Datasets:

---

diwank

/

writingprompts-10k-chatml

like 0

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": " The year is 1910. Adolf Hitler, a struggling artist, has fought off dozens of assasination attemps by well meaning time travelers, but this one is different. This traveller doesn't want to kill Hitler, he wants to teach him to paint. He pulls off his hood to reveal the frizzy afro of Bob Ross.", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "Hitler was having a piece of banana cake when Bob Ross walked in.\n\n\"And I just feel like no one *gets* me, you know?\" The future Fuhrer was saying to one of his servants, as he \nsprayed whipped cream over the cake, distracted. \"I mean, I know most artists are destined to be posthumous, \nbut… I don't know, I guess I want the fame and the fortune too, you know?\"\n\n\"*Ja*, It is very hard, my master,\" the man said, in a German accent but in English for no reason at all, just like foreign characters in the movies.\n\n\"Hey, Hitler,\" Bob said, stepping in, confident. \"May I?\" he pulled a chair sat down without waiting for an answer.\n\n\"What is this!?\"\n\n\"Listen, I'm Bob Ross and I'm from the future and I paint stuff.\"\n\n\"Bob Ross?\"\n\n\"Yes. Here's the thing – I'm supposed to come here and teach you how to paint so you'll be a good painter and not \ninvade Poland and then the rest of Europe and cause the death of millions of people.\"\n\n\"Holy shit, I do that!?\" Hitler widened his eyes.\n\n\"Oh, yes. It's awful. People still use your name as a reference to evil. There's even an internet law based on how \nlong it takes until someone compares a certain situation to Nazi Germany during an argument.\"\n\n\"What's the internet?\"\n\n\"Never mind,\" Bob leaned forward. \"This is what we're going to do – I'm going to teach you how to –\"\n\n\"Excuse me,\" Hitler's servant said, in that same fake accent. \"I'm afraid I must intervene here.\"\n\n\"What's wrong?\"\n\n\"Well, Mr. Ross, have you considered the twist?\"\n\n\"The twist?\"\n\n\"Yes. The fact that you'll teach this man how to paint, he'll grow to be a famous painter, not invade anything, and \nwhen you return to your home time you'll find out that another man named, I don't know, Hans, has taken over \nGermany and did worse things than Adolf here could ever do.\"\n\nRoss frowned. \"I don't follow.\"\n\n\"You don't watch much Twilight Zone, do you?\" The servant asked.\n\n\"How do you know about the Twilight Zone? This is 1910.\"\n\n\"Never mind about that.\" The servant leaned back. \"My name is Hans, Ross. And I will take over Germany if you \nteach Adolf how to paint.\"\n\n\"Why!? Why would you do that?\"\n\n\"Why else would I be in the scene? Why would Hitler not be alone when you walked in? I have to serve some \npurpose for the plot, right? And let's face it – go back in time and kill/talk/convince/teach Hitler is a trope we've \nseen before, and it always ends like this. In fact, most time traveling tropes tend to end with a silly variation of the butterfly effect we-made-things-even-worse twist. Let's not make this prompt another example.\"\n\nBob Ross scratched his head and thought about this. \"Shit. Okay. I guess. But what do we do now?\"\n\n\"Now we find a way to subvert time traveling tropes and present something fresh for the readers. And fast, because they're getting impatient.\"\n\n\"Why are they getting impatient? We're still at 500 words!\"\n\n\"Yes, but we've gone post-modern self-referential, characters-acknowledging-their-own-stories. That annoys some \npeople.\"\n\n\"It's not really my fault, look at the prompt. Where do you go with time traveling Bob Ross and Hitler that's not \nself-referential parody?\"\n\n\"Now you're blaming the OP for your shortcomings as a storyteller. Classy.\"\n\n\"Not *my* shortcomings. I'm not the author.\"\n\nThey both turn and stare at me for a second. I shrug.\n\n\"Anyway,\" Hans said, resuming the conversation. \"Do something different. Fast.\"\n\n\"But what?\"\n\n\"Huuuuuuh…. Fuck, I don't know. Kiss Hitler!\"\n\n\"Erotic Nazi Fanfic? No thanks.\"\n\n\"Okay, then… you have cancer, and Hitler nurses you to health, but in the end we find out *Hitler* has cancer too, and –\"\n\n\"I'm not taking part in The Fault in our Stars Feat. Adolf Hitler. It ain't gonna happen.\"\n\n\"Well, you gotta do something, and fast, because time is running out.\"\n\n\"Hitler? Any suggestions?\"\n\nAdolf looked around. He got up and paced. \"I don't know. Can you just return to your present time and call it a \nday?\"\n\n\"And then everything happens as it's supposed to? That's boring.\"\n\n\"Yeah…\" Hitler stopped. \"I don't know then. I really don't know.\"\n\nHans shook his head. \"Okay, I got this.\" He grabbed a little radio device from his pocket and spoke into it. \"Send them in.\"\n\nRoss frowned. \"Send who in?\"\n\nStatic emerged from the radio for a second, then a voice answered: \"Copy that.\"\n\n\"Send who in?\" Adolf repeated. \"What's happening?\"\n\n\"Well,\" Hans said, getting up. \"If we're in a Hitler and Bob Ross time traveling prompt and we can't figure out a way \nto turn it into something fresh, we might as well embrace irony and self-mockery to the full extent of Writing \nPrompt's classic tropes.\"\n\n\"What do you mean?\"\n\nThe door came open behind Ross. He turned back and watched as two teenagers walked in – a boy in round \nglasses and a scar on his forehead and a girl that looked a lot like Emma Watson. \n\n\"Hey Harry, hey Hermione. Sorry to drag you into yet another prompt. You got the time turner?\"\n\n\"Yup,\" Harry said, in a bored tone.\n\n\"Harry Potter fanfic? Really?\" Ross shook his head. \"For fuck's sake.\"\n\n\"If we're gonna go down the rabbit's hole, let's do it proudly.\"\n\nHermione started setting the time turner. Harry looked around, curious. Ross sighed.\n\n\"Fuck that, I'm out,\" Hitler said, and then he jumped out the window, and then WW II didn't happen, but the \nStatute of Secrecy *was* violated on account of the whole thing and muggles learned about magic and when Ross returned to his present day no one gave a shit about static paintings anymore, so he died a poor man, which I guess is irony or whatever, I don't even care.\n\n_____\n\n*For more information on why the fourth wall is damaging your health and you should get rid of it, check out /r/psycho_alpaca =)*\n\n", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": " The year is 2038 and net neutrality has been dead for almost two decades. But a rebellious group managed to travel back to 2017...", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "The suite on the sixth floor of the Trump International Hotel, Washington D.C., was decorated in chestnut and tan. The headboard of the king size bed was carved as if it was a coat of arms of some legitimate monarch, and was trimmed with fake gold, which poorly matched the Kremlin red, velvet throw pillows. Like the room's single, useless accent wall, the curtains were a brutal cerulean, suggesting a space that conceals more deception than the dark seabed of a Vladivostok harbor. In all, the suite was reminiscent of something a Tsar might have once maintained, perhaps as quarters for secondary guests in some Eastern Palace. Nevertheless, on that particular Pennsylvania Avenue afternoon, Ajit Pai, FCC Chairman, felt anything but secondary. \n\nAjit rolled over on the sheets, letting his chesthair peak out from his robe, and then stretching all the way from his scapula to his calves. Laying beside him, Lowell C. McAdam, CEO of Verizon Communications, picked another chocolate covered strawberry from the bowl. He placed it in Ajit's mouth, letting his hand linger on his former General Counsel's lips just a moment too long.\n\n\"You know I love dessert,\" Ajit said, \"but I hope you have something else for me.\"\n\n\"I don't recall you ever being so direct before, my Sugar Plum\" Lowell returned, clasping Ajit's buttocks.\n\n\"Maybe those FTC boys go easy on you,\" Ajit answered, pulling away, but only a little, only for show, \"but I'm from the FCC, so you better show me the cash first!\"\n\nLowell sighed. He spun off the bed. He sauntered over to the bureau and picked up a leather briefcase with two silver latches. Lowell showed Ajit what was inside: stacks and stacks of crisp hundred dollar bills.\n\n\"Just to be clear,\" Lowell explained, \"every last cent of this is to repeal net neutrality. You're giving me that ass for free.\"\n\nLowell pounced down on top of Ajit, groping at him the way a crude man only does to a prostitute. Ajit loved feeling bought and paid for. He giggled and squealed, and the two men kissed.\n\nBut suddenly, the passion and privacy of the suite was shattered by a flash of light and a thunderous clap. The hideous furniture Ivanka had inexplicably wanted credit for rattled along the carpet. When the two lovers and conspirators regained their composure, there was a strange young man and woman standing before them, wearing tattered jeans and leather vests. They both had AK-47s draped over their shoulders. The woman punched Ajit hard in the jaw.\n\n\"Are you Ajit Pai the FCC chairman or Ajit Pai the cricketer!\" she demanded. Her face was stained with dirt.\n\n\"What? Who are you? Where did you come from?\" Ajit asked, favoring his chin, his whole body quivering.\n\n\"FCC chairman or cricketer!\" the woman shouted again, brandishing the AK-47 at the frightened, half naked businessman, and lobbyist pretending to be a guard of the public interest.\n\n\"FCC!\" Ajit replied, \"Yes, I'm with the FCC!\"\n\n\"You know why she had to ask that, motherfucker?\" the rough man began, \"because the only other famous Ajit Pai was a fucking cricket player, and where we come from, Wikipedia pages take twenty minutes to load, unless you pay an extra $9.99 a month! So all we really had to go on was the fucking disambiguation page. You know how hard it is to tell an artificially intelligent time machine where you want to go, when all it can access are the goddamn disambiguation pages?\"\n\nThe man picked Ajit up, and threw him onto the bed. He did the same to Lowell.\n\n\"Your little side deal here,\" the woman explained to the telecommunications executives, \"let me tell you how this goes down. First, you repeal net neutrality for some chump change kickback. Then, of course, all the asshole ISPs start tacking on surcharges for people to get on pretty much all the good websites, until nobody could afford more than one. So, the same thing happened that always happens when you force people to choose teams. Society broke apart completely. Soon, the Youtubian Republic was throwing molotov cocktails at the Facebook Moms, and the Netflixtariat were being rounded up by the Insta-thots. Nobody talks to each other or shares anything, and it is terrible.\"\n \nAjit and Lowell looked to the door and windows, thinking of any possible escape. But there was none. They were hostages of an uncaring power who had no concern for their well being.\n\n\"But there was one silver lining to not having the web you're used to,\" the rough man continued, \"Without an open internet, nobody else got to find out that we finally cracked how to build a fully operational time machine. We didn't tweet about it or do a single AMA. Because why would we? There'd be nobody online to see it. That means we were able to skip all the bullshit and just travel right back here, right to this moment, before you two fucked each other, and then the whole country.\"\n\n\"Are,\" Lowell stammered, \"are you going to kill us?\"\n\nThe time travelers laughed, then stuck peculiar glowing orbs on the lovers' chests.\n\n\"No, we're not going to kill you,\" the woman replied, \"instead, we're just going to send you boys into the future you're trying to create. And we'll stay back here in 2017, when things were at least only halfway terrible.\"\n\n\"What? No, you can't!\" Ajit shouted.\n\n\"Sure we can,\" the man told him, \"because time travel has no regulations. I thought you loved it when technology has no regulation.\"\n\nThe woman pushed a button on a strange remote. The suite filled with another flash of light. Ajit and Lowell embraced. They vanished. ", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": " “I’ll tell you what I’m going to do Mr Bond. I’m going to stick you in a spacesuit with a radio, and strap you into one of my cars. Then, while mankind watches, I’ll launch you into space. The last thing you’ll hear before leaving this earth forever, will be their applause.”", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "Consciousness flooded James Bond all at once, but he did not show it. He stayed slack in his chair, eyelids limp, only listening. He sat strapped into the driver's seat, hands taped firmly to the steering wheel. They had put him in a thick white space suit that made his forehead prickle in fear-sweat. \n\nHe turned his head toward the mirror. His visor was so dark he could not see his own eyes staring back at him.\n\nBeyond the car he heard nothing but the faint murmur of voices speaking on the other side of the glass. \n\nThe back of his head ached in a slow, pulsing way, but he wasn't bleeding. Couldn't have been that bad. He could still think. He could still get out of this.\n\nHe always could.\n\nAdrenaline erased the ache in his head, his horror and muted, near-forgotten panic. He knew where he was. Where he had to be.\n\nSomeone knocked at the window to his right. The passenger door rose.\n\nThe agent raised his eyes to see the face of the man he had pursued for weeks: the billionaire inventor who planned to blow up the Earth, once he shepherded all the most cultured and valuable people off of it. \n\n\"Musk,\" Bond spat. He sat up, maintaining a defiant air of dignity, despite his raging headache. \n\nElon Musk grinned back at him. He swung open the door. Behind him stood a wall of armed henchmen, their fingers poised over triggers. He waved a dismissive hand to him and relaxed.\n\nMusk relaxed into the car beside him and patted the seat like it was his own child. \"This was one of the earliest ones, you know. The first cars we produced.\"\n\nBond stared out the slanted window, steely-eyed and silent. He wriggled the fingers of his left hand out of his bulky glove one by one.\n\n\"It's a good send-off. Symbolic. People love a good symbol.\" He looked Bond over and patted his knee. \"You're integral, you see. I couldn't have done this without you.\"\n\n\"Why are you doing this?\" Bond sighed. His breath pearled in little beads of condensation down his visor.\n\n\"It's simple, Mr. Bond. I very much prefer you dead. And I would prefer to ensure no one can come looking for clues.\" \n\nHis left hand came free of the glove. The suit was thick enough that it more or less held its shape as he snaked his arm slowly, tenuously, out of the sleeve of his suit.\n\n\"What is it you plan to do, then?\" Bond bit his lip, hard. This was his safest strategy. The best way to steal every spare second he needed.\n\n\"I think it's rather self-explanatory, Mr. Bond. Your suit\"--he rapped Bond's helmet with his fist--\"has a built-in radio. I've strapped you here to drive my car on its final journey.\" He spread his hands upward, and the ceiling panels opened overhead to a sky of smoke and stars. \"You'll be my Starman. I'll launch you into space. This suit, lovely as it looks, is not as airtight as it could be. It was designed for a dummy, you see. You'll have to do, for now.\"\n\nBond growled through his teeth, \"Damn it, Musk--\"\n\nBut Elon Musk carried on as if he did not hear, \"Don't try to hold your breath, Mr. Bond; your lungs will only explode. And the last thing you'll hear before shattering through our stratosphere and dying alone in the cold perfect vacuum of space... will be Earth. Cheering as you go.\"\n\nHe had his arm bent as far it could go without bulging in the suit. Did not so much as look toward Elon Musk.\n\n\"That's the plan, then?\" he asked, solemnly.\n\n\"It appears so.\" Elon Musk smiled up at the stars. \"You'll be flying straight to hell at eleven kilometers a second, buddy.\" He slapped Bond's chest and laughed like they were old friends. \"And we were just getting to know each other.\"\n\nBond yanked his arm out of his suit, delved into his jacket pocket for his pen. An innocent little thing, the metal battered and bruised, the ink dry. No one would think to remove it when they patted him down.\n\nMusk laughed. \"It's admirable, but don't think you can escape, Mister--\"\n\nHe never got the chance to finish.\n\nJames Bond depressed the tip of his pen. A burst of red light ate through the hide of his suit and sheared the windshield overhead in two.\n\nMusk staggered backward and shrieked, \"*Shoot* him! Shoot him, you stupid bastards!\"\n\nThe men surged forward.\n\nBond leapt out of the spacesuit and bolted like a rabbit out of his seat. He still wore his suit, albeit wrinkled, and his pocket square gone. They had taken his gun, so Bond dove behind the car and raised his pen. Calculated to himself how much mortal damage it could really carry out.\n\nHe smirked. \n\nNow seemed as good a time as any to find out.\n\n***\n\n/r/shoringupfragments \n\nJames Bond *usually* murders everyone in the room with a laser at the end of a movie right? ", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": " It's 3 AM. An official phone alert wakes you up. It says \"DO NOT LOOK AT THE MOON\". You have hundreds of notifications. Hundreds of random numbers are sending \"It's a beautiful night tonight. Look outside.\"", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "\"It wasn't my phone that woke me up, but my wife. She's always been a lighter sleeper than me, and even though I had it on silent, the constant stream of notification vibrations was making the phone shuck and jive all over my nightstand.\n\n\"Honey. Hoooooooney. HONEY!\" I came awake to a rough shake accompanying the words. \"Yeahwah?\" I managed, blearily.\n\n\"Your phone. Somebody is blowing you up.\" \n\n\"Must be my other girlfriend.\" An old joke, wildly inappropriate considering what was to follow. \"Mmhhmm.\" She mumbled, already well on her way back to sleep. I checked the bedside clock; the red LED showing 3 am on the nose. Weird. I leaned awkwardly, half awake, and grabbed my phone, and had to do a doubletake when I saw the notifications. 186 texts, 93 missed calls, and one emergency notification. What. The Actual. Fuck? I thought, ok, this is a dream, must be a dream. I don't even know 186 people. Ok. Must be a natural disaster on the way. Or did Kim Jong Un launch nukes at the west coast? Shit. \n\nWith slightly shaking hands, I thumbed the official notification, expecting the worst. I held my breath. \n\n\"DO NOT LOOK AT THE MOON.\"\n\nWait, what? The feeling of surreal vertigo intensified. The logical part of my brain was continuing to insist that this was, this MUST, be a dream, must be a dream, must be...\n\n\"Shut up, shut up.\" I whispered to myself, climbing out of bed. I was awake now, fully, rigidly awake, and so I decided to take my phone to the living room to investigate further. Plopping down on the couch, I started scrolling through texts. \"Curiouser and curiouser,\" I mumbled to myself, looking at the texts. None of them from numbers I recognized. Some of them...not even from phone numbers. Entries from numbers with only 8 digits, or 6, or 2. Entries with letters and numbers mixed together. Entries with letters and numbers and Chinese characters mixed in. Emojis and symbols mixed in. My disquiet was growing steadily. I clicked the first message. \n\n\"Wow, look at the moon! It's so big and beautiful. Amazing, isn't it\"\n\nSo, ok, my brain responded. Not a dream. A practical joke. Someone is messing with me. With my phone. I wonder if my wife is in on this. I clicked the next text.\n\n\"It's such a beautiful night tonight. Just look! The moon looks amazing. It's so big!\"\n\n\"Look at the moon! Wow, it looks so cool! Look honey!\"\n\nSomething about the \"honey\" sent a chill up my spine. My wife, shaking me awake, popped back into my mind, unbidden.\n\n\"Look at that moon out over the water honey!\" It looks so huge so close to the horizon. Why does it do that?\"\n\n\"It's such a beautiful night honey, look! Wow, the moon looks awesome!\"\n\nAnd as I was reading these, I realized, I could hear a voice speaking the words. Quietly, like they were coming from very far away, repeating, looping over each other, blurring speeding up, slowing down, warping. \n\nLook at the moon, go outside, look at the moon, go outside, look at the moon, it's a beautiful night, go look at the moon.\"\n\nMustering all the calm I could, I set my phone, face down, on the couch. Some still logical functionality commanded me to turn on the TV. Turn on the news. Yes. Normalcy. Emergency broadcast system. Yes. That's a good idea. I turned it on. It's 3 am, surely more than a minute has passed but it says 3 am, right there in the corner of the screen, 3:00AM PDT, and even though it's the middle of the night, there's Anderson Cooper, and he's staring at me, I swear he's looking right at me, and suddenly turning on the news seems like it was a really bad idea. \n\n\"West coast residents are being warned tonight not to look at the moon. Authorities are warning that looking at the moon might destroy your life and could unravel the very fabric of reality. Ben, DO NOT LOOK AT THE MOON.\"\n\nI pressed the power button again on the remote and the TV shut off. Heart trying to thud its way out of my chest, I stood, and walked back towards my bedroom. Somehow, I knew before I opened the door that my wife would be awake, and she was. She was sitting up, her face lit by her phone screen. \n\n\"I shouldn't have told you to look at the moon, honey. I'm sorry.\"\n\n\"Wait, what? Are you?...Are you in on this too? What is going on!\"\n\nShe looked down, and started crying. \"I'm sorry, honey. I'm so so sorry.\"\n\nI rushed over and sat down hard on the bed, right in front of her. \"Sorry for what!\" I demanded, panic seizing control of me as I grabbed her shoulders. \"Sorry for WHAT! What THE FUCK is going on!!?? Sorry for what??!!\"\n\nShe stopped crying, and smiled. Her eyes were far away, glazed, almost robotic. \"Oh WOW!\" she said \"Wow, honey, it's such a beautiful night tonight! Just look at the moon!\"\n\nI let go of her shoulders, and stood up. I walked calmly, out of the room, out through the living room to the hall to the back door. I threw it open, feeling like my arms and legs were moving on their own. Like I was merely a passenger. I could feel my pulse in my ears. I stepped out, into my backyard. I tilted my head to the sky, and I looked at the moon. \n\nAnd then I remembered. God help me, I remembered. Driving along, southbound on coast highway, coming home from a long night. She was tired, dried sweat had warped her perfect hairdo, but she still looked radiant. Face lit by the dash lights, and of course, by the moon. She had sung her heart out tonight, and the crowd had eaten it up. She was a bright shining star, tonight. Hanging out there, seeming mere inches from the horizon, the big, swollen, full face of the moon. Just about to set. \n\n\"Oh WOW!