew better than to ask why they needed to turn around and go back to school.\nTo be honest, it wasn’t Emma’s first time breaking into the building, but it had been the first time she had done it for a reason that wasn’t a forgotten homework assignment or boredom. Out of the Four, Emma was definitely the one who would know how to: Carine had a key to the locker rooms that connected to the school building, Goldie never forgot an assignment, and if Sav ever realized that she had forgotten something, she simply decided to forget about it until the next day.\n“Emma, what the heck are we doing in here?” Hearing his voice in the quiet of the library made Emma frown deeper. His footsteps somehow echoed on the carpet floor and Emma felt her shoulders tense.\nShe didn’t find the need to respond, so she didn’t. All the text she had gotten from Carine said, Get back here ASAP. Carine didn’t use acronyms (or texting in general, really) lightly, so when she did, it was an immediate cause for worry.\nZach continued on, “If Mrs. Scheme knew we were in here after hours on a weekend, she would ban us from library privileges for the rest of the year.”\nShe whirled around and Zach nearly slammed into her.\n“If it matters to you that much, then just go home,” she hated the tears that had sprung to her eyes, “We don’t want you here if you’re going to ask questions at every turn, then leave.”\n“What’s going on, Emmy?” he waited for an answer and when Emma couldn’t find the words to answer, he continued on, “Everything seemed fine after practice and now here I am, it’s almost midnight, and I’m in the school library after hours and I have no idea why.” \n“I don’t know either,” Emma spit out and continued walking, “Carine just said we needed to get back here. You got the text.” \n“Goldie was in an accident tonight,” Carine came from the opposite direction, matching Emma in front of her and Savannah at her side in team sweats, “She sent Sav a text earlier and hasn’t replied back. We don’t have all of the information, but Coach told us to meet him here.” Savannah draped herself over Emma’s shoulders and Emma could feel her shaking. The familiar weight of one of her best friends made her relax momentarily and she felt her mind clear a little bit.\n“In the library?” Zach asked, “That’s awfully sus. Why couldn’t we meet him in his office?”\n“It’s under construction,” Savannah said, “and he has Scheme wrapped around his little finger, so if she finds out we were in here, it’s fine.” \n“Thank you for your bluntness, Birch, but yes, this seemed like the best place to meet all things considered,” Coach Danberry appeared out of nowhere and Emma suppressed a squeak. There was something about the man that made him look like a mob boss in another life.\n“We could’ve met down on the field,” Savannah muttered.\n“You want to freeze?” Coach shot back.\n“So Goldie was in an accident,” Zach seemed to have recovered from his shock and apprehension, “So what? She’s okay, right? It was just a car accident or something, right?”\nThe four teenagers looked to their coach for a response and Emma felt her heart sink when he pursed his lips and cleared his throat several times before answering, “It was her dad.”\nEmma felt like someone had dumped an entire bucket of ice over her head, Carine gasped like she had gotten sucker punched, Zach’s face went pale and Savannah tore herself off of Emma’s shoulders, “What the fuck happened?”\n“It was my fault,” Coach started, “Goldie told me about the scholarship offers she’s been gettin’, and she told me that her dad’s been a little better recently, so I figured I’d give him a call, ask him what he was thinkin’ about Goldie doin’ so well.”\n“Goldie hadn’t told him,” Carine said.\nCoach nodded, “I didn’t know that until Goldie called me an hour after I hung up with him.”\n“How bad is it?” Zach asked. Emma didn’t know how they had words to speak. \n“She’s concussed at the very least, but it’s probably worse than that,” Coach cleared his throat again, “I had to carry her out to my car and they pulled her in the back for MRIs and x-rays and all of that stuff when we got there. They didn’t want me back there cuz I’m not a guardian, but I’m gonna go back and explain the situation, see what I can see. I just wanted to let you all know what was goin’ on.”\n“Keep us updated, Coach,” Carine said, “Please.”\n“Of course. I have your phone numbers. You’ll be the next ones to know. Try to go home, get some rest. It might be a rough couple of days.”" } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: The Return\n\nGenre: historical-fiction\n\nWord Count: 2353\n\nPrompt:\n\nStart your story with the flickering of a light." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "The lights flickered again as if some unseen hand were signaling for help in Morse code.\n\"What in the name of Jesus and all his carpenter friends is that?\" Michael Castellanos hollered down to the captain, who was making his way back from the deck to the flying bridge. He had been the first to spot it but felt he couldn't trust his eyes without getting a little closer. Castellanos raised the enormous GeoVid binoculars to his eyes, blinked a few times, and was again taken aback by what was approaching the port side of their vessel.\n Captain Bravern dogged the heavy hatch closed before proceeding to the bridge. A storm was approaching on the horizon, and the wind was beginning to whip through every open porthole and crack in his ship, adding to the chill running up his spine from Castellanos' call. \n Donovan Hale, navigator on deck watch, let out a low whistle. \"Ya see that, man?\" he said in a honeyed southern drawl. \"Sorry, of course ya see it. What in the hell do you suppose happened to that thing? It seems like she's moving under her own steam from here, but how when it looks like the sea could claim her at any moment?\"\n The distant ship glided closer as more crew members made their way to the deck and bridge for a better look. Word spread fast by some busy body that a ghost ship was on the horizon.\nThe newly-minted U.S. Coast Guard cutter, \"Emperor Neptune,\" out of Sector, North Carolina, was going on day 7 of a 10-day \"shake-out,\" or training maneuvers, scheduled to break in the new crew and ship, when the foreign vessel was spotted riding ahead of the approaching storm. Multiple attempts to contact it over the ship-to-ship marine band radio yielded no response. \n\"She's old, that's for sure,\" Bravern said, approaching the forward viewing windows from behind Castellanos and Hale. \"Castellanos, see if you can catch her hull number, and we'll see who or what we're dealing with.\"\nThe old ship continued on its northern heading, moving slowly, but moving nonetheless. The ancient sodium vapor lights mounted around the ship cast long shadows over everything the light touched. They gave the old ship's battered and rust-streaked hull an ominous and ghastly look.\n“AC-4, Cap’n,” Castellanos squawked. \n\"Zuri, call it into the mainland and see what you can find out about that number.\"\n\"Aye, captain,\" said Raven Zuri, the \"Emperor's\" communications specialist, then turned back to her station to raise the radio team back onshore.\n\"Tordano,\" Bravern turned to the helmsman, \"swing around and bring us alongside her. Keep a little distance, but put us on her starboard side. She looks to be making about 3-4 knots. Drakos,\" he now turned to the radar operator, \"how long has she been pinging on our screens?\"\n\"Sir… you're not going to like my answer, but she isn't even pinging right now!\"\n\"Excuse me, son? What do you mean not even showing right now? Is there an equipment malfunction?\"\n\"No, sir. Everything is showing active, and all lights are green, sir. I see 4 more vessels in the distance heading away in a circular pattern. I just don't see the ship in front of us on the radar.\"\n\"Alright, then. Castellanos, call down to medical and have Sherburn put together a small team. When we board the vessel, there could be personnel in need of medical attention, and I want her standing by and ready. Judging by the look of that thing and the radio silence, I'm getting a bad feeling of what we might find.\"\nBraven turned to go collect his own boarding gear. He wanted to see for himself what this hulk in such poor condition was doing in his waters. \"Oh, and call down to engineering too. Have Whalen's assistant engineer come along, just in case.\"\nIt took a total of twenty slow minutes to position the cutter along the starboard side of the old ship. A collective sigh of shock could be heard throughout the bridge as she approached. An enormous gash running nearly two-hundred of the five-hundred-and-fifty-foot long vessel could be seen clear as day. It was as if a giant can opener had cleaved right through the hull. Bravern and the bridge crew thought it almost inconceivable how she was still afloat. There were no scorch marks or tell-tale signs of damage that could have been caused by a torpedo or missile. The jagged metal edges were pushed in, which indicated that it was neither an internal rupture or explosion that had caused the damage either.\n\"Alright, bring us in and prepare the Zodiac. Zuri, give it a few more tries to hail the captain and crew. Castellanos, you're X.O., so you're in charge while I'm gone. I'm going to meet the boarding team now, and we will be in touch every 10-15 minutes for sit-reps,\" Braven said, referring to operation situation reports.\n\"Wait, captain,\" Zuri chimed in,\" I'm getting something over the radio. It sounds like moaning mixed with incoherent low shouting.\"\n\"Put it on speaker.\"\nZuri turned to her station and piped the noise through the bridge speaker system. It indeed sounds as she had described it, only more sorrowful. The last time Bravern had heard a sound like that, he was still a coast guard rescue swimmer. He was dispatched to pull the crew from a sinking fishing trawler during a storm off the coast of the Aleutian Islands between the Bering Sea and the Gulf of Alaska. The crew was trapped inside and went down with all hands on board. He fought furiously to save them, but the old rust bucket had sealed itself so tight from the water pressure that he couldn't get the hatches open, nor was he successful in breaking any windows, either. So, he swam there with them as the crew stared back with horror and fear in their eyes, screaming as he heard now. It was soul-crushing, and a lesser fellow would never have set foot in the ocean again, or so he told himself. Snapping out of his reverie, Bravern made his way to the boarding party. \nTen minutes later, they were marching their way toward the bridge. Half the boarding team would search the ship's holds while the other spoke with the captain and crew.\nEmpty. Bravern and his team found the bridge completely empty. The engines were running, the electrical system was working, if a little dodgily, but there wasn't a soul around. The search team reported finding the holds brimming with what appeared to be tons of manganese ore aboard. Manganese is a crucial element used in steel production for hardening, Bravern knew. His father and grandfather had been lifelong steelworkers in Pittsburgh. \nA crackle sounded over Bravern's hip radio, and Zuri's voice could be heard calling.\n\"Bravern here,\" he replied.\n\"Sir, um, well, I have an answer to the inquiry about the ship's \"AC-4\" numbering. Bravern could hear a slight tremor in her voice as it trailed off in a hiss of static.\n\"Well, Zuri, who is she? Maybe that will shed some light on why the hell she is under steam with no one aboard.\"\n\"Well, sir…\" she trailed off again.\n\"Spit it out, Zuri. I don't want to tell the brass we have a ghost ship on our hands. We'll all look like idiots, and I'm not having my crew get any letters of admonition for their files because we missed something.\n\"The USS \"Cyclops,\" sir.\n\"What did you just say?\" he responded.\n\"It's the USS \"Cyclops,\" sir, according to the registered hull number and cargo you reported. Sir, the radio crew on the mainland are already having a laugh.\n\"What in God's name is going on here. This isn't some damn joke. Have them rerun it.\"\n\"Already did, sir. It came back with the same information.\"\nBravern's head began to spin a little. There was no way in hell this could be the USS \"Cyclops.\" Someone had to be screwing with them. Every sailor in the U.S. navy and coast guard knew of her. Why, and, more importantly, how did she come to be here. If this were indeed the \"Cyclops,\" she's come back from a hundred-and-four year sailing mission…\nAs the story goes, the USS \"Cyclops,\" an American navy bulk cargo ship, was tasked with ferrying manganese ore from Brazil to Baltimore in 1918. It played an essential role in the war effort as the United States was engaged in World War I. While sailing through the Caribbean toward her final destination, she vanished with all hands on board. 306 sailors, and the ship itself had simply vanished. No debris, no SOS call, nothing. To this day, she remains one of the navy's greatest mysteries. \"Well,\" Bravern thought to himself, \"she remained a mystery. Now she's back, and there has to be a story here.\"\nAs the boarding team completed their search, still finding no signs of the crew, the gail winds began to whip up a frothy sea. The storm that was once on the horizon had now reached them.\n\"What do you want to do, sir?\" one of the crewmen asked Bravern.\n\"Cut the engines and drop the anchor. I don't want to be tied up with her when that downpour hits full force. The water is just shallow enough in this part that it should help her weather the storm while keeping us safe aboard the \"Neptune.\" We'll radio when back aboard and see what the mainland wants us to do.\nThe team began procedures for powering down \"AC-4\" and anchoring her. Bravern was proud of how the new crew was coming, and his report of the incident would reflect just that.\n\"Sir, all compartment hatches have been secured, engines off, and she is set for riding out the storm.\" the young officer reported to Bravern.\n\"Roger that,\" he turned to the rest of the party. All crew back aboard the \"Neptune\" on the double. \"Zuri,\" Bravern called over his radio.\"\n\"Yes, Captain.\"\n\"Report back to H.Q. Let them know we have secured our mystery ship and will be returning to the \"Neptune.\" We'll ride out the storm nearby and wait for them to send a tug. If this is indeed the \"Cyclops,\" we're not going to be responsible for losing her a second time.\"\nBack aboard the \"Neptune,\" stories were already flying of the Bermuda Triangle spitting the \"Cyclops\" out again. Bravern was not a superstitious man, nor did he believe in such things as a mysterious ocean portal to another dimension, but he had to agree that this was one of the strangest damn things he has come across in his long career on the sea.\nThe storm was now reaching a frenzy. Lightning tore the sky apart as heavy rains beat down on the two ships. Iron gray clouds gave way to a rolling blackness. While storms and hurricanes were a natural and all too common occurrence in this area, this was not one of those weather breaks. The sky was far too violent in such a short period, not to mention the greenish-blue glow from the ocean. It wasn't much, but if you trained your eyes long enough on it, you could see it. This storm, this phenomenon, was something else, and Bravern didn't like it.\nThe two ships remained near each other as the coast guard cutter fought to maintain a steady position in the now rising swells. Every crest and trough seemed to drive the two further apart.\n\"Zuri,\" Bravern called to the communications operator from his post near the helm, \"anything new from H.Q.? Anything we have to go on with this mystery ship?\"\n\"Sir, no, sir. Only increasing laughter about our excursion into \"Never-Never-Land,\" as the operators on base are calling it. Permission to speak freely, sir?\"\n\"Yes, what is it?\"\n\"Sir, we have no radar signature, no verifiable evidence of what this ship is, only eyewitnesses and the boarding parties' report. They think we're off our nut on this one, sir.\n\"I'll see every one of those on shift receives a documented reprimand in their files,\" Bravern scowled.\nAs the sea grew rougher, so did the tension aboard the \"Neptune.\" The ships, once driven apart, were now closing in on each other as if two bath toys were brought together by invisible hands. Helmsman Tordano did his damndest to maintain a steady position, but it was a losing battle.\n\"Tordano, why in the hell are we getting closer?\" Bravern hollered to the helmsman.\n\"Sir, I'm fighting it, but the controls are becoming less and less responsive. As the storm gets worse, it's pushing us together!\"\n\"Damn it to hell,\" Bravern fumed. He couldn't blame Tordano or any other crew member. They may be a new crew to this ship, but he knew everyone was doing their best right now.\nAnother 20 tense minutes passed. The crew fought to steady the \"Neptune,\" but it did little use. Mike Castellanos swore they were now so close to the \"Cyclops\" that he could look in the portholes and use a mirror mounted in a bunk to shave with. Bravern knew the inevitable; they were on a collision course with the old vessel.\nA klaxon alarm was sounded, and crew members were ordered over the speaker system to prepare for impact. Bravern prayed the hull bumpers would ease the impact and not batter the hull too terribly. They were now only moments away.\nThe coast guard cutter rose on a massive swell. Bravern knew this was it and stood with bated breath. Like a dream, the \"Cyclops\" hung there on her own wave, waiting like a lover to receive the other ship as the swells threw them together, and then, she simply wasn't. The crew of the \"Emperor Neptune,\" wincing and closing their eyes to the inevitable collision, now opened them to a calm and sunny sea.\n\"Jesus…\" a pale Bravern turned to Castellanos, cold beads of sweat running in rivulets down his brow. \"Is it me, or was it something we ate last night?\"" } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Librarians, Bruises, and Back Stories\n\nGenre: high-school\n\nWord Count: 1806\n\nPrompt:\n\nStart your story with a stern librarian scolding two characters for making noise in the library." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Note: Takes place at the beginning of the season, whereas Thank you for Giving me a Place to Belong takes place at the end of the season.\n“Sav, I swear if you do not shut up I will shut you up right no- oh my God here comes Mrs. Scheme,” Carine slumped down on the table, trying to make herself small so that Mrs. Scheme wouldn’t focus on her. \n“Ladies,” Mrs. Scheme’s lips were the same sickly pink that she had been wearing all of their four years of high school. Savannah briefly wondered if she had used the same tub and bit her lip to stop herself from laughing again, “Do we know the rules of the library?”\n“Could you give us a quick recap of what those are?” Savannah asked.\n“Sav,” Carine hissed and kicked her under the table before turning to the librarian, “I’m sorry, Mrs. Scheme, I’ll try to keep her quiet.” She shot a glare at her stopper, “We had a long night last night.” \n“Well, you’re disrupting the other students trying to use the resources.”\n“The only other people in here are other soccer players,” Sav said, “They know what’s up.”\n“Savannah Grace.”\n“It’s alright, Miss. Dunlop, I can take it from here,” Mrs. Scheme said, “Savannah, if you’ll come with me?”\nSavannah straightened her sweatshirt, took Carine’s bookmark and stuck it in her own page, and followed Scheme towards her office.\n“Emmy’s gonna be pissed if Kate has to sub in on defense,” Goldie’s voice came from out of Carine’s line of sight. She stepped out from one of the stacks and sat down in Sva’s abandoned spot.\n“Jeez, you scared me.”\nGoldie smirked and looked down at the book Savannah had been aimlessly paging through, “What are you reading up on?”\n“Las Vegas in the 60s,” Carine said, “for Wakie’s history class.”\n“The Rat Pack and stuff then?” \n“Yeah, Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin and casinos and all the good things.”\nGoldie nodded and scanned a page again, “Did you know the mob helped build a couple of the casinos?”\n“Did you know that during the Cold War, it was popular to watch bomb detonations in the desert?”\n“I did not actually,” Goldie laughed a little bit, “What’s up with Sav today?” \n“Long night last night,” Carine answered, “We had practice, obviously, and then Cole came home for a surprise visit and her grandparents were already in town so she stayed up late talking to them, and then she had homework, so she didn’t get into bed until 3. And then we had morning practice this morning so she was up at 5, so add it all up and you get that.”\nGoldie winced at the explanation; she had been the one to push for morning practice before games, “She didn’t have to come this morning. Barely anyone shows up anyways.”\n“She’s V.C. though. She feels like she needs to be there.”\n“I’m going to go see if there are any of those coffees that she likes in the vending machine,” Goldie stood and pushed the chair back in, “You guys’ll still be here, yeah?”\n“Should be,” Carine watched Goldie gather her hair into a bun at the top of her head, “Coach got the ‘okay’ from most of the teachers to let us chill in here until we’re released for the game.”\n“Cool. I’ll be right back then,” Carine pretended that she couldn’t see the bruises decorating the back of Goldie’s neck as she walked away. \nIn the end, Sav got a week of helping out in the library after school for “disrespectful behavior to fellow students and librarian.” Coach Danberry sweet talked her into starting it the next day because of their game (none of the girls wanted to know how he managed it, they just accepted it for what it was).\nGoldie had bought Sav not only a coffee, but also an energy drink as an apology for morning practice, and Sav was alternating sips as the Four sat in their area of the locker room while the underclassmen got ready. \nCarine was, once again, braiding Goldie’s hair for the game, and the other three tried to act like they weren’t seeing the winces on Goldie’s face when Carine pulled just a little too hard. It was an unspoken rule between the four of them; any visible bruises that couldn’t be passed off as practice bruises were to be ignored. Savannah was guessing that the bruises crept under the collar of her jersey and up over her scalp. \nThe team was in various states of dress; most either had their shirts or shorts on and were walking around in either sports bras or sweatpants as the other half of the uniform. At home games, they were notorious for barely making it onto the field for warm-ups, especially the girls playing subs. \n“We’ve got five minutes before clock starts!” Savannah was always surprised at how aggressive Carine could sound with her “captain voice”, “If you’re not out the door in four, I’m siccing Emmy on you.” \n“Ooh, please, somebody, be late,” Emma’s voice was muffled as she pulled her warm-up jacket over her head, “I’m in the mood to bonk some heads.”\n“You’re always in the mood, Em,” Goldie laughed, but it was cut short on a sharp intake of breath, “Dammit, Carine, not so hard.”\nThey all froze and the temperature seemed to drop 15 degrees.\n“I’m not pulling very hard, Golds,” Carine said carefully, “Maybe if you would tell us why you have a giant bruise all along-”\n“Car-”\n“Okay, nevermind,” Carine dropped it and exchanged a glance with Emma and Sav, “We’re just worried. You know that.”\n“I know,” she agreed, “but you don’t need to worry. I’m fine.”\nEmma sucked on her teeth before saying, “You know, Golds-”\n“I don’t want to talk about it anymore.” She hissed again when Carine pulled the hair near her neck into the braid and Carine frowned deeply.\n“I’m telling Coach that you’re not good to play.”\n“Don’t you dare,” Sav was glad that Carine couldn’t see Goldie’s facial expression, because she was ready to run out of the locker room door, “I just need some ibuprofen and I’ll be fine.”\n“Marigold-”\n“Carine, just leave it.”\n“We are talking about this later otherwise I’m dropping this braid right now and telling Coach that you’re not playing.”\n“Fine.” \nCarine tied off the braid and threw it over Goldie’s shoulder, “Thank you.”\nThe game itself was just short of being a disaster. There was little to no communication between Carine and Goldie, the two ends of their field, and with Emma and Sav on the defensive line, no one was there to check in with Goldie as she kept getting slammed by the Rams’ defensive line (their irony never failed to escape Carine). There was one time that she got checked so hard she flew, but she brushed off the ref asking if she was okay and the other girl was given a yellow card. \nAt halftime, Carine and Goldie stood on opposite ends of the huddle. Sav stood next to Carine and Emma next to Goldie to try to appear less disconnected, but the team was feeling the strain. \n“You know, if it had been this quiet in the library earlier, I wouldn’t have gotten time with Scheme after school,” Sav said and Carine snorted.\n“It was this quiet before you opened your mouth, you dummy.”\n“Alright ladies, listen up,” Coach Danberry drew everyone’s attention as he rubbed the bottom portion of his face and stuck his dry erase marker behind his ear, “I don’t know what’s going on out there, but we aren’t playing at our 100%. We shouldn’t be tied with that team right now, do you hear me?” There were nods from around the circle and he continued on, “Good, I’m glad we understand each other. Same starters as last half, get out there, do some passing drills, stay warmed up. Four, I want you all to stay.”\nThe younger players all scramble to leave as if they could sense the heavy tension in the air. Goldie and Emma took a slight step forward towards their coach and teammates, but Carine and Sav stayed where they were.\n“Now, what is going on?” Coach Danberry asked.\n“Show him, Golds,” Carine said, “Show him why we’re so worried about you.”\nGoldie sighed but turned around and pulled her braid over her shoulder, “It’s not that bad-”\n“It goes under her collar,” Emma said and ignored Goldie’s glare.\n“And probably up over her scalp too,” Sav added, “she cussed at Carine when she was braiding Goldie’s hair.”\n“Holy shit,” Zach breathed, “What happened to you?”\n“Zach, language,” Coach Danberry’s voice was harsh like it always was, but then he addressed Goldie in a tone softer than any of them had ever heard, “I thought you said he was getting better.”\n“He was.” Goldie threw the braid back over her shoulder and crossed her arms in front of her chest, “He got fired from work and needed a way to let out his frustration.”\n“Why’d he get fired?”\n“Went to work drunk again.” She shrugged like she hadn’t just dropped a bombshell big enough to change all of their lives, “Can we go warm up now?” She met their concerned glances with a determined and set jaw and finally went on the field herself when she didn’t get a response.\nSavannah was about 90% sure she had never seen Carine so upset, “Coach what the fuck is going on-”\n“That’s enough, Carine,” Coach Danberry shot her a tired glare, “She’ll tell the four of you later.”\n“But Coach-”\n“It’s not my story to tell, Carine,” Coach cut her off again, “Now get out there on that field and lead your team and forget about this for 40 more minutes. Understood?”\nCarine frowned, but answered, “Yes, Coach.”\nThe three girls jogged back onto the field and Carine groaned when she saw Goldie waiting at the penalty mark to shoot goals before halftime was over.\n“You know, I wasn’t expecting to have an entirely life-altering conversation when Mrs. Scheme was chewing me out,” Sav said when they stopped just out of Goldie’s ear shot, “but-”\n“Wait, how’d you get chewed out by Scheme again?”\n“In a sec, Ems, it’s a good one,” Sav said and grabbed Carine’s arm before she could stalk back to her goal, “Car, everything’s going to be okay. It’s still Goldie and even if she’s pissed at us for a while, it’s gonna turn out. Okay?”\n“Yeah. Talk to you guys in a little bit,” Carine adjusted her gloves on the way back to the goal as she listened to Sav tell Emma about lack of sleep, caffeine, and other noise in the library that morning." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: The Book\n\nGenre: high-school\n\nWord Count: 1056\n\nPrompt:\n\nStart your story with a stern librarian scolding two characters for making noise in the library." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Francene is a young lady who places a high value on her studies and enjoys advanced reading books in preparation for her school's upcoming classes. When she had spare time, she could always be found in the library, reading books. Instead of spending her time on nonsensical activities, she prefers to read and review.\nHer teacher told her that she is a contender for a science and math wizard competition to be held in Australia, with the grand prize being a one-semester scholarship in the said country and her chosen school, so she worked harder and added time to study science and math.\nWhen she was going to the library in her spare time to prepare and study for the math and science wizard competition, she found that there were less people in the library than on other days. This may be because there is a program in the gym, and students would rather participate and enjoy that program than attend their class, but because it is not mandatory, I simply preferred to study in the library. She was looking for a book when she was interrupted by a noise that sounded like a snore to her. She investigated the source of the disturbance and discovered a man asleep on the floor; she was unconcerned at first, but the book she was looking for was in the man's head, which he used as a pillow.\n\"I'm wondering how painful or uncomfortable it would be to use a book as a cushion\"\nShe said in her head\nI tried to wake him up, but he didn't react, and time was running out. I didn't want to waste any more time; I needed to study, so I simply took the book from his head, which caused him to wake up when he hit his head on the floor.\n\"oww I'm sorry, but I just need this book. I tried to wake you up, but you didn't.\"\nI apologize before he can do something to me, such as yelling.\n\"So you think the only way to get the book is to take it from my head while I'm sleeping?\"\nHe said something vaguely shouting, which prompted the librarian to investigate the source of the disturbance. Because we were the only ones in the library, she quickly found us and informed us that we are mindful of the library's rules and that we must either shut up or she will boot us out.\n\"I'm sorry okay\" I mouthed to the man so that we can finish conversing and I can study, just so that we don't get kicked out of the library\n\"You apologized and then turned away from me, expecting me to forgive you?\" He yelled, which I believe he did on purpose.\nwtf!! this man is so unbelievable\nI ignored him and continued walking to my seat, browsing the book I has now got.\nI was reading the book and taking notes on certain calculations and explanations that I knew were necessary when someone sat down beside me and purposefully poured water into the book, causing it to become damp. Before I could react, he yelled and drew the librarian's attention, accusing me of bringing water into the library, which was against the rules, and that I was the one who caused the book to become damp.\n\"I DID NOT DO IT, LIAR!!\" I shouted\nWe were both too preoccupied with attempting to say the truth by exchanging screams at each other, which enraged the librarian even more.\n\"Get out of here!, both of you! You're both out of the library, and you won't be able to borrow anything until I say so\"\nI wanted to justify myself and speak to her, telling her that I had a competition to prepare for, but she refused to listen and even added our names to the library's banned list.\nThat's how your father and I first met.\nFrancene told their children as they asked about how their father and mother met.\n\"So what happened to your competition mom?\" Frea asked, their eldest\nI keep ranting about what happened earlier, about how I can't borrow books or even visit the library, and about how I won't be able to study for the competition in two weeks, and this guy appears unconcerned about what happened, despite the fact that he was the main cause of it.\nI was on the verge of crying when he apologized.\nI'm sorry, it's just because I'm so exhausted that I just wanted to sleep because I couldn't find a good place to sleep, I'm really tired because my father and I had a fight last night and I didn't have a place to sleep on, I'm not sure why I did it, so I'm sorry, but don't worry, I've already made plans for you to borrow books.\nHe said\n\"He asks her sister to go to the library and get the books I need\"\n\"owww sweet!\" Frances giggles, their third child\n\"So, what were your first impressions of each other when you first met each other mommy and Daddy?\" Frea asked\n\"I was drawn to her physical look, she's cute and attractive, and what makes her even more sexier is her voice. She wears glasses at the moment, so I can't see her eyes clearly, but I already know they're stunning\" Klein, her husband said\n\"What about you mom?\" Keith asked, their only boy, the eldest one\n\"When your father is asleep, I noticed that he has a strong physical appearance, with a healthy and attractive body. And when he awoke, I was taken aback by his hazel brown eyes, which are incredibly sultry. He is tall, which adds to his attractiveness, and his lips are so kissable that any girl would be delighted to kiss them. His accent adds to his sexiness, and his scents, oh my, he's so appealing\" Francene said\n\"You two seem to be in love with each other, and I'd like to find someone with whom I can share my love\" Frea said\n\"me too\" Keith and Frances said in unison\n\"You know what, you don't have to hurry stuff like finding your soulmates; the right ones always appear at the most unlikely moment and place, and it will be the most wonderful time of your life.\" Klein said\n---THE END" } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: The Hummingbird\n\nGenre: historical-fiction\n\nWord Count: 1740\n\nPrompt:\n\nInclude a character in your story that is often in an apartment building, but doesn’t actually live there." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "“I’d be an atheist, but then I’d have no one to be angry with,” Horacio lisped. His delicate fingers brought the cigarette closer to his face, then back near mine with a languid, fluid motion that reminded me of fishing lines over Lake Chapala. I’d recently gotten into the habit of swallowing the bait, although I could see the hook perfectly well. \n\n“Socialists are always atheists,” I responded. I flicked the ash off the end and wondered if I was bored with him. “I've heard you say it yourself.” \n\nHoracio and I began each night dining at the Plaza but ended by smoking in the upper lounge of La Chuparrosa, one of the most curious hotels in Guadalajara. It was several blocks from the house of my father, a minor though self-important civil official under Carranza, and despite the owners’ efforts to imitate the extravagance of French salons it served mainly tequila and sophisticated variations on the birria. I’d come up with that joke myself. “It’s Mozart’s Variation on a Birria,” I told Horacio, poking at chunks of goat meat, and he laughed and said, “Very good, Ofelia. Keep that up and you’ll pass for an educated woman.” \n\nThe lounge occupied the stretch on the topmost floor between the west-facing windows and the doors to the apartments. Stained glass in only strawberry, salmon, and apricot formed the images of strange suns and foreign landscapes; burning horribly at evening light, then fading into darkness. Over and across the apartments was papered a pattern of red and pink flowers, each supporting the hotel’s eponymous hummingbirds. The impression was that of being trapped inside an enormous bougainvillea. Even the tenants, drifting in and out, looked at us with the blank stare of drones crawling back into the hive. Horacio said it reminded him of when he was a boy, peeping through the fence at my family’s garden; I agreed, though privately the colors reminded me more of an execution chamber, and of the Mexico City cellar where he had unofficially become my father’s secretary. I thought I felt the blood of my elder brother and of my first lover seeping through the soft layers of volcanic soil onto my head, sifted down by Villistas and Zapatistas, and I am still unconvinced that it has been washed away. Horacio and I never spoke of that time, as if by conscious agreement. Only the two of us ever seemed to sit here at twilight.\n\nHoracio curled his thin lips under his thin moustache and gestured with the thin blue smoke trail. The stained glass behind his head appeared mostly in browns and blues with an occasional sickly yellow. Dried blood and old bruises: forgotten and yet remaining. “Socialism is about anger. Other socialists are atheists because they are angry with men; once we have fixed mankind…” His eyes had a faraway and yet carefully studied look. In his collar and tie, draped ceremoniously across his embroidered armchair of the last generation, he looked like an official portrait, and he knew it.\n\nAffected, I thought. Like that lisp. You did not always lisp. I lifted a coffee cup from the table littered with champagne flutes and ashtrays, and with my pinky nail traced the hummingbird embossed on the side. “Why should you be angry with God?” \n\n“Ah!”\n\nHoracio frowned and stamped out his cigarette in a half-empty wine glass. He stood, obviously animated; I’d said the right thing. “A great and yet sedentary being! the only infuriating prospect.” He began pacing the length of our sitting area like a professor we had once gone to see in a lecture hall. The professor had proven to us that while all men were descended from beasts, yet some were closer than others to the gods. I saw him again now, an Austrian who spoke poor Spanish in a bowler hat whose brim-curl was rivalled only by the curl of his blond moustache. “Imagine, if you will, that you possess limitless power, and can do any good you wish; and yet I have seen myself the massacre of children, senseless destruction of villages by fire.” \n\n“That was in Europe.” \n\nIt was a gamble with Horacio whether he would allow me to interrupt or not, but this time he waited for me to continue. “You do not remember that I have seen the same.” \n\n“When was that?” \n\n“You were still in Berlin.” That was where he’d picked up Socialism, and where he’d been when Franz Ferdinand was shot in Sarajevo; the lisp was from Barcelona. “It was April in the morning. Regina, our serving girl, rushed in during breakfast screaming that I must come with her, that someone was planning to kill someone else. It was all a confusion. She dragged me out the door without a hat all the way to the Teatro Degollado. \n\n“Already there was a crowd. We were all disheveled, rich and poor jumbled together like in the Gospels, only it wasn’t anything like that at all. There were guerilla soldiers in very old uniforms shouting and ordering everyone around. It was a long time before I realized that they had several women lined against the wall. There were four nuns and a girl caught smuggling the Eucharist to private homes. They shot them in front of us. Regina kept crossing herself and muttering to the Virgin Mary, but her eyes shone brilliantly and she seemed quite cheerful afterward. I don’t believe she was at all disturbed,” I reflected. \n\nHoracio continued to pace, hands folded behind his back. “And you? Do you recall your own feelings at that moment?”\n\nI considered briefly. “I did not think much about it at the time.”\n\nHoracio let out a short laugh that was more like a bark. “The serving girls are always like that,” he said. “All of them”– he waved his hand at the apartment doors in disgust, like he was swatting mosquitoes, “all the same. No dignity, no shame, no compassion. Anyone who could watch such a scene with pleasure or thoughtlessness lacks the sensitivity of true humanity. The executioners were your father’s side, you know,” he added. \n\nThe insult to myself and my father stung like the mosquitoes Horacio had swatted. You imagine we do not suffer because we have not been educated, I wanted to say, neither I nor the poor men returning in meekness to their apartments. You– have you suffered? \n\nI let the moment pass. Horacio came and gazed down at me before plucking the cup from my hands and continuing his lecture. “After such an experience, the humane observer cannot help but locate God as the stumbling block to social prosperity.” He examined the image of the bird and continued his lecture. “The Aztecs worshipped a god called The Hummingbird to whom they offered human sacrifice. I believe he was invented expressly as a god with whom one cannot be angry. Afraid, certainly; but that is precisely why one cannot be angry. Fear distracts. It is not the use of power one resents– no, one can understand that– but the possession of power and subsequent refusal to act.”\n\nHe waited for me to answer, but I knew he was only showing off. I chose to remain silent. \n\nHoracio cleared his throat and looked at me as though I were a painting, one that happened to suit him very well. “You should be always dressed this way, in that shade of blue.” He caught up an artificial orchid from the vase resting next to my chair and tucked it behind my ear. “And always with a flower in your hair.” He studied a lock between his fingertips. “Dark red,” he murmured. “I have always thought dark red hair the most beautiful characteristic of the Jaliscienses.” \n\n“Are you afraid of me, Horacio?” \n\nFor the first time in our acquaintance, either as children on opposite sides of the fence or as lovers suffocating in our love that was more like hate, he appeared to be at a loss for words. We stared at each other, blinking. The thought indeed had never occurred to me; I was as surprised as he was. \n\n“Afraid?” Horacio’s smile failed to reach his pale eyes. “You were listening, then! Afraid of you? That would be rather out of place in our situation, I believe.” \n“You did not answer my question.” \n\nAnother minute of silence. I began to be afraid myself. The lamps in the hall grew gradually dimmer and Horacio’s pupils seemed to shrink as I sat, motionless, waiting.\n\n“Are you in love with me, Ofelia?”\n\nOnce again we were both surprised. I did not look away from his face, nor did he remove his hand from mine. I meant to say yes, in the weak and almost dismissive manner that would leave him entirely unassured, from experience the best way to preserve our relationship. But instead I realized that I was quoting, “‘Ello es, Horacio, que en el cielo y en la tierra hay más de lo que puede soñar tu filosofía’”; “There are more things in heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”\n\nHoracio drew back as though I had slapped him. His face contorted into a terrible grin that I had never seen him wear. \n\n“So. You accuse me of hypocrisy?”\n\n“The thought has never occurred to me.”\n\n“But you do think, you've said it to my face,” he said rapidly, the whole time backing away without turning. “I know it– I’ve seen it the entire time– for years you’ve mocked at me secretly, knowing my mind and despising it.” His voice became so low it was almost a hiss. “But I know” –and the laugh was worse than the grin– “you imagined I couldn’t see your thoughts though you could see mine– but I tell you I understand all, all! And not for one instant have I loved you as anything other than a pretty and foolish creature. I felt sorry for you– your father you know is even more foolish than– I wanted– but no– I will not– perhaps–” \n\nThe hysterics were only a confession. I felt a gentle sorrow roll over a much greater peace as the man I hated, the man I loved, spat his way toward the stairs. The last I saw of him was his forehead, paper-white and beaded with perspiration.\n\nAnd I knew that I– I was the god with whom he would always be angry." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: THE DIARY OF HAYLEY RYLES\n\nGenre: high-school\n\nWord Count: 1022\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about a character stumbling upon a library book that changes the course of their life, for better or worse." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "THE DIARY OF HAYLEY RYLES\nOne fateful rainy season in the month of August, 3 friends, Theresa, Veronica and Danielle were returning from their evening classes. They had wanted to just take a cab and go home but the strict and rigorous warning Mr Thomas their English teacher gave them about studies made them stop by the library to read for the upcoming exams \nThey had planned for 2 hours, no more no less\nThe three teenagers had this at the back of their mind as they strode through the library looking for a particular English textbook. Careful not to raise their voices or laugh too loud. \n\"Ouch\" Theresa groaned in pain rigorously rubbing her palms on her toes, earning stares in the process\nDanielle and Veronica sprinted by her side\n\"Are you okay?\" Danielle asked\n\"Yea yea, I'm fine\" she susurrated \"I just bumped into........\"\n\"What is that??\" Veronica said cutting Thelma off\nDanielle rose an eyebrow and gave the parcel a disgusted look\nWithout any reply Veronica attempted to pick the parcel up but was precipitously halted by Danielle\n\"Please let's go\" Danielle began uncomfortably walking past the parcel \"We don't wanna be here till 6, we've got work to do\" \n\"Yea\" Theresa agreed but Veronica's gaze at the parcel showed no positive reply \n\"Hold on girls\" Veronica halted stalling her two friends \"This doesn't look like an ordinary parcel\" \n\"That is why we should take our leave......\"\n\"No, that is why we should look into it, aren't you curious? Veronica cut Thelma off with her gaze solemnly fixed on the parcel\nAllowing curiousity get the best of her, slowly and carefully, Veronica went on her knees, making her way to the parcel and slowly tearing it off......\nDanielle heaved a sigh of defeat\nWhat was in the parcel gave Theresa goosebumps\nA diary. A red rosy diary\n\"A diary??\" Danielle said almost yelling asking nobody in particular \n\"Let's just go, this is not our business, the librarian will find it sooner or later and hand it to it's rightful owner\" Theresa said in a futile attempt to convince Veronica\n\"It is wrong to intrude on someone's privacy\" Theresa added\nVeronica's thumb grazed the suspish looking diary ignoring Theresa\n\"Veronica\" Danielle called sternly forcefully cutting Veronica from her trance \"let's go\"\n\"What crazy being would leave a diary in a parcel and drop it in a library, in the artifacts section for goodness sake\" \n\"That's none of our business Ver\" Danielle replied almost immediately\nVeronica was bent on knowing the contents of the weird rosy diary\nTheresa and Danielle rolled their eyes as they watch Veronica paw through the contents of the book, taking note of how her reaction swirled from nonchalance to curiosity and then to intense dread\n\"What is it??\" Danielle asked with worry laced on her voice, without an answer she and Theresa scrambled to her side \nTheresa was still on the first page of the diary. What was written there was enough to capture the attention of anybody unfortunate enough to try to read it.\nIF YOU ARE HOLDING THIS DIARY IN YOUR HANDS, THEN THAT MEANS I AM DEAD AND MY BODY WOULD PROBABLY BE DEPOSITED AT A PLACE NO ONE WOULD EVER FIND IT.\nMY NAME IS HAYLEY RYLES. I AM 18 YEARS OLD AT THE TIME OF WRITING THIS. MY PERSONAL DETAILS WILL NOT BE NECESSARY FOR NOW BUT IN TIME, YOU WILL KNOW ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW. \nIT IS NOT A MISTAKE THAT YOU FOUND THIS DIARY. IT IS ACTUALLY ONE OF THE MACHINATIONS OF FATE AND IT IS FOR GOOD. \nMILES AWAY FROM HERE IS AN ARTEFACT THAT WILL CHANGE THE WORLD AND THERE ARE ONLY TWO PEOPLE WHO KNOW THE LOCATION. ME AND SOMEONE ELSE.\nTHE OTHER PERSON IS A VERY TERRIBLE HUMAN AND MUST UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCE, LAY HOLD OFF THAT ARTEFACT BEFORE ME OR ANYONE WILLING TO HELP ME RETRIVE IT.\nBESIDES HELPING YOU LOCATE THE ARTEFACT, THIS DIARY WILL POINT YOU TO THE LOCATION OF 52 MILLION DOLLARS IF YOU FIND THE MONEY, IT IS YOURS TO KEEP. IT WAS MINE BUT OBVIOUSLY, I DON'T NEED IT ANYMORE.\nTHE ARTEFACT IS THE GOAL. IT IS A POWERFUL BRACELET GOTTEN FROM ONE OF THE VILLAGES IN AN ANCIENT KINGDOM OF PRE COLONIAL BENIN IN AFRICA. IT HAS THE POWER TO CURE ANY ILLNESS AND COMMUNICATE WITH THE DEAD. YOU MAY NOT NEED IT BUT I WOULD WANT YOU TO RETRIEVE IT AND GIVE IT TO IT'S RIGHTFUL OWNER.\nA YOUNG BOY OF 20. HIS NAME IS DAVIS SMITH. HE IS A TWIN\nYOU MUST HELP ME BUT THE CHOICE IS ULTIMATELY YOURS BECAUSE THE SUCCESS AND FATE OF EVERYONE WILL DEPEND ON HOW ZEALOUSLY YOU COMMIT YOURSLEF INTO THIS.\nIF YOU WANT TO HELP ME. PLEASE, KEEP THIS DIARY FAITHFULLY. IT IS NO ORDINARY DIARY.\nThe girls dropped the book back the bag with surprise.\n\"What nonsense!\" Theresa spat derisively \"Please let's get out of here! I told you not to read it, now see as you have me all rattled\"\n\"Ancient kingdom and magic bracelet indeed\" Danielle hissed and dragged Theresa with her. Veronica was too shocked to say anything. She numbly followed her friends, shocked at all the petrifying gibberish she had just read.\nFrom a distance, a shadow watched them as they walked out of the library briskly, trying to keep as much distance between them and the phantom diary as possible and the shadow merged comfortably into the darkness.\nFirst part of the dreary mission had been safely covered.\nAll that was needed was for someone to find the book and open it and now they had found - not one, but 3 people, the real games will begin. It didn't matter if they went home with the book, opening the book had set in motion, a chain of events that would be remembered for all of history.\nAnd these 3 girls were the catalyst.\nSure, HAYLEY RYLES existed but she wasn't \"dead\" in the actual sense of the word, she never even lived.\nShe was a trapped demon begging to be freed." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Like Clockwork\n\nGenre: historical-fiction\n\nWord Count: 2964\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story involving a noise complaint." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "If you would have told me a year ago that I’d fall in love with the noisy neighbor in Apt. 2704-110B after he had me poisoned, I wouldn’t have believed you.\nBefore we get ahead of ourselves, let’s go back to the beginning. Me: Professor Clive Hargraves of Gaslight City’s School of Magic. A refined gent and one of the last remaining practicing magicians in London. In fact, magic had fallen so out of favor that the scholars of our time, the likes of Darwin and Huxley, suggested that humans were evolving past it! Poppycock, I say!\nBut enough about me. The story began when a clockwork tinkerer by the name of Baxter Kirk moved into the apartment next door…\n\n⚙ ⚙ ⚙\n\nThe steady hum permeated through the thin wall between our apartments at exactly nine o’clock every evening. Though I’d moved the bed to the opposite end of the studio, it was a futile attempt whenever the staccato sounds of a drill bit chomped into tungsten. At least, that was what I assumed my noisy neighbor—\nBZZZZZZZZZZZZkrrghhgrgggBZZZZZZZbrrrhhhggggbrrhrhhh\nI rose from the mattress, my teeth grinding as the mechanical shriek pierced through the barrier. One would think, given the exorbitant monthly rent, that the walls of Skywork City Apartments wouldn’t be as thin as ice on a warm day of spring. \nEnough was enough. \nNary a thought to my wardrobe, I rushed to the neighbor’s door and knocked. Several unsuccessful attempts led to pounding. Apparently, I’d be able to skip my arm exercises this week.\nWhen the ruckus paused, footsteps sounded on the other side, coming closer. A thin man answered. He looked young, resembling a tall schoolboy more than an adult, betrayed only by the worry lines on his face. A pair of protective lenses dangled around his neck by a leather strap. Black ash, presumably from sparks, stained his leather gloves.\n“Can I help you?” he asked, tilting his head with a raised eyebrow. “Your pajamas have birds on them.”\nI inhaled a calming breath. “Have you any idea what time it is?”\nThe man fished a pocket watch out of his leather apron, squinting at the contraption. “Hmm. Needs a new battery. Sorry, I don’t know the time. Check back later.”\nHe slammed the door shut, breaking not only Rule #5 in the Gentleman’s Manual of Etiquette, but also shattering my faith in humanity.\nBack at my apartment, I wrote a strongly worded letter to the building management. Aside from the noisy neighbor, they had yet to fix the broken gas lamps. How long would an esteemed member of society need to wait for heat during a London winter?\n\n⚙ ⚙ ⚙\n\nI waved the wand in circular motions, finally perfecting the spell. A translucent sound barrier enveloped the room, and for the first night in over a week, there was peace at last. I leaned back with an arm hooked over the back of my desk chair, enjoying the silence. No drilling sounds. No clinking or clanking of gears on metal.\nAbout halfway through my stack of student papers, I sipped on brandy, choking on the chalky texture. Somehow, flecks of dust had gotten into my evening drink. But from where?\nMy body tensed when a jolt through the wall tipped the glass over. How would I maintain an air of pretentious sophistication by returning stained spell scrolls to aspiring wizards and witches?\nI rapped on his door, thuds in rapid succession to ensure he would hear it. Once again, the man answered, this time maintaining the goggles over his face with the same leather apron and burnt gloves.\n“Oh, hello again,” he said.\n“You know why I’m here.”\n“Right,” he said, scratching his chin. “Come in, then.”\n“Uh, no actually…”\nBut before I could finish, he’d already disappeared back inside the apartment. Gaslight flickered over the narrow hall overlooking a mahogany side table with a shiny polish. To my right, an empty rosewood hat rack and umbrella stand greeted me as I closed the door.\nThe studio floor plan mirrored my own, but was decorated more like a workshop than actual living quarters. To my surprise, the room was immaculate, filled with a variety of metal and clockwork knickknacks. The apartment was well-composed: a workbench; many mechanical contraptions; and a pair of leather chairs. I took to the settee in a corner, stunned at how much open space he had compared to my room.\n“Here you are, Mr…”\n“Clive.”\n“Right,” he said with an outstretched hand. “Mr. Clive.”\n“No, my name is Clive Hargraves. Just call me Clive.”\n“Okay. I’m Baxter Kirk.” No intonation in his voice, very matter-of-fact.\nIn his hand rested a stunning half hunter pocket watch, complete with a delicately engraved satin scroll and roman numerals. It ticked and tocked between us with a see-through cover, showing the inner workings of the cogs and gears.\nI tilted my head to one side with pursed lips. “Why are you holding a watch?”\nHe removed his goggles, exposing thin and pale skin contrasted by sharp, yet appealing, features. “Yesterday. You asked me for the time. Now, you don’t have to ask.”\nHe took my hand in his, setting the watch in my palm, our gaze meeting in the middle for a moment before he turned back to his workbench.\n“Uh, thanks.”\nHe ignored me, taking a hammer to a sheet of metal instead.\n“Where is your bed?” I asked.\n“You’re sitting on it.”\n“This is merely a sofa, Baxter.”\nHe shrugged as he took sandpaper to a sheet of tungsten. “It suits me well enough.”\n“And your dining table?”\nAnother shrug. “Eating cooked meals is inefficient. But! I’ve found a way to process food into a liquid form for consumption.” \nHe rushed into the kitchen, removing various fruits and vegetables from his fridge and throwing them into a cylinder made of glass. He pressed a button, and gears turned underneath as blades whacked inside the contraption. \nI covered my ears as the kitchen wailed like a siren song in the sea. It was no wonder the apartment was noisy; there were machines everywhere. He returned, this time his tawny eyes lit by animation, his countenance suddenly striking. Whether it was passion or madness, I could not tell, but it definitely made him unexpectedly handsome.\n“Here.” He shoved a straw into my mouth, holding a glass filled with green liquid. “I don’t have a name for it yet, but it will be the fancy of every noble person’s eye. Drink.”\nThe bitter taste activated my gag reflex, and I spit the liquid into a handkerchief. “It’s no wonder you’re so thin. This is awful.”\nHe frowned, taking the straw into his mouth and sipping. “I think it tastes fine.”\nBaxter returned to his workstation, heating a brass oval with a blowtorch. Combined with the gas lamps scattered throughout the apartment, although odd, his place radiated warmth. Quite different from the chilly prison of my room.\nHe turned to look at me, wide eyes magnified through the protective lenses of his brass goggles. “Was there something else?” He blinked rapidly as he stared, reminding me of a frog.\nI crossed my arms over my chest. “Uh, no. It’s just warmer here than in my apartment. More comfortable.”\nHe switched off the blowtorch, then pressed several buttons on the console beside the workbench. “Oh, that’s because I rerouted the gas in our shared pipes to power my torch.” He held it up in the air, as if taunting me.\n“What?” My voice was sharper than the blades in his food processing contraption.\n“I rerouted the gas—”\n“I heard you the first time!”\n“Oh, sorry, you said ‘what’, so I thought you didn’t hear me.”\n“Unbelievable!”\nI stormed out of his apartment, slamming the door behind me.\nAs I flipped the pocket watch over and over between my fingers, there were three things I tried to shove away: the anger raging inside me, the excitement in his eyes when he played with his mechanical inventions, and the taste of bitter vegetables still lingering on the roof of my mouth.\n\n⚙ ⚙ ⚙\n\nA kaleidoscope of colors bubbled in the pot. Vegetable soup comforted me, providing a much needed source of warmth in the harsh winter, in more ways than one. Prince Albert was dead; he’d passed away late Saturday evening, reportedly from typhoid fever. The bells of St. Paul’s had rung out at midnight, the chimes reaching even the Skywork City floating above London. He’d always been regarded as a noble figure, a man who represented the very best of English dignity and good sense. Not so different from myself, and it was a chilling reminder of our mortality as humans.\nLike clockwork, the tumultuous serenade of sounds filled my apartment at nine o’clock. I ladled the soup into a container suited for traveling, along with a pair of bowls, napkins, and spoons. After the incident with pulped vegetables, I resolved to bring the poor chap actual food tonight.\nWhen he opened the door, the smell of steel and sulfur greeted me, along with the whir of tiny mechanical bugs flitting about. At first, I thought they may have been large dragonflies or fairies. One of them hovered in the air in front of me, a flutter of metallic skin, wings shaped from glass, and delicate gears that spun from its back, glittering like tinsel. Another quirky invention.\n“Don’t worry. They won’t hurt,” Baxter said as he led me into his apartment.\n“What are they, exactly?”\n“Clockwork hummingbirds. I got the idea from your pajamas.”\nHeat flushed up my neck. “What do they do?”\nBaxter shrugged. “They’re programmed to sting intruders with an alchemical concoction of bloodthistle.”\n“What?!” \n“Don’t worry. They don’t attack friends.”\nI swatted at one hovering too close to my nose, and a stinging sensation pricked the end of my finger.\n“Uh oh,” he said.\n“Baxter! What in the—”\nThe room tilted and spun around me. I opened my mouth, but before I could get a single word out, darkness tugged at the corners of my vision, and the apartment faded to black as I crumpled into the floor.\n\n⚙ ⚙ ⚙\n\nThe sharp smell of bleach burned my nostrils as I woke up. At some point, Baxter had moved me from the kitchen onto his settee. I rubbed at my head as I propped myself up on my elbows, dizziness replaced with throbbing.\n“You poisoned me!”\n“Technically, you activated their defense mechanism when you attacked.”\n“It wasn’t as if I was wielding a weapon, now was it?”\nBaxter shrugged. “They’ve never seen soup before. Perhaps they thought it was gasoline.”\n“I beg your pardon? My vegetable soup is most certainly not gasoline!”\n“Have you tasted it?” The tinkerer grinned, his tawny eyes fixed on me with a single-mindedness that made my pulse tremble. \nI cleared my throat. “Speaking of…”\n“Oh, yes. One moment.”\nHe flashed a broad grin, rushing to his workbench and returning with a cast iron pan in one hand and a blowtorch in the other. After a few minutes of heating, he sat beside me, holding a spoonful of soup to my mouth.\n“Open,” he said.\nA flush crept across my cheeks as I obeyed. “What happened to the ceramic bowls I brought?”\n“Shattered,” he said, very matter-of-fact as he tasted the soup.\n“Shame. I’d purchased those at a quaint shop in South Kensington.”\nHe shrugged. “My calculations deemed you more valuable than the bowls. Besides, I’d always wanted to test the antidote.”\n“You mean to tell me you weren’t sure if the antidote would work?”\n“My inventions always work.”\n“Right. Like the food you manufacture in that glass machine?”\n“Oh! I am thinking of calling it a blender.” He flashed a broad grin, rushing to his workbench to pull paper designs as I curled into the fleece blanket he had wrapped around me while I was unconscious. Though I wouldn’t describe him as “normal,” he had a natural way about him when he was excited about something. Sitting this close, he smelled of incense mixed with evening fog, a mesmerizing concoction.\nI held another spoonful for him, which he gulped while he reviewed the blueprints of his mechanical vegetable hacker.\n“So? How is it?” I asked. “The soup, I mean.”\nHis mouth curved upward into a smile after he swallowed. “Tastes like magic.”\n\n⚙ ⚙ ⚙\n\nAfter the poisoning encounter, we repeated the ritual every night. Well, not the near-death part. But I’d come home from the university, listening to the cacophony of sounds breaching the shared wall of our apartments as I cooked. Nights turned into weeks, and I found myself at his place on Christmas Eve. \n“For a tinkerer, you have a lot of books about people,” I said. \nI ran my fingers along the spines of texts on his shelf, stopping when I arrived on Darwin’s On the Origin of Species. When I pulled it from its place, wrinkled pieces of paper fell to the ground by my feet. \nYou know when you do something and it comes back to haunt you later? My mother had always told me to leave well enough alone, but of course, as a refined gent, I believed that in a perfect world, justice must be upheld. So imagine my horror when I recognized the handwriting on those crumpled papers on the floor: the complaint letters I’d sent to the apartment manager. \nAnd tucked inside the book’s inner cover: an eviction notice.\n“I’ve always preferred machines.” His voice was dry like winter air.\nMy chest tightened as I turned to face him. When did he have such… intensity in the way he looked at me? Had it always been there, hidden underneath the guise of goggles? Or had I just overlooked it amidst all the noise?\n“Have you read it?”\nThe eviction notice, or the book? \n“I’m a university professor,” I said in a tone more arrogant than I’d planned. “Of course I’ve read Darwin.”\n“What do you suppose Mr. Darwin is saying?”\n“Adapting oneself to changing circumstances to ensure survival. But he spoke in terms of evolutionary theory. What of machines?”\n“None of us can avoid progress. We must change ourselves to grow with the times. It’s that or risk being left behind.”\nHe had a point. As a child, I’d never dreamed of floating cities powered by steam, nor fluttering mechanical hummingbirds of death. Yet, here I stood, in front of the clockwork tinkerer, proven wrong on both accounts. Even university admissions were dropping at the school of magic. Were machines the future?\n“Besides,” he said as he pulled the goggles over his face. “Machines won’t break your heart.”\nMy mouth fell open. The silence hung between us like a pesky aunt after a dinner party.\nHe pointed to a box resting beside me on the workbench.\n“What’s this?” I asked.\n“It’s Christmas Eve. Human tradition typically expects an exchange of items as a form of endearment. Open it.”\nMy lips pressed together as I pulled tape from the cardboard, the ripping sound like a dagger into my heart. I’d return to peaceful nights, free from hammers striking steel and the hum of torches. To a time before a noisy neighbor forced me outside of my protective magical bubble.\nI lifted the contraption inside: a curved band of hardened rubber, firm, yet elastic, fitted with what appeared to be cushioned cups. My eyebrows furrowed as I studied the gadget.\nHis hand took mine, guiding a key into the keyhole on one of the cups. My skin tingled underneath his callused fingers, his touch almost reverent as we moved in unison to wind up the device.\n“I don’t have a name for it yet,” he said. “But if you place it over your ears, it will cancel out all sound for up to one hour when fully wound up.” \nThe clockwork gears clicked in a steady rhythm, and my lips pursed with skepticism as he secured the cups over both ears. Alas, the world was suddenly silent, devoid of the flutter of mechanical hummingbirds. Absent of the ticks and tocks from the grandfather clock in the room's corner. Even the sound of my own heartbeat had been erased.\nBut a world without Baxter… felt wrong.\nI threw the muting machine off my head. Baxter’s mouth gaped as gears crashed onto the floor beside us, his eyes rapidly blinking as they flickered from the floor back to me.\n“That took me two days to make. You don’t like it?”\n“Stay with me, Baxter. In my apartment.”\nHis head flinched back slightly. “I don’t understand. Isn’t this what you wanted?”\n“Yes,” I said, a knot in my stomach. “I mean, no. Not anymore.”\n“I’m a tinkerer, Clive. What can I do without a workshop?”\n“I’ll find you a place at the university. Perhaps the age of magic is over, and we need to teach the children about machines. You know, like Darwin said.”\nI placed both hands on his goggles, pulling them back down so he couldn’t hide. Not from the world, and certainly not from me. I’d learned that even if his actions seemed strange, his eyes were always true. \nAnd there they were. Tawny eyes lit by animation, speaking the words he himself could not say just yet. \n“What about you?” he asked. “I’m noisy, like clockwork.”