prompt: Write a story about a family in the 1600s who are banished from their plantation due to the father's dissent from Puritan dogma and settle in the wilderness, where they are tormented by a supernatural entity and accused by each other of witchcraft.
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chosen.content: Write a story about a family in the 1600s who are banished from their plantation due to the father's dissent from Puritan dogma and settle in the wilderness, where they are tormented by a supernatural entity and accused by each other of witchcraft.
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chosen.content: The year was 1630, in New England. A small community stood huddled together at the inner workings of a courtroom; their faces bore the lines and wrinkles of deep concern, and their fists were clenched in conviction. A man named William stood before the judges, his once-neutral expression now twisted as he broke free and yelled in defiance.
  
  "What say you to that?"
  
  William, once a servant of the church, had developed strong dissensions from the mainstream Puritan dogma. He refused to retract his questions and was now being banished from the plantation as a consequence.
  
  "Get hence, or your perversions shall be met with whippings. Take your proud wife Catherine and get from here," the judge intoned.
  
  William, alongside his wife Katherine and their four children - Thomasin, Caleb, Mercy, and Jonas - gathered their belongings and loaded them onto a cart. Mirroring the family's grim anticipation, the sky wept great droplets as they journeyed along the muddy ground to the heart of the wild.
  
  The family settled onto a desolate plot of land in front of a deep forest. Slowly, the heavy log walls of their home rose, encircling the family like a fort. Time passed, the children grew, and Katherine's womb was once more filled with new life.
  
  One day, Thomasin, the eldest child, held her baby brother Samuel at the edge of the forest, cooing a song to him as she played a game of peek-a-boo with her hand. Her fingers carelessly slid away from the infant's face, and in that split second of distraction, he disappeared. Panicked, Thomasin scoured the perimeters of the clearing, her green eyes wide and frantic.
  
  Meanwhile, Samuel found himself in the clutches of a terrifying figure: a raven-haired witch who dug her gnarled fingers into his flesh. The other witches gathered around, muttering incantations as their sister ground the infant's body into a grotesque paste, spreading it onto her own decomposing skin. Upon this horrific deed, the witches transformed; their wrinkles smoothed, and they regained a grotesque form of youth and vitality.
  
  Grief-stricken, the family prayed solemnly for the lost child, convulsing in a shared righteous fury at their plight. Soon enough, the days wore on and so too did the anguish, until it was once more overshadowed by the harsh struggles of their lives on the farm.
  
  One day, as the family prepared to venture into the woods to hunt for food, Thomasin tried to don an authoritative air in order to control her clamorous siblings. Mercy, the youngest sister, called Thomasin a witch and accused her of taking Samuel. Thomasin, eager to douse her sister's rebukes, played along, threatening her young sister with a terrifying visage.
  
  Later, as William led Caleb into the heart of the forest to hunt, Katherine's despair swelled as she ransacked the house for an heirloom that went missing - a nearly spiritual symbol of their status: a cup of silver. Her grief-stricken mind leapt to conclusions, believing that her oldest daughter Thomasin had taken the cup.
  
  That night, Caleb was lured deeper into the woods, captured by the malevolent witch that once inhabited the forest edge. His family frantically searched for him as rain poured, drenching their skin and weighing down their despair. Upon finding his beaten, disheveled form amidst the thick brambles, Caleb began to convulse in a fit of supernatural possession. Spittle flew from his lips as he repeated unholy chants and blasphemies.
  
  "Black Phillip, ye know Him?"
  
  Caleb writhed, and played a perverse utterance of divine hymns and corruptive chants.
  
  As Caleb's condition worsened, William's farm was assailed by the supernatural forces of the witches. Their crops refused to grow in the poisoned soil, and their remaining goat, Black Phillip, began to exhibit a sinister consciousness all its own. The family, still gripped by the loss of their youngest brother, was now divided by both dearth and resentment.
  
  Worse still was the revelation of the silver cup's true whereabouts when Katherine confronted William about it. "My father gave this cup to us, and thou hast traded away my father's love for a few measly traps!" Katherine sobbed. William tried to reassure her, but his rationality fell on deaf ears.
  
  In the midst of the continuing calamity, William was haunted by his past life of prosperity lost because of his own folly, and Katherine by her motherly failures.
  
  Night fell, and once more the family huddled under one roof. In the early hours, the witch returned, lauded by Black Phillip, and claimed Caleb. Wracked by demonic-inflicted seizures, Caleb succumbed to the witch's vile curse and all hope seemed to be extinguished.
  
  Now desperate for a scapegoat to alleviate their heavy burden of guilt and loss, the family turned their suspicion towards Thomasin. As tension between the family members mounted, in a fit of zealous paranoia, her parents locked their own children in the pens next to Black Phillip, knowing they would likely starve if the hooves or witches did not seize them first.
  
  As nightfall enveloped the farm, the remaining children, Jonas, and Mercy, desperately pleaded with the diabolical Black Phillip, calling out for the demon's aid as they had seen their brother do. A bloodthirsty spirit escaped the goat's body and stole through the barn with the force and speed of a tempest wind.
  
  One by one, the remaining family members met their gruesome fate. William was gored by Black Phillip, his bloody husk dragged across their land and into his doom. Katherine was dragged from her sanctuary by an otherworldly witch and throttled into darkness.
  
  Emaciated and fed only by her lingering fever, Thomasin found her family dead on the farm. Their dwelling torn apart by tooth and claw, as fragments of themselves lay scattered across the devastated landscape, there was no safety left for her. Only Black Phillip remained, his eyes cunning and enticing.
  
  Thomasin approached the creature, trembling as she sought her last chance at salvation. Black Phillip's voice pierced the silence: "What dost thou want?"
  
  "I want to live deliciously," Thomasin declared. The words seemed to spout poison from her lips, the promise of a life free from her sin-riddled ancestry.
  
  "Then take my hand and sign your name in my book," Black Phillip whispered seductively, promising her the world.
  
  Thomasin, her soul already worn threadbare by long-hidden truths and shattered covenants, took the devil's bargain in her desperation. Death fell upon her heart, and she joined the witches in their forgotten depths of the forest.
  
  As naked as the day she was born, she wandered into a midnight meadow and glimpsed a sight reserved for infidels and monsters: a witch's Sabbath. The haggard witches danced frenetically around a great burning pyre. The cackling laughter of the elderly, the piercing shrieks of the young, and the growls of hungry beasts reverberated through the trees, reminding Thomasin of her past at the beginning of the world's end.
  
  Thomasin stood at the edge of the conflagration, her soul irrevocably bound to Black Phillip and the witch's coven. As her body levitated into the air, freedom washed over her like the night breeze, carrying with it all the bitter sorrows and truths of human darkness.
rejected.role: system
rejected.content: A chat.
rejected.role: user
rejected.content: Write a story about a family in the 1600s who are banished from their plantation due to the father's dissent from Puritan dogma and settle in the wilderness, where they are tormented by a supernatural entity and accused by each other of witchcraft.
rejected.role: assistant