\" she said \"Wow, honey, it's such a beautiful night tonight! Just look at the moon!\" \n\nAnd I did. I took my eyes off the road, and I did. She was right, of course. It was beautiful.\"\n\nI sighed.\n\n\"And then I heard an awful sound, like a loud pop, and we were upside down, flying, weightless, like somehow we had been pulled by the moon into space. The car was full of weird things floating through the air, coins, a pen cap, her mic had even floated in from the back into the front. I had one last look at her face. It was still transitioning from the marvel at the beauty of the moon to the shock of the crash. I tried to reach out my hand, but I seemed to be moving through jello. The moon filled the windshield, seemed to get even bigger, brighter, turned the sky white, turned the whole world white.\"\n\nI wept a little then. Not as much as I would, later, but a little. \n\n\"You know the rest,\" I said when I had regained my composure. \"I came out of the coma. I woke up here.\"\n\nThe officer stared at me, and I could tell she was struggling to keep her face impassive. She felt bad for me, but she didn't want to. \n\n\"I'm sorry for your loss.\" she said, looking down at her notepad. She hadn't taken down a single word of it. \"Can you tell me how much you'd had to drink that night?\"\n\nI sighed again. Could I? No, not really. Quite a few. Too fucking many.\n\n\"No,\" I answered. \"No, I don't think I can.\"\n\nShe nodded. \"You're going to need a lawyer. When you're ready to get out of here, I mean.\"\n\nI looked down at my broken body. Just a mess of wires and tubes and casts. \"Yeah,\" was all I could muster. \n\nShe stood, and walked toward the door of my hospital room. She put her hand on the door, and without turning, she asked, \"do you think if you'd obeyed the warning, you'd still be in the coma?\" \n\n\"Yes,\" I said, quietly. \"Yes, I do.\"", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": " When you die, you appear in a cinema with a number of other people who look like you. You find out that they are your previous reincarnations, and soon you all begin watching your next life on the big screen.", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "If I shared anything with my reincarnations, it was in our belief in fate. Though each previous version of me held a very different perspective of it. The me that had died in the Great Depression thought it a terrible thing, wicked and omnipotent. The me that had lived as king in the middle ages thought it a gift presented by God. Me, I believed it a promise.\n\nMy next reincarnation was a baby with deep blue eyes and pink skin named George. He started his life alone. George cried so much that they had to put him in a separate room, devoid of the other infants. A nurse checked in on him every few hours. Nobody blamed her. She had more pressing matters to attend to, such as George’s mother, whose heart rate was steadily growing out of control and her breathing stuttered.\n\nWhen the young lady died, she did so whispering her son’s name. I wasn’t sure if she ever even got a look at him. In that hospital room, with the flat-line beep of a heart rate monitor, the nurse checking on George stood, lips quivering and fists clenched. \n\nIn this world, children were supposed to be loved by their parents. If not the mother, who else would? For George, it was nobody, not even himself.\n\nThe orphanage boasted posters of smiling blonde-haired boys and girls with deep blue eyes. George could’ve been a literal poster boy if he ever smiled. But no matter how many stuffed animals they threw his way, how many hugs and smiles they offered him, they could never get those lip-locked edges to curve up.\n\nBy the time he had hit thirteen, he had already smoked his first cigarette and drank his first beer. Nobody wanted to tell him, but everybody knew. Nobody adopted teenagers. He would be a lifer, an unwanted child turned into an unwanted adult.\n\nAnd on his seventeenth birthday, he bought a gun.\n\nNone of us watching were worried at all for other people. Despite everything that happened, George was a gentle boy and that was his problem. Nobody could reach him through his overpowering politeness. It took a mother’s love to chip away at the boy and all he had was an old photo of a ghost who once loved him.\n\nHe snuck out when the moon had hit its apex, left all the money he had in a small package with a letter. It read: *Thanks for taking care of me.* And that was it. He didn’t sign it, didn’t address it to anyone, he wrote it all in a cheap pen and stuffed it inside with twelve-hundred dollars cash.\n\nThe spot he chose was out of the way. Nobody was nearby to be disturbed. No runners would come this way to be scared. The only selfishness he allowed himself was that it was by a river, a black canvas of glittering moonlight.\n\n“I was never meant to live,” he told himself and us. “This is fate.”\n\nSome of us nodded with him. Others shook their heads. I stared, my neck stiff, eyes unblinking as he put the gun to his temple.\n\n“No,” I whispered. “Don’t do it.”\n\nSome of us, the more boisterous ones, cheered along, egging the boy to pull the trigger. They had seen a thousand lives and would see a thousand more until all of mankind vanished. A single life in a single point of time meant nothing to them. But for me, this was my first.\n\n“No,” I said and stood from my seat. “Please.”\n\nThe screen flickered to the tremble of his finger. Soon, it would go completely black. He would fulfill his fate.\n\n“No!” I screamed. “This isn’t how it should go!”\n\nThe boisterous ones were no longer laughing. The others around me turned away their eyes. At one point in time, they had all been me. They had thought that life mattered, that our pain had meaning. But after a thousand shows of a thousand lives, most of them only slept through the show.\n\nI clenched my fists, the words swelling in my lungs. Then, I took the breath to give them life and I prayed, that somehow, I wasn’t just a dead man with a loud mouth.\n\n“Don’t pull,” I yelled, tears pouring down my cheeks and snot from my nose. “Not until you have a chance. Maybe you never will, maybe this will be how it always is, maybe I’m wrong about everything, but there’s meaning in your pain! I can’t tell you if I’m right or if I’m certain.” My voice dropped low. “I can only promise.”\n\nGeorge closed his eyes. He hadn’t heard me, of course he wouldn’t.\n\nI held my breath.\n\nThen, George broke down, the gun still pressed to his head. “So cruel,” he whispered to nobody. “After all this, all I have is a promise. That’s all my fate has to offer.”\n\nMy eyes went wide. My jaw dropped. “And that’s enough,” I said, my voice too low even for myself to hear.\n\nThere, George stood, the gun rigid in his hand. And when his tears fell, so too did his gun.\n\n---\n\nHappy Thanksgiving. /r/jraywang.\n\n\n", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": " Humans once wielded formidable magical power but with over 7 billion of us on the planet now Mana has spread far to thinly to have any effect. When hostile aliens reduces humanity to a mere fraction the survivors discover an old power has begun to reawaken once again.", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "Part 1 | [Part 2](https://www.reddit.com/r/jraywang/comments/7i53fr/reaper_part_2/) | [Part 3](https://www.reddit.com/r/jraywang/comments/7iavci/reaper_part_3/) | [Part 4](https://www.reddit.com/r/jraywang/comments/7iokx3/reaper_part_4/)\n\n---\n\nI wouldn’t call it a war. Extermination maybe. Though I’d more aptly describe it as a harvest. By the time they reached our world and penetrated the stratosphere, people sought them out in droves to be harvested. Of course, they knew what that actually meant. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have been so eager.\n\nTen years before the *Angels* descended from the sky, they had already sent what some referred to as divine retribution: a virus. Though this virus in particular only targeted women. It spread faster than a wildfire and had a 100% mortality rate. Worse yet, it was completely undetectable. In our desperation, we became animals. We locked our wives, daughters, and mothers deep underground under the constant shine of UV radiation and still they got infected. Within five years, the last woman had died leaving the rest of humanity to slowly die with her.\n\nBy the time they arrived, we welcomed them with open arms into every one of our major cities. Most bowed their heads and practically begged to be killed. Some fought against them. These were the ones that still remembered the pain of watching their daughters, wives, and mothers die. They couldn’t hope to survive, but at least they could enact their own version of divine retribution.\n\nLooking back at it now, I know that the *Angels* planned for them. They wanted us to retaliate. Otherwise, where would be the fun? Men charged at them by the millions. Some to die. Some to kill. To the *Angels*, it was all the same.\n\nUntil we killed the first one.\n\nBack when I used to write, I always made sure to name my hero something memorable. If not a strange name, then certainly a strange title. Evan the Incorruptible. Matthew the Harbinger. But in real life, heroes rarely have titles, some don’t even have names. That was the case for humanity’s last hero because nobody knew who he was.\n\nWe had only stories. The stories ranged from fantastical to downright fiction, but they always ended the same. We had killed one. The *Angels* must’ve been as skeptical as we were because they refused to change their tactics. They kept all our major cities and welcomed anyone to try and take it back.\n\nBy the fifth dead *Angel*, they learned of their miscalculation. Soon, we learned of it as well. Human beings shared mana and with it, we could do wondrous or terrible things. Magic no longer belonged to the realm of fiction. The elements bent to our will. Lightning struck where we pointed, tornados formed where we stood, the ground swallowed up entire cities as we willed it.\n\nSuddenly, men stopped volunteering to be harvested. With their newfound power, they decided to fight back, even if victory had already been stolen from us. They had turned us into animals and then backed us into a corner. Foolish.\n\nAnd that was good enough for us. Looking back, I wonder if we were as foolish as the *Angels*. We, who were content with dying in our little blazes of glory, having accomplished nothing but thinning their ranks by just a bit. It was selfish, but what is there to expect from men who had nothing else to live for?\n\nNone of us had the vision you had. The vision you have.\n\n---\n\n---\n\nTyler put the pen down, staring at the word *you*. He wondered if his letter would ever find its way to this certain *you*. While humanity had become animals, one man had gone even further. He had been called a monster by both *Angel* and man. Nobody knew which side he fought for, only that he killed both indiscriminately.\n\nIf Tyler were to write his story, he wouldn’t know whether to make this man the villain or the hero. Oh how he wished he could’ve written this story, but the only way this story continued was if he died. Beside his letter and pen, sitting at the edge of his wooden table was a silver revolver. The single lightbulb above him glinted off its barrel.\n\nA small grin spread across Tyler’s face. He grabbed the gun, its metal like ice, and pressed it to his temple. Enough humans had died where he could stop the bullet with only his thoughts. The bullet couldn’t even hurt him unless he wanted it to. But he did. For the sake of humanity, he needed the bullet to kill him.\n\nWith his free hand, he picked the pen back up.\n\n---\n\n---\n\nAs the last storyteller on Earth, I bestow you the title of Reaper. A monster. A villain. Our last hero.\n\nGo forth, Reaper, my death as an offering. With my passing, there will be only four humans left. I have already contacted two of them and they will die with me. The last I’m sure you will easily find as your powers will have increased two-fold. By then, your mind will stretch the globe, perhaps even the stars. And when you become the last human alive, I cannot even fathom how powerful you will be.\n\nShow our *Angels* how fragile they are in the face of a god.\n\n---\n\n---\n\nTyler pulled the trigger.\n\n---\n\n/r/jraywang\n\n---\n\nPart 1 | [Part 2](https://www.reddit.com/r/jraywang/comments/7i53fr/reaper_part_2/) | [Part 3](https://www.reddit.com/r/jraywang/comments/7iavci/reaper_part_3/) | [Part 4](https://www.reddit.com/r/jraywang/comments/7iokx3/reaper_part_4/)\n\n\n", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": " a woman has been dating guy after guy, but it never seems to work out. She’s unaware that she’s actually been dating the same guy over and over; a shapeshifter who’s fallen for her, and is certain he’s going to get it right this time.", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "Emily sat across from him at a table draped with a red satin tablecloth. Her champagne flute remained untouched as she searched for the words to say.\n\n“I’m sorry Jacob, but,” she paused averting her gaze. “It’s not you it’s me.” \n\n“What do you mean?” \n\n“I don’t think I’m ready for a long term relationship. It’s just too much right now. You’re great, truly. But I think it’s best if we take a break.”\n\n“For how long?” he asked, sadness crept into his voice.\n\nShe sighed quietly. “I’ll let you know. I’m sorry,” she said rising from the table leaving him alone, head hanging.\n\nHe watched her go, her heels clicking against the black and white tiled floor of the Italian restaurant. *Well, this version didn’t work either. Maybe she really wasn’t ready for a long term relationship,* he wondered.\n\n*Or. Maybe she doesn’t realize just how much she needs me.* He dropped a stack of money on the table and slipped into the night. Heavy rain drops began to fall as he made his way toward Emily’s apartment. \n \nEmily tossed herself down onto her couch and pulled her plush robe around herself. She clutched the warm cup of tea between her hands and drank deeply. \n\n*This is what I want,* she smiled.\n\nA quiet scratching turned her head. *Probably the storm.* She turned the TV to listen to the home decorator explain their choices for the house they had just flipped.\n\nThe scratching came again, more urgently this time. She set her tea down, her bare feet whispered across the floor as she made her way to the front door. She had to stand on her toes to see through the small peephole. \n\n“I’m just hearing things,” she tried to convince herself. \n\nAnother series of frantic scratching turned her head toward the window. She grabbed an umbrella and gripped it like a baseball bat. Lightning flashed outside her apartment, the brilliant light briefly illuminating a small shape on her fire escape. \n\n*Is that?*\n\nA quiet meow came from the window as a reply to her question.\n\n“You poor thing!” she cooed as she opened the window and lifted the soaking wet kitten inside. The cat meowed happily and pressed its head against her plush robe.\n\nEmily dried him off and got a small dish of tuna fish for the cat. It didn’t have a collar or anything that could help her identify who the cat could possibly belong to.\n\n“Well, I need to call you something. Any ideas?”\n\n*Jacob,* the cat thought to himself and meowed again.\n\n“How about Hamlet?”\n\nJacob meowed again. *Doesn’t matter to me as long as you love me.* \n\n---\n\nThanks for reading! Check out /r/Written4Reddit for more stories!", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": " Whenever you speak, people hear you speaking in their native language. Most people are surprised and delighted. The cashier at McDonalds you've just talked to is horrified. \"Nobody's spoken that language in thousands of years.\"", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "“What did you say?”\n\nI paused, my card already jammed into the receptacle and deducting $5.29 from my bank account. “What?”\n\nThe clerk stared at me, his green eyes narrowed. I drew half a step back almost unconsciously. “Uh. I asked if I could have my drink cup. You guys keep making us wait and it’s kind of annoying.”\n\nThe man stared at me, his lips pressed into a thin line. “What are you doing?”\n\nAll right, the guy was clearly crazy. I tore my debit card free, shoving it back into the holder permanently resting in my pocket. “I’m trying to get a Big Mac. What’s your problem?”\n\n“Are you insane?” he hissed, leaning forward across the counter. “What are you *doing*?”\n\n“Greg?” someone called from across the store. A manager, judging by the color of their uniform. Their voice was carefully cheerful. “What’s going on?”\n\n“Nothing! Just helping this gentleman out,” Greg said, his face snapping back to carefully neutral as he smiled at me. A plastic cup was shoved into my hands, along with the paper slip of my receipt. “Look - don’t be an idiot,” he said, his voice dropping low enough I had to lean in to hear him. “I don’t know what game you think you’re playing, but you can’t walk in here talking gibberish. Leave me alone.”\n\nI stared at him, my mind racing, but the customers behind me were already pushing forward. I stepped back to join the others waiting for their food, my mind churning.\n\nI had a bit of a gift. Well, that’s how I liked to think about it. It had taken a few years to figure out - all languages sounded exactly the same to me. No matter if I was speaking to someone blabbering on in French or chattering in Italian, it all came across as plain old English.\n\nMy parents had been freaked out, understandably. It had taken a bit of doing to convince them I wasn’t just crazy. And as soon as we’d pieced together what was going on, we’d begun hiding. It wasn’t as though I could suddenly start spouting off Spanish and German, after all. We couldn’t even just leave copies of Rosetta Stone lying around meaningfully. The instant someone I actually *knew* called me on it, the secret would be up. I kind of valued living a normal life, too much to allow something like that to happen.\n\nTray in hand and my mediocre food steaming, I filed back to my seat. I could feel Greg’s eyes on me the whole way - staring.\n\nWhat was his problem? Had I stuttered?\nAnd what had he meant, gibberish? Maybe he spoke a different language, sure, but why would that be a problem? He should be happy that I’d spoken Polish or Swahili or who-gives-a-fuck. Maybe a bit surprised, but not *angry*. His reaction wasn’t normal at all.\n\nI couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong. Normally I would have lingered, taking my time in eating. With the feeling of Clerk Asshat’s eyes on the back of my neck, I just wanted to leave. I shoveled my value meal down as quickly as I could, hardly tasting it. My phone lit up with notifications, friends and family blabbering away, all wanting to know where I was. When I’d be finished with the day’s chores. Could I pick up this grocery list for them, or finish that errand?\n\nI ignored all of them. The wrapper crumpled instantly in my hand as I pushed myself upright, dumping the whole lot of it in the trash.\n\nThe guy wasn’t there. A bit of the tension slipped out of my shoulders as I saw his station replaced by a tiny, grinning brunette. Good. Maybe his manager had finally taken him down a notch.\n\nThe lights on my car blinked across the parking lot at me as I stepped out of the store. The cold air snapped me awake, back to reality in an instant. I was letting that guy creep me out for no reason. He was just a jerk, that was all - trapped in his minimum wage job. Probably just a crazy, when I thought about it. He was probably just-\n\nI yelped, eyes widening as fingers buried themselves in my hair, pulling painfully. Someone had me. There was something cold at my throat - cold and *sharp*.\n\n“Ok, asshole,” Greg hissed in my ear, his voice wild. “We’re going to go for a walk.”\n\n“What the *fuck* are you-”\n\n“Shut up.”\n\nThe blade dug into my neck. I could feel a hot line of blood dripping down my skin. My mind raced - this was insane. He really was crazy. A lunatic. He was-\n\nThere was nothing I could do to fight him as he turned me, forcing me towards the back of the store. A dingy, beat-up station wagon waited in employee parking, the lot unlit and dismally dark. I scanned the lot even still, ready to bellow for help at a moment’s notice.\n\nIt was useless. There was no one around. No one was going to hear.\n\nHe slammed me into the back of his car, my face pressed painfully against the glass.\n\n“How stupid do you think I am?” he spat.\n\n“What the *hell* are you talking about?” I cried, shaking.\n\n“What, you think you’re being subtle? You’ll just walk in, talking the Old Tongue like you were born to it, and I’ll roll over for you?”\n\n“Look, dude, there’s been some mistake,” I moaned. “It’s-It’s just something that I can do, all right? It’s not-”\n\n“Right,” he said with a laugh, his fingers still pulling painfully at my hair. “Like I’m going to believe *that*.”\n\n“I speak tongues, all right?” I said, craning my head until I could look at him. “That’s all. I don’t know what you heard. All I know is-”\n\n“How long until they get here?”\n\nI blinked. “What?”\n\n“I’m not *stupid*,” he spat. “I’m not going to sit idly until they come to finish the job. How long until the rest of them show up?”\n\n“The rest of *who*?” I said, trying desperately to keep from crying.\n\n“You know damn well who-” he said, but stopped abruptly.\n\nI blinked.\n\nSomewhere in the distance, sirens were approaching.\n\nMy heart leapt. Police. *Yes*. Someone must have seen him, someone must have called the cops. I was saved. He’d-\n\nHe let go of my hair in an instant, leaping away. His car abandoned, he vanished into the underbrush of the woods behind the McDonald’s. I fell in a crumpled heap, my heart still pounding in my ears.\n\nTires screeched as the cop car pulled up moments later, a pair of officers piling out.\n\n“Sir! Sir, are you all right?” one yelled, racing over to me. “Can you tell me what happened?”\n\n“There was- a man,” I said, glancing back at the woods. ‘H-He had a knife. He was crazy. Thought I was speaking some funny language or something.”\n\n“Why would he think that?” the other said, his brow furrowing.\n\n“I-I don’t know,” I said, instinctively clamping down. The cops paused, staring at me.