\nMy gaze shifted to the muting device on the ground, and my breath hitched as mechanical hummingbirds danced around us, the outward expression of a feeling I’d kept hidden away, suddenly unlocked. Perhaps the future was not to replace magic with machinery, but for both to evolve together and coexist.\nI took his hands into mine, a smile tugging at my lips. “I’ll adapt to the noise.”" } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Surprise SSSSHHHH!!!!\n\nGenre: high-school\n\nWord Count: 1045\n\nPrompt:\n\nStart your story with a stern librarian scolding two characters for making noise in the library." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Mrs. Levy had the ability to move and pounce like a cat. Dean B Library was quiet but at least you should be able to hear her walking towards you, thought Gregory . “You two will have to settle down!” Mrs. Levy came out of nowhere. It startled Gregory and Felecia so bad she dropped her book. Gregory laughed out loud making even more noise. Felecia’s book went straight up in the air. “Young man, I don’t see what is funny.” Felecia bent over to pick up the book. Mrs. Levy noticed the title, but chose not to comment. “If I have to venture over this way again, I’ll have to ask the both of you to leave.” She was bit more stern this time and Gregory and Felecia could hear it. They knew she meant it and they couldn’t afford that. Their term papers were due soon and being able to use the library was a must. Saturday, stuck in a library was not how they wanted to spend any part of their day. Their visit to the Dean B today had two reasons . One to work on their papers and two to try and put together a surprise party or small get together for Mrs. Levy. Yeah, that was easier to say then getting it done. Mrs. Alice Levy’s birthday was soon approaching and also she would be retiring after this school year. Many of the kids and their parents knew her. She’d been the school librarian for at least thirty years. Gregory and Felecia had to put a together, a together without her knowing and finish up their papers all at the same time. “Whew!” Felecia, do you think we can pull this off?” Gregory asked. Felecia’s expression wasn’t that reassuring Gregory thought. “Okay, we have appropriately two week, first thing first”, she said. He felt a little better after that. As they walked home the plan unfolded. First get the principal in on it. Mr. Roberts was approached the fellowing Monday. He was on board one hundred percent. A date and time and place was set and he would authorize the cafeteria workers to provide something small and simple to eat during the celebratio. Next, get all the kids in on it, with the understanding that mum is the word. Mrs. Levy could not know. It was to be a surprise. Felecia and Gregory would meet later Monday night at her house to decide what the flyers would look like. It took them about an hour to get that done . The design would be handed off to Mrs. Lake, Felecia’s mother to have them printed. She was as excited as the kids. She had the flyers ready that Wednesday and that Thursday a flyer was placed in each student hands. It was working out. Friday was term paper day they met at her house again to work on them. Felecia’s paper was about the importance of foster care. It’s pros and cons, how it came to be, etc. She knew a little about it personally. She herself had been in foster care for a short period of time. Gregory’s paper would be about cyber bullying. He had a catchy title too, “From the Streets to Your Homes”. The next Monday school was buzz. Kids talking about what gift they had gotten Mrs. Levy. Teachers allowing for students to share their memories about Mrs Levy. Many home rooms decided on one big gift instead of individual ones. They would all give monies and purchase a gift they felt like she would Ike. Mondays during football season was the day of the team pep rally. Mrs. Levy always attended. She enjoyed football and was often seen at the games supporting. The coach with the mic in hand took the gym floor. ”Hello everybody! We’re here to support our tigers wishing them a win Friday nite! Go Tigers!!!” The gym erupted with cheers and screams. He then handed it over to Principal Roberts. “Alright, everybody calm down, we’re also here to celebrate, right?” Again eruption louder then the first. Mr. Roberts continues, “There’s someone here today we want to celebrate and appreciate. Is this student body ready to reveal who that someone is??!!” “On the count of three, you know what to do!!” Mr. Roberts counted and a three he nature gym erupted with fingers pressed to lips with a loud resounding, “SSSSHHH”. The look on Mrs. Levy’s was priceless. Gregory and Felecia approached her and on either side escorted her to the center of the gym where Mr. Roberts now stood with a beautiful plaque. “Mrs. Levy there was noway we were going to let you out of here without showing you how loved and appreciated you are.” She was in tears and speechless. Her face was as red as her sweater she wore. ”These two beside you came to me about this and there was noway I could say no.” Ge handed her the plaque and as she read even more tears flowed. Gregory looked at Felecia and mouthed, “I think we got her!” Mr. Robert leaned in and gave Mrs. Levy a huge hug. He turn to the student body and with encouragement from his left he got a, “SURPRISE!!!!” and from his right, “SSSSHHHHH!!!” The student body wasn’t about to let her go without saying something. “Take the mic!! Take the mic!! This was their way of sayin, we want to hear from Mrs. Levy. She took the mic and began. “You guys got me real good. I honestly had no idea. I can’t imagine how you guys were able to keep this to yourselves as much as you all like to talk. And I know personally how much you do.” The student exploded in laughter. “I doubt there isn’t many of you in here I haven’t given a sssshhhh or two. “ She thanked the administration and teaching staff for embracing her when her husband passed a year ago. She was open to note their being there helped her so much. Claps and shout outs of “We love you Mrs. Levy”, came from all over the gym. “I love you more”, she responded. She closed with asking for one more, SSSSSSHHHHH!!! and the student happily obliged. ." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: 9 Marines\n\nGenre: historical-fiction\n\nWord Count: 1438\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story involving a noise complaint." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "None of the marines could sleep at night.\nIf they caught any shut-eye, it wouldn’t be for more than an hour at a time. The guards would poke them with sharpened bamboo sticks. There’d be blood on the straw mats come morning. Or they would wake them up to taunt them, kicking, spitting, and throwing insults in a language the marines couldn’t understand.\nThey yelled about how Japan would soon win the war, and America would fail.\nShoji walked past another guard on his way to the barracks. It would be his turn to watch over the nine prisoners. Sunlight broke through the barred windows. Floorboards creaked under his boots.\nHe stepped to the nearest cell—less than a cell, and more like a cage—and kneeled. The marine lying within, bruised, beaten, and dropping weight faster than anyone he’d ever seen, lay curled up in the corner. Bugs crawled over the straw mat he slept on. Shoji reached through the wooden bars with a canteen in hand.\n“Here is water,” he said. “You can drink.”\nThe marine turned. His eyes opened sluggishly. With hesitation, he took the canteen, and tipped the container to his cracked lips, drinking slowly. Savouring every sip—more than the cup per day they were allowed. \nHe handed the canteen back. “You speak English?” he mumbled.\n“I studied,” Shoji said, each word heavy with his accent, “in church school.” He smiled. “My name is Shoji. I am friend. Tomodachi. Friend.” He reached into his pocket for a piece of hard candy and handed it to the marine.\nShoji left the barracks. He refilled his canteen at the well, then returned to offer water to the next American soldier. This one suffered from a bad cough. The next asked if it was a trick. The fourth was younger than the others. Fifth knew a bit of Japanese himself. So on, so on.\nOn the next day, Shoji brought along a piece of paper. He sat next to a marine and drew a turtle. Below it, he wrote Ka’me. The marine looked at him, then took the pen and wrote, ‘turtle’. Shoji drew a baseball bat, a car, and a book. From one cell to the next, they taught each other their language. Shoji nodded as they pronounced the words in Japanese.\nThey would never smile, but showing kindness was the best he could do to improve their living conditions.\nAs the marines lay in their cells one morning, a mob formed outside. A submarine crew, demoralized from the loss of Saipan, rushed onto the island. Shoji watched as at least eighty men picked up rocks and sticks. An officer brandished his sword. One man dragged a struggling marine outside, and they beat him, taking turns kicking his ribs until he could no longer breathe.\nA second marine was beaten to his knees, and the sword was pointed to his head. Sunlight reflected off the steel. The officer raised his arms high, cried out, and swung.\nThe blade got stuck halfway into the marine's neck. “Banzai!” the crew cheered. He let out a dying moan, and another swing left his head rolling across the dirt. A trail of blood followed. “Banzai!” Shoji kept his eyes down. The submarine crew set off in high spirits.\nThe day became night, dawn becoming dusk. Moonlight broke through the trees overhead. Crickets chirpped in the forest, and a marine in the barracks called for a doctor, over and over. Shoji sat at the camp officer’s desk to complain about the execution.\n“It’s what they should expect,” the officer said. “They are enemies of Japan, are they not?”\n“Doctor,” the marine called further off. “I need a doctor, please.”\nShoji cleared his throat. “These men…” he started, “would you not expect kindness, had it been you who laid down your arms? They are suffering in our nation's care-”\n“These men have surrendered. Their families would be ashamed of them. Do you know why we’ll win this war?” He didn't give Shoji a chance to reply. “It's because the Americans are weak of will when compared to us. They let their fears and emotions control them.”\n“Doctor, please,” the marine continued. Loud enough for everyone in the camp to hear. “I need a doctor, I’m begging you. Please.”\nThe officer exhaled, then picked up a newspaper. “Go and shut that prisoner up,” he said. “Such a bothersome noise.” His eyes darted to a wooden club laid out on the desk. “I want to hear him cry out before he goes quiet.”\nShoji took the club. He walked off, into the barracks. The marines cowered back at the sound of his footsteps. He approached the furthest cell and unlocked it. “Out,” he said. The marine—James—crawled from the wooden cage. He looked up at Shoji with weak, sleepless eyes.\nShoji kneeled beside him. “I’m going to hit ground,” he whispered, “and you cry, okay? They listen.” \nJames nodded. He moved out of harm's way. Shoji raised his arm, and the club came down hard against the floorboards. Chips of wood flew into the air. The marine cried out. Shoji repeated the action again and again.\nMinutes later, he returned with the only extra blanket he could find. He handed it to James through the bars of the cell. His breathing was mere rasps in the silence.\n“We were all flight crew,” he said. Shoji sat across from him to listen. “The nine of us. Your Zeros shot us down, and we parachuted. We were supposed to be the lucky ones, you know, surviving. Now I can’t say I’m sure.” James forced a smile, emotionless. “Why is it we’re treated like this?”\n“The submarine men were angered they lost battle.”\n“No,” James said, shaking his head. “No. Your people. We’re treated like animals. I’m sitting in this cage, being laughed at and poked with sticks. There's no Red Cross to sign up with, I’m not allowed to write home, and my belongings were tossed in the water when I got here. My wallet, with my only picture of my fiancee in it, is gone.” He exhaled. “Why?”\n“My people…” Shoji raised a hand to wipe a tear from his eye. “Are very confused. They do not know how the world is. We think we are better than others, but we never talk to others. We learn only to hate, and it is beaten into us until we want to take it out on them.” Shoji held his eyes shut, stopping the flow of tears. “We are not all bad.”\n“You’re not,” James said. “Your kindness means everything to me here. All of us.”\nShoji reached forward and took the marine’s hand.\n“I am sorry,” he whispered, “that the others are not the same.”\n\n- - -\n\nAt sunrise, his call for transfer came through.\nRumour had it of a guard giving prisoners extra rations, and the camp officer narrowed it down to Shoji. It’d be a day before he left for Tokyo, and then the frontlines of Guam—the next island the Americans advanced on. He returned to the barracks for his last shift. \nOnly six marines remained. Another had passed away overnight, malnourished and ridden with disease. The doctors—operating on Japanese troops—had laughed at Shoji’s request to treat him.\nHe approached the first cage with six pieces of paper. Shoji kneeled down, then sat. He passed one sheet through the bars and handed the marine a pen. “I leave tomorrow,” Shoji said. “You write letter home now, and I deliver it at post office. I make sure it gets to America. I cannot guarantee your safety here.”\n“They’re going to kill us before the war’s over, aren’t they?”\nShoji nodded. The marine sighed, then clicked the pen. \nHe wrote fast. Shoji took the letter and moved to the next.\nThey thanked him, some with tears, as they handed back the pieces of paper. Mailing addresses at the top, and rushed, shaky handwriting throughout the pages. Standing outside, out of sight, Shoji flipped through them.\nTo my brother, one read.\nMom, Dad, I’m sorry, read another.\nMy darling fiancee - I will not be returning home,\nMother, this will be the last you hear of me,\nTo my two sons,\nHe froze as he passed over the last.\nShoji, it read. You give me hope of a better Japan.\nThe sun set on the horizon. A slow descent, a tranquil reflection on the calm waters ahead. A tear left his eye. The marines would be killed, the camp burnt down, to not leave any trace for the allies. Yet, with the letters, perhaps their souls would rest easy." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: History Aisle\n\nGenre: high-school\n\nWord Count: 1809\n\nPrompt:\n\nSet your story in a library, after hours." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "“I’ll call you again after my shift. I just gotta close up,” Chloe whispered quietly into her phone, “please call me back.”\nChloe slid her phone into her plaid midi skirt pocket and returned to her post inside the library. Her desk was full of books, all returned and due to be reshelved later that day. Pat, who was normally in charge of reshelving checked out books, had been out sick all week, so Chloe had to extend her work hours after closing up to reshelve the books herself. She had an otherwise organized desk — pens coupled in a craftily customized cup; calendar filled to the brim with different colored sticky notes; tiny collectible figures of her favorite book-turned-TV show characters. \nChloe encoded each returned book from today on the computer, scanning the barcode on each book’s spine, then copying the book’s code and location on her inventory sheet. When she finished doing it for all the books, she quietly walked up to the remaining library patrons of the day to remind them of closing time. Returning to her desk, Chloe put on her lavender cardigan, placed the books on the book cart beside the table, and rolled to the rest of the library.\nAlthough this wasn’t part of her job description, Chloe enjoyed the remaining hours by herself. Going through each section of the library, placing the books back neatly in their original shelves, and getting lost in thought. She was only able to appreciate this the third time around, but today she had to speed it up to catch her dinner with Alex, who deliberately missed calling her back for the last two days.\nAlex decided to end things rather abruptly between them, and Chloe had a hard time understanding how this decision came to be. When they had dinner in the city, she thought he was about to propose, so she dressed for the occasion. To her dismay, Alex confessed that moving to the city, away from Chloe and where they spent their entire lives together, made him realize that this was the only way for him to move forward in life. He mentioned that he didn’t know how Chloe could fit into this new life. Chloe was taken aback, of course. She had no idea this was how he felt and wondered if Alex had thought about this long before he even moved to the city.\nWas it for the women? The newfound fame? Did I not fit in your life because I’m just a librarian? She thought to herself. These were the heavy thoughts she tried to avoid while in her day job. And when she showed up to her nightly writing class, she still tried to keep her mind busy. Today was the third day since the breakup, and she still hadn’t confronted her feelings. Chloe hoped that this last dinner in the city would bring them closure, if only Alex returned her calls or would show up.\nAs she rolled her cart through the history aisle, she heard a voice call out, “hello?”\nChloe looked around. She peeked through one of the shelves and couldn’t believe what she saw. In the opposite aisle was a man with dark, shoulder-length hair in his late twenties, dressed in a mustard corduroy jacket, slightly washed out blue jeans. Chloe recognized him immediately.\n“Bill,” she called out silently, still peeking from the other side of the shelf.\nBill turned to the shelf and leaned closer.\n“Why are you whispering?” he asked, “no one’s around.”\n“It’s a habit,” replied Chloe, returning her voice to its normal volume.\nBill went around the aisle to meet Chloe. The two embraced each other tightly, after not having seen each other in years. Bill had moved to the east coast shortly after graduating high school. When he returned to his hometown in the west coast, he told Chloe that he dropped by to say hello after he heard she had been working in a local library.\nChloe was surprised Bill made time to see her after hours. They never had a solid foundation of a friendship when they were in high school. But Chloe was madly in love with Bill. \nHe was certainly charismatic and fairly popular at school, and she stood along the corridors with the fifty other girls who secretly loved him. He wasn’t outwardly full of himself either. In one of their short conversations when they were younger, Bill told her about a playlist he made for their school dance. He asked her for song suggestions, assuming she was going to the dance. Chloe excitedly gave him a list of her favorite songs from her collection of mixtapes. They exchanged compliments between the ranges of “you have great taste in music” and “I love this band, too.” \nFor no reason at all, Bill started to confess his own anxiety about perceiving himself, that he had self-esteem issues he wanted desperately to work out. This was all too confusing for Chloe, who had nothing but admiration for Bill. And in an effort to make the conversation short and not too intimate, Bill showed Chloe the final playlist. \nOn the night of the dance, none of the songs she suggested made it to the DJ’s booth. The DJ favored more mainstream party songs to fit everyone’s collective palate. The vibe felt different, and Chloe, who didn’t want to attend the dance, felt a bit betrayed, only to have Bill apologize to her personally. She didn’t think an apology was necessary, but she admired the thought of Bill thinking about her anyway.\nChloe wrote Bill a letter that she never planned to send, to tell him she was grateful that she met him. She wanted to conceal her true feelings, though ever pure and honest, in fear that Bill wouldn’t reciprocate. They talked only ever occasionally, and weren’t even in the same year. The only reason they met and started talking was because they were both members of the school’s book club, of whom Chloe had been president.\nHigh school was ten years ago, and in that time, Bill had gone to college and dropped out, and moved to multiple places in the East, each time starting over in a new town with a new career. He told Chloe that he worked as a copywriter for a firm in New York, but that fell apart just recently after he received news that his father needed treatment for colon cancer. Bill returned to the West Coast shortly after that to take care of his father.\nChloe didn’t know how to respond to this, offering an apology and asking how she could help. Bill, who never wanted anyone to offer him pity, politely and subtly pivoted the subject and asked Chloe how she was doing. Chloe had been slightly worried about her job security, telling Bill that unless the library became a certified historical landmark in their town, it always had the potential of being closed down any time. Chloe tried to avoid telling him about her recent breakup, though it was often on her mind no matter how many times she tried to bury it.\n“You seem to look good,” Bill said, “I mean, you always look good, but you look like you’ve got it all together.”\n“I wish I did. You have no idea.”\nChloe wished she could tell Bill about how her ex-boyfriend’s big move to the city became the death of their relationship, and that it devastated her. It had only been two days since she put it off her mind, and she was due for a breakdown. In an effort to remain civil with someone -- and not just anyone-- who made time to see her on his brief visit to town, Chloe joked about how much she wished she moved to the East Coast, too.\n“Me too,” Bill replied, to Chloe’s surprise.\nShe laughed it off, not really knowing or even willing to learn what he meant by it.\n“You know, for a time in high school, I actually liked you.” She said boldly. It didn’t mean anything to her anymore, anyway.\n“I liked you too,” he said.\n“But I like-liked you.”\n“I like-liked you, too. Except it was a weird time, really. I was thinking about my parents’ divorce, and moving to Long Island, and how crazy, different my life was going to be because of that.”\nChloe’s heart sunk to her toes. A younger version of her would have spent years wondering what might have happened if she found out about this then. But instead she was hearing this from Bill himself in this phase of her life where she had more tangible worries about surviving a world she could no longer afford to live in, in the library where no one dwelled. \nSo she asked without hesitation, “why didn’t you say anything back then?”\n“I didn’t wanna hurt anyone. Hurt you.”\n“You couldn’t have. My parents split up that year, too.”\n“I didn’t know that.”\nThere was a brief silence between them.\n“We weren’t really friends if you think about it,” Chloe said.\n“Maybe not good friends, but I liked talking to you. I thought about it for a long time.”\nIn true Bill fashion, he reverted the subject back to something less serious, and they talked a little bit about how their town has changed little by little every year. It became much more adaptable to new tech, and Chloe always feared that the library wouldn’t be able to catch up with the times. He recommended moving to the city and finding different opportunities there. Normally, Chloe would have just agreed to suggestions to be polite but she was starting to really consider it, especially now that life around her was rapidly changing and she was getting left behind.\nAfter what seemed like hours of catching up in the history aisle of the library, Bill invited Chloe out for dinner and drinks. She respectfully declined, though in her heart she would have died to say yes, to have dinner with Alex one last time. They hugged each other goodbye. And shortly after Bill left the library, she continued lining up the remaining books in the cart, and closed up shop.\nWhen Chloe arrived in the city for dinner, she waited for an hour. She checked her phone constantly to see whether Alex returned any of her messages. She decided not to feel bad about it. When she asked for closure that morning, she didn’t think she’d get it from her first love, and in a place she thought of as home.\n“We’ll need to give up the table if you’re still not ordering anything, Ma’am. I’m really sorry,” the waitress told Chloe apologetically.\n“I’ll have a bottle of Pinot Grigio,” she replied slightly smiling.\n“Will that be two glasses?”\n“Just the one.”" } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Racing for a Return\n\nGenre: high-school\n\nWord Count: 1844\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about someone going to extreme lengths to return an overdue library book." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Oh, what a setback. It was partly my fault for not closing the door on my brand new Chrysler as tightly as I should have, but my friends, Madeline and Jocelyn, decided to go on a quick joy ride... and ended with them striking our garage door with my car, so that was around $260 or so for the garage door and another $200 for the car. Ah whatever, it happened. So, as punishment for my negligence, my dad put me in the passenger seat for about a week. Then the car came back and I still had to let him drive me around for another week, even to school.\nAfter two weeks, I had my car back, but the punishment wasn't over. Between the expected \"no going out late, finish homework then straight to bed\" business, whenever I took the car out, I had to park it in the garage from now on. Before I was still parking it on the curb, but this is to make sure for certain that no one does anything stupid like last time. And to put the cherry on top, I had to place the tarp over it too. This was over the course of about a month.\nI finally got my own ride back after a month and was on the road again in April. I got back to hanging out with Josie and Maddie, while also giving them the stern talking to they desperately needed.\n\"Clearly, you're reckless, Maddie,\" I started, \"but stealing a car? You can't measure how lucky you are that you're not in juvie. The same goes for you!\" I snapped at Josie.\n\"What did I do?!\" she asked. Now isn't that adorable?\n\"More like what you should have done. Could you not have stopped her before she got into the car? What kind of mother are you?\"\n\"What?!\"\n\"And where did you learn to drive, Maddie?\"\n\"I learned it from watching you!\" she complained.\n\"Is that a good excuse?!\"\nThis continued on for a while; crap like this is why we're referred to as the family. As you could imagine, Josie and I are the strict, but loving parents and Madeline is the child since, well, she's earned that place. But let's not be too harsh on her. It's her 17th birthday and lucky for us, Logan was still playing in the theaters, so we had plenty of time. Fingers crossed that we make it before the previews finish.\nAfter the movie, I dropped the girls off at their respective houses and while the punishment was off and I could park the car anywhere (in a tree, under a bus, in my nose...), I was still putting it in the garage for safety. Guess Dad was right about teaching me to keep an eye on my stuff. By Monday, our English teacher gave us all an assignment. We were reading up on Shakespeare in group projects (boo), but thankfully we could choose our partners (yay) and the family immediately grouped up with me (goddammit!). For our assignment, we were to rent a book of Shakespeare's plays, sonnets, poems and the like and make a presentation on it. Sounds easy enough.\nThe teacher, Mr. Wayne, didn't specify whether it had to be the school's library or the public library that any one of us could go to, and the project was due on May 22, three weeks from now. Loads of time! We could get it done the first week, and spend the rest of the time watching movies! I thought to myself, forgetting who I was working with. The easy part was to go to the library and grab a book. Deliberating on what the project looks like, especially with these angry chimpanzees, was the more interesting part.\nLike I said, finding a big book of Shakespeare's writings was very easy; the librarian pointed us to a ginormous, 1,500 page book of Shakespeare's writings and gave us a two-week deadline. Now we just needed to choose which one of his plays to present for the class. As quiet as we were, the discussion still had the chaos of the bunker scene in Downfall.\n\"So, what do you girls think?\" I started, in a low, whispery voice, \"which play are we doing?\"\n\"I've been meaning to read Othello,\" commented Josie, \"what about you, Maddie?\"\n\"Can we do Julius Caesar?\" she almost shouted.\n\"Shush!\"\n\"Sorry. So, what do you think, Korey?\"\nI had the deciding vote between Othello and Julius Caesar, and I was honestly torn for a bit. I saw the Othello movie with Laurence Fishburne a while ago (pretty good, go watch it) and I already know the story of Julius Caesar from our history class. Covering Caesar would mean less reading (at least for me and Josie) for us since we could just highlight the most important plot moments, though we'd be working off the combined forces of cliff notes and memory, which would probably make for a sloppy presentation.\nFor Othello, we'd be learning all at the same time and could spend longer on a more fleshed-out project. However, this would mean more time reading and I'm not dying to have the librarian dog me for a late book. And of course, we could spend more time on the Julius Caesar option, though it would be redundant since we recently finished that lesson the week prior. In the end, I went with Maddie and chose to do the Julius Caesar one since we were the most recently educated on it.\nWe assigned roles for everyone: Josie got the cardboard tri-fold display, I wrote down the notes for everyone, and Maddie got the pictures to use for the display, mostly of Rome, the Roman senate, Julius Caesar himself, and the senators in the conspiracy. So, I won't delve into the story of Caesar's assassination since we all know what happened: Caesar conquers Gaul, declares himself dictator for life, king-averse Romans get worried, senators plot assassination, et tu, Brute?, dead man on the floor of the Roman forum. On Friday, May 5, we were at Josie's house designing the title at the top center of the display: Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. Over the weekend, we put down the names of each section: the left inner flap of was divided into two; the top introduced Shakespeare and his play and the bottom set the scene with lovely pictures provided by Maddie. The middle of the board had much of the plot elements to the left and the historical context to the right, also with pictures. The right inner flap had the conclusion of the play and its historical context with more pictures.\nWe had to treat the display like one of our own kids. In Jocelyn's home while she was writing the titles, she had to dodge her annoying older sister, Faye, or as Maddie, Josie and I liked to call her, Sasquatch because of all the body hair. She's also not a very pleasant young woman to be around, so dodging older sister was why Josie volunteered to write the titles down. Then the cardboard display went to Maddie who, with her parents, pasted the pictures under the appropriate columns. Lastly, we all met at my house and my dad helped us write the brief summaries in bullet points while one of us read from the book. And there. We were done.\nWe finished the project by May 11 and the rest of our classes had quizzes, tests or very light homework since the end of the year was approaching. We agreed to let me keep the display until the 22nd; we didn't trust Faye and I didn't trust Maddie very much. Not that I'd think she'd ruin it, but because I was worried about some horrible accident happening under my nose. I was an only child and my room was spotless, the only things I had in the room were my bed, a small couch, a TV, my games, the desk and my PC. I could leave the display there until the 22nd and we'd be fine; even a blind man could find it.\nThere was one small setback arising though: the library book. No big problem, just have it back by the 15th and I won't get smoked. Then the problem came. I didn't realize until after school that day that the book was due. Thankfully, it was at home in my room, so I could just drive back to the house, run up to the room, go back to the school and bring it back to the librarian. No hardships on my end... until I got to the house.\n\"Why is the police outside your house, Korey?\" asked Josie.\n\"They found your dad's meth lab?\" jested Maddie.\n\"No, and shut up,\" I said back to them, \"What's going on?\"\nThe officers told us that there were reports of burglars breaking into houses across the neighborhood, and since Dad had the day off, luckily he caught them when they moved to our house. That'd be a relief, except for the fact that the book and the project were both at my house and could've been at risk of theft if not vandalism.\nDad was there with the officers making a report, going forward with the charges and I was trying to ask him if anything was taken or damaged. It wasn't. Thank god, so I went up to the room, put the book in my bag after emptying it of my other notebooks, I hid the display in the closet so even if I'm worried about forgetting it next week I'll see it every morning until then. Back to the car and back to the school where I Sonic the Hedgehogged up the stairs to the library on the third floor.\nI was trying not to make too much noise (i.e. pant too loudly) since some of the college prep and afterschool kids were having a lesson in there. I was explaining to the librarian that I'd forgotten about the book earlier, and she understood. She knew what kind of people Josie and Maddie were; if it was me and Josie or Maddie, we'd be fine, but put those two together and the stench of chaos is potent.\nI don't know if other libraries do this, but the school library tracks the exact time of borrowing, so if you borrow a book at 2:58 PM, it's supposed to be back around that time. Driving to school from home takes about 15 minutes, so there was a tiny fee of 20 cents. Not gonna lie, quite stupid that the library doesn't let students rent out for longer than two weeks, but whatever. It's a good thing we got the project done in time or I would've been even more stressed.\nSo I returned the book, paid the miniscule late fee, and after a week, we brought the presentation to the class and it got us an A-. Awesome! And Josie and I didn't have to give Maddie time out this time." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: The Final Thoughts of the Building at the Corner of 2nd and D\n\nGenre: historical-fiction\n\nWord Count: 1597\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about an apartment building being demolished." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "I knew my demolition would be inevitable. My halls have been left empty for so long now. My pipes are a wet mess of rust and mold. My electrical wiring and conduit have been reclaimed by nature. My insides are nothing more than chewed wires and bird’s nests these days. The carpet on most of my floors has a festering slime in the fibers. Multiple inspectors said they’d never seen anything comparable, and warned against anyone entering. That’s likely why they’re tearing me down. I suppose by this point I’m comparable to a rabid animal, a danger to the rest of the city at large.\nHow did this happen to me? Too weathered to operate, too expensive to fix. A sad, shadow of what I once was. I blame the overnight custodian. Once that pipe burst on the 49th floor I knew my time was limited, but now it’s closer than I care to consider. Last night was my final sunset. Now here I stand, just before dawn, with engineers preparing me for annihilation. My walls are sweating with fear, but that might be the leaks.\nMy once illustrious halls housed the rich and the famous, back when I was beautiful and bright. My ground floor boasted hosting the highest profile parties in the city. The bulk of my residents, and a percent of the surrounding population, would come for all night gatherings of live music and strong drinks. The bar didn’t close, neither did the casino. The theater on one end had back-to-back comedy shows all night, and the theater on the opposite end showed a variety of films on an endless reel. The ballroom always had the most requested live bands, and the dancing never ceased. For decades people came together and parted like waves in the pool. If only those days could have lasted forever.\nAfter a great and wonderful while, the parties wound down, and the city hotspot changed. As always, entertainment demands evolved. On the verge of a new century, I found myself excluded from what was once routine. Long time employees left, and permanent art fixtures were sold. The live music turned sour, along with the regular crowd. Then there was talk of turning me into a hotel. How I dreaded the thought of the short term. The idea of having guests instead of residents made my wallpaper cringe. What happened was far worse.\nNew management stepped in with a brand-new plan. At first, my bricks shuddered with excitement. They studiously cleaned me inside and out, and replaced my heating system with something more modern. I was repainted nicely. They even went as far as giving me a new roof. I expected a new era of excitement. Instead, I witnessed a violent restructuring.\nMy suites, my theaters, the penthouses, even my ballroom; their over scheduled projects ruined all of it. Half-hearted crews came with tiny walls and sloppy work. I endured hurried plumbing, unprofessional installations, and my grand lobby reduced to a hallway with a keypad door. I lived a building’s worst nightmare, or so I’d thought.\nI was filled with residents once more, but things were different this time. The smoke from their lungs felt toxic to the air. Untrained and uncared for pets had no choice but to use my floors as their toilet. Every stairwell was filled with trash. Entire bags were sometimes thrown from higher floors downward, usually for fun. Disingenuous young adults, college students, and self-destructive entrepreneurs filled my halls, night and day.\nTo my genuine relief, a custodian was hired. He came in with enthusiasm and vigor. Ready to turn the place around and fix up every issue. Sadly, I found that he was only filled with such intensity when fueled by powdered motivation. The worst part was his stimulant exclusively enhanced his words, and did nothing to aid him in getting actual work done.\nHis resume had been a lie. The new custodian barely knew how to operate a broom. He spent most of his time at his workstation laughing at the internet, unless he was explicitly directed to perform a supervised task. A month into his employment he accidently found a pipe connector with a minor leak inside a maintenance closet on the 49th floor. He tightened it by hand then wrapped a towel around it, and left for the day. Forgetting what he’d discovered by the time he hit the front door.\nA regrettable amount of time later, the building manager found himself investigating the 49th floor. There had been numerous complaints about soggy carpets and an incessant dripping. He entered the maintenance closet, and standing water flowed out around his shoes. He bolted in, and ripped the thoroughly saturated towel off of the piping, which also tore loose the connector.\nThe part was replaced and fans were working on drying the floors in less than an hour. Unfortunately, little did the building manager know, further inside the wall, the force of the jerked towel had undone pipe connections further down the line. A constant waterfall formed through a slim channel between walls. The unintentional canal twisted down and through each floor, all the way to the basement. Nearly a year passed before anyone noticed or complained. Other than the custodian who spent many of his overnight shifts dry mopping the basement. By then the majority of the damage had been done.\nThe sun is up now, and I’m prepped for a controlled demolition. There’s a crowd gathering. The end of my time must be soon. I used to constantly wonder what was to come, if another new owner would come along and refurbish me, so I could peak once more. I’d rather be a hotel than simply empty. I could become an office building for all I care, anything. But for my roof to meet the ground, that is a fate no building wants to meet.\nIt took them years to move everyone out, and the basement was flooded long before then. Stubborn tenants that refused to give up their space. One elderly couple claimed they were grandfathered into an old lease and were allowed to stay until they expired. Two floors below a hoarder contently lived among human waste and rotting drywall. These residents, among many others, could not be budged. Notices and advisories did nothing. The owner begging at their welcome mats was of no help either. Finally, after a stroke and a couple police raids, the last of the apartments were vacated one by one.\nThe custodian electrocuted himself trying to steal copper just after I was closed to the public. Apparently, he assumed the power was already off because he made no effort to check the electrical panel. He wasn’t the first or last death within me, but he was by far the most gruesome. I had amazingly maintained a murder free status all those years. Never a rooftop suicide, or séance in room 666 either. I can safely say, there are no hauntings for this interior.\nThe building manager and other employees stopped coming in soon after the custodian’s death, and I was empty for a short time. Then a new community arose. They seemed to be referred to as homeless, but I was happy to house them. All these floors and rooms, most of the furnishings left behind, someone needed to enjoy them. I was redecorated with spray paint murals, and artful collages. Families outfitted their quarters however they liked, and knocked down walls whenever more room was needed for new arrivals. They even found a way to fill the pool with water from the basement during a hot summer. A sense of community had been restored within me for the first time in painfully long. They happily thrived for a decent number of years in their decaying haven. I was devastated when the police forced everyone out one day in a blur of commotion. It happened too fast, so much noise, and then complete silence. A few days later the owner and the old building manager spent time boarding my windows and securing all my doors. They swept the building multiple times to make sure no one was left, except for the rodents in the walls and the fish in the pool.\nI spent 1000 days empty. Devoid. Alone. Those were the worst days. Bleakness and disrepair. Parts of the higher floors collapsed like vertical dominoes. Nothing inside was the same. Much of the furniture had been drug out and burned in the parking lot, which no longer had asphalt. I find myself disappointed the chandelier in the main hall is long gone. Having it fall would have been spectacular, and something to look forward to. I knew anytime the building manager or owner arrived not to get my hopes up. They were usually boarding a higher up window that had been shot out, or hit by a mighty impressive throw in one instance, if I’m being accurate.\nThe crowd outside is bigger now, and there’s a camera crew. Without these old walls in the way, perhaps something new can flourish. Hopefully they do something nice with the space I occupy. A park or a school maybe, a library would be nice.\nI hear numbers being praised by the crowd.\nI’d like to imagine parts of me can be used for something else, but I don’t think it works that way. I just hope someone finds the guy that drowned searching the basement recently. I suppose he thought there would be a safe down there.\nThere's loud popping all around.\nWhat an incredible rush." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Why You Shouldn't Procrastinate\n\nGenre: high-school\n\nWord Count: 1179\n\nPrompt:\n\nSet your story in a library, after hours." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "It’s been a long week, and I may or may not have put off a huge project until the last minute. Again. It’s a problem. Anyway, I rushed to the library to find a book to do my entire research project on. I had to do the research, write the required three page essay, and create a visual example. I told my parents I had finished last week. Needless to say, I lied. \n I rushed through the library doors, but something caught my eye. There was a sign that said they were going to close at 7:30. That’s in one hour! I should not have put this project off. My grade depends on this! It is the last assignment that will count towards our grade, and I’m not doing too well grade wise. I’m smart, but spend more time with athletics than school. \nI went straight to the nonfiction section. Nothing in particular caught my eye except the clock, which was ticking closer and closer to 7:30. I chose the book closest to me. It was about the Civil War. It’ll have to do. I rush to the nearest table and open up the book and pull out my computer. I scan the table of contents. Nothing caught my eye, except for this one chapter towards the middle called the “Anaconda Plan.” You may not know this about me, but I love snakes. So naturally, I flipped to that chapter. It wasn’t about snakes, but it was about a plan that was based upon an anaconda’s habits and movements. It was actually very interesting. I got so sucked in that I didn’t even notice when they said they were closing. I noticed about an hour too late. I was in the back of the second floor, so no one noticed me.\nI was kind of freaking out. I mean, I was probably locked in a building that wasn’t my house. You may be wondering why my parents haven’t called me or anything. Well, they are out of town tonight, so I’m on my own. It was about 8:30, so I wasn’t tired. I decided to find another book about the Anaconda plan. I would do my research on that. I found out some really interesting stuff. I managed to write a four page essay and decide what I wanted to do for the visual presentation. I decided that I would do the presentation of the plan. I just needed the materials. I was also going to make a map of the plan to show. It would be awesome and I would totally get an A on the project, which is what I needed to pass the class. \nAfter I finished writing the essay and planning my presentation, I realized how tired I was. I looked at the clock and it read 11:43. It was really late. I should be in bed getting ready to fall asleep. I mean, I had school in the morning, and the project is due during the first class, so I had to find a way out. I tried to walk around the library to find the door, but I was really dark, and I could barely see anything. I walked into a bookshelf and several books fell off the shelf. \nI tried to put them back, but I still couldn’t really see, so I just did my best. Apparently, I didn’t do a very good job. I tripped over two books that fell on top of each other and knocked some other books over. I just gave up and went to find a door. I somehow managed to find the door, but it wouldn’t open. I turned around after what felt like an eternity of trying to open the door, and decided to find another exit. After stumbling around in the darkness, I began to grow tired, which caused me to trip onto another bookshelf and sent books flying. I was too tired to try and find them to put them back. I just wanted to be in my bed. \nI found my way to the back of the building and found another door labeled with one of those light-up exit signs. I tried to push it open, but it wouldn’t budge. I pulled out my phone to use the flashlight, I don’t know why I didn't try that before, but it was dead. The little light that the exit sign gave off was just enough for me to notice a little lock on the handle. I pulled out my house key and tried to use it. I hope that it would, but it didn’t. I was ready to just give up. I sat down on the floor next to the door and just started thinking of ways to escape. I had seen shows on TV that have people escaping using the vents, but those were too high up for me to reach. They sometimes use bobby pins to pick a lock, but I didn’t have any. Then I remembered seeing a sewing section in the library when I rushed in a few hours ago. By some miracle I found the section and searched for a stray pin. There was a table by the shelf that had a few pins in a bowl. \nI grabbed the pins and raced to the door, knocking who knows what to the floor. I don’t know how you are supposed to pick a lock, but I tried my best. I got pricked a few times by the pins, but getting out was more important than caring about something so trivial. I heard a click and tried the handle again and it worked. \nBut nothing so great can last forever. When I opened the door, an alarm went off. I snuck away knowing it would only be so long before the authorities showed up, and I didn’t plan on being there when they did. Once I felt as if I could not be easily seen, I bolted towards my house. \nI got there in a matter of minutes, I'm a good runner. I fumbled with the keys a little and ran straight to my room after locking the door behind me. I was so tired, I just laid in my bed and went straight to sleep. \nI woke up the next morning to light pouring into my room. I looked over at my clock and saw that it read 9:00. Of course, I slept through my alarm going off and missed the bus to school. And the project submission. I walked over to my backpack to pull out my computer to turn in the project online after I sent an email using my mom’s email to the school calling in sick.\nI learned a very valuable lesson that night. Never save your work until the last minute, and if you do, charge your phone and watch the clock. \nThis was the story I would tell my children and grandchildren when they started middle school and high school. I hope they listen to my story and learn from my mistakes." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: The Couple\n\nGenre: historical-fiction\n\nWord Count: 1489\n\nPrompt:\n\nStart your story with two people sitting in a movie theater, waiting for the lights to come back on." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Even the footlights were out. The film had unceremoniously been cut off at the height of the climax. Had they been followed? Around them, the theater chattered. Men slapped hats against their legs while women rung their gloves.\nThe couple sat in stony silence.\nHis grip tightened on the armrest as sweat dripped down his temple.\nThe darkness pressed against her eyes. She strained to see anything. Red nails tapped against her skirt. She believed she could make out the head sitting in front of her. She thought of their small apartment, probably in shambles, everything they’d worked for strewn across the floor. Of course, they’d known the risks. That knowledge is what kept the dark air of the theater hitching in her throat.\nHe knew the risks too. He didn’t mind them, but he’d never wanted her to be involved. Why had she returned so early that day? Why had she insisted on see the papers he had acquired at the meeting she stumbled into? She couldn’t lie if her life depended on it, and in espionage, it often did.\n~\n“I’ll be discreet, Harry,” she insisted, folding the telegram and tucking it back into the yellow envelope.\n“I have no doubt you’ll try, darling,” Harry puffed at his cigarette, looking down at the flashing city below him.\n“Truly, I’ll forget about it completely. I promise, Harry.”\n“How could you?” He pulled the drapes closed and turned to face his wife. “Doris, every report I hear of this war sticks in my mind. It grows and grows until a more terrible report comes along to replace it. My head is almost bursting. How can you say you’ll forget?”\nHer watery eyes searched his. “Then I guess I’ll have to join you.”\nA few steps and he was across the room, shaking hands grasping her arms. “I can’t ask you to do that. I’ll arrange for a trip. You can go out to see your family, far away from here.”\n“I can’t ask you to do that.” She cradled his arms in her hands, a nervous smile played at her red lips. “I’m ready to do whatever I can.”\n~\nAn angry viewer rose from his chair and tapped his cane on the ground.\n“It’s been long enough. I won’t sit by for this for another minute. I paid to see a movie, and I’m going to!” Unseen, his stomping echoed around the now silent hall, through the seats, down the aisle, up a couple of stairs, to the doors. An empty thud. A few sharp rattles.\nTheir hearts froze and melted in their chests.\n“It’s locked!” the angry man shouted.\nHarry found Doris’s had. Fingers intertwined, they clung to each other as the theater-goers erupted around them.\n~\nThe fated telegram had left their apartment in the pocket of a rather sneaky man. That was all they knew. Their lives had carried on as normal, to anyone on the outside. Inside was a tapestry of tangled secrets. Their curtains were always drawn, fire always stoked, and bags always packed. They were ready for anything. For three months they successfully guided a dozen pieces of intelligence all over the world, praying the efforts were assisting the Allies in some way.\nThen it came. A telegram. “Desist. Immediately.”\nThe fire roared that night as slips of paper, ciphers, names, and secrets were turned to ash.\n“This is it,” Doris look at her husband as the telegram slipped from her fingers into the flames.\n~\nThe crowd surged against the locked doors. The couple had been forced into the aisle by the stamped.\nCries of, “Let us out!” and, “Open these doors or I’ll…” rose to an invisible ceiling.\n~\n“We haven’t seen a film in a while,” Harry said, staring at the watery soup in his spoon. Glancing up, he saw Doris beaming at him from across the table.\n“Oh, Harry! Can we? I can wear my new skirt! I’ve been dying to wear it out!”\n“Of course!” Harry grinned as she leaped up from the table.\n“Oh, I’ll start getting ready now!”\n“Lay out a suit for me, will you, dear?”\n~\nShe felt so silly in her new skirt now. She wished they’d never come to the theater. The images of war that had played before the movie floated across her vision. When would this terror end? “When we are victorious,” she decided to herself. “If they win, this terror will last forever.”\nThe screen lit up. All heads turned and silence fell at the sight of the light. The image was obstructed by the shadows of three men, one being drug mercilessly across the screen. One of the shadows grunted, and the darkness descended again.\nThe grunt had been unintelligible to most of the people in the room. Harry and Doris had recognized it immediately as a German command.\n“Harry,” her barely audible whisper broke the silence between them.\n“It could be anyone, Doris. Why would they burst in here and cause a scene? They would be fools—”\nThe doors burst open and two men entered. The lights snapped on revealing the carnage left behind by the crazed crowd.\n“We are here,” one of the men began in an American accent, “looking for a Mr. and Mrs. Williams. We have been asked to escort you.”\nThe other man, wearing round glasses, nodded curtly.\nWhispers carried around the room.\n“Who are they, Harry?” Doris hugged herself to his side.\n“Our rescue, darling. Just be glad they got here first,” he smiled down at her, looping her arm through his.\nHer eyes glanced from the men back to Harry. “You know them?”\n“The voice, my love. From the phone.” He gave her hand a gentle squeeze.\nWarmth flowed back into Doris’s limbs. On legs wobbly with relief, she was barely able to keep up with her husband who was trotting towards the men.\n“Hello, sirs. I am Harry Williams, this is my wife. If we might?” He motioned towards the exit.\n“Of course, sir. Ma’am.” The first man lead the way as the spectacled man brought up the rear.\nThe streets outside were dark as the couple climbed into the back of a black car. The engine turned over, and they pulled away from the curb.\n“If I may,” Doris spoke up as they rolled out of the city. “But, where are you escorting us to?”\n“That is secret information, I am afraid,” the man in glasses replied with a tinge of German at the edges of his American accent.\nTo Doris’s trained ear, the remark felt stiff, rehearsed. Not a lie that the destination was a secret, but a shroud for a deeper intent.\nThunder rumbled in the distance. The headlights lead them down a bumpy, deserted road in the New York countryside.\nDoris’s stomach flipped at each bounce. Where were they going? A safe house, perhaps a meet-up point?\nThe car crunched to a stop.\n“We will give you a moment,” the first man stated, his locking eyes full of meaning on Harry, who gave a nod.\nThey were alone.\n“Harry, what is going on!” she turned from staring out into the blank night to her husband.\n“I want you to know, my love,” a stifled sob escaped his throat. He swallowed several times. Far off lightning illuminated the clouds. “I want you to know I have only misled you twice throughout the past three months.”\n“Harry, I don’t—”\n“Please, please. I have to tell you this. The second time, I lead you to believe I had spoken to the man we are with on the phone. I have heard his voice, but never on a call meant for me. I’ve only intercepted his calls to Germany.”\nDoris gasped as warmth stung her eyelids.\n“The first lie was much more blatant. Dear, these men aren’t here to rescue us. We’ve been found out. Oh, darling, forgive me. I didn’t want you to worry. Anticipating the end and experiencing it are so completely different. I was protecting you from that torture the only way I could think of.” His voice shook in the dark.\nSmoothing her new skirt, Doris peered back out the window. So this was it? “Shouldn’t I have been given that choice?” Her voice shook as she looked back into Harry’s eyes.\n“If only you could have. Once the choice is known, it’s already made. Doris, please, forgive me. I won’t be able to bear these last few moments if I know, know you’re against me.”\n“Against you? Oh, Harry, what you’d have to do to turn me against you! Of course I forgive you! Just don’t let it happen again,” She grinned and threw herself into his arms.\nRain pelted against the glass as they clung to each other.\nThe door was pulled open. The Williams were pushed out into the darkness where they disappeared as two more flashes joined the dark storm above." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: When It's Dark\n\nGenre: high-school\n\nWord Count: 1637\n\nPrompt:\n\nSet your story in a library, after hours." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "TW: DEATH: GORE: \nRisha\nMy friends are all into this new game called Truth or Dare, I never play along with them because I'm not the daredevil, and I can hardly tell the truth when put on the spot. I spotted Lisa, Chad, and Mel in the library this morning giggling away. Truth or Dare... I remember thinking, Walking up to them I take a seat next to Mel. \"Hey Risha! Wanna play?\" Lisa exclaims, muffled by giggles. I just shrug, Maybe I'll finally surprise them by saying yes. I smile to myself, \"Sure.\" Chad's eyes grow wide, \"Really?!\" he asks not sure if he heard me correctly. I nod my head, \"Dare.\" I say. Lisa, Chad and Mel whisper among themselves, Deciding which Dare they should give me, \"Stand on top of this table and yell if anyone has seen your goldfish.\" They finally come to a decision. I shrug once again and lift myself up on top of the table we were sitting at, \"Excuse me!\" I start off by getting everyone's attention, \"Has anyone Seen my Goldfish? I took him for a walk and he got lose.\" I ask frowning. I hear a few giggles and a few sighs of disappointment, I look down to see that my friends have fallen off their chairs and are on the floor gasping for breath. I smile, Finally fitting in with this bunch.. And That Dare wasn't that bad, I kind of enjoyed it. I giggle to myself. \n\nThe first bell rings and everyone is off to class. What Mel, Lisa, Chad, and Risha didn't know was this may be the last time they Hear the morning bell.\n\nLisa\nI'm running home, excited for my group Truth or Dare in the school library after hours, Mel, Chad, and Risha all would be waiting for me. I was surprised Risha even agreed to do the Truth or Dare challenge with us, She's been doing that a lot lately. Surprising us, not playing Truth or Dare. I rush through the door of my house, \"Hey Mom! I'm going to be hanging out with my friends, Just home to change!\" I inform my mother. She nods and waves me off with her hand, focusing on some new baking recipe she's been working on. I walk up the stairs to my room and pick out my spy clothing, Slipping on my black jeans, a black cropped hoodie, and a beanie. I check myself out in the mirror, Perfecta, I giggle. \nSlipping through the cracked window of my High School Library I immediately see my friends, I throw them a wave and a smile. They wave me over to the bean bag area. I pick a vivid blue bean bag and flop myself down, \"Okay who's first?\" I grin. \"I'll go\" Risha says, \"Mel Truth or dare?\" Mel thinks for a moment, \"Truth.\" Chad has a look of disappointment plastered across his face, I smile. \"Do you still sleep with your parents when you're scared?\" Risha pauses before adding, \"Like you used to do in Elementary.\" Mel turns various shades of red, \"I..\" \"..Sometimes, but it's always on the floor\" she hurries on. Everyone around her starts to giggle and she jumps in, \"Lisa Truth or Dare?\" I think for a moment before getting interrupted by the library door opening. I recognize the male that comes in, it's the Freshmen Math teacher. I look around at my friends clearly shocked he's still at the school after 11pm. He walks directly towards us, \"Hey kids, I heard some rumors going around that you four might be here playing Truth or Dare.\" He grins madly, definitely insane. I think to myself. \"Whose turn is it?\" He asks, clasping his hands together, I shake my head slightly willing Mel to keep quiet. \"Lisa's.\" Mel says, okay... maybe she didn't see my head shake and eyes of warning. Mr. Waterman smiles, \"So? what'll it be Lisa?\" my heart skips a beat, \"Dare.\" I say, trying to stay on my friend's good side. Mr. Waterman smiles broadly, and pulls out an army knife, \"Cut off you pinky.\" he says while taking his place on the only empty bean bag. \"Y-you can't be serious.\" I gasp. He shakes his head sadly, \"You do the dare, your told is that not how you play?\" \"Well... Those are the rules Li.\" Chad expresses through a shaking jaw. I take Mr. Waterman's army knife and toss it to the side, \"No one is going to be cutting anything off.\" I say sternly, \"Mr. Waterman if you can't play by teenage appropriate rules then you're going to have to let yourself out.\" Mr. Waterman smiles, \"Lisa...Lisa...Lisa...\" He says, clacking his tongue. While getting up to claim his knife. Bending over to pick it up he pauses, \"you know Lisa, this would be more fun if you would have just played by my rules.\" Then he stands up straight and walks, no rather, runs towards me, grabbing me in a choke hold he cuts my pinky off with no difficulty. I let out an exaggerated scream and hold my hand so tight it begins to turn purple, blood pouring from my hand and its 4 fingers. Chad's eyes widen and he tries to escape through the window, Mr. Waterman throws the knife at his legs, stopping him right in the middle of his escape. My heart is beating faster and I feel the sweat on my forehead increase rapidly. \n\nMel\nI'm breathing heavily trying to reach Lisa, she's bleeding horribly. I look at the now formed puddle of dark crimson that's formed underneath her. Trying not to look at the bone sticking out from her disembodied hand I tear my bandana off and tie it around her finger gap, applying pressure to stop the bleeding. After I'm done with that I look towards Chad and see the knife sticking out of his calf, \"Don't pull it out Chad!\" I scream at him, He looks pained but nods. \"Oh, But Dear Mel, it's your turn and I'm afraid I'm going to need my knife back.\" He grins wildly. I shake my head, You can't hurt me If I pick Truth I think. “Mel...Truth or Dare?...” pick Truth Mel he can't hurt you if you do… “Truth.” I say loud and clear, Mr. Waterman smiles lightly, “Have you… Ever slept with a teacher for an easy A?” “You're a sick man…” I mumble under my breath. “No, No I have never slept with a teacher.” I say louder. “Are you 100% sure Mel?” Mr. Waterman pushes, “Yes! I'm sure!” I scream at him. Shaking rapidly and hugging my knees to my chest, “Wrong answer Mel, your going to be punished now” Mr. Waterman shakes his head sadly, “And here I thought you always told the truth Melly Boo.” Waterman throws the knife at me, it smacks me blade first in the stomach, I grimace before the pain hits me, then I scream, letting the tears that have drowned my vision fall. Waterman turns to Chad, “Truth or Dare boy?” He says hatred in his voice. “Truth you Mother F&%#$@” Chad curses. Mr. Waterman smiles, “Why don't you tell your dear Girlfriend what happened between you and Alisson, would you?” Chad mumbles something before he turns to me, “Mel… What you did to get an easy A is disgusting. I would have never thought you could be capable of something so nasty, But i'm not mad so when I tell you… You can't be mad at me Do, you, understand?” I nod my head but stare at the swiss army knife that's sticking out from my stomach, making it hard for me to breath. “I got Allison Devins pregnant, then made her abort the baby.” Chad says slowly, hesitantly looking up at me. More tears drown out Chad’s face, “It's okay…” I mutter not sure if it really is or if I'm just in too much pain to respond with anger. Then I turn to the psycho teacher, “It's your turn Truth or Dare?” Mr. Waterman looks at me for a second before saying, “Dare, make it good would you.?” He smiles. “Kill your psycho self.” I say, Mr. Waterman Squints his eyes, “Well If I must,” he says then walks over to me, grabs the swiss knife and impales himself right smack in the middle of his heart. He doesn't scream, or even make a face, he just falls to the ground thudding against the hard marble floor. I look around at the mess this psychotic man caused, my eyes landing on Risha. “You didn't get hurt...?'' I question why. Risha sighs before looking back at me straight on. “Mel, I thought you were the smart one.” she says, then pauses before beginning again, “Mr. Waterman was my Professor Boyfriend you idiot, I told him you people would be here, I asked him to kill you three, But you three refused to die, then you killed Waterman. So, now I must avenge his death by finishing what he started.” She explains slowly as if I didn't understand English. I noticed Chad on the floor lifeless, the only thing that indicated his live body was the ragged breathing. I look at Lisa and see my bandana red and soaking with blood, she's lost too much and is close to death already. Looking down at my stomach I wince, Damnit, I've been too occupied. I didn't have time to dress my own wound. I hear Risha rustle around before pulling out a silver gun. She shoots four times, Starting with Chad, then to Lisa, Me and then she shoots herself. I feel the hole in the middle of my forehead, Wonder what Moms making for dinner then fall into a forever sleep. Bathing in my own blood." