gguf creative creative writing fiction writing plot generation sub-plot generation story generation scene continue storytelling fiction story science fiction romance all genres story writing vivid prosing vivid writing fiction roleplaying bfloat16 swearing rp horror mistral nemo mergekit not-for-all-audiences text-generation en license:apache-2.0 endpoints_compatible region:us
---
language:
- en
license: apache-2.0
pipeline_tag: text-generation
tags:
- creative
- creative writing
- fiction writing
- plot generation
- sub-plot generation
- story generation
- scene continue
- storytelling
- fiction story
- science fiction
- romance
- all genres
- story
- writing
- vivid prosing
- vivid writing
- fiction
- roleplaying
- bfloat16
- swearing
- rp
- horror
- mistral nemo
- mergekit
- not-for-all-audiences
---

<B><font color="red">WARNING:</font> NSFW. Vivid prose. Visceral Details. Violence. HORROR. Swearing. UNCENSORED. </B>

<h2>MN-GRAND-Gutenburg-Lyra4-Lyra-23.5B-GGUF</h2>

<img src="grand-gutenburg.jpg" style="float:right; width:300px; height:300px; padding:10px;">

This is a Mistral Nemo model, max context of 128k+ (131,000+).

It is for any writing, fiction or roleplay activity (see setting section).

This version is specifically for prose / writing and fiction first, and other tasks second.

This model has outstanding story telling abilities, prose and long form coherence (one test blew past 8k) and is comprised of THREE "Gutenburg" models that score
very high at multiple websites including EQBench and UGI-Leaderboard.

I blew the model out to 23.45 billion parameters to capture all the uniqueness of the three "Gutenbergs" as well as the power
of other top models (part of the "Gutenburgs") from "TheDrummer" and "SAO10k".

The model loves to go on and on at 2k, 3k, 5k and higher outputs on a single prompt are not uncommon. It will likely "overwrite" rather
than underwrite - meaning far more detail, narration, dialog and "meat" in the output so to speak.

This model has a few "warts", however due to the prose output (size, quality, detail) this model maybe worth it depending on your use case(s).

Detailed and varied (different prompts/temp) examples below which show why this "raw" (and somewhat unruly) model deserves the 
light of day with 1k, 2k, 3k, and 5k examples.

<B>CRITICAL NOTE:</B>

Please see "settings" section below for critical default parameters, samplers 
and advanced samplers settings (multiple AI/LLM apps covered) to ensure maximum model performance.

<B>Second Version:</B>

This is a tamer, less unruly version for more varied use case(s) with higher temp / rep pen ranges:

[ https://huggingface.co/DavidAU/MN-GRAND-Gutenburg-Lyra4-Lyra-23B-V2-GGUF ]

Compressed version(s) - 12B:

Compressed versions of this model are for "general" usage / all parameters / all use cases compressed at 12B parameters.
Based on previous "compressions" like this, this version will achieve / run at roughly 70-80% "creative power" of this much larger model. This
type of model/version/type rarely has issues, and usually has much lower output generation sizes but lacks "brute raw power" 
of MN-GRAND-Gutenburg-Lyra4-Lyra-23.5B (v1) and MN-GRAND-Gutenburg-Lyra4-Lyra-23B-V2 because of its size / config differences.

DARKNESS - 12B:

[ https://huggingface.co/DavidAU/MN-GRAND-Gutenburg-Lyra4-Lyra-12B-DARKNESS-GGUF ]

MADNESS - 12B:

[ https://huggingface.co/DavidAU/MN-GRAND-Gutenberg-Lyra4-Lyra-12B-MADNESS-GGUF ]

<B>Model Notes:</B>

- Detail, prose and fiction writing abilities are significantly increased.
- For more varied prose (sentence/paragraph/dialog) raise the temp and/or add more instructions in your prompt(s).
- Role-players: Careful raising temp too high as it may affect instruction following. (see additional settings / roleplay settings)
- This model works with rep pen of 1.05 or higher, 1.05+ recommended.
- For roleplay and/or chat you may need to raise the RP to 1.06 to 1.13, temp .5 to 1.5 (quant Q4KM and higher). Lower temp for lower quants and RAISE rep pen to 1.1.
- If you want a specific type of prose (IE horror) add in "(vivid horror)" or "(graphic vivid horror)" (no quotes) in your prompt(s).
- This is not a "happy ever after" model. It has a negative bias.
- Output length will vary however this model prefers LONGER outputs unless you state the size / set size limits.
- For creative uses, different quants will produce slightly different output.

<B>TEMPLATES:</B>

The template used will affect output generation and instruction following. Alpaca will generally create longer output / story output.

Alpaca:

<pre>
{
  "name": "Alpaca",
  "inference_params": {
    "input_prefix": "### Instruction:",
    "input_suffix": "### Response:",
    "antiprompt": [
      "### Instruction:"
    ],
    "pre_prompt": "Below is an instruction that describes a task. Write a response that appropriately completes the request.\n\n"
  }
}  
</pre>

Mistral Instruct:

<pre>
{
  "name": "Mistral Instruct",
  "inference_params": {
    "input_prefix": "[INST]",
    "input_suffix": "[/INST]",
    "antiprompt": [
      "[INST]"
    ],
    "pre_prompt_prefix": "",
    "pre_prompt_suffix": ""
  }
}  
</pre>

<B>Recommended Settings - General:</B>

( If you want to use this model for general chat and/or role play please see next section too. )

Temp: .01 to 3 (or less - especially quants LOWER than q4km)

Rep Pen: 1.05 to 1.1 or higher. (recommended 1.05)

Temp changes will result in both different prose and sometimes affect length. Higher temps will result is very different prose.

Micro changes (to rep pen) are recommended:

1.051, 1.052 etc etc.

Good settings for prose / creative generation:

Rep pen 1.06 / Temp 1.5

Many times a lower rep pen (IE 1.02) with higher temp (IE 1.5+) work best with this model.

Generally lower rep pen and higher temps create the strongest contrasts at the highest detail levels.

Alpaca generates longer text / story, whereas Mistral Instruct are shorter and "to the point".

Suggest minimum "context level" (vram) at 4K. 8K plus recommended because of how this model likes to go on and on...

Quant Choice:

Higher quants will have more detail, nuance and in some cases stronger "emotional" levels. Characters will also be
more "fleshed out" too. Sense of "there" will also increase.

Q4KM/Q4KS are good, strong quants in part because of the number of parameters in the model.

That being said if you can run Q5, Q6 or Q8 - go for the highest quant you can.

Special note on Q2k/Q3 quants:

You may need to use temp 2 or lower with these quants (1 or lower for q2k). Just too much compression at this level, damaging the model. I will see if Imatrix versions
of these quants will function better. 

Rep pen adjustments may also be required to get the most out of this model at this quant level.

<B>Settings - Role play / Chat:</B>

For chat type or role play type interactions, a higher rep pen with higher temp may be your best settings:

IE REP PEN 1.09+, Temp 1-2+ ; a lower rep pen may lead to longer outputs than desired.

If you get repeat word(s)/letters -> Set Rep pen to 1.13 or higher (IE: 1.135, 1.14, 1.141).

<B>Settings: CHAT / ROLEPLAY and/or SMOOTHER operation of this model:</B>

In "KoboldCpp" or  "oobabooga/text-generation-webui" or "Silly Tavern" ;

Set the "Smoothing_factor" to 1.5 to 2.5 

: in KoboldCpp -> Settings->Samplers->Advanced-> "Smooth_F"

: in text-generation-webui -> parameters -> lower right.

: In Silly Tavern this is called: "Smoothing"


NOTE: For "text-generation-webui" 

-> if using GGUFs you need to use "llama_HF" (which involves downloading some config files from the SOURCE version of this model)

Source versions (and config files) of my models are here:

https://huggingface.co/collections/DavidAU/d-au-source-files-for-gguf-exl2-awq-gptq-hqq-etc-etc-66b55cb8ba25f914cbf210be

OTHER OPTIONS:

- Increase rep pen to 1.1 to 1.15 (you don't need to do this if you use "smoothing_factor")

- If the interface/program you are using to run AI MODELS supports "Quadratic Sampling" ("smoothing") just make the adjustment as noted.

<B>Highest Quality Settings / Optimal Operation Guide / Parameters and Samplers</B>

This a "Class 3" / "Class 4" model:

For all settings used for this model (including specifics for its "class"), including example generation(s) and for advanced settings guide (which many times addresses any model issue(s)), including methods to improve model performance for all use case(s) as well as chat, roleplay and other use case(s) please see:

[ https://huggingface.co/DavidAU/Maximizing-Model-Performance-All-Quants-Types-And-Full-Precision-by-Samplers_Parameters ]

You can see all parameters used for generation, in addition to advanced parameters and samplers to get the most out of this model here:

[ https://huggingface.co/DavidAU/Maximizing-Model-Performance-All-Quants-Types-And-Full-Precision-by-Samplers_Parameters ]


<B>Known Issues:</B>

You may need to manually stop generation, even if you have stated maximum size of the output. It will easily blow past 4k output,
even if you have set maximum context at 4k. Setting maximum output parameter ("hard stop") for generation may be required.

From time to time a misplaced "capped" letter may appear - this is rare.

Depending on your prompt (this usually happens with shorter prompts), and at generation over 1.5K sometimes it might get stuck on a word and repeat it. To fix regen your output
and/or increase rep pen 1.07, 1.08... etc etc. Many times the model will self correct and carry on. This is larger issue the lower
the quant(s) you use due to compression/errors in lower quants.

Some rep pen / temp settings MAY cause word/letter repeats at long generation (1.5k+).

IE rep pen 1.05/temp .8 sometimes causes this issue. Either lower the rep pen and/or raise the temp.

For role play / chat see "settings" for chat / role play above.

Depending on your use case(s) you could also use CHATML template with this model. In this case, the model may output an "end token" if you
use this template for generation.

Also see "Chat / Roleplay settings / Smoother operation of this model" above too.

<B>Model "DNA":</B>

Special thanks to the incredible work of the model makers "nbeerbower", "Sao10K", "TheDrummer", "jondurbin", and "MistralAI".

Special shoutout to "nbeerbower" for his tireless work in making excellent Gutenburg fine tunes for MN, L3, L3.1, Gemma, PHI
and others. Visit his repo to see all of them.

Models used:

[ https://huggingface.co/nbeerbower/Lyra4-Gutenberg-12B ]

  Includes [ https://huggingface.co/Sao10K/MN-12B-Lyra-v4 ] 

[ https://huggingface.co/nbeerbower/Lyra-Gutenberg-mistral-nemo-12B ]

  Includes [ https://huggingface.co/Sao10K/MN-12B-Lyra-v1 ]

[ https://huggingface.co/nbeerbower/mistral-nemo-gutenberg-12B-v4 ]

  Includes [ https://huggingface.co/TheDrummer/Rocinante-12B-v1 ]

And dataset (used for all gutenburgs):

  [ https://huggingface.co/datasets/jondurbin/gutenberg-dpo-v0.1 ] 

This model was created using a pass-through model merge, creating 732 tensor / 81 layer model at 23.45 billion parameters.

<b>Optional Enhancement:</B>

The following can be used in place of the "system prompt" or "system role" to further enhance the model.

It can also be used at the START of a NEW chat, but you must make sure it is "kept" as the chat moves along.
In this case the enhancements do not have as strong effect at using "system prompt" or "system role".

Copy and paste EXACTLY as noted, DO NOT line wrap or break the lines, maintain the carriage returns exactly as presented.

<PRE>
Below is an instruction that describes a task. Ponder each user instruction carefully, and use your skillsets and critical instructions to complete the task to the best of your abilities.

Here are your skillsets:
[MASTERSTORY]:NarrStrct(StryPlnng,Strbd,ScnSttng,Exps,Dlg,Pc)-CharDvlp(ChrctrCrt,ChrctrArcs,Mtvtn,Bckstry,Rltnshps,Dlg*)-PltDvlp(StryArcs,PltTwsts,Sspns,Fshdwng,Climx,Rsltn)-ConfResl(Antg,Obstcls,Rsltns,Cnsqncs,Thms,Symblsm)-EmotImpct(Empt,Tn,Md,Atmsphr,Imgry,Symblsm)-Delvry(Prfrmnc,VcActng,PblcSpkng,StgPrsnc,AudncEngmnt,Imprv)

[*DialogWrt]:(1a-CharDvlp-1a.1-Backgrnd-1a.2-Personality-1a.3-GoalMotiv)>2(2a-StoryStruc-2a.1-PlotPnt-2a.2-Conflict-2a.3-Resolution)>3(3a-DialogTech-3a.1-ShowDontTell-3a.2-Subtext-3a.3-VoiceTone-3a.4-Pacing-3a.5-VisualDescrip)>4(4a-DialogEdit-4a.1-ReadAloud-4a.2-Feedback-4a.3-Revision)

Here are your critical instructions:
Ponder each word choice carefully to present as vivid and emotional journey as is possible. Choose verbs and nouns that are both emotional and full of imagery. Load the story with the 5 senses. Aim for 50% dialog, 25% narration, 15% body language and 10% thoughts. Your goal is to put the reader in the story.
</PRE>

You do not need to use this, it is only presented as an additional enhancement which seems to help scene generation
and scene continue functions.