\n\n“What, that’s it?” the first said.\n\n“I’m sorry,” I muttered, unable to meet their eyes. My gaze drifted, needing to find something, anything else to look at. The flashing lights of their cars drew my eyes in, holding my gaze.\n\nI froze.\n\n“Well, look. I’m sure this has been a traumatic event. Why don’t you come back with us, and we’ll talk about it?” The second said, smiling blankly at me. One hand dropped to his belt.\n\nNeither of them was wearing a radio. There was nothing on his belt but a gun and a pair of handcuffs. The details of it stuck out like a lightning flash in my mind.\n\nI took a step back.\n\n“Look, don’t worry, all right?” the first said, beaming at me. “You’re safe now, right?”\n\nThe insignia on their car was wrong. I’d lived in the town my entire life, and it was *wrong*. It didn’t even have the right *name* on it. It just looked…\n\nGeneric.\n\nI took another step back.\n\nThe smiles were beginning to fade from their faces.\n\n“Look, come on,” the first said. “Just take it easy, ok? We’ll just go for a ride.”\n\nHis hand reached out, grabbing for my elbow. I skittered away before he could touch me, suddenly sure of two things.\n\nWhoever those two were, they were *not* police officers.\n\nAnd I was in a mess of trouble.\n\n---\n\n(/r/inorai, critique always welcome!)\n\n~~Not against a part 2, but I'm off to bed for the night, and part 2 would come in the morning xD there is a thread [on my sub -](https://www.reddit.com/r/Inorai/comments/8tn2oh/wp_whenever_you_speak_people_hear_you_speaking_in/e18qek8) Leave a comment there and I will update you if this gets more :)~~\n\n[Part 2!](https://www.reddit.com/r/Inorai/comments/8tvvbk/silvertongue_2/)", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": "Steve Irwin wrangling all sorts of supernatural creatures.", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "G'day and welcome to the Myth Hunter. Today, I'm going after the stone salamander of Seneca. Oh, looks like we've got one. 'Ere we have the rare basilisk. Crikey, this ones a giant in'it he? Now the thing you've got to remember with basilisks is, if they stare you straight in the eye, yer turned to solid rock. So the best thing to do with these is to wear a blindfold 'round ya head. Now that I've got mine on, I can start to wrangle it. \n\nWhatcha wannado with these critters is get low to the ground while you approach em. Now they're going to- oof, yea- to try and rear up at ya. Once you hear that screech you've got to go in at em. Grab em right- c'mon there ya go- right here, right under the front two legs. Keep your head Low, it'll try and nip ya, but it can't bend its neck far enough. \n\nShh, shh, calm girl calm. Now we can safely remove the blindfold, as we keep her eyes pointed safely in the sky. Ya can see this ones a girl cause of the crystal 'tween her eyes. Males don't got that 'tween their eyes, just real thick, thick, eyebrow ridges. As a secondary weapon the basilisk has these thick claws, take a look 'ere. Each ones about a quarter inch thick and hard as granite. Teeth too, once bit straight through my sternum. Lucky I'm dead else it've put me out of commission. \n\nAlright, time to let her go now. You've got to put your blindfold back on and toss her back quick. I'm going to push off in 3.....2......1....go go go go, alright c'mon. Looks like shes stopped following now and- wassat? Zoom in over there. Crickey, shes got a little runt with her. Definitely the smallest of her litter, little guy must only be about a foot long. S'allright to look at 'im. Poor lil guy wont open his eyes for 'nother month at least. For now he's sticking close to mommy for protection. The young climb on their mothers back for protection from threats. For the first three months of their lives they're effectively defenseless against predators, specially weasels. \n\nGod. That's just absolutely beautiful. Watching mother and son go into the sunset together. Nature's majesty right before us. Thanks all for tuning in, catch me here next week when we go after the elusive jackalope, the mirage of the midwest. G'night! ", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": " An alien has kidnapped Matt Damon, not knowing what lengths humanity goes through to retrieve him whenever he goes missing.", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "“You, Gyork, have sat in interplanetary trial, accused of unknowingly capturing the human currently known as ‘Matt Damon,’ in an act of interplanetary terrorism of the third degree, and have been relieved of accusations of terrorism. You will now stand, and the next trial will continue.\n\nGyork rose from his seat. He was prosecuted for terrorism, but the prior court ruled in his favor, removing the prior conviction. He made the horrible mistake of taking the wrong human back to his home-world. He just wanted to show his new human friend how nice his home planet was. \n\nGyork responded: “I pleaded ignorance, dear sir. I am no expert in alien history, or I would have not taken this human. I have now been thoroughly educated of the history of mankind on the life sustainable terraform in galaxy 4 and-“\n\n“Earth.” Corrected the judge. “If you have been educated and truly understand the gravity of the situation you almost caused, your trial of knowledge will continue as a test, of which you have failed the first question.”\n\nGyork’s ocular bulbs lit with anxiety. He had only just witnessed the visual documentations of human history. \n\n“Gyork, the first question: what human is currently the greatest threat to our kind? You have one revolution to answer.”\n\nGyork recalled the most recent documentary he viewed. He gave his best guess.\n\n“The human Thor!” Gyork exclaimed, but to his dismay, the judge shook his head in disappointment.\n\n“Please recall, Gyork, Thor may look human, but he is what the humans have labeled ‘Asgardian.’ I will proceed to the next question: which earth human has several large dragons that obey their will. Please give the name and title of the human. You have one revolution to answer.”\n\nGyork recalled immediately; this was his favorite earth human: “Daenerys Stormborn of the House Targaryen, Mother of Dragons!”\n\n“Correct Gyork. But I remind you, one more incorrect answer, and you will face reeducation, where you will be forced to watch visual documentations and remain on planet earth until you are retested in 400,000 revolutions.” \n\nGyork wanted to show that he had learned things about the humans after his time there as well. His disguise on earth was great, so he was able to make many friends and learn many things from them, but he never liked learning about their history, there was just too much of it.\n\n“The next question: which earth human was the first ever creature to survive the dive into a black hole?”\n\n“Leonardo DaVinci!” Gyork blurted. \n\n“Close, Gyork, very close. The correct answer is the human currently known as Matthew McConaughey.” The judge shook his head once more, and sentenced Gyork to 400,000 revolutions of observation and reeducation on Earth. He gave Gyork one final warning. “Also, Gyork, when you return to Earth. You might want to try out a name other than ‘Zuckerberg,’ the humans seem to be catching on.”\n\n\n\nEdit: thanks for the compliments, replies and upvotes!! I’m usually a lurker so I’m really glad this was well received!! Have a great day y’all :)", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": " When you’re 28, science discovers a drug that stops all effects of aging, creating immortality. Your government decides to give the drug to all citizens under 26, but you and the rest of the “Lost Generations” are deemed too high-risk. When you’re 85, the side effects are finally discovered.", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "The immortals are crumbling like dry leaves.\n\nI watch one as I leave Marge's Cafe with my usual paper cup of coffee. There is a woman standing on the opposite street corner in a trench coat, her hair sleek black, her face as faultless as fine china.\n\nAnd all it takes is a harsh wind.\n\nShe falls away in tiny pieces. Her hands claw helplessly at her disintegrating belly with fingers whose flesh sloughes off in sheets like wet paper. She reaches for her face, but then that too clouds up into dust and is gone. Her scream starts and dies in her throat.\n\nAnd just like that, she smacks down like a broken puppet. A near-instant death, and still it doesn't seem fast enough.\n\nHer scream keeps echoing in the back of my mind. I think it will always be there, waiting for me, when the world grows quiet enough for me to hear her once more.\n\nLike any decent human would, I stick around for EMS. I call and call, but I can't get through to 911. Someone happening by stops over the body, kicking up clouds of this woman's dust. The woman looks to be my age, one of the lost, one of the few humans left doomed to die.\n\nShe sighs through her teeth. \"Bad luck, the lot of them.\"\n\nI stare at her. \"What do you mean?\"\n\n\"Turns out us Lost will be last after all.\" She winks, like we share a kind of secret just by being born on the wrong side of the cut-off for immortality. As if there's any real camaraderie in our Lost Generation. \"The immortals are all just... vanishing. It's on the news, dearie.\"\n\nAnd then she keeps on walking, as though we were only chatting about the weather.\n\nIt's early still. The cool morning air is so placid and peaceful, her words impossible on a morning as bright and sunny as this. As if death could not happen under such a perfect blue sky.\n\nI run to the car. It has been a while, since I ran. Decades, at least. \n\nMy wife still runs. She's always teasing me, calls me an old man as she pecks a good morning kiss to my lips. Slaps my aching knees and says, \"That's your penance for being born too early.\"\n\nAnd I always laugh at her and say, \"Hey, I know I won't be the one dying alone.\" Half a joke, really. Always dancing around the inevitable and morbid reality: I would end, and she would keep on going. With any luck, it would be forever. We had both made our peace with that.\n\nThe radio is buzzing, mad. It's already all over the news. There's some scientist babbling about dew point, the relative wetness of the air. \n\n\"As the world gets hotter and hotter, and the air gets drier and drier, it appears that the cells lose their stability and their ability to maintain struc--\"\n\nI flip the radio off. And I drive like hell.\n\nPanic drives me forward like a thing possessed. I throw my coffee out the window and veer through still-empty streets back to my home, where my wife should still be lying in bed, just about to roll up and face the dawn. She will open the window and listen to the birds convince her to rise and make a cup of tea.\n\nIn my mind, she looks as lovely as the day we married. She makes the deep ruts of my skin seem like valleys, but she still palms my cheeks in her hands and tells me every day, *I love you, Mr. Weston,* and I smile back and say, *I don't know why, Mrs. Weston.*\n\nBut when I get there, the window is shut. The bed is as empty as the rest of the house. I call and call and scream for her, but the house answers back with nothing but silence.\n\nSo I go to the bed where this morning she lay curled like a question mark beside me. I had kissed her shoulder and slipped out as soundlessly as an eighty-year-old-man wearing every weight of his age could hope.\n\nI lift back the blanket.\n\nThere awaits me only bones and so much ash. I try to scoop her up in my palms but she is nothing but wind and air.\n\nAnd I am suddenly, impossibly alone.\n\n***\n\n/r/shoringupfragments\n", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": " Due to your nerdy great great great great grandfather in 2017 'buying a star' and some modern legal shenanigans you are now the proud owner of a small intergalactic empire", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "It was Friday morning. Time to check his bank accounts. Time to pay his bills. Time to—\n\nWhat The Fuck?!\n\n\"$12490004949902 CHEQUING ACCOUNT\"\n\nUmmm. \n\nUmmm.\n\nPaul waited a little whlie longer, then closed the browser, reopened it and reread his balance. \n\n\"$12490004949902 CHEQUING ACCOUNT\"\n\nStill unconvinced this wasn't a hallucination or some wonderful, wonderful dream, Paul opened his chequing history. \n\n\"$832.21 DENNYS PAY \n$12490004947902.01 C-15375 TRIBUTE\"\n\nTribute? Paul picked up his phone and dialed the bank.\n\n\"Hello, Mr. Thomson! How are you today?\" answered a perky female.\n\n\"Ugh, fine? Is this a recording?\"\n\nShe laughed. \n\n\"No, no recording for you Mr. Thomson. We value our most valued customers. We know your time is more valuable than ours.\"\n\n\"Okay...\"\n\n\"How can I help you, sir?\"\n\nPaul searched for a way to start the conversation. What do you say when a number so large that you don't even know what it's called ends up in your bank account? When one week you wait an hour to complain about account fees and they next they treat you like royalty?\n\n\"My account...\" he began, \"my chequing.\"\n\n\"Yes! I see you had a complaint last week about account fees. Don't you worry anymore, we will no longer be charging your account. Your balance is well beyond the minimum requirement.\"\n\n\"Umm, thanks.\"\n\n\"You're most welcome, Mr. Thomson. Is there anything else I can help you with?\" \n\n\"Ummm. C-15375 TRIBUTE, do you know where that came from?\"\n\nHe heard the sputter of keyboard strokes. \n\n\"Ah, yes, this did puzzle the management, they even left a special note on your account. Would you like me to read it?\" the woman asked.\n\n\"Yes, please.\"\n\n\"Mr. Paul Thomson, account 1435533-2234, CHEQUING. As we have witnessed, an overwhelming sum of money has been deposited into this account. A full investigation has been put underway and uncovered the rights of the star, C-15375, purchased by Mr. Henry Thomson, 2017. Unknown at the time, the star is the focal of the Histarians, a race of human-like beings. Upon receiving a transmission of the purchase, the Histarians sent a large vessel, laced and filled with gold. Instructions informed the vessel and all contents be converted to the currency of the planet. If Mr. Thomson does not send back a confirmation of receiving the sum, war and annihilation are to follow. Despite our best ideas to cover-up and terminate Mr. Thomson, we have decided annihilation is not worth the risk. We understand this is a departure from the last 500 years, but the decision is final. For further questions, contact 555-555-5551.\"\n\n\"Wow...\" \n\n\"Quite amazing, Mr. Thomson. Would you like me to repeat it?\"\n\n\"No, that's fine,\" said Paul, \"just send me a copy.\"\n\n\"Of course. Is there anything else I can help you with, Mr. Thomson?\"\n\n\"Do you know how to purchase an intergalactic spaceship?\"\n\n\"Certainly, Mr. Thomson, let me help you with that.\"\n\n----\n\nEDIT: Got to work early and wrote out part 2 on my phone and accidently hit the \"X\" when trying to scroll up (My heart, tis shattered). It'll have to wait till tomorrow since I work all night. But the material is there so it will come! Thank you for the interest and comments. I appreciate them all! I'll put part 2 here but also on /r/ItsPronouncedGif to make it easier.\n\nUPDATE: Part 2 is up and down below. Also, it can be found here [Chapter 1](https://www.reddit.com/r/ItsPronouncedGif/comments/78o244/life_after_dennys_first_chapter_combined_with_wp/). I've combined it with Part 1 to create a first chapter. Thank you all again for the support so far. Work's pretty busy so I'm going to try to get to as many comments as I can, but if I don't get to you, rest assured, I have read it and appreciate hearing from you. You guys have some creative minds and it's awesome reading through your interpretations and ideas! ", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": " A super hero fights evil by wiping memories of both the villian and everyone who knew of them so that they can be reintroduced into society safely. Today, as you were combing through old newspapers, you discover that you were once the world's most powerful supervillain.", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "Maria fumbled for the keys in her bag, eventually finding the heart shaped keyring her husband had given to her long ago. How long exactly, she couldn't quite remember.\n\nThe lock clicked. A monotonous buzzing greeted her, as if a giant hornet had taken up residence in their home since she'd left for work. \"Honey?\" she called out. \"Are you okay?\" \n\nNo reply.\n\nShe stepped into the lounge and was met by an unpleasent, smoky smell. The buzzing had intensified too. It was a sound she now recognised, but hadn't heard for a long, long time. \n\nAn electric razor.\n\nMaria frowned, a little annoyed that Peter was likely removing his thick, flowing beard. There was something she loved dearly about it -- the white hairs that shot through the blond reminded her of sunlight bouncing gleefully off an icy waterfall. It suited a physicist. It suited *him*.\n\n*buzzzz*\n\nThe living room table was a mess of cigarettes and empty beer bottles -- Peter had clearly enjoyed his day off. A folded page of a newspaper wafted up and down in the gentle breeze from an open window.\n\n*buzzz*\n\nMaria moved idly to the table, picking up first the cigarette remains, then dropping them on the carpet as the face in the paper stared up at her, her husband's keen eyes meeting her own. His face was clean shaven, and his wrinkles softened -- but there was no mistaking him.\n\nHer hands shook as she picked it up and read.\n\n> Master Particle. Prior to Reworking's alterations. Considered the greatest physicist of his generation. But another talent wasted by the great 'hero'. This paper says Reworking is not the answer! We're the only paper brave enough to print a picture like this and...\n\nShe stopped reading. Something was wrong: there was no sound.\n\n \"Welcome home, *Maria*.\"\n\n Maria gulped as she turned to see the man in the paper standing behind her. \n\n\"Sweetheart...\"\n\n \"Is it really Maria? No, of course it isn't. It doesn't matter now though.\"\n\n \"I didn't ...\"\n\n \"I was great, you know. The greatest, they say. I could have changed the world. Now I teach school children basic astrophysics. The order of the planets -- and they can't even get that right without a pathetic mnemonic to aid them. My life -- or at least many years of it -- has been wasted. Can you imagine if they'd lobotomised a young Eistein? Where would we be?\"\n\nHe slowly removed a knife from his jacket pocket.\n\n \"*Please.*\"\n\n \"How long until you were done spying on me, *darling*? Until you left me! I loved you *so* much. In my mind, you loved me, too. But only in my mind! It's all a Goddamned lie! You'll pay for that deceit, I promise you.\"\n\n \"Please, Peter. In my mind, I love you too. *I do!* I don't know what's happened. I don't understand any of this.\"\n\nHe grinned as he stalked forward. \"Oh, *you know*. You're here to watch over me. To report back to them each day, when I think you're working, so you can all laugh at me. *Mock me.* The great, *impotent*, Master Particle.\" \n\n *\"I always loved y...\" *\n\nThe knife was sharp and cut her throat cleanly and easily. She didn't scream as her blood spattered the carpet. \n\nMaria's body fell next to the fallen cigarette remains. \n\n\n---\n\nIt was an hour later, as Peter drank greedily from a clear bottle, his boots resting on his dead wife's carcass, that a gust from the open window turned the newspaper's page.\n\nPeter leaned forward, his eyes wide. He snatched the paper up. He read silently twice over, then mumbled a litany of *no's*. Finally, he swore bloody revenge on the world itself. \n\nHe looked down at his wife through bleary eyes, scalding tears spilling down his cheeks. How could this have happened? His life had been perfect -- *twice!* Now he could never go back... *could he*?\n\nHe knelt over Maria and gently pressed his trembling lips against her forehead.\n\nPeter could feel his mind buzzing; could see the sparks leaping from his hands. He felt in tune with the universe's tempestuous vibrations, and he knew in that moment, exactly what he was capable of:\n\n*The end of everything.*\n\nPeter got to his feet and looked at the paper a final time.\n\n> At least they had the decency to erase his wife's -- his assistant Scarlett (pictured above) -- mind, and to keep them together in their new lives. But this paper, this reporter, says it's not enough! It's time to end Reworking.\n\n\n\n---\n\nPart two: https://www.reddit.com/r/nickofnight/comments/7n3dix/master_particle_part_two/\n\n", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": " Your ability to see people's age in years as an invisible number above their heads has made you the perfect bouncer. One day you see a four digit number.", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "It was, more often than not, the smiley ones I watched out for. While I checked their IDs, their gazes would frequently flicker over to their friends for support. The more jittery among them would chatter away with quotes plucked directly from the latest Fortune magazine or how \"buying their own place was the best thing to happen to them\". If only they knew they weren't the only ones saying those things ...\n\nInevitably, after about fifteen seconds of my careful, silent scrutiny of their spotless plastic cards, the first tracks of sweat would begin to appear on their foreheads. Their conversations would die down, and the fidgeting multiply. The desperate ones would say, with frequent glances over my shoulder at doorway through which pulsing lights and throbbing music emerged, \"Could we, uh, hurry up? Our friends are waiting for us inside.\"\n\n\"I'm sorry, but you're underage. This ID isn't valid,\" I said.\n\nSometimes, I wished I could just tell them the truth—that I could identify crap-all about them from the card. The printed numbers meant little against the large , glimmering digits floating above their heads. It'd taken me several childhood years and the help of a mirror to figure them out, but they made me damned good at my job.\n\n\"This can't be right,\" the young man said, jaws tightening even as a visible, nervous shudder coursed through his body.\n\n\"I'm guessing, seventeen?\" I almost laughed at his shocked expression. Jerking my thumb toward his older male companion, I said, \"Your brother'll just have to take you elsewhere.\"\n\n\"C'mon, let's go,\" the other man said, pulling him out and shooting me one last dirty look.\n\nSuch was the life of a street-level NYC bouncer. As I was writing down the ID's details on a register, I heard the clicking of heels approach. Next moment, a slim, small hand slid an ID card onto my podium.