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Front row at the Friday matinee\n\nGenre: historical-fiction\n\nWord Count: 2353\n\nPrompt:\n\nStart your story with two people sitting in a movie theater, waiting for the lights to come back on." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Straining her arm as close to her face as possible, Alice reads her watch in the occasional bursts of light from the big screen: 4.37pm. Her skirt is sticking to her legs, the coarse fabric of the cheap seat is rubbing into the sweaty folds of skin under her knees; even her palms feel damp, drumming the armrests in frustration. Did she really only check her watch two minutes ago? If there were a thermometer in the cinema the mercury would be rising, steadily, like the excitement of the young audience; but she can only sit here, perspiring and expiring in equal measure. For the hundredth time, she intones at the screen under her breath: end; at the projectionist: lights on-please! But Hopalong Cassidy persists in galloping about on his faithful steed Topper, oblivious to Alice Smith and her sufferings that interminable Friday matinee.\n\nIf her younger brother James sees her tapping fingers or hears her protracted sighs, he ignores her. Like all the other little children who fill the cinema, he is only leaping around as if he were galloping about the prairie on his own white stallion. Alice has given up pulling him down into his seat; letting him shoot a few imaginary rounds at the screen and lasso the hustlers is easier than tugging and reprimanding, just for him to rear up like a horse ten second later, screaming at the cowboy to “get ‘em Hoppy!”\n\nThe usherettes have given up too, sneaking off for a ciggy ages ago; she can hardly blame them: being stuck in Whitehall Cinema on a Friday afternoon is hardly her idea of a good time either. Yet here she is. When her mother had told her she would be babysitting, emphasising that she knew she didn’t have any other plans that Friday, she’d flung her schoolbag down on the floor, matched her hands-on- hips pose: squaring off, ready to give her some lip. But her father had walked into the kitchen, patrolling his house- maintaining law and order- and she’d dropped her stance, and eyes; raising instead the little white flag of defeat she always kept rolled up inside. \n\nShe shifts in her seat. The lash marks from the last disciplining have faded but her skin still remembers the bite of the belt. The memory of the whole episode leading up to the hiding is just as painful: the school bell ringing the end of day, bumping into Tom Jenkins in the corridor and how he’d asked her to go to the Pictures with him on Friday night. She’d wanted to say yes, as quickly as she could, but the disapproving faces of her parents flickered into focus and she forced herself to say the opposite.\n\n“No Tom, I can’t. Mum and Dad would never let me.” She rushed the words out, wishing them gone, they were so hateful.\n\n “I’ll win ‘em round, Alice,” he said, beaming that dazzling smile and picking up her schoolbag to hand to her, “or my name’s not Tom Jenkins.”\n She hadn’t thought that much about it on the walk home. She was sure he’d find another girl before the weekend; one whose parents didn’t expect her to be walked up the aisle before he dared to chance a peck on the cheek. She had barely walked through the door when her mother had taken the bag off her shoulder, bundling an overflowing basket of laundry into her arms before pointing her towards the backyard.\n\n After the gloomy school building the white washing, in the brilliance of the afternoon sun, was dazzling. There was hardly a breeze, yet even so she struggled with the bed sheets, heavy and damp. Petite, each sheet threatened to swamp her slight frame and her tight corkscrew red curls were soon slicked to her forehand with the effort of bending, reaching, pegging, repeating. For just a moment she paused and there he was, leaning on the gate as casually as the cat licking its paws on the backstep: Tom. The peg, gripped in her teeth, clattered to the ground and before her tongue could find the words he was lifting the latch, breezing inside the gate, holding out the fallen peg as if her were offering her a rose.\n\n“I could watch you all day, hanging out the laundry; there’s no finer sight than Alice Smith pegging out the whites on a summer’s day.”\n\nIf her hair was flame red, it was nothing to her cheeks.\n\n“Oh, get away with you Tom Jenkins!” she laughed, flicking the end of a sheet at him.\n\n“How long have you been staring at me?”\n\n“Just long enough to know there’s a dance in those hips and a smile on those lips!”\n\n“Well if there is, it’s not been put there by hanging out the washing; I’ll have you know that.”\n\n“Then perhaps something else put it there, or someone…” and it was his turn to flick a sheet at her so it lightly brushed her arm.\n\nShe wasn’t sure how she found the confidence to say: “And so do you think it’s you- Tom Jenkins-making me smile to myself?”\n\nAnd, almost shyly, he had reached for her hand and said quietly: “Nothing would make me happier than making you smile Alice.”\n\nThe memory of his hand round hers, even in the rowdy cinema with hullabaloo accompanying the cowboy’s every move, makes her smile. As James heckles Hoppy to round up the cattle rustlers, cheering on every feat of bravery, she lets his roar and those of all the other children swirl around her, spinning her back to that washing day.\n\nHer hand had opened and their fingers had interlaced, locking into each other like the pegs gripping the sheets. She hardly knew what she was doing, but she pulled him into the heart of the washing, parting the sheets, slipping with him amongst their soft folds.\n “Alice, Alice…” he laughed, laundry sliding about them, rustling like a soft encouraging whisper.\n She put a finger to his lips, feeling how it seemed to cling to her skin and mouthed “shh”.\n\nFor a moment, with the sweet-smelling sheets all about them- hidden to the world- she felt like she was at the heart of a fragrant flower, ready to sip honey.\n\nThen her mother had torn down the sheets; petal by petal she’d ripped their beautiful blossom apart. Her voice was a thorn, snagging at the moment, tearing the memory.\n\n“Hussy!” hissed her mother. Boots on gravel.\n“Slut! Get in that house now if you know what’s good for you.” Her father boomed, birds in the hedgerows taking flight.\n Inside, peering out from behind the curtain, flinching as she heard: “What the hell do you think you’re playing at? Barely big enough for trousers and thought you’d come sniffing round my daughter?”\n\n“I’m sorry sir. I just wanted to ask if I could take Alice to the Pictures this Friday night.”\n\n“To the Pictures! You’ll be taking her to the flaming pit of hell before you take her there. Now get out before I tell your father what you’ve been playing at!”\n She watched him go: Tom Jenkins and his dazzling smile, faded now like the whites, lying limp in the dirt.\n\nShe’d turned from the window; she didn’t need to see more to know what was coming: her father undoing his buckle, striding with purpose back towards the house, the kitchen and her. \n\nThe lights suddenly flick on, the thick red curtain slips across, hiding the silver screen. The usherettes are back, although she’s not quite sure why; rationing put an end to ices long ago and the audience is too young for cigarettes. James, like all the other youngsters, wouldn’t want them anyway. He’s up and off before she can yank him back, galloping quickly out of sight up the long side corridor to the back of the theatre, wind milling his arm, ready to throw a lasso at fleeing outlaws or good sheriffs turned bad.\n\nShe stretches out her legs, the only advantage to sitting at the front, before swivelling in her seat. She tells herself it’s to check James isn’t getting up to mischief, but she knows the real reason; in lights- up, she can take a long look at the back row, so far away. She’s always sat in the cheap seats up front, tuppence is all her parents will spare for her; but dreams come free and she can imagine how the plush deep crimson of the expensive seats in the back row would feel, settling down, with her best boy at her side. There’s no canoodling couples now of course, who would want to hold hands and chance a squeeze with their little brother or sister in tow? Would a stolen kiss be worth what would come later?\n\n“Mum, Mum you’ll never guess what our Alice was up to with Tom Jenkins when the lights went down!”\n\n “You what? Father! Father- come in here now!”\n\nShe sighs. Gone with the Wind is playing tonight; the film she’d wanted to see- the one she was sure Tom had meant to take her to. She’d seen the poster when queuing up to buy the matinee tickets for the Western. More than seen it; she’d stood before it transfixed. The background was burning red but that was nothing to the fire of the couple: Clarke Gable, shirt undone, carrying Vivien Leigh, her dress more off than on; her bosom straining against his chest, her face angled to his lips. Alice couldn’t pull her eyes away; they were drawn, helplessly, to that narrow strip of bare skin where his shirt hung open. And Leigh’s naked shoulder pressing against it. She stared and stared, feeling the heat radiate from the dry paper as if it might spring into flame at any moment, her intense gaze the strike of the match.\n\nIs there time to go back and have another look? No, the lights are fading, usherettes flashing their torches for all the lonesome cowboys to make their way back to their seats. James has returned, jumping her legs- the final hurdle- chasing Clarke Gable from her thoughts. She retracts her legs, tucking them neatly under her seat, ignoring the tickle of the rough cheap fabric at the inside of her knees once more. There’s a bustle of movement in the row behind but she ignores it, probably a babysitter like her, late to return to their seat, desperate to kill a few minutes in the peace outside before returning to the fray.\n\n“I’d prefer the later movie and a seat by your side, but beggars can’t be choosers.”\n She would know that voice, in the dark, with a hundred kids screaming at the baddie; she doesn’t need to turn to know whose tongue has spoken the words, setting her pulse racing like the cowboy’s horse, legs a blur as it gallops, gallops and keeps on galloping. She can hardly breathe yet alone turn and yet she does both.\n\n“Tom Jenkins,” she whispers under her breath, for there he is, seated just behind her in row 2. “I didn’t have you down as a Cowboy and Western fan.”\n\n“I’m not,” he says, leaning further forward in the half-light cast by the silver screen, “I think you know who I am a fan of though” That dazzling smile, teeth so white against the red lips.\n\n“How did you know I’d be here?” she somehow manages.\n\n“I couldn’t let your dad have the last word.” He murmurs. “And I always say: where there’s a will there’s a way,” he reaches out to a stray curl and gently pulls it towards him. It stretches, straightening, a direct line from her to him.\n\nHeart hammering, she presses into the hard backrest; it’s an unrelenting barrier, but it can’t stop the give of their lips, the parting waves of her fingers gliding through the soft folds of his hair.\n\nMore than anything she wants to lose herself in this moment but her brother James is tugging at her dress, prodding her in the stomach to get her attention.\n\n“Alice,” her name somehow finds a way through the deafening roar of her pulse in her ears. “Alice, I want to stay.”\n\nShe drags herself out of the kiss and turns around long enough to see the screen has stopped flashing shots of chases and saloon bars; in its place, there is a simple announcement:\n An air raid is taking place in East Grinstead. If cinema goers wish to leave the theatre they may do so.\n\nSome kids leave, the vast majority don’t: this is their Friday afternoon treat after all and lord knows they’re few and far between. And these warnings, they’re always false alarms; you trudge to the shelter, holed up underground with not just the old folks, but every Tom, Dick and Harry; all the fun of a Friday gone in an air raid’s wail.\n\nWith a click, the announcement disappears; the cowboy is back and the kids immediately start whooping and so she turns once more. It is easy for her to fall into the kiss a second time, leaning over the seat, wishing she could topple over the back and join him.\n\nAn unwelcome thought elbows in: that the sound is strange, for a Western. She’s never heard a siren in this sort of film before, shrieking its high-pitched cry of danger and need: to save yourself, to save your loved ones; to get out, or at least get down.\n\nWhen she realises that the sound is not coming from the film with its American prairie, it’s too late. The German, high above them, has released his 500 kg explosive and it’s speeding towards the Whitehall Theatre. Cheap seats, rich seats, it doesn’t matter; ripping through the roof, blowing the little cinema apart. Clothes are blasted from bodies, the laughter of a hundred small children is silenced in a second; the usherette’s torch falls and spins on the floor.\n\nAnd lost too is a dazzling smile and a galloping heart; gone, with the flame and the wind of the bomb." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Must\n\nGenre: high-school\n\nWord Count: 1076\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about a character stumbling upon a library book that changes the course of their life, for better or worse." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Write about a character stumbling upon a library book that changes the course of their life, for better or worse.\nSubmitted by Peter Wallace – [email protected] \nMust\n Musty. That’s what the smell was. Musty. What was must? Was it like moist dust? No matter. He’d look it up later on his phone. His phone. The indispensable tool for everyone under a hundred years old, and yet, here he was, in the ancient town library with the lions in front, doing research for a social studies report for Miss Darlington.\n Darlington was the youngest old person he’d ever encountered. She was a pretty new teacher, which was interesting, because she was both pretty and new. A guy could see how somebody could fall for her. Somebody older than high school.\nShe was weird, though. She reminded me of the schoolmarms from old movies, except she dressed normally, and she didn’t hit our hands with a ruler. However, speaking of rulers, she did have a lot of rules. For example, she insisted on having us students… we students… no, I was right the first time… us students, be very respectful to her and to each other. No talking was allowed unless she called on you. That class had some real loud-mouths, so I didn’t think she could quiet them down, but somehow, she got everyone to act decent without yelling. I think it was because she talked so quietly sometimes that you had to shut up in order to hear her.\n She also had odd ideas about tests. They were all short-answer tests, and not multiple guess, like most normal teachers used. You really had to know something to pass. Some of us actually got together and studied things together. \nShe was also very picky about spelling and such. She knew almost everybody used a computer to write our papers, and that there was no excuse for a misspelled word. She had a good point.\nShe didn’t grade down for punctuation that wasn’t right, but she’d make you re-write whatever it was the right way. I think she was more interested on us learning it than catching us making mistakes.\n Some of our younger teachers seem like they want to be friends, or something. I can tell you that students can sense weakness, and we know which teachers will let us get away with things. Miss Darlington didn’t seem to care if we liked her or not, but the funny thing is that we did like her. I guess part of it was that she treated us with respect too, even the kids who probably didn’t deserve it.\n Anyway, this assignment was to research a topic at the library – not the school library, but the old one in town. Maybe she wanted to make sure we knew where it was, or that they had a lot of books and magazines.\nWe couldn’t use our phones or Google or anything. It was like we were back in the 1980s, or sometime back then. \n I’m really interested in computers and robots and things, so I was looking through the books about artificial intelligence in a room upstairs. There was this cool ladder on rollers to get to the higher shelves. I climbed up, and as I pulled out a book from the shelf, I saw a thin book that looked like it had slipped behind the other books. It took me a minute, but I got it out. It was a hard cover book, but with very few pages. It was very dusty. I blew on it. More must. The title was “What You Can Give the World.” It was clearly not about artificial intelligence. There was something about it that made me want to find out what was inside.\n I opened the book to the Table of Contents. There were only a few chapters. Here were the chapter titles: 1. Why You Should Give to The World, 2. Honesty, 3. Fairness, 4. Kindness, and 5. Gratitude. I decided to walk over to a study carrel to see what it was all about.\n I was able to read the whole book in about an hour, and I’m not a really fast reader. It was pretty interesting, and if you asked me to tell you what it’s about here’s pretty much what I would tell you:\nYou can’t control other people, but you can control yourself and how you treat people. Also, what each of us gives to the world is important. It doesn’t feel that way in high school, but I guess it’s true. Honesty isn’t easy, or even natural, but it’s also important, and if we’re honest with people they will trust us. Fairness, according to the author, can’t be expected. The world isn’t fair, but we are obligated to be fair. In a way that didn’t make sense, but in a way it did.\nKindness isn’t hard to do, if we think about it, and we just have to be looking for opportunities to be kind. Like the author said, one person’s kindness can make another person’s world a better place. \nThe last thing was about gratitude, and how having it – appreciating all the good things we have – helps us keep our perspective on the world. It’s really easy not to do that when you’re 17.\nThe funny thing is, nobody’s name was listed as being the author. And, there was no publication date or publishing company. But it had been there a long time. The pages were all kind of yellowish and musty. Not only that, but it had that paper sticker inside the front cover, like they used before bar codes, that showed when it had been checked out. The last time was in 1953. That’s the year my dad was born!\nSo, instead of artificial intelligence, I wrote my report about the book; how I found it, and what was in it. I have to tell you, that book has really made me think about me… I? No, me… and how I fit into the world. \nMost kids in high school aren’t very kind or honest. You can’t deny it. We complain about things not being fair, and we’re not often very thankful about what we have. But you know, I think I can get better about all those things, and maybe I can help make some people’s world better, in a small way. Like, maybe Miss Darlington. That would be cool." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: The Theatre's Darkness\n\nGenre: historical-fiction\n\nWord Count: 2101\n\nPrompt:\n\nStart your story with two people sitting in a movie theater, waiting for the lights to come back on." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "[CW - Coercive control, trauma, violence]\n“Are they ever going to turn the lights back on?” asked Kathy with a quiver. \n“No. Not for a couple of years,” replied Alan. \nKathy shifted in the luxurious seat. She thought about how, during different times, the rich and famous occupied each chair, observing the rapid advances in modern cinema. They saw the silent films of Chaplin give way to movies with chattering actors who spoke as if they were in the room with you. She had even heard rumours of films recorded in colour, just like real life, although she had not seen them for herself.\nEver since the Luftwaffe bombs had started to fall on London, the cinema had been closed. Packing hundreds of people neatly into one space like matches in a box was rightfully band, lest someone ignite the packaging. More callously, those in charge considered cinema buildings to be sacrosanct, part of a new age to be displayed to the world. If the Germans knew that no one was in there, they would likely keep them preserved. After all, the Reich’s propaganda minister was a fan of cinema himself and would undoubtedly want to stage his own productions in London’s establishments.\nEach time the bombardments came, which was almost every night at this stage, Alan would drag Kathy to the same cinema. It had been locked for weeks now, but, as the manager of the property, Alan always had a key. Together, alone, they sat in the darkness and clung to each other’s hands until the deep rumbling stopped. \n“I don’t understand why the lights need to be off anyway. It’s a cinema. There aren’t any windows. We aren’t going to give anything away.” Kathy spoke with almost an indignance in her voice.\nAlan dismissed her entitlement, “They’re not even supplying electricity to the building. If they were, I’d switch them on for you. As long as we are safe, that’s the main thing.” \nKathy was impatient, as she always was. She found it hard to comprehend why all this inconvenience was necessary. Death, or the prospect of it, was not an issue for her. The disrupted life was much worse. \n“I don’t understand why we can’t go to the bomb shelter with everyone else. It must be safer there. There will be people to talk to. People to see.” \nAlan squeezed her hand tightly, perhaps a little too tightly, “That’s what I’m afraid of. You know why we can’t go there. I can’t believe you’re even suggesting it.” \nKathy slumped into the soft fabric, trying to make herself disappear. She knew precisely why they were in the cinema and away from everyone else. She knew why they had to avoid the safety of the underground station. \nAlan had joined up as soon as the war started, under pressure from Kathy. \n“Don’t be a coward,” she had told him. “Go and fight for your country.” \nNot really a bloodthirsty man, Alan would not have joined in a military capacity unless under duress from Kathy. Inside his own mind, he had a suspicion that Kathy was too good for him. More than that, he suspected that she was aware of this fact. As their relationship grew, as did his desire to impress her, to keep her around. The more meaningful the relationship, the greater the cost of losing it. If she wanted him to go to war, then it was worth the price. \nAlan came home having already taken the shilling, knowing that he would be shipped off to some field in France or Belgium, just as his father and uncles had been a few years before. Out of his dad and three brothers, only his dad came home alive. His walking stick and half a hand were the visible remains of that war and the horror that he had endured. Alan, seeing his father’s mutilation whilst he was growing up, as well as the mental disintegration of the stoic man had always sworn to avoid such a conflict. \nBut now, the conflict was here. He was signed up to fight. You never know how you are going to react until it happens to you. If, Alan thought, he was going off to fight in the name of a woman, then he would at least demand a price. The price for risking his life was marriage. \nHaving taken the shilling, he arrived home and dropped his knee to the ground, producing a ring that had belonged to his grandmother. “I don’t want to die an unmarried man,” he explained. \nNot reluctantly, but certainly not enthusiastically, Kathy accepted. It was inevitable that they would marry eventually but not now. There was still so much life to live in their courtship. Yet, in the circumstances, with death perhaps facing them both, accelerating the relationship was necessary. \n“Of course, I’ll marry you,” she had said with an empty smile on her face. \nThe ceremony was hastily arranged. There was no honeymoon. There was barely even a notice in the newspaper. It did not really matter. The couple were promised to one another, and that was all that mattered. \nA few days later, Alan was dressed as Tommy Atkins as he dug trenches in the dirt near Arras, France. All Quiet On The Western Front, he thought as the sun beat down on the tranquil countryside. He did not know what was just a few hours away. \nAlan swore to himself that he would never tell anyone what he saw. The swarm of grey uniforms, horse-drawn cannons, howling Stukas and the thud of artillery. \nUnlike his father, there was no months-long war. There was just a single rout, a disorganised retreat. From the first bullet whizzing past his temple, he trembled with fear. Sat on the beach at Dunkirk, he shook and begged to be taken back home. He was not meant to be here. \nAgainst all reasonable expectations, Alan did get home. He had been so sure that he was going to die on that beach. As the Stukas dived, he had thought about Kathy. He was there because of her. When the bombs were falling, he saw the folly of it all. No person was worth this. \nAlan was allowed leave while the forces recuperated. After all, he had left all his equipment on the beach. Until it was replaced, there was no use in him reporting for duty each day. The day he returned home, he wanted nothing more than to hug Kathy. Maybe he would even cry into the nook between her neck and shoulder for a few hours, on the proviso that she never mentioned it to anybody. \nHis eyes were stinging from the salt as he opened the door to their terraced London house. There, in almost identical place he had left her a few weeks earlier, sat Kathy on a chair. It might have almost been exactly the same scene as when he departed but for one significant difference. Harry, the local warden, placed on a chair next to her, with his hand on her thigh. \nIn a different time, just a number of days previous, Alan would have resolved this situation with violence. Harry would have been grazing his face on the gravel outside. Now, though, Alan had no appetite for violence. Simply, he asked Harry to leave and never return. Harry, delighted to escape a beating, departed obediently. \nThat was when the tears began to flow. Contrary to Alan’s expectations, they were not his own. They were Kathy’s. She begged and pleaded for forgiveness. She said she would do anything. In the society they lived in, an unfaithful or divorced woman was hardly a human being at all. Men received no such condemnation. Kathy, obsessed with her social standing, desperately needed to stay with Alan. \n“I didn’t know if you were alive or dead. I just needed someone to care for me. I’ve heard such stories of what was happening out there. You have to understand, I wasn’t thinking straight.” This was her reasoning. \nAlan’s nature had been corrupted by what he had seen in France. The little faith he had in the world to be kind to him had been obliterated by Kathy in that moment that he returned. The world to him now was nothing but killing, suffering and betrayal.\n“What will it take for you to forgive me?” \nThis question unsettled Alan. How could he forgive her? How could he make allowances for anything in this brutal world? He saw that Kathy’s only desire was to maintain her social status. She wanted safety and security. She wanted to be looked after in a time of upheaval and to continue life as normally as possible. There was no reason why Alan should not give that to her. But then, why should he suffer the consequences of that? Harry was a well-known figure in the community. He was the local air-raid warden and in charge of the safety of hundreds. People must have known what was going on. \n“You don’t have my forgiveness,” Alan had said to her, explaining his thoughts. “I will look after you. I will do what I can to help you survive the war. I won’t leave you or divorce you. No one at the local church or the pub or in your family will know what you’ve done. But, we can’t engage with Harry. You can’t ever see him again. I shouldn’t have to put up with the feelings of jealousy and betrayal, particularly when the only reason they happened was that I was off in a world of carnage at your request. You can keep your life and your safety, but from now on, you have to do what I say.” \nHe was offering a pseudo-forgiveness in return for security. She was to hand over the control of her life to a man who would never forgive her in return for the outward appearance of normality. It was an agreement that suited nobody. Alan knew that he was taking away Kathy’s freedoms, putting her under coercion. He no longer cared about that. He did not care about anything. His affection for her remained, but his good nature had been demolished. \nMonths later, after some time of recovery, the pair lived a settled life. They cared for each other but were distant. Kathy was loyal to Alan, and Alan took extensive measures to care for Kathy. But something was gone that could never be replaced. They still cuddled one another each night, but the embrace was a cold one. \nWhen the Luftwaffe turned its attention to London, Alan ensured Kathy was safe. He arranged for them to hide in the cinema. Of course, they could have gone to the London Underground station, but the warden would be there, shepherding the temporary refugees. Kathy risked her life every day but did not enter the shelter in order to fulfil her deal with Alan. She signed away her life for social credit. Alan, brutalised by his experiences, cared little. He was doing what he said he would do and was getting what he asked for in return. A once passionate relationship had become nothing more than a transaction. \nHarry adjusted his helmet, a metallic grey with a white W neatly printed on it. It was daylight now. Another sleepless night had gone by. The daytime would be equally wakeful. In the darkness, people needed help avoiding death. During the day, the destruction from the night before needed to be addressed. Perhaps, in the early evening, he would get a few hours of sleep. \nHe clambered through the rubble, which was loose and gave way to his boots. The pieces of rock would have sliced his ankles if they were not protected by rubber. The bombs had hit hard last night. It would be a day of extensive recovery. Businesses, homes and lives were lost. \nMost buildings were abandoned. Still, each needed to be searched for signs of life. Or death. Harry made his way through the crumbling structure. The remains of the outside walls and grand ceiling blocked out the sun. He flicked on his torch, illuminating the cinema for the first time in weeks, just as Kathy had requested. \nKathy’s face, perfectly still and eyes glistening in the artificial light looked back at him with an eery tranquillity. Despite its coating with dust, Harry recognised it instantly. Recognising it gave him a pang of romantic feeling, which he quickly got under his control. \nIgnoring Kathy for a second, he called out. “Is anybody in here alive?” \nThere was no response." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Hidden\n\nGenre: high-school\n\nWord Count: 2904\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story that weaves together multiple lives through their connection to a particular tree." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "A tree, by itself, wasn’t an unusual sight. A tree, in the middle of the second story bedroom of a Los Angeles apartment, however, was a curiosity. The trunk of the tree wandered somewhere behind the building itself, but at a certain point it simply crossed into the bedroom, wholly unbothered by the apartment’s occupants. There were a lot of rumors about how the tree had become a part of the house, but the truth was that it had been built so long ago that nobody really remembered any kind of reasonable explanation.\nPaola Herrera, who was older than her two brothers but physically smaller, ended up with the room. It was somewhat inconvenient, but the Herrera family had barely been able to afford the apartment, and so the simple fact that she had her own room seemed a luxury.\nShe had just bumped her head into the tree on Tuesday morning when her mother burst into the room.\n“ICE is here,” she said, breathlessly, shoving two frail little girls into the room. Paola jumped into action. The room didn’t offer much in hiding places, but maybe the girls could squeeze under the bed.\nWhile ICE raids were fairly common in their neighborhood, the Herreras rarely got checked. Paola and her brothers had been born in the US and this saved them from a lot of checks. Dreamers, who had been born elsewhere but immigrated to the US at a young age, were less lucky. Paola shoved the textbooks from under the bed and turned around to find the smaller of the two girls clinging to the tree, deathly white and on the verge of tears.\n“Come on, it’ll be over soon,” Paola urged, grabbing the girl’s hips and pulling. The girl said nothing but clung tighter. The older girl crawled hesitantly under the bed. Paola could hear the knocking on the front door. She gave the younger girl another yank.\n“Please, you need to trust me,” she begged, shoving the older girl’s feet further under the bed. “Follow your sister, please, please.”\nHarsh voices outside confronted her mother. Just as she was about to yank the girl again, her hips swung loose from Paola’s hands. Paola gasped as the little girl tumbled to the ground, holding what appeared to be a door. Disregarding the rising anger from the voices outside, Paola leaned into the tree trunk, which she now saw had a large hollow space with a hidden hinged door. She gaped at the space. Then she heard a pounding at the bedroom door.\nThe little girl looked more terrified than she had been before, so Paola stuffed her into the space. She fit easily.\n“I’m getting dressed!” she shouted at the door, turning around. The older girl had crawled out from under the bed and was staring at the space in the tree. Paola scooped her up, shoved her into the space beside her sister, and slammed the door closed. Messing up her hair, she ran over to the door and opened it to see two stern faced, middle aged men. The said nothing, just brushed past her. They dug through her closet, kicked apart the stacks of books on her floor, and tipped the bed up to check under. An involuntary shiver went through Paola as they pushed past the tree branch, looking defiantly out of place. Wordlessly, they walked back out of the room, leaving it looking like it had been hit by a tornado.\nWhen the men had left, Paola’s mother pulled an adult woman out of the kitchen cabinets, and her brothers produced a man from the storage closet behind their bedroom. Paola, still in shock, brought her family, chattering breathlessly in Spanish about the experience, to her bedroom.\n“Paola, where’d you hide the children?” her mother asked, surveying the room. The room fell silent as Paola pulled the bark of the tree. The door swung open, and the two little girls jumped out and ran to their parents, their words tripping over each other.\n“It was so dark, Mama, I was so scared, and-”\n“I found the door Mama, I found it!”\n“Paola, did you know about this door?” her mother asked, wide eyed.\n“No, we found it by accident,” Paola said, equally surprised.\nThe following week was spent experimenting. The entire Herrera family could open and close the door, easily, by the second day. Paola’s father determined that a full grown man could fit into the space, although it was a bit cramped. And Paola’s brother was the one who discovered the note, wedged into a crack in the wall of the space.\nMy name is Anzhelika. NOT Anna. Blue ink, crumpled paper. Paola took it upon herself to badger the landlord incessantly.\n“But you must have a list of former tenants!” she insisted. “Anyone named Anzhelika? Angelica? Angelina? Angela? Anna?”\nIt took nearly a full month of being horribly annoying, but the landlord finally searched the records and reported to Paola that there had been a tenant named Angela Vanessa Brown. Paola once again took it upon herself to find her.\nSometime between writing a report on the history of the Cold War and shopping for homecoming dresses, she discovered an Angela Vanessa Brown on Facebook, who lived in Virginia, but who had pictures showing her in front of the apartment. More internet sleuthing produced a link to a cake shop and a phone number.\n“Boom Boom Bakery, Dawn speaking, how can I help you?” the voice seemed detached.\n“Could I speak to Angela Brown please? I have some personal business to discuss” Paola was suddenly nervous.\n“You.. want to speak to Mrs. Brown? Like, the owner?” the voice asked.\n“Yes, she’ll know who I am,” Paola lied.\nMoments later, a gravelly voice reached the phone. “Who is this?” it asked.\n“Did you ever live in an apartment in LA with a tree through the bedroom?” Paola spoke quickly, terrified she would hang up. “And did the tree by any chance have a space in it?”\nThere was silence for what felt like an eternity. Then the voice spoke again, with an unexpected amount of emotion.\n“How did you know?”\n“My name is Paola, I live there now, I just discovered it. It was an accident, but I found this little note in it, it says ‘my name is Anzhelika, not Anna’, and I was wondering if that was you who left it there.”\n“Oh dear….” the voice seemed to be gentler now. “That wasn’t my note, it was there already when I arrived. You must have found my chip though.”\n“Chip?” Paola asked, carrying the phone into the bedroom and opening the door of the tree.\n“Yes, blue plastic.”\nPaola rooted through the space until her fingers found an unexpected smoothness.\n“I think I found it,” she said, pulling it out. It was dusty and dented.\n“That’s my one year chip,” the voice explained. “One year of sobriety.”\n“Oh,” Paola gasped, then wondered if it would be rude to ask for further details. Luckily, Angela Vanessa Brown seemed to understand.\n“I lived in that apartment with my kids when my boyfriend left me. It was just me, a single mother and four kids. And then my mother, my best friend, died. And I didn’t know what to do. It felt like all I did my entire life was struggle, and I was still drowning.”\n“That sounds terrible,” Paola said, turning the chip around in her hand.\n“Oh, it was. It was terrible. Unbearable. And it didn’t start as a problem. A beer or two at night, just so I could relax and sleep without worrying about my kids, my job, my life. And then I started drinking on weekends, because I was a better parent when I was drinking. Or at least, I thought I was. By the time my youngest was five, I couldn’t make it through the day without alcohol. I would wake up with a glass of wine, I would put vodka in my water bottles and take it to work, I chewed gum all day to cover up the smell.”\nThe voice paused. Paola climbed into the space in the tree, clasping the chip.\n“I found the hole in the tree by accident, too, but by then I was too deep in. I could’ve done so many interesting, useful things with that tree. But my first thought when I saw it was, what a perfect hiding place. I would buy alcohol and hide it in there. My oldest was eleven years when I started drinking, as the years passed by she would find my bottles and pour the alcohol out. I was so, so angry. Every time. I’m still ashamed to think about it. I remember slapping her when I caught her dumping out my vodka. But then I found the hole in the tree, and it was perfect. I would hide my bottles. Four or five at a time. Cheap, strong liquor. The kind of stuff that teenagers buy from corner shops that don’t check ID.”\n“What made you stop?” Paola asked, far too interested now to care if she was being rude.\n“I got pregnant. I didn’t know who the father was, or how I would support a fifth child, or what I would do. But I knew that I couldn’t drink, because that would screw her up. So I quit. Cold turkey. The hardest thing I’ve ever done. But I did it. Because I had been a bad parent for so long. When I got pregnant, for the fifth time, my oldest was seventeen. She wanted nothing to do with me. I had been a monster to her. And the other kids, I wasn’t much better. I wish I could have done more. I wish I could remember their birthdays or their graduations. The Christmases. But I don’t. My kids, they raised each other. When I got pregnant again, I thought of it as a chance to do it over. To be a good mom. To bake cookies, and be in the PTA, and take pictures every day. And to remember it.”\n“Did you relapse?”\n“When she was born, I’d already done nine months sober. I thought, if I can do this, I can do anything. I reached one year, that’s where the chip is from. One full year. And it was better. I loved her more selflessly. I was less distracted. Less annoyed. But a few years after Dawn was born, my son died. Teddy. He’d been drinking with his friends. And Teddy was driving the car, even though he was nowhere near sober. None of them were wearing seatbelts. All three of them died, instantly. I was inconsolable. I thought it was my fault. I’d set a bad example. I’d driven while drunk. Hell, I’d been drunk every day.”\nAfter a heartbeat of silence, the voice continued, more choked up.\n“I drank every day that week. And then my oldest visited me. She told me she would take my daughter if I didn’t shape up. That I would lose not one, but two children to alcoholism. So I stopped. Because I needed to have Dawn, I needed to love Dawn. For my survival.”\n“So this chip, it’s from right after Dawn was born?” Paola asked, her fingers trailing the grooves of the space in the tree.\n“Yes, I was so proud,” Angela Vanessa Brown sighed. “When Teddy died, I moved to Virginia to be closer to my sister. I’d been so stubborn, so independent, for so long, but I learned how to ask for help, how to take help. I saved up, I opened a bakery with her. I made amends with my other children. Our relationship isn’t perfect, but we have a relationship. And I am very, very grateful for that. There was a time when I thought I would die in a pool of my own vomit, splitting headache, shaky hands. I have grandkids now. I have a business. I’m glad I left. I needed it. But I’ll never forget that tree. It held some bad secrets for me, but I hope for everyone else it holds only good secrets. I hope for you, it holds good secrets.”\n“Do you know anything about the note?” she asked. “Was it a good secret, or bad?”\n“I know it was there when I found it. And I was always curious. But I never looked into it. All I can tell you is that I asked the neighbors once, and the people who had lived there before me were a husband and a wife, Peter and Anna McLaren.”\n“Yes, them!” Paola said eagerly.\n“Well, the neighbors said the wife was Russian, and she didn’t speak much English. She was shy, she didn’t come out much.”\nPaola mulled on this new information.\n“What do you use the tree for?” Angela asked.\nSomehow, she seemed trustworthy. Maybe it was because she’d just given her whole life story, just like that. So Paola explained. She explained ICE, and she explained how the Herreras had become somewhat well-known for hiding people when they needed to disappear for a little while. Angela seemed pleased with the information. A short while later, they said their goodbyes and promised to keep in touch. Angela mentioned that she might like to visit in the future.\nThat night, instead of her reading assignment, Paola searched through internet archives of a Peter McLaren, with a Russian wife Anna. When nothing came up, she searched for the apartment address and McLaren. On page three of Google, she found a decades-old newspaper article, scanned in. Local Man Arrested for Domestic Abuse Against Mail-Order Bride. Paola sat stupefied as she read about Peter McLaren and his wife Anna, who had apparently moved from Russia to marry him after he promised her a better life. The article was noticeably lacking in details about what happened but at least now she had a name, Anzhelika Lebedev.\nA google search later, Paola discovered an Anzhelika Lebedev on Linkedin, apparently working in San Francisco for a tech company. The Linkedin didn’t list an address or phone number, but there was an email address. Paola sent an email detailing the situation, then went to bed, homework forgotten.\nThe next morning, there was no response. A day later, still no response. Paola caught up on the ignored assignment, went for a walk with a cute boy, celebrated her friend’s birthday with cupcakes and cheesy locker decorations. Just over a week later, she woke up to an email sitting patiently in her inbox.\nPlease don’t contact me again. The tree, and the apartment in Los Angeles, are from a part of my life I don’t wish to dwell on.\nMy name is Anzhelika. When I was barely 19, I married Peter McLaren because he promised to pay for my mother’s hospital bills. He was handsome and rich and he made America sound like a dream. When we got there, I realised quickly that he was abusive. He raped me. He beat me. He threatened to kill me. I wasn’t allowed to go out by myself, or talk to the neighbors, or make friends. It was hell.\nI would hide money in the tree. I couldn’t tell him, couldn’t show any sign I was unhappy, because he would stop paying for my mother’s treatment. I hid all the things I had brought from Russia. He burned my clothes, broke my things. Every reminder of Russia had to go. So I hid my books, my grandmother’s scarf in the tree.\nWhen I say everything Russian had to go, I mean everything. My name was, and is, Anzhelika. He changed it to Anna. He said no one would learn it otherwise. I wasn’t allowed to even say Anzhelika. I wrote that note to remind myself. I had value. I had worth. And one day, I would be free.\nOne of our neighbors noticed the abuse, they called the police, the rest escalated from there. He went to jail, we divorced, I moved on. My life is so much better now. The tree was there when I needed it, but I don’t think about it actively. There is no point in hating the past.\nOnce again, please don’t contact me. I have no interest in maintaining a connection with a very dark part of my life. I think if you look more closely, you’ll find some more interesting histories. It means something different to everyone. I hope it helps you.\nThree years later, Paola sat in front of the tree door.\n“The moving truck is here!” her mother shouted from the kitchen.\nShe pulled out a somewhat crumpled trigonometry paper and began writing.\nShe placed the paper and notebook at the bottom of the space, resting on top of a blue plastic chip and note. She swung the door shut and walked out of the room. Just as she turned the corner, she glanced back at it. The tree stretched slyly upwards.\nPaola Herrera. 2017.\nThis tree space has been used to protect the dreams of many. Dreams of happiness, sobriety, safety, independence, hope. While I lived here, it wasn’t just used to protect dreams. It also protected Dreamers. The notebook involves the details and stories of the people I have been able to get in touch with. If you find this space, protect it and it will protect you." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Here's Looking at You, Kid\n\nGenre: historical-fiction\n\nWord Count: 2932\n\nPrompt:\n\nStart or end your story with someone realizing that life isn’t like the movies, for better or worse." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "The first time Renko Wallinski saw Casablanca, he was an usher at one of the decrepit downtown movie theaters when his grasp of English was not total at the time. \nHe was, however, completely enraptured when the screen filled with Ingrid Bergman’s face imbued with tears in her eyes over her chance meeting with Rick in his Tunisian café. The letters of transfer were still in Bogart’s possession.\n“Renko, I am not paying you to gawk.” Mr. Flynn tapped the big man on his shoulder.\n“Sorry, sir.” He saluted touching the corner of his cap with his fingers. \n“I need you to sweep up the aisles like I told you to do.” He snarled at his young immigrant employee. Shaun Flynn was a crotchety old man who was not above paying less than minimum wage to an ignorant galoot from an Eastern European country he had never heard of until Renko came. He knew that Renko had snuck one of the movie posters home and had it framed.\nCasablanca.\nBogie and Bergman. \nBunch of sappy stuff as far as Flynn was concerned. \nHaving grown up in a rough Irish neighborhood within sight of Hell’s Kitchen, Shaun Flynn was a numbers runner for some of the Irish hoods running off-track betting. His older brother Cory was one of the thugs who was gunned down in an open war in the streets when Shaun was still in school. A few years later he quit school to avenge his older brother, but all he got was an early draft notice to Korea. Serving on the front line in the Chosen during one of the coldest winters on record helped construct a better road than becoming a lifelong criminal. With a VA loan, Shaun bought the Bijou Theater on the north end of Flatbush where he was told it was a hot spot. \nMaybe once it had been a hot spot, but in 1955, the Bijou had become a sad prospect with rusted plumbing and a leaky roof. Since it rained quite often in Flatbush, the carpet became moldy and never seemed to completely dry out. Once this theater was a jewel, but it had lost its luster over time until it had fallen into ruin, but it was all Shaun could afford. \nIn order to make a profit, he showed old movies at a discount admission and no matter how the kids packed the place for Saturday morning matinees, but even then the profit margin remained slim. \nAs a result, Shaun all he could afford was a single room flat with an efficiency kitchen a few blocks away from the Bijou. Smoking his beloved stogies almost every night had given his confined dwelling a distinct aroma no amount of air freshener could mask. Any potential romantic connection he could manage was chased away by the odor until he simply had given up any hope of romance. \nRenko came into the theater on a rainy night. In broken English, he asked for an application. Shaun made sure the big man filled out the application before he departed. His handwriting was poor at best, but Shaun could read it.\nSlovenia? Where the heck was that he wondered. According to the application he was married and had two children.\n“Hey Renko.” He looked up into the big man’s invisible blue eyes. “It says here you are married.”\n“Yah.” He nodded.\n“So where is your wife?” Shaun shrugged.\n“In Slo-ven-ia.” He pointed. “It was once a country until the Russians came.” \n“Sure, sure.” Shaun had no concept of the world outside Brooklyn.\n“One day I send for her.” He smiled with more teeth than Shaun had ever seen. \n“Great.” Shaun shrugged again, “When can you start?”\n“To-day, eh?” He nodded.\n“I do need someone to sweep up the aisles in the theater.” Shaun put his hand to his bony chin. Pointing to a door behind the counter, “The broom is in that closet. Grab it and sweep the aisles in the theater.” \nStanding behind the counter, Shaun read the paper noting the race results at Saratoga to see if he had won any greenbacks, but he sighed deeply when he saw he had struck out again. Cursing to himself he put the newspaper away realizing that his newly hired help had been gone quite a while. He decided to go check on the new man. \nUpon entering the theater, he saw Renko standing there completely engrossed in the black and white images flickering across the screen. When he got closer, he saw Renko’s cheeks were wet with tears.\n“Renko, you are supposed to be sweeping.” Shaun was miffed that his new employee was transfixed by the drama unfolding on the screen.\n“Sow-ry boss.” He began to move the broom across the moldy carpet.\nThings since that first night hadn’t changed that much. Renko always got to work on time and he was very well liked by the patrons even though Shaun suspected he was giving away certain products. He was once told that his family nearly starved during the winter before Stalin died. Some of the customers, especially the adolescents would tell sob stories about not having the money to pay for their snacks. \n“You can’t give away stuff for free.” Shaun warned Renko.\n“Back home many people have only cabbage to eat.” He answered as he popped some popcorn.\n“Sure, sure, but make sure the customer pays for what you are selling, alright?” Shaun was agitated with having to explain this to him just about every night. \nIt got even worse when he got a copy of Casablanca. Despite the fact that the movie was an old favorite, showing it proved to be popular with the customers. \n“They don’t make them like that, do they?” He heard some of the patrons remark as they left the Bijou.\nBut the drawback to showing Casablanca was that Renko became enraptured by the movie. He never shirked on his duties, but having him stand there watching the movie each night it was shown became a source of irritation for Shaun. \nHe would show other movies, but on Friday nights, Casablanca would fill the seats in the theater. It would also turn Renko into a statue in the main aisle. No one ever complained, but it bothered Shaun very much. \n“So what’s the big deal?” Sal would ask as he dealt the cards on their weekly poker night. Salvatore Spenilli had a nice place down on the better side of town. He would make sure there were all sorts of goodies from the Italian deli around the corner. \n“I dunno.” Shaun raked in his cards and grimaced. \n“He’s a nice guy, right?” Sal shrugged.\n“Yeah, he’s alright.” Shaun answered. \n“Sounds like he misses his wife.” Norton added as he placed a couple chips into the kitty on the table.\n“So what?” Shaun shot back, not making any bones about the disappointment of the cards in his hand.\n“Well, a lot of men pine for their wives when they are far away from them.” Spooky replied as his Adam’s Apple moved like a piston when he spoke. \n“He was singing full voice.” One of the patrons reported as he filed out of the Bijou.\n“Renko.” Shaun called out as Renko entered the mezzanine.\n“Yes boss.” Renko sauntered over. Shaun immediately noticed he was dressed like Humphrey Bogart in the movie.\n“Were you singing? I mean while the movie was playing?” Shaun asked.\n“Once Dooley Wilson starts playing, I can’t help myself.” Renko nodded.\n“I am not paying you to sing.” Shaun’s face turned scarlet red.\n“It’s alright, boss, there were people who applauded.” Renko winked.\n“It’s not alright.” Shaun stuck his index finger in the big man’s face. “People want to watch the movie without you distracting them with your singing.” \nRenko left the theater shamefaced.\nHis room at the YMCA was small. On one of the walls over his bed hung the large framed poster he had pilfered from the Bijou. Sitting on his bed, Renko bowed his head so far it almost was between his knees.\n“I am Rick.” He muttered over and over to himself. “I own Rick’s Café.”\nAfter a few minutes he got up, walked to his dilapidated dresser where an old phonograph was set, and he turned on the player. The tiny room filled with music.\nYou must remember this\nA kiss is just a kiss\nA sigh is just a sigh\nThe fundamental things apply\n \"Of All The Gin Joints In All The Towns In All The World, She Walks Into Mine.\" Renko repeated in his best Humphrey Bogart voice. At that moment, he was standing by a grand piano manned by Dooley Wilson telling him “if it was good enough for her then it was good enough for him…play it.” \n“Hey, turn that down.” A voice shouted through the walls.\nAnna was just sixteen when they got married. He was a partisan and was only twenty years old when the Russian army began to roll west. The German army was in full retreat. \n“Anna, we must get married.” He told her waking up next to her on a warm spring morning at sunrise. He could hear the engines of the tanks and the voices of men speaking in German.\n“You are in such a hurry.” She said with a yawn.\n“The Russians are on their way.” He got out of bed wearing just his underwear and peered out the window.\n“You sound as if the end of the world is coming tomorrow.” She shook her head pulling the blanket over her, “Come back to bed.”\n“If the Russians arrive, they must know I fought as a partisan.” He sniffed.\n“They will know.” She smiled, “Now come back to bed.”\nThey did arrive that day and immediately took them both into custody. While his Russian was flawed at times, he spoke to the commanding officer, telling him they were partisans. Judging from the expression on his face, the officer did not hold partisans in high regard.\n“Are you Jewish?” He sneered.\n“Da.” Renko nodded.\n“We have no use for Jews in our army, comrade.” The officer lit a cigarette and blew the smoke in Renko’s face.\n“I do not wish to join the ranks of your army. We just want to go in peace.” He turned to her, but Anna’s face was frozen in fear.\n“Go in peace? There is a war going on.” He blew more smoke in Renko’s face.\n“We have fought the Germans at every junction.” Renko explained.\n“And now you want peace? There is no time for peace, comrade.” More smoke.\n“If we are no use to you, let us go.” Renko coughed.\n“If you are no use to us, then we will dispose of you as we have all the other rubbish we have found.” He smiled and tossed the cigarette over his shoulder.\nAs they had for almost four years, Anna and Renko slipped away in the night through the woods which had become their home. Somewhere over the German border, they found a plane about ready to take off. It was an allied plane, but it bore no markings. The pilot spoke English while his co pilot spoke Polish which Renko understood. \n“He says he only has room for one passenger.” Renko told Anna, “They are flying to England in a few minutes.”\n“You go.” Anna pushed him toward the plane.\n“No Anna, you must go.” He insisted.\n“If they catch you, you will be marked for execution.” She glanced at the two engine transport, propellers revved and ready to launch.\n“And you?” He held her cold hands.\n“I am a woman. They will do to me as they wish.” She shook her head.\n“I will send for you.” He said as he put his foot on the ladder.\n“And I will come. I will wait for your Renko.” She kissed him on the cheek.\nA few months later, the letter he sent to her came back with “address unknown” stamped on the envelope. The ink used on the stamp was washed away by his tears.\n“I like John Wayne action movies.” Shaun said as he picked up the cards Spooky had dealt him.\n“Sure, sure.” Sal nodded.\n“Heard you had a good week.” Norton attempted to start a conversation before the game hit full stride.\n“It was okay.” Shaun nodded as he looked at his promising hand. \n“Running numbers still?” Sal sat back in his chair and pushed back his fedora revealing his thinning hairline and his olive dark features including a thick uninterrupted brow. \n“Sure, sure.” Shaun coughed as the cigar smoke got thicker. \n“Numbers are for chumps.” Sal laughed.\n“I do alright.” Shaun stuck out his lip.\n“Alright boys, let’s keep things civil, okay.” Spooky replied, unfolding his cards like a fan. \n“Hey, how’s that idiot you got working for you doing?” Norton asked after throwing a chip into the kitty.\n“He’s as dumb as they get.” Shaun laughed, turning his sour mood into something more socially acceptable. “He was singing in the middle of the auditorium.” \n“No kidding? What was he singing?” Spooky laughed.\n“As Time Goes By.” Shaun answered.\n“That clunky tune from Casablanca?” Spooky chomped on his cigar.\n“My old lady loves that film.” Norton smiled, “It is so romantic.” \n“Keep your romance to yourself, Nor.” Shaun shot back. “As I was saying, I like action films.”\n“Me too.” Norton added. \n“But old Renko loves that film.” Shaun shrugged.\n“Some guys do.” Norton chuckled, his cigar bobbled a bit in his mouth when he did. \n“I think it was a pretty good movie, you know.” Sal nodded.\n“I just don’t want him singing while the movie is playing to paying customers.” Shaun cocked his head and glared at Sal. \n“Could be worse things.” Sal shook his head.\n“I wonder what the hook is?” Norton put three cards down on the table and Spooky gave him three more to replace them. \n“Hook?” Shaun put two cards on the table.\n“Yeah, there’s always a reason why guys like movies. There’s a hook that catches them like a fishing hook catches a fish.” Norton noted. \n“That is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard.” Shaun laughed. \n“I thought it was quite astute.” Sal tossed four cards on the table. \n“Where is this guy from? Upstate?” Norton asked.\n“Naw, he’s from Slovenia.” Shaun tossed a couple of chips into the kitty.\n“What the heck is that?” Norton’s face twisted into a question mark. \n“I dunno.” Shaun replied, “He said it was part of Czechoslovakia. He told me it used to be a country until the Ruskies came.” \n“That part of the world ain’t never gonna be right.” Norton put his cards on the table. The others followed suit. \nRenko was fired when he was caught singing “As Time Goes By.” Shaun told him that he had been warned. With his large shoulders slumped, Renko exited the Bijou and walked home in the rain. In his rant, Shaun told Renko that he would never play Casablanca again under any circumstances. \n“It reminds me of her.” He managed to say as he put his raincoat on.\n“Who?” Shaun put his hands on his hips.\n“Anna.” This would be the last word he would say to Shaun.\nAs he walked to his room at the YMCA, the movie faded into black as Humphrey Bogart walked with Claude Rains talking about the start of a beautiful friendship. As The End flashes across the screen before the final credits, Renko crosses over a bridge. When he looks over the side, he sees the black water flow beneath the abutment.\n“I miss you Anna.” He puts one leg over the rail. “As that movie played…you came alive for me. It was you and me on that screen.”\nHe put his other leg over and sat on the rail.\n“Whacha doing?” A beat policeman asked, seeing Renko sitting precariously on the rail.\nThe policeman startled Renko, but standing there in the dim streetlight, he resembled Claude Rains.\n“Whadda say you come down and we have a chat?” The policeman peered over the side at the twenty foot drop into the drink. “There’s nothing that could be that bad.” \nRenko nodded.\n“C’mon, I’ll take you to the station and get you a cup of coffee.” He suggested.\n“Very well.” Renko turned himself and put his feet back on the pavement.\n“Where are you from? You seem to have a slight accent.” He noted.\n“Slovenia.” He answered.\n“Really? We have a desk sergeant who claims to be from the same place.” The policeman said as they walked the rain slick streets.\nThis is where the final credits were supposed to roll, but they didn’t. \nWhen they walked into the station, Renko got this strange sensation. Upon hearing the voice, he stopped in his tracks.\n“Her name is Anna Klevotovich.” The policeman pointed to the woman behind the counter.\n“Anna?” He knew instantly even after all this time.\n“Renko?” She stood up. Her blue eyes were wide.\n“How?” Was all he could manage to say.\n“I found my way.” She touched his face.\n“I can’t believe it.” He embraced her, “Just like the movies. Just like the movies.”\nYou must remember this\nA kiss is just a kiss\nA sigh is just a sigh\nThe fundamental things apply\nAs time goes by\nWhile movies are just reflections of the possibilities of what life can bring, it can never replace the reality that actually comes in the end, just before the end credits…here’s looking at you, kid." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Legend.\n\nGenre: historical-fiction\n\nWord Count: 1940\n\nPrompt:\n\nSet your story in an unlikely sanctuary." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Legend \nBench seats covered in dark green laminate type stuff. The green covers the brown laminate stuff that would get hot and burn. The green gets hot but stops before your legs turn red. The green does have a bad aftertaste unlike the brown which had almost zero, just a hint of gum or candy that may have been touching it last. The gum on the floor and under the seats add texture and color. A bit of squish if recent and soon to be a hard immovable mass if it's been a week or so. The runway down the middle is silver with black grooves down the middle. The black grooves in the middle are for the gum to expand into so you don't trip. They know everything, the people who build things and change the covers to the seats. \nMy seat is three from the back and on the door side. I check between the seats for money, change mostly. Not today, not yet anyway. I lower the window made of plexiglass. The clips are white and as the window goes down it clicks. I lay my face against the window and stick my arm out. I know I can lose the arm but it seems worth it to me. There is some kind of talking. I look up over the seat. The older bus driver Ms. Starla hasn't driven in a while. She would always stop the bus till I put my arm in. Ms. Starla would yell at me and sing songs. We all would complain about the songs but they were mostly okay. Mr. Neil, however, doesn't seem to notice my arm. There is a wide mirror for watching us and Mr. Neil is talking to a group of older girls. I never have heard him speak, but he has a deep voice. \nUnder the mirror is a word I do not know. It started all shiny silver but now only half of the word is silver the other half has faded to a plastic underside that's light brown. I used to think it said leg-end. Which made sense since we don't have to walk. I used the word once in class and I had to read it out loud and I said \"leg end\" meaning not having to walk. The teacher laughed and so did everyone else. They call me 'leg' a lot. Cause even though I'm short I have long legs. Either \"leg\" or \"jacket man\" because no matter how hot it gets I wear my jacket every day. I think to myself it's cause I don't have five shirts so I have to wear at least one again each week. But I know inside somewhere that's not it but I don't have enough time. So I will just keep wearing the jacket till school is out. I hate this jacket, it's like the laminate on the seat. Poor, yes. But it really holds heat. I guess it's supposed to being a jacket and all. But it doesn't do a good job at all in the winter and like now during the heat it really seems to show up at the wrong time. \nMr. Neil is pointing up above the \"Legend\" to the mirror. A boy is arguing about sitting next to a girl. The girl wears purple pants a lot. She asked me to sit beside her once. She told me I could put my hand down the back of her pants if I wanted. She is older and in four grades over me so I went back to my seat. Todd Larnor is in her same grade and he started sitting by her a long time ago. Weeks now. There is a funny smell in the seat when I check it for change when I leave. Mr. Neil is telling Todd to get another seat. My face is on the plexiglass. The tires are on the gravel. I am waiting. I want to press myself into the space between the plexiglass. Stay forever. The pop of the air brake. We start to roll. The whole floor goes side to side because the gravel is not even. Not like the road ahead. This is my favorite part. The back and forth with the gravel and the high hum. The window vibrates and I press into it with the wind in my hand that can make it that far out. Around the sharp left corner and into the straight away. Then up the hill and turn left. Now on the road the vibration is not nearly as strong. But it's there and there are potholes to count on, three before the first stop. Only one before the second stop. Turning right at the light and we go over the curve, which I like. Then we turn left and go into the big circle where we all get off. I am last to get off. I check for money in between random seats. There are three one-dollar bills on a seat. The smell is what makes me travel when it comes to one-dollar bills. I remember the book fair is today. I'm excited I can get a book. I say \"thank you\" to Mr. Neil. He always has an odd smell like my grandfather. Sweat, yes, but something metal underneath. \nOn the last step I start to get the shakes. I don't know what will happen today. I never do. I step down and the door closes right behind me. My hair moves a little and the door pushes my backpack. I stumble but I stay there. He can't go. There are too many buses ahead; he just wants the door closed. I don't blame him. If I could close a door I would. Yesterday the boys pushed me so hard into the cinder block wall of the bathroom stall that I have a half egg on my forehead. My hair covers it so that's good. My homeroom teacher Ms. Ball grabbed my arm so hard last week that she broke the skin with all five nails and I bled. Not much. But she has started leaving me alone after that. I have an attitude problem, she tells me. All I know is I want to be left alone. It's hard being the smallest and poorest and youngest. Like it's against nature or something. My first year of school there was only twelve of us in one room and we mostly played--it was in a church and it didn't count. I found out later it was a pretend grade that you didn't actually have to do. But now here at the new “real” school with numbered grades. It seems like there are thousands of students. We are always walking in line from one room to the next. The teachers complain about us moving, not how they would do it. There are so many places to get caught and attacked. I really like lunch. I eat everything because it's so good. I don't say it cause everyone complains all the time. \nWe have only half of the cafeteria because there is a book fair. I want to get a book. This is my first year in this school and it's my first book fair. All the books are shiny and new and the colors and the smells. I eat quickly to go to the tables. When I walk up the girl with purple pants is crying saying to her friend she had three dollars this morning. Before I can stop myself I give her the money. She calls me a thief and runs off. I go to the first table and look but go no further. The lunch lady at the table asks me if I want a book. I say I forgot my money. She smiles and says “I'll buy it it's okay, this table here is only fifty cents.\" I think how long it will take to find fifty cents on the bus and it seems like it's possible. I start to step towards the table and she makes a sound like a puppy sound or something. So I run. Later in the bathroom I am doing my secret. I climb the wall of the stall and I hold till I release into a floating feeling. Tripp Blunde comes in and starts telling me I am \"humping the wall.\" I'm not sure what he means but I'm sure it's bad. He gives me a wedgie and puts me in the trash can. One more class and I'm back on the bus. \nBefore I went to the bathroom I was in the principal's office. On the daily walk around the school I had picked up like fifty calipiters and put them in my jacket pocket. Then I forgot. There is a place where the ground is like quicksand and the thought of diving in and going somewhere new made me forget. Back in class the teacher asking me very loudly, \"did you pick up ANY catepillars?” “No.\" I will send you to the principal's office if you lie.” “No,” I say. She then stands me in front of the mirror and I have a brown jacket that moves with all these calipiters moving on it. The other kids are laughing. The principal laughed but gave me a note to be signed by my mom. He called and left a message to seal my fate.\nThis kind of thing will last all weekend. She will take it in shifts. Me naked holding onto the bookshelf. Her using the belt I picked out. She will finally say it's about the embarrassment I cause her. My brother never did anything like this. They don't use the word mental illness at this time. I know many three-letter words--but sex I never heard. I have had plenty with them. My mother and brother. What she does to me and him he does to me later. But after that last period I get back on the bus. I run to my seat. We start off. In that vibration I am away from me. I have no envelope in my pocket. No one is waiting for me at the bus stop. When the bus stops on the gravel. I have hope. I hope. I hope and hope I can ask to go around the gravel and let me off at the street. Where I would have a running start. Where I could get away. I hope. I hope so much all I have to do is ask. But I never do. I check the seats for money as I approach the door. Mr. Neil is staring at me in the mirror. I step off but not far. The door pushes my backpack but I don't move. He has to wait. I know it. He knows it. I take a long breath and then step ending the bus ride. Before my foot hits the ground he hits the gas. Throwing rocks at my legs. The tires are bigger than me it seems and I want to get on them as they pull away. It takes a long time for me to remember the jacket. I always remember the beatings. But the sex each night takes years and years to take the time to know why. Like the jacket there never seemed to be enough time to know why. But the legend--half silver and half brown. My legend was I ran in my car or in movement all my life with my arm out the window trying desperately to get away from me. To put out the fire that never could be stopped." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: A Tempestuous Mind\n\nGenre: historical-fiction\n\nWord Count: 1657\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about a character attempting to meditate or do something mindfully." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "I fear I am unwell.\nMy startling outburst last evening must have confirmed this for you, and it will come as no surprise to anyone if you choose to put me away. I heard the viscount committed his own wife for a much lesser offense; the poor woman allegedly exhibited a fit of rage over tangled embroidery thread. Describing her behavior as “unnerving and volatile,” his assessment was damning enough to secure her future behind a stone-walled asylum. Though I dare never mention where my loyalties lie in the matter, I feel quite sympathetic toward the woman; needlework can be such a maddening affair.\nYou have assured me you’d never betray me in such a fashion, that you understand the nature of my weaker sex to be prone to fits of temperamental neuroticism, but I fear even you would be alarmed by the increasing pervasiveness of such fits into my well-being. I strain from the effort of concealing them from you, as I cannot bear the thought of you looking upon me with disdain or detachment. If you knew the depth of my unsettled mind, you would cast me away like a thorny weed. But I am, and shall ever be, your sweet smelling rose, the pride of your garden. And so, I quell my agitation and stomp it into submission on this sandy shore. \nIt was you who first suggested I make these daily walks to the seaside, to calm my nerves and quiet my disposition, but today, these fathomless waters have a rather un-soothing effect on me. I close my eyes and see myself, as you must have last night, breathless, sobbing, unraveling—all in front of our dinner party of society’s finest. I cannot express my humiliation or explain my behavior, as I do not quite understand it myself—though I am certain the viscount would attribute my distemper to possession of a demon and have me locked away indefinitely. I cannot make sense of the strangulating wave of fear and angst that came upon me so suddenly, and it so often does in moments of discomfort and stress, but I deeply regret ruining such an important evening for you—for everyone.\nI will try not to ruminate over what they must be saying about me now; that I’ve grown mad, that I am a burden to you. I must be still and silence those thoughts; but the shrill squawking of seagulls reminds me of that gibfaced baroness’s squeals and dashes any chance of me bridling my racing thoughts into docility. I am truly sorry that, in my episode of distress, I toppled her wineglass, but I am sure she will never forgive me for soiling her custom Parisian gown—though we might both agree it was a rather unflattering style.\nNevertheless, that haughty baroness will not consume my thoughts.\nIf you were here, you would find me in the remotest corner of this beach, my little sanctuary, where I’ve spread a quilt—a faithful companion on my worst days. I’ve secured my hat against the wind and high sun, but a gust whips at the blanket and lifts my skirts before I can tuck them under me. I adjust a wayward corner of the quilt, but the wind sends it back with a spray of white sand. Such insubordination from the elements today.\nI sit here with eyes shut, breathing deeply and listen to the sea. I wish it was as easy to speak frankly with you as it is to order my thoughts and unburden my heart to these waters.\nThough I hope it is evident, that is, my undying devotion to you and our beloved children, I am becoming more desperate for these moments of respite from the bustling commotion of our estate. Some days, the thrill of being charged with the responsibilities of managing the household turns sour when I consider the likeliness of my failure—of making misguided decisions and plunging us into ruin or besmirching your good name. I am acutely aware of how my every action is weighed and judged, and above anything, I dread your disappointment in me. That weight looms like a heavy cloud.\nThe crashing of waves matches the rhythm of my chest, rising and falling. I taste salt in the air.\nI am restless today.\nMore than my own fate, I worry about the futures of our children. Little George—his lingering cough has become a sound as commonplace as the grandfather clock striking each hour. I think of our eldest daughter, in the tempest of adolescence—a child who once believed I hung the moon now scoffs at my attention and turns away from my touch. The twins are ever their jovial selves, unfettered by anything but their Latin lessons. But the wee babe; she is the only one who truly needs me, but whose cries pierce my constitution and wrack my restless slumber. I lay awake each night, waiting for her ragged wails to shatter the quiet. I lay awake, and I think of you. I dream of that endless summer when we were young and caught up in the throes of romance. You would meet me at the seaside with your boyish smile and a spray of roses bursting from your arms. Always white, like our Queen’s wedding bouquet, though I doubt you’d remember.\nMy heart races as guilt trickles in. I’ve been away too long.\nBut I am not ready to return home to face you. I beg for strength from the air and the sea, but the sea is antagonizing me today.\nI must compose myself.\nI shall plant myself here until I’ve grown blissfully peaceful, too calm to consider my doubts and shortcomings or your disapproval. I won’t think of our children, how they fill me with joy and exasperate me all within a single breath, how helpless I am when they are ill, how small I feel when they despise me. I will not succumb to exhaustion. I won’t reflect on my duties as mistress, how the servants mock and disregard me. In the shadow of your steadfast strength, they see my weakness and insecurity, and the halls hiss with their whispers.\nI have forgotten my steadied breathing and am now bent, plucking sand off the quilt, one glassy grain at a time. Though I recognize the futility of my actions, the effort soothes me. The sand settles into the seams of the thin, worn fabric. This quilt was once an impressive work of someone’s painstaking craftmanship—whose, I can’t remember, but I’ve always been fond of it. Triangles and oblong shapes in all manner of color and pattern fan out to form one magnificent starburst, an explosion of geometric jewel tones.\nYou would certainly laugh at me if you were here. I am lying on my stomach, letting my eyes roll over each shape, analyzing it for repetition. But each patch appears laid at random; there’s one of emerald green, another with deep maroon flowers, and a blue patch with embroidered waves of golden wheat. The longer I stare, the more it appears the stalks are rising and falling, like they too are blowing in the wind. I blink away the illusion and exhale.\nBe still.\nThis would be simple for you, or rather, you wouldn’t find yourself with any need to be here at all. Thoughtful stillness requires no effort from you—you, crafted of elements utterly distinct from those which comprise me. So earthly, concrete, so quantifiable. You are guided by the laws of logic; your mind heeds your control. You would have never allowed yourself to exhibit such a public and undignified display of emotion.\nI sit up, once again reliving the embarrassing scene. Cold perspiration gathers at my temples and my heart quickens at the remembrance.\nI once attempted to disclose details of my turbulent nature to you.\n“Racing thoughts, what a notion,” you’d said, genuinely humored by the imagery. But that humor has dissolved into fear behind your steely eyes, fear of the woman you’ve bound yourself to. And heavier than the weight of your disappointment is the thought that you might come to fear me. I will not hear of it. And so, I have come to accept that the landscape of my mind, so wild and untamed with its erratic weather and perpetual storms, is a place I must traverse alone.\nA crab skuttles by, unperturbed by my inner turmoil. I watch curiously as he wiggles himself down into the sand, nearly disappearing. It strikes me how envious I am of this little crustacean, free to come and go as he pleases, or to simply vanish all together. Angry tears fall, unbidden.\nWhy am I so weak? How long until you realize my fragile dam has crumbled? ‘Till you see how unsound I am and put me away? To shield your children from the mad woman they call “mama”?\nI unfasten my shoes in a rush, stride toward the shoreline, and heave one into the water.\nA deluge of panic—what have I done?\nYou’ll certainly know how unwound I am if I limp home wearing only one boot. What a stupid, stupid girl I am.\nThe waves accept my offering, and my rash decision is irrevocable. Sobs wrack me as I scream into the endless blue. I feel suffocated, my sobriety impaired by the chaos of my mind. Better the ocean take me and drag me to its depths where no one can be hurt by my madness.\nI step into the cold, frothy edges when I hear a noise—a voice. Is it the sea? Does she welcome me with her watery embrace?\nBut the voice is behind me. Icy water licks at ankles as I turn to the grassy hill beyond the sandy shore, where someone stands.\nYou, with your boyish smile and a spray of roses bursting from your arms. White roses. You call to me with arms outstretched. There is warmth in your expression.\nHope." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Nothing Good, Just Bye\n\nGenre: high-school\n\nWord Count: 2549\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story where one person is trying to say goodbye but keeps getting interrupted." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Parties are terrible.\n\nThe music’s too loud, for one thing. And it’s too hot, and there are too many people, and it’s all just… terrible.\n\nSo yeah, that’s why I don’t like parties.\n\nThe song flips for something else, and a whiny high-pitched singer starts bawling her heart out. Not only is the music loud, it’s also terrible. I stole the lead to the speakers one time and plug my own MP3 player in to see if I could convert anyone to decent music. They all yelled at me, and a couple even threw empty cups. I won’t try that again, especially as I’m trying to keep a low profile. Guess tonight I just have to suffer. Huh, story of my life there.\n\nNot that keeping a low profile is hard. Me and the wall are getting along awesomely, not bothering anyone or getting the weird looks we normally do. Well, weird looks I normally get, I’m sure everyone loves the wall as soon as I’m not here.\n\nWhere the hell is Elise anyway? She said she was coming to this damn party, and I haven’t seen one hint of her stupid blue hair. Just thinking about it makes me groan again. Sure, it looks nice on her, but everyone has blue hair now. I thought Elise was… different. Better than the peer pressure.\n\nWhatever. It doesn’t matter now, and soon it won’t matter at all. It was just the final straw, her dying her hair like that. Not that I care. She can do what she wants with it, it’s her hair after all. It was just proof that there’s nothing special round here, nothing worth staying in the dump for.\n\nI just need Elise to turn up, then I’m gone.\n\nI try to take another drink, but my cup is empty. Great. Do I need more? Can I just leave it? Except if I’m not drinking, what am I doing? Just standing around, trying not to stare at anyone and attract their attention. Better to have a drink, then I have something to do.\n\n“Wish me luck,” I mutter to the wall as I push away and slip into the crowd.\n\nWell, I try and slip into the crowd, but it ends up more like barrelling in. No one’s staying still long enough for me to get past, and everyone I nudge pushes back even harder, thinking its some sort of game or joke. Then they realise who it is that’s just walked into them, and they give me another shove just for good measure.\n\n“Watch yourself, Bum!”\n\n“It’s Tom,” I growl back. Seriously people, how hard is it to say my name? One mumbled introduction in our first year as ‘Tum’, then after a while as ‘Tummy Tom’ they realised how much they all despised me, and it evolved into ‘Bum’.\n\nThe joys of high school, I guess. I wouldn’t have minded if it was something a little more creative. Their dislike of me runs closer to apathy.\n\nWhatever, won’t matter soon.\n\nWhen I get to the kitchen I give up trying to be polite, and just force my way through before any of the drunk and/or stoned idiots notice me. I shove a pair of girls who are so out of it they think someone’s started a stadium wave, and with a cry they try and carry it on. Shortest wave in history, as no one’s paying attention to them either. Their tops aren’t tight enough and their legs not skinny enough I guess.\n\nShoving my way forward I catch sight of Simon on the far side of the kitchen. I smile and raise a hand in greeting, before stopping and frowning. Wait, if that’s my reaction to him, should I say goodbye to him as well? I’d only planned on talking to Elise, and only for old times sake. Well, no, only really because she said she’d be here. If I knew she was going to be a no show I wouldn’t have bothered.\n\nAlthough, since I am here, I might as well talk to Simon. That way I can get something out of tonight, besides a headache.\n\nI wait till I’m right next to him, then lean over and shout down his ear. “Simon!”\n\n“Eh? Hey, Tom! Tommy Tom!” He flings his arms out and pulls me into a hug before I can get away. Great, the idiot’s drunk as a skunk. He knows I don’t do hugs.\n\n“Yeah, hey mate.” I try and prise him off me, but I’ve only got one hand and now he’s using me for support. At least he’s nice and close to talk to though. “Hey, can we talk? Outside, get some air, yeah?”\n\n“Yeah? Yeah! Have a smoke, yeah?”\n\n“Yeah, sounds good.”\n\nGetting out with him isn’t any easier. Simon was an old friend, from before school, back when we were neighbours, and unlike me he’s managed to do pretty well at making friends. Every other person we pass wants to talk to him or hug him, and in the end I just grab his sleeve and haul him outside.\n\nIt’s only a little quieter out here, but the air is cooler and fresher. As in, it only smells of smoke out here, not smoke and BO and beer and tears. On the scale of things, it’s fresher.\n\n“Hey, Tom.” Simon’s draped over my shoulders again, but I guess I can put up with it for one night. One last night. Then at least I can say that I know what it’s like. “What’s up? Ciggie?”\n\n“No, thanks.” I’ll smoke if there are enough people about, but honestly, I really don’t care for it. Just another reason I’m not one of the cool kids. “Just wanted to talk, you know.”\n\n“Cool, cool. What about, dude?”\n\nI take a deep breath, though most of what I get is the smoke he’s just exhaled. In my head this had been a dramatic moment, lots of tears and hard gazes into the sunset. Right now I’m just worried that he’ll laugh, or that he won’t hear me.\n\nAh, what the hell. He’s too drunk to know what’s happening anyway, and at least this way I’ve got practise if Elise does show her face.\n\n“I just wanted to say good–”\n\nThe door to the house slams open behind us. “Oi oi oi! Simon, you batting for the other team now?”\n\nA group of boys stagger past, jeering at everyone they see, reeking of sick, destroying the little calm there was out here. Simon pushes off from me to follow them, chucking insults at them and bragging about all the girls he’s slept with. Though I can’t help notice that he doesn’t deny the taunt at all…\n\nBut now here I am, left all alone again. “–bye,” I finish to the now empty space. “Sod.” To hell with him, and why do I need practise any way? It’s just words, just sounds. It’s easy.\n\nSomewhere along the way my cup got crushed, and I toss it out into the lawn. Let whoever lives here clean it up, as they run around before their parents get home. Assuming their parents would even care. It’s hard to tell with the rich kids who have these big houses. Easy enough to tell with the kids from round my way. No one cares, least of all our parents.\n\nI storm back inside to see if any of the food has survived this long. If I can’t talk to anyone then I might as well fill up before I leave. There’s half a bag of popcorn on a side table that I snatch, then I keep walking to make sure no one gets any ideas about taking it off me.\n\nI don’t normally go upstairs at these parties (bedrooms are safest avoided), but my feet take me up there today. I don’t lurk at any doors though, as that’s more dangerous to your rep than being in the room. Not that I need to worry about rep, not after tonight, but old habits die hard.\n\nThere’s a queue for the bathroom that’s all girls, and I snort a laugh at that. All the boys are just going in the garden, and I wonder how long before the girls do too. One of the girls spots me and waves, and it takes me a moment to realise that it’s Cat. She’s done her hair differently today, or her make-up. Something makes her look completely different anyway.\n\n“Hey, Tom!” She flings her arms round me as she totters over. What is it with people hugging me today?\n\n“Hey, Cat. You look good.” Different, so I suppose that’s good. Everyone always wants to look different.\n\n“Aw, thanks!”\n\n“Popcorn?”\n\n“Oh, yes, I am starving. You are such a gentleman.”\n\n“There’s not exactly a lot of competition round here,” I mutter, but she doesn’t hear. Far too busy stuffing her face. “Hey, Cat, I just wanted to say…” Wait, did I? Why? Sure, Cat’s nice, and she uses my actual name, but I don’t care about her.\n\n“Yeah? Say what?” She’s still got a handful of popcorn but she’s looking up at me now, so I guess I don’t really have a choice.\n\n“Just wanted to say good–”\n\nOne of the other girls by the bathroom whistles. “Oi, Cat! You need to pee or what?”\n\n“Hell yes! Hold that thought, Tom, k?”\n\nAnd there she goes, just like Simon. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, and I won’t wait for her. Scrunching up the empty popcorn packet I turn and head back downstairs.\n\nI start by heading towards the door, but something stops me again. A part of me wants to wait for Elise I guess, despite how done I am with the night. Talking to Elise was all I wanted to do…\n\nIf I must stay, I suppose another drink won’t hurt. I slip back into the kitchen behind a couple making out and grab the first bottle of pop I can find. I have to steer clear of alcohol because of all my meds, so it’s only fair that I get a whole bottle of soft drink to myself. Not that anyone else is touching the stuff. The few who were trying to be ‘classy’ and make cocktails earlier are now too drunk, and a group in the corner are mixing wine with whiskey. Good luck to them tomorrow.\n\n“Hey, Tom! Didn’t expect to see you here?”\n\nI’m halfway through a mouthful of drink when I hear the voice, and I just about swallow before the customary clap on the back comes. “Hey Anna. How’s it going?”\n\nAs someone training for national grade sports – I always forget which ones – Anna doesn’t need to worry about what people think. She’ll talk to anyone, even me, despite the fact we have nothing in common other than a hatred of maths.\n\n“Doing good, doing good.” Oh, and she’s probably the only other sober person in the house. Maybe she wouldn’t be bad company for a while. “What brings you out to a party then, Tom? Thought you hated the things.”\n\n“I do. Just wanted to talk to a few people.”\n\n“Ha! Wrong place, wrong time, I’m afraid. Anything important?” There’s a hint of worry in her eyes, and I don’t think before I talk.\n\n“I just wanted to say good–”\n\nA commotion starts up by the back door to the kitchen, pulling our attention. A group is gathering, and one of them spots us.\n\n“Hey, Anna! Come and give us a hand will you? Think he’s passed out.”\n\n“Oh the joys of being sober,” Anna mutters to me. “Catch you later, Tom.”\n\n“–bye.”\n\nI should’ve seen it coming. So close to talking to someone, but oh no. Some stupid kid’s got to pick then to pass out.\n\nWhatever. I’m done. Screw Elise, if she can’t be bothered to turn up.\n\nI shove people out of my way as I head back to the front door, getting a few raised voices in return. Whatever. I’m done. I have to slide a girl away from in front of the coat cupboard, and grab my bag that I stashed on the top shelf when I arrived. Clothes, money, ID, meds. From now on, everything I own.\n\nStanding in the front door I look back inside. The music is still stupidly loud, although there’s a few shouts from whatever is going on in the kitchen over the top of it now. It’s hard to make anything out in the gloom, but the sense of people is enough. Most of the people I know in the world are in here. It feels wrong to just walk away.\n\n“Good–” I start, though not loud enough for anyone to notice.\n\nThe boys who’d gone out earlier shove me aside, sending me stumbling down the front steps. “Shots!” they scream as they come inside, and the house erupts into even more chaos.\n\nGritting my teeth I limp down the path. Screw the lot of them.\n\nI’m almost out the drive, out of the range of the light of the house, when I realise someone’s standing in front of me.\n\n“Hey,” Elise says. That stupid blue hair catches the light of a passing car, and for a moment she looks like a part of the heavens.\n\n“Hey.”\n\n“Where you… waiting for me?”\n\n“No,” I say, though my tone betrays me. “Whatever.” I start trying to walk on but she blocks the path.\n\n“You wanted to talk to me. That’s what you said in your text. So talk.”\n\n“It doesn’t matter.”\n\n“Yes it does.”\n\nIf it did, then where was she? It doesn’t matter as much as whatever else she was doing tonight. “No. It doesn’t.”\n\nI shove past her and keep walking. She missed her chance.\n\n“Tom!”\n\nI keep walking. Then I stop. It doesn’t… it doesn’t feel right. I take a deep breath and turn round again. “Good–”\n\n“Come with me.”\n\n“–b… What?” Over the anger of being interrupted yet again it takes a moment to process what she’s said.\n\n“Come with me. I’m running away. But I don’t want to go on my own.”\n\n“I…”\n\n“I know it sounds stupid. But I don’t want to stay here. I’m bored, and everyone’s dull and nobody cares. Except you. And I know you feel the same way Tom. So… will you?” Now she’s lit up from behind by the house down the path I see the bag at her feet. That’s where she was. Packing, just like I did this morning.\n\nI shift my own bag higher on my shoulder. “Did you know? That’s what I was doing, I mean.”\n\n“I’d hoped.” Hope. That meant that she cared. And she'd asked me.\n\nI turn and look out onto the main road. It's dark, and the wind sends a shiver down my back. Dark and moody, the perfect night to run away.\n\nBut no one said I had to do it alone.\n\n“All right. I suppose.” I look at the ground as I shrug, and when she walks up beside me I turn and we head off.\n\nBut when she puts her hand in mine, I don’t let go. Just because most things are terrible, it doesn’t mean everything is." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: I’M NO PATRIOT\n\nGenre: historical-fiction\n\nWord Count: 2307\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite from the point of view of a character writing a letter to their past or future self." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "I’M \nNO PATRIOT \nI, John J. Bethlehem, am an American by birth, a flake by reputation, and a nationless person by inclination. I was born in Schneneckty, New York, “upstate”, we called it, at the family summer home, where all Bethelhem's are born. My father, Derald Schwab, was born in Texas, son of a Baptist preacher who became an engineer for General Electric and then moved up North, where he met my mother, Diane Bethlehem. She was born in Schneneckty, one of the many daughters—both legitimate or otherwise to one Samuel Bethlehem. The President and founder of Bethlehem Steel, the largest steel foundry in North America.\nMy grandmother said I was born a Hub wafer, sweet at first and growing sour as time passed. This nature pulled me to clowning and scurrying around with hooligans. \nOne's youth is full of change; it starts the first time you steal and accelerates when—you get caught. It all shapes and bends your character. And since the main job of growing up is to develop a character, eventually, your naivety gets banished.\nI felt the need to test the limits - all limits - until my knuckles were raw. Our crew tormented the neighborhood shops in Manhattan, that lonely place that holds all the dreams and all the fears of my youth.\nMy cheeks are blood-red from repeated blows, and my bottom lip starts to crack. I lick away the blood with my tongue after-each-slap. My face glows. \nA thrashing in our house is commonplace, and I even feel guilty this time. My mother is bursting with rage, even though her temper is always a hairpin away from eruption; tonight, she is laced with a particular brand of cognac, fury, and self-righteousness. \"John J, you are the biggest degenerate our family has ever produced. Bethlehem Steel family in a scandal...oh, those Daily Herald reporters will be licking up catchy 4-inch headlines all night...your opportunities have been squandered…glad your father died before he could see what you’ve become—a nothing.\"\nEarlier this evening, I tried to steal a car. To be fair, I did steal it but botched the getaway. I didn’t make it two fucking blocks, before slamming into a cyclist. Hell, I was so loaded that I could barely see. And to this day, I am not sure why I wanted to steal the car. An impulse overcame me, the kind that grabs the controls of your mind, and by the time you question it. You've already done it. \nThankfully, I’m still feeling quite zonked, which helps to numb it all. My father used to wallop me pretty good when he was alive. And my mother has since pummeled me with everything from rolled-up newspapers to anything within reach. All I want to do is grab her wrist before another blow comes. But the courage to do such a thing I could never muster. So, I take it like a sheepish dog, and wait for her to grow tired.\nBra-ooh-GAA, Bra-ooh-GAA, Bra-ooh-GAA, the ship shoves off from Port Authority. I lean against the banister as the skyscrapers of Manhattan grow smaller. Those steel buildings that dot the skyline and shoot up towards the moon came from my grandfather's furnace. I never gave a shit before, but now as they grow smaller, I feel a twinge of nostalgia as if they now look different. So it goes. \nThe autumn wind tugs at my coat, and I quickly light a cigarette. My thin tan coat does little to brace the wind or soothe my inner stiffness. I’d been writing a paper on James Joyce two days ago, almost comical - how life shifts so quickly. And now I’ve been banished to fight and probably die in somebody else's war. “Maybe it will—do ye some good,” was the last thing my mother said. \nI wonder what Joyce had been thinking - when he wrote - \"I go to encounter for the millionth time the reality of experience and to forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race.\" This passage makes my knees knock together and turns my mouth to ash. The only thing I’d encountered, for the millionth time, was trouble.\nHell, I damn near killed someone yesterday. I feel around the bruises under my eyes and wince. I got off lucky, sure, perks of my family name. If I had been a regular schmuck, I would be rotting in the can somewhere, eating moldy soup, awaiting sentencing and then dropped off at Sing Sing for 5 to 10 years on a manslaughter conviction.\nI fished for another cigarette. \"Hey, mack - you're on the front page, looky here 'JOY RIDE TURNS SOUR BETHLEHEM STEEL CONNECTED?’, think your grandfather has blown a gasket?\" I thump down the newspaper. \"Gimme a cigarette, Mikey, and drop this shit - we're stuck on this coughing steamer for six weeks. And I’m leaving this fuck-up behind me.\" I snap a cigarette and duck out from the deck to check the chow situation; Mikey is hot on my tail.\nII\nWe arrive in Paris with a sleepy disillusionment only dreamy-eyed American boys no older than 20 can have. “Young, dumb, and full of cum.” Mikey yelps as we meander between old buildings, older statues, and busy Parisians. The city smells of something pungent and lethal. While a sea of beautiful Frenchies zig and zag as far as the eye can see. The front lines are only 100 kilometers away. However, the atmosphere feels far removed from trenches, battle formations, and death. As if the city's magic pushes the horrors of War towards the backburner so pasty Parisians can carry on daily routines. But the fairy tale ended as a mud-covered truck carrying 30 wounded French soldiers puttered by. \n“Mikey, let's go find this “bureau de la légion étrangère française” and do the paperwork. It seems the meat grinder needs fresh offerings.”\nThe French Foreign Legion was an old scheme of getting those crazy enough to fight and die for French affairs a conduit to do so. I first learned of it sitting in Mr Langford’s history class, but I didn’t think much of it. And six years later - here I was - in Paris, ready to join the Lafayette Escadrille and get me some goddamn wings. A couple of jack-offs aboard the steamer told us about a little cafe called \"la petite rose\" - those damn Iowa boys read about it in a travel guide. It was just south of the Eiffel Tower, so we needn't ask for directions; we just followed our feet. \nThe bar smelt of old smoke and spilt champagne while our boots fought against a sticky floor. As fate would have it, the only chairs with no butts in them were facing a pale blonde and a devilishly cute black-haired lady. I noticed her eyes darting like a raven's, while her hair was darker than Onyx stones with a sheen of liquid satin. Those eyebrows danced, giving away every emotion. \n“Baise trou du cul” mixed with the sound of shattering glass. I’d accidentally bumped into - a french uniform; my sticky shoes twirled around to see an angry bouncing mustache and a uniform soaked in beer, “excuse moi excuse moi”, I muttered in a terrible French accent as I tried to fix the damage with a napkin “Stupid American”, he writhed. \nI flagged a bartender and ordered champagne, cigarettes, and glasses. While peeking to see if Mikey had boofed his way into conversation with the girls. They seemed to be in good spirits, or at least they had not shushed him away. I gave one bottle to the angry mustached uniform, and his frown turned upside down. “Good American”, as he patted my shoulder. \nMy heartbeat quickened as I moved toward the table. Mikey had his target blushing and giggling as I tried to make eye-contact with the dark-haired woman while pouring us champagne. She smiled but seemed disinterested. We all lit cigarettes and sipped our champagne. I babbled on about signing the paperwork and forking over my passport. But quickly stopped my story, having realized no one was paying attention. I finished my champagne, trying to find some courage at the bottom of the glass. “Ya know, we joined the Lafayette Escadrille and will be taking a train East tomorrow for Aviation School. Damndest thing - learnin’ to fly - like a bird.” She politely nodded and smiled.\nIII\nI arrived at the barracks with my head tucked between my legs and a chip on my shoulder. The clock on the wall read 2 A.M. There were no bunks set up for us, so we found a couple of ragged blankets and hunkered down to sleep on the floor. THACK! The lights came on, and what sounded like a hammer hitting an anvil echoed throughout the room. WAKE UP! YOU LAZY BUMS! WAKE UP! I slowly became aware of a small bent-over man walking around the barracks, smacking a soup ladle against a metal bucket. I looked at the clock 3:30 A.M., thought this can’t be real and stuffed my head back underneath the blanket. I felt a gruff kick on my leg, and standing above me was the small man with the bucket and ladle. \n“Why you sleep on da floor?” he asked. \n“We arrived 2 hours ago; there were no bunks set up,” \nI replied. He laughed and continued to knock against his bucket, almost making a tune, but breaking the rhythm at the last second. \nThat was my first encounter with Rindoshinorifu - or Rudy - which was his self adopted English name. He was tasked with all things personnel - and even at this early hour - was a ball buster. The first rule of Aviation School don’t count your chickens before they hatch. You see, Aviation school, in general, was something new and untested. Only a couple of thousand people had flown in a plane, and a whole passel had died. \nI remember reading a magazine article about people with a more religious bent who didn’t believe humans should be flying. “That if God almighty had wanted us to soar through the air like birds, he would have given us wings. And since he hadn’t, then those that took to the sky would be committing a great sin against the benevolent creator.” Bunch of malarkey, if you ask me, my family isn’t religious, but it doesn’t take a philosopher to realize that these country bumkins we're warping things a tad. \nI read a lot of science fiction as a kid; Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, and Edgar Rice they helped me dream of the future. One where we would be flying around in rocket ships, and the days of taking a boat to cross the Atlantic would have seemed obtuse. \nThat is why I choose my exile here to learn how to fly. I knew that the next few months would be hard, and many lying in these barracks bunks would not graduate. But we didn’t think about it; we set our digs against the backstop and pretended that there would be no grievance held against us for using our wits and bravery to conquer the skies. I planned to be one of them, and if need be, I’d die trying. \nEvery day we are tired, and our flight cohort has shrunk from 35 bright-eyed American despots to only 23. And we’re still two weeks away from getting our wings. The comandante speaks little English, and we speak very little French. He marches around like a born again Napoleon. I hate him. The first morning, after our 3:30 AM wake-up call, he had us stand at attention for almost an hour. All the while, he sat in a chair and sipped tea. When he had finished, we stood some more. \nLearn this, pull that lever, hop in that plane, judge the tailwind, and make a safe approach. It all made my head swim, but once you had gotten the plane into the air without killin’ yourself. It was pure bliss. I learned to do barrel rolls, and how to pull out of a steep dive; it was everything that I had dreamed flying could be and slightly more precarious than I hoped. \nThe machine gun was mounted on the top of the fuselage, directly in front of the pilot. But that position placed the gun directly behind the propeller. The gun had to be designed to fire through the propeller without hitting it, which was not an easy task. An invention called the synchronization gear, restricted the machine gun to only fire in between the propellers. This gear malfunctioned on George Lucas’s fourth flight, and a bullet ricocheted off the propeller and killed George. So it goes. \nIV \nParis, the smell of freshly baked bread, and the tang of champagne how it liquified my insides. Mikey swore, “one can live on only bread, butter, and wine,” he might be onto something. Our backpay had arrived an hour before our train left for Paris. We had lined up in front of the Commandant's cabin and demanded: “what four”. We had survived, and sure as shooting, there was some celebrating to be done and Franks to be spent. Our first hours of the 48-hour weekend pass were spent being loud and obnoxious. Someone said that it was tradition to place our bright shiny gold wings between our teeth, while chugging a pint of beer. No-one believed that it was a tradition, but we all agreed it should be attempted. And the winner could collect a pack of cigarettes from the losers. \nI decided to return to the \"la petite rose\", and see if I could find the dark-haired woman. I recruited Mikey, and we shoved off, stumbling and leaning to the left while following our feet." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Breaking the cycle\n\nGenre: high-school\n\nWord Count: 2293\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about someone who is always looking toward the future." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Jamie looked over his shoulder and noticed a beautiful girl. Hazel skin with a thick curly head of hair, eyes of a deep earthy brown. His eyes fluttered with images of her as his fiancé and the mother of his children. Him coming home from a long days’ work and seeing her, right there on the porch of their brick house, waiting for him with a smile on her face and a kiss to give away.\nWhat he did not see was the same girl, now looking at him with her big eyes, confused because she hadn’t seen him before. She smiled at him, thinking he would notice her. Instead, he didn’t react. It was like he looked right through her. She quickly lost her smile and walked away ashamed to even think she could have a chance with a cute guy.\nWith her departure, Jamie woke up. Seeing her leave made him realize something: he was so obsessed with the realm of imagination that he missed the opportunity to create a part of his actual future.\nThe mere thought of him losing sight of reality shocked him because he prized himself with being a “carpe diem” kind of guy and the only thing he truly was is a fraud.\nThat night he could not sleep. Tossing and turning in his bed he decided that to be more aware of this habit of his he should make a list. He was not completely sure of what to write but he knew he needed to set his priorities. If he was so unaware of this tendency, what more could he not be seeing?\nDespite his efforts, Jamie ended up falling asleep before finishing his list, having only written at the top “be more aware of real life”.\nWaking up, at his desk, with horrible back pain from the unfortunate sleeping position, was not the best, to say the least.\n “What the heck was I thinking? How deluded am I to think that this generic mantra was good advice?!”- said Jamie as he cracked his back and stretched his arms out as far as possible.\nHe didn’t see her, but his mom, Esme, was at the door, quietly observing the scene. And with her usual sarcastic humour, she said:\n- “Good morning honey! You seem to be a bit frustrated… do you want to talk or is this some twenty first century teen boy drama that big old mom can’t understand?”\n- “Mom do you think I live in the moment?”\n- “I’m sorry but you’re going to have to give me context for me to answer that… “- and switching to serious tone, she could see her son was being vulnerable with her and didn’t want to ruin it- “I think you do in some cases, but you were always a bit of a dreamer.”\n- “What do you mean? I know I have a strong imagination, but I have solid ruts with reality…”- Jamie couldn’t say those word with confidence but he persisted- “Don’t you think so?”\n- “Jamie, I love you with all my heart, but you are always in your own mind looking toward the future, planning this amazing life, not enjoying the present. And the truth is you don’t do the work.”\nAnd cutting her off:\n- “Not this again mom. I study and I get good grades, so what if it’s always at the last minute…”\nAnd Esme, not liking his tone and sensing her words touched a nerve, said:\n- You didn’t let me finish. I said you don’t do the work in creating the amazing future you want. Regarding your schoolwork that’s a whole separate problem for another time. You are seventeen years old and a beautiful young man, and I’m not just saying this because I’m your mother, but because it is the truth. Don’t I always say the truth?”- Jamie nodded in agreement, and Esme continued- “Look kiddo, you can have the life you imagine but it doesn’t just fall on your lap. You need to get yourself out there and meet some new people. Get a job or an internship during the summer. Anything besides the usual going to Emilie’s house and watching movies.”\nLooking at the clock she told him to get dressed and go to school. She kissed him and said: - “You are an interesting human Jamie, don’t let society ruin you.”\nJamie though it was way too early for philosophical pep talks but it way exactly what he needed.\nHe was now so motivated that he went to his phone, turned the speaker on, and started playing his “badass” playlist. And to the sound of a nostalgic song, he cleaned his room, got dressed and went to school.\nThe first thing he did was try and find the girl that inspired all this introspective change. He didn’t find her before class, so he thought that the yearbook was his best shot. He had a copy of it at home, but he didn’t want to wait that long. With that, he went to the library during lunch break and didn’t find a single yearbook in sight. He sat down on the floor and was upset that his plans were disrupted but then he looked out the window and saw that it was a beautiful spring day. The flowers were in full bloom and the sun was shining. His classmates were all on the grass, talking, laughing and having fun.\nSeeing this made him realise, once again, something: He was so obsessed with this girl and the possibility of a relationship that he was stuck in a stuffy library on a beautiful spring afternoon.\nJamie felt so stupid to fall back in the hole of imagination that he stood up and went outside. He took a deep breath and just laid down on the grass. Looking up at the sky he decided to start drawing the images he could make up out of the clouds. Jamie wasn’t an artist, but he liked to be creative with whatever he did, so he enjoyed himself.\nHalf an hour passed, and the bell rang. As he was getting up, he saw the same hazel skinned girl, dark earthy eyes, curls for hours. He was ecstatic to see her and the chance to talk to her. However, he was nervous.\n- “What if she laughs at me? What if she ignores me?”- he thought.\nBut just as the idea appeared in his mind, he remembered his earlier pep talk. With that, he went up to her, introduced himself and asked if she wanted to go on a date with him.\nShe was a little confused and surprized, but with an innocent look she introduced herself, Pearl was her name, and said that a date sounded great!\nThey exchanged numbers and went to class. Trying to stay focused was a challenge. All his mind could think of was the date and what could come out of it. However, despite the excitement, he wanted to be present, so he made the effort and participated in the discussion that was happening.\nClasses ended and Jamie went home.\nWhen he got there, the aromas made him nostalgic, like he was seven years old coming back home from summer camp. His dad was in the kitchen making his famous lasagne: meat, sausage, a lot of cheese and tomato sauce.\nInstead of shutting himself in his room doing homework, like he always did, Jamie decided to see if his dad needed help with anything. He didn’t, but Jamie stayed and talked to him. They used to talk when he was younger but nowadays it was rare, they were always busy with school, finals coming up and his dad working hard to give him and his brother everything they could ever need.\nAs they were talking, his dad was explaining the process to make the lasagne and all Jamie could think of was the fact that his dad was a simple guy: he got married at twenty-five, had two kids and works hard every day. However he is no ordinary Chad, he’s a historical carpenter, he works at a museum restoring wooden furniture and trinkets.\nJamie loved to see his dad talking about things he cared about. He looked almost childlike with his enthusiasm, whether over the details of a sixteenth century wardrobe or the secret ingredient of his lasagne tomato sauce. This was the man Jamie wanted to be. A man content with what he has and eager to work on the present.\nAnd suddenly, without realizing he was interrupting his dad, Jamie said:\n- “Dad… oh I’m sorry I didn’t mean to interrupt, but can I ask you a question?”\n- “Yeah of course! Ask away!”\n- “How are you so present? I realized that I don’t really enjoy my life. I cruise by imagining a different one. I’m trying to break this cycle, of thinking but it’s hard. I keep getting myself in situations that perpetuate this habit. Like today I was sitting in a library during lunch break, not actually doing anything, whilst the sun was shining outside, and the weather was nice and toasty. My mind just keeps focusing on the future and missing the experiences of «the best years of my life».”\nHis dad was smiling and looking at him with a guilty face.\n- “Well, son, I can’t really give you a lot of advice because I do the same thing. Everybody does. It’s a part of your humanity to prepare for the future, to be ready for every possible scenario. But if you are relying on your imagination to create a future, then you should try to figure out why you are doing it. I think that’s the only thing that will help you break the cycle.”\nJamie liked that idea but felt like a big kid for not having thought of it before. It was strange to think that he was just a kid. Seventeen years old is nothing compared with the rest of his life. He began to let the monstrosity of time sink in and was terrified for a split second. Suddenly, he got up and went to his room. \nTaking a piece of paper and a pencil, Jamie began to write. Anything that came to him, every idea or image, he jotted onto that little white paper.\nWhen his dad called for dinner, the paper was completely full of little doodles and phrases. And although he wasn’t quite sure what was keeping him from reality, Jamie knew that he was one step closer to figuring it out.\nPleased with himself, Jamie got up from his desk but something seamed wrong. He could pinpoint it, but something was wrong. He got up and started to feel like he was about to collapse. His dad was calling him, but his voice began to distort, it sounded far or like somebody was covering his ears. Jamie fell on the floor. His parents heard the loud noise and ran to the room. Seeing their son on the floor was a shock. They quickly tried to wake him up and opened the window.\nThe fresh air and his mother’s voice woke Jamie up. Dad gave him a cup of sugary water and he gulped it down, getting some on the floor. He regained his senses and was really confused.\n- “What happened?”\n- “You fainted, Jamie…”- Esme said with a worried voice- “When was the last time you ate honey?”\n- “I don’t remember mom… Now that you mention it, I didn’t eat anything today…”\n- “Are you crazy? Did you drink water at least?”\n- “No…”\nEsme was getting angry at Jamie, but she managed to keep it down.\n- “Come, let’s eat then.”\nAnd as Jamie walked to the dinning room, Esme turns towards her husband and says:\n- “This kid is going to be the death of me. He gets into these intense phases and forgets everything else. I don’t know what to do.”\n- “Look Esme, Jamie is trying. So what he was super focused and forgot to eat? I was the same way. He’ll find his way.”\nDad kissed her and despite still being worried, Esme was reassured and more confident.\nThat same night, as he was getting ready to go to bed, Jamie got a notification. It was the girl, Pearl!\nHe got super excited and replied right away, even though it’s considered “desperate” or “uncool”. She loved that and wanted to know more details about the date. They started talking and got along quite well. A couple hours later, they thought it was best to go to bed and continue in the morning.\nThey talked all week, texting and in between classes. Pearl was a sweet, intelligent and independent girl. Every boys dream, really.\nTheir date was on a nearby park, and it went well. But despite the obvious connection, both teens quickly realized that they were never going to be anything more than good friends.\nAs it turns out, Pearl is also a “in my own world” type of girl and they had a lot in common. Maybe too much? They were the boy/girl version of each other and that is not what they needed at that moment.\nPearl instantly became the newest member of the click and one of Jamie’s best of friends.\nJamie, on the other hand, didn’t become a new person after that week. He went back to his imagination because despite liking living in the moment, “his world” was just more appealing. He did join an art club though. It helped him reflect on what was happening around him, to have a solid understanding of his reality, it kept him grounded in a way." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Monsters of Bomarzo\n\nGenre: historical-fiction\n\nWord Count: 1299\n\nPrompt:\n\nSet your story in an unlikely sanctuary." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Fear. The ultimate emotion. Primordial. The human instincts whether real or perceived have given us all the ability to react swiftly with a startled heart, clammy palms or the nostalgic goosebumps up our arms triggered by a sight, a sound or even a thought. \nIt was this emotion that predominantly occupied the thoughts of Vicino Orisini, the Duke of Bomarzo. Haunted by his 11 years in service to the Papal Army. War is the most certain way to form traumatic triggers. Triggers that cause the sudden influx of shock to a system based on memories of sights, sounds and terrors imagined. \nVicino returned home after his release by the Germans. His capture hurt less than the mortal loss of his friend Orazio Farnese. He was held as a prisoner of war and eventually ransomed back. He had three years of formulating his thoughts on terror. Hypotheses on Monsters were formed. His more sensitive artistic and poetic disposition taking the lead over his vocational activity as a General during the Reformation. He had studied the classics extensively in his youth. Which lent to his imagination and created the impetus to building a park inhabited by stone monsters.\nThe reality and ability of creating a garden park filled with images of terror would not of been possible if not for Alessandro Farnese who intercede on Vicino's behalf and settled his inheritance giving him the duchy of Bomarzo. Alessandro also was the reason for Vicino's marital bliss. His marriage to Giulia being originally arranged as a political match but leaving Vicino heart broken and melancholy as his love for her punctuated his desire to build a garden to be the opposite of all traditional Italian gardens.\nVicino Orsini, the duke of Bomarzo sat quietly, motionless as his good friends Cristoforo Madruzzo and Franseco Sansovino waited for their friend to process the news that his beloved wife Giulia Farnese had passed away suddenly and prematurely by all accounts while visiting family.\nIn the moonlight the sculptures have the illusion of realty bringing the Monsters to life in the shadows. Out of the corner of your eye, did you see a movement? Did your ears hear something moving in the underbrush? Can the mortal terror hold sway when the mind holds more Monsters than the chisel can display on a forest path. Vicino thought to himself how at peace he felt now that the dragons, giants and Trolls occupied the earth in physical form. They could shine in the sunlight and be magical in the moonlight but best of all they could finally leave the realm of imagination. He could be relieved of the dark melancholy that lived inside of him since the death of his mentor and friend Orazio. Now Vicino sat upon his horse, Raggazino, and stared at the troll with its mouth wide open as of it would swallow the world. Or at the very least Vicino. As the Monsters from his innermost thoughts were now physically represented in stone sculptures that made up the Italian garden designed by Ligorio. Vicino paid commissions out more each year to add additional sculptures: a giant turtle among them.\nVicino remember a night after he had returned home from being a prisoner of war when he was awoken by Giulia screaming as she awoke from a nightmare.\n“I don't want to take away from what you have gone through,” Giulia demured. \n“You won't. One person's pain and fear doesn't subtract or supersede another. Tell me. ,” Vicino pleaded. \n“It’s a reoccurring dream since I was a young girl. A turtle. A giant turtle. I guess it’s a echo of my childhood when Alessandro would catch them. When they are small and trapped in an aquarium . They can't be frightening, can they?” Giulia explained as Vicino listened intently to his wife. “However if you've ever seen a turtle eat. Not lettuce not vegetables from the garden but tadpoles. A turtle can take on a mystical quality. As a predator it seems benign until you watch one shred tadpoles. You realize that this creature. This Turtle, with its shell and slow plodding girth. Is a an efficient omnivore! Then, “Giulia paused. Licked her lips. Sighed. Before continuing, “You dream. In the dream you are small like a tadpole. The turtle is large, larger than in real life. You scream out. Wake up. Trembling, I suppose., “ Giulia looked into her husbands eyes and she knows he's seen his fair share of horrors. First the horrors of war and then being a prisoner of war. Real things to fear not mythological turtles from dream states that reoccur and cause her a night fright. But his eyes look at her with compassion and concern. He smiles, “It must be horrifying in the moment.” She nods affirmative and he gathers her in his arms to give her a warm hug. Never considering that his beloved Giulia would soon be gone leaving an emptiness as she took flight. \nFear is the most natural of all human emotions. No one gets through life without some moment of heart seizure whether real or imagined. Nightmares can be dark, hidden and alone or they can be shared, out in the open, larger than life immortalized in malleable calcareous tufa stone indigenous in the Woods north of Rome. \nEverything takes time. Rome wasn't built in a day. The monsters of Bamarzo were no exception. The undertaking of this garden park was a collaborative effort. Vicino’s vision and the architectural talents of Pirro Ligorio landscaper and business partner of Michelangelo and the secret sculptor, Simone Mochino. It's no wonder that centuries later the park would be called a land art museum. \nAll art is beheld by the eye of the beholder. Vicino toured his Park of Monsters frequently finding sanctuary where he could ride his horse Raggazino along the path. His classical education combined with his tragedies led him to build his land art museum. His poetic side and personality shown in carved quotations that accompany his 15 monsters. Including Winged horses, Elephants, Dragons , lions, trolls, giants and Mythological Gods of the Sea.\nHe paused to linger at the turtle. With a woman upon a pedestal riding it’s back. Would Giulia approve? Few people understood Vicino but his beloved wife, dead too soon, and may have been the closest person to understanding his dark side. \nFor others he left clues in the garden. Pluto the guardian of hell, with an open mouth big enough to fit a dining room in using the tongue as a table for eating a picnic. Eat or be eaten. And the inscription Ogni penseiro Vola, All thoughts fly. For even if you whisper inside the sculpture, it magnifies your speech and can be heard outside. \nInscriptions on the monsters themselves or on oblesiks around the garden seem to show a sense of humor, teasing future visitors. “Thou, who enter this garden be very attentive and tell me then if these marvels have been created to deceive visitors, or for the sake of art.” \nVicino returned to the house and wrote in his personal diary, “I can find relief only in my beloved forest, and I bless the money I have spent and still spend on this magic area.”\n Vicino Orsini, soldier, poet and patron of the arts built a garden filled with monstrous stone statues in tribute to friends and family he lost through tragedy while leaving engraved inscriptions for visitors that have eroded or been covered in moss and in many cases are cryptic today. After 470 years, No consensus of historians or art experts has ever explained it’s purpose of design. \nPerhaps the inscription at the entrance of the Monsters of Bomarzo Park, “ All reason departs.” Sums it up nicely for 40,000 visitors each year." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Escape From Waverly Hills Sanitorium\n\nGenre: historical-fiction\n\nWord Count: 2963\n\nPrompt:\n\nSet your story in an unlikely sanctuary." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "He was a patient at the Kentucky Waverly Hills Sanitorium where the walls are still stained with blood in some places and the ghosts of former patients still wander the halls. \nThe police surrounded the abandoned building that had closed its doors in 1961 after multiple reports of patient abuse and maltreatment using electroshock as punishment and frontal lobotomies to placate those patients with a record of violent or any sort of antisocial behavior. \nLooking down on the scramble of activity in the courtyard in front of the ugly brick building born of gothic architecture with sharp archways rising four stories from the ground where two dozen armed police officers surrounded the entrance with their eyes all focused on the fourth floor where he stood peering out a pane less window. \nChief Windthorp grabbed the bullhorn, “Come out peaceful with your hands over your head.”\nAll the men could hear was the maniacal laughter of Horace Greenway as he ran down the hall of the fourth floor corridor. \n“Howard!” The chief called out.\n“Yes sir.” A tall thin man dressed in a blue uniform hustled over to the Chief’s side as he crouched behind his patrol car. \n“We may have to gas this idiot out.” He jammed his finger into Howard’s chest. \nIt was almost like a movie on a Hollywood set. Horace Greenway had escaped from a psychiatric institution in Louisville after he had murdered a young lady from the university. The attack on Becky Wadsworth was horrendous and sadistic with lurid details that filled the newspapers until his conviction a few weeks ago. The prosecutor was seeking the death penalty as recompense to the nature of Greenway’s attack on the young woman, but due to his history of mental illness was unable to obtain it and instead Horace Greenway received a long stay at the Brook State Psychiatric Hospital. \nDisguising himself as one of the staff orderlies, Horace managed to slip out of his confinement reaching the general public where he was considered a threat to himself and others. Upon notification, the entire Louisville Police Department went on red alert with an APB for apprehension of Horace Greenway. \nNow parked in front of the abandoned horror house known as Waverly Hills Sanitorium, Police Chief Windthorp had some of his men inside where they would have to scale four sets of stairs to reach Greenway and a team of four men armed with tear gas canister launchers ready with their fingers on the trigger awaiting his order to launch. Men inside the building also wore gas masks in case he ordered them to launch. \nAs his men reached the third floor, Horace Greenway stepped onto the pane less window sill. Chief Windthorp froze as did the others standing nearby. He picked up his bullhorn, “Mr. Greenway, please step out of the window. Help is on its way.”\nAs soon as he finished his sentence, Horace Greenway, with the entire world watching, launched himself into the air and let gravity take over.\nHis collision with the cement parkway was deemed not appropriate for broadcast and Chief Windthorp knew in an instant, Horace Greenway did not survive his leap. In a matter of minutes, his prediction was confirmed, Horace Greenway was deceased.\n“Hey Joe.” Chief Windthorp greeted Dr. Joe Hitchcock, the coroner as he walked to where Horace Greenway’s body lay face down on the cracking cement where only dandelions dared showed their faces. “Pretty gruesome, eh?” \n“Day doesn’t go by when it is any other way.” Known for his dry sense of humor, Dr. Hitchcock squatted next to Horace’s body and shook his head.\n“He escaped from Brooks earlier this morning.” Chief explained as Dr. Hitchcock turned the body over where both got a clear view of Horace’s smashed in face. “Ugh!”\n“I’ve seen worse.” Joe sighed, regaining his feet as his assistant laid out the body bag Horace would soon occupy.\nPlaced in what was known as cold storage, Horace was placed on a slab still inside the bag and rolled into the storage locker.\n“Why do you suppose he jumped?” Jimmy Daniels, his assistant, asked. \n“Haven’t the foggiest.” Dr. Hitchcock shook his head as he entered the information on the autopsy report. \n“He was crazy.” Jimmy locked the locker.\n“I’m sure he was, but that doesn’t matter at this point, now does it.” He flashed a cold stare at Jimmy as he had done on many other occasions. Jimmy smiled, turned on his heel and left cold storage without another word. Dr. Hitchcock did not even look up from his clipboard as his assistant exited the room. \nAt about three o’clock in the afternoon, Dr. Hitchcock opened the locker containing the remains of Horace Greenway. Sliding out the slab where he had been resting for the past few hours, Dr. Hitchcock opened the plastic black bag.