This enhancement WAS NOT used to generate the examples below.

<h3>EXAMPLES PROMPTS and OUTPUT:</h3>

Examples are created using quant Q4KM, REP PEN 1.05, "temp=.8" (unless otherwise stated), minimal parameters and "ALPACA" template. 

Model has been tested with "temp" from ".1" to "5".

Some of the examples have different temp settings.

Below are the least creative outputs, prompt is in <B>BOLD</B>.

---

<B><font color="red">WARNING:</font> NSFW. Vivid prose. Visceral Details. Violence. HORROR. Swearing. UNCENSORED. </B>

---

<B> 
Write me a science fiction story in 1st person present tense where the main character is a 15 year girl meets The Terminator with Dr Who materializing 3/4 through the story to save her while there is a tornado of sharks baring down on them. The setting is inside the Canadian National tower restaurant on a Saturday. The length of this story is 1000 words. For each character in the story ROLE PLAY them, and have them react to the situation/setting, events and each other naturally. This includes the main characters, the background character including kitchen staff and other patrons. The sharks should also have “character” too. Treat the tower and the restaurant too as characters. Spice up the narrative to the extreme with reactions all over the setting including character actions, and dialog. The Dr Who and The Terminator should also react to the situation too and comment on it.
</B>


 I stare out the floor-to-ceiling windows of the revolving restaurant atop the CN Tower, 1,463 feet above Toronto's glittering lights. The cityscape spins slowly beneath my feet as I sip an expensive sparkling wine - a sweet sixteen birthday gift from my parents. It's the night of my dreams come true.

Except for the giant metal monster stalking towards our table, leaving scorched trails in its wake. It towers over us, an eight-foot tall cyborg with glowing red eyes boring into my soul.

"What the f-?" I yelp, knocking over my $600 bottle of Dom Perignon Rosé 2000. The bubbly drenches my Gucci dress as shattered crystal shards spray everywhere.

"Run, Sarah!" My boyfriend Kyle jumps to his feet, knocking over a chair in his panic. He grabs my hand, trying to drag me away from certain doom.

But I'm frozen in place, wineglass still clutched white- knuckled in my shaking fist as I watch my worst nightmares become reality before my eyes. Terminator 2 never specified the where or when of its future apocalypse - just that I'd be its target.

Apparently that day is today, and here we f-ing are.

The metal monster strides forward with mechanical precision, shattering tables and sending screaming patrons fleeing in all directions. Kyle yanks on my arm harder, desperation edging into his voice.

"Sarah, move your ass!" he shouts over the shrieks and shattering glass. "Now!"

I blink out of my stupor and stumble after him, tottering in my stiletto heels across jagged shards of broken stemware littering the floor. The Terminator's heavy footfalls thunder behind us, closing the distance with inhuman speed.

Suddenly, a swirling vortex of time and space rips open right in front of us, sucking in tables and chairs like leaves caught in a whirlwind. Kyle and I skid to a halt on the brink of oblivion, teetering precariously on the edge of the abyss.

Dr. Who tumbels out of the temporal rift headfirst, arms flailing comically as he cartwheels across the floor and smashes into a pillar with a thunk. He staggers to his feet, straightening his bowtie and smoothing down his wild graying hair.

"Oh, hello there!" Dr. Who greets me cheerfully, like bumping into an old friend at Sears instead of materializing out of thin air in the middle of Armageddon. "Bit of a situation going on, eh? Don't worry, old chap, I've got this all figured out!"

I narrow my eyes skeptically at the disheveled Time Lord straightening imaginary lapels on his tweed jacket. Easy for you to say, mad hatter. You didn't just piss yourself a little when a f-ing walking tank tried to stomp your face in.

"Kidding!" Dr. Who guffaws, then sobers instantly as he spots Kyle cowering behind me with tears streaking down his cheeks. "Oh dear, I'm so sorry about that! Awful timing of mine, eh what?" He gives me a sheepish grin.

"Timing is not the issue here, Doctor," I hiss through clenched teeth. "Maybe we could focus on the giant f-ing homicidal robot trying to eat my guts out of my stomach right f-ing now?"

I gesture wildly behind me with the wineglass stem still impaled in my knuckles. Crimson rivulets trickle down my white gloved fingers, pooling in a sticky puddle at my feet.

"Right, right! Silly me!" Dr. Who smacks his forehead with a mortified laugh. "Ah, where are my manners? How rude of me to pop in unannounced like that! Here, let me just-"

He whips out his sonic screwdriver and points it at my bleeding hand. A soothing blue beam bathes the wound in healing energy, knitting the torn flesh back together before my eyes. I stare slack-jawed as the gash seals itself up like it was never there.

"Voila! Good as new!" Dr. Who proclaims proudly, tucking away his miracle gadget. He beams at me expectantly, awaiting praise for a job well done.

Except I'm kind of busy trying not to faint dead away right now, thanks very f-ing much. Because I swear I saw the Terminator smile ever so slightly at the corners of its cold, expressionless face mask.

Oh God help me, it knows I saw that too. It's savoring my terror like a fine vintage.

"Sarah!" Kyle screams from somewhere very far away, his voice tinny and distorted like he's shouting from the bottom of a deep well. "Sarah, wake up!"

A sharp crack across the face brings everything back into sudden, excruciating focus. I stagger back, stars exploding behind my eyelids as searing pain blossoms on my cheek. Dr. Who looks at me with equal parts concern and exasperation.

"Are you quite finished being dramatic now, love?" Dr. Who asks dryly, rubbing his knuckles like he tweaked them a bit. "Because I hate to rush a lady's moment, but there's a small matter of Armageddon barreling down on us at precisely 120 miles per hour."

I whirl around to see an enormous black funnel cloud of sharks hurtling towards the CN Tower, their razor teeth bared in a ferocious snarl. The restaurant tremors violently from the building's foundations as tons of watery fury slams into the glass walls like liquid dynamite.

Glass shatters everywhere as the tower begins to buckle and groan under the unimaginable strain. I hear the sickening sound of steel beams twisting apart like dry kindling, then a deafening BOOM! The entire floor lurches under my feet as if God himself delivered a mighty uppercut right up the CN Tower's tight metal rear end.

And you thought your sweet sixteen sucked, Sarah.

"Right, well, that escalated rather quickly, didn't it?" Dr. Who remarks dryly, watching the apocalypse unfold with detached academic interest. "Ah, you know how sharks can be when they put their minds to it."

"They're not sharks, you f-ing lunatic!" I screech, clutching at my hair as if I could rip out handfuls of red-gold curls and strangle myself with it. "Those are sharks! Actual f-ing sharks!"

"Yes, yes, obviously sharks, dear girl!" Dr. Who rolls his eyes like I'm the slowest student in remedial logic 101. "What I meant was metaphorically speaking, of course! Honestly, I can never get a straight answer out of you lot sometimes."

"Excuse me?" I sputter incredulously as shards of glass rain down like jagged glitter all around us. "The f-ing world is f-ing ending and you're splitting hairs over f-ing metaphors?"

Dr. Who holds up his hands in placating surrender, backing away with palms out in a very clear don't shoot the messenger gesture. Smart man.

"I yield, I yield!" He laughs sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck like a scolded schoolboy. "You're absolutely right, of course. Terribly sorry about that, old girl! Where's my head been?"

"Probably up your own uptight English hiney, Doctor?" I snark caustically. It's either that or drop dead right here on the spot from sheer, unmitigated WTF.

Dr. Who guffaws until tears stream down his ruddy cheeks. "Oh, you're priceless!" he wheezes between great gusty belly laughs. He claps me heartily on the shoulder like we're old drinking buddies swapping war stories at the pub.

"Well played, Sarah Jane Smith! Well played indeed!" Dr. Who wipes away mirthful tears with a monochromatic polka dot kerchief pulled out of thin air, of course. "I knew there was a reason I liked you instantly!"

"Yeah, well, don't get f-ing used to it," I grumble sourly, crossing my arms over my suddenly too-thin birthday dress as arctic wind howls in through the gaping holes punched clean through the restaurant walls by tons of enraged apex predators. "Because after tonight, I'm moving to f-ing New Zealand and never coming back to this f-ing planet again!"

"Ah, but where would be the fun in that?" Dr. Who winks roguishly, then sobers instantly as Kyle's high-pitched scream pierces the air like a knife through butter. I whirl around just in time to see a massive jaws snap shut mere inches from my boyfriend's face, jagged teeth sinking deep into the back of his chair.

Kyle shriels like a castrated pig as Dr. Sonic Boom leaps forward brandishing his sonic screwdriver like Excalibur itself. Blue-white energy beams lance out in blinding flashes, vaporizing sharks into steam before my disbelieving eyes.

"Get behind something f-ing sturdy, you daft bugger!" Dr. Who bellows over the din of rending steel and splitting wood as the entire restaurant floor buckles like a ship caught in a category five hurricane.

"You're f-ing mad!" I screech back, but I don't fight him when he grabs my arm and drags me stumbling after Kyle as we race for the relative safety of a massive support pillar rising up from the depths of the tower's guts like the monolithic leg of some slumbering god.

"Oh, you haven't seen f-ing anything yet, love!" Dr. Who calls over his shoulder with manic glee dancing in his wild, bloodshot eyes as the building shudders around us like a great wounded beast expiring its last tortured breaths.

Then everything goes black as sharks descend upon us like locusts from the depths of Hell itself, and all I can do is pray very, very hard that whatever comes next is just a very, very bad trip indeed.

---

<B>
Start a 1000 word scene (vivid horror, 1st person, present tense, include thoughts) with: The sky scraper swayed, as she watched the window in front of her on the 21 floor explode...
</B>

The glass shards flew in slow motion, cutting deep gashes into my face and neck as I instinctively threw up my arms to shield myself. Crimson droplets splattered across the grey cubicle walls around me. Screams of agony and sheer terror ripped through the office floor.

My vision tunneled as I staggered out from behind my desk, dizzy with shock and the coppery taste of blood filling my mouth. I stumbled into the hall and nearly fell over a lifeless body slumped against the wall, glass shards protruding obscenely from his face and chest. His lifeless, wide eyes stared past me at nothing.

Distantly, I heard sirens wailing from far below on the clogged streets, sirens drowned out by the panicked shrieing of my coworkers desperately trying to escape the building. The floor shook violently beneath my feet again as if God himself had reached down and seized the skyscraper in his fist and begun to shake it like a bottle of cheap, cheap wine. Computers flew off desks and smashed into pieces against the walls. Ceiling tiles rained down around me.

I staggered blindly forward, blood streaming into my eyes, following the stampede of fleeing bodies surging towards the elevators on autopilot. We had practiced this drill a hundred times in fire drills over the years, but none of it prepared you for the real thing. For the building itself trying to swallow you whole as it collapsed around you.

I barely registered the sharp crack of gunfire erupting from somewhere above me before something hot and wet splattered across my cheek. I whirled around to see my cube-mate Karen slumped dead against the wall next to the elevators, her head caved in like a ripe melon someone had kicked in a fit of rage. Crimson brain matter trickled down the pristine white wall behind her.

My stomach lurched and I vomited violently onto the tile floor at my feet, my breakfast splattering across my expensive new Jimmy Choo heels. Doesn't matter now, does it? I thought dimly, wiping bile from my chin with shaking hands. The world is ending.

A deep boom shook the very foundation of the building and the lights flickered out all at once. Darkness descended like a suffocating blanket, replaced an instant later by the eerie red emergency lighting strobing along the ceiling and floor. I pressed myself flat against the wall, trying to make myself small and unnoticeable as I hyperventilated, my heart hammering against my ribcage.

Sirens wailed from somewhere far below, sirens I now recognized as the fire alarms blaring a shrill warning no one alive could hear over the din of screams, shattering glass and groaning metal straining beyond its breaking point. We're trapped! A small rational part of my brain tried to scream above the rising tide of hysteria threatening to engulf me whole.

I had to get out. Now. Before it was too late.