\n\nI looked up and did a double-take—literally jumping back a step. She was pretty, more girl-next-door than supermodel, with loose auburn hair hanging to her shoulders framing a lean face. About five feet tall, she wore a tight-fitting black dress that terminated at mid-thigh, though her figure wasn't anything more spectacular than I'd been seeing for the past hour or so.\n\nSo, your typical college girl lookalike ... but for the number above her head.\n\nThree thousand and nine.\n\nWhat. The. Hell.\n\n\"There might be an issue with your age,\" I blurted before I could stop myself.\n\n\"Excuse me?\" she said in a faintly European accent. Other than her mouth, the rest of her hadn't moved at all—even the fingers clutching the purse in front of her were like cold marble. I could feel goosebumps popping up on my arms as I reached for her ID.\n\n\"Sorry, just give me a moment to check,\" I said, darting furtive looks at the age number above her head as though I expected it to change at any time. I'd never been wrong before; perhaps this was the first time?\n\nHer name was Helena Ricci. Born here in the US twenty-two years ago. I ran the scanner over it. Clean. Shit.\n\n\"Er, I'll need just a moment to register you into our system,\" I said.\n\n\"Take your time. I've got plenty,\" she said. Her eyes remained cold above her smile.\n\nOnce the process was complete, I handed the card back to her. \"Have a pleasant evening.\"\n\nShe took the card and stalked off into the club. I felt tempted to go after her—so many questions were in my head—but that would mean revealing my gift. And one didn't go around spouting such nonsense so easily, so my dad had warned me.\n\nSo I threw my attention back to the impatient and growing line of patrons waiting for me.\n\n***\n\nThe hours flew by. I kept an eye out for Helena among the clubbers trickling out. Once, I thought I saw her in the midst of a small group of men, who went and lounged by a Levante parked not far away. They smoked for a while before returning to the club.\n\nAt about four in the morning, when activity was visibly slowing down, she left the club, flashing me a grin on the way. That, more than anything, helped make up my mind.\n\n\"Helena,\" I called, jogging from my post to catch up to her. \"I've got something I want to ask you.\"\n\nShe paused in her step, but maintained her distance out of my arm's reach. \"Yes?\"\n\nI tore my eyes away from her numbers and met her searching gaze. \"How old are you?\"\n\nShe snorted. \"Really? We're still not over this?\"\n\n\"I can see people's ages, above their heads,\" I said in a rush. \"I've always been able to—since I was a child. And I see that you're—\"\n\n\"Quiet!\" she snapped, looking around almost fearfully. \"You must be dreaming, or imagining things. I'm only twenty-two, recently graduated—\"\n\n\"That's bullshit,\" I said. \"I've never been wrong. I know what I see. And I'm most definitely not high or anything.\"\n\nShe scoffed. \"Stay away from me, mister. I've got Mace here in my purse.\" With that, she hurried away.\n\n\"I told you my secret. Don't I deserve a little truth from you?\" I said.\n\nShe stopped in her tracks and turned her head halfway. \"I never agreed to a trade.\"\n\n\"I won't say anything to anyone, I promise,\" I said. \"I just—seeing you is almost the same as NASA revealing that alien life exists on the Moon or something. Can't you imagine what it's like for me?\"\n\nFor a long time, she remained quiet. I could almost see the gears turning in her head. At last, she said softly, \"Fine. Come, I'll show you.\"\n\nElated, I followed. She didn't speak to me as we traversed the silent, shadowy streets, but I held my tongue as well. If I asked one question too many, she could turn me away.\n\nAbout fifteen minutes later, we arrived at an unmarked red door in a back alley, sandwiched between two dumpsters. I frowned at our surroundings, suddenly realizing that if she wanted to rob me—or worse—I wouldn't be discovered until the next week probably.\n\nShe knocked on the door, but instead of a rapping sound, musical notes floated from somewhere inside. Then, it swung open to reveal a heavily bearded giant of a man. His fierce gaze took one look at Helena before his expression melted with warmth, and he wrapped his arms around her.\n\n\"Who is this?\" he said.\n\n\"With luck, someone smart enough to keep his life,\" she said.\n\nI tried not to gulp as the man held out a brick-like hand for me to shake. \"I'm Olander,\" he said.\n\n\"I'm Jeff, pleased to—holy crap, you're over a thousand years old,\" I said.\n\nHe blinked in astonishment. \"How did you know? Oh, Helena, what have you brought us?\"\n\n\"He might be useful. Shall we go in?\" she said.\n\nOlander led us into a long, stone tunnel with an arched ceiling. It looked extremely cramped for the big man, but he hunched his shoulders in a manner that indicated familiarity. The two of them spoke in a language I didn't know. Somewhere in the distance, there was a constant gush of water—perhaps we were near one of the city's waterways?\n\nMoments later, we reached another door, this one made entirely of solid, carved wood. I had only begun to marvel at its surface when Olander pushed it in and revealed the chamber within.\n\nI gaped, open-mouthed, at the twelve Roman columns supporting a ceiling of painted frescoes, spaced around the cavernous place lit by huge chandeliers and colorful wall-mounted lanterns. In the center of the room was a fountain almost ten feet tall, crystalline water spilling from the top into three descending circular pools and sparkling with light.\n\nPeople of various races and attire filled the room, mingling in small groups; eating from the buffet tables, drinking, admiring paintings hanging on a section of wall, or listening to an orchestral quartet on a small stage.\n\nAnd above all, I was stunned at the numbers everywhere. Two thousand and eighty-two. One thousand five hundred. One thousand and six. Three—freaking three—thousand, seven hundred and forty-four.\n\n\"How?\" I stammered. \"What is this?\"\n\nHelena didn't answer except to point at the fountain. And then it dawned one me. Before I could inquire further, she pulled me back out of the chamber into the tunnel.\n\n\"Would you be interested in a new job here at our club?\" she said.\n\n\"I, er ... what job?\"\n\n\"Doorman.\" She sighed. \"You see, we can't have too many of ... us ... running around the world. Defeats the purpose of actively staying out of the history books, if you know what I mean. Anyone below a thousand must not be allowed in—sometimes, it's really hard to tell. But you already know that with your current job.\"\n\n\"I'll have to think about it,\" I said. My head felt like it was about to split apart. Those people ... some of their clothes looked like they predated writing. \"Are there ... younger people ... trying to get in, too?\"\n\n\"More than you know,\" she said in a grave tone. \"Olander takes care of them, usually, but it's really insulting if you turn away the wrong patrons. And grudges can last for a long time with us.\"\n\n\"Well, you already know we have a great healthcare package, networking opportunities, insurance and investment returns. I won't pressure you to give me an answer tonight,\" she said, going to stand in the doorway. \"Take your time. I'm in no hurry.\"\n\n***\n\n*Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed it. Check out my [sub](http://reddit.com/r/nonsenselocker) if you'd like more stories.*\n\n*Edit: Floored and extremely humbled by the reception. Again, thanks to all of you who read it and for the aurums. Now for news some might find disappointing ... I don't have plans to expand this for now, mostly because of time constraints, working on some ongoing projects. This story was intended to be a one-off—with a sense of unresolved mystery at the end that could allow readers to fill in the gaps with their own imagination. That said, I really appreciate your comments, feedback, critique, and most of all, support, which is why I'll give the plot some thought and work on it soon as I can. Also you won't have to buy it—I'll post the story for free on my sub :)*\n\n*Edit v2: I'm outlining the plot. Will begin writing in a couple months. Hah, what a turnaround ...*", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": " Earth is doomed in a matter of years, but you are bestowed with a mystical dagger that causes anyone killed by it to instantly resurrect on an alternate Earth that does not share the same fate. In one world you are revered as a hero, on the other the most notorious serial killer of all time.", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "It whispers to me, softly and sweetly, reminding me of the promise it makes.\n\nAmazingly I discovered it at a garage sale after my neighbor died. He was some kook who refused to leave his house since basically the 1940s, whittling away his father's fortune in a refusal to interact with the rest of the world.\n\nWhen he finally kicked the bucket, his grand nephew sold nearly everything in the house, including the collection of swords and knives left over from World War two. A little pile of Japanese steel that glinted and sparkled, despite the day being entirely overcast.\n\nIt called to me that day as it does now.\n\nWhispering.\n\nYearning.\n\nPromising.\n\nPromising of a world torn apart by fire, divine and nuclear, all encompassing and devastating our planet. When you hold the knife the world becomes very, very small, and a vision jerks you into the atmosphere, so far away you can see almost every inch of the earth bathed in flame.\n\n*This is what awaits those who don't taste me,* it whispers.\n\nThen the world becomes an Eden, a paradise of green and blue and health. Vibrant and beautiful, an entire world of hope and glory.\n\n*When a soul enters me,* it would speak softly, drowning out every thought and part of you, *I send them here.*\n\nHow much did I pay for that knife? Ten, fifteen bucks?\n\nDidn't matter.\n\nSalvation is priceless, I would say.\n\nWhatever they say about me now, I consider myself a shepherd of lost souls and a doomed planet. It took them faster than I expected to plaster my face over their screens and windows, but nonetheless I refuse to turn myself in.\n\nTo doom more to the fire that is to come.\n\nI park my car not too far from my intended target. Already I can hear them, the light, cheery voices of youth echoing over the pavement. \n\n*Save the innocent,* the blade tells me. *Spare them of the world to come.*\n\nA woman sees me in the parking lot and says nothing, simply points and then sprints away. It matters little, I will come for her when the time is right.\n\nMore shouts. A bustle of activity, of locked doors and hurried calls. \n\nLittle time. There's little time to accomplish what I must do.\n\nI make my way through halls and corridors, looking for the rooms containing the youngest of the children.\n\nWhy are they so afraid?\n\nDon't they see?\n\nDon't they see that their world is doomed and I have come to give them the release to a better one? To save them from all this suffering and pain, and the oncoming holocaust of fire?\n\nFlames lap at my heels, but I cannot see them.\n\nI attempt to break down a door, but it holds fast. Heavy in its weight and unyielding in strength.\n\nSomeone yells at me to stop.\n\nA portly man in blue holds a weapon pointed at me, but no, no not those they won't save the children, they only send a soul to the twisting emptiness between worlds to howl into the dark.\n\nI'll save the man, then. I'll save them all.\n\nI raise the knife and it yells, deafening in its command, that blood must spill and fill the blade, and I scream and charge.\n\nWeights slam into me, though I hear nothing, the great buzzing and voice still speaking to me, overlapping in order and command.\n\nBlood, hot and beautiful, clogs my throat. I'm drowning, drowning in my own blood.\n\n*Not here,* I think to myself, though it's distant and weak. The buzzing of the knife's command overpowers any though, even those in service to the blade.\n\n*I cannot drown here, cannot die here, there are so many left, so many left to the fire, I cannot stop now.*\n\nShouts.\n\nMore shouts around me, and the man stands over me, his face pale and white, sweat dripping down from his forehead. A man who cannot believe what he has just done.\n\nDarkness spreads from the corners of my eyes, obscuring my vision. Cold. Frozen to the ground, unable to move or speak or scream, I wait for the void. It finds me, though it takes its time.\n\n*It's him,* the man thinks to himself, inspecting the corpse he has just made. *With that weird, long knife.*\n\nElementary school security officer one, psychotic serial killer zero.\n\n*What the hell is that, what do you even call it?* the man thinks, looking at the blade lying limp in the dead man's hand.\n\nCurved.\n\nVicious.\n\nSharp.\n\nHe inspects the blade, watching the man's blood pool beneath it.\n\n*Pick me up,* a voice tells him. It's soft and sweet.\n\n*Pick me up,* the knife tells him. Speaks to him. Coos and woos him, seductively calling him from the deep dark blood of its previous wielder.\n\n*We must continue our work.*\n\n--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nr/storiesfromapotato", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": " All of the \"#1 Dad\" mugs in the world change to show the actual ranking of Dads suddenly.", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "Most families that live in the Summit Meadows neighborhood chose the suburban paradise for its fair weather and peaceful ambiance. It's currently ranked the fourth most ideal place in America to raise a family, as chosen by Consumer Report magazine, which states, “the suburban quiet is broken only by the sounds of bicycles, birds and the occasional lawnmower.”\n\nBut on July 18th, exactly one month after the Great Un-mugging, the cul-de-sac in Summit Meadows was alive and buzzing.\n\nThe children of 1134, 1136, and 1148 Meadow Drive – seven heads in all – gathered together at the grass island enclosed by the pavement circle, each child trying their best to shout over their peers.\n\nJacob was the oldest, the tallest, and also the loudest, which made him the ringleader by default. Eventually the arguing subsided, order was established, and then he was able to hold court.\n\n“Me and Sophia snuck into the Baker house last night,” he announced. “We saw the mug. Tom's dad is at number three now.”\n\n“Prove it,” Jennifer said, a small freckled girl with a shock of red hair tumbling out of a ponytail. “Where's the mug? You did take it...didn't you?”\n\n“I was gonna, but Sophia got scared. Thought we would get in trouble.”\n\n“I wasn't fraid of getting in trouble!” said Sophia. “I was just sayin we wasn't no thieves, that's all.”\n\nA shiny silver SUV turned onto the street and drove towards the group of children standing at the dead-end. The group turned to study the car, waiting for it to come into view.\n\n“That's Tom and his dad now,” Jacob said, as it neared. “Everyone shut up and act normal. Anyone rats on me and you're dead.”\n\nThe SUV pulled into the drive of 1132 Meadow Drive and the engine died. There was a slam of doors and Tom and his father emerged from the car. \n\n“Hey-ya kids,” Tom's dad said, loosening his tie. “What are you rascals up to today? Hopefully not getting into any trouble this time. Mrs. Dobinsky still hasn't let me off the hook for letting you lot dig up her flower bed.”\n\n“N-no sir, of course not,” Jacob said. “We was just thinking of trying to get a game of street hockey organized.”\n\nTom's father smiled. “Sounds like fun. Tom and I have to have a talk first, but then he should be able to join you.” He winked. “You can pick him last if you want, he won't mind.”\n\nTom was already heading into the house, doing his best to avoid eye-contact with both his father and the rest of the group. \n\nThe group of children waited dutifully until the front door slammed behind the father-son duo before speaking. Jennifer craned her neck, checking that they were gone, then took the risk.\n\n“He hasn't been around for weeks, now all of a sudden he's number three,” she breathed. “If that's true, then that means...”\n\n“He jumped up almost ten slots,” Jacob said, finishing everyone's thoughts. \n\n“What does it even mean to be the number one dad?” Sophia asked. “Everyone just says its that the coolest, nicest, richest dad is number one. But ain't nobody knows what they judging them on. It could be anything, really.”\n\n“Whatever it measures, Tom's dad is gonna be number one in it soon,” Jacob said.\n\nJust then there was a shout from inside 1132 Meadow Drive and the door sprang open. “I hate you!” Tom screamed, wiping tears from his eyes. He bolted across the lawn and down the street, disappearing into the shimmering haze of the July heat.\n\nTom's father flew out the door after him. “Tom, come back! Will you just let me explain-” He trailed off, aware that the eyes of the entire neighborhood were still on him.\n\n“Sorry you had to see that guys,” he said. “Ice cream on me later if you promise not to tell Mrs. Baker about this.”\n\n“Sure,” Jacob said, hesitating, then, “Is Tom okay?”\n\n“Yeah, he's just a little upset with his old man. You can't blame the little guy, we all have make tough decisions. This big jerk of a father,” -he pointed both thumbs at himself- “just announced he has to leave on *another* business trip, had an urgent conference come up in Miami. I get his point, that I'm never home, but hey, sometimes you have to make sacrifices for the greater good.”\n\nHe began to stride down the road after his son. As he did so, something fell out of his pocket; a piece of paper, fluttering in the wind down towards the group of children. Jacob ran over and snagged it out of the breeze.\n\n“Sir you dropped your-” he trailed off, realizing Mr. Baker could no longer hear him.\n\nJacob looked down at the paper, still warm from a printer. There was a black and white photograph of a man he did not recognize, wearing a dark suit and black glasses. The photograph was captioned,\n\n> Name: Gary Temples\n\n> Rank: 2\n\n> Location: 17 Cherry Ln, Miami, FL\n\n* * * \n\n/r/ghost_write_the_whip", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": "As Pride Month nears it's end, the other six members of the Seven Deadly Sins begin to wonder when they'll get months dedicated to them. Pride, meanwhile, is just trying to get them to understand that he's not actually the focus of Pride Month.", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "The Cherish of Wrath opened its wide mouth and thundered across the Semi-Sunken Plain. \"IT IS NOT FAIR THAT WE TOO NOT BE FORMALLY CELEBRATED, I WISH A DAY FOR STREET AND FIELD TO SOAK IN BLOOD AND TEAR.\"\n\nThe Cherish of Pride drew itself upright, drew in its considerable faux-dignity as well. \"My Sibling in Consumption, the humans rarely celebrate their vices so openly. They almost always need at least a paper-thin pretense.\" It smiled, a small, smug thing that dripped self-satisfaction. Literally, by the laws of this metaphysical plane. Or possibly infraphysical, as it was certainly not one of the *higher* planes.\n\n\"Mmmm, dearsss, that'sss not true. Have you sssseen the namesss on their placesss of nakednesss? Csselebration indeed.\" The Cherish of Lust stretched itself out as it spoke, languid, repulsively obscene.\n\n\"Those aahhmmm do not count,\" the Cherish of Gluttony said, strands and crumbs of much less metaphorical substances than self-regard falling from its immense jowls. \"They are still ahhmmm subject to stigmas and certainly not yaahlmmm celebrated with a whole twelfth of the year.\"\n\nThe Cherish of Pride inclined its head. \"Thank you, sibling. You are correct, as all who agree with me generally are. This 'Month of Pride' they are celebrating is more a rejection of prejudicial shame than true Pride. Which is, in my august opinion, shameful in and of itself. Pride *should* be celebrated. Yes, there are prideful people at these events, my favored meal is omnipresent and strong nearly everywhere. It's why I am the best of us, the most well-fed. But it is not the true reason for them.\"\n\nThe Cherish of Envy shuddered and hissed. \"Still it is the name of *your* delicacy that is everywhere. You are already the best-fed among us, and I, I, I have to watch while you—\"\n\n\"Ohhh do be quiet and spaaare me the effort of liiistening to your praaattle,\" said the Cherish of Sloth. \"The riiise of sooocial meedia has maaade you faaat and oooverfed.\"\n\n\"It is not a steady diet, like our *Sibling* the Consumer of Pride enjoys, not for *me*,\" the Cherish of Envy replied. \"They are starting to realize, many of them are setting it aside, they are not all feeding *meeeee.*\" Its words petered out in a thinning whine as it shuddered in self-pity.\n\n\"Envy me you *should,*\" said the Cherish of Pride, \"but not for this. Envy me because I am the greatest among you, and always will be. I feed on each and every one of them, even the ones who think they are the most sad and broken and without self-regard, because only Pride itself makes these things a burden to them. Only a very few ever approach true humility. As it should be.\"\n\nThe Cherish of Wrath slammed the semisolid ground with its clubbed, spike-studded forelimbs. \"SPARE US YOUR ARROGANCE, SIBLING. I HAVE NOT FED ON A WORLD WAR IN FAR TOO LONG. THIS IS YOUR FAULT. THEIR PRIDE IN SOIL AND BLOOD HAS WANED, NOT ENOUGH OF THEM WOULD SHED BLOOD FOR THESE NOBLE REASONS.\"\n\n\"Oh pleasssse,\" the Cherish of Lust said. \"You have the entire networked game-culture to feed on, jussst as I have...other networked delightsss. I know it isss not your favorite meal, not like real blood. It isss the sssame for me, I would prefer true orgiesss to recorded obssscenities, but thessse happen only ssso often where through their new networksss...it isss ssso abundant.\"\n\nThe Cherish of Wrath exhaled, a blast of iron and charged air. \"I SUPPOSE THIS RAGE IS VERY SWEET THOUGH LESS SUBSTANTIAL. I DO ALSO LOVE THEIR AUTOMOBILES. THOUGH THEY WISH TO AUTOMATE THESE. OH! THE MEALS I SHALL LOSE!\"\n\n\"Aaaahhh, yessss, sweeeet automaaation,\" the Cherish of Sloth slurred. \"Ooone daaaay sooon I shaaall beeee the beeest feeeed.\"\n\nThe Cherish of Greed cackled and rubbed together its seven hands in turn. \"They won't lie idle just because they have what they *need,* oh no no no, they will always want more, they will think they need it, more more more, and when true needs no longer need their effort they can turn sweat and striving toward more more more, never never enough.