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[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": " Bored and fed up, you jokingly ask Google \"OK Google, find me another reality\", your phone pings and gives you directions to a clearing in a nearby forest", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "It had been a slow day overall at the call centre for Sandra, which translated to mindbending amounts of boredom. How were you supposed to be productive when no-one called? You couldn’t even browse the internet!\n\nAt least the lunch break was around the corner, staggered of course, to minimise the chance of contact between employees; corporate was hysterically afraid of them unionising.\n\nHer lunch box in hand Sandra strolled out of the call centre, cleaned her glasses until her cell had a signal, and then asked her digital assistant in a pique of petulance: “Please, find me another reality!” She did not expect an answer, but wasn’t too surprised when she got one—the DA’s manufacturer were notorious for the number of easter eggs they put into their products.\n\n“Huh, only a ten minute walk.” She looked at the watch. There were still another 35 before she’d need to be back at her desk. Well, who *wouldn’t* you go on a small lunch time adventure? Boing people, that’s who!\n\n‘Walk ahead for 50 meters.’\n\n“Well, that’s easy enough.”\n\n‘Take the next left.’\n\n“Will do!”\n\n‘Take the next left.’\n\n“Okay!”\n\n‘Take the next left.’\n\n“Again? Well, if that’s the route…”\n\n‘Take the next left.’\n\n“Huh, shouldn’t lead me this almost back to where I started?”\n\n‘Take the next left.’\n\n“…I feel like I’m being had here.” Sandra wasn’t sure if she should follow the instructions. She’d read about people who had followed their GPS’s instructions blindly and driven off a pier. She looked around, but didn’t recognise the buildings.\n\nIn fact, she couldn’t even see her office building anymore, even though it had stood out like a sore thumb in this little boring piece of suburban concrete jungle. Instead the buildings had made way for more colourful houses, only one or two storeys tall, that reminded her of photographs she’d seen of more rural european housing, of villages that had grown over centuries, not like a town planned and zoned on a drawing board.\n\nConfused by this unusual neighbourhood Sandra looked on her phone’s screen. She’d walked barely five minutes.\n\n“Huh. Guess I should go exploring more often.”\n\n‘Follow the path for 200 yards.’ \n\nMore aware of her surroundings now, she paid more attention as she walked and noted how the cutesy village houses petered out until only the footpath she walked on remained.\n\n‘At the upcoming fork, take the right path and you have reached your goal.’\n\nWith the end in her sight, Sandra continued briskly on. She was surprised that her GPS knew this footpath, that got increasingly overgrown, but this close she was loath to give up. She walked sideways, using her free hand to make way for the rest of her body. She pushed through a curtain of leaves and vines hanging down from above.\n\nBefore her lay a verdant valley, sun high above a glistening waterfall. She could hear the muted roar from the falling water, the sounds of the thick forest and the songbirds around her twittering their hearts out.\n\n‘You have reached your destination.’\n\nSandra looked down on the parchment in her hand. On it was a map, indicating the location of nearby sights like the waterfall—it apparently had a small lake at its bottom that was currently hidden by the canopy, and a cave behind the waterfall itself. A few lines seemed to indicate streets connecting villages far in the distance, or at least she thought so, since there were two small columns of smoke rising in roughly the directions the map indicated.\n\nThe small o of wonder at these sights made way for growing grin.\n\nHesitantly, Sandra pushed up her glasses and saw that she was, in fact, still in suburbia, had actually entered a designated a lot set aside for various VR exploratory environments, but as she dropped her glasses back onto the bridge of her nose, the vista and her smile returned.\n\nSandra couldn’t wait to explore this easter egg for herself.\n\n————\n\n**Easter came early** (664 words)\n\n...sorry I got all scifi over your fantasy ^^;", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": " Whenever someone is murdered, their remaining lifespan is added to their murderer's. One day, the friend you have just recently met invites you over to his 731st birthday.", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "\"So you're a killer, I take it?\" I said. \n\nHe looked at me and smiled sinisterly.\n\n\"What do you think? How else would I have gained all these years?\"\n\n\"You could be lying,\" I said. \"You could be only 25. You don't look older than that. How do I know you're actually 731?\"\n\n\"Come with me,\" he said. He stood up and I followed him through his mansion downstairs, and then into the basement. In the basement there was a huge steel safe door with a number of combination locks. He patiently twisted the dials. Eventually the door clicked. He lifted the door-bar, turned the handle, and opened the door. \n\n\"Come,\" he said, walking through.\n\nI followed after him. It was another staircase, leading down, farther down, deep beneath his house. It spiralled gradually deeper and deeper into the Earth.\n\n\"This is quite the set up,\" I said.\n\n\"Yes,\" he said, absentmindedly. \"Yes it is.\"\n\nAfter about five minutes of descent we got to the bottom of the staircase. There was another safe-door, but this one had only a keyhole. He took a key from his pocket and inserted it into the lock. *Click.