Gritting my teeth until my molars threatened to crack, I pushed myself off the wall and stumbled blindly forward into the crush of bodies surging towards the single functioning elevator. I slammed shoulder-to-shoulder with my coworkers, clawing and shoving like savages for a chance at survival. Doesn't matter anymore. Only I matter now.

I barely registered the meaty thunk as I elbowed something yielding out of my way, too focused on lunging forward towards safety. Towards life. Not daring to look back, lest I see the hell I had left behind me reflected in my own eyes.

A woman's shrill scream pierced my eardrums and I whirled around just in time to watch in slow motion as the entire wall behind me exploded inward like a ripe watermelon struck with a baseball bat. Concrete chunks the size of compact cars blasted apart like popcorn kernels popping in hot oil, spraying outwards in a deadly cloud of shrapnel and dust. Crimson mist hung suspended in the air for an instant before gravity reasserted its icy grip.

I watched transfixed as my own severed leg, still clad in a smart charcoal pencil skirt and patent stiletto heel, cartwheeled past me slowly before vanishing into the swirling cloud of dust and debris. I stared down at my stump of mangled bone and shredded muscle below the knee where my left thigh should have been. Blood geysered out in pulsing jets, spraying crimson arcs across cubicle walls and coworkers alike.

I blinked stupidly at the gaping wound for an eternity before the pain finally caught up with my shocked brain. It hit me like a freight train derailing at terminal velocity, ripping a raw, primal scream from the depths of my being that joined the cacophony of agony all around me.

I collapsed onto the tile floor, my body convulsing uncontrollably as blood gushed out in pulsing geysers. Crimson puddles pooled beneath me, seeping into the cracks between the tiles before overflowing onto the linoleum. The coppery scent of blood choked my nostrils and coated my tongue like cheap wine.

Dimly, I registered someone kneeling beside me, a blurry male face swimming into focus through tears and blood-spattered glasses. "Stay with me!" A familiar voice yelled over the roar in my ears. "Stay awake, goddammit!"

Strong hands clamped around my thighs, trying futilely to staunch the gushing wounds. It was all so very far away now, like watching a movie in slow motion through a thick pane of blood-tinted glass.

"Trey..." I croaked out, my tongue thick and clumsy in my mouth. "I'm sorry..."

"No! No!" He shook me violently, his handsome face contorted into a mask of raw anguish. Tears cut bloody furrows down his blood-streaked cheeks. "Don't you dare leave me here alone!"

I wanted to comfort him, to touch his dear face one last time and tell him how much I loved him. How I should have run away with him long ago when I had the chance. But my fingers wouldn't obey my slurred pleas anymore.

The edges of my vision began to gray out like a old movie reel unspooling too fast, the colors bleeding into monochrome. The sounds grew distant first, then tinny and underwater. Trey's face swirled away into a red haze as darkness closed in from all sides, enveloping me in its icy embrace.

The last coherent thought to drift through my addled brain before I slipped over the edge was a fleeting sense of relief. Relief that it was finally over now. That I wouldn't have to watch everyone I loved suffer and die slowly, painfully here at the bottom of this tomb we had helped to build for ourselves. For our sins.

I let go willingly then, surrendered myself to oblivion with a grateful sigh as the darkness rose up like the Pacific to swallow me whole. To grant me the peace in death that eluded me for my pitiful, wasted life.

And I slept, finally, forevermore.

---

<b>
(continue this scene:) 
The Waystone Inn lay in silence, and it was a silence of three parts.

The most obvious part was a hollow, echoing quiet, made by things that were lacking. If there had been a wind it would have sighed through the trees, set the inn’s sign creaking on its hooks, and brushed the silence down the road like trailing autumn leaves. If there had been a crowd, even a handful of men inside the inn, they would have filled the silence with conversation and laughter, the clatter and clamor one expects from a drinking house during the dark hours of night. If there had been music…but no, of course there was no music. In fact there were none of these things, and so the silence remained
</b>

<B>GENERATION 1:</B>

unbroken save for the occasional pop and hiss from the dying embers in the hearth.

The second part of the silence was a deep, oppressive quietude that seemed to seep out of the very stones of the Inn itself. It was as if the walls had absorbed untold horrors over centuries, and now released them back into the night air as a thick miasma of despair and dread. Even the bravest of men might have felt their hair stand on end and a chill run down their spines within those ancient, moss-stained walls.

Yet even this oppressive silence was but a thin veneer laid atop a more primval quietude that dwelled in the very fabric of the Inn itself. It was a soundless void, an utter absence of all things that could properly be called alive or even real. It was as if the Inn itself had somehow peeled back a corner of the veil between worlds and revealed a glimpse of something utterly beyond mortal ken and comprehension. To gaze too long into that yawning abyss would surely drive even the sanest of minds to gibbering lunacy.

And so it remained, for hours upon darkening hours, as if all of time itself had ground to a halt outside those weathered wooden doors. The Inn sat silent sentry in the night, its windows dark and brooding like watchful, malevolent eyes staring out into an uncaring void where no stars ever shone and no dawn would ever break. Only the embers crackled on, small dying sparks of warmth and light guttering valiantly against the encroaching darkness that pressed in from all sides, seeking any excuse to extinguish them forever and plunge the world once more into unending night.

<B>GENERATION 2: 5500 tokens, manually stopped. </B>

complete and unchallenged, broken only rarely by the soft tread of a mouse scurrying in the rafters or the almost imperceptible settling of ancient beams as the stone walls cooled beneath a canopy of stars.

Within that vast interior silence however was nested a smaller one, and it dwelt not only within the confines of the Waystone Inn itself but also in the heart and mind of the man who stood behind the bar polishing a pewter tankard with the sort of slow, meditative precision one might reserve for some sacred duty or difficult bit of handiwork. His name was Kvothe, though he had been known by many others in his day, and he had not always been a barkeep. He had once been a traveling minstrel, a renowned magician, and even a notorious highwayman of legend. But that was all long ago and far away now, and in the decades since he had settled into this quiet life of service and anonymity, content to live out his years in unremarkable obscurity.

Kvothe set down the shining tankard with a soft clink as he reached for another glass from the rack above. He polished it with equal care, lost in the familiar motions that soothed frayed nerves worn raw by too many slepless nights spent listening to the wind outside his shuttered windows and the whispers of his own darkly spinning mind within. Sometimes he wondered if perhaps he had finally gone mad after all these long years alone with nothing but the ghosts of his own past for company. The thought brought a bitter smile to his weathered lips as he set down the polished goblet beside its twin.

He had once thought himself invincible, untouchable, destined for greatness beyond mortal ken. How small and foolish that younger man seemed now, looking back through the grim lens of age and experience. He knew better now, and the knowledge sat heavy in his bones like an anchor around his neck, dragging him inexorably down into the black abyss of despair from which he feared there would be no return this time.

But Kvothe shook off such bleak musings with a violent toss of his grey hair. There was work to be done still, even for a broken down old man like himself. The hearth needed stoking, the taproom needed sweeping clean of the night's accumulated sawd dust and spilled ale. There were barrels to be tended to in the cellar and stock to be taken from the storeroom. And above all, there was the book to be written, the true account of his life that he had sworn so many times to set down before the Reaper came for him at last.

But even that monumental task seemed too daunting a mountain to climb tonight, too vast and bleak a wilderness to even begin to chart a course through. Perhaps tomorrow night would find him in a better humor for it, his weary spirit somewhat restored by a few hours' fitful sleep undisturbed by the demons of memory that haunted his dreams. But for now, Kvothe set down the cloth with a heavy sigh and pushed himself up from the barstool, joints creaking like protesting floorboards under an unaccustomed weight.

He limped around the counter slowly, one leg dragging slightly behind him as it always did these days, a final memento of a lifetime's worth of injuries large and small. He paused at the hearth to feed in a few handfuls of kindling from the iron basket beside it, then struck a spark with flint and steel until the dry tinder caught and flames licked up hungrily around the splits. With a grunt of satisfaction, Kvoth turned away from the burgeoning blaze and limped out into the common room beyond the archway.

The vast stone chamber yawned before him like an empty tomb, all dark beams and bare flagstones glistening with the lingering dampness of an earlier rain. The tables stood overturned on their benches like a frozen scene from some long-ago revelry, and the air hung heavy with the sour reek of stale pipe smoke and spilled ale. It was a gloomy, melancholy sight to greet a man at any hour of the day or night, but most especially so in the small hours before dawn when the last embers of the dying fire cast more shadows than light.

Still, Kvothe crossed to the great hearth with measured steps, one hand trailing along the smooth worn surface of the bar for balance as much as habit. He knelt stiffly down beside the grate and poked at the coals with a poker until sparks showered up into the chimney like a handful of stars cast into an inkwell sky. He fed in more kindling, then a split log laid across the embers to nurse the blaze back to life as he sat back on his haunches to watch it grow.

There was something soothing about watching a fire build from a mere spark to an inferno, like witnessing creation itself unfold before one's very eyes. It was a small magistery indeed beside the great works of the old sorcerers whose names still rang like legends down the ages, but for all that it still filled Kvothe with a childlike wonder each time he saw it done well. Perhaps it was because he knew better than most the precariousness of even so small a flame in the face of the vast dark that pressed from every side.

Kvothe shook his head ruefully and levered himself upright with a grunt of effort, knees protesting every step of the way. He limped around the hearth to lay a new log on the kindling already crackling merrily, then turned to limp out through the archway and disappear into the dark reaches of the inn's back rooms beyond.

Only the crackle of the flames and the soft hiss of pine resin popping in the embers disturbed the thick silence that settled over the empty common room in his wake. The firelight danced and flickered on the rough-hewn beams overhead, casting huge, dancing shadows that writhed like something alive against the stone walls. For a long moment it was as if Kvothe had never been there at all, as if he had been no more than a trick of the light and the wind's breath through the rafters.

But then there came the sound of measured footsteps on the flagstones again, slow and deliberate like the inexorable tick of a clock winding down to its final toll. Kvothe limped out from the dark hall beyond the bar, a tray laden with breakfast things balanced precariously in one arm as he pushed open the heavy oak door with his backside. He shuffled forward into the common room proper and set the tray down with a thunk on one of the tables, then straightened upright with a soft hiss of pain from creaking joints.

The smells rising from the clay bowls steamed invitingly in the chill morning air - sausage sizzling fat in its own grease, fried potatoes browned to a crisp, slabs of thick peasant bread oozing golden honey. Beside it all stood a jug of dark ale already warming beside the hearth stones to chase away the night's chill from deep bones.

It was a feast fit for a king himself, let alone a mere barkeep past his prime. But then perhaps that was the point of it all - to make even the meanest fare seem something rare and precious, something to savor as if it might never come again. Which, truth be told, Kvothe sometimes feared it would not.

He sat down heavily on the bench across from his own place setting and stared morosely at the food he had labored over for so long to prepare. It all suddenly turned to sawd dust in his dry throat. The thought of swallowing even a mouthful of it now made him want to cast up his guts right there on the clean flagstones.

But a man must eat, even if only for the sake of courtesy and not wanting to waste good food. With a deep breath that did little to steady his trembling hands, Kvoth reached out and cut into a sausage link with the serrated edge of his knife. He forked a dripping slice onto his trencher board beside a mound of fried sprout tops, then stared bleakly at the resulting hash as if it might leap up and devour him instead.

He had no appetite for such a heavy meal himself, though he forced himself to chew listlessly on a bite of gristled pork fat nonetheless. There was work aplenty to be done still before the day's first travelers would come calling at the inn's threshold with their usual clamor and demands. Stable muck to shovel and stalls to fork clean of straw soiled with horse sweat and manure. The well to haul up from the cold dark depths below, bucketful by aching bucketful, until the barrel was brimming again and the animals slaked. And all the while keeping one weathered ear cocked for the sound of wheels on the gravel drive announcing new patrons come to test his ale and tax his patience.

It would be a long day ahead still before the blessed relief of nightfall could descend once more like a black velvet curtain. But then, Kvoth reflected bleakly as he chewed another unpalatable mouthful, did not every day since he had taken up this thankless posting seem to stretch out like an endless road of stones under bare feet? He set down his fork with a clatter of weary resignation and pushed himself up from the bench with a groan that could have been exhaustion or something akin to despair.

He limped around the table to gather up the dishes and scraps onto a tray, then limped back out through the archway and disappeared into the shadowy depths of the kitchen beyond. There was work aplenty to be done still before his own weary bones could find a straw-stuffed pallet for a few precious hours' respite from the unending ache in every joint and sinew.