\"\n\n\"Yes, yes,\" the Cherish of Pride said. \"The world is changing for all of you. It will wax and wane, but still,\" its smile spread to its entire metaphysical form, \"I will always be the greatest of us, no matter the new ways they learn to speak to each other, and regardless of what they might name their celebrations.\"\n\n​\n\nCome on by r/Magleby for more elaborate lies.", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": " Vampires cannot enter a house uninvited. Turns out, they invented Welcome mats to bypass this rule decades ago.", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "Earl and Helena pulled into the condo complex.\n\n\"I'm *so* hungry,\" she complained, tapping her long fingernails on the window.\n\n\"That's because you didn't finish that frat boy's blood.\"\n\n\"He was so drunk, I was getting tipsy! And I'm not 21 yet --\"\n\nHe snickered. \"Ah, such a sense of morality.\"\n\n\"Well, yes. Unlike you, I've never killed anyone. I'm part of the Veluvian Order, remember? 'Leave them alive; take just enough to thrive.'\"\n\nHe rolled his eyes, and pulled crookedly into a parking space.\n\n\"Do you see any with welcome mats? Those will be the easiest. Don't even have to get invited in,\" he said, stepping out of the car.\n\n\"I know that, Uncle Earl. Geez.\" She squinted at the doorways. \"There, on the third level, I think.\" She pointed to a brown dot on the threshold.\n\n\"Fantastic.\"\n\nThe two climbed the stairs. Earl huffed and puffed as they got to the final level. \"Damn asthma,\" he said under his breath. They walked towards the door.\n\n\"Wait...\" she said, trailing off. \"This isn't a traditional welcome mat.\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"Look! It doesn't say 'Welcome'. It says --\" her tone turned quizzical -- \"'Hi, I'm Mat.'?\"\n\nHe shook his head in anger. \"No, Dammit! These stupid, 'funny' welcome mats --\"\n\n\"What? You've seen these before?\"\n\n\"Yeah. They're popular with the younger folk. Think they're being funny and witty and clever and all that. But they're stupid. And they don't let us in.\"\n\n\"Who even makes them?\" She crouched down, and curled up the corner of the rug.\n\n\"Some kitschy designer who think's he's being *so* witty --\"\n\n\"That's odd.\"\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"It's 'Buffy's Welcome Mats, Incorporated'.\"\n\n---\n\nr/CSDouglas", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": " My German Shepard had to be put down today. We never knew where he came from. Please write about his adventures.", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "I remember before I met friend. I don't like to remember, but I can. I remember the dark and cold. I remember mama wouldn't wake up. It was raining. Big men came and put me in a box, then put that box in a bigger mover box. I remember bumping up and down and the men talking loudly, and the rain hitting the bigger mover box, and loud angry geese sounds. When the big box opened they carried me in my little box inside. I was shaking and barking and shrieking and scared I was scared. They emptied my box into a bigger box and left me there for days. I got food and water, but people poked and pricked at me. I was scared and no one could help and I was lonely and I missed mama and I didn't think I was going to get out. The other dogs were bigger and louder and barked at me through the box walls. \n\nThat's when I met friend. He came in and stopped and looked at me. I didn't want him to grab me like the other men did, but he lifted me gently. It reminded me of mama. I liked him and I wanted him to stay, but then he walked away and I barked, and I barked, and I barked, but he didn't hear me. But then he came back. He put me in a big mover box again, but I wasn't in the smaller box so it wasn't as bad. \n\nThen when we got to his inside place it was the biggest box I had ever seen. I ran all around it, and I was tired by the time I had run around the whole thing. I could jump and run, and friend was always there to play, or sit on, or protect. He went away a lot when the sun was out, but he was always home after it went down. Some days he was with me the whole day. \n\nI was scared of the outside when he first found me, but he made me love it again. The walks, and the toys, oh the toys, there were so many toys, and bones, and treats, and belly scratches. He let me run free and was always there to go back to. I remember those days. They were my favorite. \n\nHe even helped me get over my fear of the big mover boxes. Usually, they went to the park. Sometimes, they went to the other place. The other place reminded me of where friend found me. It was all white and the floor went click click click under my paws. It had a big lady with glasses and a white coat. She would poke and prod at me, but friend was always there so I wasn't that scared.\n\nBut all of that seems so long ago. My legs are tired now. The outside seems so much bigger than it did. I can only run for so long now. But friend still brings me. He brings my toys too, they still cheer me up. They don't squeak as much, but I don't mind. The outside is starting to hurt. The cold gets through my fur easier. I feel so sorry to friend. I know he wishes we could still run and play. I try to, for a time, but I don't think I can keep up with him anymore. I wish I could thank him for everything. For getting me out of that box. He made me the luckiest dog in the whole world. He gave me things I didn't think I would ever have. I never felt so lost when my mama went to sleep. I thought no one would ever make sure I was ok. No one would ever be there to protect me. Then friend did. I was never able to thank him enough, but I hope he knows.\n\nFriend says were going for a ride soon. He's been taking me to the park more, so that's probably where we're going. I remember once, when I was tiny, we went to the other place and the woman poked me with a needle. It made me sleep for at least a hundred years. I feel like that now; like I could sleep for one hundred years. Maybe Friend can bring me back there. So she can give me another poke. I'll be less tired after another hundred years. \n\n\nEdit: Thank you all for the kind words. I only hope that this thread was able to ease OPs pain, even if just for a little while. To all those crying, it's alright, I cried too. Dogs are too pure for this world. For everyone giving me gold, thank you, really. But please, donate to an animal shelter instead. Every little bit helps.", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": " One day, time just suddenly stops for a short moment for you. At first, you tried to mess around, but after the 246th times it happened, you start to realise that your power is not stopping time, but being able to move in time frozen by another person in the world.", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "My sneakers tapped gently against the pavement as I walked briskly down the street. I squeezed my way through the peak-hour human traffic, catching whiffs of overly-strong perfume and worse, overly-strong body odor. I don’t like people much. I mean that in the nicest way possible. Two’s company, three’s a crowd, anything more than that is a nightmare. Trying to ignore the occasional sweaty body that rubbed too close against mine as I wormed through the crowd, I wished that everyone would just *stop moving*. \n\nAnd then, all of a sudden, they did. The sounds of shoes pattering against the pavement and car horns blaring as frustrated drivers crawled through stand-still traffic disappeared into thin air, as if they’d never been there. A perfect, fragile silence descended upon the world. Every single person, object and animal was frozen. The fat man in a shirt clearly too small for him had stopped, his pudgy leg stretched out mid-stride. A teenage girl with highlights in her hair swept aside her fringe with one hand, the other raised in mid-air in an attempt to adjust her earphones. A flock of pigeons hung artificially in the air, like some sort of elaborate piece of abstract art dangling from the ceiling of a museum. \n\nYet even as the world froze around me, I continued moving. In that heartbeat when everything else was locked in time, my left foot landed solidly on the ground, and unconsciously, my right foot had moved forwards, about to take another step. Then I stopped. Nothing compelled me to, not like *something* seemed to compel everything and everyone else to stop, no. I just stood there, in shock and awe. Had my ‘wish’ caused this to happen? What was going on? And yet, even as my thoughts became a jumbled mess, I couldn’t help but smile. Moving around was *so* much easier with everyone stopped in place. \n\nAs it turns out, no, I wasn’t the one who caused that to happen. Time abruptly resumed a short while later, as if nothing at all had transpired. By then, I was out of the crowd, tucked away in the corner of a quiet café. I only noticed when the barista started to move again, the sound of beans being crushed in a grinder giving me the shock of my life. \n\nThe freezes happened over and over again, at random intervals. They never lasted very long, but I definitely wasn’t the one doing it. In fact, as the phenomenon occurred more and more, I *knew* for sure that someone else was stopping time. There’s no good way to explain it, but I could *feel* their presence, somewhere, not too close, but not too far away. I didn’t know if they could sense me too, the way I could sense them, but I knew that they were out there. So far, I hadn’t seen anything or anyone else move during those freezes. \n\nIt may sound stupid now, but I was content to enjoy those little moments while they lasted. It usually wasn’t inconvenient, and it led to some really cool opportunities to prank my friends, or to escape from throngs of people in a busy mall. I knew that my ‘partner-in-crime’ was out there, but I had no desire to find them. In hindsight, that was a mistake. \n\nMy sneakers tapped gently against the pavement as I walked briskly against the street. It was a day much like the one when I had first experienced the peculiar sensation of being the only sentient person in a world of frozen time. Once again, I squeezed through the peak-hour human traffic. Once again, my senses were bombarded by a host of things I hated dealing with. And once again, not unlike many of the other times, I quietly wished that my time-stopping partner might decide to freeze time once more, to allow me to slip out from this nightmare. \n\nSurprisingly enough, time stopped. It wasn’t often that time stopped at a convenient juncture, so I took the opportunity to dash out of the sticky- literally- situation that I’d found myself enclosed in. And yet, as I took in a gulp of fresh air, something felt wrong. \n\nIt took me a moment to realize what it was. I was having trouble sensing the time-stopper. It wasn’t like the first time, when I just wasn’t aware of them, no. It was as if they were… fading away. Like the dying flame of a candle, about to wink out of existence. \n\nBelatedly, I wondered what’d happen to me if they vanished while the world was frozen. \n\nWe always think of the important things just a little too late. I felt that pulse from the time-stopper grow weaker and weaker, slowly dissipating like a fine dust floating into the atmosphere. I prayed that time would resume, that everything would go back to normal. \n\nAnd yet, that perfect, fragile silence remained intact. Every single person, object and animal was still frozen. The random passers-by were all stuck in time, locked in place, halfway through their last action before the world had decided to stop. A flock of crows hung artificially in the air, like some sort of elaborate piece of abstract art dangling from the ceiling of a museum.\n\nI screamed, my voice ricocheting and echoing off the tall buildings that surrounded me. \n\nBut no response came. \n\n*****\n \n*more stories at /r/chasing_mist*\n\n*I write a story a day [here](http://yearofpilgrimage.wordpress.com)*\n", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": " \"Jesus take the wheel, Satan get behind me, Buddha... man the .50 cal\"", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "The three looked between each other. There was no more time for words. No more words were necessary. \n\nThey knew their places.\n\nJesus swung into the driver's seat. It was the only real place for him, and there wasn't another option, when it came right down to it. Buddha didn't fit behind the wheel, and they'd both seen Satan at work on that flask inside his jacket through the day. No, Jesus would handle it.\n\nTheir wheels spun on the gravel. The others were circling, now. It was time. The final battle, the final fight to see who would win the game once and for all. Jesus and Satan teaming up was a given. The other candidates had complained - it wasn't fair - but complaining got them nowhere. \n\nThey all tried to pretend like they weren't going to do the exact same thing as soon as the opportunity presented itself. They looked between each other edgily, sizing the competition up. Picking teams.\n\nBuddha, on the other hand, was a surprise. What incentive did *he* have for working together with the terrible twosome? His smooth, expressionless face gave no hint of an answer as he clambered all the way up behind the gun mounted in the truck bed. His bare feet were steady on the metal floor, perfectly centered even as his girth swung disconcertingly. \n\n\"Here they come!\" Satan roared. He had elected himself shot-caller, of course, even though they hadn't set teams. Neither of the other two were surprised by *that*, either. He'd always needed to have the last word on things.\n\nThe first contenders were approaching. Muhammed was out front, leaning out the side door of a torn-up station wagon. He clutched a rocket launcher in his hands. They could see Shiva behind the wheel, grinning like a madcap as he spun the wheel. The overburdened little car nearabouts rode up on two wheels as they whipped into a donut.\n\n\"Shoot! Shoot! Now, goddammit! Why aren't you shooting yet?!\" Satan screamed. Jesus gritted his teeth, choosing to ignore the fact that his father's name was being taken in vain alongside him. Buddha was just watching, sizing up the shot. And then his meaty finger gripped the trigger.\n\nThe roar of the gun was deafening. Satan clapped his hands over his ears, roaring with laughter as the gleaming, glowing rounds arced out towards the station wagon. Shiva was swearing - they could see that much, even though his words were lost to distance and the racket. But they were spinning too fast. The ground between them erupted into shredded sand and mud.\n\nMuhammed wasn't waiting anymore. A plume of fire shot from the rocket launcher.\n\nEverything happened all at once, after that.\n\n\"Satan!\" Jesus cried. He, too, was turning now, but there was only so much he could be expected to do. He was supposed to be positioning them to attack. Defending them was-\n\n\"I got it, I got it! Don't get your robes in a bunch.\" Satan hissed. Defending them was *his* job. He lurched dangerously in his seat, barely holding on. But he pulled his hand up into an almost-level position, mimicking a gun.\n\n\"Bang.\"\n\nRed circles appeared endlessly around their truck. Something was coming up from underground.\n\n\"*Damn* it, Satan. Do you have to-\"\n\n\"Don't complain, big guy. Left. Left. Go-\"\n\nThe truck whipped into a left-hand turn, narrowly avoiding the black pillars shooting up around them. Jesus shook his head.\n\n\"I've *got it*. Stop backseat driving.\"\n\nThe other teams were coalescing, now. One after another, the deities were lining up for the big fight. They all knew. Whoever won this, would win the world. And none of them wanted to lose.\n\nHe could almost see them, if he squinted. Four sets of hooves, barely visible under the cloudline where they floated. Watching. Waiting. The final fight, for whoever crushed the competition here.\n\nHe winced. The little station wagon had just been slammed by a hummer. He could see Ra through the front window, glowing faintly from the shit-eating grin on his face. Oddly noodle-like tentacles were swarming out of the vehicle, attaching themselves to the station wagon. Which seemed to be *vanishing* into the mass of pasta.\n\n\"Drive! Drive!\" Satan screamed in his ear. The roar of the chaingun from the truck bed was almost a constant companion, now. \n\nJesus grinned, flexing his hands on the wheel.\n\nAnd then he drove.\n\n(/r/inorai, critiques always welcome. And going to head it off, I know that Buddha isn't really the fat jolly man statue most people associate with it, but, *most people associate that with him*.)\n\n~~Note - Another part or two is a possibility tonight when I get home, although this won't for obvious reasons be a long term project beyond that. If you want to be notified *should* that second part happen, leave a comment in the thread about this post on my sub. It's linked above :) I will notify anyone in that thread re: updates.~~\n\n[Part 2](https://www.reddit.com/r/Inorai/comments/7dc6op/heavenly_pubg_part_2)", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": " You won a lifetime supply of Oreos when you were a kid. The apocoylpse and collapse of civilization was 30 years ago, yet every month the Oreos are still delivered to you, no matter where you are.", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "When I was a kid, I thought winning a lifetime supply of Oreos would mean truck after truck appearing at my house, each overflowing with Oreos. Back then I didn't think about things like where in the world we'd keep that many Oreos, or the fact that they'd all go bad shortly after, or that sooner or later I'd get sick of eating them. I just had this grand vision in my head I guess, didn't want to let it go. So I was pretty disappointed when a little package showed up on our front porch.\n\nThere were fifteen Oreos in the package. I asked my mom where the rest was, and she told me more would come next month. Waiting an entire month seemed like torture at that age, and made what arrived doubly crushing. Another package of exactly fifteen Oreos. It slowly sunk in to my little head that this was what winning a lifetime supply of Oreos looked like. No trumpets and fanfare, no overloaded trucks pulling in one after another. Just a little packet of fifteen Oreos on the first of every month.\n\nFifteen! I couldn't believe it. That wasn't even one Oreo for each day!\n\nThe grand imaginings we have as kids rarely come true. For example, I wanted to be a marine biologist. Then the whole world started collapsing and now there are hardly any fish even left, much less people with the time or tools to study them.\n\nAnd yet, those packages kept coming. To my house. To the shelter. To my tent. To the stick laid against a tree with an old coat draped over it so I could huddle under, away from the worst of the rain. Wherever I went, there they were. Fresh and neatly packaged up on the first of every month, like nothing bad had ever happened anywhere.\n\nFor a long time I tried to figure out where they were coming from, who delivered them, how they were finding me, anything. I ran after every lead, pursued every theory. Aliens? Fairies? Time travel? Some bizarre joke? All in my head? But I never found anything, and eventually I gave up on finding out. I didn't want to finally get my answer only to realize it was like everything else- Like the trucks of Oreos, like undersea exploration, like falling in love. Something that seemed to exist just to disappoint people naive enough to believe in it.\n\nToday was the first of the month, I'd guess. Haven't had a calendar for a long time, but the deliveries never fail. This time the package was placed neatly across a few sturdy branches of the tree I'd slept in, hoping to avoid the mess of trouble that had gone on below. I wasn't sure how I'd get down considering I'd messed up one of my legs pretty darn badly in the night's scuffle, but my package was close enough to reach from where I sat. Same little shipping label as always, though the address lines had been left blank since I stopped having an address.\n\nI opened it up. You think I'd be sick of them by now, but when times are rough you wouldn't believe how good that sugar tastes. Only, strange thing, there weren't so many in the package this time. Five was all, I was ten short. I considered that maybe wherever they came from was running out, or that something else had gotten to my supply before I had. Then I considered something else.\n\nA lifetime supply of Oreos.\n\nI guess this is my last one.\n", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": " Bored with Heaven's docile wildlife, Steve Irwin rounds up a camera crew and leads an expedition to observe and study the native species of Hell.", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "“G’day, I’m Steve Irwin. Today on ‘Hell Hunters’ we’re searching for the rare and mysterious *Hellhound*,” Steve said.\n\nHe walked along the cracked fields of broken rock, stepping gently with his tan boots, threadbare cargo shorts and low-cut olive tee. He stopped abruptly at a ridge, then held a hand out towards the angelic camera crew, beckoning them forward. \n\n“Now, a lot of folks think that the hellhound is a big scary beast. That’s all false. They’re just a bit misunderstood,” he said. \n\nHe pointed towards a burning field, lowering his voice to a whisper. “That right there is a mother hellhound with her pups.”\n\nThe angelic camera crew shuffled forward on the bluff, zooming in for the best possible view. On the fields, the mother hellhound ran in circles. Seven balls of flaming floof ran after her. \n\n“When most people think hellhounds, they think—danger! Danger! Danger! But that’s not true at all. In fact, these are some of the most intelligent creatures on the fiery plains!”\n\nHe jumped down from the bluff. The angels started in protest, but they had learned long ago not to question Steve. Instead they shuffled their wings uneasily and watched the commotion. \n\nSteve moved forward. His footsteps clattered over the rocks, and the mother hellhound swiveled her head, staring him down intently. \n\n“Check this out. When I approach, the mother hellhound is going to raise her fiery hackles in defense”—the hellhound growled, flames spitting around her—“Right now she sees me as a threat to her pups, so this defensive technique is normal. What I’m gonna do is make myself small.”\n\nHe hunched over in the fetal position. The hellhound growled, but her tail began to wag. The pups huddled around their mother, then slowly started forward. \n\n“Aww now, there we go, easy now,”—he reached into his jacket pocket—“the pups just want to play, they haven’t learned the difference between friend or foe. Now this is a critical moment.”