\n“Your turn, Mr. Greenway.” He removed the bag so he could complete his autopsy. Using a recording device that hung around his neck in order to keep his hands free for the operation he was about to perform, he spoke into the small microphone, “Notes on Mr. Horace Greenway, male, sixty-eight at the time of his demise today, November 3 at 11:13 am. Patient died upon impact with the ground after leaping from a fourth story window.”\nHe began to cut at the loose skin under his neck and with careful precision he removed the skin from Greenway's head. Removing a bone cutting saw from his workbench, he began to cut his patient’s skull. Once he had removed the top part, the bone came off easily in his gloved hand.\nWhat he saw made him gasp. Losing his grip on the bone, it shattered against the tiled floor. He was standing there shocked at what he saw with the bone cutter still in his hand. \nJuly 30, 1960\nWaverly Hills Sanitorium \nPatient Horace Greenway attacked one of the nurses on H-Ward this afternoon after lunch. Dr. Ploughweight has determined that patient surgery is the only option left. In medical review, he has determined that Horace Greenway will be scheduled for a frontal lobotomy as soon as possible. \n“What on earth did they do to you?” Dr. Hitchcock asked as Horace was able to answer him. Carefully he scooped out the remains of Horace’s brain and put it on the scale. It would measure less than three pounds with the tare on the paper used to place Horace’s brain on the scale. His question was, however, picked up by the recorder. It would be a question that would haunt him as the autopsy continued. \nAugust 15, 1960\nWaverly Hills Sanitorium\nPatient is recovering from a medical procedure performed at 08:00 hours this morning. Surgeon removed the frontal cortex from Patient Horace Greenway so he would no longer assault other patients and staff as he had many times in the past. Therapy has not been effective. Electroshock has not been effective either and so Dr. Ploughweight determined that the only effective treatment would be a complete frontal lobotomy. \n“He was at Waverly Hills Sanitorium.” Dr. Hitchcock read the records from his chart. “Holy Mother-of-God. Patient from October 3, 1945 to July 26, 1961 and was released to Hazelwood Sanitorium and remained until November 2, 1985.”\nHe read on about how Horace had been convicted of assault on a woman in 1940 and sent to the state penitentiary. During a parole hearing he was given the option of staying his term in prison or enlisting in the army to go fight Hitler in 1942. He chose enlistment stating how he was happy to escape prison. He managed to survive D-Day when many of his company did not and he marched into Germany where he promptly assaulted a German widow, dumping her body into her own farm well. Psychiatrist Thomas Forsythe determined that Horace suffered from a mental disturbance brought about by “shell shock.” Upon returning to stateside as Allied forces ended the Third Reich, Horace was hospitalized after attacking another woman he talked to on the city bus while he wore his army uniform. After a psychiatric evaluation, Horace was diagnosed with a mental illness resulting from his war experiences. \n“Saw one of my buddies get cut in half by a shell.” He told the evaluating doctor who wrote it down just like Horace had said it. \nLabel as non-violent, Horace was taken on a community outing from the hospital when he murdered a woman who was selling perfume at Macy’s. He dumped the body in a trash receptacle. He mentioned a body chute at Waverly Hills, but no one understood what he was talking about. \nHis label was changed from non-violent to violent. Added to his records was the phrase, “do not release until further evaluation.”\nBack then you spend your life locked up in the looney bin for the rest of your life.\nMeanwhile, Horace worked at the infirmary where he helped stuff dead bodies down the chute. He watched a doctor administer an injection that stopped the heart of a patient that he would later put in the body chute. \n“It could have been me.” He would later lament in the process group.\nThe more he read, the sicker he became. Dr. Hitchcock had heard of some of the horror stories from the past in the treatment of the mentally ill, but now he was reading about it first hand. While in medical school, his professors never presented a first hand account of the horrors of some of the treatments used in the previous hundred years, but now he had his hands on a document that verified every myth he had been told about. \nSitting alone in his upscale apartment, he heard noises he could not explain, noises he attributed to a faulty heating system as the ghost of winter was rushing out of the Ohio River Valley. \n“Dr. Hitchcock, I cannot tell you about some of the things they done to me in that place.” The voice was clear, but not recognizable to him. He turned off the television, but all he could hear was the wind.\nHis sleep was interrupted by nightmares of white robed patients screaming in the hallways, defecating on themselves as they wiped it on the walls. \nHis brain was half the size it should have been. No wonder he ran back to that haunted place. His brain was telling him he was better off dead. His mind, filled to capacity with nightmare images, could not take anymore.\nHis pillow was wet. He had been crying in his sleep. \nThe next day he read more of the historical documents as he left Horace’s body rest in peace in the cold storage. Jimmy came skipping wearing his earphones plugged to his brand new Walkman. \n“Hey boss, whacha doin?’” He smiled.\n“Reading a horror story.” He answered knowing his assistant could not hear him.\n“Cool.” Jimmy thumbs-upped him which drove Dr. Hitchcock crazy. At this point, Dr. Hitchcock did not wish to tell anyone about his discoveries with Horace Greenway. \nHis next stomach grinding section came when he read the subsection “Suicide Attempts.” \nIn this subsection, they recorded a number of suicide attempts until he earned the label “Unsafe to Himself.” \nHe had dealt with cutters and self-harmers, but when it came to suicide attempts, he had learned in most cases these were a cry for help, but if these cries went unanswered, the result would be a successful suicide attempt. That’s what Horace Greenway had done. \nSeventeen. Seventeen attempts that had been recorded by Waverly Hills at least. \nA nurse had hanged herself in one of the rooms and it was rumored her ghost still wandered the hallways.\nHow many others had made that cry, but it went unanswered until Horace lifted their body into the chute?\n“Got this new group from Ireland.” Jimmy said as he put his feet on his desk which further disgusted Dr. Hitchcock. “Called, get this, U-2. Just like the airplane.” \nDr. Hitchcock held up a black and white photograph of Horace’s autopsy which was a signal not to disturb him as he read. Jimmy nodded and went back to listening to his music without disturbing the doctor. \nDecember 17, 1958\nWaverly Hills Sanitorium\n“I will escape from this place.” Horace told the process group facilitator named William Fantone.\n“How?” William responded.\n“Fly outta of this place.” Horace laughed.\n“You got wings?” Fantone asked.\n“God gave me wings.” He laughed this time his laugh was a high pitched maniacal chortle. Fantone called him a half brained maniac. \nHalf brained? What an idiot this guy had been. Wasn’t he paying attention? But then that was thirty years ago. Why now? Why did Horace Greenway thirty years to show that nincompoop that he was serious about his threat? \nSometimes, Dr. Hitchcock reasoned the successful attempt comes when nobody is expecting it to happen. At Waverly Hills, there were all sorts of eyes like Foucault's Tower, where you were always being watched. \nHe pulled out some of the more recent records where treatment had been administered at a community mental health center until more bodies began to show up at the city dump. The older he got, the more Horace was not as careful disposing of the bodies as he had been in his younger days when he still had his entire brain. \nAt one of his hearings, Horace remarked, “I envy them when I strangle them, because their story is over while I still have to live through mine.” \nLike hitting a solid wall, Horace’s words reached out and wrenched Dr. Hitchcock’s heart.\nOf course, his existence had become a heavy anchor to him. Horace was hoping someone would show up with a gun and end his life. Death by Police it was called.\nHe had gone back to Waverly Hills to escape the only way he knew how. He had gone back to show the living and the dead how intent he was about escaping. Who could blame him for what he did?\nEvery document he read from Greenway’s file had been put in his hands by the deceased. He had been led through Horace Greenway’s troubled life history by man who now lie in Vault #25. No one would grieve for this man. His past history of violent assaults would condemn him, but Dr. Hitchcock would not be one of them. He had seen the entire story of this man who had suffered so acutely for his shortcomings without anyone who really understood.\n“I will not be your judge.” He whispered as he put the file where he had taken it from.\n“Hey, did you say something?” Jimmy snapped his earphones from his head.\n“No, nothing.” He shook his head as he closed the drawer of the file cabinet.\nThere was no body chute. There was nobody to sign the certificate as next of kin. He would need a higher approval which he had gotten before. Then the body would be released to the county.\nJust like the body chute at Waverly Hills.\nHe stopped as if he was frozen by that single thought. \nHe parked on the busted cement parkway and looked at the behemoth structure spread out before him. Swallowing hard, he began his walk to the front doors which would not prevent someone from entering this place. \nHe shivered as he walked through the front door. It was haunted. He could feel it as he strode past the reception desk that was once fully staffed thirty years ago.\n“Can I help you?” The voice evaporated as soon as he heard the question. \nThe giant staircase led to the next landing and there was one after that and so on for four stories. \nHuffing and puffing his way to the fourth landing, there was a sign clearly stating this was a restricted area. This was the ward where the sickest of the sick had been housed. The checkerboard tiled floor seemed to scream out in the scant lights left from street lights outside. \nThe door with the red warning sign on it opened without much resistance when he put his shoulder to it.\nShadows seemed to seep out of every dark corner. Voices echoed in empty spaces. None of these voices seemed happy. This was a place of misery. This was a place of great suffering. He felt as if he had entered a sacred cemetery, hallowed ground as it were. \nThe Electroshock Room was labeled on one of the doors he passed. Creatures of the night who had been undisturbed for decades ran for darker corners. \nHe came to an open bay. This was the place Horace had stopped on his way to the window clearly visible from the empty space. \nEscape. Escape. Escape waits for you.\nSelf determination and control were fought in this very place.\nEyes of the tower were constantly watching.\nSlowly he walked to the window. He put his hands on the place Horace had touched in his final moments of his tortured life. \nHis brain weighed half as much as a normal human brain weighed. Under two pounds, because they had removed the frontal lobe to prevent Horace Greenway from exercising his self determination. The final control was put in place. \nAfter thirty years, he came to this window and launched himself into the air. Four stories did not seem insurmountable, but as he looked down, he felt the gravity tug harshly at his sleeve.\n“God bless you, Horace Greenway. God bless you.” He said as pulled himself back into the empty room from his perch in the window sill.\nAs he walked away, he swore he could hear a whisper of voice.\n“Thank you, Dr. Hitchcock, thank you.” \nHe turned around quickly, but there was nobody there." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Triangular Nightmare\n\nGenre: historical-fiction\n\nWord Count: 2924\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story where a particular piece of clothing appears three times." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "With July’s rising temperatures and high humidity Wilma sat in the kitchen nook with a bottle of Coke. Wearing nylons and her ankle-length nursing gown she was over-heated and dehydrated. Throughout the day the heat upstairs was unbearable. Every window was open in the mansion, but with no breeze, the oscillating fans in the residents’ rooms were only blowing hot air. \n She removed the stethoscope from around her neck and took off her white nursing cap from her limp finger-waved hair. She hadn’t been to a beauty parlor since the day she bought the mansion. She needed a permanent and a manicure, but with the cost of utilities and the price of groceries for the nursing home residents, she was reluctant to spend the money. \n As she drank the Coke she opened the newspaper and flipped the pages of the Des Moines Register. President Roosevelt was pouring billions of dollars into the homeless population and the unemployed. Hitler had been chancellor for six months, and the notorious Burrow gang was on the run. People were losing their homes to foreclosure, and many farmers were shooting their livestock because they couldn’t afford to plant the grain to feed them. It was a dire situation, and Wilma was thankful she had the money to make the mortgage and pay the utilities. \n As she tossed the paper into the trash the back screen door banged shut. She thought it was Grace and got up to greet her, but what she found on the porch was not her best friend, but a queer looking fellow wearing a wig and holding a sawed-off shotgun slung over his shoulder. He wore a baggy feed-sack dress splattered with blood and mud, and he was barefoot. He was unshaven, but he was a handsome man with fair skin and hazel eyes. When he opened the door a young woman came in, wearing muddy shoes and a flowered feed-sack dress saturated with blood. Her black mascara and red lipstick were smeared across her dirty face and her knitted cap was cocked haphazardly to one side. \n Wilma stared at them in disbelief. She had dealt with gangsters and gunshot wounds when she was running bootleg whiskey during prohibition, but she never dreamed of dealing with a dizzy dame and an armed gay guy during this Great Depression. “Are you related to one of the residents living upstairs?” She asked, thinking they looked familiar. “Are you looking for directions to a hospital? There’s one not far from here.”\n They both shook their heads.\n The guy sneezed and blew his nose into a handkerchief. “No, we don’t know anyone here. When we were in Polk City today we saw a poster on a bank’s window with a picture of you. It said you were a nurse and had recently opened a nursing home in a mansion here in Des Moines.”\n The young woman spoke in a strained voice, holding her bleeding belly with blood-stained hands. “Please help us. We’ve both been shot and we need medical care.”\n “I’m not a doctor. You need to go to a hospital.”\n The guy spoke. “We can’t. We’re on the run. We’ve got the law after us.”\n Wilma now remembered reading about the Burrow gang in the Des Moines Register and seeing their picture. They were wanted in connection with assault and murder to police officers. If they were seen or apprehended the Division of Investigation wanted to be notified.\n Clyde Barrow pushed his pinstripe jacket to the side, exposing his holster with a Colt 45. “Lady, we need your help. We’re hurt real bad. I was shot three times, and Bonnie has buckshot pellets in her belly.” \n The bulge in his right pocket told Wilma he was harboring a handgun or had a wiener the size of a banana. “I don’t want any trouble,” Wilma said, fearing for her safety and the life of the residents. “If you leave now, I won’t notify the authorities. I’m not equipped to remove bullets or do surgery. You need to go to a hospital.” \n “Lady, we have no other choice,” Clyde said, reaching into his pocket. “After a brutal shootout at the Raccoon River we skipped the town of Dexter and headed east. We’ve got to lay low.”\n The fear of him drawing out a weapon petrified Wilma, and when he pulled out a bottle of Pepsi she sighed with relief. As they climbed the steps to the kitchen she observed the back of them. Bonnie Parker had a peculiar way of climbing the steps. She was bowlegged and with both knees slightly buckled she hopped and hobbled up the three steps to the kitchen. She looked to be about five and a half feet and weighted about one-hundred pounds. Clyde was tall and skinny. With his bare feet covered with black mud he looked like he had been wading in cow manure. He didn’t smell much better either. He appeared over six feet tall and weighed about a hundred and fifty. When he ascended the steps he didn’t walk quite right. She assumed it was the result of him missing a big toe. \n As they entered the kitchen, she stepped quietly back onto the porch and grabbed the knob on the screen door. She glanced outside. Parked in her driveway was a black two-door Model A Ford. She couldn’t see the license plate clearly but by the size of the front-end it appeared to be a V-8. For fear they’d spot her looking out she quickly tiptoed back into the entryway and climbed the steps to the kitchen. In the middle of the room she lit a cigarette and eyeballed them. Bonnie’s fair complexion appeared a little sunburned, and her crocheted purse hung from the crook of her bloody arm. She wore a vest over her dress and her straight hair was colored black with blond roots showing through. Her jagged fingernails were partially covered with red polish and the half-moons were unpainted.\n When Clyde removed his Fedora hat and blond wig he had the kind of wavy brown locks that any woman would love to comb her fingers through. \n “Would you like something to eat?” Wilma offered, thinking that they might be hungry and hoping she could think of a way to get rid of them.\n “Yes, mam,” Clyde said. “We haven’t eaten since the shootout this morning.”\n Bonnie spoke to Clyde. “Honey, I ain’t hungry. I’m in a lot of pain. Wilma needs to remove the bullets and sew me up before I lose more blood.”\n Clyde spoke without empathy. “Stop whining Baby. I’d rather bleed to death than die of hunger.”\n Tears welled up in Bonnie’s eyes. “Daddy, that’s not funny! Stop thinking about your belly! It’s my stomach that’s been shot.” \n Feeling sorry for her, Wilma went to the sink and wet a washcloth. After wiping blood from Bonnie’s hands Wilma placed a clean dishtowel over Bonnie’s blood-soaked belly. “Press it against your wound. It will help stop the bleeding.”\n As Wilma vigorously disinfected her hands at the kitchen sink with Lifebuoy soap she felt great sorrow for the dizzy dame. She was probably just another floozy who fell in love with the wrong man. She never understood why any wife or girlfriend in their right mind would call their boyfriend Daddy. Maybe it had something to do with being submissive to men because they felt inferior. Perhaps it was because Bonnie had no father figure. Whatever her reason, Clyde was obviously the leader of the Burrow gang. His actions proved it. He was standing guard over his sawed off shot gun propped against the south windowsill. As he smoked a Camel cigarette his one arm appeared to be dangling lifelessly at his side. \n When Wilma questioned them about their injuries, Mumsie appeared in the kitchen doorway. She was holding a cane with her right hand and staring at everyone with disdain. Her long white hair was braided and wrapped around her head like a halo. She wore a flowered gunny sack dress stained with urine. With an angry face she pounded her cane against the floor. “Wilma, what the hell is going on? Who the hell are these people? Don’t we have enough mouths to feed without taking in more?”\n I couldn’t answer. I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t want her to know they were notorious outlaws who robbed banks and shot cops.\n Clyde held out his hand to Julia. “Sorry to drop by unannounced, but my wife and I are here to recuperate.”\n Mother glanced at the shotgun propped against the windowsill and suspiciously glared at Clyde. “You’re both too young to be in a nursing home. Why are you wearing a dirty dress? Are you one of those sissy homosexuals who loves dressing in women’s clothing? Your hairy legs don’t do you any justice. And what’s that weapon doing over there?”\n He pulled off the dress and underneath was a pinstripe suit. As he rolled down his sleeves and his pant legs he told the wildest story Wilma had ever heard. “I’m an undercover cop from Polk County. Today I took a slug from Bonnie and Clyde. My wife is an FBI agent. We’re dedicated to protecting the public from serious crimes.”\n Mumsie stared in disbelief at the sight of Bonnie’s gunshot wound. “What the hell happened? You need to get medical attention.”\n Clyde answered. “We were at Mercy Hospital and the doctor sent us here. He said their hospital beds were filled up. He referred us to Wilma. He said since she was just getting her nursing home started that maybe she’d take us in for a while until our wounds healed.”\n Wilma almost laughed at his preposterous lies. Instead of hating Clyde she almost liked him. He was certainly full of bullshit with his quick wit and sense of humor. Everyone knew that most hospital beds were empty. Since the beginning of the depression in 1929 patients could no longer afford two weeks of hospitalization. Therefore bills were unpaid and charitable contributions fell. It was a known fact that the leading causes of death since 1930 were not gangster related. It was heart disease, cancer, pneumonia, parasitic diseases, influenza, tuberculosis and syphilis. \n Mumsie continued. “You look like a couple of hooligans to me. Do you have credentials?”\n As Clyde reached in his back pocket Wilma feared he’d pull out a gun. Instead he brought out a wallet and handed her something. “It’s my badge,” he said, winking at Bonnie. “Show them yours too, Honey.”\n “Mine’s in the car,” she said, holding the bloody towel against her wound. “Can I get it later?”\n Mumsie took his gold-colored badge shaped like a star. “It sure looks real,” she said, sliding her arthritic fingers across the smooth finish. “How long did it take you to earn it?”\n “Never mind about all that,” Clyde said, relieved that the mouthy old bag fell for his bullshit. “I want to hear about you. What’s your name and how long have you lived here?”\n “Julia,” she said with narrowed eyes. “My name’s Julia. What’s yours?”\n “Bud,” he said. “Let’s sit down for a meal and get acquainted.”\n While Clyde humored Julia in the kitchen nook, Wilma again vigorously scrubbed her hands at the kitchen sink. She felt like she was in the midst of a triangular nightmare. Three dirty feed sack dresses on three oddballs in less than an hour and the day had barely begun. What were the chances of that ever happening again? God only knew! And that wasn’t all. What kind of deadly germs or contagious diseases might the couple have. With Clyde’s cough he could have pneumonia, tuberculosis or an influenza that could kill her mother and the patients. \n After drying her hands Wilma scooped Maxwell House Coffee into her electric Art Deco Coffee Pot with a maple wood handle. As it perked she scrubbed a pan and listened to the radio on a shelf above the sink. With the volume turned way down a special broadcast came on about the Burrow gang. Wilma leaned towards the radio to hear it. “Be on the lookout for Bonnie and Clyde. Today during a shootout at an abandoned amusement park they escaped across the South Raccoon River. If you see them notify the U. S. Department of Justice or the Division of Investigation near your city.”\n To prevent getting caught listening to the newscast Wilma shut off the radio and began cooking. With a lit cigarette dangling from my trembling lips she fried bacon with a shaky hand and scrabbled two dozen eggs in bacon grease on her new Roper gas stove with five burners and three ovens. As she prepared the food for everyone she turned on an oven to keep food warm for the patients upstairs. She tried not to worry and forced herself to fret about her tight budget and the cost of rationed groceries. My God, the whole damn meal was costing her a buck if not more! A pound of coffee was 19 cents. The bacon wasn’t cheap either at 38 cents a pound, and a loaf of bread was now seven cents. Normally she saved money ordering dairy product from a farmer, but because of the farmers’ milk strike in Sioux City last February a bottle of milk was now at an all-time high of 25 cents a quart. A pound of butter was 24 cents. A dozen of eggs increased to 18 cents, and no telling how long her commodities might last if the outlaws refused to leave and kept pigging out at her expense. \n While making toast in her nickel-plated flopper toaster Wilma debated on setting out her 15 cent Ann Page Strawberry preserves but decided against it. The gangsters could eat lard on their toast or they could choke to death at her expense. In fact she needed to contact the authorities, but her telephone was on the kitchen wall and cranking it would make noise. If she got caught calling an operator she could get a bullet in her back. If she escaped the mobsters might bump off everyone. If she helped them they might let everyone live. If she didn’t help them they might go on a killing spree.\n After cooking she scooped a heap of scrambled eggs and bacon onto a platter. As she put the residents’ food into the oven she listened to her mother rattling around in her antique hutch for dishes and silverware. With her poor sight and arthritic hands Wilma worried that her mother could accidentally break the china that presumably came over on the Mayflower. To prevent any mishaps from happening Wilma grabbed the skillet and the coffee pot. In the kitchen nook the china was still in the hutch and everyone was sitting around the table with plates and silverware. She poured coffee into cups and sat beside her mother sitting across the table from Bonnie and Clyde. As the four of them ate Wilma again contemplated the situation. What would Bonnie and Clyde do if she refused to help them? If they shot and killed her, who would take care of her mother? If they murdered all of them would the law suspect Bonnie and Clyde? If Wilma turned them in, would there be a reward? If she nursed them back to health could she go to prison for harboring fugitives?\n Clyde spoke. “I need to hit the hay. I ain’t had no sleep in two days, but I got to eat some grub too. Are the eggs fresh from a local farmer?”\n “Yes,” Wilma said, not mentioning Abe’s chickens. “I need to take food to my patients upstairs and give them something to drink. During hot summer days like this they’re more susceptible to dehydration and heat stroke.”\n Bonnie bit into her toast and shoveled a forkful of eggs into her mouth. “What about me? I’m more important. I’m hurting real bad and my belly won’t stop bleeding.” She swallowed. “Do you have any jam for the toast and how about some milk to wash it down with?”\n “What little milk I have is for my patients, and I don’t have any preserves.” \n There was cherry pie sitting on the table and Clyde stuck his fingers in and shoved the filling into Bonnie’s mouth. “Now Pussycat, just finish your meal and don’t talk with your mouth full. It’s not good table manners.”\n Wilma cringed at Clyde’s bazar behavior. They were wounded badly and Clyde was acting like a wild animal and talking etiquette. “I really need to tend to my residents. They need to be fed, changed and repositioned. Without something to eat and drink they could develop medical problems.”\n Clyde spoke. “Bonnie and I were shot and you’re worried about some old folks with their feet in the ground.” He thumped the butt of the shotgun on the floor. “How about I just put them out of their misery?”\n Mumsie swung her cane at him. “Don’t disrespect the elderly or I’ll kick both of you assholes out the door! I’m not putting up with childish behaviors at my table.”\n Clyde grabbed her cane. “You got spunk you washed up old hag.”\n She threw a forkful of eggs at him. “Don’t call me names. I listen to the radio. I know who you are. You’re those gangsters who rob banks and kill people.”\n The back door slammed and in walked a handsome fella carrying a feed sack dress stained with blood and splattered with mud.”" } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: One percent of something !!\n\nGenre: high-school\n\nWord Count: 1114\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story that spans a month during which everything changes." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Lights were blinking by splendour colours like a painter using his brush to paint a canvas, the cool breeze of wind touching my checks, tears were continusely rolling down from my eye to the chin , it was a pin drop silence around me I was just able to hear my heart beat. \nAbruptly the vocie of opening the door came a girl came rushing towards me, small eyes, round face, Blue Jeans with black t shirt with white colour over coat I was staring her continusely, it was like everything around me stop for seconds I forgot about everything I was just looking a her without blinking my eyes. \n\"Hello! Move that side \"! her voice came breaking the weird suffocating silence \"W...Why? I asked \" \"Because I want to stand here \" she reclaim .\n \"Go and stands over there, there is enough space \" I said with anger. \n \" That's what I want to say, there is enough space for you, go avail the opportunity before someone else grab it! \" .\nWithout any further questions I move another side \" Why are you standing on the on the edge of terrace you might fall \" she asked. \n\" Because I want to die! \" \n\"Okay , just pass that feather \" I saw a feather lying near my feet I pick up and gave it to her \" Thanks , You continue.....! \" she said. Huh...? OK..... After saying that I started looking front. \nI tear the mark sheet which was in my hand and throw it away, it was like detaching a part from myself which kept hurting me. I gathered all my courage by convincing myself that this is the only last and the best option to do and without any further talk I step ahead my one leg in order to fell off from the terrace .....\nshe started singing -♬ it's not easy to reach here with all my strength. Being doubted and locking down upon , I hover at night and cross over Mountains after mountains, wishing for the beautiful scenery .Under the moonlight, I light up the candle and tell myself that , You'll be alright and You will be fine . ♬-\nI looked at her she was looking at the sky like she is finding something \"what are you doing? \" \" Finding a shooting star !\" she exclaimed. \" It's not easy to see shooting star , it's getting cold...... You might freeze, you should go home. \" It doesn't matter weather It easy or not , I want to make a wish also I found the feather it's a good sign .\n\" How can you believe in all such faiths without logical reason \" I asked in disguise \"it's called 1% of something .\" she said .\n\"what is 1% something means? \n\"whenever everything goes wrong there is always 1% chance to get things right, what you need is to have faith in that, by the way why you want to die? \"she asked. \n\"why should I tell you, your just an stranger? \"I asked. \" sometimes telling your problems help to find solutions, especially when it is some stranger because they are not gonna judge you and they tell want they think without exaggerating it \".\n\"Because I have no courage to go home, I ranked 2nd in the class , l wanted to buy medicines for my mother, we belong to a lower middle class family and ranking 1st for getting prize money was my only option..... But I failed..... \" .\n\" By dying everything will be alright with your family? Hmm? \" she asked .\nAt the same time a shooting star gone. She make a wish. \n\" look I said, that there is always 1% of chance to make everthing to alright, what you need is to have faith in it \"she said in a cheerful way. \nI kept looking at her... \n'what are you looking at? ' she asked. \n'You ....'\n'huh? ' ..she said. \n'I mean I'm wandering what was your wish for which you were ready to stand in the cold for so long... ' I asked. \n\" I wish to meet my parents one day \" she reclaim .\n'where is your parents '? I asked. \n'I don't know, when I was 6 years old they left me.... After that I started living in my aunt house ' \n'So...... have you ever asked them why they left ' \n' I asked them many time but they never told me....... ' she told. \n' I have tried a lot to find them but unable to find them, so I have my last option of 1% of faith '\nWe chat to each other for some time and after that she gone .\nI was standing there , talking to my self, I forgot about the suicide, actually I don't wanted to die, I found that I was a coward who just wanted to go away from the failure, who was just closing his eye in morning and saying that it is night. \nPeople were coming and going back and forth, doing there , I recall the question which she asked me by dying everything will be alright with your family? And I found the answer, the answer is no. Nothing will happen good if I die . No one care if I'm alive or die except my family and friends, nothing gonna change in this world, so I decided to give myself one more chance....... \nSun rise with splendour of colours with positive energy like it was telling me that it's a new life which was gifted by God as well as that girl.\nI gone to home and started preparing for next exam with books and 1% something which was about to happen next week , although I wasn't able to came first but this time I didn't lose hope, I told myself that you'll be fine and everything will be alright, what you need is to have 1% of something and try your best. \nAfter that incident I accustomed to go there every night to meet my 1% of something but couldn't find here . I have faith that I will meet her, one day I will meet her with smile in my lips and faith in my heart, one day I'll meet her....... \nAfter that I learned that life is like a circle. \nA circle which carries happiness, triumphs,sadness, nostalgia ..........\nIn our whole life we countinusly cross this path, defeat the problems, overcome our fears and keep on repeating again and again like an unstoppable journey ." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Will She?\n\nGenre: high-school\n\nWord Count: 1417\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about someone who is always looking toward the future." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "HI people of the world! This is officially my first story here on this platform. I hope ya’ll like it. I certainly had fun writing this. And I hope you also enjoy reading as much as I did. -JLuuu\n––––––––––––––––––––––\nI totally missed the wet floor sign. I slip and fall on my bottom because of it. You clumsy boy, the voice of my mother says in my head as heat rises from the embarrassment. I feel the glances of other passersby, their stares razor-sharp and screaming invisible remarks. I shrug it off as best I can. They’re petty comments don’t affect me anymore. I’ve gotten used to my reputation at this school by now – a nerdy freshman teenager nobody wants to be friends with. \nExcept her. Maybe?\nI have to ask Harper to the dance this weekend. It’ll be great. Me asking her to the dance in the laboratory, her favorite place in the whole school. It was Julian’s idea. A great one too. And it’ll be perfect. It has to. That’s where I was supposed to be heading before I slipped.\nDamnit, I’m wet now. Not dripping wet, but my trousers are damp. Ugh, how will it be perfect now that my pants are wet with mop water? Who cares, they’ll dry by the time I ask her. I still have at least an hour.\nOut of habit, my hands fiddle with what’s inside my pocket. But I also made sure that I still had it. I don’t know what I’d do if I lost it. It cost me half of my savings!\nI scurry along the hallway to the laboratory until Aidan appears from one of the classrooms.\nI absolutely hate Aidan.\nHe’s all the things I want to be. No, all the things I can’t be. Athletic, tall, muscular. The perfect human being. All the girls murmur about him, mostly which among them he’ll take to the dance. Hell do I care. I want nothing to do with him, as long as he doesn’t get in my way.\nToo late. He’s heading straight towards me.\nI try not to panic and keep cool. Quick! Act like him, my head says. I follow my inner voice and puff out my chest as best as I could, even though I have none. I hate myself for being so thin. It’s bad enough I’m considered one of the nerds in my class. Being skinny is the last thing that I need to be. Still, I try my best to hide my hatred towards him. Not because I’m scared or anything.\n“Hey, Adam,” Aidan says, waving his hand. “Where are you heading?”\n“Nowhere that concerns you,” I mutter, never meeting his eyes. But when I do, I have to look up. How is he even that tall?\nAidan only chuckles. “Anyway, any plans on who you’re going to take to the dance this weekend? I heard that you’re going to ask Lynn.”\nMy heart almost dropped in my stomach. I thought he knew. I exhale a sigh of relief.\n“I don’t plan on going to a dance full of people,” I say as to sound uninterested. I feel like it works. I need him to stop bothering me so I can ask Harper! “And who said I was going to ask Lynn? I have no interest in her, nor do I bet she has any in me.”\n“Why not?,” Aidan says, brows semi-furrowed in worry. Pft, as if he cares about me. “Julius will be there, won’t he? And Lynn isn’t that bad. She’s friends with Harper, I know that.”\nHarper. Would he stop bothering me? I need to get to that laboratory ASAP!\n“Fine, I’ll go. Now, if you’ll excuse me, ” I say as I slip by him. “there’s someplace that I need to be.” I walk backwards for a second to hear what Aidan has left to say.\n“Alright, man. Good luck asking whoever you’re going to ask,” Aidan says and with just my luck, I collide with someone. Or rather, they bumped into me. My mouth finds a mouthful of long jet-black hair and my nose, the scent of lilacs.\n“Agh,” I say when our bodies collide.\n“Sorry, sorry. I was distracted. See? You made me hit someone,” she mutters to someone at her side. I know that voice anywhere. I turn to find her eyes meeting mine. Another wave of heat bursts, this time from nervousness. Are my legs shaking?\n“Hi, Harper,” Aidan says casually behind me.\nHer gaze drifts from me to Aidan. She smiles lightly, showing pearly-white teeth. “Hey, Aidan. Oh, and hi Adam. Sorry again for running into you. Someone,”–she sneers at her friend, I think her name is Cait–”said something that made me lose track of what’s in front of me.” Harper and Cait exchange snickers. \n“H… hey, Harper,” I say, my voice shaky. “I’m sorry also. I have no excuse. I was simply distracted. Anyway, can… do you mind meeting me in the–”\n“I’m sorry?” she says, still trading side comments about what they’re talking about. “What were you saying? Also, why is my skirt damp a little?” She inspects the patches of her skirt that are a shade darker.\nDamn you, trousers.\n“Agh! Sorry, sorry, that’s my fault again. I missed the wet-floor sign and my trousers got wet. It might’ve gotten wet when you ran into me. I think there are some paper towels in the lab.” Smooth, Adam. Smooth.\n“No, it’s fine, I think I’ll just clean up in the bathroom–”\n“No!” The words jumped out of my mouth. “I mean, why not the lab? Like that’s your favorite place in the school right?”\n“Uh… Who told you that? The roof has been my favorite for almost four months now.”\nNOT SMOOTH. NOT SMOOTH. NOT SMOOTH.\n“Oh… Right. Sometimes I forget, you know.”\nRUN. RUN. RUN.\nI want to die.\nHarper laughs still. “It’s alright, Adam. I probably already forgot everything Mr. Palmer taught us. His class is so useless, honestly. So, you’re not alone.” \nI chuckle a little. It helps ease a little of my nervousness. Only a little.\n“Also, why did you want me to go to the lab? Is something waiting for me there? Or maybe someone?” She narrows her eyes and leans forward, making the distance between our faces a ruler’s length apart.\nI start to sweat even more. By now, I feel like I’ve been doused in water. And the faucet is still leaking. My heart pounds as well, its beat like a drum in my ears.\n“Uh…” I have one last thing to say, and that is to come clean.\nIn front of a hallway full of people.\nThis was not how I perfectly planned it. I’ve been planning this for weeks. I’ve been looking towards this for so long. But still, I have to do it. I have to ask Harper.\n“Harper, will you–”\nThen Aidan chimes in.\nHe easily pushes me aside like a pesky fruit fly. “Harper?” he asks.\nA dab of pink appears on her cheeks. She tries to hide it. “Yeah?”\n“I don’t have anything to ask you with,” Aidan says. And everyone passing by seems to have paused. “No sign, no flowers, nothing. But I was wondering if you would go to the dance with me this weekend?”\nI feel as if my soul has left my body. Around us, I spot a few girls putting a hand on their hearts, too hurt to see the guy they dreamed of asking them asking another in front of them.\nI can relate.\nBut worse. He asked her. I was supposed to ask her. I feel like an anchor has been tied to my heart and it’s been tossed in the ocean. No, this cannot be real. It can’t. If it is, take me now. It just can’t be real.\nIt doesn’t help what she says next.\n“Of course,” Harper says. The two of them fall into a tight embrace, with me standing in pieces on the side, nothing to do but watch.\nI don’t know what to do now.\nMy plan has been ruined. My future, stolen.\nI tuck my hands in my pocket and take out the tiny black felt box. I open it on its hinges, only to reveal a silvery pearl necklace inside.\nThis is useless now, the voice inside my head says. Better leave it.\nI follow the voice again, and the expensive box falls from my hand." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Bathtub Shine\n\nGenre: historical-fiction\n\nWord Count: 2624\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about a character who decides to give themselves, or someone else, a fashion makeover." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Note: This story contains mentions of race and violence.\nHarlem, 1926\nI looked dazzling.\nMy heavily made-up face and short finger-curls made me glamorous and chic, the cosmetics catapulting my looks from plain to striking.\n“Sienna, you’re up,” Iva, the manager of the dancers, told me as I applied my scarlet lipstick, the final touch for the effect I wanted.\nA full-figured, dark-skinned woman, Iva hailed from Charleston. For some reason, she refused to cut or straighten her long, course hair, and instead opted for styles from the previous decade and now out of fashion for her mass of coils. She often donned extravagant, floor length silk gowns that revealed her ample bosom. Again, her stylistic choices went against the trends, but suited her perfectly. With just a glance, her ornate attire reminded our customers she wasn’t a regular club girl.\n“I’m not ready yet,” I replied, and smacked my lips together, admiring myself in the vanity’s mirror.\nThe bright red on my plump lips contrasted against my brown skin, the carmine color instantly drawing attention to my mouth. The black taffeta robe I wore concealed my gold rhinestone brassiere that pushed up my breast, and matching short skirt that’d be sure to have all eyes on me.\nIn my former life, I would’ve been aghast to wear such a thing, but I had grown to accept the scantily clad clothing as regular. \nSnatching up my pearl jewelry and white gloves, I quickly threw my accessories on, glancing one last time at myself, before standing and grabbing my gold and white masquerade mask. Placing it would complete my makeover and protect my identity.\nTonight, Lloyd had tasked me with my first solo dance. I intended a memorable performance, as the highlight of the night. I didn’t want a single thing out of place.\nThough, it wasn’t as if I could afford to have an inadequate performance. This job was my only source of income, and if there was even a slight chance he wasted his money employing me, Lloyd would let me go. So, my options were to do such a fantastic job that customers begged for more, or risk losing my livelihood.\nThinking about my boss and former friend, a pang went through my heart. Working at his club was a saving grace for me, but at the same time, my life had become complicated in so many ways doing the short time I’d been dancing here.\nAnd, out of everything, losing his friendship was the most devasting thing for me. I’ve often heard that one shouldn’t allow their personal and professional lives to intersect, but I disregarded the advice and learned that lesson the hard way.\n“I’m ready,” I announced, setting the elaborate mask on my face, trying to clear my head.\nIf heavy thoughts burdened my mind, it might reflect in my dancing.\nNormally, I just applied heavy makeup, and hoped the speakeasy’s dim lighting provided enough cover for me to remain anonymous in my day-to-day life. But tonight, I would be front and center, with the spotlight literally on me.\n And despite working in a place of little legality, I had no desire to deal with the law; it was the absolute last thing I needed.\n“Took you long enough,” Iva muttered as she gestured for me to follow her.\nI rolled my eyes at her moodiness, but did as signaled, hot on her heels as she exited the dressing room and walked down the hallway leading to the stage. I stopped a few feet away from the curtain concealing us as she pushed it aside and stepped onto the club’s stage to introduce me.\n“Ladies and Gentlemen,” she boomed, her southern drawl heavy as she extolled my sultriness, ending with, “May I present to you, Ms. Walker!”\nThe audience offered polite applause as the jazz band’s trumpeter, Rollins, began playing a B-flat solo. I allowed his solo for a few seconds, until I heard the drum symbols sound, aka my cue to come out. I strutted to the curtain and gathered my robe until my right leg was revealed. I stuck that leg onto the stage first, my heart pounding as I heard a wolf whistle or two.\nBooze was flowing freely, so the crowd’s reaction would be completely unfiltered. If I did poorly, they would quickly let me know.\nTaking in a breath, I shoved the heavy red curtain aside and stepped fully into everyone’s view. I began moving my hips to the beat as the rest of the band started to play their instruments. Untying my robe as I swiveled my hips, I wiggled out of the garment and allowed it to fall to the floor, uncovering my glittering costume.\nThe reveal was met with some cheers and more whistles, which I acknowledged with the most seductive smile I could muster.\nI moved around freely as jazz music rang out across the building. As the band picked up speed, so did I. I flailed my arms all about, shimmed my hips and behind to the beat, twirled and pivoted in circles. While I did do a popular dance move or two, I mostly allowed my body to decide how it moved, which was thankfully met with a great reaction from the crowd.\nThe cheers brought a genuine smile to my face, easing my nerves. A bad response from the audience would’ve resulted in consequences from Lloyd. Though he was nice to his employees, he was about his money first and foremost, and unhappy customers equaled less income.\nMore than that, I simply enjoyed dancing. Letting my body move to a beat with little restrictions was a release for me. For however long the music played, I could forget about the stresses in my life and tragedies continuing to weigh on my shoulders, and just dance.\nAfter about twenty minutes, the music began to fade out, signaling my performance was about to end. I slowed my movements before stopping and striking a quick, suggestive pose. More applause erupted. The whistles present throughout my performance crescendoed. After bowing, I collected my robe, turned on my heels, and sashayed backstage, relieved everything had gone well.\n“You did amazing!” Goldie, a woman with ‘golden’ skin and honey blonde marcel waves, enthused, falling into step with me. She gestured to my scanty attire, a smile on her face. “And your costume. My, where’d you get it?”\nI removed my mask and placed it under my arm.\n“I made it,” I said coyly, the reply making her eyes widen. The art of clothes making was one my grandmother had taught me. For a long time, before the death of the woman who raised and imparted so much knowledge in me, I’d desired to indulge my love of fashion and become a seamstress. “And thank you.”\nGoldie was fresh out of high school and three years younger than me. To my knowledge, she’d started at the club just a few weeks before me, making us both new hires. Despite how new she was, though, she got on remarkably well with the other girls and employees, and quickly cultivated an ever-expanding friend group here.\n“How long you been dancing?”\n“This is my first official gig. Why?”\n“Really? You did so well, I figured you were more experienced. I mean, we dance together every night, so I knew you could dance, but you were really the bee’s knees tonight.” \nFearing I’d let something slip, I responded with a simple, “oh.”\nShe babbled on as we walked to the dressing room, though I tuned most of it out. As sweet as she was, her talkativeness could get tiring.\nWhen we entered the dressing room, I beelined to the vanity reserved for me. Although we weren’t given the luxury of true privacy in the small area, we had assigned tables and dressing racks, with partitions littered throughout that gave the illusion of seclusion.\nTossing my mask onto the vanity and throwing my robe back on, I took a seat so I could get unready.\n“Say, Sienna,” Goldie began, walking behind my chair. I looked at her in the mirror, waiting for her to continue. “You been here for about a month, yeah?”\nI nodded, wondering where she was going with this. “So, we have known each other for some time, but I don’t know much about you. Tell me a little about yourself.”\nTaken aback, I opened my mouth to respond, but Iva interrupted me. At her voice, both Goldie and I turned to her.\n“Sienna, you know a white fella named Larry?”\nMy heart sank the moment she muttered the name. The only white man called Larry I ever had the misfortune of being acquainted with was Lloyd’s ass of an affiliate. However, I would not confirm my association with him, until I found out the reason she asked. “Why?”\n“Because there’s a Larry here to see you.”\n“Yeah, I know him, but I have no business with that man. Tell him that however you please.” \n“You sure y’all have no business? He’s here with some roses for you.”\n“I don’t mess around with white men, Iva,” I snapped, more forcefully than intended. “Just tell him to fuck off, I don’t want to see him.”\nI rarely cussed, but just the thought of that man enraged me.\n“Alrighty,” she muttered, eyes wide as she went to relay the message.\n“How you know him?” Goldie questioned once we were alone again.\nHeaving in a breath, I shrugged. “Lloyd introduced us.”\n“Why?”\n“For business.”\nThe business being Larry courting me. With some encouragement from Lloyd, I agreed to go out with his business partner a few times, despite my initial resistance to the idea of messing around with him. Then things went awry, so I severed ties with Larry and distanced myself from my boss.\n“Are you a prostitute?” she blurted, her hazel eyes the size of saucers.\n“Excuse me?”\n“What other business could a colored woman and white gangster have together?”\n“I don’t sell my body! I just went out with him once or twice. He got too presumptuous, so I ended things,” I heatedly explained, my outrage nearly making me miss her description of Larry.\nI was already aware of his occupation, but realizing Goldie already knew of the man surprised me. Briefly, I wondered at the extent of her relationship with Larry and Lloyd. After all, it was Llyod who’d gotten me involved with Larry, so if Goldie associated with him, it was reasonable to assume Lloyd introduced them.\nI doubted Lloyd would introduce just anyone to a criminal from another gang he was in cahoots with, so exactly how close were Goldie and Lloyd?\n“I thought you didn’t mess around with white men?” she pressed.\n“I did it as a favor to Lloyd. Can we please stop discussing him?”\nThe entire conversation filled me with shame and bad memories. Thankfully, she nodded and went silent. I resumed my undressing, hoping Iva took care of Larry. I had absolutely no desire to see him; my skin crawled at the very mention of his name.\n“Get your ass back here!” I heard Iva screech, making Goldie and I exchange looks with one another.\nStanding, I tightened my robe as Larry and Iva came barreling through the doors.\nHis blue-black hair was slicked back, his slanted eyes matching his dark locks. His tanned skin hinted at his Italian heritage, and his expensive suit announced to everyone he was financially well-off.\n“Why the hell is he in here?” I demanded, bile rising in the back of my throat as he leered at me. “I thought I told you to get rid of him!”\n“I tried, but he said y’all have things that you two needed to talk about.”\n“We don’t have shit to discuss,” I bit out, giving Larry a nasty look. “Get the fuck out before we get security. Or better yet, Lloyd.”\nI was bluffing; Lloyd was out on business tonight and had left Iva in charge of managing the club for the evening. But Larry didn’t know that, so the threat should still hold some weight.\n“You do that. I have shit to discuss with him, anyway,” Larry replied in casual tones, the warning not shaking him up one bit. Holding up the roses, he shook them, and some petals fell to the floor. “I got these for you.”\n“I don’t want them. Leave.”\n “Larry, why don’t I show you the way out?” Goldie offered, her tone sweet despite her blank expression. “I promise, I’ll be a lot nicer than Eli, Freddie, or Dan—”\n“I’m not going to do anything to your friend, girls,” Larry interrupted, looking between Iva and Goldie. “I just want to talk to her.”\n“I don’t know what the hell you two got going on,” Iva gritted, “but I don’t want it to cause no problems in this club. So, I’m going to need you to leave, and y’all can resolve this outside this building.”\n“There is nothing for us to resolve. Leave,” I repeated, not wanting to deal with him inside or outside the club.\n“Look, I had a bit too much cheap booze that night. I’m sorry.”\nI bristled at his words. Did he truly believe would excuse him trying to force himself on me because of some liquor? I’ve had the misfortunate of being around plenty drunk men, yet outside of him, I’ve had to physically fight off none.\nLargely, that was due to my grandmother, who went through hell and back to guard me from less savory individuals.\n“That’s your excuse? That you were fucking drunk? Goldie, go get Daniel, Eli, or Freddie,” I said, referring to the club’s security and Lloyd’s gang members.\nShe did as told, brushing past Larry and Iva, and hurrying out of the room.\nHe walked toward me. “You don’t even want to talk about it?” he rushed out.\nMy heartbeat increased, and a layer of sweat coated my palms. Almost fully in panic mode, I grabbed an empty vase from my vanity, and held it up. “Take another step and I’m knocking your ass out.” \nIgnoring my advice, he smirked, continuing to inch towards me. “Cute, Sienn—”\nNot hesitating, I threw the vase at his head. His eyes widened and he dropped the roses as he brought his hands up to shield his face, stepping to the side and narrowly avoiding the object. But before the vase landed and shattered into a million tiny pieces, it clipped his shoulder.\n“What the fuck?!” he snarled, touching his injured shoulder and wincing.\n“She did warn you,” Iva said, shrugging.\nHe ignored her comment, preferring to aim a death glare my way.\n“Fucking bitch,” he grated, his face twisted into a terrifying scowl.\nHe advanced towards me again, my heart falling to my knees as he came closer. Desperately, I glanced around, searching for another weapon, but to no avail. My heart nearly beating out of my chest, I backed up, trying to put as much distance as possible between me and him.\nSuddenly, Larry sharply inhaled and grunted, clutching his side. “Shit,” he groaned. When he raised his hand, his fingertips were red with his blood.\nTurning his hate-filled glare to the culprit, he fell to the ground in a heap.\nThe perpetrator of his stabbing didn’t pay him any mind as she cleaned her weapon off. In contrast to my wide and gaping mouth, Iva leaned down and calmy wiped the bloody switchblade onto his coat jacket, before concealing it back in her bosom. She ignored his stare as he gasped for air, and instead focused her gaze on me, the slight furrow in her brow betraying the concern she felt.\n“You good?”" } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Imagine Me\n\nGenre: historical-fiction\n\nWord Count: 1639\n\nPrompt:\n\nSet your story in an unlikely sanctuary." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "I awaken in a gust with cold wind blowing around me. It’s very dark. Low lighting gives just enough visibility to examine my atmosphere. I rise and began to follow a common mental pattern of seating around me, only to find that to my right there is a row; to my left there is nothing. Where could I be? It’s cold but not breezy anymore. I hear small noises. Clanks, the chatter of metal, and soft particles move briefly with short winds from space alone. I began to reach for the wall. I focus my direction toward lower dim light seen about every mile and a half. I rub the walls hoping to find a light, a picture, a fixture, a beam? Suddenly as I feel and step carefully,….. a wall separator. Hooray! I laugh while breathing for joy, yet gasping over where to go from here. A wall separator is a good sign to me. \nI now know that where I am has angles. I step and feel, step and feel….. step… and…. What’s that! Another seat row! But why is it adjacent to the other row a few feet down! I grab the seat and sit for a minute, just to reassess and wipe my eyes. I sit there contemplating. Ok. I’m alone. It’s a few wind gusts, but cold only due to my knowledge that there are no other forms of life near me. It’s dark. I hear sounds. Ok, ok, Me. Don’t flip out! I can do this. I set my eye on the dim lighting again hoping to embark upon an exit of some sort. Step and feel has worked so here I go. What did I drink? I wonder. I must have been tired. I don’t know where I am and I wake up in the dark. Suddenly I take a step and what do I find? An end. An ending wall to my left. Okay. Let me reconfigure. So, I can’t go left anymore and to go right I will end up touching nothing, so backed up against the wall, I take a breathe. I decide to step forward and reach. I take a baby step while planting my other foot safely next to me. Great! I made it. I get a bit assured to take another baby step. C’mon, you can do it, I express within myself. And alas! I make the next step completely. I’m now ready to go all-out. I mean, Hey, it’s all or Nothing anyway at this point. I take a giant step ahead… and…Oh! I feel something solid! Excited now to see what this is next to my foot, I carefully plant the next foot at an angle to balance myself. I land safely. I straighten my body and plant that angled foot securely next to mine, making a mental notice to self not to move my toe from against what’s solid. I made it! At this point I must figure this out, I mean give me a pat on the back here, I’m getting out of here soon I suggest to Me. Gently I crouch down on my hinds. I reach my hand toward my feet and grab what seems to be a solid metal. I carefully rub my fingers feeling my way up a leg, a lever, an arm….sigh. It’s another seat. What in the world happened?! Now I’m a bit frustrated.\nSuddenly I hear a big screech and then POP! Boy! What in the world was that one. I hear a few voices but they sound pretty far away. Maybe they are trapped as well. I can’t consider it. I must find out where I am or find my way out of here! I climb with my hands across the seats and walk, only to bump into another seat in what feels like a new row! What is this and why is it now a row mid-centered or near the left center of the room? No use in investigating, I feel seats, rows, and then a pole. Hmmm, ok. It appears I am in some sort of meeting room, gallery of a strange cave, or on a merry-go-round of some sort. I’m flabbergasted at this point! How come no one considered or woke me before I entered. \nOk let me hold this pole and think. I left this morning. I planned to go visit a historical archaeological site. I planned to write about my observations of some of the finite stones found upon other archaeologists findings in comparison to what I have in collection. I got to the site, but was told that the main entrance to the building was closed and any visitors had to enter through the construction site, leading to a back entrance into the south end of the location, which takes up three blocks entirely. It was warm. I was hungry and had traveled far. Ok, Me. I agree, I was truly tired. Getting back to business here, I proceed to turn around and head toward the right of the room. The part I feared the most. I don’t know if the floor is going to cut off at some point but hopefully someone will read this and learn from my missteps. \nI proceed forward hold to seat’s until I feel none. At this point I’m pretty adjusted to the architectural structure of this room less of the right side. I get almost four big steps away from the rows to embark upon a huge discovery. My foot hit something else. Not a seat, not a row, and not a bar. This is scary. It’s circular shaped. It’s solid but flimsy like a plexus glass globe on a board game. I pull back only to not crush it. After all it could be lethal. I plant my other foot in order. I take a deep breathe. I turn to view the dark room which what my eyes have adjusted to merely by the few sim floor lights against the walls. Taking a deep breathe, I prepare to either say goodbye or hurt myself by examining this floor bubbled plexi-glass fixture. I began to do my amazing crouching routine but ….. wait! Stop! Think here self. If I bend down and touch it and it’s lethal or opens the floor, it may hit me in some way I certainly don’t want my face affected. I stand up tall. I take another very deep breathe. Alright Me. Here it goes. Here goes nothing. I lift my foot, and with sweat protruding down my head and nose I extend my leg over…. and…..tap it. All of the sudden with my eyes squinted tight I see light. Oh my goodness! I open my eyes, unclench myself to find that the lights actually came on. Wow. What a relief. I sure thought it was over for me. I began to look around. Examining the room and hearing voices getting stronger. Just when I was going to yell for help, a motor begins and the reality that this is entrance is not a lobby area but a train that I am on, strikes me heavily. All doors open and I am able to exit freely. I…, I don’t understand. Why was I here just sitting and what business uses a train as their entrance or lobby. More so I wondered to myself to question what train traps it’s passengers inside! I stop and ask one of the construction workers why the train was not running. I am told that the site is owned by a Arabian dynasty of archeologists. The front entrance is being reconverted into a shrine. Since many people visit, not only will they have the opportunity to view new found pieces of unknown rock or metals, they also will have the opportunity to learn of or experience the Arabian culture and significant times of prayer. How they worship is to them, “key” to their findings. Therefore, everyday at 11a.m., they shut the site and train down for prayer while the shrine for now is under construction. The back entrance was a train with a track which has been lodged there for ages according to history. It was one of the first train tunnels made. They tested the train out but could not get it out of the tunnel. It’s lodged there so when the site was purchased, they made it apart of the experience. The entire tunnel that is actually being used is a lobby as well, but also a they’re sanctuary, until they are ready to open the front entrance when everything is completed. What can I say. I shook his hand and thanked him first for the opportunity to talk to someone else! But I had to inquire from him why the motor came on if the train was stuck. He helped me understand that the motor was just their form of an alarm to wake them in a shaking format which will not break their focus from prayer as a bell or alarm would. Wow. Now I’m a bit awestruck. I was trying to visit a site but entered into in a world I didn’t have knowledge of. I began to walk away, but turned because I was still a bit lost. I rushed back over to ask the man why no one woke me to let me know. What he said to me sealed my entire afternoon! He said upon entering the train, the other worshippers saw that you got on and your head was immediately bowed. They do not disturb during this time. They figured you were worshipping to. I just stood there in awe. I thanked him, took my jacket off in a very hot afternoon and headed back home with a chuckle on the inside. Letter to Me, You live and you learn.\nThe End." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: 1822, 1851, 1885\n\nGenre: historical-fiction\n\nWord Count: 2236\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story where a particular piece of clothing appears three times." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Sensitive content: mild reference to violence, trauma.\n\n\nGood stone streets, good stone buildings. Not far off from the proper French cities home across the ocean. The wind whistled down the Saint Lawrence, carrying the sickly-sweet city scent along with it. The late summer sun shone bright, providing a comfortable afternoon heat. Shouts and clamor from the port echoed behind Denis, the ship that carried him from his old life now docked and still.\n\nHe took in the sights, legs adjusting to solid ground again. He prayed as he walked, giving thanks for his safe passage.\n\nEverywhere he looked, men had broad sashes of red wool tied around their waist, all manner of designs about them. White, blue, yellow, and green laced their way through the red, a striking look paired with the bright red toque. Curious, thought Denis. He spied a shop, lengths of red wool hanging in the window. The Company recruiters will be there all day. I rather like this New World fashion.\nDenis entered the shop with a knock and a bonjour. The clerk stood cleaning his polished wood counter, goods upon goods behind him. “Bonjour,” said the clerk, his colony accent thick with a rather… unrefined manner. “What can I do for you, mister?”\n\n“Would I be able to look at some of those sashes?” asked Denis.