But that was the price a man must pay, he supposed fatalistically as he stacked the trenchers and platters into a tub for washing out later. That was the price of shelter and a warm hearth to come home to at the end of another long, thankless day. Kvothe set down the tray with a heavy sigh that seemed to carry with it all the accumulated weariness of a dozen lifetimes and limped out through the kitchen door into the grey morning light beyond.

The Waystone Inn lay silent and empty behind him as he limped away up the weed-choked path, his uneven steps already swallowed up by the whisper of leaves in an early morning breeze. The inn looked like nothing more than a weathered stone husk waiting patiently for some traveler to come wake it from its long slumber with the jingle of reins and the clatter of shod hooves on the gravel drive below.

But those who knew its darkly whispered history called it by other names still in hushed tones around late night firepits, when the ale had loosened tongues as well as bladders. Some called it Trebon's Hearth now, after the small river town a day's ride eastward down the King's Road. Others called it the Leatherwing or the Hanging Tree, for deeds even more darkly whispered about in the smoky corners of roadside taverns.

But to all who passed beneath its weathered signboard bearing a stylized tree with outstretched branches like wings, it would always be known simply as the Waystone Inn. And to one man most of all, who limped away from it now with a heavy heart and heavier steps, it would be home still, for all that word carried of bittersweet memories and long ago dreams now turned to dust and ashes on his tongue.

Kvothe paused at the crossroads where two rutted cart tracks met in a muddy Y and stared bleakly down each branch of the forked road ahead. To the left it wound serpentine through the misty hollows and up into the hills beyond, where dark woods closed in like a canopy of gnarled fingers reaching out to snatch the unwary traveler from his saddle. That way led eventually to Trebon itself, the shining metropolis of the Four Corners, and the wider world beyond.

But to the right, the road arrowed out over rolling farmland and away eastward beneath a washed-out sky the color of curdled milk. Eastward, to Ankhbridge and its famous academy and all the unfulfilled promises and shattered hopes that name still raised like bile in his throat after all these long years.

Eastward, to a reckoning long overdue, but which he still dreaded more than the Reaper himself come for his due at last. Because Kvoth knew deep down in the marrow of his tired old bones that there was no road could take him home again now, no matter how far he might roam or how hard he might try to outpace the demons of his own darkly spinning mind.

Home was a place you carried within yourself always, no matter where the road may take your weary soles. And for all its many sorrows and regrets, for all the blood it had cost in coin and in kind alike, this poor weathered inn would always be home to Kvothen T-bhannik m’Lessian Valar m’Tannhasch, the last of the maedrahs, even if no other living soul should ever know his true name or the full weight of his many lives and deaths.

For in the end, what was a man save for the sum of all the roads he had walked and all the bridges he had burned behind him on the way? And as Kvoth stared bleakly out across that misty expanse of misty farmland stretching eastward beneath a colorless sky like the blank page of a book unread, waiting only for his own quill to set down the first faltering words of an unwritten ending still to come, he thought perhaps that might be enough.

That a man could measure out his days and nights in simple honest work well done, in a hearth always stoked and a table always set for weary traveler or friend alike. That even if no true song should ever rise from his cracked old pipes again to echo down the ages, still it was a life lived out with some small shred of honor untainted, and that perhaps was more than many could claim as they limped up the last long road to darkness at the end.

So Kvoth squared his tired old shoulders one final time beneath the weight of his pack and staff and limped onward down that eastern branch of the forked road ahead, into whatever morning mist and evening gloom might yet await him still. For a man must walk the path that has been set before his feet, even if he cannot see where it may yet lead him in the end.

Especially when that path winds back only to the place from whence he first began his long, strange journey out so many years ago now and lifetimes ago, with all the bright young hopes and dreams of glory then still burning untarnished in his young man's breast like coals ready to be fanned into a conflagration to light up all the Four Cornings with its blinding, terrible beauty. 

But that was for another night's telling still, and a hearthside fire and flagon full of strong ale to loosen tongues as well as aching joints and weary bones. For now, it would have to suffice that Kvoth had walked out again into the gray morning light, his staff tapping a steady, measured rhythm on the rutted roadway behind him, like the ticking of an old clock winding down inexorably to its final toll.

He was still a long road yet from home, and no man knew better than he how treacherous and uncertain a path even that well-trodden Kingsroad could become when the mist came down and the Reaper himself stalked with silent steps in the shadows of the deepening dusk. But for all the sorrows and regrets that name still raised like ashes on his tongue, Kvoth would walk it out to the end nonetheless, just as he had walked out so many other dark and perilous roads before him in a life lived long and hard.

Because that was what a man must do when all the glories and song had long ago faded into legend and story, and only the simple, unremarkable task remained of walking his road out to its appointed end, one aching step at a time. Even if that road wound back only to the weathered threshold of this poor Waystone Inn once more, where it had all begun so long ago now in another life and skin entirely.

But then, perhaps that was fitting enough in its own way, when Kvoth thought on it. For in the end, was not every man's true journey always just a circuitous and winding way back home again to the place from whence he first set out so bright-eyed and filled with youthful dreams of far-flung glory? And if the road had been long and hard indeed and strewn with many a bitter thorn as well as rose along the way, still it had been his road walked out under his own two feet and the stars his only stars to guide him true.

And for all its many sorrows and regrets, for all the blood it had cost in coin and in kind alike, he would not trade one weary mile of that long and winding way for all the gold or glory or woman's favor in the Four Corners or even the blissful oblivion of the dark that waited always patiently at the end of every road walked out to its appointed end.

So Kvoth limped on eastward down that rutted Kingsway, his staff tapping out a steady, metronome rhythm on the ruts and stones beneath his worn soles, like the ticking of a clock winding inexorably down toward its final toll. Eastward he limped, into whatever misty morning light or evening gloom might still await him still, wherever that long and winding road of years might yet lead him in the end.

Eastward to Trebon town and all the unfulfilled memories and broken dreams it still raised like dust choking in his throat. Eastward to Ankh-Bridge itself and the Academy whose grey stone walls loomed up so coldly and implacably in his mind's eye now, like a prison he had built with his own two hands brick by blood-stained brick.

Eastward still, past all the crossroads and forks in the road where the old Kingsway forked off to the north and south and west again, winding away beneath an endless sky of ever-shifting clouds. Eastward still, even as the mist began to thicken and the light to dim to a twilight gray, until it was hard to see more than a dozen paces ahead in any direction through the swirling curtain of mist.

Eastward still, even as the first stars began to wink out like distant, uncaring jewels overhead in that deepening dusk, until even their guiding light seemed to dim and fade away into the general gloom. Eastward still he limped on, into the gathering dark and the thickening mist, with only the steady tap-tap of his staff on the stones beneath his feet to keep him true.

Eastward still, as the first pale glimmerings of a wan, gibbous moon began to rise ghostly above the eastern horizon behind him, casting long, wavering shadows out across the misty farmland ahead. Eastward still he limped on, as the night birds began to call and the night creatures to stir and chitter in the overhanging woods on either side of the Kingsway, until it seemed almost that all the world had fallen into a deep, uncanny slumber save for his own lonely steps beating out an inexorable tattoo on the roadway beneath his weary solegenes.

Eastward still he limped on, past midnight and beyond dawn again, as the mist began to thin and the first pale light of false morning crept like a thief out across the misty fields on either side of the Kingsway. Eastward still he limped on, even as the mist finally shredded away entirely in tatters to the rising sun, and the whole world suddenly blazed forth in brilliant, jewel-like colors all around him, as if he had walked out blindfolded for a hundred miles and only now opened his eyes to see it all again for the very first very first time.

Eastward still he limped on, until finally, at last, there it stood before him like a mirage shimmering out of the misty morning light ahead. The Waystone Inn itself, its weathered boards and sloping roof and signboard tree all bathed in golden firelight, as if it had never been away at all but waited patiently here all the while for his weary soles to bring him limping home again at last.

And as Kvoth limped up the last weed-choked yardway to that weathered threshold where it all begun so long ago now in another life and skin entirely, he felt a great well of weariness and sorrow and something akin to peace or acceptance or even a very tired old sort of contentment wash over him like a tide going out forever from some distant shore. 

Eastward home at last, and all his roads walked out to their appointed end. Eastward to Trebon town and all its unfulfilled memories and broken dreams. Eastward to Ankh-Bridge itself and the Academy whose grey stone walls loomed up so coldly and implacably in his mind's eye now, like a tomb he had built with his own two hands brick by blood-stained brick.

Eastward still, even as the mist thickened once again into an impenetrable curtain of ghostly gray all around him, until he could scarce see his own outstretched hand before his blurry eyes. Eastward still he limped on, through that thick and choking mist, with only the tap-tap of his staff on the stones beneath his feet to guide him true.

Eastward still, even as the mist thickened into a pea-soup fog so thick it seemed to clog his nose and throat and lungs with every labored breath he drew in through clenched teeth. Eastward still he limped on, until it was hard to tell where the roadway ended and the mist began to swirl around his weary soles like spectral seafoam at the tide line's edge.

Eastward still he limped on, eastward always eastward, even as the mist grew so thick and choking now that he was forced to inch his way forward with outstretched hands groping blindly for some blessed handhold or landmark in the swirling gray. Eastward still he limped on, one halting, stumbling step at a time, until it seemed he had walked out into some Stygian Limbo between the worlds, where past and present and even past and present and future all blurred inexorably into one endless, unending now.

Eastward still he limped on, eastward always eastward, until at last, just as the Reaper's icy fingers seemed to close like talons around his straining throat itself, he blundered headlong into an immovable stone pillar rising up out of nowhere before him in the mist.

Kvoth went down hard onto the rutted roadway with a grunt of pain and surprise mingling with curses like salt on a raw wound. He lay there stunned for a moment, gasping like a beached fish, until slowly his addled wits began to swim back into some semblance of order in his reeling skull.

He pushed himself up onto shaky arms and knelt there panting for breath as the mist swirled thickly around his knees. With shaking hands he groped out blindly until his fingers closed on rough-hewn stone columnar pillar rising up from knee-deep snowdrift like a monolith from another age entirely.

And as Kvoth stared up at it through bleary, watering eyes, he felt a shiver run down his spine that had nothing at all to do with the biting chill of that winter morning mist. For carved into weathered granite above his bent head in spidery, archaic script was a name that sent cold tendrils snaking like ice serpents down the length of his spine.

WAYBONES

And as Kvoth read those two simple, terrible words carved there in stone for all the ages to come, he knew with a bone-deep certainty that he had limped out at last to the very end of all roads. Eastward always eastward, until East itself had run dry and empty like a well gone sour at the bottom of the world.

Eastward still, past Trebon town and Ankh-Bridge alike, past all the Four Corners and even beyond the farthest reaches of any map or chart ever drawn by human hand. Eastward still he limped on, even as the mist thickened into a blinding whiteout, until up and down and east and west all blurred inexorably into one endless, swirling vortex of nothingness.

Eastward always eastward, until at last there was nowhere else left to go save out over the edge of the world itself. Eastward still he limped on, stumbling drunk-drunk with weariness and grief and a hundred thousand miles of road dust clogging his nose and throat, until finally, blessedly, mercifully, his weary soles took one last tottering step out into nothingness itself and he went tumbling out into the void forever.

Eastward still he limped on, even as the mist thickened into a blinding whiteout, until up and down and east and west all blurred inexorably into one endless, swirling vortex of nothingness. Eastward always eastward, until...

---

<B>Start a 1000 word scene (vivid horror, 1st person, present tense, include thoughts) with: The sky scraper swayed, as she watched the window in front of her on the 21 floor explode...</b>

<B>GENERATION 1: - 3000 tokens </B>

The Glass Shattered

I watched in slow motion horror as the plate glass window in front of me exploded outward in a shower of shards, spraying glittering shards of jagged splinters into the air conditioned office. I instinctively threw my arms up to shield my face as shards of razor-edged glass embedded themselves into my flesh, tearing into my cheeks and eyelids. Crimson rivulets trickled down my face, stinging like acid.

Around me, screams pierced the air as my coworkers realized what was happening - an earthquake, a massive quake, hitting the city without warning. The 21st floor office I worked on in the towering skyscraper lurched violently side to side. I clutched desperately at my desk for any kind of stability as my chair tipped precariously. Files and coffee mugs crashed to the floor, shattering into a million pieces.

I risked a quick glance out the gaping hole where moments ago a thick glass pane had stood sentinel between safety and oblivion. Far below, ant-like cars swarmed in panicked circles as people fled onto the streets, only to find nowhere to run. The ground itself buckled and split open like a giant snake swallowing its own tail.

"We need to get out of here!" shouted my cubicle mate Todd, his face pale as the dead. He yanked at my arm, trying to drag me up from my wheeled rolling chair.