\n\nHe pulled out a small chew toy. “Check this out! Now watch.”\n\nHe held out the bone. One cautious pup started forward and sniffed it. The mother hellhound moved forward, inches away from Steve, the bearer of death incarnate. Flames scored her pitch black fur, her fangs white with fury, hackles raised with spines of white fire. \n\nThen the mother bent down, snatched the bone from Steve’s hands, and walked away. The pups followed her, but not before one of them climbed up to Steve and licked his face.\n\n“Now look at that. Ain’t she a ‘Beaut? A lot of people think that hellhounds are evil ugly monsters, but that’s not true at all. You just saw it for yourself.”\n\nHe walked back towards the camera, and the angels set up a fantastic shot of him sitting on the bluff, overlooking the fields, with some really terrific lighting. Steve sobered for this portion of the show. \n\n“Now the terrible thing about these creatures is that, more and more they’re being driven to the brink of extinction. With the cooling of the Sulphur pits, their natural habitat is being destroyed, and it’s a shame that in my grandkid’s lifetime we may never be able to see these magnificent creatures again,” he said. \n\nHe shuffled a bit, pointing out towards the fields where the hellhounds ran free. In the post-production room, Steve imagined they would do a slow zoom towards the happy hellhound family. The audience would watch them toss around the chew toy like it was the happiest moment of their lives. Maybe he could touch the hearts of a few lost souls and show all the amazing creatures from the depths of hell. \n\nFor his eternity, that would be enough to turn any hell to heaven. \n\n​\n***\nr/BLT_WITH_RANCH", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": " From birth, your parents have done everything they could to stop you from going out during a full moon. At the age of 16, curiosity overwhelms you and you sneak out of the house during a full moon. You take a peek at the moon, and suddenly you turn into a log cabin. You are a werehouse.", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "When I finally staggered back home the next morning, the relief that I was home safe overrode my mother's anger at my disobedience. The same could not be said of my father. From inside my mother's embrace, I heard his familiar chastising tone of voice revving up. It was as if the act of telling me what to do made him more domineering. There was no cathartic release and reset, it just kept escalating until we were screaming at each other, and my mother had to intervene.\n\n​\n\n\"What the hell were you thinking, boy? You could have been discovered, you could have killed people! Do you have any idea how dangerous that was?\"\n\n​\n\n\"NO!\", I shouted back. A familiar pattern despite the unfamiliar ground. \"No, I had no idea how dangerous it could be because you've never told me anything about who I am? Or is it how *we* are? Am I the freak, or are we all the Addams family realtors?\" I paused, partially for effect, and partially to admire how coolly I'd delivered that line. So far it had gone exactly how I'd rehearsed, as I'd been trapped in those 4 walls. Or as those 4 walls. To be honest, that part wasn't 100% clear to me. Then my Dad surprised me by tearing up my mental script. He sat down heavily with a huge sigh, like a bouncy castle when the pump is turned off.\n\n​\n\n\"Yeah\", he nodded. \"Yeah, that is true. How could you know? It's fucking ridiculous. I mean if you were a vampire or a werewolf or whatever at least you'd have pop culture to help you make sense of some it. But not this.\" He patted the sofa next to him. \"Come, sit down. I suppose it's time.\"\n\n​\n\nI sat down. My mother went to put the kettle on. I might be a walking house, and at this point, she might be as well, as far as I knew, but a mother knew when it was time to make a cup of something hot.\n\n​\n\n\"What do you mean dangerous, Dad? What am I going to do? Do we have asbestos?\"\n\n​\n\nHe rolled his eyes. It was so normal I nearly pinched myself just to check this wasn't some ridiculous dream. \"Not as far as I know. Although I never had a surveyor inside me. So to speak.\"\n\n​\n\nI laughed, as he knew I would.\n\n​\n\n\"No, you are dangerous, because of the speed and power of the change. A werewolf might maim a human or two before it learns to lock itself away at Full Moon. You could crush people by the busload. If you are near another building, you will knock it aside. A skyscraper would fall.\"\n\n​\n\nI laughed again. This time he was not so pleased. \"It's not a joke. I'm telling you. You could kill thousands if you change in the wrong place. The oldest handed down tale of our people is of the fall of Jericho. Human legend tells of the great shout and the power of God. The reality is that one of our kind was in the march around the walls. They marched for days and nights until the full moon came, and he smashed those impregnable walls aside like straw.\"\n\n​\n\n\"Dad. What are we?\"\n\n​\n\n\"I don't know, boy\", he said, deflating still further it seemed. My mother returned with two steaming cups of something. \"Thanks love\", he said as he took one. \"I don't know, and none of our people does for sure. Tomorrow we'll take you to see The Architect. She's the oldest of us, and she can tell you what limited parts we do know.\"\n\n​\n\nMy mother patted my shoulder. \"You must be tired. The first change is awful on the mind. Did you have any animals move in?\"\n\n​\n\nI shuddered at the thought of the small rodents I'd felt scurrying across my skin. Or inside my skin I supposed. I said nothing.\n\n​\n\n\"Drink your tea\", she said knowingly, then brightened. \"Still, the good news is we think that we exist to shelter and protect something important. It's just we don't know what yet. But we don't set out to kill or convert or dominate like all the other changelings.\"\n\n​\n\nI looked at her. \"Others? I thought the werewolves thing was another joke?\"\n\n​\n\n\"Tomorrow\", my father said firmly with a glare at my mother. \"For now, just rest. You need your strength. Learning The Foundations is a tough task and the Architect is not a forgiving teacher.\"\n\n​\n\nI sipped my tea and tried not the think about where the rats went when I changed back.\n\n\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\n\nIf you like this, I keep all my stories here. I'm still learning and always up for feedback. Thanks for reading.\n\nEdit - Grammar advice\n\nEdit 2- Part 2 is [here.](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/hhgh0y/wp_from_birth_your_parents_have_done_everything/fwb0ei1?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x)\n\nPart 3 is [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/hhgh0y/wp_from_birth_your_parents_have_done_everything/fwebwzm?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x)\n\nr/TallerestTales", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": " You have $86,400 in your bank and someone steals $10. You spend all the rest of your money trying to get revenge.", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "\"It's not the money, it's the principle.\"\n\nMy father's words. Though I think he was talking about taking a loan, as in principal with an A L, but that doesn't really matter.\n\nIt was free to find out who the culprit was, the bank does that for you. Not to help you, but to know who to put on their hit lists, your gain is just an added benefit. But for a petty crime like stealing 10 dollars, the bank does nothing. Apparently their policy only applies to thefts of more than fifty dollars. \n\nSo I had to take matters into my own hands. \n\nThe bank was kind enough to tell me who the culprit was, though: James Graham. Asshole extraordinaire. The bastard had stolen my lunch every time he was in lunch back in elementary school, which admittedly was not very often considering he had detention almost everyday. But still, having my apple juice carton ripped mercilessly out of my hands and disemboweled by another man is an image that will haunt me forever. \n\nAnd now, he had the nerve to come back to my life, and steal *my* money. Hell no. No sir. And so I plotted my revenge. According to Stalkbook, Graham lived in London. Now, I did not have the cash for tomorrow's train fare, so a flight was out of the question, unless I wanted to withdraw from my savings account...which I actually wasn't legally allowed to for ten more years. \n\nSo I waited. \n\nI worked extra hours at the StellarDollars, even though my soul withered a little more every moment I stood and smiled at random people who had come to get coffee or milk or whatever the hell. I sacrificed some of my guaranteed interest on the savings account and moved it to an investment variant, where I could chose to invest the money into different stocks or companies. \n\nAnd I did. I had a plan you see, a plan so grand it would destroy him so utterly, so completely that he would lie broken at my feet, begging for mercy, and I, in my infinite kindness, would deny it. I read online articles, made the correct movements, predicted changes, made gambles. I cried, laughed, and died inside. And through it all only one name filled my mind, one name that fueled my drive, my relentless quest: James Graham: Asshole Extraordinaire. \n\nOne day, of no particular import, the call that I knew would come, came. \n\nI stood up in the middle of the conference meeting, and dozens of chairs swiveled around and men in suits stared at me. \n\n\"Sir?\" One asked, \"we have to discuss this quarter's profits...\"\n\nI glared at him, and he fell silent. Without another word I stalked out of the meeting room, men and women staring at me as I did, but I paid then no mind. I pulled out my phone and answered. \n\n\"Sir, a loan verification from the name of James Graham has come in, asking for 2 hundred thousand,\" Stephanie said. I'd told her years ago to tell me when this happened. I'd bought out all the other banks in the area. He would have no choice to to borrow from mine, it was just a question of waiting. \n\nAnd the wait was over. \n\nI grinned. \"Stephanie, approve him, but internally make it a loan of two million,\" I paused, and continued, \"and ten - discreetly of course.\"\n\nStephanie had known me for years, she didn't ask any questions. \n\nSo when Graham got his first payment due he was suitably surprised to find his loan payments about ten times what they had been. He went to the bank enraged, sure there had been an error. \n\nThere was no error. The system clearly said he had borrowed 2 million, and now it was time to pay. \n\nOh and pay he did. \n\nHe could only watch as his house was sold, his wife divorced him, his kids hated him, his friends deserted him. I found him on the streets one day, begging with some coins in a cardboard box in front of him. I knelt down, patted him on the back and gave him a ten. \n\nJames' eyes widened, and he looked up at me, almost crying. \"Th-thank you sir, thank you so, so much!\"\n\nI just smiled at him and walked away, whistling a merry tune. \n\n***\n\nIf you enjoyed, check out [XcessiveWriting](https://www.reddit.com/r/XcessiveWriting/) for more of my work ", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": " You never kill the spiders in your home, you just whisper \"today you, tomorrow me\" when you set them outside. Now, in your most dire moment, an army of spiders arrives to have your back.", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "\"Why don't you just kill them?\"\n\n\"Because they're living creatures, Lindsay. You ask me that every ti–\"\n\n\"Oh shut up,\" she rolled her eyes, cutting him off. He sighed as he opened the door to the backyard. The moon was full but barely visible through the clouds. He knelt in the grass and whispered, \"Today you, tomorrow me.\" The spider leapt from his palm and disappeared into the darkness. He crouched there for a minute, wishing that he too could disappear into the darkness. He just didn't have the strength to leave. \n\nNo one believed that she had given him his scars, they didn't want to believe. He saw it in their eyes. They would laugh, mock him, shrugging it off, waving their hands, shaking their head as if to rid their ears of the words. He didn't tell many people, a coworker, a guy from the gym, his brother, and his best friends from school. The disregard for his confession hurt more than a book to the head or a fork to the arm ever could. But nothing hurt more than her betrayal. Every apology was a glimmer of hope that the woman he'd fallen in love with would return. Every insult she spat and object she hurled made him wonder if she was ever there, or if it had all been a dream. \n\nHe stood up slowly and turned to go into the house. *If I were more understanding, more giving, patient, she'd remember what we had and come back,* he thought. He'd had thousands of similar thoughts. He was a fixer. Maybe he could fix it. Fix himself, fix her, fix them. Deep down he knew he couldn't, but his hope and her blame kept him tied there. He'd tried counselors. He went alone when she'd refused to go. And when she insisted that he stop, that the counselor was driving them apart, he'd stopped. He shook his head, disappointed in himself again. \"Honey,\" he said opening the door, \"what do you think about trying to see Dr. Smith again?\" **WHACK** He heard the sound of glass shattering, but he didn't know what had hit him. He struggled to get up, but something else hit him. And he went down again. \"Lindsay, please...\" He looked up to see her looming over him, his old baseball bat in her hands, and he put his arms up to protect his face as she swung at him over and over and over and then she was shrieking. \n\n\"What is that??? ***scream*** Get them off!!! GET THEM OFF!!!\" He lifted his head to see his wife being swept out the back door in a wave of blackness. He thought he was hallucinating. His head was throbbing, bleeding as he struggled to get up. Leaning against the back door he watched as she disappeared into the woods, her scream echoing. \"Lindsay!\" he called after her, attempting to follow, but he collapsed in the doorway. \n\nThe next morning he woke up on the couch. He groaned, eyes adjusting to the early morning light. The room filled with evidence of the night's events but Lindsay wasn't there. He started to sit up to look for when he noticed a black rectangle on the wall. It looked like it was moving. Slowly, the blackness shifted, forming the words: \"Yesterday us, today you.\" ", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": " At the age of twelve you started randomly seeing a green line and a red line appear on the ground. You always followed the green line and have lived a successful and happy life. Ten years later you are on top of the world, but bored. Time to see where the red line leads.", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "You know, I really couldn't say when I first saw the lines.\n\nI mean, sure, I know it was sometime around my tween years when I saw them for *sure*. I was 13 when I saw the brightly colored lines cutting straight across the gravel parking lot, leading me back to my parents after I had gotten lost on that road trip. But before that? I really couldn't say. Maybe I had seen them before, mistaking them for pavement lines and supermarket markings.\n\nRegardless. After I noticed them, I couldn't help it. I saw them *everywhere*. Two lines, red and green, etched into the ground like they were marked in paint. No one else could see them. I'd commented on them once, to my mother, and she looked at me like I was crazy. I was old enough at that point to know to keep my mouth shut.\n\nBut I watched, as they wove their way in and out of my life.\n\nAnd, as one does, I inevitably found myself overwhelmed with the *need* to investigate them, to see where they led. The curiosity was more than I could take. The memory of that first time was too fresh in my mind, of the green line leading me straight back to safety.\n\nAnd so, when I was 14, I grabbed a botle of water and a snack, and I followed them. The green line, of course. Green is good and red is bad, right? It just seemed smarter that way. It had taken me on a winding, twisting path, deeper and deeper into the city, until at last I found myself at a robotics tournament being held that afternoon. \n\nIt was *thrilling*.\n\nI had no idea that something like that was even a thing, but my interest was piqued. I decided - I wanted to do something like *that* with my life. And I looked at that little green line with newfound respect.\n\nSo I followed it again.\n\nOver and over, I followed it. And time after time, my life was rewarded for it. It took me to the front door of a prep school where I met Mr. Graves, whose tutoring I hold directly responsible for getting me into college a few years down the road. It led me out of danger, as a kitchen fire burned out of control in my school. And, it crossed my path with that of the woman of my dreams. Literally. We smacked into each other in a crosswalk.\n\nSo, here I was. I was 30, and the world was at my fingertips. I sat in my leather gaming chair, in front of the desk holding all of my equipment. I looked out the window of my top-floor penthouse, gazing down at the city below. The walls were covered with the awards I had won, in automation and robotics and system design. My lovely, smart, beautiful wife was in the other room, reading a book as she brewed coffee.\n\nIt was perfect. Really perfect. All thanks to that little green line.\n\nBut I couldn't help it. I was *bored*. \n\nMy whole adult life, I'd relied on that invisible line to guide my steps. It hadn't bothered me when I was younger. I was just a kid, and this line opened doors for me I didn't even know *existed*. I'd followed it without hesitation, trusting it to take my life where it needed to go.\n\nNow that I was older, now that I had time to stop and think about it, I wondered if this had all really been for the best. Had I just taken the easy path? Had I gone with the flow, and given up on taking my life into my own hands? It kept me up at night, I'll be honest.\n\nAnd through it all, it burned, in the corner of my vision. That red line. It seared into my sight like it was on *fire*. It demanded attention, begging for me to give it the shot I'd only ever given its green brother.\n\nThat old curiosity was back.\n\nAnd so I grabbed an old messenger bag out of the closet, a remnant from my college days. I threw in bottles of water, and a pocket knife. A charge cable for my phone, and a granola bar. I laughed to myself, as I saw it. It looked so much like the bag I had packed, all those years ago, when I first walked the green line. But that felt right, you know?\n\nI slipped out the door, with a quick goodbye to my wife. She accepted my excuses of taking a walk without hesitation, pressing a kiss to my cheek and wishing me a good day. I smiled to myself, as I left the house. She was the best thing that the green line had ever gotten me.\n\nAnd then I stepped onto the red line.\n\nOnce again, it led me into the city, deeper and deeper. But where the green line had taken me straight towards the center of activity, leading me towards schools and conference centers, the red line seemed to be taking me right to the worst part of town. I flinched away from seedy glares, eyeing my bag and the make of my coat, as I hurried onwards.\n\nI hoped this wasn't going to be the last mistake I ever made.\n\nThe buildings around me loomed higher, the roads and streets giving way to narrow alleys. I was *about* to give up, to declare this a fool's errand and turn back.\n\nAnd then I heard her crying.\n\n\"Please. Please, no. I swear I won't say anything. I don't have any money, I- I don't have *anything*. Please just let me go and I swear I won't ever-\"\n\n\"Shut it.\"\n\nThe woman's voice was high, reedy with fear, and her tears threatened to overwhelm her words entirely. It stopped me in my tracks, before I even had a chance to hear *him* speak.\n\nThe voices were coming from ahead. The red line burned, inviting me onwards.\n\nAlmost against my will, I found my feet moving fowards. And then I saw her, huddled on the ground in a mass of scarf and hair. A man was in front of her, kneeling, with her purse torn open in front of him. He dug through it, tossing receipts and makeup cases aside carelessly as he looked for anything valuable.\n\nIn his other hand, he held a gun. It pointed at her lazily, weaving back and forth as he eviscerated the bag.\n\nThey were right there, no more than twenty feet in front of me. Neither of them saw me. The man's back was to me, and the woman was in no state to notice. \n\nMy hand plunged into the bag slung over my shoulder, latching reflexively around the familiar shape of my knife. I didn't know what I was going to do with it, but having it in my hand made me feel a *little* better.\n\nI needed to call the cops. This was all wrong. There was no way I could do anything to help her. I was just going to end up getting her killed, or myself, or both of us. He had a *gun*. What could I *possibly* do against-\n\nHis hand swayed, the barrel pointing back at her. His finger tensed on the trigger.\n\nBefore I had time to think, I was running. The knife was out of the bag now, gleaming in my hand as I thrust it towards him. Towards his neck. If I could knock him over, if I could get that gun pointed *away* from her-\n\nI swore colorfully as I stumbled. The man grunted in surprise and pain, as my knife dug into his wrist. I winced, even as I ran headlong into him. Turns out my aim with a knife *sucked*.\n\nBut it got the job done. He fell, cursing and screaming, as blood flowed from his wrist. The gun clattered to the cold pavement, forgotten, as he stumbled back. His eyes were locked onto my knife, through the mist of pain I could see in his expression. \n\n\"What the *fuck*?\" He cursed again, clutching his wrist. \"Dude, fuck *off*.\"\n\nI swiped the knife at him clumsily, more threatening than actually intending to hit him. He swore one last time, jumping back. \"Fuck this. Keep your shitty purse, lady.\" With one last parting jab, he spun on his heel and vanished rapidly down the alleys.\n\nThe woman was a mess, eyes all red and sniffling desperately. But she pulled herself together as I approached her, beginning to tuck her belongings back into her bag.\n\n\"Are...are you ok, ma'am?\" I asked tentatively, my voice low. She glanced up at me, smiling.\n\n\"I am now. That asshole. I- I was so *scared*. Thank you *so* much. Thank you. I don't know what would have happened if you-\" \n\n\"Don't worry about it. I'm glad I was here. We should get you to the police.