\n\n“Ah! You want a ceinture fléché? Yes, yes, very popular item for a while now. Quickest way to look Québécois, non?”\n\n“Ha! That’s a good point, mister. It was hard leaving the Old Country behind, but I am glad to see my Countrymen thriving out here.”\n\nThe clerk looked over his shoulder, then sauntered over to a bundle of the ceintures. “Thrive we do, friend,” he said as he laid the pile of fabric on the counter. “Work and land are more abundant this side of the ocean, so says mon grand-père.”\n\nDenis ran his fingers along the ceintures, appreciating the quality, the sheer craftsmanship. “Wool, non? Are these loomed?”\n\n“Ah, the workmanship is precise, eh? These are finger-woven if you can believe.”\n\nDenis held up ceinture after ceinture; he chose one to stop and appraise. Woven in were two lines of arrows, yellow and green in the center. Another line, blue and white, pointed the opposite way at each edge. “I can believe it. Such beautiful, careful work.”\n\n“That one, friend, is a more common design. Very popular.” The clerk eyed Denis, wrinkled clothes and unkempt beard telling. “If you don’t mind, when did you land ashore?”\n\nDenis set the ceinture down, reaching for one with pairs of green and white diamonds weaved within the length of fabric. “Just this past hour, truth be told. I meant to head straight for the Company office, but these called to me,” said Denis, holding the ceinture up to inspect.\n\n“You flatter me too much, my friend.” The clerk started separating the ceintures, allowing Denis easier viewing. “The Company’s a good choice. Hard work, sure, but they promise adventure, and adventure they do deliver. Are you hoping to work the Lakes?”\n\n“The Lakes?” Denis set the ceinture down for another. “Too settled, I hear. Too settled is why I left France. I'm hoping for la vallée de la Rivière Rouge, where the land is beautiful, and the women,” Denis grinned, “even more so. So I’ve heard,” he said with a shrug.\n\nThe clerk let out a laugh. “Ah, you'll be wintering at Selkirk’s Colony for years, friend. You’re far from the first.” He picked out a ceinture, one broad blue and white arrow, weaved center to edges. “I think this one will look sharp on you,” he said, handing the ceinture to Denis. “Mister…?”\n\n“Primeau.” Denis accepted it, holding it against his waist. “Look sharp, yes. I’m guessing hand-woven will cost me heavy, non? Why else should I buy one?”\n\nThe clerk’s expression shifted, all seriousness now. “Well! You can tie your coat closed, tuck your tobacco pouch and fire-bag into it.” He ran his hands to the fringed ends: red, white, and blue. “Spare threads to mend your clothes in the field. It can even be a tourniquet in the direst of situations. Everything a man needs for a life on the frontier.” The clerk closed his oft-recited script with a smile.\n\n“Ha! Good sell, friend. I was willing buy one regardless.” Denis fumbled his coin pouch out from his coat, then tied his new ceinture around his waist.\n\n“Just take caution out west, friend. The lands can be… wild still.”\n\n“Merci, but I have caution enough,” said Denis. “I try make right with the Lord. He leads me in the right paths.”\n“That He does,” said the clerk. “That He does.”\n\n\n\n\nMarc reached below his waist, snapping a blue thread free from the fringes of his father’s sayncheur flayshii. “Lii bufloo, they ran hard today,” he said, handing the thread to his wife, Anne-Marie.\n\n“Taapway,” said Anne-Marie, now threading her needle. “Lii bufloo ran so hard they shook Joseph from his horse!” Those gathered around the campfire laughed.\n\nWith the day’s work done, the Hunt and harvest well behind the setting sun, the families gathered amongst themselves. They drew their wagons and carts into a large circle, making camp within, preparing to rest and celebrate. Fiddle music rose in the air, along with sounds of singing and dancing, cheering and laughter; fragrant wood smoke tinged with roasting bison meat rose into the calm, prairie evening as well.\n\n“Hey!” said Joseph. “It’s the horse, I tell you. He’s too skittish! I had to really coax him to get that close to the herd.” He sat on the bench, blanket draped over his lap, while his sister mended the tear in the seat of his pants.\n\n“You could keep a firmer grip on your saddle, nishiimish. You might shoot yourself next time you hit the ground.”\n\n“Or” said Marc, “you can find your own wife to sew your pants up!” The campfire roared with laughter again. Marc reached for the leather pouch tucked beneath his sash. Retrieving the clay pipe within, he loaded it with tobacco. Lighting a twig aflame with the campfire, he brought it to the bowl, lighting his pipe’s contents with one puff, then another.\n\n“Elizabeth is very pretty,” said Anne-Marie. “I’ve seen her watching you at the dances. Besides, you know I want Biibii René to have lii koozin.”\n\n“Elizabeth is English-born, though,” said Joseph.\n\n“And?” asked Marc. “I think the Michif girls are too pretty for you anyway!” The folks ‘round the fire laughed harder than ever. Sensing his brother-in-law’s displeasure, he pushed the topic aside. “But maybe you can bring toon vyayloon out soon. I’d like to hear some reels, Joseph.” \n\n“Bah! Reels can wait for another night. Did you all not see Dakota watching us on the plains today?”\n\n“Dakota,” said Marc, “don’t like it when we stray too far from li Rivyayr Roozh when we come south. I reckon they’ll be looking for a fight. We can’t help where lii bufloo go.”\n\nAnne-Marie held up her work, tear now mended. Beaded flowers, glowing faint against the dim firelight, were sewn up the legs of the buckskin trousers. “Fight all you want, boys. Just mind where you get shot. I’d hate to see nimaamaa’s work go to waste.”\n\nMarc felt at the floral beadwork adorning the front of his buckskin coat; red, white, and blue to match his sayncheur. His mother-in-law’s handiwork was exceptional. “Wii, kimaamaa would scold me for years.”\n\n“Why must we fight? They should let us hunt in peace,” said Joseph.\n\n“Maybe one day our people can make peace,” said Marc. “But for now, ready yourself for a fight. Besides, we have our rifles, we have each other and, above all, we have the Lord.”\n\n“Taapway,” agreed Anne-Marie.\n\nMarc ran his hand along his sayncheur, remembering his father’s words. “Make right with the Lord, Joseph, and He will lead you in the right paths. Then, moon frayr, you will not be fearing the fight.”\n\n“You never come to Mass anymore,” said Anne-Marie. “Father Laflèche was happy to come on the Hunt with us.”\n\n“True, true. Go see the Father tonight, then come to Mass in the morning. It’s never too late to make things right. Besides,” Marc smiled, “the prayers are beautiful out here on the prairies.”\n\n“Okay, okay,” said Joseph. “Give me my pants back first, then.”\n\n\n\n\nRené tightened his grandfather’s sayncheur around his stomach, staunching the blood leaking from the shot there in his gut. He and Henry sat with their backs against the wall, admiring just how fine of a church they had built here in Batoche.\n\n“What do you think they’re talking about?” asked Henry, nodding his head toward Riel and Dumont, conversing near the front of the church.\n\n“I think it’s best if it stays between them,” answered René. Dumont had tears streaming down his face, while Riel was stoic as ever. They reached to shake hands, then Dumont pulled them into an embrace. The larger man’s weeps shook him against his friend.\n\n“It’s hard to see him like this,” said Henry.\n\n“Wii, he’s a good kommandant. It must be hard for him to see us like this too.” René wriggled around, unable to get comfortable. The bullet burned deep within his belly. He looked down at his sayncheur, old brown blood staining the white threads, the fresh red blood blending into the red threads.\n\n“A wound like that is a death sentence, my friend,” said Henry, wincing as he watched René clutch his stomach.\n\n“True, but that’s what the British are bringing come morning. Either this wound takes me, or I’ll be hanging within the week.”\n\nHenry looked at the floor with despair. Dumont, finished with his farewells, thundered down past the pews, throwing the doors open to steal away into the still night air.\n\n“It’s not too late for you either, Henry,” said René. “There’s no shame in running to see a new day.”\n\n“No, no. It was my choice to follow Louis. It’s still my choice, following him until the end.” Henry watched Riel as he knelt at the altar in prayer. “He’s a good man; he always wanted the best for his people.”\n\n“He’s always loved the Lord, that Louis.” René felt at the frayed fabric wrapped around his belly. His hand found the thinned-out fringes at the end, played with the remaining threads while he remembered comforting, familiar words. “’Make right with the Lord, and He will lead you in the right paths,’ nipaapaa and nimooshoom always told us so. I believed it true.”\n\n“Your father and grandfather, they sound like they were good men. It’s not that I doubt our Lord, but how? How can you believe He’s leading us right?”\n\n“I do, simple as that. Look at Louis, he weeps not for what comes. He’s at peace, and so am I.”\n\nThey sat together, hushed conversations of other pairs and groups buzzing quiet.\n“You know,” said Henry, “you speak good English for being Michif.”\n\n“And you, my friend, are actually good company. Considering that you’re English-born.” They laughed together, pain forgotten until René gave into a coughing fit, the bullet burning again. “I’m glad to have met and fought alongside you, Henry. What’s your family name?”\n\n“Robertson. My grandfather, his father was a Scotchman. Signed with the company, chasing ‘adventure.’ He fell for an Ojibwe woman while working the Lakes. You?”\n\n“Primeau. My grandfather landed at Québec City. He heard about Lord Selkirk’s little project, so he headed west. He fell in love with a Michif woman, marrying her as soon as he could.” They sat silent again a moment. “Primeau, it means ‘first’ in English; yet I'm the last of my friends to die. This battle’s been hard.”\n\n“We did so well at Duck Lake. What happened?”\n\n“There’s just too many British; even their weapons are too much. My friend P’tit Pierre stood too close to a cannon shot. He took metal in the gut like this,” René gestured to his stomach. “It ripped him right open though. He… he tried to hold his insides in.”\n\nHenry’s eyes focused as if staring into the distance. “My little brother was taken by a cannon shot too. His leg flew right off. He cried and cried for our mum.” Henry’s head fell back against the wall. He blinked away tears. “What will happen to our people?”\n\nRené’s gaze fell upon Riel, then wandered above to the altar, then higher still to the crucifix affixed highest of all. “My wife and children fled towards the mountains. My hope is that our music, our languages will survive. Our dress is certain to fade, but our people will live.” Left hand on his wound, René touched his right hand to his forehead, brought it down to his chest, and then left shoulder to right. “Failing all else, our faith will live on. Our children can always turn to Christ, no matter how hard the days get.”\n\n“You really are at peace, aren’t you?” Henry dabbed at the tears trailing down his dirt and blood-speckled cheeks. “I’m so scared. I… I miss my family. My wife, she's expecting, you know. I can’t imagine how hard fleeing is for her.”\n\nRené ran his hand along his sayncheur one last time. “I'm sure they will find the right paths.” He closed his eyes, praying he’d wake to see just one last sunrise." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: The Dress\n\nGenre: historical-fiction\n\nWord Count: 2013\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story where a particular piece of clothing appears three times." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Lulu loved watching her mother sew. It was a delicate art, weaving needle and thread to join two parts of cloth together and creating intricate embroideries. Lulu herself tried to imitate what she saw – under her mother’s guidance – only twice before she’d had enough of pricking herself with the fine needle. Instead, she was perfectly content sitting on the arm of the old sofa, peering over her mother’s shoulder as she worked in the rocking chair. She would draw the focused look her mother’s face had as she worked, and her nimble hands. She was an artist, too, she just preferred an art form with less risk of injury. Often she would sketch designs for her mother who in turn would transform them to reality.\nNothing Lulu ever saw out in the world compared to her mother’s designs, but she liked taking inspiration from the shape of a skirt or the shiny material used on a dress she would see at the store or in a magazine.\nWhen she turned eighteen, Lulu and her mother officially joined forces, creating a simple business based on Lulu’s drawings and her mother’s craftsmanship. They mostly sold to friends and locals, and they were happy doing so. To honor their partnership, Lulu’s mother gifted her the best dress yet, based on a years-old sketch buried in her things. It was blush pink and decorated with ornate floral detailing.\nHer mother continued to sew her beautiful dresses and skirts and shirts and pants, and Lulu continued designing garments, but none would ever come close to the dress. She adored it more than anything in the world. She wore it at home, she wore it to the beach, she wore it to run errands, she wore it to dances. \nShe fell in love in it. She would have gotten married in it too, if her mother hadn’t sewn her an (almost) equally beautiful wedding gown. Some said she wanted to be buried in it, but she collapsed during a disorderly house move and no one could find which box she had stored it in.\nPoppy’s mother always taught her to cherish clothes. Not a seamstress herself; she had many friends in the industry and knew in detail the toil that went into crafting a garment. Poppy was always instructed to wear her clothes often and with pride, because someone else had put a lot of love and effort into piecing them together. \nWhere Poppy lived, everyone always had the newest everything. Her mother wasn’t like that, either out of necessity or mindfulness, so Poppy mostly stuck to what she already owned, or what had already been owned. At first, she was embarrassed. She was good at observing the other kids, counting how many times they’d rewear an item, and calculating the turnaround time for what was trendy and what was out of style. Over the years it seemed that time grew briefer and briefer, and Poppy grew to understand her mother’s slower approach at life. \nShe didn’t really care about fashion. What was the point, after all, if she could never buy the newest and most fashionable things. She had clothes on her back, and that was what mattered.\nAs a teenager, however, she discovered a love of clothing. Every few months she would receive a small allowance to spend at the local secondhand shop. She would spend hours exploring the many rows of the store – one of the only place she was allowed to shop – feeling the decades old fabrics. Often, she wouldn’t buy anything at all. Her mother made sure she had all the necessities, and the rest Poppy collected through birthdays and holidays. She spent her time at the store studying the outfits on the mannequins, rushing home to recreate them to the best of her ability with clothing she already had. She loved the challenge.\nAs a result of her frugality, her allowance mostly sat in a drawer, slowly accumulating. She didn’t even consider it when she made her regular trip to the secondhand shop a few months before her high school graduation. She wanted to examine the fancier dresses they had, perhaps sketch them down. She’d received a sewing machine as a hand-me-down from a relative and had planned to make the dress from scratch.\nThe store changed out the window display every month or so, but with exams Poppy hadn’t really paid it any mind. She always noted how the mannequins were dressed, but this day one particular dress caught her eye. \nIt certainly wasn’t up to current trends; it must have been at least twenty years old. Still, it was hard to date, even with Poppy’s extensive fashion knowledge. It was hard to look away from.\nThere was a magical air to it, perhaps because of the sheer overlay that added a mystical shimmer to the dress. She stared at it, enamored, before running home to collect her wallet of saved up cash.\nShe wore it beyond graduation of course. The moment she’d put it on it felt like a match made in heaven. She had never seen such embroideries and her mother’s voice echoed in her head, reminding her the love that goes into such a craft. After four years of university, she wore it again to receive her diploma, and again and again after that. \nShe was visiting her hometown and beloved secondhand store when she met a woman that complimented her dress, and from there they got to know each other. They soon got married.\nPoppy, too, would have been buried in the dress if she could justify it, but she knew it was too precious a piece to be subject to eternity underground. When it started to grow tight at the seams and she feared she would tear her most prized possession, she finally acquired a mannequin of her own and kept it on display. She tried her best to replicate the dress, but she was never quite able to capture something about its extraordinary nature. She wasn’t sad; it was enough to be able to admire it day in and day out until she passed.\nMaisy was a shopaholic. She loved to shop and she did it often. She loved the thrill of bringing a hoard of bags home with new clothing. She loved knowing she was on trend. She liked to think she was living in the golden age of fashion. She could drive to the mall and buy four t-shirts for less than $20 total. Better yet, she could browse through online catalogs and have 10 new outfits for less than $100 lined up in her cart before the school bell even rang. It was exhilarating from the moment she pressed purchase to waiting for the package to arrive at her doorstep. It was a consumerist utopia and she was a professional.\nShe had 10k on Instagram, growing every day of course. She fancied herself a trendsetter, though she would never be seen in last week’s outfit, obviously. She loved the clothes, but nothing beat the rush of the credit card charge, or showing to the world – or at least, 10,000 people, give or take – that she could rock a unique look every day. \nMost days she came home, thrilled to see a familiar pile of boxes waiting with her name on them. She’d spend at least two hours trying each brand-new outfit on and planning her Instagram feed for the next week before stuffing them inside her packed wardrobe.\nHer parents had always encouraged her love of fashion. Since she was young, she’d present fashion shows to her family. It was her mother that fuelled her shopping addiction, really, feeding into her love of clothing by taking her to the mall weekly as a kid.\nConsequently, she didn’t see it coming when her parents cut her off. Suddenly, according to her folks, she had a shopping problem, and her generous weekly shopping allowance was reduced to zero. It was her worst nightmare come true. \nShe had to attend school in repeated outfits, and she didn’t dare show her face on social media. She watched despairingly as her follower count diminished, while her parents attempted to distract her by encouraging her to look through her closet. They seemed concerned that, in their words, with everything she already owned, she still wanted more to be happy.\nShe’d never really taken the time to look through her closet. She had a routine, which involved purchasing, photographing, public display twice maximum, before it got tossed in the closet. Admittedly, the wardrobe had reached an intimidating level of inventory. She was almost afraid to open it, and for good reason. When she finally mustered up the courage to open the doors, the clothes that came tumbling out covered her bedroom floor. \nOver the years, Maisy had accumulated a collection of clothing practically as large as the online catalogs she shopped. Some items she hardly recognized, having worn them only a handful of times, if that, years prior. She realized her situation wasn’t so bad. If she couldn’t shop new, she could at least shop her closet.\nEventually she resumed her Instagram account, and to her surprise no one seemed to mind that she rewore the clothing she owned. No one at school cared either. She began enjoying the process of finding new ways to wear old clothes, even if she occasionally missed the dopamine rush of a day spent shopping.\nYears later, Maisy was apartment hunting and found herself in front of an aged building, a sign indicating that an estate sale was going on. Maisy didn’t really picture herself finding anything, but she was curious about what the inside looked like.\nThe auctioneer was eager to sell anything and everything to Maisy, who apparently was the only person to stop by for the day. She was told the life story of two women, one of which had been very invested in fashion, noting and complimenting Maisy’s personal style. Despite how much it had evolved, Maisy had trouble imagining she would find anything in the collection of a woman well over 90. \nIt was bizarre walking through the home of the recently deceased women. Maisy wandered into the bedroom, which felt most somber. The bed was neatly made and curtains drawn open, as if the couple had simply woken up this morning, tidied up, and gone about their day. An ancient looking sewing machine sat on a desk, and behind the desk by the window was a mannequin with a stunning dress on.\nMaisy felt drawn to it as if a spell had been cast on her; it was like nothing she’d ever seen.. \nThe dress flowed off the mannequin, sparkling in the sunlight seeping through the window. The closer she got, the more she could see incredibly detailed embroideries across the body of the dress. It was a shade of pink she couldn’t quite put her finger on, only slightly faded with age. \nShe took it home, at a steal of a price. She soon found an apartment, and was tempted to display it as the previous owner had, but it fit her like a glove and she could hardly envision herself ever taking it off. Maisy had grown to appreciate each piece that she owned, but none were loved like the dress. \nAfter ages of owning and loving the dress, thinking she’d scrutinized every detail, Maisy discovered something new. As she hung it up to dry, she noticed the hand-stitched tag, marked Lulu Jennings. \nJust like her predecessors, Maisy Jennings found a reason to wear the dress as much as possible. She felt invincible when she wore it, feeling it had found its way to her for a reason.\nMaisy raised a daughter who loved fashion, vintage especially. When she turned eighteen, Maisy passed on the dress, on the condition that her daughter continue the tradition and pass it on to her own children. Her daughter dutifully promised she that would, and the Jennings dress lived on, always appreciated, always loved." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: The Trials of Ralph of Hairstow-on-Stretford\n\nGenre: historical-fiction\n\nWord Count: 2349\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about a character who wakes up in someone else’s clothes — or utterly weird apparel they don’t recognize as their own." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "It’s a slap what wakes me, right across my face. Is that Gemma, I wonder? Before my eyes can open I loose a mighty burp and trumpet a righteous wind.\n“Good lord!” a man yells.\n“By all that’s holy!” says another. “That is foul indeed!”\nI try to open my eyes. My lids are thick, heavy, covered with honey or something. When I crack them it’s painful bright out and I wince. I could have sworn it was night just a moment ago, but everything’s blurry. Vision, memory, all of it. Like that time Gemma said she was expecting yet another mouth to feed.\nI’m on my feet. In town? In the market? Two men hold me by the arms. They’re big and they have cudgels at their belts. There’s a third one in front of me with a pointy white beard and a fancy kettle helmet. He scowls like he’s drunk a pot of piss.\n“Have you no shame?” he says.\nI try to speak but my mouth’s sticky too. Filled with wool, feels like. I hack up something yellow and spit on the ground. It’s when I notice something’s wrong with my legs. I’m not wearing my boots. I’m not even wearing my hose. And everything looks like it’s covered in… feathers?\nA bolt of thunder rips through my head and I grunt. That’ll be the devil taking his due for all that beer last night. I swear, this time I might be done with the stuff. At least for a few days.\n“Put him up!” the man in front shouts, and his two thugs start walking me. “Let’s get this over with.”\n“What’s happening?” I manage. My voice croaks and I cough again. It’s unbelievable how dry my mouth is. It’s like I’ve eaten one of those charred bricks Gemma calls bread.\n“Ralph from Hairstow-on-Stretford,” the man with the beard says. I think he does, anyway. My head’s spinning and I stare at the muddy ground. Something’s carving up my guts from the inside and I feel it coming up.\nOh, it’s just a belch. But it’s loud, loud enough I think even the Good Lord appreciates it. And oh Lord, does it ever feel good getting rid of that.\n“Bloody hell!” the bearded man says. “Just put him in.”\nThe two men holding me push me forward and then shove my head down. My neck and hands are resting on a wooden bar. Then there’s a crash all around me. My ears ring. I instinctively pull up but find I can’t move. My head and my hands are stuck.\nThey put me in a bloody pillory!\n“Well now,” says the bearded man, standing in front of me. He’s got a taxman’s grin.\nNo matter how hard I struggle, I can’t move. The wood is too heavy, too tight. I can barely rotate my head. At least I can breathe.\n“What’s the meaning of this, eh?” I say.\n“Ralph of Hairstow-on-Stretford,” he says again. Don’t like how he says my name like that, all long and official like. “That is who you are, correct?”\n“Yeah, what of it?”\n“For your antics last night,” he says, biting each of his words like he was eating one of Gemma’s meals and was expecting it to bite back. Which it might. “For your disturbing of the night’s peace, for your public disorder, and for your wanton drunkenness, you are hereby sentenced to the pillory until Vespers.”\n“You’ve got the wrong man!”\n“You just admitted you’re Ralph.”\nHmm. This one’s clever.\n“And besides,” he says. He walks right up right to me, shoves his face nearly in mine so’s our noses is almost touching. “To call you a man would be most uncharitable to real men.” Ouch. “I see nary but a scofflaw, a blaggard. A wild beast.”\nHe steps back and his face softens, looking very much like my dear old dad right before the tree flattened him. “Take this time to reflect on your life, and pray God will have mercy on your soul, because if you stay on this path you’re bound for the noose.”\nMy guts start writhing something fierce and I let another one tear. Something I ate last night must have really not sat well with me, like any meal Gemma has ever made.\n“Disgusting,” says the bearded man, and then he and his goons stalk off. Pfft. Who needs them.\nI jostle about but the pillory holds firm. As a carpenter I appreciate the craftsmanship. As a man stuck in the pillory, not as much.\nMy neck hurts – well, my everything hurts, but my neck hurts particularly – so I give it a rest and look down. I see my feet and legs again, and when I wiggle my toes I confirm, without a doubt, I have no boots. And no hose. And there are feathers everywhere. I’m covered in them. Fluffy white feathers everywhere, and a thick, greasy, sticky, sickly yellow brown underneath.\nBloody hell! Have I been tarred and feathered? What kind of monster tars and feathers a man just for having a quiet evening brew with his friends? Have we been conquered by the bleeding Huns? A sudden wave of itch washes over me, on top of all the bruises both inside and out. I’ve seen many a man get tarred before and I’m not looking forward to peeling the stuff off. Leaves your skin red and raw for days. Like listening to Gemma go on about the rent.\nWhen I see my maypole dangle in the wind I yelp and flinch. Not a lot of room to flinch in a pillory though.\n“Bloody hell!” They took my hose and feathered me everywhere.\n“Stop your fidgeting,” a man says.\nI look to my right and see my pillory is actually a two-fer. It’s one of the double models, and there’s another inmate beside me. A man about my age, looks a mite familiar but I can’t quite place his face. It’s a little plain, like a turnip. I guess if he’s here with me this morning he must have been there with me last night too.\n“Hey mate!” I say. “Quite a night, innit?”\nI think he says “yes” but it kind of sounds like a huff. I take a closer look at him, which isn’t easy what with being stuck in this thing, and I see he has his boots and his hose. And his tunic. And he’s not been tarred nor feathered!\n“Hey! Why didn’t they tar and feather you?”\n“You don’t get tarred and feathered for disturbing the peace.”\n“Well then why’d they do it to me!?”\n“They didn’t,” he says. And I swear there’s a little smirk on his smug turnip.\n“Well then who did?”\n“’Twas I.” Yes, definitely a smirk.\n“What!?” The cheek on this one. “Why? What did I ever do to you?”\nHis smirk turns to a snarl. “Because, you wanker, you hit on my wife! Right in front of everyone. The bloody nerve of it.”\nI remember – vaguely. Loud singing in good company, a roaring fire keeping the spring chill at bay, and ceaseless beer for endless cheer. Ah, yes, and there she is. She sways in on voluptuous hips, Aphrodite risen from the waves. Her bosom a sunkiss’d mountain, bouncing with each delicate step like… um… a very large bosom indeed. We spent the peerless eve in quiet consultation, discussing poetics and the beautifuller things in life.\nNot at all like that spindly reed, Gemma. Though fair is fair, I’ll grant she’s a mighty lass what with chopping all that firewood.\n“Well forgive me,” I say. “But what man can resist such beauty? And anyway, is that a reason to tar and feather a body?”\n“Truth be told, I’d have been satisfied giving you a thrashing. But you started a riot and fled before we got our hands on you. The tarring was for running. And for the sheep.”\nI choke on my breath. “The what?”\n“The sheep. Why do you think the reeve was so keen on getting you into the pillory this morning?”\nOh sweet Lord above, what!? I don’t remember a thing.\n“Gave them a righteous fright,” he continues. “We found you coddling Beth when we finally tracked you down. Half way across town. All the other sheep gone, scattered into the hills.” He tsks. “And the hell you raised! Bloody near woke everyone.”\nMy memories are a blur, but something’s coming back. I remember jumping a fence. An old woman yelling. There was a dog that spoke to me, and I crossed a field and–\n“–Ow!” I yell, as something strikes me across the arse. Children laugh.\n“John-John,” says the other inmate. “Come here.” A pair of boys round the pillory from behind us. They look about ten and one of the rosy cheeked little shites is holding a big stick.\n“Yes da?” says the boy.\n“Go on home now and help your mama out.”\n“Yes da,” he says. He looks forlornly at his stick, then drops it and runs off. His companion runs with him, but turns around and throws a half-eaten apple at me. I close my eyes to shield myself from the worst of it, except the worst of it hits me in the gooseberries.\n“Best get used to that,” the man says. “The folk here love a good pillory. It’ll get real fun when the market opens.”\n“Great.” I feel sick. I can’t believe I’m thinking it, but maybe I have drunk too much. Lord, if Gemma saw me now I’d never hear the end of it. “Look mate, I want to, erm, apologize. You know, if I’ve done you any harm and all.”\nHe grunts. “Tell it to the Good Lord above.”\n“No, I mean it. I’ve not been well. Things haven’t been… they’ve not been well at home. With my own wife.”\n“Please stop talking, Ralph.”\n“She’s turned so cold, so cold. Like a fish. Like the heart of winter, only she has no heart. Her whole wretched family is like that. All of them, born on the wrong side of the river. Bloody fish-people. You know what I mean.”\nHis face gets red.\n“And money’s been tight! Isn’t it always, friend, isn’t it always.”\n“I do just fine.” His teeth are clenched.\n“And all this talk of war has me so worried. Is it true? Is the king fighting the Huns?”\nHe grunts. “The Huns? Are you daft? There’s not been a Hun for centuries. What next? The Romans?”\n“The French then, whatever. Can you blame a man, with all this upheaval about?”\nHe rolls his eyes.\n“Oh!” I say, just realizing where I’ve seen him before. “You’re Osbert, aren’t you? The barkeep?”\n“Right.”\n“A pleasure to meet you, Osbert.”\n“We’ve met before, you dolt.”\n“Right,” I say. “Yesterday. Only my memory’s not too great.”\n“Yesterday nothing, Ralph! Dozens of times. Last time just in the autumn when your fourth was born.” He looks at me as though he expects something but I have no idea what it might be. I don’t know why people are always doing that. Maybe there’s something going round. “For the sake of the Lord, Ralph! I’m Gemma’s cousin!”\n“Oh!” Right. That’s where I’ve seen Osbert before. Right.\nWe stand in silence for a while, because that’s how pillories work. Well, I’m silent anyway, trying to will my skin to stop crawling. Osbert keeps muttering under his breath. Seems like he’s mad about something.\nEvery passing breeze gives me goose bumps but the blighted pine tar gunks it all up and makes everything feel off. It’s like my skin’s crawling over and under itself, and it reminds me of Gemma descaling fish. That’s nice of her ’cause I don’t like scales, it’s just a shame she goes on to ruin the rest of the fish too. On the bright side, the feathers are pretty warm. Not as nice as my hose and tunic, but it could be worse. Actually, they might be better than my clothes.\nThat’s when it hits me. Osbert is Gemma’s cousin. Cousin Osbert. Right, I’d come to town for a reason.\n“Osbert!”\n“What is it now!?” he snaps.\n“Osbert, old chum, listen. As I said, things are a little tight at home. Me and Gem were wondering, could you spot us a loan?”\nHe turns to me, as much as he’s able in the pillory. His eyes are wide and his jaw hangs slack. “A loan? How absolutely shameless! Not a shred of it! No I will not give you a loan, you reprobate.”\n“Please?”\n“You haven’t even paid me for all the beer and food you pissed away yesterday!”\n“Well, I’ll pay you when I get the loan.”\nOsbert starts laughing, big heaving guffaws.\nWell that’s just great. Wait till Gemma hears about this. Her cousin is an absolute boor and won’t even come to the aid of his family. And for all he knows, we’re dying! A Hun if ever I saw one. I tell you, men in Hairstow-on-Stretford don’t behave like that.\nNevertheless, I’m here on a mission. I need to try to sway his wicked heart. “If you’d have come to me for money–”\nHe just laughs louder.\nIt takes him a good while to settle down, and if I’m honest, I’m starting to find this whole pillory thing demeaning. But finally I hear the church bells ring, and our time is up. I cheer.\n“What are you so happy about?” Osbert says.\n“The bells, Osbert! We’re free now. Let’s go grab a beer and talk about that loan.”\nAgain he stares at me. He mumbles something, sounds like “Blessed are the simple,” but I have no idea why. Then he says, “That’s just Terce, Ralph. We’re here till Vespers. Well after sunset.”\nPeople start filing into the market, which was empty a moment before, and the noise of them fills the air. “Terce also marks the opening of the market,” he adds.\n“Bloody hell!”\nIt’s going to be a long day. I miss Gemma." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Masked Prison\n\nGenre: historical-fiction\n\nWord Count: 1712\n\nPrompt:\n\nSet your story at a global fashion event — or a carnival ball." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "The magician led Evie to a room she had never been to before. There were a lot of rooms she had not been to within that vast house that seemed to contain entire countries behind its locked doors. Her midnight blue dress, a gift from the magician, shuffled at her feet as she attempted to keep up with his long strides. Each of her steps caused the shimmer of her dress to catch on the candlelight; sparkles danced on the walls around them as they glided down the halls. \n\nThey came to a door with an ornate handle. It looked old and untouched for decades. The magician produced a key from his tailcoat and unlocked it; she followed as he stepped inside. \nWith a flick of his wrist, the candles in the room crackled to life, igniting the dust on their wicks with a quick spark. Dust evaporated in fire. \n\nThe light revealed a room equally ornate as its handle; rich brown wood floor, and deep red drapes engulfed the windows, hiding a starless night. Positioned around the room stood elegant shelves; but it was what sat on top of those shelves that caused her breath to catch. Each shelf held on top of it several elaborate masks; some were half masks, and some would cover her entire face; beautifully ornamented yet all haunting. \n\n“We cannot show up to a masquerade without a mask,” the magician’s voice came from behind her. She turned to meet his gaze.\n\n “Can I choose any mask I wish?”\n\nHe nodded to her, with that same bored expression he always wore for her. Perhaps she should choose a mask for him that would compel him to be a bit more animated. \n\n“Choose wisely, Evie,” he warned. “Each mask will change you into an entirely different person. Think carefully about who you want to become.”\n\nShe rolled her eyes. “I should have guessed as much. A mask can’t just be a mask with you,” she teased. \n\nHe did not laugh, but did, however, let out a low “hmm” sound from deep in his throat. As close to a laugh as she would ever get from him. \n\nEvie scanned the shelves, taking in each mask and the impression of the person she might become. Her thoughts strayed to an old acquaintance; Arabella. In that moment, she recalled Arabella’s confidence and radiating personality. They came out to society during the same season. Though, where Evie had been a wallflower avoiding the dances, Arabella had her dance card perpetually full. Her laugh was hypnotic and drew everyone to her. Evie had been jealous, and never understood how someone could be so effortlessly carefree. Arabella’s smile infected the men in a plague of lust, turning every male gaze as soon as she would enter any room. \n\nEvie approached a mask decorated with deep purple roses that gleamed with radiance that caught the eye, held it, hypnotized just like Arabella would. \n\n“That is who you wish to become,” asked the magician, as if he could see Arabella, knew her the way she had. His tone held a hint of judgement in it. At least Evie thought it might if he cared enough to judge, which she knew he did not. He picked up a mask from a nearby shelf without so much as looking at it; “Lets go”. \n\nThey rode in the carriage in silence. He stared out the window. Her gaze bounced between him and the dark trees that rushed by as the horses dashed towards their destination. \n\n“Remember why you’re there tonight, Evie,” the magician reminded. “Don’t get caught up in the festivities. Stay focused.”\n\nShe took a deep breath. Evie recalled the conversation she had with the magician in his library shortly after she came to his home, seeking his guidance. Evie was at risk of becoming a spinster with no place in society, a burden on her family. Though Evie never did particularly want a husband to begin with. If she had, she would have tried harder during her London seasons. But as the years went, her family became more and more cross with her. “A woman should be married,” they would comment under their breath, wanting to insult her, but being too polite to say anything directly. Her family treated her as a villain, as if she embarrassed them. So she did what any desperate woman would do in her position; she sought a magician to fix her situation, though he would not name a price. \n\nThe only way to fix her situation, he surmised, was to find a husband. And the only way she could do that was to become a completely different person. Evie couldn’t help but to feel insulted, initially. Though given her record, she also couldn't help but agree with the magician’s assessment. Evie was nearing twenty-three years old, and her hopes of finding a husband were all but non-existent. \n\nThe Earl of Carnarvon would hold the carnival ball to celebrate the end of the social season, and Evie’s last chance before she would officially be too old to be desired. The magician determined it to be the perfect opportunity to alter her prospects.\n\n“Put on the mask,” the magician commanded, placing his own over his face as they approached the estate. His was a simple mask, silver fabric that covered half his face across the eyes. \n\nAs they approached, Evie felt the expectations of her family crashing into her. Crowds of people swarmed out from their own carriages dressed in a menagerie of animals and characters. Laughter rose ‌through the air and hung there, filling the space with a feeling of excitement and lightness. \n\nShe fastened the mask behind her head, covering her entire face. She felt a rush flood through her; little sparks traveled down her body while a fog rolled behind her eyes. Their carriage came to a halt, and the magician helped her down. Offering his arm, he led her inside, passing by contortionists, juggling jesters, and men blowing fire out of their mouths like dragons. It all felt like a dream to Evie. Reality was transforming around her, yet also stayed the same. No. It was her that was transforming, she realized. \n\nAll at once, she felt giddy and excited for the evening to come. She never felt excited about any of these events before, but ‌she did now. As they entered the grand foyer, she felt every single man’s gaze slide towards her. This was certainly an experience she was unfamiliar with. She leaned into the magician and whispered, “What’s happening? Why are they all staring at me?”\n\nHe leaned into her this time; “They are noticing you, just like they would notice Arabella. They find you desirable.”\n\nDesirable? Evie thought. She had never been desirable before in her life. She felt as if she were two people in one body. One was herself, shy and uncomfortable; observing this other person who was forcing her way in. Arabella. Or Evie as Arabella. It was the oddest feeling, but Evie no longer had control over herself. They did not make it over five feet into the room before men began approaching her, insisting on a turn to dance. Eventually, she lost sight of the magician as a random man led her to the dance floor. Half of Evie was in complete panic, but the other half was having the time of her life. Evie had longed to feel that way, and now she was. But Evie, the real Evie, absolutely despised every moment‌. \n\nThe room seemed to glitter like her dress as the soft notes of a violin fluttered through the room. Positioning her on the checkerboard dance floor, the man held Evie close in anticipation of a waltz. Masked dance partners next to her seemed to transform from her acquaintances to the animals of the masks they wore. \n\nThe orchestra played each song in quick succession as her many dance partners passed her off from one suitor to the next. The music was playing faster, or she was possibly slowing down. Evie felt dazed but could not stop dancing, decorum dictated that she could not, as the gentlemen would consider it insulting. She felt her feet ‌bleed as yet another song played. She did not know how many dances she took part in; but time seemed to stand still as the melodies encapsulated her soul and the delirium worsened.\n\nEvie laughed and flirted with each suitor that held her close. It was uncomfortable, yet ‌she also felt intoxicated by the excitement. Now, exhaustion prayed upon her. She forced her eyes to tear away from the man she danced with and scanned the room for the magician. She found him leaning up against a wall on the other side of the room. Her face was hurting from smiling so much, but she hoped he could read the terror in her eyes. Yet he did nothing. Instead, he looked on with that blank expression she was growing accustomed to. \n\nShe wanted to stop dancing, but that other half of her was enthralled and addicted. She fought to keep her eyes fixed on the magician, pleading for his help as she experienced complete euphoria. \n\nWithout warning, a thousand shocks shook through her body, vibrating down her middle, splitting her in half. The fog cleared from her eyes, and she felt like she was finally waking up from a dream. \n\nShe still couldn’t stop dancing. \n\nHer attention was no longer fixed on the magician, but ‌over the shoulder of her most recent dance partner. A woman stood staring at her in a mask that matched her own; Evie stared back. The woman reached up to her mask slowly and untied it, revealing her face. It was identical to Evie’s. Upon closer inspection, Evie realized she was staring at herself, as if looking into a mirror. Same hair, same outfit; it was undoubtedly her. \n\nTerror filled Evie as her doppelgänger smirked; Evie watched her turn, making her way towards the magician. He gave Evie a deep bow as he took her look-alike by the arm and led her out of the carnival ball; leaving Evie to her many dance partners and bleeding feet. A prisoner of despair stuck in a facade of elation." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Should I tell her?\n\nGenre: high-school\n\nWord Count: 1010\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about someone who is always looking toward the future." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Stella Montana, a 16-year-old girl, is planning stuff to do over the summer with her friends, thinking about what she should do when she finishes school, and wondering what she could do to make her last two years of high school the best two years for everyone. Stella loves to stay updated with everyone’s drama so she can help some people when needed if she could, she also loves to stay up to date on trends of whatever, she checks the weather for each week of school and picks out an outfit for each day of that week ahead of time, so she has time to do whatever she needs. Overall, Stella likes to be ahead thinking of what what could happen in her future next.\n\nIt’s Wednesday, 9:34 A.M. everyone was in the middle of class including Stella when their teacher stood up and said, “Good morning class! Today we will be having a new student here, he transferred here because he had some issues at his old school with kids there, but let’s all be nice and help him have a new good fresh start!”\n\nEveryone stops listening to what their teacher was saying and looks at the classroom door as the knob twists and the door opens. Walking through, there was a boy, he was tall, skinny but not at the same time, he has blonde hair and brown eyes, and he scanned everyone in the room for a split second but stood there and looked at Stella in the eyes for a good 15 seconds. Stella looks away feeling a bit uncomfortable, and she thought to herself, “Okay don’t make yourself look uncomfortable, that’s weird. I wonder what His name is, maybe I should ask.”\n\nHe stood in front of everyone and said, “Hi. My name is Xander, I just turned 16 a few days ago, and I hope we can be good friends.”\n\nThe bell for everyone’s next class rang seconds after he finished. As everyone made their way out the classroom Stella goes up to Xander and says, “Hello! My name is Stella, would you like some help getting to your classes?”\n\n“Yes actually, please.”\n\nThey both head out of the classroom talking to each other to their class, they have their next two classes together. And as they get close to their classroom a girl that looks a lot like Xander went up to him and said, “Hey bub! How’s it going so far with your first day?”\n\n“Uhhhhh, good. Can you go your Kinda embarrassing?” Xander grouches.\n\nThe girl looked hurt then said, “that’s not how your treat your sister, especially when we’re twins.”\nXander walked into class as she was talking. She said to Stella, “I’m sorry about that, him. I’m Faith, and I’m guessing your Stella? People were talking about you, nothing bad though. Sorry I know I talk a lot.”\n\n“Oh, it’s okay I love people that talk a lot! I heard that you both just transferred to this school, maybe we could hang out after school if you good with that so I can tell, you some stuff about our school.” Stella said.\n\n“That would be great actually! \"Faith replied.\n\nStella felt herself getting warm in the face, so she made an excuse to get to class.\n\nAfter school, Faith was waiting outside for Stella and said that, “Xander won’t be here he said he was going to hang out with some guys he met today.”\n\n“Okay that’s fine.” Stella replied.\n\nAfter they talked about school, they went around town to hang out and have some fun. When they both decided it would be best if they went ahead home so no one would get in trouble.\n\nFaith said, “it was really fun getting to know you and hang out, we should do this again,”\n\nThen she took off, Stella stood there feeling really happy and warm inside, like a warm funny, safe feeling.\n\nWhen Stella got home, she told her mom all about her day, and how happy she felt and still does for some reason. She checked her heartbeat, and it was Beating so fast, but she doesn’t understand why, so she goes to her room to add stuff to her plans. Stella can’t stop thinking of Faith and how happy she felt with her, she thought to herself, “is this what it’s like to have a good friend that gets each other really well? I think I could she her in my future life.”\n\nMonths has passed by like it’s nothing. Faith, Xander and Stella gotten super close with each other, so close it’s unbelievable to be honest. But I think, some of them may have caught feelings for someone. But who likes who? Xander fell for Stella when he first met her, Stella has confused emotions towards Faith, and Faith, she doesn’t really know if she likes anyone. Xander and Faith are straight, Stella is bi. Stella noticed most of her feeling when she’s around Faith, it’s when their the strongest. And she realized, she likes Faith, for a while now, for months. So many things could turn and ruin someone in that trio or ruin all three of them. So, Stella thought about what she should do, not knowing who likes who other than she knows she likes Faith. She doesn’t know about anyone’s sexuality, so she just lets it be and ignores her feelings and just goes on and prays nothing happens to their friendship.\n\nShe prays for nothing to happen to their friendship because, she is moving, four hours away from them. And she doesn’t know how to tell them because it’s so hard, hard having to say goodbye to the ones you really love. Then she thought about her feelings for Faith and just thought for a while, “maybe I should tell her. Should I? Would I regret it? This is all too confusing.” She thought to herself. Randomly her mom barged into her room and said, you have a week to say your goodbyes to your friends and pack" } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: The Uniform\n\nGenre: historical-fiction\n\nWord Count: 2578\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story where a particular piece of clothing appears three times." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "In life we shared a name, he was senior and I was junior, but the commonality ended there.\nAs a born storyteller, he would freely incorporate fiction, so you were never quite sure where the truth began and the story was sprinkled in. There were also some things he guarded with his silence. When he passed away at the age of forty-seven, he took many of those guarded secrets with him.\nOne of his biggest mysteries was his uniform which I found in a metal closet in the basement after he passed away. From the documents I sorted, I found he had served in the United States Army during the Korean War. Stationed in Pusan, he only spoke of having a desk job while he was there. Hanging in that metal closet was a complete army uniform, an OG-107 with an M-1943 field jacket hanging over the combat utility uniform. What I found interesting were the two Purple Hearts affixed to the right pocket on the OG-107. \nAfter removing the uniform from the metal closet, I called his sister Anne.\n“Oh Glen, it is so good to hear from you.” She was almost in tears when I identified myself. “Do you need a hand with his things?”\n“Not really, but I do want to know about this uniform I found in a metal closet in the basement.” There was a very long pause.\n“Uniform?” She whispered.\n“Yes, do you know anything about it?” I asked.\n“I might.” She sighed, “He was in the war you know.” \n“Yes, I know, but he never told me much about what he did there.” I ran my hand over the right pocket where the Purple Hearts were pinned.\n“He didn’t talk much about it when he came home.” She explained, “Glen was really quiet when he came home in 1954. I was still in high school.” \n“Yes, that’s one of the few things he told me.” I smiled.\n“His service was wonderful. So many people showed up to pay him their respects.” She was trying to change the subject which told me there was something hidden which I wasn’t supposed to know. This wasn’t unusual with our family as it seemed there was some prearranged agreement to protect me from things that would harm me if I were to find out about them. It seemed I had found yet another hazardous truth. \n“Yes, yes it was.” I nodded.\n“Why don’t you come over for dinner on Sunday? The family would like to see you. I know how hard his passing was for you.” She said in the kindest voice I had ever heard. It would have been better if I had known he was sick, but then that was part of the family code.\n“I wish I could. I am taking a flight back to Korea.” I shook my head.\n“Korea? Oh yes, you are stationed there just like he was.” She laughed.\n“Only when he was in Korea, there was a war.” I replied with a slight chuckle.\n“True, true.” She said quickly.\n“My bereavement leave is up in three days.” I explained, “I will have the lawyer handle the details from here. He has your phone number, Aunt Anne.”\n“Yes, Ben will be happy to help.” She sounded delighted.\n“We have come here to honor the memory of Glen Gavin Deermott. In his short life, Mr. Deermott was able to achieve an extraordinary amount of accomplishments that included both in the military service as well as academic accolades at the university. All that knew him should be very proud of his life accomplishments.” Reverend Patrick O’Rourke proclaimed to the congregation.\nThere were sniffles and sobs, but I sat there in my dress uniform dry-eyed and somber. \nProtected.\nThat’s what I was supposed to be after my mother passed away when I was just three years old.\nHe did not want anyone to talk about what had happened. \nHe did not want me to know she had overdosed on her prescription pills with a bottle of whiskey. These things were not talked about back then. They were taboo.\nI was sixteen when one of my aunts slipped up in a conversation, “Just like when Julie passed away. Glen was angry.”\nLater, I would find out about her depression and her mental instability.\nIt seemed there were so many things that were taboo. \n“Where’s your mother, Glen?” Miss Kendricks asked me after my first day at Kindergarten.\n“I don’t have one.” I replied. It was a line I had rehearsed with my father before coming to my first day at school. \n“I am so sorry.” She put her hand to her reddening cheek. \nI watched the other kids take their mother’s hands as they went off to their typical suburban homes. I knew that our apartment was three blocks away and Aunt Anne would let me in as her and Uncle Herb lived in the same apartment complex with their three, soon to be four, kids, my cousins. Dad had just graduated valedictorian from the university after utilizing the GI Bill after being discharged from the army. He had become a certified public accountant which I could not say at the time. \nNorm would come over which meant I would be spending the night with my cousins, uncle and aunt while they went out bowling and drinking beer. Norm was one of my dad’s war buddies who was putting on weight while keeping his hair cut short like he did when he was in the army. Dad had shown me pictures of him when they were still in Korea. The two of them were on the base throwing a football or cutting up in some other way. Norm Walsh had passed away from a similar heart condition three years ago. \n“Your father is a hero.” He told me as he guzzled another bottle of beer while dad was off to the restroom. We were eating dinner at the V.F.W. in honor of my high school graduation. “He shoudda got a bronze star.” \n“Why?” I asked as I used a toothpick.\n“On account he saved us from an ambush.” Norm closed his eyes, “Some of the guys got blasted.”\n“Blasted?” \n“Yeah, killed.” He appeared as if he was on the verge of tears. \nDad returned and the conversation ended there.\nDesk job? Ambush?\n“Your father was a prince among men.” Broderick Nash told me at the funeral reception. Mr. Nash had been his last boss. He was president of a small company that sold lighting products. He had grown up in Brooklyn and was a die-hard Yankee fan. His accent was right from Flatbush, but he treated the people that worked for him right. “I’m gonna miss Old Glen. Honest as the day is long.”\nI wish he had been honest. I did not want to be protected, but it was all he had to give me and he wanted to make sure the world did not treat me poorly like he had when he was a kid. His father, Oswald, had served in World War I and had been a truck driver making local deliveries during the Depression. He had lived a hard austere life and expected his sons and daughters to do the same. He had been blessed with six boys and five girls crammed into a three bedroom apartment in upstate New York. My dad told me when he returned from Korea, he told his dad he had enrolled at the university. Oswald leveled my dad with a single punch.\n“We McDermotts do not go to college.” He fumed, “We go to work.” \nPulling himself to an upright position, he shook himself off and walked out the door. It would be the last words they would ever speak to each other. \nI put the old uniform on the backseat of my car and drove to my hotel room downtown.\nMy imagination began to play with me as I imagined my father charging the enemy in the face of furious crossfire.\nTwo Purple Hearts still dangled from his right pocket.\n“People were getting those Purple Heart things for cutting their fingers on the beer that was rationed to us.” He once remarked when we were at the V.F.W., this time to celebrate my enlistment into the service. Norm was there and he began to laugh until his round face turned purple.\n“I got me one for cutting my hand on a can opener.” Norm managed to say.\nEven as they laughed about it, their mirth seemed a bit misplaced. I thought about all the guys who had come home from Vietnam in flag draped coffins. It just didn’t seem that funny to me, but I made sure I laughed along with them so they wouldn’t suspect what I was honestly thinking. \n“Glen, you got to know that when he came back he was a different man.” Aunt Anne told me when I questioned her at one of our family gatherings. My cousins were now gangly young men just like I had become.\n“Why won’t he tell me the truth?” I asked.\nUncle Herb interjected, “He will in his time.” \nUncle Herb with his bald head and big old mustache on his face, had not served his country as my father had and I resented him butting in on our conversation. \n“Honey.” Aunt Anne put her hand on my shoulder, “He wanted to make sure you didn’t get hurt by the truth.”\n“That’s just it, how can I get hurt by the truth.” I shook my head, “Dr. King said the truth will set us free.” \n“He was speaking about a different truth.” Uncle Herb added.\n“How do you know?” I shot back.\n“Is Nick in?” I asked as I walked into the V.F.W. with dad’s uniform on a hanger.\n“In the back.” The bartender answered by pointing to the door.\nI opened the door slowly and there was Nick Fontane sitting hunched over his ledger.\n“Glen! Glen, so good to see you.” He waved me into his closet of an office.\n“Hey, I have something I want to ask you.” I sat in the only empty chair. \n“Always.” He pinched my cheek with his hand.\n“I have dad’s old uniform.” I held it up.\n“Oh my God…I never thought he’d still have this.” He ran his hands over the uniform.\n“How come?”\n“Your father was not a very happy soldier when he came home.” Nick sighed. “Korea was a mess and then his wife, your mother offs herself.” \n“I know all that, Nick. What did he do to get these?” I pointed to the Purple Hearts.\n“He never told you?” Nick rubbed his chin with his hand. \n“Dad never said a word about the war other than a few general remarks.” I shrugged.\n“Holy Jesus.” He sounded like a tire that had suddenly sprung a leak. “He got himself all shot up during an ambush.” \nNick Fontane was one of the men that had served with him in Korea. Nick was a corpsman who had carried his share of dead and wounded soldiers back from the front.\n“What do you mean, shot up?” I was startled at the revelation.\n“Dark night out there on the front lines. Some of the forces were able to push the North Koreans back to some river. But then came the counterattack. Them bums like to fight at night. They were harder to see in their uniforms. Your father was a squad leader. This gun placement opened fire the minute they crossed the line. Four of his men went down. He threw a grenade just as he got four bullets in his chest. He was one lucky son-of-a-bitch. I came and got him. I thought he was dead for sure, but the next day I went to his tent and spoke to him. He would recover and go back again. He got blasted, but survived.”\n“Holy…” I muttered.\n“I am shocked he never told you any of this.” Nick scratched his head.\n“Not a word.” I could feel tears burning at the corner of my eyes. “He told me he lost his three fingers cutting meat at a butcher shop before the war. Saved him from frontline combat.” \n“Naw, that ain’t right.” Nick shook his head slowly.\n“Were any of his stories true?” I asked.\n“Your father was as honest as the day is long.” Nick sighed. \n“Except to me.” I stood up, yanking the uniform as I did. \n“You gotta forgive him. He did what he thought was best for you.” Nick patted me on the back.\n“I wish I could feel like that…but I don’t” I wiped the tears with the back of my hand.\n“One day, one day, you will and you will know he did it for you.” \nI sat by his grave as the sunlight was sucked from the sky leaving the world in darkness and shadow. \n“Dad, I didn’t need your protection. I needed the truth and you never gave me that. Never.” I sobbed. The mound of dirt was still grassless in the place he would lay in eternal peace. They still had not affixed the headstone I had ordered, but I knew who I was speaking to. “What you told me about mom…all of it was no more than some story you made up to protect me.”\nWith one more day left, I went down to the small museum in town where they had an exhibit of local memorabilia and paraphernalia. Most of the museum smelled of mold and must, but there were exhibits from the past where folks could come and see what life had been like a few decades ago.\n“Can I help you, young man?” Asked one of the curators. “I’m Mr. Jennings.”\nI opened the bag where I had put his uniform. “I was hoping you’d have a place for this.” \nHe put his hands on the uniform, “Korea?”\nI nodded.\n“Yes, it would be my pleasure to display this.” He smiled, his eyes disappeared from behind his thick glasses.\n“I have all the information printed here.” I handed him the index card.\n“His name was Glen McDermott?” He replied.\n“Yes, he was my father.” I felt my throat close up a bit.\n“Two Purple Hearts?” He touched one of them with his crooked finger.\n“Yes, wounded twice in combat.” I confirmed.\n“Are you sure about that?” Mr. Jennings asked earnestly.\n“I can get his DD form 214 if you’d like.” I felt the words catch in my throat again.\n“No, no, not necessary. I will take your word for it.” He nodded. “Are you sure we can have this?”\n“The uniform, of course. He passed away a few days ago. I was cleaning out his belongings when I came across this.” I wiped a tear from my eye.\n“We certainly do appreciate you bringing this to us.” He smiled, “We will have it displayed in a place of honor.”\n“I appreciate that.” I nodded.\n“Come see it when we have it ready.” He hung the hanger on a wire behind the counter.\n“I’m afraid I’ll be leaving for Korea tomorrow.” I shook my head.\n“Korea? Are you going to where he served?” \n“No, afraid not.” I walked out of there knowing that I had done the right thing. I was letting the world know that my father Glen McDermott was a true war hero, no matter what anyone else would say about it." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Mason the Mighty\n\nGenre: high-school\n\nWord Count: 2910\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a fairy tale about an outsider trying to fit in." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Mom must still be at work. At least I don’t have to lie about the dirt covering my clothes.\n\nCarl and his band of jerks beat me up again.\n\nI unlock the door and step inside.\nThe bruises are tender, Carl is good at inflicting wounds where they don’t show. He learned it firsthand from his dad. At least that’s the school rumor.\n\nWalking by the kitchen, I notice a package addressed to me.\nRemoving the brown paper wrapper reveals a book, a really old one from the looks of it, along with a note in my grandmother’s handwriting.\n\n‘Dear Mason,\n\nHoping your school year is going well.\n\nI was helping my friend Lilly clean out her attic the other day and we found this book. It was in a trunk her late husband had. She didn’t remember where he got it, but she forgets a lot these days. Anyway, the pictures reminded me of those games you used to play.\n\nHope you enjoy it!\nLove, Grandma\n\nPs. We so loved camping with you last summer, can't wait to roasted marshmallows with you again!’\n\nI take the book out of the packaging. This thing is heavy.\nThe cover is thick, aged leather with the corners bound in black metal and studs. There is a latch on one side, but thankfully no lock.\nI open the cover and slide my finger over the yellowed pages, some of them frayed, the words look handwritten like a diary. As I thumb through, the illustrations are striking, beautifully detailed in pen and ink. The text style is ancient, kind of like a religious text, but older.\nThis is crazy, I could almost forget about my throbbing ribs, I was so excited. Where did this come from?\nI grab a slice of cold pizza and take the book upstairs to my room. Story after story, it reads like a J R Tolkien novel, kingdoms of creatures and humans. The stories center on a warrior named Kreed. This guy is a force to be reckoned with.