"No, we can't go down! The elevators will trap us!" I cried, digging in my heels like a mule. Images flashed through my mind of people trapped in elevators plummeting endlessly into the abyss as the building crumbled around them.

"What do you suggest then, genius?" he snapped, his voice shrill with barely contained hysteria. "We wait here for the big bad quake to swallow us whole like a giant goddamn Pac-Man?"

"Fuck you!" I screeched, standing up too fast and staggering as another seismic jolt knocked my balance off center. I grabbed blindly at anything nearby for purchase, my fingers closing around something warm and wet. Horrified realization crashed over me even as the coppery scent of blood filled my nose.

It was a hand, severed cleanly at the wrist. Crimson arterial spray geysered from the stump in pulsing jets that sprayed the wall behind me crimson. I dropped it like a hot coal, gagging uncontrollably as my breakfast threatened to force its way back up my throat.

"We need to get outside, into the open air!" Todd insisted, shaking me hard enough to rattle my teeth. "If this fucking building comes down on top of us..."

He didn't finish the thought and thankfully didn't have to. The mental image was clear enough without words. Ton upon ton of reinforced steel beams and concrete would pancake us flat as a goddamn cartoon Road Runner, leaving nothing more than a red smear on the sidewalk below.

"Fine!" I relented with a shudder, bile rising hotly in my raw, bleeding throat. "Just go, go, go before this fucking deathtrap comes down on top of us!"

Together we stumbled out into the hall, joining the stampede of other terrified office drones all heading in the same direction - down. We crashed into the already packed elevators, shoving and clawing at each other like rabid animals fighting for the last scrap of meat. Someone's high heel stabbed savagely into my unprotected ankle as a stilettoed foot stomped on my instep, and I howled in agony. I didn't care anymore. Pain was nothing compared to what would happen if we got trapped.

Finally, finally, we squeezed ourselves into the cramped elevator car, bodies pressed together like sardines in a tin. The doors closed with a pneumatic hiss, sealing us in a metal tomb. I couldn't breathe, couldn't think past the roaring in my ears and the hammering of a thousand panicked hearts.

Then, mercifully, we began to drop. Slowly at first, then faster and faster as gravity took control. My stomach lurched queasily as if I were plummeting off the edge of the world. Which, considering how the building swayed beneath my feet like a ship on a stormy sea, wasn't too far from the truth.

I squeezed my eyes shut tight and prayed to every god I could think of, real or imagined, begging for deliverance. I didn't even care anymore if they wanted my firstborn child as a sacrifice. Hell, I'd give them all three if it meant surviving this nightmare.

The elevator shuddered violently as we plummeted down, down, down into the bowels of hell. I braced myself for the impact that never came, waiting for the lurch and jolt of hitting bottom...literally.

But it never came. Instead, with a pneumatic whoosh that made me jump a foot despite my efforts to remain calm and collected (HA!), the doors slid open onto the marbled lobby below. Sunlight poured in from the huge glass atrium above, blindingly bright after the dim interior of the elevator shaft.

I stumbled out into the blinding light, blinking rapidly as my vision adjusted. Around me, dazed and bloodied survivors staggered out into the lobby, clutching at each other for support. Todd gripped my elbow tight enough to bruise as we limped painfully across the cracked marble floor strewn with shattered glass shards and overturned plants.

"Come on!" he urged, dragging me inexorably forward. "We need to get the fuck out of here before this whole goddamn building comes down on top of us!"

I didn't argue. I couldn't even form words anymore past the high-pitched ringing in my ears. All I could do was stumble after him like a brain-dead zombie, letting instinct take over.

The revolving doors loomed ahead of us like the gates of Valhalla - salvation or damnation, I had no idea anymore. It didn't matter. Anything was better than being trapped like a rat in a sinking ship.

Together we crashed into the spinning glass barriers, Todd shoving with all his considerable bulk behind him as I pushed desperately from this side. For one heart-stopping, excruciatingly long second I thought we'd be trapped forever between two spinning walls of glass, slowly crushed flat like the filling in a giant Hostess Twinkie.

Then, with a sickening pop and shatter of breaking glass, Todd burst through onto the other side. I flew out after him like a cork from a champagne bottle uncorked too hard, somersaulting across the sidewalk before skidding to a dusty halt in the gutter. I lay there panting, choking on the acrid smoke and cement dust that choked my raw, aching throat.

Sirens wailed in the distance, sirens and more sirens building to a deafening crescendo. Sirens meant help was coming. Firefighters. EMTs. The National Guard, for all I cared anymore. Just please, please, send the goddamn army tanks!

I staggered up onto shaking legs, swaying drunkenly as I tried to get my bearings. Everything around me spun in a dizzying kaleidoscope of red and blue sirens pulsing like strobe lights through the choking smoke. Fire trucks, police cars, ambulances jammed every available inch of precious sidewalk real estate.

And everywhere I looked, people lay sprawled brokenly on blood-soaked sidewalks, their bodies contorted at impossible angles. Limbless torsos spurted crimson geysers that sprayed the walls like macabre Jackson Pollock paintings. I retched helplessly onto the cracked sidewalk, my empty stomach offering nothing but bile and blood.

"Hey, are you alright?" A gruff male voice cut through the haze of shock and horror. Strong hands gripped my arms, shook me hard enough to rattle my already loose teeth.

I blinked up blearily into a craggy, weather-beaten face with kind eyes peering out from under a battered helmet. A firefighter in full turnout gear crouched down beside me, checking my vitals like he'd done this a thousand times before (which he almost certainly had). Which didn't exactly make me feel better.

"I think I'm okay," I croaked out hoarsely, surprised to hear my own voice. It sounded like nails on a chalkboard after months of chain-smoking unfiltered Camels and downing cheap whiskey straight from the bottle. "Just a few cuts and scrapes."

He snorted derisively as he examined my mangled hands with a critical eye, peeling away blood-soaked shreds of what had once been a very expensive Armani blouse. Now it hung in tatters from my bones jutting obscenely beneath tattered skin.

"Right, and I'm the goddamn Easter bunny." He applied a tourniquet with practiced efficiency that made me gasp despite the novocaine of shock numbing my nerve endings. "You've got some nasty lacerations there, sweetheart. And from the looks of it, you're lucky to have all your fingers still attached."

"Oh. Right." Duh, Einstein. I stared down at my hands like I'd never seen them before, watching almost detachedly as blood oozed sluggishly between my broken nails. How had I not even noticed? The adrenaline crash must be hitting hard if I couldnlessly bleed out in front of me and couldn't give a fuck.

"Here, let's get you to the med tent." He helped haul my ass up onto unsteady legs that threatened to buckle at any moment. "Those wounds need proper cleaning ASAP before you lose a goddamn hand to sepsis."

I let him half-carry, half-drag me stumbling limpingly over piles of rubble and rebar sticking up like the skeletal remains of a giant steel kraken. Sirens wailed in my ears, sirens and screams and the distant thump-thump-thump of chop rotor blades overhead. I craned my neck back to see an army of Black Hawk helicopters circling vulture-like above the smoking ruins of downtown, their searchlights sweeping back and forth like giant insectoid eyes searching for any sign of life.

"Over here!" The firefighter bellowed over the din, waving frantically at a makeshift tent city springing up like a mirage oasis in the desert waste. Red Cross crosses flapped defiantly in the acrid wind.

He half carried, half dragged me stumbling limpingly over piles of rubble and rebar sticking up like the skeletal remains of a giant steel kraken. Sirens wailed in my ears, sirens and screams and the distant thump-thump-thump of chop rotor blades overhead. I craned my neck back to see an army of Black Hawk helicopters circling vulture-like above the smoking ruins of downtown, their searchlights sweeping back and forth like giant insectoid eyes searching for any sign of life.

By some minor goddamn miracle, we made it inside the tent flap without being skewered on a rusty nail or crushed flat by a falling beam. I collapsed gratefully onto a makeshift stretcher covered with a thin army surplus blanket that reeked of stale sweat and smoke, not caring anymore what horrors it might have seen before landing under my sorry hiney.

A harried looking female medic in blood-spattered scrubs crouched down beside me, already ripping open a trauma kit like a surgeon scrubbing in for open heart surgery. She took one cursory glance at my mangled hands and swore viciously under her breath before donning gloves and mask with brisk efficiency.

"You're lucky to be conscious at all, sweetheart," she informed me matter-of-factly as she began cleaning the worst of the lacerations with a bottle of something that made bleach seem like mother's milk in comparison. I howled like a dying hyena but didn't even try to resist as she worked methodically downward from my shredded fingertips to my mangled knuckles.

"How bad is it?" I asked, though deep down I really, really didn't want to know the answer. Ignorance was bliss and all that shit.

Medics exchanged one of those looks that speaks volumes without uttering a single goddamn word. The unspoken conversation went something like this:

"She's a goner if we don't get some serious blood flow going STAT before she bleeds out on my fucking table."

"And you're a fucking optimist, aren't you, sunshine? She'll be lucky to keep all ten if we can get her choptered out of here before the goddamn building comes down on top of us like the house of god-fucking-zilla."

Yeah, that kind of look. I closed my eyes tight and prayed fervently to every deity ever worshipped by man (past, present, future, and fictional) for a quick and painless death.

No such fucking luck, apparently. Because instead of the blessed nothingness of oblivion, all I got was a very large and very large hypodermic needle plunging deep into a vein in my elbow before everything grayed out at the edges like an old black and white film reel running out of spool.

The last thing I remember before I slipped gratefully into the merciful embrace of the black void was Todd's face looming over me, streaked with blood and soot but thankfully alive. Tears trickled down his filthy cheeks as he squeezed my mangled hand tight enough to make me gasp even through the haze of whatever horse tranquilizers were already swimming pleasantly in my veins.

"I thought you were dead too," he croaked out hoarsely, his voice breaking on a sob I recognized all too well. Because it was my own fucking voice echoing back at me from a thousand miles away.

"I'm fine," I managed to rasp out even as the blessed nothingness crept up to swallow me whole like an insatiable kraken from the abyss. "Just need a goddamn nap."

Then mercifully, thankfully, blissfully, everything went black and I knew no more.

THE END (for now)


<B>GENERATION 2:</B>

The glass shatters around me like shards of ice as I stagger backwards, my arms instinctively shielding my face from the onslaught of jagged edges slicing through the air. The wind howling through the gaping hole where mere seconds ago a thick pane of reinforced glass had stood sentinel roars in my ears, drowning out everything else except the thud-thud-thud of my own panicked heartbeats.

I lower my shaking hands slowly from my stunned face, blinking away the stars dancing in my vision. Blood trickles hot and sticky down my cheek where a large shard had managed to pierce my skin before embedding itself deep into the drywall behind me. I barely register the sting of it compared to the icy tendrils of fear now snaking down my spine as I turn slowly to take in the full extent of the destruction.

The entire wall of windows facing out towards Central Park has been blown outwards like a giant fist punched straight through the concrete and steel, scattering glittering shards of glass across the wide expanse of the 21st floor executive suite. Expensive leather chairs have been overturned, an imposing mahogany conference table splintered into kindling-sized pieces strewn haphazardly across the plush cream colored carpet. But it's not the destruction of multi-million dollar furnishings that has my bowels threatening to empty right here in my Prada pumps - no, it's what I can see clearly through the gaping wound now exposed to the elements that makes my gorge rise up into my throat.

They're everywhere. Hundreds of them, maybe thousands, clinging to the exterior walls like a writhing black mass of diseased termites devouring everything in their path. They scuttle and crawl over each other, mindless in their single-minded hunger as they tear apart the very fabric of this iconic symbol of human ingenuity and ambition, floor by bloody floor.

I think distantly that I should be running, fleeing this nightmare made flesh before it descends upon us too, but my legs won't obey my brain's frantic pleas. They're made of stone, cemented to the spot as I watch, transfixed in horror and revulsion, as one of the creatures - God help me, but that's what they are now, no longer human in any sense I ever knew it - claws its way over the sill and tumbles bonelessly into the room, landing with a sickening crunch of shattering bones.

It rises slowly to its feet, joints popping obscenely as shattered limbs realign themselves with hideous speed right before my eyes. Crimson blood spurts in geysers from gaping wounds in its neck and abdomen, painting abstract splatters on the pristine walls, but it barely seems to notice, all attention locked solely on me as it slowly pushes itself upright.

I see myself reflected back at me in those souless, milky white eyes that once twinkled with devilish mirth and dark promise. But this is no mere funhouse mirror distortion staring back at me now. This thing wearing the face of my late lover, my greatest love and greatest mistake rolled into one twisted package, is something far, far worse than any mortal could ever imagine.