\" I cut her off before she could go on. I knew the signs of an incoming meltdown, and figured I needed to get her somewhere safe before her emotions finally caught up with the shock.\n\nShe nodded, accepting my offered hand with a grateful nod, and we stumbled onwards down the alley.\n\nI glanced dowards.\n\nThe red line glowed brightly ahead of us. My stomach roiled. *More*?\n\nThe noise of the city was returning to normal around us, as we returned to some semblance of civilization. I began to relax, just a hair. And then, as we turned towards the main street, I hesitated.\n\nThe red line was turning, down a different alley. It led half a block down, and then cut straight up to the front door of a little shack.\n\nI could see a tiny, hazy tendril of smoke, rolling out from under the side door.\n\nThe line *burned*, screaming red in its urgency. It seared a line into my vision as I looked down the alley. I paused, caught deep in thoughts. Questions, that had been lingering in my head for years, and answers that had suddenly become apparent.\n\nThe green line took me where *I* needed to go. It showed me the easy path. The path that I needed to take.\n\nWhat if...What if the red line showed me the hard path? Not the path that I needed, but the path that other people needed me to take? What if it took me to where other people needed me to go?\n\n\"Can you manage from here?\" I heard my voice say, ringing distant in my own ears. The woman glanced back to me, smiling faintly.\n\n\"I think so. Do you have to go?\"\n\n\"I..I think I do, yeah.\" I didn't look back at her. My eyes were still locked onto that little building. The smoke was growing, swelling by the second. I half turned, releasing the woman's hand and giving her a reassuring smile. She returned it shyly, waving as she merged back into the flow of pedestrians and made for the police station.\n\nI turned back to the red line. And then I broke into a run.\n\n---\n\n(/r/Inorai, critiques always welcome!) \n\n[Part 2](https://www.reddit.com/r/Inorai/comments/6vuflx/redline_2/) ", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": " you are yourself, on Christmas Day, reading this on reddit, you are told that you are loved and accepted for who you are, and to have a happy holiday season, and a great new year!", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "“Thanks reddit,” I said, “Y’all make this community spectacular. I’ve been coming here for a few years just to have fun reading and writing, and apart from getting banned once when a mod thought my story was so terrible that I must be trolling, the feedback has always been constructive. I think that says a lot about an internet community. The rest of the internet can get pretty negative and rude, but the people who hang out on /r/writingprompts are really awesome to each other. And I really mean it when I say-”\n\nSomething tapped my shoulder from behind. I swiveled my chair and saw Revolutionary Comrade Zoot—the protagonist of the very first story I posted to /r/writingprompts three and a half years ago.\n\n“Remember me?” Zoot asked.\n\n“I, uh,” I sputtered. I racked my brains trying to remember his name and his plot arc.\n\n“You forgot?” Zoot said, shocked.\n\n“You’re blue,” I said desperately, “Um, you’re like a… a communist type alien, um,”\n\nZoot frowned. “I was part of the prompt: [WP] You are the heir to the family business of being a superhero. At 16, your power is unveiled, but no one expected what it was…” \n\nI nodded, the memories beginning to stir.\n\n“You gave me the superpower of superdreaming,” Zoot said.\n\n\"That's right,\" I said.\n\n\"I always wanted to ask you something,\" Zoot said.\n\n\"What's that?\" \n\n\"What's your dream?\" Zoot asked.\n\n\"Me?\" I said, \"It's pretty simple. I just want people to read the stuff I write.\"\n\n\"So you've made it, then,\" Zoot said, \"Just like me.\"\n\n\"Yeah,\" I said, \"I suppose I have. All because of reddit.\"\n\n\"Thanks reddit,\" Zoot said, turning to face YOU, the reader. \"You're awesome.\"\n\nze end!\n\n---\n\n/r/trrh\n\n\n\n", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": " You discover a library with a biography for everyone on Earth. While reading your own, you notice that whenever someone else is mentioned, there's a footnote showing where you can find their biography. Its odd how someone who was only a sentence in your book has a whole chapter for you.", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "*Carl ended up going to prom with Alice, I hated him.* \n\nI giggled as I read the line. This library of biographies is fantastic. There is so much memory of each person, all collected within one room. Everyone’s life is recorded, every scrap of information, every thought, every emotion they felt at the moment. There is no one insignificant in this room, from historical figures to the beggar, all of our stories are recorded. Our experiences, whether they be of a hard struggle or of a blissful moment, not a thing that made our lives colorful is missed from these biographies. \n\nI still remember that moment, when Alice came to tell me she was going to prom with Carl, the utter humility, the disappointment… It was everything to me at the time, and I hated the son of a bitch. The the one who showed little interest in actually committing to a relationship, the one who ended up dumping her anyway after the night, was the one who actually got to go on a date with her. Even then, I toughened up, and acted, pretended, to give them my best wishes and extending my hand to him to tell him no hard feelings, so I can tell myself what I nice person I am. God I hope that poor bastard suffered the rest of his life. \n\nAnd that’s when I went to look for Carl’s biography. Section D, number 10523, it was a remarkably short one. I am in my fifties and my biography is already the size of a Thesaurus, his is more close to a high schooler's notebook. \n\nAs I turned page after page, I realized, his life is remarkably boring. The guy spent most of his early life in-doors, quiet, without much friends. Commentaries on his experiences remained bland for the most part -- “Learned to ride a bike, just like dad said I would.” And another “Straight As again, mom would be proud.” There were no further comments on what those experiences actually felt like. They were just a description of an event combined with how he thought other people would feel about it. There was also very little mention of himself, which is odd for a biography… \n\nUntil I reached the section about Alice. The narration here is different. There were detailed descriptions of how he thought of her as the most beautiful thing he had ever seen, how he would go the library on days she would go study… What a creep. \n\nThe next section somehow returned to the old boring narration. \n\n“Diagnosed with lung cancer, inoperable. Best case scenario, two years” \n\nThe guy died within two years later, and more than half of this book remained is about the two years he had! \n\nThe rest of the biography read like a bestselling novel, each event, no matter how tiny they seemed, was filled with emotion, with hope and strive, with how much he wanted to ask for Alice’s hand despite knowing he’s dying. How hard he worked to be comfortable talking to others, the jokes he had to memorize to make himself sound funny, the countless webpages he read to make himself presentable. \n\n“Asked Alice to prom today, she said yes surprisingly. I knew she was supposed to be going with another guy, Matt. I know he loves her, and I know there won’t be a future for Alice and me. I just had to do it. I’m sorry...” \n\nI quickly flipped another page, I had no idea. \n\n“Matt didn’t flip out. Perhaps he knew how pathetic I am, or it was because he saw there will be no future between Alice and me… Despite this, he extended his hand to me, and told me there was no hard feelings, that neither Alice nor me owe him anything. He patted me on the back, but there was something odd about it, he was hurt, yet he remained strong. He told me to have fun, that there’s one prom and that's it, before telling me to be brave with a wink.” \n\n“Alice and I had a blast at the prom. She seemed interested in seeing me again, and so am I. I looked at her beautiful blue eyes, they definitely sparkle under the night sky. My sight lingered on her as I am reminded my doctors predictions. I told her we won't be seeing each other again. I tried to give her a pat on the back, but she shoved me away with tears in her eyes… Getting admitted today, getting worse. Though each time I lay on the bed, I can't help but remember Matt's look when he patted me on the back -- have fun, and be brave. And I did, thank you Matt!” \n\nI closed the book, a barrage of emotion hit me as I struggled for words. There doesn't seem to be any for this moment except perhaps \n\nYou're welcome", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": " In order to get a shot at going to Valhalla, you must die with a weapon in your hands. You just died and are now sitting in front of Odin's advisory board as they discuss whether a spatula actually counts.", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "I awoke to the quorking of ravens. The fact that I knew that sound meant ravens, or even what quorking was, surprised me, but didn't concern me. Nor did the fact I couldn't quite remember where I was or what I had been doing. That too, should've concerned me but, pleasantly, didn't. It felt like I was waking from a long nap, a bit foggy but refreshed. The ravens flapped and hopped around their perch in a way that seemed to indicate confusion or argument and, for a time, I just watched them. It was some time before I realized there was someone else in the room, or space, or where ever this was. A hooded old man, also observing the ravens with something approaching paternal concern was turned away from me. I tried to clear my throat politely but the sound echoed impossibly and all three figures turned to regard me. \n\n\"Greetings traveler,\" the old man said, \"You've caused my little friends here a bit of confusion. It seems your tale is a bit unusual for my halls, so I've chosen to hear it directly. Tell me sir, are you a warrior of your people?\" \n\nIt didn't feel like an interrogation and somehow I wasn't scared. It was like my grandfather had asked me about what I had for breakfast that day. It felt right to reply, and suddenly memory became clear. \n\n\"Uh...sir, no...not a warrior. Actually, farthest thing from it by most peoples way of thinking - I'm just a cook.\" I felt this would somehow end the dream, or whatever this was, or the man would be unimpressed, but he wasn't. If anything, he seemed to be smiling. \n\n\"That explains this,\" a dented, scratched spatula appeared in the mans hand. Memory seemed to awake at the sight.\n\n\"Yes! That's mine! I mean, well, the one I always use. I guess it's my favorite, as much as a spatula can be. I was using it just a little while ago, making....what was I making? I'm sorry, I can't remember.\" I felt the need to apologize to this figure, although I wouldn't be able to tell you why. He seemed familiar, somehow, like a relative I hadn't seen in years. \n\n\"Don't bother yourself with worry, traveler. Why don't you take up your favorite...spatula, and tell me of your...labors with it.\" The old man offered the spatula to me, handle first, carefully, almost tenderly, like it was precious and fragile. I reached out a hand to touch it and felt a flash of memory. \n\n\"I...I was in the...cafeteria...Yes, that's where I was. I work for the district and was making lunch. Chicken tenders and tater-tots, green beans, apple sauce, even a little salad. It's good for the kids to have good food to eat, don't you think? I always loved working with the kids and the district was kind enough to give me a job, even though I had a record.\" \n\nIt felt natural to say this to the old man. He was feeling more like a long missed friend so sharing with him was comfortable...easy. \n\n\"A cook, for children? That was your task? Your role amongst your people?\" The question wasn't delivered with malice or derision, the old man wasn't mocking me or being cruel. If anything, he seemed..surprised, maybe even a little impressed. \n\n\"Yes, I love working with the children. Little Cheryl and Tommy and Franz were always nice to me, always tried to tell me jokes. I made sure to give them extra tater-tots - they love tater-tots. They even made me some macaroni art! I hung it up behind the counter so I could see it every day.\" The children. Something about the children. Something horrifying was crawling at the edge of my memories. The children were in danger! The old man must've seen panic on my face.\n\n\"Peace, traveler, the children are safe,\" The old man put a hand on my arm and I instantly felt a peaceful calm return, \"tell me of this day, friend, then we can go from this place.\" \n\n\"Today? Normal day I guess. Spilled tea on myself getting ready, had to change my shirt and almost clocked in late. I was just getting ready for lunch when I started hearing something from upstairs. I didn't think the kids were doing a field day and the banging was so loud. I went to look out and kids were already running down the stairs, screaming and crying...\" I could feel tears of my own forming at the memory...\"I saw Tommy and Franz holding Cheryl...trying to push their hands against her side, already slick with blood. Tommy was missing a chunk of his right ear but didn't seem to care, he was holding onto Cheryl as hard as a 7 year old could. He was so brave, even as the other kids ran in every direction.\" The memory was an avalanche now. The screams of panicked adults and terrified children. The smell of blood and gun powder. The thunder of the shots getting closer. I remembered.\n\n\"I...I took them into the freezer, in the back of the cafeteria. Tommy, Franz, Cheryl....all the kids I could find. I found the big first aid kit we always keep in the cafeteria and yanked it off the wall to throw into the freezer with them and told them not to open the door, no matter what. Then I broke the handle and I think...\" my memory ended with the shock of impact, of a force on my back and a sudden red stain on the freezer door. Understanding slowly unfolded in my mind. \n\nThe old man stood silent for a long time. The ravens had taken to his shoulders at some point and all were looking at me intently. It was only now that I realized the old man, face hidden in shadow, seemed to have a patch over one eye. He also had a tear running down his face. \n\n\"I see now why my little friends were confused, traveler. Midgard has changed greatly since I last walked there and with it, so has the shape of battle. Thankfully, what hasn't changed is the stout heart of man.\" The old man seemed to be drawing himself up, getting impossibly big and powerful looking. In the distance, horns blared. \"Listen, friend, the horns of my hall are sounded for you. You have a place among the honored dead here. You fell upon a field that should never have been a battleground, defending those who should never need be warriors. You showed the bravery of long ages past and when you did, you held this in your hand.\"\n\nThe final memory blossomed in my mind. I had used the spatula to break the handle, that's why it was dented and scratched. Something new blossomed there. I could see minutes later, help arriving, the freezer being forced open, medics attending the survivors. \n\nEven little Cheryl. \n\nI saw a memorial in the cafeteria, candles and flowers. I saw drawings of crayon and sparkles, thank yous and prayers, Cheryl walking slowly, still bandaged, crying, laying another piece of macaroni art on the pile. In the middle, on a small stand, was the spatula. My spatula.\n\nI turned to the old man, who I now knew as if he was my father. He indicated a direction and we began walking together towards his distant hall as his ravens took flight, quorking to themselves contentedly. \n\n\nEdit 1: I am stunned and humbled by the response this has elicited, especially from folks who work with or at schools themselves. Thank you all. I will try to respond to all the comments I can individually, and will thank all the folks who were generous enough to gild this directly as soon as I can. I'm also integrating the very helpful feedback from a few folks who noticed I drifted into the 3rd person a few times. \n\nEdit 2: A few people have asked if I had a subreddit, so I've decided to condense all the prompts I've responded to over here - https://www.reddit.com/r/SpecialistSix/. I hope a few that didn't get much traction the first time around get some new readers. \n\nEdit 3: Check out /u/NachosGalore [reading of the piece](https://soundcloud.com/anartiesaysmoo/spatula/s-MVmlN) - I think it's great! ", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": " You are Death, but in a post-apocaliptic world. Only a few survivors remain, and you're doing everything you can to help them because if the last human dies, you die as well. The survivors can't see you, but they feel your presence and noticed your effort. They started to call you Life.", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "Only a year ago, I would have killed the woman with a bulldozer. She would have slipped on loose rock, hardhat skittering, and let out a piercing scream. That would have ended her fairly quickly, though. There's a chance I'd have chosen something slower. Trapped in a freezer maybe. Or kidnapped and tortured. \n\nThat's the thing I loved about my old job. I could get so creative. \n\nStarvation used to be a wildcard. Something only used in the less affluent nooks and crannies. Every so often, I'd toss in a doozie, like a pack of malnourished children in the heart of the suburbs. People were always so astonished at what I could slip right under their nose. Now starvation is everywhere. \n\nIf only I could stop it. \n\nHuman life is in the single digits now. Without them I am lost. \n\nSomewhere in all the ash, the woman stumbles atop shaky legs. Up ahead lies a gas station. If there's no food inside, she'll die. I can tell she's thinking of her dead husband. She gets these sort of hiccups each time before she cries. \"Please,\" she croaks, hand outstretched towards the doorway. \"Please give me strength.\"\n\nShe's not talking to me really, but I feel the need to whisper. \"I've told you my secret,\" I say, though she won't hear. \n\n\"You have to hold on.\" \n\nMy secret is this: I was just a conductor. I stood before Death, atop an ethereal pedestal. Together we played symphonies. I basked in the music as we ferried mortal souls. But now Death's music plays on even though I've cast aside my little wand. It sounds to me like a timer. \n\nThe woman is three paces from the doors when she gasps. She screws up her lips in pain. If I had adrenaline to pump, it would course through my veins. \n\nI sweep low to place a bony hand on her pregnant belly. \n\n\"My turn to beg,\" I say. \"Please just a little longer.\" \n\nWhen I was myself, I'd have been near giddy with glee. Pregnancy was an endless well of opportunity. It could go awry in innumerable ways. Now, the thought terrifies me. I've even considered praying.\n\nOnward she stumbles, with me urging from behind. She can barely open the doors. She has become so weak. \n\n\"A little further now,\" I say. \"For all our sakes.\"\n\nAcross the mountains lives another group. I know them well, for they've been whittled down to two: a grisled man and his son. I've pointed them this direction. Really, they're our only hope. That, and the baby being a girl. \n\nI'd have never thought to imagine it: running short of all options. \n\nWords fall short when the woman finds a bag of saltines. She crumbles them in her mouth, closing her eyes, sucking the stale salt and grain. They will make her thirsty soon. But for now they are welcome. \n\nHow ironic, then, that at that moment her water breaks. She gasps in surprise. She runs trembling fingers through the muck.\n\nWhen the contractions start, I tell her she can do this. She shrieks out in agony, and I tell her she *must*. I'm there for each dreadful push, my old purpose flipped on its head. A smear of crimson blood would fill me with despair. Gasps of pain feel like electricity. \n\nWhen the baby is born, the woman is crying. \n\nFor a dreadful moment, it's the only sound. \n\nShe holds the tiny thing up, inconsolable with emotion. Then, sure enough, the baby bursts into tears.\n\nWe'll need to feed it soon. And the others will need to survive the mountain. But for now, I enjoy the moment. A symphony of tears. After a time, the woman holds the baby close and sings a raspy lullaby. Her poor throat is croaky, completely off key.\n\nI find it absolutely gorgeous. \"Sweet baby girl,\" she sings. \n\nChock full of possibilities.\n\n---------------\n\nr/M0Zark", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": " The lone survivor of an Arctic exploration, you were captured generations ago by a band of tiny warriors. They’ve placed you under an enchantment to do their bidding; heading out into the world once each year as their unwilling emissary. They call you “slave,” or in their tongue, “Santa.”", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "I lived in constant dizziness; a fog swirled and meld with cold, dense mist inside my mind. My thoughts were hollow, empty. The passage of time ceased to exist, for a second I stared at the pristine snow, at the blinding sun, and a moment later I was soaring the night sky in a wooden sleigh pulled by colorful deer.\n\nIt had been my curse, my fate, the cost for staying alive, if you will, to live life in such a way. I'd been captured by a civilization of tiny people, called elves, and they'd put me under a spell to be their emissary once a year. I wasn't aware of what I did, but flashes of cozy, sleeping, and smiling kids often came to my mind, and so I knew my unwilling deeds weren't something wicked.\n\nThings took a turn, however, when a little elf came before me, lifted the spell, and spoke to me in a far-flung nook of the Arctic, where no other elf could see us. \n\nHe was against what his people's doing, said it was slavery, and that I could escape in the flying sleigh if I wished to, but he explained to me they didn't truly understand what they were doing to me, as they had only one purpose: to make the kids smile. \n\nI pondered over his offer a great deal. This wasn't life, for I did things, but I only remembered a sliver of those things. However, at last, after I had went through a long list of questions regarding the whole situation, I asked him, \"So, do I bring joy to the kids?\"\n\n\"Yes, they wait for you every year with unparalleled eagerness,\" the elf said, dancing a small jive at the rhythm of his melodic words.