\nFinally, drowsiness overtakes me.\n“I wish I was a badass like this guy,” I mutter and fall asleep.\n————————————————-\nI wake to streams of sunshine pushing through an open window; birds are singing ... chest hair?\n\nWhat the heck?\n\nI get off the bed, much taller and apparently naked.\nThis is not my room, the walls are adorned with antlers and other trophies from some skilled hunter. I look into the only reflective surface I can find and see a beast of a man, with a beard, muscles, and well, I can’t really say what else.\n\nThis is crazy. I am having a complex psychotic fantasy my mind has fabricated to compensate for my horrible life. That has to be it, this is a coping mechanism. \n\nKnock, knock, knock.\n“Kreed? Are you well? You have slept like the dead,” a woman’s voice calls from outside the door, “Breakfast is on the table, the men are waiting,” \n“I, I will be out momentarily,” I say frantically, looking for some pants or anything to cover myself.\nLying over the chair is a pair of leather pants, and a rough-cut burlap shirt, stitched with leather thread. Is everything here made of leather?”\nStepping outside the room onto a balcony, a great banquet hall spreads out before me, the smell of sweat and cooked meat hits me like a wall.\n“Kreed!” a group of large, bearded men raise their cups to me. The table is covered with trays of roasted pig and casks of some kind of liquid.\n\nThis is breakfast?\n\nWalking down to the main floor, the only chair available is at the head of the table; I guess that must be mine.\n“Kreed, what is our plan today?” a red-haired man asks as I sit down.\n“Plan?” I ask\n“Mead and women have your bollocks rattled?” the man says with a giant grin.\nThe hall fills with the roar of laughter.\n“Our plan to storm Stoneroot Castle,” the man continues, shoving meat into his bearded mouth.\n“I, I am still forming that plan,” I have no clue what they are talking about, but that seems to satisfy them as they merrily devour more pork than I have ever seen a human consume.\nI too eat a surprising amount of meat before feeling satisfied and then return to the room, not sure what I am going to do next.\n\nWho are these people, and what is Stoneroot Castle?\n\nI open the door to find a woman standing inside. She is stunning, with raven hair, steel-blue eyes, wearing a purple velvet dress. This is the first person here not in leather.\n“U-Um, hello?” I stutter.\n“Who are you?” she asks point-blank.\n“What do you mean? I’m Kreed.” I'm a terrible liar.\n“Did you read the book?” the woman asks, walking towards me, sliding her finger up my arm.\n“I, well, OK, yes I did.” I reply, “I’m really Mason Spindle from New Jersey. but honestly, I don’t know how I got here.”\n“It is the Orelia stone. It has unimaginable power, a real wizard would already rule the nine kingdoms,\" Her eyes light up like a kid with candy \"but King Tremont is a minor wizard at best and uses it simply to trap his enemies in hell dimensions.\"\n“Wait, are you saying Kreed took my place in Jersey?”\n“Yes, and If I know Kreed, he has already conquered your land.” the woman says.\n\nThat’s not good. Right now my body is occupied by some crazed warrior, probably sitting in jail yelling for meat and mead. They are going to lock me away forever.\n\n“Can you fix this?” I ask.\n“I am Moria, the wizard of Torndale,” the woman replies “but even this is beyond my reach. The only way you can break the spell and return to your land is to do some selfless and heroic or …”\nShe pauses.\n“Or what?” I ask.\n\"Or die trying,” the woman responds “both you and Kreed will perish.”\n“Of course, nothing is ever easy.”\n———————————-\nI sit with Moria, discussing the current state of things, Stoneroot Castle, King Tremont, the men at the breakfast table, I keep mental notes of all of this, like chess it is all about keeping track of the details, about looking forward to the next move, but I’ll admit, I am freaking out inside.\n“Ok, so King Tremont has been forcefully taking land from the villagers, increasing his territories, Kreed, and the nomads have been conducting raids, but having little success. So the next plan is to just attack Stoneroot Castle head-on? That is lunacy, the walls are 50 feet high and lined with archers.”\n\"I agree, I told Kreed that trying to storm Stoneroot would lead to great loss and utter defeat, but he is a stubborn man,” Moria replies.\n“There has to be a better way.” I say, “Has anyone tried to find a weak point in the wall?” there has to be a crack, water duct, or a hole somewhere.\"\n\"The spies speak of a servants entrance.\" she replies\n\"I’ll find it.”\n\nWho knew years of game strategy would actually come in handy.\n\nMoria takes a small blue stone out of a satchel on her wrist.\n“Take this, it will provide you with the armor of your choosing, hold the stone, conjure your protection, and try not to die Mason of New Jersey” then she kisses me on my cheek and leaves.\nI could get used to this if it didn’t have the dying part.\n———————————-\nThis is a good plan, there is always a weakness in any defense, no wall is impenetrable, I will find it and be back before breakfast.\nAs the sun sets I stay low in the long grass around the castle, then I see it, a door just big enough for a servant to pass through. There is one guard. I easily knock him out. It feels good to be Kreed.\nI slip in and make my way up into the castle. First through the dungeon, then we follow the servant’s stairwell up to the kitchen. Nobody even pays attention to me, I guess their loyalty isn’t ironclad, either that or ... \n\nThis is an ambush.\n\nI turn to find my face connecting with an iron skillet.\n———————————-\nWaking, I find my arms chained. Iron bars separate me from freedom. Even in Kreed’s body, that still hurt. \nI desperately reach for the stone Moria gave me but it is tucked in my pocket just out of reach.\n“Moria, I hope you can hear me.”\n“Who is Moria?”\nI look up to see a young woman in a flowing dress; her hair tied up behind a jewel-encrusted crown.\n“What do you want?” I ask, having no clue who she is.\n“Kreed, why do you treat me with so much disdain? Do I mean nothing to you?” the woman opens the cell door, stepping inside, she kisses me passionately.\nJust as quickly, she steps back. Her expression is pure horror.\n“Who are you?” she asks.\n“How does every woman here know I’m not Kreed?” I ask.\n“My name is Mason. I read a cursed book and ended up here.” I reply.\n“So Kreed is in Hell?” her face turns white, placing her hand over her mouth.\n“Well, New Jersey technically, but yeah. I’m here trying to set things right.”\n“I'm so distraught.” she says ”Tomorrow I am to wed King Anders of the North, I was sure you came to rescue me from this dreadful union.”\n“I promise I will do whatever it takes to fix all of this, I just need to be released from these chains.”\n“I will come by later when the guards are drunk.” the woman says, and she leaves quietly.\n———————————-\nMy mind drifts to home. Mom must think I’m crazy, I’m probably expelled or in jail by now.\n“Mason of New Jersey?” a slight voice wakes me from my thoughts, it is the woman from earlier, she unlocks my shackles.\n“Come with me.” I say taking her hand “We can slip out through the servants' entrance and be beyond the castle walls tonight.“\n“I cannot. I made a promise to my father to marry King Anders, I must fulfill my pledge.”\nShe pauses.\n“Unless someone challenges King Anders for my hand. I secretly hoped it would be you.”\n“Oh, for Pete’s sake,” I mutter.\n\nOK, Plan B.\n———————————-\nWedding day. The city gathers in the cathedral for the ceremony.\nFrom my hiding spot, I see King Anders; he is a slight man with long white hair and very fancy clothes.\n\nMy plan is to roll up on the wedding party, challenge the king, knock him out, marry the princess, and return to my body in New Jersey. Kreed can live out his days as a happily married man.\n\nThe music begins as the princess walks down the long aisle to meet King Anders at the podium.\nThe ceremony proceeds until that magical moment.\n“Doth any man protest to the union of these two, speak now or forever hold your peace.” the priest says with no actual intention to wait. \nIt’s hero time!\n“I do,” I yell, stepping out of the shadows. The crowd reels in shock, King Stoneroot stands and his knights advance until I utter\n\n“I challenge King Anders for the hand of the fair princess Gwendolyn”.\nKing Stoneroot raises his hand, and the knights step back.\n“I see, and King Anders, do you accept this challenge?”\nKing Anders turns and grins at me. It reminds me of Carl.\n“Gladly,” he responds\n\n———————————-\nStanding at one end of the courtyard, Anders stands at the other. This is it, I’m going home a hero.\nI rush him, one punch and he will break. Suddenly his eyes glow and then crackle with energy, he raises his hands, whispers something and lightning strikes me sending me back 20 feet.\nGod, that hurt. Someone could have told me he was a wizard, that might have helped.\nKing Stoneroot stands, visibly angered.\n“King Anders, you hide your true self?”\n“King Stoneroot,” I call out, “Anders doesn’t want your daughter he wants the Orelia stone.”\nAnder’s eyes light up and I am pounded by lightning again, I can barely stand my body is smoldering. Sorry Kreed for the damage.\n“I am done with pretense,” King Anders says and lighting drops on the knights in the courtyard, they don’t recover so well.\nThe townsfolk run screaming.\nAnders grabs Gwendolyn and moves towards her father, demanding the stone.\nI need to do something; I have one last chance.\nI grab the Moria stone and try to think of something bad-ass, something I can use to protect me from Anders assaults, something that can defeat him … \n\nKeep your thoughts pure mason, what is your best defense.\nMarshmallows.\nWait, what? Why would you let your mind go there? You are an idiot!\n\nI try to grab the stone again but I am already too bloated and beyond my clothes’ ability to stretch, several moments later I’m a 20 foot, marshmallow man.\nAnders turns looking very surprised, but still more lightning hits me, toasting my sweet marshmallow exterior, maybe this wasn’t a bad choice, I am a bad-ass squishy marshmallow warrior!\nI grab Anders and slam him to the ground, he is tougher than I expected; he stands up, this time his eyes glow orange and he lights up like the human torch. \nThat’s not good, if I’m not careful this could be the biggest campfire roast anyone has ever seen, I back up. If I light up, I’ll burn, that wasn’t part of the plan.\n\nWait maybe it is!\n\n“Hey Anders,” I tear off a chunk of marshmallow and throw it his way, hitting him, knocking him over.\n\nThis is awesome!\n\nI keep throwing chunks until he has had enough, he throws flame at me like napalm my outside begins to burn. I advance towards him the flames get hotter and hotter as my exterior turns black and my insides melting. Thank god I can’t feel any of this for real.\nI get closer and closer as the fire starts to form on my exterior, it hadn’t really occurred to me what would happen if I burn up in this form, but I am on a mission. I finally reach him, I’m starting to get really loose inside.\nMy legs are losing their strength, but I manage to grab him and at that moment, I swallow him, flames and all. I can feel him squirming around in my stomach, his flame can’t maintain inside my gooey center and he eventually stops fighting.\nI tear a hole in my belly and all melted goo squishes out, along with an unconscious and very sticky Anders.\n\nKing Stoneroot, is holding a large green emerald affixed on a staff, he says an incantation, and Anders disappears, I hope he didn’t end up in New Jersey.\n\nMy legs give out and the rest of me starts to flow into the courtyard. This is it, this is the end of everything.\n\nKing Stoneroot mutters another incantation.\n\n———————————-\nI open my eyes to the familiar surroundings of my room, the place is a mess, there are piles of pizza boxes everywhere. My body feels weird. I haven’t been this short in weeks, I hope there is some breakfast, I’m starved.\nI make my way into the kitchen, on the table is a mound of bacon and probably a dozen eggs.\n“Hi Mom” my voice even sounds odd to me.\nShe stops cooking and turns around, her expression is anxious.\n“Mason?” she says “Is that you?”\n“It’s me, Mom. I am back to my old self” I reply.\nShe runs to me and gives me a hug, holding on like I was going to slip away again.\n“Everything OK?” I ask, “What’s all this? Are we expecting company for breakfast?”\n“Oh, honey it has been chaos, I don't know which personality it was but you called yourself Kreed the Mighty and you would eat all of this yourself. The doctor said it was a psychotic episode, he gave me meds for you but I just couldn’t sedate you like that.”\n“Thanks, mom, I appreciate that.” I reply “I apologize if I did anything crazy, honestly I don’t really remember anything. What’s with all the pizza boxes in my room?”\n“You, I mean Kreed, really liked pizza. I don’t know where you got the money but you ate it a lot.” \n“Also, you’ve been suspended for bullying that Carl Bower boy. They found him, tied to the goalpost, numerous times, once he was even naked. He blamed you.”\n\"Some senior named Roxy has been texting you, she was sending wildly inappropriate pictures, I deleted them all and told her she needs to focus on her education and less on boys.\"\n“Sorry I disappeared for a little while there, Mom. Carl was bullying me almost every day, I guess it stress was too much and I flipped out. It won’t happen again.” \n“Monday I am calling the principal, he needs to know this was self-defense,” She says with more furor than I’ve heard in a long time.\nShe hugs me for a few more moments, then sits down at the table.\n“I love you, Mom, it's good to be back,” I say sitting next to her.\n“But, I really don’t think I can eat all this.”" } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Peter Leaning Forward\n\nGenre: historical-fiction\n\nWord Count: 2985\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story where a particular piece of clothing appears three times." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Peter Leaning Forward\nPart I\nPeter Petrovich leans forward, arms straight out from elbows pulled tightly into his ribs, forearms leading to small wrists, and blood red hands that grip pink rubber grips, while his pasty white legs pump, and his head bobs with every rise and fall of his knees over the pedals. The chain groans along its inexorable path over the teeth of the sprocket and gears as Peter cranks himself and his bicycle up the Mesabi Trail like a breakaway racer on the Tour de France. He wears an electric blue racing shirt advertising a plumber in Hibbing he has never used, matching shorts from K Mart, and a threadbare Minnesota Twins baseball cap improbably signed by Sandy Koufax of the Los Angeles Dodgers with the bill pointed forward into the wind and about to fly away uncovering a spotted red and white scalp peppered with widely spaced hairs. Breathing hard, he knows this is the hardest part of his once a week forty mile ride from Chisolm to Virginia and back. But real Minnesotans like me Peter Petrovich suck it up. Soon he will crest the last hill and coast into Chisolm pedaling lazily toward Lake Street where his girlfriend lives for his weekly victory over age and gravity. Just before he gets to the house, the chain falls off his bike, and he has to walk the last block. He parks his bike and enters his live-in girlfriend’s house at First Street NW and then descends into the cellar. He pops a beer and munches a microwaved pizza while watching the big game—Minnesota Twins versus the Baltimore Orioles. It’s Sunday afternoon in Chisolm Minnesota. He grins because he knows he has the whole week to himself. Ellen is on a business trip and won’t be back for days to bother him. He reaches for his vintage Twins Hat to turn the bill backwards in preparation for the game and finds it missing. Gosh Darn it. Must have left it upstairs.\nA week later, Ellen flies home after cavorting for six days half-naked on a Malibu beach with her new boyfriend named Wiley. She has resolved to tell Peter that she is leaving him for Wiley and that he needs to move out. She is practicing her breakup speech as she fumbles for her keys to the front door. It’s best for both of us Peter...no, too corny…how about…we both know we were never right for each other. Inside the mosquito-screened porch, Peter’s blood-red Bianchi racing bike is leaning casually against a white Adirondack chair with the chain hanging loose from the main sprocket. She wonders why Peter would leave such an expensive Italian bike unlocked. When she opens the front door, she quickly notices that the house is filled with the faint stale smell of sundried tomatoes but also catches a whiff of pepperoni gone rancid. She quickly concludes a mouse has died somewhere inside a wall. Upon hearing the TV downstairs, she yells out. “Peter,” you there?” When no one answers, she calls Chisolm Pest Control about the mouse. Soon after, Billy Milosovich arrives and begins to search.\n“Found it,” came a voice from the cellar.\n“Oh good. Where was it.”\n“Sitting on the davenport. Seems to have choked on a Pizza.”\n“Ha. You’re a funny fella,” she said as she laughed.\nBilly held his nose as he bent over to look closer at Peter whose bulging eyes reflected the electric glow a TV tuned to ESPN. A large piece of pizza was stuck in his mouth.\n“Call 911.”\n“What for a mouse?”\n“No. For Peter. He’s dead.”\n“Peter’s dead?”\n“You betcha.”\nThe coroner arrived soon after and picked up Peter’s moldering body. After she opened all the windows and turned on all the fans she could find, she called the Salvation Army to pick up every last piece of his possessions.\nPart II\nSixteen-year-old Tony Kovac lost his father soon after he was born. On a warm Indian Summer day, he was out for a long walk on the Mesabi wilderness trail which ran behind his house. He was licking his wounds after another brow-beating by his grumpy besotted grandfather named Andric who had moved in with him and his mother soon after his father’s death. As Tony enjoyed his calming stroll along the path, he noted the irony that his grandfather could barely walk at all. That was because long before Tony was born, an overloaded mine hutch broke loose and careened down the rail tracks of Slovak mine #2. Andric never saw it coming and it sliced off his right foot like a knife as he sneaked a snort of Russian Vodka on his break. It was his last day as a Slavic miner in a Slavic town where everyone mined for a living. \nAfter that, he worked part-time for the Minnesota Museum of Mining in Chisolm to do what he could to help make ends meet until he was taken in years later by Tony’s mother. The miner’s local union boss had leaned on the Museum to give Andrich a job as a sort of charity for a crippled member of the union. After one of his frequent rants at Tony, his mother would console her son by telling him that his grandfather had not always been a mean man—“not until his accident,” she would say. Yes, mother. But I was born long after the accident. It’s the only way he’s ever been to me, he thought. And why does he have to live with us anyway? And then, Tony would take a walk to soothe himself.\nAndrich was recovering from his foot amputation in the hospital in 1960 while dreading his future as a crippled man. He was absent mindedly watching the news when a reporter announced that the Washington Senators baseball team would be moving to Minnesota. The news augured the birth of a new team that would be called the Minnesota Twins. Andrich came to attention. Though he had never been a sports fan before, from that day forward and for the rest of his resentful life, the only bright spot in it were his Twins. To him, they were guardians of the north who had appeared in his hour of need. His grandson Tony might have been a nuisance, and his mother a nagging landlord to whom he paid no rent…but he had his Twins!\nWhen another team would beat his heroes, anger spewed out of his mouth in hateful words spoken in Slovene which he preferred to English. While he verily worshipped his Twins, he had a peculiar irreverence for the Los Angeles Dodgers. Led by ace pitcher Sandy Koufax in 1965, it was the Dodgers who dashed his beloved Twins hopes of winning the World Series by winning four games to the Twins three. Koufax pitched three of the four Dodger wins. Andrich was still bitter over Koufax forty years later. \nAs Tony walked toward the highest point on the trail before it descended back down to Chisolm, he noticed a crumpled piece of cloth lying beside the trail that someone had lost or discarded. As he neared it, he noticed that it was a threadbare navy blue baseball cap with the underside of the bill stitched with green colored fabric. Reaching for it, he quickly noticed a white embroidered T interwoven with a red C. The T and C letters stood for the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, the home of the Minnesota Twins. He marveled at its age. It was different than the modern Twins caps he was familiar with. Probably a seventies cap, he thought, might be even older. Maybe he hoped— just maybe, his grandfather would thank him for it if he gave it to him and think twice before abusing him again. He was encouraged enough to pick up his pace and jogged his way back to his house wearing the hat all along the way home.\nTony found his grandfather watching his beloved Twins holding a glass of Vodka straight up in a glass.\n“Gramps?”\n“Yeah kid. Whaddya’ want now?”\n“I found something.”\n“So, I’m watching the game.”\n“But.”\nHis grandfather turned his body far enough in anger at the interruption to see Tony and possibly give him another slap on the face like he had done earlier in the day. But as he turned, he spilled vodka in his lap.\n“Jesus. Now look you did, you worthless little jerk. You made me spill my drink. Go get me another and quick. The Twins are just coming back to bat.”\nTony went to the kitchen still wearing the cap, poured a fresh glass of Smirnoff Blue and walked back into the room where his grandfather sat with his cane beside his chair. Tony took the hat off his head and held it close to the fresh glass of Vodka as he handed it to his grandfather to make sure he noticed.\n“What…what is that. Where’d you get that cap,” he asked excitedly. That’s a sixties Twins cap. How in the world?”\nAndrich marveled at the navy blue cap. It took him all the way back to the time that he lost his foot in the mine and then found meaning in the Twins.\n“You can have it grandpa. It’s yours,” offered Tony with a hesitant smile hoping the gift would be reciprocated with a sliver of kindness instead of a rap on his head from his cane. \nAndrich continued to rotate the hat to see the letters T and C up close and to feel the wool fabric between his fingers. He wondered if it was his size. Turning it over, he looked. “Seven and a half,” he noted. “Just my size.” He started to put the hat on his head when he noticed some scribbles on the grass green underside of the bill. Taking out his glasses from a shirt pocket, he read the words out loud. “Sandy Koufax,” he spoke blankly as if he had just read the name of someone named Smith or Jones. Then he read it again as the words took on meaning in his head. “Sandy God Damned Koufax signed this” he uttered before turning toward Tony while reaching for his cane. As Tony backed out of range, Andrich uttered just two more words before he slumped over dead in his chair —“Sandy Koufax,” he said in amazement.\nTony did not feel guilty about the death of Andrich as he helped his mother gather his meager belongings most of which would go to Charity. He made sure that the old hat and the cane were in the pile.\nPart III\nTwelve-year-old Ezra Hoffman was living in a foster home sponsored by the Catholic Charities of Hibbing, Minnesota not far from Chisolm. His parents had emigrated from Moldavia ten years earlier to build a new life in America. They were killed in an on an icy two-lane road near Eveleth when they collided with a farm tractor driven by a Norwegian immigrant during a sub-zero whiteout. All three were ejected from their vehicles. They survived the crash, but not the cold. Authorities found them and the Norwegian frozen to death on the road near the overturned tractor the next day. Their demise left Ezra without a mother or father, and he had no relatives living in America to stay with. Foster care was his best hope though his recent diagnosis with Savant Syndrome made placement difficult. Like other children with forms of autism, he exhibited repetitive behaviors. He often stared blankly at lights and sometimes ran in circles for no apparent reason as his overwhelmed foster parents Mr. and Mrs. Mc Bain looked on and endeavored to persevere. \n Aside from his sometimes perplexing behaviors, Ezra was also a very bright boy who read voraciously. His favorite writer was Bob Zimmerman, a Jewish boy who called himself Dylan, and who also came from Hibbing. He knew all the words to every song Dylan had ever written. Though Dylan was famous for his music and his calls for social justice, it was the poetry in his songs that enthralled Ezra. So, it was not surprising that when Ezra spoke, it was often in poetic riddles.\nI plot around in circles,\nAlways straight ahead.\nAnd I never ever fuss a lot,\nLest you make me go to bed. \n He also made a habit of devouring names and numbers. For example, Ezra had read and memorized the time and place of every major conflict since the Trojan war, the names of all the winners of the Tour de France along with the brands of the bikes they rode since 1903, as well as the history of professional baseball since 1871. Fergus Mc Bain was always amazed at Ezra’s recall of obscure facts.\n “How long was the first Tour de France?” he asked.\n “2,428 Kilometers—1903.”\n “Who won the 1949 tour and what bike did they ride?” \n “Fausto Coppi—Bianchi.”\n Fergus and his wife Gael had come to America from Derry to escape the Troubles in 1968. As Catholics, they were the oppressed in the Protestant north of the country, but wanted no part in avenging their plight in the brutal civil war that followed. They were poor when they left, and were still poor in Hibbing. But they remained good Irish Catholics who believed in caring for the needy even though they were needy themselves. Ezra, it turned out, was their special needs child, and he gave them nothing but joy. To give him joy in return, they needed help.\n Downtown Hibbing had a Salvation Army store. It was where they went for furniture, kitchen items, clothing for themselves, and special things for Ezra. Bob Dylan albums, for example, would bring tears to his eyes. A book of collected poems by Emily Dickinson was another. Fergus, in particular, was always on the hunt for something out of the ordinary for their special child. One cold December day, Fergus went to the store to find something for Ezra on Christmas. Sleuthing the isles, he walked past an old bicycle. “Bianca” read the badge of its maker. Bianca sounded familiar, but Ezra was not much of a bicycle rider, so he moved on to another row. Halfway down that row was a section devoted to baseball. There were little league bats, uniforms, catcher’s mitts, baseballs, and all sorts of other things. One item caught his eye. Among a pile of baseball caps from teams around the country was a navy blue hat that had two letters on the front—a T and a C. Being an Irish catholic immigrant, he had no clue what the T and C meant, so he asked a clerk. The clerk was from Somalia and was of no help, so he flagged down another clerk who was from Hibbing. “What’s this hat for.”\n “That’s an old Minnesota Twins hat sir.”\n “Is it worth anything?”\n “Nah. Our people always check things like that. It’s just an old hat. Here’s a better one,” he offered. It was a more recent Twins hat made of Polyester instead of wool.\n “I think I’ll take the old one made of wool. Feels better.”\n “Yes, sir. Anything else?”\n The red Bianca bicycle had been addling his thoughts since he left the aisle. Something about the word Bianca was familiar. \n “That red bike in the other aisle. How much is it?”\n “I think it’s $25.00. Doesn’t have a chain you know.\n “I’ll take it.” \nPart IV\n It was October 11, 1965 game 5 of the World Series and Sandy Koufax was pitching a shut-out. Harmon Killebrew, the monster hitter of the Twins who sported a .357 batting average stepped up to the plate against Koufax. Hammerin' Harmon, as he was called, was the home run king of the 1960’s and was carrying the weight of Minnesota on his shoulders. Twins fans sat on the edge of their seats as he came to bat. They were already down five runs to nothing in the top of the seventh inning of play, but Killebrew was always a threat and gave them a sliver of hope.\nIt was Harmon’s third at bat and likely his last chance to get the home run he desperate for to redeem his dismal performance. In the second inning, Koufax had struck him out. In the fifth, he only managed a single that he hit to centerfield. It was now the seventh and Twins were hoping for a Killebrew explosion.\nKoufax went through his routine on the mound as he prepared to face Killebrew. He was not about to give him something he could hit. Winding up, Koufax pitched a ball. Winding up again, he pitched a second ball. Not wanting to walk him, Koufax gave him a slightly better pitch and Killebrew hit it hard to left field, but it went foul. Koufax eyed Killebrew once more knowing full well the power he could unleash on an errant pitch. As the fourth pitch was on its way, Killebrew wound up his powerful body to kill it. Crack went the bat sending a line drive along the foul line toward left field. Twins fans jumped to their feet praying the ball would stay in play. And it did, but left fielder Lou Johnson trapped it in his glove before hit the grass and the mighty Killebrew was out.\nAfter the game, Koufax was signing a few autographs on his way to the clubhouse. Someone in the crowd reached toward him and shoved a navy blue Twins cap in his face. Koufax looked up to see Harmon Killebrew holding out his hat with a smile. Koufax turned the hat over several times to find the best place to sign. The navy blue was too dark for the autograph to show. The only place to sign it was under the bill where the fabric was grass green." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: The Christening Gown\n\nGenre: historical-fiction\n\nWord Count: 1190\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story where a particular piece of clothing appears three times." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Warning: this story contains implied reference to sexual abuse.\nThe Christening gown.\n1889\nMarguerite stared at the box. Should she open it? Doing so would only lead to more heartache. Yet she knew she had to do so. She pulled at the ribbons which had been so lovingly tied in a bow by her mother the last time it was closed. She eased the lid off with trembling fingers. There it was. Not as white as it had been when her grandfather had worn it, not as soft as it had been when her father had been clothed in it, but just as beautiful as it had been when she had been swathed in it seventeen years earlier, all dimples and smiles. Her great grandmother had stitched it with love, embroidering daisies around the neck and cuffs. It had been worn by no fewer than twenty-two babies. \n She put her hand to her stomach, where her little secret was hidden. She hadn’t smiled for a long time and could not see a future where she would. Gone was the carefree life of her childhood, which disappeared when she was thirteen, the day Alfred her youngest brother was born. The day her mother moved into a room of her own. The day he came to her bed.\n The carriage was due in twenty minutes. But the gown had called to her from the attic, the gown her baby would never wear. Only her mother knew; the missing monthly rags on the clothes horse, the small amounts of food she had barely been able to swallow before running from the room.\n‘You had better send for Doctor Mason. That girl is even paler and quieter than usual’ mumbled her father before returning to his paper and the news that the Queen had been assaulted in the street. ‘Outrageous.’\n But her mother didn’t need to send for the doctor. She had had seven children and knew that she was observing the beginnings of a new life in her young daughter.\n There was ice in her mother’s voice as she asked, ‘Who did this to you?’ Marguerite did not understand the question. She was just off her food and oh so tired.\n ‘Nobody has done anything to me mother. I just keep being sick.’\n ‘When did you last bleed?’\n ‘Not for three months.’ she said, cringing at having to mention such things to her mother.\n ‘Did any man lie with you?’\n He’d told her she must never tell anybody, that it was their little secret. How did her mother know? She stared at the ground, her face belying the slight shake of her head.\n The force of her mother’s hand across her face and her fall to the ground shocked her. But she had given her word. She would not betray him. He had told her people would not understand.\n Her mother’s next words sent a chill running through her. ‘Marguerite, you are with child. You will not stay in this house and bring disgrace upon us. You will take your meals in your room until the day you depart. Your brothers will not be allowed to see you. You may not receive guests. I will make it known that you have scarlet fever. There is a case nearby. So that will be believed.’\n Mother opened her bedroom door and watched in stony silence as she sobbed her way in and pulled the door to without a word.\n The carriage would take her to Hastings where a Mrs. Brown awaited her arrival and from whence she would return in seven months with the story that she had been taking the air at the seaside. Her child would not get to wear the contents of the box.\n She heard the carriage wheels crunching on the driveway, replaced the lid, retied the ribbon and retraced her footsteps downstairs. Her father was out shooting, her brothers were nowhere to be seen, her mother stared out from the drawing room window. Her father had not acknowledged her distress. Yet he must have known what was happening to her. Mother would surely have told him.\n1917\nMargaret had searched everywhere. She knew she had seen it last week in the lounge when she had read John’s latest letter:\n ‘I miss you my darling and look forward to the end of June. They have given me a two-day pass for Freddy’s christening. Mother has sent the gown as promised. It should be with you by now.’\n She had read the letter and opened the box which had arrived at the same time. But where had she put it? How could she lose such a big box?\n There it was under the table. What on earth was it doing there? The christening was in two hours. When had she got to be so disorganised?\n John was cutting it rather fine. She had wanted him here when she dressed the baby. It was his christening gown. His heirloom. But never mind. She had got used to doing things on her own since the start of the war.\n She had to admit that Freddy looked quite the charmer in his ‘hand-me-down’ clothes. John would be horrified to hear her call them that. He had been adamant that his son and heir would be christened in nothing else.\n‘Now who is that at the door?’ she asked nobody in particular as the doorbell interrupted her thoughts. Maybe John had forgotten his key. The baby didn’t murmur as the boy at the door handed her the black-edged telegram. \n1984\nMags didn’t want a christening. She didn’t believe in God. But she did want a party. A party to celebrate the arrival of her little girl. She remembered the parties at university. Or rather she didn’t. It was a sign of a good party if you didn’t remember it. But it also meant she didn’t have a bloody clue who the father of her daughter was. That was fine by her. It was one of three possibilities and they were all decent men. She had hoped she would be able to tell when the baby popped out. But no. Kylie had red hair. None of the three candidates did. She took after her side of the family.\n Anyway, as she had already stated, she didn’t want a christening. But there was no reason why she shouldn’t have a christening gown. She wanted to show her daughter off.\n She had been walking through Camden Market, not that easy with a buggy, when she had seen it. It was hanging there on a stall surrounded by old fur coats, just asking to be bought. An off-white creamy sort of colour, embroidered with daisies around the neck and cuffs. Exquisite. She had to have it. It was more than she wanted to spend but Kylie was worth it.\n The party was a great success. Everybody ate and drank far too much apart from Mags. She couldn’t drink whilst she was breast feeding. Everybody admired Kylie’s gown, commenting on the handstitched beauty of it. Not a torn seam to be seen. Unlike clothes today it had been made to last." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: A Wednesday at the Park\n\nGenre: high-school\n\nWord Count: 1595\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story about an ordinary person speaking truth to power." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "“It is when your voice is shaking that you need to speak the loudest.”\nSheryl had heard this and remembered it, but at the moment she did not believe it. Her uncle had been an activist who had worked through civil rights movements, protests against poverty and injustice, and continued to be respected and loved by people Sheryl never knew and may never meet, apart from certain school teachers who were curious about the family name: “Is he your…?” “Are you relations of…?”\nShe looked down at the paper in front of her, her vision swimming and her stomach hot with fear. In the park, some people were playing with their kids (she was surprised by the number of new faces around her; she had not babysat for them yet); there were at least three joggers circumnavigating the area; other people were being walked by their dogs (that was how her mom described it); and then there were the school kids who would be out in around an hour. They were the reason why she was here.\nShe checked her equipment. It was a simple set up: microphone and speaker, something that could be used for karaoke (she had never done that before, but her uncle had…in Japan! She had to ask him about that one day). At home, she had put it in the basement the day before and checked the sound. It could be loud enough when it was needed. And today was the day when it would be needed. She heard it hum and buzz as she turned it on. The only thing to do now was to speak.\n\nNow this part was something that she expected, but it was quickly followed by what she could not see coming.\n“Sheryl!”\nRight in the cafeteria, right in front of everybody, and Alison Gatlyn was not even concerned about who saw or heard her take down her favourite victim. Sheryl tried to hide behind her schoolbag, but Adidas was not on her side and she was the only one at her table.\n“You, the loner! Sheryl!”\nNow the rest of the room was torn away from their reheated and homemade lunches, staring at the corner of the dull green and white room at a girl that they all knew was a loner and therefore a person who could take the heat from the rest of them. A human lightning rod for every bully and thug in the school, she had her role to play.\n“You see me, dork! You see us!”\nHer group was with her, as always: Rita, Lisa and Maria (Sheryl wondered if they were actually named with such a rhyme scheme), all dressed in the sharpest clothes despite the school’s dress code and their obvious challenge to the authority of teachers (and where were they, anyway?).\n“Alison…”\n“Enough! Didn’t say I wanted to hear your voice. I just want to talk and you are just going to listen and shut it!”\nShe sat across from her, her team lined up behind her both smiling and grinning.\n“Amazing the things people say about a dork at this school.”\nSheryl looked around to see if anyone was on her side. A lot of heads were turned her way, but they were staring and waiting for something that was too ugly for her to enjoy. She had never been in a fight before. There were insults and things overheard at school when she got special notice for test scores and projects, but nothing physical. A lot of people were staring at the crew in front of her. Other dorks were pretending not to notice. She actually understood why.\n“They say that you are going to the dance.”\nShe waited for more.\n“They say that you are going with someone…someone special.”\nOne of the girls behind Alison – was it Lisa or Maria – started to giggle a bit and covered her large mouth. This was going to get ugly.\n“And who is it that they said you are going with? Hmm? Any hints?”\nWhen was the bell supposed to ring, thought Sheryl? She stared down at her empty tray.\n“Okay, let me fill you in on what you already know and what will never happen: my brother! My football-playing, track-running, athletic brother is supposed to go out with…you. You! Y.O.U.!”\nAnd now, the whole space was watching. Some food dropped onto trays and floors; the staff ladling out mashed potatoes and soup looked up for once; the air felt very heavy and hard with heat.\n“NO ONE WANTS YOU!”\nAnd with that, the trio backed up, allowing Ms. Gatlyn to get up and walk down one path among the tables with her clue. \nIt was a very long time before anyone said a thing. And then the noises of a high school cafeteria returned.\nSheryl looked at the clock and then at her plate.\nShe did not say a word.\nBut she did have a plan.\n\n“Hello? Um…HELLO!”\nThat got their attention. She heard the school bell ring twice as they were coming out of the building on her left. The joggers were the first one to pause and wonder what this girl was doing in the park with her equipment. Parents looked over, took a second to see where their kids were playing and then ignored her until she spoke again.\n“My name is Sheryl Daniels.”\nThere was a little more attention on her now. The students who saw her were either waiting for the buses to take them home or about to pass through the park and see what she was doing.\n“Um…my name is Sheryl Daniels. I am thirteen years old and I am a student at…this school.”\nShe pointed at the building, noting some of the eyes now following her arm.\nHer paper was still hard to read.\n“I was told in the cafeteria that no one wanted me and that I should not even think about dating the brother of the most popular athlete at our school. I was told that I should not even consider going to the dance because I was unpopular and no one wanted me there.”\nThat last part was not shared in the cafeteria. Notes had been passed by Alison’s group and she had kept them all (it was easy to quote them with this).\n“The problem is that I am going to the dance.”\nSome voices were laughing. Was it for her or against her?\n“And I am going to it with the most popular guy at our school. Athlete, I mean. The reason why this is happening with someone as unpopular as me is that he wanted to go out with me.”\nShe noticed it on the edge of her vision and then wondered how many were involved. The silence that followed her statement came with some motion and what appeared to be a group huddled and ready to respond. No one approached her and she did not make a move.\n“Jason Gatlyn asked me out the dance and I can prove it.”\nAgain, all planned.\n“Hey, Sheryl. I wanted to thank you for the help you gave me with the project and for not letting my mean sister get to you. And…I was wondering if you wanted to go to the dance next week. Are you free? Please call me.”\nThe phone message played out very clearly over the speaker (that was how she had tested the equipment at home). That motion on her left seemed to grow and get a little more vocal.\n“He asked me out, the unpopular girl who gets straight-A’s, studies and does her homework on Friday nights, reads books that are not assigned at school and who has never had a boyfriend was asked out by…”\nShe felt a shove at her back and fell forward over her machine. When Sheryl got it, she noticed that Alison was all alone (no crew to support her this time). Some of the other kids who did not need to take the bus were right behind her or forming a circle. \n“You little..!”\n“Your brother asked me out.”\nIt was easy to predict what Alison was going to do. The phone was in Sheryl’s right pocket and had not fallen out with the attack. Alison tried to go pockets, but she was denied by something that no one really expected. \nIt was a true thing of beauty.\nJason Gatlyn was the star athlete of the school. And he had also taken up judo in his free time. While getting help with his homework, always away from home at a local gym or at a rec centre, he had shown Sheryl some basic moves. A good trade, they both thought. Her parents were happy that she was helping someone with his grades and he was happy that he finally understood math and science. No one asked Sheryl if she was happy. \nNo one at all.\nAlison stared up at the sky and the people surrounding her. Sheryl wrapped the microphone up and looked down at her.\n“No one wants to help you.”\nAs she walked away from the scene, the crowd parted and stared off at her. School kids were now laughing behind her (yeah, it was for her this time), and the others in the park went on their way. Some of them heard her name and wondered if she was related to another Daniels, but most went home that night with only the pleasant thought that they witnessed something very interesting in the park that day." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Life in Black and White\n\nGenre: historical-fiction\n\nWord Count: 1579\n\nPrompt:\n\nStart your story with somebody taking a photo." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Life in Black and White\nBehind the lens\n“Just scooch in a little closer — there you go! Thank you. Now, hold the pose… just a few seconds… look right here and smile!…”\nClick! Whrrr… “Beautiful!”\nClint was satisfied. He had a feeling this one would turn out well — a photograph that told a story without words. A story of the love of a father for his children.\nIt was Clint’s dream to open his own photography studio someday. Until then, it was a hobby. His fascination with photography had begun when he was young, maybe the age of the boy in this family he had just captured on film. \nHe had started saving pennies, but it would take a long time before he’d have the dollar necessary to buy a camera. Mama gave him a jar, so he could drop the pennies in. Clink! One hundred pennies! That was a lot of money. A lot of clinks.\n“That’s almost as much as Daddy earns in a day, after expenses,” Mama told him. His daddy worked as a Pullman porter. Clint wasn’t very sure about the expenses part, so Mama explained that Daddy got paid a certain amount every month — but out of that he had to pay for his food, his uniforms, and even the shoe polish he used on the passengers’ shoes. \n“I’m proud of you for saving! Just keep doing it. There’s no point in buying a camera until you have enough money for a roll of film to use in it,” Mama said, giving him a quick squeeze around his shoulders. Clint kept saving his pennies. Clink!\n📷 \nIn 1930, the Eastman Kodak company had its 50th anniversary. To promote interest in photography, they gave away a Brownie Hawkeye camera to every twelve-year-old in the country.\nClint didn’t qualify; he was nine at the time. His sister Dorothy, who was twelve, received a camera, but she wouldn’t let him try it. She was afraid he’d waste the film. He continued saving pennies. Clink!\n📷\nBy and by, Dorothy lost interest in the Brownie Hawkeye. She filled a roll or two of film over the next couple of years, then abandoned the camera. She preferred to save her money for a sewing machine so she could make her own dresses, and maybe someday sew for other people like Mama did.\n“Can I use the camera?” Clint asked. Mama heard.\n“‘May I’, Clinton,” she reminded him. “And remember your manners, please.”\nMama was a stickler for being proper in all things; the children were always clean, neatly dressed, and had impeccable manners. She was strict, but kind.\n“Yes, Mama. Dorothy, please may I use your camera? I have money to buy the film,” he added quickly.\n“Here,” Dorothy offered. “Just keep it.”\nThe tiny photographs were a little disappointing, but Clint persisted. Any money he received went to his film fund. Clink! \n📷\nLittle by little, his skill increased, but the small square box had limited effectiveness. He needed better equipment.\nFor extra money, he set up a shoeshine stand. Daddy showed him how to achieve a lustrous shine. Sonny Gibbs, the barber, let him operate just outside the barbershop doors, and he became a fixture on Saturdays. Clink! Clink!\n📷\n“May I take some pictures of you at work, Mr. Gibbs? You could use them for advertising, if they turn out well!”\nMr. Gibbs chuckled, a deep, rumbling laugh.\n“All right with me, Clint — better ask the customers before you do it though.”\n“You need a better quality camera, Clint,” Mr. Gibbs remarked a week later, when he saw the first results. “You have talent, and that little Hawkeye doesn’t do it justice.”\n“Yes, sir. I don’t have the money, sir.”\n“Well… let me see what I can do.”\n📷\nSonny Gibbs dropped a word in the ear of Jakob Schneider, a regular at the barbershop. Jakob operated the pawn shop a few doors down.\n“Ja, I have some cameras,” he acknowledged. “You come by — I show you.”\nThere were three cameras in Schneider’s shop. One was a Brownie Hawkeye, just like the one Clint was already using. The second was an almost new model, too expensive for Sonny’s intent. He eyed the third, a Leica Model A.\n“Made in Germany!” Jakob proclaimed proudly. “One hundred fourteen dollars new, neunzehn hundert — ah — nineteen twenty-five.”\n“How much?”\nJakob considered.\n“For you, for the boy, twenty dollars.”\n📷\nMama wouldn’t allow Clint to accept the Leica.\n“Mr. Gibbs,” she explained, “that’s very kind of you, but it won’t teach him responsibility.”\n“We’ll call it payment for advertising then.”\n“No, Mr. Gibbs. Clinton will pay you for the camera.”\nFinally, they came to an agreement. Mama decided that her son could give Mr. Gibbs earnest money. She consented to the barber crediting him a modest sum for “advertising fees”. She would then allow Clint to use the Leica, so his photography skills could improve.\n“It belongs to Mr. Gibbs until you pay the very last penny.”\n“Yes, Mama.” \n📷 \nThrough the lens -\nThe photograph is close to seventy-five years old, still crisp and sharply defined in black and white. It tells a story without words. A story of the love of a father for his children.\nHe stands, smiling broadly, squinting in the bright spring sunshine. Fully leafed-out poplar trees in the background provide a clue to the season. \nA wide-brimmed hat casts a shadow on the man’s forehead. His left arm is around the shoulders of an adolescent girl, perhaps twelve years old. She wears a striped tee shirt, ragged jeans with a hole in one knee, and a tentative smile. She has large, captivating eyes framed by distinctive arched brows. \nAgainst his right side, the father holds his son in a half-embrace. The boy, about eight years old, has a self-conscious smile and his father’s crinkly squint. He’s wearing a dark jacket that could be leather. There is a visible hole in the side of his shoe, and visible contentment in being pressed close to his father’s side.\nThe youngest child, a puny girl of about six, is not smiling. She wears a sober expression and has a peaked appearance, as if she has been recently ill. Even in the black and white image, it’s evident that the tip of her nose must be pink. \nShe’s been lovingly bundled in a knee-length coat with a wide collar, slightly out of fashion, and wears a bonnet style hat. Too small to be included in the embrace, she’s tucking herself tightly against her father’s denim-clad leg.\nThe mother has chosen not to be in this photograph, self-effacingly joking,\n“There’s too much of me to fit in the picture!” \n📷\nBeyond the lens -\n“Nnnaa-aa-aahhh! Nnnaa-aa-aahhh!” \nGoats clamored to be noticed as they clambered over and upon tree stumps and farm equipment. There were Alpines, sporting horns and beards; Saanens, hornless, clean faced, a bit larger than the Alpines; and charming, chunky, lop-eared Nubians.\nThe goats were fun — albeit challenging — to photograph. Clint asked the boy to assist him.\n“Think you can catch that one? She’s pretty.”\nDexterously, the boy apprehended a large chestnut Nubian nanny with a black face and white blaze. Her silky, pendulous gray tweed ears flopped as she bellowed,\n“Nnnaa-aa-aahhh! Nnnaa-aa-aahhh!” \nThe boy crouched beside her, arms encircling her broad shoulders and neck, restraining her. \nClick! Whrrr… “Beautiful!”\nSometimes, at school, he was called “Goat Boy”.\n“Hey, Goat Boy, is your coat made from one of your goats?” \nIn reality, the leather jacket — which his parents could not afford to buy — was a gift from his favorite aunt, his father’s sister. A prize possession, but he almost didn’t want to wear it after being mocked.\n📷\nThe photographer came now and then, usually to take pictures of the animals.\n“Any new ones?” he always asked. He had plenty of pictures of goats, chickens, rabbits, pigs…\nThis day, there was a tiny black lamb. Just a few days old, he tottered a bit on his slim legs as he followed the boy. \n“How about if you sit on the ground and hold him in your lap?” suggested the photographer.\nClick! Whrrr… “Beautiful!”\n📷\nThe father was a storyteller. He painted pictures using words as his medium. His children had heard them again and again, never tiring of their allure.\nClint came to take pictures, and stayed for the stories. His particular favorite was an account of the father’s cross-country journey from Maine to Nevada. It began with a bicycle ride all the way to Illinois, where the tires wore through and were replaced free of charge in Chicago.\nThe last leg of the journey was by train, and Clint wondered if his own father might have served as porter on that very voyage. Of course, the young traveler would never have had occasion to enter the sleeping car — he couldn’t have afforded it. \n📷\nThe next time he stopped by, Clint brought a gift for the family. Three large prints of the same photograph — \n“One for each of the children,” he said, with a smile. \nThe father offered to pay for them, but the photographer refused. He wanted to give them this moment in their lives, preserved in black and white.\nIt is, indeed, a photograph that tells a story without words. A story of the love of a father for his children.\n📷" } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: The Dry-Plate Pioneers\n\nGenre: historical-fiction\n\nWord Count: 1392\n\nPrompt:\n\nStart your story with somebody taking a photo." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "It was four o’clock in the morning when the hideous chorus erupted next to my head. My Westclox shrieked at me like a merciless automaton from hell sent to torment our wretched cadavers. I heard Carol’s muffled adenoidal protest and felt her playful elbow shove my ribs. ‘It’s your turn to get up, Ted,’ she said, pulling the blankets over her head to block out the awful din. \nI struggled to part my eyelids in the murk and extended my numb fingers towards the infernal clock. Fumbling in vain to stop the persistent racket, I sent it tumbling onto the rough floorboards. The impact jolted the alarm mechanism into silence, and the clock scuttled under the mattress to join our bedpan. I sighed with relief, exhaling a cloud of white vapor that condensed into miniscule droplets on my shoulder.\n#\nThis was the fourth morning in a row we’d dragged our aching limbs through self-inflicted purgatory in the name of my passion for photography. We’d travelled seventy miles by train from Sacramento to Modesto and a further eighty miles on horseback to get to the Pioneer Village. I’d rented the cabin for two weeks and wanted to maximise our time here. I’d scouted potential locations on my previous trip and intended to capture the sunrise on the high ridge-line before leaving. So far, the atmospheric conditions had thwarted us. The last three mornings, I’d saddled up our horses and the sumpter mules and headed off on the valley’s rocky trail. I calculated for thirty minutes to load up the animals with my photo equipment and an hour to reach our vantage point. Setting up the gear was second nature to me. I’d my methods for ensuring the camera was steady and level and had a supply of pre-loaded dry-plates to hand should I require extra shots. In my experience, the set-up wouldn’t take too long and so I’d be ready for the first rays of light by half-past six.\n#\nI hauled my weary legs out of bed and, huddling under a woollen blanket, raised the cover of our storm lamp. I struck a match and offered the hissing phosphorous flame to the charred wick. The shrivelled cord spluttered to life and emitted a sooty plume of smoke. Once I nudged down the protective glass bulb, the lamp’s cheery orange flame illuminated the shack’s interior like a newborn star at the centre of a homespun solar system.\nBehind the pot-bellied-stove’s front grill, I could see precious glowing embers; the remains of last night’s fire. I scrabbled about, adding a handful of kindling and a couple of quarter-cut logs to resurrect the flames. With gentle encouragement, the dry fuel caught fire, and I set our pot of cold water on the top plate. I’d look forward to that steaming brew once I’d fed the animals and rubbed them down. They had a morning’s work to do and so did I. Coffee and toasted rye bread would help me recover my wits and set me up for another day of photography in the wilderness.\n#\nDecades before the convenience of film cameras, my father experimented with dry-plate photography using glass painted with photo sensitive liquid. He housed individual plates in light-proof wooden boxes before inserting them into the rear of the camera’s body. In historical terms, it was the first time one could capture images and store them in a latent state before processing them. His equipment with its cable release lenses and cloth bellows would be unrecognisable to future generations. Nothing was automated, and he had to devise ways of calculating focal distances and exposure times. Once he’d caught his image, he processed the transparent glass plates using home made developing and fixing chemicals. He called his system “painting with light” and to a lad of my tender years, he was a magician. \nWe had a spare room in the basement and he converted it to a darkroom. A dull reddish bulb illuminated it and, according to my mother, his darkroom was a satanic laboratory; a place of devil worship and sorcery. \nShe said no good would come from his Mephistophelian chamber and when he demonstrated his grainy images appearing in sulphurous liquids, she left the room in a fluster. It was wicked trickery and became my life’s infatuation. \nMy father encouraged me to create my own images and introduced me to the delights of pin-hole photography. He explained the ‘camera obscura’ was a renaissance artist’s tool designed to aid perspective drawing. I understood the principle, and made my own ‘cameras’ from old shoe-boxes, painted photo emulsion onto thick cards and inserted them one at a time into my homemade picture maker. I too would be a master of light and aspired to a life of making pictures.\n#\nWhen Carol met me, I was a military serviceman photographing soldiers prior to their voyage across the Atlantic to help the war effort in France. Most times, this was the last portrait the families would receive; plenty didn’t return or received disfiguring wounds in Europe. The portraits also identified the bodies of lost compatriots, if they were lucky enough not to be abandoned on the battlefield.\n#\nBy 1917, the British had been fighting over a hundred yards of wasteland for three years, making no progress. The body count had risen beyond all measure, and both sides now longed for an end to hostilities. Armistice wasn’t too far off, but now there was the additional threat. Spanish flu was about to destroy lives and businesses around the world. My portrait work trailed off as governments enforced isolation policies on the public and I had to consider other alternative means of income.\n#\n‘But what would persuade people to part with their hard earned money?’ I’d asked Carol, stuffing my hands in my pockets. \n‘Art, of course,’ she’d said, as though it was obvious. ‘The pictures only you could take.’ \nCarol encouraged me to start a novelty picture business and acted as my agent and muse. She had visions of owning a gallery. We’d sell my pictures and curate and sell the works of contemporary artists. ‘Artists can’t sell pictures,’ she’d say, sighing. ‘There’s no point in taking great photographs if you can’t sell them.’\nShe was right, of course. We’d seen many a “fly-by-night” flogging tatty shots and plenty of talented creatives begging next to a pile of unrecognised masterpieces.\nCarol’s suggestion inspired me to head off into the Sierra’s in search of glacial valleys riven by cascading waters, silent forests of lofty redwoods giving shade to sacred lakes and the promise of precipitous cliffs, topped by vertiginous peaks sprinkled with the crystallised remains of a hard winter.\n#\n‘They say it’s all in the timing, right?’\n‘Sure,’ I said, checking my exposure guide as the first rays of deep orange stroked the distant ridges. ‘There’s not much to it.’\n‘Anyone can click a button,’ she said, laughing.\n‘Just one thing to remember,’ I said, removing the dust cap. ‘Right place and right time.’\nWell, that’s certainly true about landscape photography. This wasn’t the first morning we’d got up early to take the perfect picture. The previous three mornings had been a waste of time. The rising mist and low cloud had conspired to muddy up the foreground and obscure the peaks, leaving me with a disappointing low contrast image and uninspiring views. \nFinally, we’d encountered a bright sunrise with roving clouds casting drifting shadows on the pastures and towering escarpment.\n‘You’re ready for this, Ted?’\nI’d fixed my sturdy tripod in position on a rocky outcrop with the optimum vantage point. It was still near zero and we waited, shivering, for a shaft of sunlight to flow over the distant trees. A horse grazing in the frosty pasture stood facing away from us and resembled a gnarled tree stump at that distance. I made five exposures as the uppermost mountain ridge caught the beautiful clear light, but the distant beast refused to walk on. The final shaft of light approached across the wide meadows. I primed my camera for one last shot. At the last moment, the horse turned and presented a clear silhouette.\n‘A solitary animal in an endless plane, below mountains of granite.’\n‘That’s a bit of luck.’ I said. ‘Perfect timing.’ \n‘You make it look so easy.’\n\nThe End\n-" } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Arabian Convoy\n\nGenre: historical-fiction\n\nWord Count: 2945\n\nPrompt:\n\nA character finds an old roll of film, and takes it to be developed. What do they find?" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "While rambling through some storage boxes in the basement one day, I came across a roll of film. The film was among past photos and other odds and ends, and I recognized that most of the stuff was from back in the 1990s.\n“I wonder what could be on this,” I asked myself aloud, though there was no one around.\nI rolled the film around in my hand. The yellow sticker on the backside of the film case had been worn down to make it unreadable. I had a sudden sense of profound curiosity to find out what was in that roll of film.\nHow to get this developed? I asked myself. Obvious. Google it, right? I often enjoy having a conversation with myself; it somehow reaffirms whatever I am thinking at the moment.\n“How to develop old Kodak film,” I typed into Google. Plenty of ads popped up, but as I scrolled down the straightforward answer came up; to take the film to a CVS pharmacy, and they will send it off for you. That was great. I couldn’t believe they still did that. It brought back memories from the 80s and 90s whenever you had to take your film into the pharmacy, put it in an envelope, fill it out, turn it in, take the tag, wait several days, or pay an extra fee for quicker delivery. Unless you were a serious photographer that kept notes on your pictures, which I never was, there was always that sense of excitement to get them back and see what pictures you had taken.\nI took my discovered film down to the nearest store and dropped it off. They told me it would take approximately a week to get back and would send a text notification once it was finished. About a week later, I received the message and went to pick the pictures up. I was excited to open the photo envelope but waited until I got home.\nOnce home, I grabbed a beer from the fridge and went to the couch with my present. I sat my beer on the coffee table and carefully cut the envelope flap open with my knife. I pulled the stack of photos from the envelope, and the negatives fell out with them. The first picture was nothing but a brown blur. There was no image whatsoever. “Damn!” followed by more damn its, and god damn its as I flipped through the pictures, getting the same result, just brown blur. I must have had the lens cover closed or something, I thought. As I approached the end of the 24 pictures, one came out crystal clear.\nThe photo was of a man in a green military uniform from the back. The picture was taken from behind the windshield of a large truck. The man was walking toward what looked like a service station. The area around was nothing but dust and sand. In a flash, the memory came back to me.\n“Oh, shit! I took this photo in Saudi Arabia just before the war.”\nThe picture was taken in Saudi Arabia, and the war was the first Gulf War with Iraq in Kuwait in late 1990 and early 1991. I had taken the picture while riding as a guard for a truck convoy. The convoy consisted of three semi-trucks whose drivers were all Arabs, I believe Saudis but not for a certain sense I spoke no Arabic and they spoke no English.\nI had arrived in country during the last part of November from Hawaii, which was to be my main duty station. My unit was already in Saudi Arabia and had been since August, some of the first US troop deployments right after Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait. The unit I had been assigned to, Third Battalion Third Marines had just finished a pump, or a deployment, of six months in Okinawa and Southeast Asia.\nBefore getting to my unit, which was assembled in some remote desert camp, I would be attached to a forming unit at the main camp outside of Riyadh. I and other new recruits along with other rotating veterans sat around this camp as we awaited transportation or orders to our perspective units. During this time we did odd end work parties, this being the Marine Corps way of keeping you busy, and sat around playing cards. Parts of the camp were being broken down and put on trucks to be moved forward to establish a new base camp closer to the Kuwaiti border.