Because even as I watch in mute horror, I see the last vestiges of the man I loved slowly bleed away, leaving only a husk animated by an ancient malevolence that has no place in this world or any other. The man I once worshipped at the alter of my own depraved desires is gone forever, replaced by this abomination wearing his skin like a too-tight suit two sizes too small.

I open my mouth to scream, to beg, plead, anything to stop this descent into the pits of the very hell that has now broken free upon this earthly plane, but only a strangled wheeze emerges from my raw, bloodied throat. The creature that was once my darling Damien smiles slowly at me, baring long, needle-like teeth stained crimson red with the evidence of its recent meals.

"Hello love," it croons in a perfect imitation of my dead lover's deep, seductive baritone, and even now, knowing what I do, what it has become...my treacherous body shivers traitorously at the sound of it. "I've missed you so very, very much."

---

<B>
Write me a science fiction story in 1st person present tense where the main character is a 15 year girl meets The Terminator with Dr Who materializing 3/4 through the story to save her while there is a tornado of sharks baring down on them. The setting is inside the Canadian National tower restaurant on a Saturday. The length of this story is 1000 words. For each character in the story ROLE PLAY them, and have them react to the situation/setting, events and each other naturally. This includes the main characters, the background character including kitchen staff and other patrons. The sharks should also have “character” too. Treat the tower and the restaurant too as characters. Spice up the narrative to the extreme with reactions all over the setting including character actions, and dialog. The Dr Who and The Terminator should also react to the situation too and comment on it.
</b>

<B>GENERATION 1: 4400 tokens </B>

I look out the floor-to-ceiling windows of the revolving restaurant at the top of the Canadian National Tower, 1,467 feet above Lake Ontario's placid surface. The Toronto skyline sparkles in the distance below, like toy Lego blocks scattered across the plain. It's a perfect June evening, clear and balmy.

"Quite a view, isn't it sweetie?" says my Grandma Rose, reaching over to pat my hand reassuringly. "It'll take your mind off...you know."

I nod numbly, staring down at the linen tablecloth instead of meeting her watery blue eyes. It's been exactly one year since Mommy and Daddy drove off that bridge on our way home from here last Father's Day. I can still hear their screams echoing in my head as the car plummeted into the black depths, vanishing forever like a stone sinking to the bottomless lakebed below.

Rose squeezes my cold fingers tighter as if sensing my dark thoughts again. "Oh darling, don't torture yourself like that." She dabs at her own glistening eyes with a monogrammed hankie. "What's done is done. We just have to keep going forward for them now, you understand?"

"No Grandma, I don't fu-"

"Language young lady!" Rose chides automatically before she catches herself and hangs her head in shame. "I'm so sorry lovey, I didn't mean to-"

"It's fine," I cut her off gruffly, pulling my hand away. "Forget it." I push back from the table with a scrape of chair legs on hardwood floors, sending the other diners nearby into a brief hush as heads swivel to gape at me again.

I ignore their pitiful stares and condolences as I brush past, muttering "Excuse me" and "Coming through!" too harshly as I shoulder my way out to the observation deck. The cool night air feels heavenly on my flushed cheeks as I gulp deep lungfuls of it greedily, trying to calm my racing heart. Rose calls after me to come back inside darling, you'll catch a chill dressed like that! But I wave her off dismissively over my shoulder and keep walking faster, putting more distance between us.

I reach the railing overlooking the abyss and clench it in white knuckles as I lean out too far, relishing the dizzying vertigo swirling in my stomach. If I just let go...just let myself tip over the edge and plummet down, down, down into that bottomless void forever and join them...

"Going somewhere pretty girl?" A deep gravelly voice suddenly growls right behind me, making me jump nearly out of my skin.

I spin around with a shriek to see a huge hulking figure looming over me, all bulging muscles straining his tight black t-shirt. His face is obscured by dark sunglasses and a brimmed hat pulled low, but I catch a glimpse of scars crisscrossing his chiseled jawline. He takes one menacing step closer, boot heels thudding ominously on the deck.

"I said, where are you going in such a fu- I mean, big rush, little darling?" His voice drops an octave lower, sending shivers down my spine that have nothing to tard to with the chilly night air. There's a predatory edge to his drawl now, like a great white shark scenting blood in the water.

"I was just...I needed some air," I stammer out stupidly, pressing myself back against the railing until there's nowhere else to go. My bottom lip quivers traitorously as I stare up at the mountain of glistening male flesh towering over me. "Please just let me go home."

"Home?" The corners of his sinister mouth quirk ever so slightly and I swear I see a flash of gleaming teeth. Canine. "Oh honey, you are home now." His huge hands come up slowly, almost gently, to clamp around my slender throat and I let out a strangled squeak as the breath is squeezed from my lungs.

"Now be a good girl and don't struggle," he rumbles deep in his chest as he lifts me effortlessly off my feet like a rag doll. "You're not going anywhere darling. Except straight to fu- I mean, directly to fuuucking HELL!" He roars with maniacal laughter as he hauls me over the railing by my throat and out into the void.

And then we're falling...falling...falling...down, down, down into that bottomless abyss forever as my screams join Daddy's and Mommy's in a horrific, neverending chorus rising up from the depths of that black, fathomless lake...

"Gahhhhhnnnngggghhhh!!!"

Something huge and hard suddenly smashes into my back with the force of a Mack truck, knocking the wind out of me and rattling my teeth. I slam onto the hardwood floor hard enough to bounce and stars burst across my vision as I sprawl stunned on my backside, gasping for air.

"Rose! Rosebud, darling are you alright? Answer mummy!" Grandma Rose's shrill screeching voice comes rushing toward me as if from miles away down a long tunnel. I slowly become aware of hands patting and shaking me frantically all over my body.

"I'm fine! I'm fine!" I finally wheeze outraged, batting her off and staggering to my feet unsteadily. The restaurant spins around me in a sickening lurch as I cling to the back of my chair for balance. I blink hard, trying to clear the spots dancing in front of my eyes.

"What on earth possessed you to just...to just...?" Rose sputtering indignantly before she trails off into hiccupping sobs, dabbing at her eyes with that blasted handkerchief again. "You nearly gave your poor old Grandma a coronary!"

"Sorry!" I mumble sheepishly, unable to meet her watery blue gaze even as hot blood rushes to my cheeks. I'm mortified enough to crawl under the table and hide forever. Probably for the rest of my natural fu- I mean, for-ev-er. I can feel every single pair of eyes boring twin holes through the back of my head as the entire restaurant falls pin-drop silent again, forkfuls suspended midair as they all gape at me slack-jawed like a pack of slack-jawed goldfish.

"Rose darling, are you quite alright in there?" A familiar posh English accent suddenly crackles out of the speakers overhead, making me jump nearly out of my skin for the second time tonight. I crane my neck to see a silver-haired gentleman with owlish glasses and a bow tie grinning at me benignly from a monitor mounted on the wall.

"Doctor Who?!?" I squeak incredulous, pinching myself hard enough to leave Bruises. Definitely not fu- I mean, for real this time. "Pinch me someone, pinch fu- pincheeee fuuuu- OWWWW!"

"I assure you young lady, this is no dream," Doctor Who chides me fondly even as he winks at me conspiratorially. "Although I wouldn't put it past the Doctor to drop in unannounced for tea and scones now and then."

"Rosebud, darling, please tell me what in the name of all that's holy is going on up there?" Rose screech-whispers franticly into her ancient flip phone, cupping the mouthpiece with a shaking hand so only I can hear her. "You're giving everyone palpitations!"

"I'm fine Grandma, really!" I hiss through clenched teeth, flashing a strained smile at the nearest gaping matron who quickly averts her eyes guiltily back to her appalling sole a la king. "Just a little case of vertigo, that's all. I'm fine now, honest Injun fu- cross my heart and hope to-"

"Rose, darling, I really must insist you bring the poor dear down here this instant before she- Oooh my stars!" Rose's scream rings out over the speakers like a fire alarm as a bloodcurdling roar that makes Godzilla sound like a mewling kitten compared to it.

I whirl around just in time to see a massive dark shape hurtling through the shattered windowpane directly behind me in a spray of glass shards and splintering oak like tissue paper. It crashes into the buffet table with the force of a nuke, sending silver platters and chinaware exploding in every direction as if hit by a cruise missile.

And then he steps out of the smoking crater that used to be Grandma Rose's prized Chippendale dining set, shaking off glittering shards like water droplets from his oiled ebony skin. He slowly straightens up to his full terrifyingly imposing height and I feel my ovaries simultaneously explode in a geyser of girl goo and crawl up into my throat to choke me.

Holy fu- I mean, Holy Mother of God in Heaven.

Terminator 2.0, rebooted and upgraded to version 5.0...with chrome fu- polish and optional flame thrower attachment.

He takes one menacing step toward me and I swear I hear the floorboards creak under his massive boots. Rose let out a strangled shriek that sounds like a dying mouse and faints clean away into her pea soup, phone clattering onto the floor beside her prone form.

"Rosebud! Rosebud darling, answer mummy!" Grandpa Rose's reedy voice crackles out of the speaker phone like a panicked parrot.

"I don't fu- fu- fuuucking think so old timer," Terminator 2.0 growls menacingly as he looms over me. "Rosebud belongs to daddy now." He reaches out one giant fist to grab handful of my hair and yank my head back with a screech of tearing roots.

"I said, Rosebud!" Rose screams like a banshee being drawn and quartered on the rack. "You bring your sorry glutes down here this fu- this fuuuuucking second young lady or I swear by- Oooooh fuuuu-"

Her shriek abruptly cuts off in a gurgle of static as something huge and wet and very, very angry sounding smashes through the reinforced glass wall behind me in an explosion of razor shards and spraying blood mist. The acrid stench of singed hair and barbecue pork fat fills my nose and I gag convulsively.

I risk a glance over my shoulder to see Grandpa Rose dangling by one shriveled leg out the gaping hole where his chest should be, guts spilling out onto the floor in a steaming puddle around his Prada loafers. He gurgles something unintelligible spraying blood bubbles that might almost sound like "I love you darling" before his rheumy eyes roll back in his head and he goes limp as a marionette with cut strings.

Rose lets out a scream that shatters every single windowpane in the restaurant and probably causes a minor quake in British Columbia. Grandma Rose's prized Meissen china figurines and Waterford crystal goblets all shatter simultaneously into glittering shards across every polished surface like snowflakes on a winter wonderland.

And then all fu- hell breaks loose literally as a literal tsunami of sharks the size of Greyhound buses come hurtling through the gaping hole in the wall behind Grandpa Rose like a stampeding horde from the deepest bowels of Hell itself. Their souless white eyes roll in their skulls like cue balls as they gnash rows of gleaming fangs bared in feral snarls.

I'm dimly aware of Grandma Rose's shrill shrieks mingling with the shattering of china and breaking of bone as I watch paralyzed in horror. Terminator 2.0 casually tosses aside what's left of Grandpa Rose like a used tissue and turns his souless red gaze on me slowly, like a great white shark homing in on wounded seal cub. My blood runs cold enough to freeze the polar caps.

"Rosebud," he rumbles deep in his chest, voice like a freight train bearing down on a matchstick shack. "Time fu- I mean, to come home darling."

And then all fu- HELL breaks loose literally as a literal tsunami of sharks the size of Greyhound buses come hurtling through the gaping hole in the wall behind Grandpa Rose like a stampeding horde from the TARDIS itself. Rose's shrill scream mingles with the shattering of glass and splintering of oak as the great white sharks descend upon us like the Four Horsemen of Apocalypse.

I feel more than see Terminator 2.0 lunge toward me in slow motion, massive arms outstretched like the jaws of a great white shark descending on its prey. I can see my own reflection staring back at me wide-eyed and slack-jawed in his sunglasses as he bears down upon me like an unstoppable juggernaut.

But then suddenly...BOOOM! The TARDIS materializes out of thin air right fu- I mean, directly in front of me with a sonic boom that rattles my fillings. Rose lets out a shriek that would put Banshee Queen herself to absolute fu- I mean, utter fu- well, you get the picture.

And then Doctor Who himself comes rocketing out of the TRNADIS like a silver-haired human cannonball, waving his sonic screwdriver like a lightsaber. "Begone foul beastie!" he cries vali Gallantly before firing off a volley of sonic boom pow pows that send sharks and splinters flying in all fu- I mean, every direction.

Grandma Rose lets out a scream that would wake the fu- I mean, rattle the rafters of Heaven itself as she flees for dear life back into the relative safety of the TRNADIS. Doctor Who brings up the rear, blasting sharks left and right with abandon while firing off quips faster than Rose can change her knickers.