\n\nWhat he said struck the core of my heart, made me wince and grimace. I was under a spell, yes, but he convinced me there were no evil intentions in the elves' doing, they simply didn't understand, or so I chose to believe, that putting people under a spell was a different sort of torture, but a torture after all.\n\nDeep down, despite the years I'd lost, I couldn't feel hatred nor resentment against them. After all, those years I'd lost of my life meant the smiles of kids across the world. It was a small price to pay for such a beautiful thing. \n\nOne I would pay time and time again.\n\n\"What if I do it willingly?\" I said to the twinkling elf. \"Some of your people can come with me in the sleg and watch over me, make sure I don't ruin christmas, and if I do, you can put me under the spell again.\"\n\n\"I was hoping you said that,\" the elf said, smiling. \"Let's go home, and meet the family. They will be joyous to finally be able to call you by your true name.\"\n\nI laughed, and waved my hands dismissively. \"The kids know me as Santa. They don't understand the meaning the word has in your language. But I would very much like to add my name to it, if that's a possibility.\"\n\nThe elf beamed and nodded. \"Sure thing! Would you tell me your name?\"\n\n\"It's Nicholas, but people call me Claus.\"\n\n---------------------------\n\nr/NoahElowyn ", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": " When you die, you wake up in an alien world holding a bong, with other aliens saying how was the trip.", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "“I love you, grandpa,” my youngest grand-daughter, Sherry, said as she squeezed my hand.\n\nI looked up at those emerald green eyes she had gotten from me, at my entire family’s as the heart machine’s slow beats gently faded. Eighty years had passed by in a blink of an eye. When I had been Sherry’s age, I had thought myself invincible. Then, at forty, I had worried constantly about death, thinking through sleepless nights about it. But now, I realized that it wasn’t so bad. Because if there was ever a scene to immortalize, to be my last, it would be this. Sherry, her bright green eyes glistening with tears, my children and grandchildren all around me as the heart beat monitor lulled me to a gentle and permanent sleep.\n\n“I love you too,” I told them all and I closed my eyes.\n\nMy eyes opened.\n\n“How was the trip?” a familiar voice asked from beside me.\n\nI looked around at the purple moss smothering the rolling hills and the campfire burning in front of me. On my lap was a bong. At last, I remembered. My name had never been Terry, it was Zor’oah.\n\n“Yo, dude, you back with us?” Galmroh said, snapping purple fingers in front of my face.\n\nI coughed and nodded. Seventeen eyes looked at me from the six people sitting around the campfire. Just as I had wished as fifty-year old Terry, I had gotten my time back. Zor’oah was a freshman in high school who finally got invited by the popular kids into a drug-fueled camping adventure. Three boys, three girls, and a lot of “*you can’t blame me for that, I was high*”.\n\nGalmroh and Sardak had already paired up, leaving me with Sierrah, the reason I had agreed to come. She now looked at me with sharp blue eyes, a small grin on her lips. Her purple hair had pink streaks across it that dangled off her head and curved into her chest like directions on where to direct your eyes.\n\n“So Zor’oah, how was it? Tell us all the things you did,” she asked.\n\n“Bet you can’t beat me,” Galmroh said, his chest inflating with pride. “My first trip, I enslaved an entire race and forced them to build these stupid triangles.”\n\n“At least he can’t do as bad as Sardak’s first trip. He was just a slave. At least he killed someone before his trip ended.” Sierrah said.\n\nThey turned to me again, waiting to hear of all my misdeeds. “I was a man named Terry,” I muttered. “And um… I met this girl named Sarah.”\n\nSierrah’s smile grew. “Sarah, eh? Tell us, what nasty things did you do to this *Sarah*?”\n\nBlood rushed to my face, burning it a deep violet. “I married her,” I said.\n\nGalmroh choked on a breath. Sardak burst out laughing. The rest of the girls only furrowed their brows.\n\n“Yeah.” I knew I should stop. I had spent an entire semester trying to join this circle and continuing the Life of Terry was social suicide. But someone had to know of that first kiss with Sarah, the look in her eye staring at our first child together, and the tears in Sherry’s eyes when she told me her final goodbye.\n\nSo I told them, my voice tinged with pride. At the end of my story, I was the only one smiling and my smile stretched from cheek to cheek.\n\n“Dude,” Galmroh said, awe in his voice. “That was… super lame.”\n\nEverybody burst into collective laughter.\n\n“You did even worse than me on my first trip!” Sardak howled. “You’re such a wimp! Why are you even here?”\n\nI nodded to that one. “Yeah,” I said, talking to myself. “Why am I here?” I pushed myself up and walked back toward my spaceship.\n\nLaughter followed me the entire way, but I didn’t care. I opened the hatch of my spaceship and was just about to get in when I heard, “Zor’oah!”\n\nI turned to find Sierrah. She hunched over, panting, one of the buttons on her blouse undone. “Hey,” she said, “you don’t have to run. I mean, your trip was totally lame, but your next one’ll be better. Plus”—she bit her bottom lip and her eyes grew big—“you don’t want to be the only virgin in school, do you?”\n\nBeneath the starry sky, the silver luminescence of our twin moons, I recognized the glint in her eyes and for a single second, they were a brighter green than any emerald in the world.\n\n“Sorry,” I told the most beautiful girl in my high school and slipped into my spaceship. “By the way, the trip wasn’t lame.”\n\nMy engines roared to life and I flew off into the twilight. There were a trillion stars above me and I knew that around one of them, on one planet, was a girl with wild grassy eyes still clutching her grandpa’s hand. There had to be. Tears filled my eyes as I flew back home.\n\nFiction or not, it was the most real thing I had ever done.\n\n---\n\n---\n\n/r/jraywang for 5+ stories weekly and ~200 stories already written!\n ", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": " as an amputee you experience phantom arm syndrome. Then one day you realize you can use it to punch ghosts.", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "Everyone always asks me what it felt like to lose my arm. Everyone always asks me what it feels like to no longer have it.\n \nOne answer I'd always wanted to give but never had the courage to, was that it felt mostly like hopelessness. I had been a pianist, I'd lived and judged my life based on my ability to make people feel with music. I was crippled. I could no longer play my favorite pieces. I could no longer practice new ones. Losing the arm was essentially me losing my life. \n\nIt's difficult to describe exactly how it feels to have an itch on an arm that isn't there. Imagine the feeling of sitting in a hairdresser's chair and having that annoying little itch crop up on your nose. Now imagine, that your arms are bound to your sides and there's nothing you can do to eliminate that annoying, burning, itch. It's not a terribly nice feeling. \n\nI learned that you can scratch your missing limb by using a mirror. You stand in front of the mirror and scratch your opposite arm while you look into your reflection. Remarkably, this works to eliminate the itch. I learned something else while doing just this very thing a few weeks ago. \n\nI was standing in front of the mirror, awkwardly scratching my elbow on the corner of my bathroom door, when I saw something in the mirror. A girl with eyes the color of charcoal, teeth yellow as rotten lemons, and blood seeping down her pale, pallid complexion.\n\nBefore I knew exactly what I was doing, I lashed out with my missing arm. It felt like I did anyway. Something incredible happened, I felt my missing fist smash into the face of the incorporeal entity. I felt her teeth come loose, pain explode in my 'hand' and a ghostly tooth lodge into my fist. \n\nI'm not exactly sure who was more surprised, her, or me. \n\nLights began to flicker in the room and objects around my sink began to hover menacingly. My electric toothbrush launched towards my head and I was narrowly able to dodge out of the way. It firmly embedded itself in the wall behind me. Using the mirror as a reference, I leaped on the ghastly girl and smashed my non-existent fist into her face until she stopped squirming. \n\nShe faded away shortly afterwards. She never bothered me again.\n\nI'm not sure exactly where the spirits go after I beat them to a pulp, but I have purpose again. Besides, the pay for someone capable of genuinely dispatching a ghost is fantastic. Honestly, I think people mostly pay for the spectacle of a one armed man fighting an invisible ghost. \n\nNow when people ask me what it feels like to be missing an arm, I reply confidently. Sometimes it feels like I never lost it at all. \n\n*****************************************\n/r/SirLemoncakes. This was fun to write. ", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": " You are a cat who has been taking an advantage of the recent rise of video conference trials to elevate your legal career. One day your human video filter stops working and you need to convince the judge that you are a real, human lawyer licensed to practice law in the state of Texas.", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "“Mr. McCoy, I believe you have a filter turned on in the video settings,” the judge is saying to me.\n\nI am panicking, my little fury paws frantically clicking the mouse trying to turn on my human filter. These god damn settings are so confusing.\n\n“You might want to, ummm…”\n\nI knew this day would come. I knew this would happen. Keep calm, Mittens McCoy. Keep calm.\n\n“Ahhhh, I’m trying to turn on the filter now... ahhh, I mean off, turn the filter off… can you hear me judge?” My voice squeaks out. A whining meow almost comes out in my anxiety.\n\n“Yes, I can hear you.” The judge says, annoyed.\n\nI can see my white fluffy face filling the screen. I can see the terror in my adorable glossy eyes. I need to fix this fast or all of my hard work will have been in vain.\n\n“Just bear with me, Judge. I assure you I’m not a cat.”\n\nThe judge laughs.\n\n“Of course not,” he says. “I think if you just click the arrow button down at the bottom…”\n\nAll my work. Everything is in jeopardy. I still can’t get the human filter to work.\n\nJust ride with it, Mittens. Let’s go.\n\n“I’m prepared to move forward with the case, Judge. Filter or not. I don’t think it should matter. I assure you I am not a cat.”\n\nThe judge stares at me for a long time.\n\n\"You already said that,\" the judge says.\n\nHe knows. My little ears perk up. I see them on the screen. My hair stands on end. My back begins to arch, and a low whining growl comes out of my mouth. I have a desire to just give up and to snuggle up on this keyboard. Feeling the warmth on my body.\n\nKeep it together, Mittens McCoy. Keep it together.\n\n“Alright, this is strange.” The judge finally says. “It is hard to take you seriously with that filter on…”\n\nHis words sting. If you pull my whiskers, do I not yowl?\n\nDoes a cat not know justice? I passed the online bar exam; highest test score they’d seen in years. I’ve always been judged for my fluffy white face, my large adorable eyes, my pink button nose.\n\nIt’s not fair.\n\nThe pandemic has been my opportunity. I have made a reputation for my self as one of the up and coming young lawyers in Texas. I was interviewed on zoom just a few days ago by the *Texas Young Lawyers Association.* I am proud of my accomplishments.\n\n“Your honor, I hope you won’t judge me by this filter. I assure you I am a lawyer of high standing.” I say, raising up on my little haunches. Sticking out my fluffy chest.\n\n“Alright, but I haven’t met you yet.\" The judge says. \"Can you please tell me what kind of law you specialize in, Mr. McCoy?”\n\n“Bird law, your honor.”\n\n\\---\n\nMore at r/CataclysmicRhythmic", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": " Every 10 years, you are expected to go to a meeting you have already been to; one attended by several future and younger versions of yourself, each version separated by 10 year intervals. The youngest you is 10, the oldest 90. You relive the same meeting, just each time from a different angle.", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "***Year 10:***\n\nI entered a room with 9 sets of chairs that were set out to make a circle. On each one of them sat a person with a signs in front of them with number that went from 10 – 90.\n\nIt seemed like I was the last person to come.\n\nThey all looked at me as I went down to take my seat in the number ten chair.\n\nThe man with the 40 number started off the meeting with complaining, shouting and starting angrily saying a lot of words that I didn’t understand.\n\nHe seemed to be especially angry at 30. They both started arguing and 30 ended up leaving.\n\n60 and 70 tried to talk him in to calm down, but he only got angrier and then slammed the door as he went outside.\n\nThe room was full of silence after that, and then 20 got up and said that he was busy and that he had better things to do than waste time here, right before leaving the room.\n\nAfter that the other people in the room started talking about some stuff like marriage and will to live, but I wasn’t really interested in adult talk. I daydreamed about my Gameboy that I left behind at home. I wanted to go back home to play Pokémon.\n\nI dozed off for the rest of the meeting, but when my mind came back I realized the only ones that were left were 80, 90 and i.\n\nNow that I looked at 90 I noticed that he had tubes attached all around his body and that his chair was actually a wheelchair.\n\n80 stood up and came towards me and opened his palm to reveal a piece of candy, which he then gave to me.\n\nHe patted by head and said as he started coughing: “You are a good boy, Isaac. Do what you wish with your life, for it is the only one you have.”\n\nThen he started walking towards the door.\n\n“I want to go play pokemon on my Gameboy.”\n\nHe looked back at me and smile.\n\n“Go do that then.” Then he walked out.\n\nI was now left with 90 who was in the wheelchair.\n\nHe seemed like he was too old and tired to talk, but then when I stood up to walk out he whispered:\n\n“I play pokemon with my Gameboy. Wanna play together?”\n\n“Ye-Yea, sure.” I replied a bit crept out. “But I left mine at home, I promise to play with you the next time we meet.”\n\n“Promise?” He said as his breathing was visibly becoming louder.\n\n“Yes.”\n\nHe seemed content with that and I went out the room looking forward to playing more pokemon when I got home.\n\n​\n\n​\n\n***Note: I will post each year as a different part, so stay in tune.***", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": " When offered one wish, you jokingly said that you want to fire proof. You are disappointed to discover that fire still burns you. When you accidentally lit the company breakroom on fire, your boss just laughed it off and you began your new career as the person who can't be fired, ever.", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "On second thought, I should have been suspicious when the genie had laughed after granting my wish. Initially, it seemed like he was just happy, but I'll be damned if I appreciated his mirth when the flame burned the crap out of my index finger.\n\nI threw the match aside as the blister, clearly a nasty one to come, began to form instantly. That was when it all went to hell. See, some matches are a little more wind resistant than others. This one was on the higher end of the spectrum. I had expected it to go out in mid-air, given how many of the damn things blew out when I was just trying to light a smoke outdoors. But this one hung on. The little match that could.\n\nThe contents of the trash can went up first. Then the pizza box on the counter. Apparently grease is flammable. The rest of the break room followed suit in short order. The fire department later said that if it hadn't been for the sprinkler system, we'd have lost the whole darn building. That was a Monday.\n\nThat Tuesday, I walked into my boss's office, fully prepared to accept my termination. He just gave me a slap on the back and said, I swear this is true, \"Who among us *hasn't* started a major fire in the break room? Go on, you're fine.\" There were 53 employees in our office. I was pretty sure the answer to his question was \"The other 52 of you,\" but didn't want to talk myself out of a job, so I left. On the way back to my desk, it dawned on me. *Fire* proof. Huh.\n\nI have come to believe that after the discovery of any superpower comes the testing of its limits. But as I soon learned, this power had absolutely no limits whatsoever. No one minded when I came in late. No one minded when I came in late and dressed in flip flops. Indeed, no one minded when I came in *naked*. I really thought that one would do it. Eventually, no one minded when I stopped coming in altogether. The paychecks kept depositing.\n\nThen I had an idea.\n\nEight hundred and thirty two. That is the number of jobs I now have. 832. I may be the world's first multimillionaire employed as a receptionist. Or 7-11 janitor. Or bus driver. It doesn't matter; I don't ever actually show up to any of them. I apply for every job out there, but my only real \"job\" is faking my resume and showing up for interviews. It helps that hiring managers can often be bribed. When I'm hired, my work is done.\n\nAt this point, I could easily stop, but each job is literally a lifetime income, no matter how low that income may be. My average job pays only $24,714 per year, putting my gross annual income just north of $20 million. All in all, I consider the \"confusion\" surrounding my wish to be working out in my favor.\n\nWell, I did. Until those goddamn idiots at the other pump got into a gasoline fight. A spark, a whoosh, and my last thought as the fireball barrels through me is \"Fucking genies.\"\n\n​\n\n**Edit**: First Reddit gold! Thank you kind interneteer!", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": " At age 15 you told the gf you were \"in love\" with that you'd always be there when she was in need. Aphrodite heard you and made it a reality, whenever your gf was in need you appear at her side. Problem is, you and the girl broke up after 3 weeks but you still appear even now..10 years later", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "\"I just don't know how I can live like this, Doc. Seeing her now just makes my skin crawl,\" Roger said, staring at the ceiling of his psychiatrist's office.\n\n\"And the medications I prescribed you haven't been helping? You still hallucinate that you're suddenly transported to see ex-girlfriend Liz?\" Dr. Meadows asked.\n\n\"It just happened again two weeks ago. One minute I'm getting ready for work. Then I step out my front door and suddenly I'm on the other side of the state. And there she is looking all weepy and stuff.\"\n\n\"And what did you do?\"\n\n\"I turned around and left, just like I've been doing. Took three buses and a cab to get home. Somehow managed to not get fired.\"\n\nThe doctor nodded her head slowly. \"I have to be honest with you Roger, your case is baffling to me. Your hallucinations are remarkably complex and vivid, and all manage to hold some kind of strange internal consistency, save for the fact that you magically teleport to other places.\"\n\n\"I've heard this speech before Dr. Meadows. You're my third psychiatrist. I hoped that this new cocktail of drugs was going to do the trick too. But it sounds like I'm just certifiably crazy. Save your breath, and don't bother trying to refer me to someone else. I guess I'll just have to live with it.\"\n\n\"I wasn't going to refer you away Roger. Your case *is* baffling to me, but I enjoy the challenge. We need to try some out of the box thinking here. Avoiding your hallucinations doesn't seem to be working. When you get home from here, I want you to look up your old high school flame and call her. The real one. Maybe some connection to the real version of her will help you move on from your subconscious' obsession with her.\"\n\n\"Isn't that going to seem a bit, I dunno, stalker-ish?\"\n\n\"It might,\" she said, standing to show Roger out. \"But have you really got anything to lose?\"\n\n\"I guess not,\" he answered. He stepped out of her office, pulling the door shut behind him.\n\nAs the door clicked shut, the hardwood floor of the office was instantly replaced with muddy grass. Heavy drops of rain pelted him from dark clouds hanging in the sky. A chill wind blew right through the thin jacket he was wearing.\n\nRoger looked around. He was standing in a cemetery. There was Liz, standing over an open grave, clinging tightly to an umbrella. A preacher of some kind stood in front of the grave, droning on in the bored tone of a man who wasn't getting paid enough to eulogize a man he didn't care about.\n\nLiz lifted her gaze from the grave, and her tear filled eyes met Roger's. He turned and started to walk away, but stopped. Roger turned back and looked at her. She was still staring at him, but now her expression turned to confusion.\n\nRoger hesitated a moment longer, then started walking toward her. She seemed to recoil slightly as he came and stood next to her. He looked at the grave marker. It was for Liz's dad.\n\nThe two of them stood there wordlessly while the preacher finished his ceremony. Finally, he snapped his book closed, and nodded in the direction of the two of them. The preacher turned on heel, and left them standing by the open grave.\n\n\"I'm sorry, about your dad,\" Roger said finally.\n\n\"Thanks,\" Liz said softly. \"You haven't talked to me in a long time.\"\n\n\"Not since high school.\"\n\n\"I thought all those times I saw you walking away meant I was getting better. Somehow I'm glad that you're here though. It's better than being alone. But I guess this means I'm still crazy,\" she said.\n\nRoger looked at her, studying her expression. \"Who isn't these days?\" he asked after a pause.\n\nShe let a small laugh escape her lips. Liz looked at him, and smiled. It was the first time Roger had seen that since they had broken up.\n\n\"Would you stay here with me a while?\" she asked softly, tears starting to well back up in her eyes.\n\n\"Sure,\" Roger answered. What did he have to lose?\n\n*****\n\nIf you liked this, subscribe to [Pubby's Creative Workshop](https://www.reddit.com/r/Pubby88) to read the rest of my prompt responses.", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]