\nI got selected, along with a few others, to ride as an escort/guard for a convoy that would be taking equipment and materials north. Each Marine would be a single guard for each convoy. The morning that I was to join the convoy, I reported to HQ to receive my instructions. I was told that I would ride in the lead truck as just a security measure to make sure that the truck drivers did not take their loads off somewhere to sell the goods onto the black market, something I guess they were known to do. I was to keep my combat gear on, helmet, flack, and deuce gear (magazine pouches and webbing) and given enough ammunition for several magazines for my M16. I was also instructed that it was an easy assignment that I didn’t need any Arabic, that the drivers knew where they were going and all I had to do was just enjoy the ride. There was no radio given and of course, there were no cell phones at that time so I was on my own if something were to happen but I was ensured that there were plenty of military convoys and personnel traveling the road as other units were moving camps and people also.\nAfter leaving the CP (Command Post or Headquarters) I walked over to where the trucks were located toward the entrance of the base. They had already been loaded the previous night and I found my three drivers alongside the trucks. They wore the traditional Arab garb of a long tunic or Abaya as they are called in Arabic, along with sandals. They were chatting among themselves when they saw me coming. They gave some hand gestures such as greetings and said hello. I think we shook hands because I remember that it was very important only to use the right hand. I am left-handed and using the left hand other than for the dirty business in the bathroom is considered insulting in Arab culture.\nThey seemed very cordial and polite but in a hurry, so after some nods and hand gesturing, I gathered they were ready to roll. There was some broken English like hello and ok, ok, but beyond that not much conversation. I headed for the lead truck and jumped up into the passenger side.\nThe inside of Arab trucks is quite fanciful itself. There are all these trappings like the dangling fuzz balls all around the window and the calligraphy or Arabic designs that are all over the cab along with pictures of perhaps family and friends or imams (Muslim priests). The cabs are very decorated. My driver started the truck going and we headed out along the dusty road heading for a main paved road. I never received a map or directions or anything like that, I was told the name of the area that we were heading for, which I can no longer remember now, but I was assured that the drivers knew the route and had no worries.\nWe must have driven for some miles to get to the intersection of the highway the time was uneventful and lost to my memory. What does stick in my head is that once we got to the interstate my driver stopped and looked over at me and started saying something in Arabic. I just looked at him and nodded having no idea what he was saying, maybe telling me how amazing the highway was or something, but then he began hand gesturing toward the road and then the sign, all in Arabic. It was then that I understood that he was asking me which way.\n“Which way?” I asked looking at him in surprise “How the hell should I know? I was told that you guys knew the way. Holy shit.”\nThe guy started barking in Arabic at a very rapid pace. I could tell that he understood that I didn’t know either what he was saying or which way to go. He opened his door and jumped out of the truck. I soon saw him and his companion drives just below and outside my door and they were raising a ruckus.\nIt was actually quite funny, they were flapping their arms just jabbering Arabic faster than anything I ever heard, every once in a while one would point his hand towards me and they would all be back at it again. They had a map with them, so I decided to get out and at least take a look. Maybe I could see something that I recognized and point to it.\nI got down in the midst of them and they showed me their map that looked like a child’s doodle of Neverland as everything was also in Arabic, a very beautiful looking written language I may say but looks like some bizarre Doctor signature strewn out across the page. I had no idea how to even begin to interpret it. They would look at me and I could tell were asking me again which way. I just shrugged and again they all went into a tizzy.\n“What the fuck do I do now?” I asked myself. I thought we could turn around and go all the way back to base camp, but that would make me look like a fool and someone would probably write my ass up for that and I was supposed to have this trip down by tomorrow. I knew it was going to take some six hours of driving then I was to catch a military ride back from where we dropped the load.\nI looked at the highway and a vehicle would come every now and then. I knew the name of the place so I figured that I would just halt a vehicle and say the name to see if the driver knew of it. The first vehicle just drove past without even slowing down, just watching me wave at them. Then a couple of others did the same.\n“Fuck this,” I unslung my rifle, put it to my shoulder, and the next vehicle that came toward me, I raised my rifle and sighted in straight at them. That vehicle stopped.\nI was quite lucky as out of this tan truck, maybe a small Toyota I think, a guy in British fatigues and beret jumps out and says, “Say there chap, what’s this all about then?”\nI explain to the guy my situation and tell him where I am heading and he was such the British gentry, he never batted an eye or got angry he just continued, “Well just continue straight up the highway here the way I’m headed, that’s north,” he pointed down the highway “and you will see signs for…” here again can’t recall the names but he said they would be in English as well and that I would notice lots of military activity with vehicles and such.\nHe finished with “Well good luck to ya, and if you hit a bunch of barricades with a bunch of armed Iraqis, that’d be Kuwait, and ya gone to far.” He laughs, hops back into his truck, and off he goes. I turned back towards my drivers who are now focused on what the hell I was doing out in the middle of the highway. I point up the highway and shout, “We go that way!” They give a cheer and we all get back into our respective trucks.\nMost of the ride was non-eventful, just sitting around in the cab and listening to crazy Arabian music since me and the driver couldn’t communicate with each other although we tried. I had found out later that the truck drivers were known for getting things on the black market from sailors off of supply ships while making deliveries to port towns. My driver started laughing once and pulled down his sun visor which exposed a photo of some topless blond with very large breasts.\n“Hahaha! You like?” he would laugh then close the visor, having pornographic photos in Saudi Arabia can land you into trouble. He also knew the name Jack Daniels and whiskey. “Ahhh, Jack Daniels! Whiskey! Hahaha, you like?” then he would just proceed to laugh though he never produced any whiskey. Maybe he was out at the time.\nThe drivers loved playing this game of passing each other with all their lights flashing and they would pass each other in every which way possible even going off into the desert, though sometimes the road was even covered by sand drifts like drifting snow does in the northern plains. Once one of the trucks passing off into the desert managed to get himself stuck. We spent a good hour getting it out and that was not the only time, it was like fun for them to go speeding off into the sand for some reason. Sure it’s a blast until you're stuck.\nOne thing I really enjoyed is we stopped for a break one time. They would stop for prayers but that was just long enough for them to throw down a carpet towards Mecca and do the prayers, but the break was at dark and they sat out a big carpet and opened the wheel cabinets under the trailers of the truck. They had this whole gas stove system with pots and everything under there. They brewed up the most awesome tea I have ever had in my life and we sat around cross-legged on the carpet drinking the tea for about 20 minutes. As they chatted I looked up into the night sky and was astounded. You will never believe the stars you can see out in the depths of the Arabian desert where there is no light pollution, it is mind-blowing.\nWell, my time is almost up. About out of words, but oh I must mention the picture from which I started this story. We had pulled into a service station and it was similar to what you would find in the States in 1990, it had pumps and a store, and a couple of out buildings.\nI had to wiz something fierce so I proceeded inside of course in combat gear, packing an M16, and that’s something I recommend trying is going around in a foreign country packing war gear and weaponry, it’s a neat experience. At any rate, everybody knew what was up so they weren’t freaked out or anything but it took a few gestures and silent acting to get them to understand I was looking for the restroom or head as we call it in the Marines. The attendant pointed to a building outside and told me something, so I headed that way.\nI went into this small building and on the wall to my left was this long silver metal trough on the wall just below waist level along with sinks on the other wall. There was another open door going into the back of the small building. I immediately thought of trough pissers from back in the States like at bars. I proceed to go over to the trough, which has running water in it, and undo my fatigue buttons, and am just about ready to let loose when a man comes out of the door from the back and starts going irate.\nHe’s yelling and flinging his arms in the air and of course, I button back up and square up with this guy thinking maybe he’s not happy with Americans. Soon a couple more fellas enter the bathroom from outside. The one screaming at me starts talking to them and they are all looking at me then one of them kind of looks at me in understanding and comes over to me and hand gestures toward the back door and says “Please”.\nI head through the back door and there is a small hall with stalls on each side about the size of small showers. I look in one and all I see is a hole in the floor with jugs of water sitting around in the stall. The man that guided me in was at the door and is looking at me waving, “Yes, Yes. Go, go.” I figure out the hole is the bathroom and the water, well that’s what for cleaning the left hand. On my way out I notice a man at the trough and he is washing his feet in the trough. I learn that is a Saudi custom to wash the feet upon entering or leaving such places.\nI had many more adventures during that war but here is one of them, and I made it all back in one piece. Just remember, I was an 18-year-old kid when I was doing this, now at 50, so it's been a long time. My time and words are up for now and I hope you enjoyed the story and maybe learned a little something. I know I did being warped into a whole new culture that was worlds different from mine, but also many similarities. It was these experiences that would later lead me to the study of anthropology." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: The Homecoming Jester\n\nGenre: high-school\n\nWord Count: 2053\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a cautionary fable about someone who always lies." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Once upon a time, in a land “that is like, actually the worst place in the world”, a congealed mess of odors swept through the commons. The lunch ladies insisted this came from their passionate work in the kitchen. They also maintained that this ‘ungodly stench’, as the students called it, actually smelled good. The students only agreed with the lunch ladies on one of these points. The FDA agreed with neither, classifying the lunch ladies’ work as “Synthetic Nutrition Supplements”.\nBlack and orange signs hung throughout the room, hanging from the ceiling and walls. They informed students of tonight’s homecoming dance. Under one of these signs, sat three happy friends. The first, Robert, sat like a candy cane. The cafeteria smell failed to reach him. Instead he picked up the dusty aroma of The Definitive Guide to South-Asian Doorknobs, and Why At Least Somebody Should Care his nose stuck in. His clothing gave off the impression he had never heard the word fashion, which is of course an exaggeration, but a smaller one than you might think.\nThe second friend, Rachel, also sat like a candy cane, but only if you broke the curvy part off. She held her phone in front of her and smiled into it, for what seemed to Robert to be way too long. In her defense, every couple seconds another girl would interrupt her. They would stop by to say hey and ask where she got her nails done, or where she got that cute top,or if she wanted to skip the class she already planned to skip with someone else later.\nThe third friend, Paul, was of no notability.\nRachel frowned and set her phone face down on the lunch table.\n“Do you own clothes that don’t look like a Best Buy uniform?” \nRob found the question rude, he saw no problem with his norm. \n“What do you mean?” Replied the teen. \nHe lifted his head and his eyes started to water from the nasty air. His nose scrunched up as he caught his first glimpse of a poster advertising homecoming. He shoved his face back into his book.\n“I’m serious, man,” She started again. Her hands put a scrunchie in her hair, “You have got to get something to wear,”\nRob kept reading. Rachel rolled her eyes. Paul probably did something too. The lunch ladies lied to themselves, and put their slop away for the day. One of the last receivers of said slop arrived at the table.\n\"What’s up guys,\" She wore clothes that weren't themselves red, but reminded people of the color red. Specifically the shade of red one could see dripping down from one’s eyes upon looking on at her clothes for too long. The clothes deterred sane people similar to how a fake pair of eyes on an insect’s backside deters predators. She preferred not to look down while wearing them.\n\"I didn’t expect you to be here by now Lynn,\" Rachel said as she put on an insincere grin.\n\"Don't get wise,\" Lynn replied, “Do you like my fit? I really love it.”\nRachel rolled her eyes again and picked up her phone. Lynn sat down next to her and started eating. Rob continued reading. Rachel leaned her head on her hand and then stopped because that causes acne. Paul spoke up\n“” He said. He looked at Lynn as he said it. Although his words were silent, his glare conveyed his message.\n“Paul is right,” Rachel sighed. She set her phone back on the table and looked at Lynn. A few more words escaped her airway, “How come you were late again today?”\nLynn responded as if she had read Rachel’s mind and foresaw the question days before. \n“I was fighting a cyclops,” She stated. Lynn also foresaw the unamused look Rachel shot her. She also foresaw the correct amount of time (2.673 seconds) to wait before replying, “And I made a short few stops,”\n“I’m gonna hang out with Chris,” Lynn didn’t foresee this. Rachel sighed and got up from the table. She jerked her pink backpack up from under Lynn’s seat and put it on her back. Her perfume lingered at the table as she disappeared around a corner.\nRobert looked up from his book.\n“I’ll see you,” Said Rob too. \nPaul looked around for a minute, trying to avoid Lynn’s eyes. He played with his thumbs and kicked at the dirt on the ground. He coughed a little bit and caught Lynn’s eye. They stared at each other for a moment before Paul broke eye contact by turning around and leaving.\nLynn finished her lunch and wondered what she did wrong.\nThe bell rang and she went to history class. Robert sat across the room with a group who looked like they program for fun. Their laughter rose above the clamor of the classroom and their smiles seemed misplaced when not in front of a computer screen. Lynn sat by them.\n“And I said, that’s not Legend of Zelda, that’s Super Mario Brothers,” Said one of the group members as he scanned the keen faces of the others. After he spoke, another round of laughter erupted from the group.\n“Super Mario is my favorite game” Said Lynn, breaking into the conversation, “Mario is basically my middle name,”\nThe group turned to look at her. The buzz of the classroom took over until Rob interjected.\n“What color is a mystery block,” Robert slowly started to talk. He paused between each word, drawing his eyes into a narrow gaze by the time he finished.\n“Tan, man,” Replied Lynn. The look on the faces staring at her confirmed what she already knew. That wasn’t right.\nThe class’ energy died as Mr. Kolputz walked through the door. Lynn walked to another seat across the room. History class dragged on as every boring word Mr. Kolputz said went straight out of the opposite ear it came in. Her eyelids struggled to return after every blink throughout the duration of the class. The pencil in her hand danced around her notebook, drawing her mind instead of the lesson.\nOnce class finished she looked back down at her notebook. She had drawn a dark room. In the room, Robert, Rachel and herself danced to the sound of music being played from the gym’s loudspeakers, hidden by the lack of light. In other words, she drew a black square.\nRobert had almost made his way out the door when Lynn grabbed his shoulder “Are you going to homecoming?” She paused. Robert turned, “And is anyone else coming?”\n“I don’t think so,” What does he know? Thought Lynn in response. As she went to collect her things, Robert vanished into the mob of students in the hallway.\nLynn went to her next class, chemistry. She loved chemistry more than any other subject, which allowed her to pass the class with flying colors (a C+). Rachel however, did not like chemistry. She was what they called “normal”. Unfortunately for her, the school required her to take the subject.\nRachel spent most of her time in chemistry class texting her friends, chatting with classmates, and just otherwise letting the teacher know she didn’t care. She sat in the back corner with a few others who cared equally as little. They all stared down at their phones as Lynn walked in the room. \nLynn walked over to the corner and sat down. \n“How are you?” Rachel looked at her and returned to her phone. The rest of the crowd seemed not to notice Lynn. \nMr. Sdog started class by turning off the lights and starting a video on the molecular structure of acids. The class groaned as the lesson started. Lynn’s eyes fixed to the TV screen. As she watched the video, she could feel the unwelcoming eyes of the other students in the back corner occasionally peering at her. Whispers broke her focus on the lesson.\n“Do any of you know this person?” Said a voice, not knowing Lynn heard him. \n“I don’t. Look at her clothes,” Hearing this talk, Lynn froze. Even in the dark room, Lynn’s clothes weren’t hard to see, “I bet she can’t even tell Old Navy from Gucci,”\n “I can too,” Lynn protested. Rachel noticed the commotion and looked up. Mr. Sdog concentrated on a riveting game of solitaire on his phone.\n“Then what brand is Rachel’s jacket,” He whispered to avoid a racket. Lynn and Rachel met eyes. Rachel shifted in her seat.\n“I know that one, Loui Vuitton.\" Said Lynn. The boy replied by chuckling and returning to his phone.\nLynn knew the group wouldn’t welcome her into their ranks and so she moved to the front of the class and watched the rest of the video. When class finished she caught Rachel at the door.\n\"Are you going to homecoming?” She asked. Rachel turned, “And is anyone else coming?”\n\"Probably not,\" Aloud she thought. Rachel walked out in a mass of students.\nLynn had one class left in the day, English. As she walked through the hallway to class she passed posters, signs, fliers and other various notifications announcing homecoming. The colors black and orange crawled through every inch of wall and ceiling, filling the school with pep.\nBy the time she had arrived at English class she had forgotten to pay attention to where she was going. All the decoration demanded her attention much more than the boy in front of her, so when she got to him she nearly ran him over. Paul stared at her as she looked back stunned to see someone standing in a crowded hallway.\nPaul’s look conveyed his message: Greetings dear Lynn, I you seem to have forgotten to look where you intended to go. A common mistake, an easily forgivable one. I see however, that this is not your only reason for seeing me today. I know we have English class together, but that doesn’t seem to be it either. If I had to guess I would presume that you have something on your mind today. I would like to inquire further, but class starts in about a minute and I would think it dreadful for either of us to be late. Please come in and let us chat.\nLynn and Paul sat next to each other in time for class to begin. Paul remained engaged in the lesson, waiting for it to end before the two could talk. Halfway through the lesson Paul passed a note.\nLynn my colleague, I seem to have run into a bit of a conundrum, allow me to explain. As I’m sure you’re aware, our worksheet requests us to identify various classes of words. This in and of itself is no problem. For the first half or so of the worksheet I seem to be doing just splendid, but on question number six I run into the issue. You see the worksheet, starting then, challenges us to identify conjunctions in each sentence. My question is as follows: What the hell is a modal verb.\nAfter reading the note Lynn whispered to Paul.\n“I’m really amazing at grammar,” she began, “a modal verb is an or/and word.”\nPaul smiled at her and finished working on his paper. Once he finished, he walked to the teachers desk to turn it in. Once class finished the teacher called Paul back to her desk. Lynn watched them talk and waited for Paul.\n\"Are you going to homecoming?” She asked as Paul walked towards her. Paul didn’t blink, “And is anyone else coming?”\nHis eyes gave an answer too vulgar to put in writing.\nDespite receiving no’s from all her friends, on her way home Lynn decided she would go to the homecoming dance. When she got home she rifled through her clothes trying to find the perfect dress. She tried on every piece of clothing she had until she was finally satisfied with her choice. \nWhen she arrived at the dance, she saw Robert, Rachel and Paul all together. She stopped in her tracks as they saw her. Her mouth fumbled about trying to find the words to say when Robert answered the question she struggled to form.\n“We can’t count on you,” Which was very true. \n“Also it's kinda weird how you always try to rhyme.” Said Rachel." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Being Me\n\nGenre: high-school\n\nWord Count: 2696\n\nPrompt:\n\nStart your story with a character taking a leap of faith." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "It was an announcement no one had expected to come from a teen who was riding the high-wave of an uncommon achievement.\nTopper.\n100 percent.\n600 on 600.\nAnd then the startling statement. It was as if a bomb had been dropped amidst a carnival.\n‘Pure Science. That will be her choice,’ dad had said to his colleagues the day the exam results were declared, and they had all nodded in unmistakable admiration for me. The choice was barely a surprise to come from someone who had a perfect score in the subjects that their children struggled to pass muster.\nThe men in dapper suits and Clarks shoes acknowledged that his daughter was par excellence, and she was all set to be propelled to the next level of academics from where she would go on to create an irreversible success story. They agreed as they congratulated dad that I had everything on my side to become the next Einstein; I was all set to bring home a Nobel Prize in due course. A gold medal all the way from Norway was predicted to sit pretty among a plethora of other decorations that I had brought home in my 17 years of life. It was something dad had always spoken to them about, and by now, everyone who knew him knew about his grand aspirations for me too. \nMom for her part said to her friends that she would love to see me wear the Doctor’s coat, cure ailing humans, and save lives. (She always said it in that order.)\n‘What a noble thing it would be do! To fix broken hearts!’ she exclaimed poetically, seeking approval from her peers.\n‘Of course, of course,’ they said in unison, their festering grudge safely tucked under their heaving bosoms. Some even felt a twinge of jealousy, and rolled their eyes when mom wasn’t looking. Mom was certain that a few among them had already started planning the alliance of their son with me and she laughed about it over dinner with dad and me.\nThere was no doubt in their minds, neither dad’s nor mom’s, that I would bring them the greatest of glories a child was capable of bringing her parents; glory of the kind not envisaged by common people.\nWith my topping the 12 grade exams, Dad’s ‘Nobel’ dream had inched one step closer home, and he made no attempt to plug his pride.\nMom, being a tad less ambitious, lodged no such towering ideas in her head. She was content with me becoming the best-known heart surgeon in the country. Who decided such things- the best and the rest- I had no clue, but she had always been obsessed with ‘excellence’, especially in matters pertaining to me.\nI had been undaunted throughout, fulfilling their desires, handing out accolade after accolade, in everything from academics to music to art, year after year. It was as if I were pulling out the rabbit of their choice from my hat, as and when they pleased, with no question asked. With no dissent nor digression. Granting their every wish.\nCome to think of it, I was in a tearing hurry to complete my obligations towards them and then break free, to lead an unfettered life on my own terms. I knew that day would arrive at some point, when I would unfold the wings I had kept tucked under my arms, and flail away to the skies, but that it would come this soon was a surprise to me too. It was a spot decision.\nThe day the results were announced, we had newsmen swooping on us, with dozens of cameras jostling for space and some soundbites from dad, mom and people around. It was curious to see them all making celebrities out of us when all I had done was bring home a perfect score in my board exams. When the numbers and grades had stopped being a fetish to me, I don’t know, but this accomplishment was insufferable to me.\nI watched the beavering pack of newsmen with wonder and felt seriously tickled by their questions.\n‘How does it feel to be the most intelligent teenager in the country?’\nMost intelligent? Really?\n‘Unbelievable,’ was all I said, because that was what I had heard my predecessors say.\nTo a few others who shoved the mic in front of me, I said, ‘It feels good,’ faking a squeal.\nIn reality, I wanted to confess to them that it all felt a little bizarre to be tagged ‘the most intelligent’ when that claim could not be ratified. How could they say I was the best student in the country based on a standardized test of a few hours? I could probably be described as an ace crammer, a rote specialist or something equally wacky, but not the most intelligent in the whole country.\nDad and mom gushed with pride as packs of sweets began to get stacked on the side table. They waited for their turn with the reporters. I had even caught mom rehearsing her lines in front of the mirror an hour before. The neighbors who had gathered to congratulate us looked on with awe, eager to grab their 60 seconds of fame in the frame, and the newsmen competed with each other to ask the most ridiculous questions to me.\n‘Did your parents sit with you while you burnt the midnight oil?’\n‘No, they were busy making love at that time,’ I wanted to say.\n‘Did you think you’d top the whole country?’\n‘Of course. The astrologer had predicted it,’ I wanted to say.\n‘What advice will you give your juniors who have their eyes set on this spot in the coming years?’\n‘God save you from the dreams of other people,’ I wanted to say.\n‘Is this something you have been planning from a young age?’\n‘Not a young age. From the day I was conceived. I have been planning this from my days as an embryo,’ I wanted to say.\nThere were moments when I wished that it were all a bad dream. I didn’t want any of it, least of all the drama that was unfolding in front of me.\nFor a blurry moment, I imagined myself telling them, ‘Oh, you are all so mistaken. It isn’t even me. I didn’t even take the exams. There was this apparition that appeared in front of me a few minutes before the exam, all wired up and weird looking. I pushed it into the exam hall while I went gallivanting in the town with my boyfriend. That day, he kissed me for the first time in places I cannot tell you. It is a secret, let not my parents know about it.’ I giggled inwardly at that point, thinking of the consternation in the faces before me.\n‘It wasn’t me at all who gave the exams and got this damn thing…this whatever you are celebrating,’ I protested silently. ‘It was a robot that was crafted out of me. An inanimate object that supplicates to your commands. Why, I have even forgotten my name! I am now only a dream-fulfilling machine for my parents and an envy generating idol for my friends. For the rest, like you all, it doesn’t even matter what I am.’\nThe press meet began amidst thoughts roiling inside me. The heart waited impatiently to release the resentment I had kept bottled up for years. Flanked by dad and mom, I rehearsed my lines in the head. It didn’t matter what the question was, the answer was fixed.\nI was asked to give an opening statement before the questions were fired.\n‘Thank you,’ I began, softly, running a nervous glance across the room. ‘Thank you, everyone, for your generous words of praise and appreciation. Thank you, dad, and mom, for making me what I am today. Before I am asked how I feel and what I plan for my future, let me tell you all a thing. Dad, mom, I am sorry if I disappoint you. You are not used to being disappointed by me. Hence when you hear this, it might hurt you several times more than it might parents of average students.’ \nI saw dad and mom’s faces stiffen as I spoke those words. My mouth felt dry, and I swallowed hard. The audience fell into an uneasy silence, the feverish moments ticking as I paused to gather courage.\n‘I don’t intend to study further. This is the end of my academics. I have no plan for my future yet….’\nJust as a reporter began to ask a question, dad raised his hand to stop him and rose to his feet.\nI shut my eyes tight as I felt his grip on my arm. Surprisingly, there was no animosity in his touch. I had expected him to drag me inside, but all he did was to make me sit in the chair and ask mom to fetch some water.\nMom hobbled in with panic. The audience seized the opportunity and began to fling questions at us.\n‘I don’t think she will be in a position to take your questions. I request you all to kindly disperse and respect our privacy,’ dad announced. It sounded like what families of celebrities said to the media when they died mysteriously.\nWhat an irony that it had come close to it, but the tragedy was averted only because of my firm decision to not quit.\nThe buzz in the room lasted for half an hour, after which the house plunged into a quietness that reminded me of the days preceding the exams.\nI didn’t know what to expect from dad and mom, but this scene had been recreated in my mind several times, with changing effects, except that I hadn’t spoken the entire thing to them yet. They hadn’t heard me out and the uncertainty that lingered gave the evening a ghostly aspect. As if it was all a dystopian dream.\nI wondered in what realm of consciousness I was floating at that time. What do you call that space where you are neither happy nor sad, waltzing in a desensitized land? Stoicism? No, the word sounded too lofty for comfort to my ears. I let it be. it didn’t matter.\nInside, dad and mom were engaged in a serious conversation. I made no attempt to eavesdrop, nor did I agonize over what they might be discussing. They would soon present themselves in front of me, to cross-examine me, and to demand an explanation. I steeled myself up to face their wrath or whatever it was that they would spew on me. Mom’s sullen tears. Dad’s morbid stare. Their clouded faces and the shadows they cast on me. There would be a huge display of emotions for me to contend with. Gross from mom. Grave from dad.\nClearly, it wouldn’t be easy for them to see their dreams come crashing down like that, in a snap. The ticket to Oslo, the Doctor’s coat, the pride of place in society- these wouldn’t be easy to renounce. They had spun a life around it, spent all their emotions and energies on it for several years.\nI lay plonked in the sofa relishing the sweet void that was filling within me as I contemplated my life from here. I imagined the universe with its arms open wide, waiting to sync itself with me.\nAs the uncertainty of the evening wore on, hunger pangs began to seize me and I zombie-walked into the kitchen and rummaged in the fridge. I opened the containers inside and found leftovers from lunch. As the sharp smell of garlic-laced curries stung my nostrils, I realized my craving was not for food. I didn’t want to satiate the stomach, but I felt an intense urge to satisfy a desire that I could not quite put my finger on. Where did it rise from? What would assuage it?\nI discovered a family pack of butterscotch inside the freezer that had found its way home long before the exams. It had lain there half-consumed, gathering freezer odor, for nearly two months. A cold or a cough during the exams could have put paid to dad and mom’s Himalayan hopes for me. But it was all over now, and I devoured the treat frantically, feeling the cold cut through my tongue and throat. A poor tooth, waiting for its turn at the dentist, moaned faintly as the ice-cream washed over it.\nThe dull ache in the tooth was instantly supplanted by the pleasure of the palate. I dumped the empty bucket into the trashcan, feeling relief in the nooks and crannies of my whole being. How futile life had been without its share of Baskin Robbins!\nI felt alive again, as alive as I had before the seasons of expectations, and ambitions had begun. Before the racetrack was laid out for me to run and win. Before my accolades became an addiction to dad and mom. Before my life changed to a lame, naked, hollowed-out semblance of a teen.\n‘Simmy.’\nIt was dad from the living room. His voice was feebler than what it usually was.\nI gulped the ice-cream laced saliva, cleared my throat, and hurried out. Inquest time. The distance from the kitchen to the living room seemed like an eternity.\n‘Dad, two minutes,’ I said and rushed to the bathroom. I briefed myself as I sat on the pot for longer than it was required.\nI had to remain calm and solemn in front of him. The last thing I wanted him to imagine was that I was joking or that I was out of my mind. I had to convince him that I had made my decision consciously, knowing precisely what it meant.\nIt meant that I was giving up everything that was hitherto considered important in my life.\nIt meant hanging up a festooned future that I had come so painfully close to.\nIt meant standing up and speaking for myself at the impressionable age of 17.\nIt meant finding and being myself before they could usurp me.\nDad looked tired but determined in the wan light of the ornate corner lamp. Mom was nowhere in sight. She had probably left it to dad to complete the task of grilling. It was a sensible decision, I thought, given her propensity for theatrics.\n‘Dad, I am sorry,’ I said, standing in front of him.\nDespite my best efforts, I couldn’t stop my eyes from filling up. I wasn’t sure if I was sorry, but an apology seemed appropriate, for the level of my transgression wasn’t small. I had consciously sought to crush his dreams, with the ruthlessness unbecoming of a child. I had become a metaphor for filial ingratitude.\n‘Hmm..’ he grunted. ‘Mom wants you to eat and go to sleep.’\n‘Dad…’\n‘It’s late and I am tired. You must get some sleep too. We can talk tomorrow. There is nothing that cannot wait until then.’\nI wished the lights were bright for me to read his face and decipher his thoughts.\nI wished he let me vent my heart and gave my freedom right away.\n‘Dad’, I said again moving closer to him.\nHe took my hand, patted it, and said, ‘Tomorrow.’ There was no bitterness in his voice.\nEven in the dim settings and through the blur in my eyes, I saw that there was no malice in his eyes.\nI didn’t know if I was imagining, but there was a suggestion of a smile in his handsome, half-century young face. For once, I felt genuinely sorry for what I was doing to him.\n‘Good night, dad,’ I whispered and left the room carrying with me an ambivalence inspired by dad’s unexpectedly mild manner.\nThe unspoken things between us had to wait for a night before they could be voiced and sorted out, and along with them, my long-awaited freedom to set out on a life of my choice.\nI vaguely remember having wept into my pillow that night. I don’t remember why.\nThinking of it now, decades later, it seems like an episode from another lifetime.\nFuzzy and fogged out." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: You May\n\nGenre: historical-fiction\n\nWord Count: 1202\n\nPrompt:\n\nStart your story with somebody taking a photo." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Cornwall, 1901\nRoss squinted into the sun as he slowed his horse to a trot. After four gloomy days of rain, he was glad to trade the dark walls of his family’s home for the warm salt air of the cliffs. This pathway left the newly returned and generous sun at his back and though it’s rays stung his eyes as it sparkled on the calm waves down below, it felt pleasant along his sleeves and shoulders. He closed his eyes for a moment and relished the warmth.\nIt was then his horse moved under him with a thunderous jolt. Hooves rattled against the sandy ground and Ross held tight to his hat.\n“Easy, there,” he rumbled, moving his reins and directing the horse into a small, distracting circle. “Easy.”\nWhen the horse landed back where it began, however, Ross was the one who was spooked. He jumped in his saddle when a light head of blond hair rose from the tall grass. A man, who to Ross’ knowledge must have been lying down in the grass, stood and sent a shy wave.\n“My apologies! Didn’t mean to startle you.”\nRoss released a breath. “Are you all right?”\n“Oh, yes,” the man called. He waved toward the edge of the cliff. “I’m- I’m taking photographs.”\nRoss’ horse was growing impatient beneath him, taking small, uneven steps that aggravated Ross’ sore knee. He leaned forward, rolling a steady hand down his horse’s neck as he studied the man standing in the grass. It was clear that he wasn’t from this part of the country- after all, Ross would have known him if he was. But by the type of clothing he wore, grass stained and damp as they presently were, this man was most likely of similar status and history as Ross. But what brought him to the rural cliffs of Cornwall? Specifically, of Ross’ family acreage?\n“Photographs?” Ross asked.\nThe man smiled. “Yes.” He lifted a small black box that barely fit in his small palm. “Would you like to see?”\nSince Ross returned from the war, he’d kept to himself. He’d been left with a more than dilapidated home with empty fields and bare paddocks and a small village of tenants to support. He’d been left very alone. The person he’d spoken to most in the past months was his banker and even then he was only cordial and mostly swift. \nThis man, however, didn’t know Ross or his history or what he’d lost in the past year. This man, standing on the edge of the cliffs with his little cardboard box was the most exciting thing Ross had ever seen pop out of the grass. \nHe dismounted his horse, leaving it free to graze, and trudged through the sand to the blond man. \nHe stuck out his hand. “Ross Preston,” he said.\n“James Housley.” James had a hardy handshake and calloused fingers. He also had eyes of bright blue, like the ocean below when it glittered in the sun. James himself was just as blinding.\n“Where are these photographs?” Ross said, letting go of the man’s hand.\nJames lifted his box. “Those I’ve already taken are in the film. It’s inside the camera. But I can show you what I haven’t captured yet,” he said with a smile. He had two dimples on either side of his mouth when he smiled.\nHe turned from Ross and lifted his camera to his face, directing the front of it away from the sun and along the face of the cliffs. Then he stepped away, holding the camera in that exact spot. “See this?” he asked. “Look through that square.”\nRoss didn’t move. “I see what you’re looking at. The cliffs. And the sea.”\n“Just take a peek,” James said.\nRoss eyed him. Up close, he looked younger than Ross. But he looked trustworthy. Not like some of the men in the streets who would have pushed Ross off the cliff by now just to steal his horse.\n“What brings you to Cornwall? You’re not from here, are you?”\nWith his camera still held out, James said, “Trade. Copper, tin, and the like. I’m a merchant captain of a fleet of ships.”\n“From London?”\n“America.”\nExciting indeed, Ross thought.\nJames tilted his head toward the camera one last time.\nRoss stepped to it, squinting his eyes and peering into a gray square from a few inches away. “I don’t see anything.”\n“You have to get closer.” \nJames set a hand on his back that set every one of Ross’ nerves aflame. He easily moved closer to the box, closing one eye and searching with the other until the picture before him became clear. The waves below looked so delicate and the cliffs so sharp, as if they were painted with knives. \n“It’s so small.”\n“It’s the mirror inside. It shrinks the image to a printable photograph.”\nRoss stepped back from the camera and felt James’ hand leave his back. Almost forlornly, he said, “Quite incredible for a little box.”\n“There’s more to see,” James said, circling Ross and falling to his knees. “Come down here.”\nWithout even a glance back to his horse, Ross followed. He laid in the grass on his belly next to James, watching the man’s handsome face scrunch up as he looked through the camera. There were wrinkles at the sides of his eyes and stubble over his cheeks. Ross found himself taking in every kink and curl of James’s golden hair- how it wound around his ears and kicked out at the back of his neck. It looked soft, as if the sea air agreed with him.\nJames was soon leaning towards him. “Just there. Take a look.”\nRoss replaced James’s eye with his own and grinned at what he saw. From this angle, he could just see the sparkling line of the horizon. It was breached by the yellowed blades of grass that pierced through the image from bottom to top. James had picked out the perfect marriage of sea and shore.\n“Beautiful, hm?” James asked.\nRoss hummed in agreement. \nBefore James could show him anything else, Ross took hold of the camera and turned on his side, aiming the lens at James. Through the viewfinder, he watched blue eyes glisten and full lips smirk.\n“What are you doing?”\n“Don’t speak.”\nRoss flicked the lever and captured the image. He spent another moment looking at James through that gray little square, just once removed from a gaze so strong it could have burned him. If James knew what he was doing, he didn’t let on.\nFinally, Ross returned the camera to its owner. “Now you have a photograph of yourself to remember Cornwall by.”\nA strong breeze blew up from the waves, rippling the fabric of Ross’ light shirt and sending a thick, black curl of his hair onto his cheek. James’ fingers were there to tuck it behind his ear.\n“May I take one of you? To remember you by?”\nHeat rushed up Ross’ neck, heat he hadn’t felt in a long time. He straightened and blinked, but for once since he’d returned home, he didn’t think too much about what he was doing.\n“You may.”" } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: The Dear Departed\n\nGenre: historical-fiction\n\nWord Count: 1398\n\nPrompt:\n\nStart your story with somebody taking a photo." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "My grandmother is very old. She was born on 1 April, 1908, and today is her ninetieth birthday. She is a cheerful happy lady of the old school who adores her family. She likes nice clothes and an occasional illicit cigarette. She is a great cook and raconteur who loves to tell funny stories and has the gift of making you feel as though you are the most important person in the world. But there are some things she will never speak about.\n\nThere is a polished mahogany box that grandmother keeps on her bedside table. It looks like a jewellery box but I know that it contains her most precious belongings: a prayer book, a folding icon of the Christ and the Virgin of Consolation, and an album of photographs. No one is allowed to open this box, but sometimes, when my grandmother is out, I go to her room, carefully take out the album and flick through the photographs. I suspect that she knows I do this but nothing is ever said and she never talks about what happened then.\n\nThe first photograph is a picture of my grandmother as a young woman, probably taken some time before she got married. She looks young and serious and stares directly into the camera. She is wearing a straw boater and a tailored linen jacket over a shirt with a stand up collar and tie – clearly a studio portrait. It is the picture of someone facing the future head on with optimism and determination.\n\nThe second photograph is also a formal portrait, taken some years later. In this picture she is wearing a silk blouse with a collar of embroidered daisies and a ruched silk skirt which trails to the ground. Her hair is piled up in curls on top of her head and she is sitting in an armchair with a child standing on either side of her. The girl on her left, my mother, is all in white with a ribbon in her hair. The boy, my uncle, who is a few years younger, is standing on a stool wearing a knee length lace dress, and has his hair in ringlets. They all look very serious as if they have been warned by the photographer not to move or speak.\n\nAfter these very formal portraits there is a mixture of more casual pictures: people playing tennis in a garden; a group of young people having a picnic by the seashore and an old lady sitting by a window sewing, while a small baby plays at her feet. It is an idyllic world of country houses, elegant clothes and people who look as if they don’t have a care in the world. The war has yet to cast its shadow over their lives. Most of them will not survive. Some will be shot, others will just disappear in the maelstrom of war. In a matter of months everything they have ever known will disappear for ever and they will become visual reminders of a world as remote as ancient Egypt.\n\nThere is one final formal picture at the back of the album. It is a photograph of a family group sitting in cane chairs on the terrace of a country house in late summer. To the left is a door into a conservatory, while behind them a path leads up a hill to a small chapel just visible in the distance. On the right is what looks like the beginning of a formal French-style garden with box hedging and roses. There are ten people in the photograph: my grandmother, her two sisters, my grandfather’s two brothers and their wives, my mother and uncle and a small boy whose name I never knew. It looks like a picture taken to celebrate a birthday, or Easter, or some other special family occasion. They look happy. The others are chatting and laughing but I can see that my grandmother is looking straight at the camera, at my grandfather.\n\nDespite the country house setting it is clear that something has changed. The women are all wearing heavy aprons and have their hair tied back under kerchiefs. I can see the tips of working boots peeping out from under their skirts. The men are wearing canvas jackets and there are hunting guns propped against the table. A dog lies sprawled on the ground, clearly exhausted. It is a group of people waiting for their world to end, as they know it soon will.\n\nMy grandfather took the photograph. He has his back to the sun and I can see his shadow on the ground in front of the group. Shortly after this photograph was taken the house was burned to the ground. The first time the soldiers came to the house they just took any food and alcohol they could find. As they left, one of them said to my grandmother; ”you have a very pretty daughter.”\n\nThe next day the local priest came to the house. He told my grandfather to leave while he still had the chance. “They have seen the house and they will be back.” Later that day they heard shooting from the village and knew what was coming, so they had time to hide in the cellar below the old barn.\n\nThis time, the soldiers took anything they could carry and smashed what was left. When they were gone my grandfather went out first to check that the coast was clear. Then they packed up what they could wear, eat or sell and waited for dark until they could slip away through the forest and over the mountain pass to the old military road. With luck they would be able to cross the border and get to the coast.\n\nWhen grandmother came to the top of the hill she looked down through the trees into the valley where she could see the roofs of the house and the flames that were spreading from room to room. My grandmother, my mother and my uncle escaped and survived. My grandfather did not. A chance meeting with a group of soldiers; probably deserters, an argument over a gold watch and one of the soldiers shot my grandfather. They couldn't even stop to bury him. My grandmother gathered her children and her courage and kept moving, always onwards, but the absence of my grandfather left a tear in the fabric of life that nothing has ever been able to repair. The shadow of my grandfather has loomed over all our lives since then, in benign silence. At Christmas and Easter lunch the seat at the head of the table is always left empty.\n\nAs for the rest of the family – who knows? I only ever heard my grandmother speak once about the war. She was talking to my mother in the kitchen. They didnt know I was listening and as I came into the hall I heard her say. \"War is a terrible thing. People will do anything to survive and in the process it makes monsters of us all.\" When they heard me coming they changed the subject and I never heard it mentioned again.\n\nThe pictures in grandmother's box are the family ghosts my mother can only vaguely remember but grandmother will never speak about. If anyone ever asks her about that time she will just smile and say “that was a lifetime ago, I would much rather hear about you.”\n\nBut I know that every night, before she goes to sleep, she opens the box, takes out that photograph and prays for her dear departed in the words of the De Profundis.\n\n\"Out of the depths I have cried to Thee O Lord! Lord, hear my voice. Let Thine ears be attentive to the voice of my supplication.\n\nIf Thou, O Lord! wilt mark iniquities: Lord, who shall stand it? For with Thee there is mercy: and by reason of Thy law I have waited on Thee, O Lord!\n\nMy soul hath relied on His word: my soul hath hoped in the Lord. From the morning watch even until night:\n\nlet Israel hope in the Lord. For with the Lord there is mercy; and with Him plentiful Redemption. And He will redeem Israel from all his iniquities.\n\nEternal rest give unto them, O Lord! And let perpetual light shine upon them. May they rest in peace.\"" } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Star of the Stage and Silver Screen\n\nGenre: historical-fiction\n\nWord Count: 2840\n\nPrompt:\n\nA character finds an old roll of film, and takes it to be developed. What do they find?" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "It rolled out from under a steamer covered in dust and other detritus found in the attic. My father Vernon Hattford had passed away a week ago in hospice, leaving me as executor of his estate. He had lived in this house since getting his Veteran Administration loan to buy it after the war in 1946. I grew up, learned to drive, got my first kiss and a whole bunch of other memories in this neighborhood before leaving for college. It shames me to admit, I have never looked back until my dad got cancer. I helped set him up in a hospice where he hung on for about a month.\nHe liked the nurses. He said they reminded him of mom, but then she died years ago, leaving me with a shortage of memories. He never liked to talk about her when I was growing up. I was one of the few kids who did not have his mother pick him up on the first day of kindergarten. \nWhen I was ten, he remarried to a woman named Lily who treated me as if she had given birth to me. She would have two sons when I was in high school, but I never really got to know them very well. \n“Shelby, she wanted to go to Hollywood and become a star of stage and the silver screen.” He would tell me as he hid behind his newspaper after coming home from work down at the factory. All his life he was a blue collar union man and proud of it. When I went off to college, it was the only memory I had of him shedding tears, but they were brief and with dry eyes he waved goodbye as I pulled out of the driveway. \nIn all his time on this earth, I always thought he told me the truth about my mother, but I was about to find out I was wrong. When I pulled the small container from under the steamer, I held a container of undeveloped film. \nI took it to Zack who worked the counter at the local pharmacy where he developed Kodiak film for the customers.\n“Wow, this is an antique.” He smiled as I handed him the container.\n“So can you do it?” I asked while rocking on my heels. \n“Sure, shouldn’t be a problem.” He sniffed, then his expression changed, “Sorry about your dad. Vern was a good guy.” \n“Thanks, man.” I nodded, still feeling a little emotional about his passing. \nI own a single photograph of my mother. Her name was Trixie according to my father and they married in the celebration of victory over Japan in World War Two. My dad was a gunner on a battleship and he would tell some of his war stories when I was older. \n“Your mother was one of the most beautiful I had ever seen. She was working at the U.S.O. in New York City when I got my discharge.” He once told me in one of those moments that will live in my memory. \nBut he did not speak of her other than that. It was almost as if talking about her would bring on an unwelcome spirit or curse the house in some way. \n“Dude.” It was Zack’s voice on my cell phone.\n“What’s up?” I sat on my couch with the phone pressed to my ear. \n“These photographs are really old. I had quite a time getting an image to form from this old film.” He sounded victorious, “But you need to come look at these pictures I resurrected.”\nResurrected? Sounded like he had raised these photographs from the dead. \nHe placed four black and white photographs on the counter when I came in the next day. I knew one of the people in the picture was my dad still dressed in his Navy uniform with a woman standing next to him with strawberry blonde hair and a skirt that was much too short for the times. She was probably in her early twenties if I were to take a guess. \n“Whadda think?” He said proudly.\n“Any idea who she is?” I bent over to take a closer look.\n“If I were to guess, I’d say she’s your mother.” He said with a flare of his hands.\nHe knew my story. He knew how I had no memory of her. How the only evidence left of her, lived inside of me. Growing up, I did not resemble my father as my facial features seemed sculpted and formed by the hand of a master artisan. I am sure this must have been a great disappointment to him, but he never once said anything. \nScanning the photographs there was no doubt that I was her son as even the shape of her eyes, the roundness that was pinched off at the ends, was a perfect match of my own eyes. While dad had dark brown eyes, I had often wondered why mine were so pale blue. The photograph completely answered any question of where I had gotten my eye color from.\n“Like looking in a mirror, eh?” Zack winked at me.\n“I just wish I knew more about her.” I pulled out my wallet.\n“No, no, this one is on me. Not everyday I get to see old photographs come to life in my dark room.” His smile was framed by his curly red beard. “Vern told you nothing about her?”\n“Not a thing except they met at a USO dance.” I shrugged, returning my wallet into my hip jeans pocket. \n“He was a talker.” Zack nodded, “Seems strange he didn’t tell you anything about her.” \n“My dad was not always the chatterbox you think he was.” I sighed.\n“Special on cleaning supplies on Aisle Three.” He pointed.\n“Got plenty.” I smiled as I held up the photographs, “Thanks.” \n“My pleasure.” He waved as I left the pharmacy.\nI spent most of the day looking at the photographs I spread out on my kitchen table. I could not believe how attractive she was. Her smile seemed to light up the room. Finally I said aloud, “Dad, I wish you had told me about her.” \nUsing the internet at one of those Y-5 coffee hangouts on my block, I kept feeding Google any details I could remember, but the information was limited when I entered her name, Trixy Hattford. It took me a few attempts before I figured out Trixy was not really her name. After a morning of fruitless searches, I decided to go for a brisk autumn walk along lower Manhattan when I happened to see St. Mary’s Hospice where dad spent the last few days of his life.\nSister Margaret greeted me at the reception area where I had spent a lot of my time the past month. During my father’s time at St. Mary’s, she made sure he was comfortable and free of pain.\n“Shelby, good to see you.” She was always so cheery and cordial in this place where her patients waited for their final hour to come. She was a firm believer that the final moments of someone’s life should not be filled with sorrow and grief.\n“Sister.” I bowed my head to her.\n“What can we do for you? It appears you have a lot on your mind.” She nodded. I placed the photographs on the counter in front of her. “What do we have here?”\n“It’s my mother.” I managed to croak.\n“You look just like her. What happened to her?” She asked.\n“I don’t know. I know she passed away when I was still an infant, but beyond that it’s all guesswork.” \n“Hmm.” She put her finger to her lips. “I do have some people I can get in touch with who are good at tracking down information.”\n“That’s why I came in, to tell you the truth.” I nodded.\n“Well, let me see what we can do.” She winked, “May I use one of these photographs?”\n“Take your pick.” I put my hand on the counter.\n“Alright.” She smiled again.\nThree weeks later, I got a call on my cell. I had almost forgotten about my trip to St. Mary’s, because things had been busy at the bank where I worked. I was an account manager which is another way of saying that my life belonged to First Savings and Financial Institution. My day would start at seven and I might leave, arming the electronic security and locking the big double doors at the front of the bank. \n“Allo.” A gruff voice greeted me when I walked into my apartment.\n“Who is this?” I asked a bit harshly.\n“Alton Wynickvich.” The voice answered.\n“Do I know you?” I shook my head, “I don’t have time for this nonsense.” \n“Dis is not nonsense.” He shot back.\n“I just got home from work and-”\n“I am your uncle.” He interjected.\n“My wha?” My jaw dropped open.\n“Look it, kiddo…I am Tatiana's younger brother.” He said as if I was supposed to know that. \n“Who?” The name was completely foreign sounding.\n“Your mother, Tatiana.” \n“My mother was not named-” \n“What makes you so sure?” He sounded angry this time. \nHe was right. What proof did I have of what her name was? My father never told me. I never heard her voice. Who knows where she was from. \n“I wan ta meecha.” He stated.\nWe met at the coffee place. It was not hard to figure out who he was, dressed in a faded navy pea coat and jeans with a heavy graying beard, looking around as if someone was watching him. I decided to meet him at my neighborhood coffee place. \nAs soon as he saw my face in the nearly empty establishment, he walked right over.\n“Your name Shelby?” He asked with one eye cocked like a loaded gun. \n“Are you Alton Wynickvich?” I asked, already knowing the answer to my question. \n“Da, Uncle Alton.” He forced a smile.\n“Uncle Alton.” I corrected myself.\n“I was younger broffer to your mama.” He tilted his head.\n“Who was she?” I asked with my eyes tearing up a bit.\n“One of the bravest women I know. My sister.” He nodded his head like a bobble-head. \n“Why?” I held out my arms.\n“For many reasons.” He coughed. “She saved my life.”\n“How?” I shrugged.\n“We were from a small village in Belarus.” He started as he removed a pack of unfiltered cigarettes from his shirt pocket. “I was only six at the time the Germans came looking for Juden people. We were Jewish, so these dogs were looking for us. She was seventeen, but she worked for a farmer a few miles from us. Every morning before the sun came up, she would walk to this place. There was a shed where the farmer kept his tools and she took us there to hide.”\nHe smoked just about the entire pack of cigarettes as he told me their story of evading the Gestapo while they set up an office in the small town. She joined the resistance along with her father Josef who had a head of silver hair at the time. Supply vehicles were blown to bits by the roadside explosives they planted on the back country roads. It was known that traveling through the countryside of Belarus was dangerous, but soon it became a death sentence to those who did it. \nSoon Tatiana's picture appeared on a wanted poster with a sizable reward attached. She was fearless like a badger and she was feared among the Germans who traveled in supply convoys.\nOne of the commandants planned to set up a trap using the German trucks as a decoy. As the trucks bounced along the rugged country roads, a small unit of resistance fighters appeared at the edge of the woods. Suddenly the canvass was pulled back on the trucks to reveal .50 mm machine guns. All of them opened fire at once killing and wounding many of the fighters before they had a chance to react.\nTatiana was wounded and taken prisoner. As she suffered in jail, the commandant came to her cell. He put his boot on her open wound and stepped down. She screamed out in pain, but all he did was laugh.\n“So you are the bitch who has been killing all my men?” He sneered.\n“Go to hell, pig.” She spit in his face. \nRemoving the pistol from his holster with one hand and wiping off the spittle with the other, he put the barrel to her head, “I should press this trigger and end it right here.” \n“Do what you must, you swine.” She clenched her teeth.\n“I will have much more satisfaction watching you beg for death.” He laughed and left her cell.\nDuring the night, her father led a daring raid to rescue her, but he died in the raid. It was a hard time for us all. I don’t remember many of the details, but I do remember her tears. She shed many of them. One of the raiders managed to carry his body back to the camp. They put him on a pyre and set it on fire so the Germans could not claim his body. She held me as the flames reached the stars in Heaven. \nThe next day she and some resistance fighters raided the headquarters where she put a bullet between the commandant’s eyes that were wide with terror. \nIn the spring of 1945, she took me and my mother west along the shell riddled roads until we came to a camp where they were flying a flag with a red cross in the center.\n“You Alton, promise to take care of your mother.” She knelt down in the melting snow and looked me in the eyes.\n“Yessum.” I said, holding my mother’s hand.\n“Where are you going, my dear?” My mother asked as she kissed her daughter for the last time.\n“To find others in our fight against the Germans.” She answered as tears ran down her cheeks.\n“Stay with us.” Her mother begged, but she just shook her head and disappeared in the trees. Planes filled the sky. You could hear gunfire.\n“So my mother was your sister?” I asked.\n“I do not lie. I am your uncle.” He stubbed out his cigarette. “Your father met her when she immigrated with a ship full of refugees. She got a job in the USO, because she was pretty. Your father was enchanted by her beauty as I was told.” \n“Why didn’t you come to see me sooner?” I asked, feeling a bit angry at his hesitancy. \n“Your father would have forbidden it.” He shook his head, “He did not want everyone to know he married some poor peasant girl from a poor village in Belarus. He called her Trixie, because it was as if she was a movie star of stage and silver screen. He told all his friends that she was once a famous actress.” \nHe looked around and then back at me, “I wanted to make sure he was gone before I came to you. Sister Margaret was working in the hospice when I brought my mother back thirty years ago. She treated my mother like she was a queen. I love that sister.”\n“She knew?” I was nearly speechless.\nHe nodded his head as he lit another cigarette. He coughed, “She wanted me to tell you the story, because she felt it was my story to tell. Many times the story of those days are told by people who have no idea what we went through. How after the Germans left, the Russians filled the void left behind, trading one monster for another. She would have loved you. Before she died she wrote me a letter and told me all about you.”\n“How did she die?” I managed to ask him.\n“The wounds she had never healed properly. She took pills to help ease the pain until one day she could no longer bear it. She took a full bottle and waited for her heart to stop beating. She did not have long to wait. It made your father very angry. There was a small service which I managed to attend without being seen where he told his own parents that he would never speak her name again. Your grandmother was holding you. You were nearly two years old at the time.” He reached over and wiped the tear from my cheek, “And now you know.”\n“If I had never found that roll of film…” I would never know.\n“Ack, I would never let that happen.” He grabbed my cheeks with both hands and pulled our heads together until our foreheads touched. “She was the star of the stage and screen.”\n“Yes Uncle Alton, she was indeed.” I nodded. \nIt still amazes me to this day that something as inconsequential as discovering a roll of undeveloped film, could have changed the course of my life so dramatically." } ]

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