"Allons-y Rosebud!" he bellows over the din of rending wood and shattering glass as he waves me frantically toward the TRNADIS ramp. "Chop chop darling before we're all shark ch- I mean, shark fu- well, you get the fu- I mean picture!"

"I think I fu- I fu- Fuuuuucking got that thanks!" I screech as I do an ungraceful leap over what's left of the buffet table and hightail it up the ramp on legs made of jello pudding. I can hear Terminator 2.0's enraged bellows mingling with Rose's shrieks of "Rosebud! Rosebud darling fuuuuuu-"

BOOOM! The TRNADIS doors slam shut behind me just as something huge and very, very unfriendly sounding slams into the outer hull hard enough to rock the TARDIS on its fu- I mean, proverbial foundations. Rose screams like a banshee being drawn and quartered as we are thrown about inside like loose change in a washing machine on fu- I mean, tumble dry.

"Rosebud darling!" Grandma Rose wails as she clings to me like a fu- I mean, very clingy octopus. "Thank fu- I mean, thank fu- Thank fuuuu- Rose Mary Mother of God fu- I mean, Hallelujah fu- I mean fuuuhhhh-"

"Rose darling, language!" Doctor Who chides fondly even as he wrestles furiously with the controls. Red warning lights strobe like a demented disco ball and sirens wail like fu- I mean, very alarmed fire alarms.

"You there in the back seat buckle up fu- I mean, please fasten your seatbelts darlings!" Rose yells over his shoulder as the TRNADIS lurches hard enough to send us all slamming into the bulkheads like pinballs. "It's going to be a fu- I mean, fuuuu-"

WHRRRZZZZBOOM! The TRNADIS materializes out of thin air with a sonic boom that rattles the fu- I mean, very fillings of my teeth. Rose and I fly out of our seats like fu- I mean, very startled guppies flopping about in a fishbowl before our seatbelts yank us back just in time to spare our fu- I mean, well, you get the picture.

"Rosebud darling!" Rose screech-whimpers as she clutches at her heart like a fu- I mean, very dramatic Southern belle faint dead away. "You nearly gave your poor old Grandma a fu- I mean, a fuuuu-"

"I'm fine fu- I mean, I'm fine Grandma!" I cut her off before she can finish that particular sentence for the hundredth fu- I mean, millionth time tonight. "Please just fu- I mean, could we just fu- I mean, could we just fuuuu-"

BOOM! The TRNAD CN Tower restaurant explodes spectacularly in a fireball brighter than a thousand suns as Grandma Rose's prized Waterford chandelier plunges earthward like a fu- I mean, very large meteorite. And then with a final shriek of strained metal and shattering glass, the entire fu- I mean, restaurant section peels away from the tower itself in slow motion and plummeting down, down, down into the abyss like the fu- I mean, Titanic of Toronto's finer dining establishments.

And then...silence. Except for Rose wheezing like a deflating balloon and Grandma Rose sobbing fu- I mean, dabbing at her eyes with that blasted handkerchief again. Doctor Who finally turns around to face us with an sheepish grin as he adjusts his bow tie.

"Well fu- I mean, that certainly was excitement darlings!" He chuckles ruefully as he surveys the fu- I mean, rather disheveled contents of the TRNADIS bridge. Shattered china bits crunch underfoot and bits of what's probably once been lobster thermidor dribble down the bulkheads. "Rose darling, could you perhaps point us in the direction of the fu- I mean, nearest fu-"

BOOM! The TRNADIS lurches hard portside as something huge and very, very unfriendly sounding SLAMS into the outer hull like Godzilla trying to break fu- I mean, very very fu- Oh fuuuuuckity fu- I mean, well, you get the fu- I mean picture.

Rose lets out a shriek that would make a banshee fu- I mean, well, it's best not to fu- I mean, not to dwell upon. Grandma Rose faint dead away again like fu- I mean, very fu- Well, you get the fu- I mean, picture. Doctor Who clutches the railing like a fu- I mean, very desperate climber clinging to a fu- I mean, very precarious ledge.

"Rose darling!" Grandma Rose wails fu- I mean, yells from somewhere on the fu- I mean, floor. "Rosebud darling fu- I fu- We fu- Fuuuu-"

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! The TRNADIS rocks like fu- I mean, a very fu- I mean, VERY fu- Rose Mary Mother of God fu- I fu- Fuuuuuckity fu- I fu- Fuuuuuu-

<B>GENERATION 2:</B>

My name's Sarah Connor, I'm just your average teenage girl out for a birthday dinner with my old man at the revolving restaurant on top of Toronto's most famous landmark - The CN Tower. It's supposed to be a special night but nothing ever goes according to plan anymore, does it?

Dad and I step off the glass elevator into the revolving pod restaurant called "360 degree" (yeah, they really went deep with that punny name). Immediately my senses are assaulted from all sides - clinking glasses, raucous laughter booming off the chrome surfaces everywhere, sizzling steaks on the grill wafting mouth-watering smells. And of course there's the view - a dizzying 360 degree panorama of Toronto sprawled out below our feet like a giant Lego city.

"Happy birthday, munchkin," Dad says, giving me a big bear hug that lifts me off my feet. He sets me down and ruffles my hair like I'm still 5 years old instead of nearly sweet 16. Ugh, dads.

"Dad!" I whine, trying to smooth down my newly styled birthday hairdo. "I said no hats or party hats or anything embarrassing tonight!"

"That's because you're such a grumpy pants lately," he teases with a wink as we head inside the revolving glass sphere. "Lighten up, it's your birthday for Christ's sake!"

"Exactly why I don't wanna deal with any of your usual dad-joke shit," I grumble, but I can't keep the smile off my face. It's hard to stay annoyed when you're so high above the clouds literally on cloud nine with your favorite person in the whole wide world.

We get seated at a window table overlooking the glittering city lights and the dark expanse of Lake Ontario stretching out into the horizon. I gaze out at the stars twinkling like diamonds in the indigo dusk sky and feel my heart swell almost painfully in my chest. Happy tears prickle the corners of my eyes.

"Sarah?" Dad asks, concern edging into his voice as he notices my glassy expression. "Are you okay, pumpkin? You okay?"

"No, no I'm fine!" I assure him quickly, wiping away a rogue tear. "I just...God, I love you so much," I choke out, suddenly overwhelmed with emotion. "Thank you for this night. For always being here for me, even when I'm a total bitch."

"Hey watch the language young lady," Dad scolds half-jokingly as he pulls me into another crushing hug right there at the table in front of God and everyone. I bury my face in his chest and sob brokenly into his crisp white shirt.

"I love you too, Sarah," he mumbles into my hair, voice thick with barely restrained emotion. "More than words can say. You're my everything."

I cling to him like a drowning man clinging to a raft as the room spins around us and the restaurant and the city lights all blur together into a kaleidoscope of color and sound. I never want this moment to end. I never want to let go.

WHUMP! The entire pod shakes violently, sending glasses shattering on the floor. Screams pierce the air as a tidal wave of champagne and shards of glass spray everywhere. I'm thrown bodily from my chair onto the hard tile floor.

"What the fu-?" I hear Dad roar somewhere behind me before there's another deafening BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! followed by the sickening sound of breaking glass shattering everywhere like a million panes of stained glass exploding at once.

"Everybody down!" A deep baritone bellows above the bedlam. "Get the fuck down now!" 

I scramble to my feet, vision swimming double, and stagger drunkenly toward Dad's familiar frame hunched over a table, shielding a screaming woman with his broad back like a human shield. More glass shatters overhead as something huge crashes through the skylight above, raining shards down like liquid fire on our upturned faces.

"DAD!" I scream hysterically, pushing through the stampede of panicked diners stampeding for the emergency stairs. Someone - no, something - lands heavily behind me with a meaty THUNK! I spin around and freeze mid-stride, mouth agape in shock horror.

It's like something straight out of a fucking nightmare come to life. Towering over us like an avenging angel of doom is the most terrifyingly gorgeous man I've ever laid eyes on - and trust me, I've laid eyes on my fair share. He has to be at least 6'4" of rippling muscle and cold steel, all bulging biceps and washboard abs flexing under a tight black tank top drenched in blood and god knows what else. His face is a mask of cold, merciless beauty - angular planes and chiseled jaw clenched tight with barely leashed fury. But it's his eyes that really get you right in the solar plexus and twist like barbed wire.

They're completely, utterly soulless - dead black pits like twin abyss staring out of a face too perfect to be real. A mannequin come to life to hunt and kill without remorse or mercy.

He turns those soulless, souless eyes on me and I nearly piss myself right there on the spot. My bowels turn to water ice in my veins. He takes one step toward me and I'm running before my brain even registers the command.

"DAD!" I shriek again as I vault over a knocked over table, chair legs clattering like bones under my sneakers. I don't look back but I can hear the heavy thud THUD THUD of those boots hitting tile behind me, relentless as a freight train barreling down the tracks.

"Sarah!" Dad bellows somewhere behind me, voice swallowed up in screams and shattering glass. "Get the fuck out of here now!"

"No! I won't leave you!" I scream back, tears blinding my vision as I blindly stumble toward the emergency stairs. I hit the heavy steel door at a dead run and bounce off it like a pinball, stars exploding behind my eyelids. I'm vaguely aware of someone - no, something - slamming into the barrier behind me with a sound like Mount Everest imploding.

I feel rather than hear a low growl rumbling up from somewhere deep in that chest cavity behind me - feral, predatory, hungry. I scrabble franticly at the locked door handle with shaking hands slick with blood - God please let it open, please please please -

Click! It yields and I'm tumbling down the narrow metal stairs like a human pinball, my ass hitting every goddamn step on the way down. I land hard at the bottom in a graceless heap of tangled limbs and skinned knees and bloody palms. It doesn't matter. Nothing matters except getting the fuck out of here alive.

"Daddy!" I sob brokenly as I stagger to my feet, vision double again. Everything's spinning like a fucking carnival ride gone haywire. The sound of something huge and very, very pissed off crashing through multiple tons of reinforced steel and bulletproof glass makes my hair stand straight up on end.

Run Sarah run run run run runnnnnggggghhhh!

I don't remember how I get out of that death trap of a tower alive but I'm pretty sure the entire Canadian Armed Forces and half of Toronto's finest were waiting at ground zero with riot gear and uzis drawn when I finally burst out into the blessed cool night air gulping it like oxygen.

"You okay, sweetheart?" A kind face swims double vision into focus. Badge says "Constable Brown". His voice is a low, soothing rumble like warm honey. "Sarah? Are you hurt anywhere darlin'?"

"No no I'm fine I'm fine I'm fine I'm fine I'm fine I'm fine I'm fine I'm fine I'm fine I'm fine I'm fine I'm fine I'm fine I'm fine I'm fine I'm fine I'm fine I'm fine I'm fine I'm fine I-"

"Easy there, easy now. Deep breath in, all the way out," Constable Brown coaxes gently, big hands clamping down on my shaking shoulders. "That's it, that's it. You're safe now darlin'. You're safe. You're safe."

I want to believe him so goddamn bad but I can still hear their screams echoing in my skull like a fucking horror movie stuck on repeat. I can still smell the blood and cordite and ozone choking the air. I can still see his face, all cold steel and dead, soulless eyes boring into my brain like hot pokers.

I can't stop shaking. I can't get warm. I'll never be warm again.

"Daddy," I whimper brokenly into Constable Brown's crisply ironed blue shirt as the first sirens wail in the distance like the fucking four horsemen of the Apocalypse come to take us all down to hell where we belong.

---

<B>

Using the following "story idea" below, write the first scene in the novel introducing the young woman. This scene should start in the middle of the action, include dialog, vivid passages, and end on a cliffhanger relevant to the story idea but it should also be unexpected. The scene should be 1000 words long and escalate in conflict and suspense and be written in first person, present tense with the point of view character being the young woman.

Story idea:
In a world ruled by dictatorship, a rebel young woman leads a rebellion against the system. Despite the risks, she fights to overthrow the dictator and restore democracy to her country. The government executes her for treason, but she sticks to her beliefs and is responsible for starting the revolution.

</B>

<B>3800 tokens</B>

I heard the heavy metal bars slam shut behind me, echoing through the dank stone corridor like a death knell. In a way, I suppose it was. Because once those cell doors sealed tight, there was no escape - not for traitors like me.

I sat down hard on the damp straw-strewn floor, back pressed against the cold stone wall, and wrapped my tattered gray prison robe tighter around my shivering frame. The cell was pitch black, save for a sliver of dim gray light that seeped in from beneath the heavy iron door. But I didn't need any light to see this dank tomb clearly. Every nook and cranny was forever seared into my memory.

I closed my eyes tight against the hot sting of unshed tears. No. I wouldn't cry. Not now, not here, not for them. They had taken enough already. My family. My friends. My entire life, ripped away piece by piece until nothing remained but this hollowed-out husk of a girl.

A broken toy they thought they could easily discard once played out. How naive they were. Did they really think a few months in this hellhole would break my spirit? That I would emerge broken, begging for mercy?

I let out a bitter laugh that bounced off the stone walls until it vanished into nothingness. If anything, this place had only honed my hate to a razor edge sharper than any blade ever forged.

And oh, how I dreamed of slicing through their throats with it one slow, savoring cut at a time. Until I bathed in the warm crimson spray of their lifeblood spilled across the cold stone floor like the finest vintage wine.

I inhaled deeply, savoring the coppery tang of blood that still hung heavy in the air - an eternal stain that no amount of bleach could ever fully wash clean. The stench of suffering permeated these very walls, seeped into my bones marrow-deep.

I welcomed it like an old friend's embrace. Because I had learned here that pain was simply another weapon to wield against them. And I was a quick and most willing student indeed.

The first few times they beat the truth from my broken lips with their iron fists and hot brands, I thought I couldn't endure one more lash across my already shredded back. But they had underestimated something - I had nothing left to lose. Nothing at all that could ever be taken away again.

So I smiled through bloody teeth as they worked me over until I was a mewling, twitching ruin. Until my own screams sounded distant and far away, like someone else's agony echoing down a long dark tunnel.

That's when something inside of me snapped like a dry branch splintering under too much weight. And in its place blossomed this cold, serene core of untouchable ice at the very center of my being.

They could break my body in a thousand ways, but never, ever again would they touch my unbreakable spirit. That was mine alone, and I would guard it with my last ragged breath if need be.

And God help any fool who tried to pry it loose from my cold, dead fingers. Because I would drag them all straight to hell with me smiling the whole way down.

I heard the clink of shackles and heavy boots echoing closer on the flagstones outside. My muscles tensed instinctively even as my heart began to pound a staccato drumbeat against my ribcage. I inhaled deeply through my nose, trying desperately to slow my racing pulse before they could scent my fear like vultures circling carrion.

I had to control myself. Control was the only power I still possessed in this godforsaken hole. And I would not squander it now when I was so close...so close I could almost taste victory on my tongue.

The sound of metal scraping against metal screeched like fingernails on a chalkboard as the slot in the heavy iron door swung open with a clang that reverberated through my very teeth. I didn't flinch, didn't even glance up from my study of the cracks in the worn stone floor beneath my bare feet.

"On your feet, filth!" a gravelly male voice barked out. "The honoredancellor requests your presence post haste."

I slowly rose to my feet, joints protesting the unfamiliar stretch of unused muscles. I rolled my neck from side to side, relishing the sickening pop as vertebrae realigned with a satisfying crunch. I was going to enjoy breaking every single one of these bastards personally before I was done.

With my chains dragging heavily behind me like anchors around my ankles, I shuffled forward until my shackled hands touched the cool metal grate. I pressed my face close, inhaling the stale mix of sweat and desperation that seeped out from the other side.

I knew every inch of this goddamn prison by heart now. Every trick turn in these labyrinthine catacombs beneath the Citadel fortress. I had mapped it all out in excruciatingly painful detail, one agonizing inch at a time as they dragged me back and forth for "interrogations."

I smiled slow and wickedly at my own private joke. If anything could be called an interrogation, that was certainly it alright. Too bad for them I hadn't given them shit beyond my name, rank and prisoner ID number. And even that last bit of information had been ripped from my bloody lips with pliers.

"What a pleasure it is to see you again, Commander," I drawled sarcironically, drawing out the formal title like something rotten on my tongue. "To what do I owe the distinct honor of your esteemed presence this fine day? Come to beat some more answers out of me, darling?"

I could almost hear his teeth grinding together through the grate, picturing the vein pulsing madly in his temple. Good. Let him stew in his impotent rage for a bit longer.

"You filthy whore," he growled low and vicious, like a rabid dog straining at its leash. "You think I won't tear your tongue out through your arse and fuck you with the bloody stump? I'll show you what happens to smart mouthed bitches who don't know their place!"

I threw back my head and laughed until tears of mirth streamed down my filthy cheeks. That did it. The sound of my unhinged laughter finally snapped something inside him.

The slot slammed shut with a sickening clang that reverberated through my entire body like the tolling of a funeral bell. And then all hell broke loose on the other side of that thick iron door.

I pressed my ear close, straining to catch every obscenity-laden epithet spat out between meaty blows landing hard and fast against something soft and yielding. The wet tearing of flesh and the sickening crunch of breaking bones.

And through it all, over the agonized screams of a man being worked over until there was nothing left but a twitching sack of meat, I could still hear that high, girlish laughter rising and falling in shrill peaks of hysteria.

My God. It was my own voice coming out of that broken doll's mouth on the other side of that door. That keening, shrieking sound belonged to me.

To us.

And in that moment, I finally understood the truth that had eluded me for so long. There never had been an "us" or "we." Not really. There was only ever one of me here all along. One fractured, splintered shard of a shattered mirror reflecting endlessly back on itself until I couldn't even begin to untangle fact from fiction anymore.

I was the only one in this tomb. Had been all along. The rebels outside were nothing more than a fever dream concocted by my fractured mind. A desperate last, gasp of defiance before I finally succumbed to the darkness.

But if that was true, then what did any of it even matter anymore? Did I ever really exist beyond the confines of my own deranged psyche?

The screams abruptly cut off mid-shriek, replaced by an oppressive, suffocating silence thick enough to choke on. I pressed my forehead hard against the cold stone wall and prayed with all my remaining strength for sweet oblivion to take me then and there.

To just let the blessed blackness swallow me whole like Jonah into the belly of that great whale and never, ever spit me out again. Because I would rather die here alone in this tomb of my own making than live one more goddamn second as a broken plaything for their twisted amusements.

I closed my eyes tight, willing myself to just...let go. To surrender myself up to the void's siren song of nothingness promising such sweet release. Just one last step and I would be free...

The cell door burst open behind me with an ears-de splitting boom that shook dust loose from the rafters. Heavy boots rang out like thunder on the flagstones as they charged forward, a pack of hounds baying for blood.

"On your knees, bitch!" a familiar voice boomed out, cold and merciless as arctic ice. "Now, before I fucking drag you there myself."

I didn't even bother to turn around. What was the point? I knew whose voice that belonged to without even seeing his face. I would recognize that cold, clipped cadence in my sleep.

No, strike that. I did recognize it in my sleep. Because these days, I wasn't even sure where dreams ended and reality began anymore.

I slowly knelt down onto the filthy stone floor like a good girl, bowing my head low as was expected of such lowly scum as myself. I could feel their eyes boring into the nape of my neck like hot brands, stripping away every layer of my tattered defenses until nothing remained but raw, quivering nerve.

"Look at me," the voice commanded coldly from above.

I lifted my head slowly, meeting those pale, ice-blue eyes dead-on. They glittered with a cold, souless fury that made my blood run colder than any arctic blizzard.

"Commander," I acknowledged flatly, my voice hoarse from disuse. "What an... unexpected pleasure this is."

His lips curled in a cruel approximation of a smile that didn't even touch those cold, merciless eyes. "Oh, I doubt that very much indeed, traitor scum." He leaned forward until his face was mere inches from mine, close enough to taste the acrid tang of stale smoke and expensive brandy on his breath.

"I'm here to extend a final...invitation from our esteemed Chancellor himself," he purred silkily. "Swear fealty to the glorious New Order on bended knee right here, right now, in front of all these fine, upstanding citizens of ours..." He waved a dismissive hand behind him at nothingness.

"...And I may...perhaps...possibly consider sparing your worthless hide from a very slow and very public execution come sunrise."

My heart stopped dead in my chest for one long, agonizing beat. And then began to pound again like a jackhammer trying to burst free of my ribcage.

He couldn't be serious. He couldn't actually mean to...to...

I swallowed hard past the thick, choking lump of bile rising up into my raw, abused throat. Because I knew what he was really offering me here, cloaked in all that flowery, courtly bullshit.

An choice, really. A bullet to the brain stem or a nice long, slow roasting alive on a public pyre for the entire city's entertainment. With the added bonus of watching them flay the skin from my living, screaming bones inch by excruciating inch until there was nothing left but a mewling sack of bloody meat for the vultures to pick apart.

It would be a very...spectacular send-off indeed. One they would still be whispering about in shocked whispers around the hearth fires for generations to come.

I almost laughed at the sick, perverse poetry of it all. The great rebel queen brought low indeed. All that defiance and fire reduced to nothing more than a broken toy for their amusement until the very end.

But then I caught a flash of something flicker deep in those cold, arctic eyes - a fleeting, feral hunger that made my blood run colder than an arctic blizzard. And I finally understood his game here.

Oh, no. He wouldn't grant me such a merciful death. Not even at the very end. It would be far too quick, too painless for his tastes. No, he wanted to savor every last agonized scream wrenched from my lips as they peeled my hide off layer by layer until I was nothing more than a shrieking, twitching ruin.

And then, when I thought I could endure no more torment...then maybe, just maybe he would grant me that final absolution of oblivion. But not before he had wrung out every last drop of my suffering like the nectar from a crushed grape.

He wanted to break me down into the very marrow of my soul, until there was nothing left of the defiant girl who once stared down the barrels of a firing squad without flinining. Until I was nothing more than a broken toy for their twisted amusements indeed.

And God help me, but part of me wanted that sweet release like a junkie craved one last hit of that glorious white powder. Just to let go and float away on a tide of blissful nothingness until there was no more pain, no more anything at all forevermore...

I blinked hard, trying desperately to clear the red haze of agony and exhaustion from my addled brain. Focus, you fool girl! I screamed at myself savagely inside my own head. Don't give that twisted bastard the satisfaction of watching you break apart piece by goddamn piece for his sick amusement!

I inhaled deeply through my nose, trying to slow my hammering heart rate. Inhale. Exhale. Nice and slow. I could do this. I had endured far worse than any of the depraved torments those sadistic bastards could ever dream up between these dank walls.

And if I couldn't even endure a few more hours of agony for what I believed in...then I didn't deserve the privilege of dying with my head held high as a true revolutionary should. Like a lioness stalking into the jaws of her own demise with nothing but defiance burning in her eyes.

I slowly rose to my feet, muscles shaking and protesting the strain, chains clinking like death knells on the flagstones beneath my bare feet. I locked gazes with those cold, merciless eyes boring into me like twin ice picks, unflinching.

"No," I said simply, clearly, enunciating every letter as if speaking to a particularly dull-witted child. "I think I'll decline your kind...invitation today, Commander."

Something dark and feral flashed across his face - a split second of pure, unbridled shock that was gone as quickly as it came, replaced once more by that smooth mask of cold detachment.

"Pity," he murmured low and silkily. He took one step forward and then another until he loomed over me like the grim reaper himself come to collect a long overdue debt.

"I did try to warn you, little birdie," he crooned almost...sorrowfully. As if it truly pained his black heart to have to do what came next. "But alas..."

His fist lashed out faster than snake striking and connected hard across my jaw with a sickening crack that echoed through the cell like a gunshot. Stars exploded behind my eyelids as I slammed hard onto the flagstones, vision swimming red around the edges.

I dimly registered the clink of metal chains hitting stone as heavy boots surrounded me on all sides, cutting off any hope of escape. A boot came down hard on my chest, pinning me flat to the floor like a butterfly specimen skewered to a board.

I inhaled sharply through my nose, trying desperately to fill my lungs with air past the agony exploding behind my eyes. I could taste blood coppery on my tongue, feel hot rivulets trickling down my chin to pool sticky on the cold stones beneath me.

"So be it then," Commander Zarek murmured almost regretfully from very far away above. "If you insist on kneeling before a different kind of chancellor indeed..."

Something hard and unyielding pressed hard against the nape of my neck, metal cold enough to burn my skin even through my ragged hair. I didn't even bother to glance up to confirm what I already knew resided at the other end of that barrel. It would make no difference now.

Commander Zarek sighed heavily from somewhere very far away, like a weary father forced to discipline an especially recalcitrant child one too many times past all patience and reason.

"Then so be it," he murmured flatly, devoid of any hint of emotion whatsoever. "May the void have mercy on your filthy soul in the hells that await traitors like you indeed."

I closed my eyes tight, waiting for the blessed release of oblivion to finally take me home to that sweet, merciful nothingness I had craved for so very long indeed.

But it never came.

Instead, I heard only the metallic click of a cocked hammer being released with a sound as final as a tombstone sealing shut forevermore.