* The door opened. We stepped into the dark room.\n\n\"Lights,\" he said. \n\nDim lights clicked on, revealing a room, half torture chamber, half private museum. \n\n\"Which would you like to see first?\" he asked. \"My memorabilia, the tokens I have collected from time long since lost to the oblivion of history--ancient manuscripts, weapons from glorious wars waged in the names of forgotten gods, paintings that have been recorded as missing for hundreds of years--or the means by which I extract the life from my unfortunate victims?\"\n\n\"Jesus,\" I said, looking around.\n\n\"I do not believe you will find *him* here,\" he said smirking. He closed the door behind us.\n\nHe walked over to the side littered with artifacts.\n\n\"These first,\" he said.\n\nHe picked up a glass container.\n\n\"This,\" he said, \"is a lock of hair from the first man I ever killed. He was a sorcerer, I was his apprentice, and he was the man who taught me that by killing I would steal the remaining life from my victim. Murdering him gave me 150 extra years. I keep this token in remembrance of how much I owe to him.\"\n\n\"And this,\" he said, picking up a scrap of cloth, \"is from the dress of Marie Antoinette. I was one of the shearsmen, operating the national razor during the French Revolution. I had hoped such employment would gain me a great many years, and legally. However, it was not to be. It seemed that fate had destined the nobel Frenchmen and women I killed to die regardless of whether or not I operated the guillotine. If not me, someone else would have killed them. I cut the heads from the necks of one hundred and fourteen people in two weeks, and only gained an extra 10 years for my efforts.\"\n\n\"And this,\" he said, picking up a bayonetted rifle, \"this is from the American Revolutionary war, in which I fought. Again, the men I killed in battle gained me little in the way of extra life. They were doomed to bite the bullet regardless of whether I was the triggerman. But this weapon served me well after the war. I have killed three men with it since. It sounds sentimental, but it is my favourite weapon to kill with.\"\n\nHe pointed the rifle at me, and smiled.\n\n\"It still works, too. Isn't that amazing? American ingenuity and manufacturing. None like it anywhere else in the world. Look down that barrel.\"\n\nI took the barrel in my hand, leaned forward, and looked down it.\n\n\"It's a fine weapon,\" I said.\n\n\"Fine indeed,\" he said.\n\nI let go and he lowered the gun.\n\n\"So, my young friend,\" he said, wistfully. \"I believe it is time for our celebrations to come to an end. Every great occasion deserves its finale. And the finale to this great occasion, my birthday, it appears, will transpire in this, my subterranean room of collectables.\"\n\n\"Young man?\" I said. \"Did you call me a young man? You who were not even alive to see Christ nailed to the cross? You who never helped to push the first building stones into place in Sumer, one among the Sumerians, first of all civilized peoples? You call me a young man, you who were not there, in the jungle, before civilization's birth, among the hunters and gatherers, scrounging in the shadowy vines for edible plants, throwing spears at wild pigs, and fighting other tribes to death with your bare hands. You call me a young man, yet for each of these I was there. What you learned from a sorcerer some seven hundred years ago, I learned long before that--long before time even began to be recorded. I learned that through blood life is given, and from blood life is taken. Blood for blood. Life for life. And now you will learn something. We did not come to meet by chance. I've followed you for many years. I know of the unspent millennia that course through your veins.\"\n\nI smiled.\n\n\"And I am here to collect them.\"\n\n\"No!\" he shouted as I pulled out my gun.\n\n---\n\nCome be the first to subscribe to my brand new subreddit /r/lalalobsters for more stories!\n\n\n\n", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": " The villain created a device that disabled the superhero's power. Now the hero stands in front of the villain, but instead of fighting them, the hero is thanking the villain with tears in their eyes.", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "Another day. Another fight. Another crisis. Who's responsibility is it? Mine, apparently. I save one person, suddenly it's my job to protect the city. I DON'T EVEN GET FUCKING PAID! I've hit a wall. I can't keep doing this...\n\nI use my powers of energy manipulation to direct the stress away from my brain. It's not as effective as it used to be, but it's enough, at least for now.\n\nI hear a thud behind me. I turn around. A guy in an armoured suit. Mr Metal. Yeah, classy name. I'm too tired for this... before I can say or do anything, however, he shoots something at me. It stings. I fall to my hands and knees, exhausted. I need all the adrenaline I can get... I focus my powers... I focus... and focus... but no energy is flowing in my body. I look up.\n\n\"How do you like *that*, hero?\" Mr Metal sneers. \"Your power is gone! You can't stop me anymore! This town is mine!\"\n\nI lift a hand and look at my palm. I'm powerless... I'm just another citizen... I begin to cry... \"Heh, I knew you were nothing without your powers! I'm going to kill you now! Any last words?\" Mr Metal raises a gun, a regular gun this time.\n\nI muster what little strength I have left to stand up. \"I... I just want to thank you...\"\n\nMr Metal looks at me confused. \"Wait... what did you say?\"\n\n\"We may be adversaries\" I begin, \"but it was never my choice. The public made me. I tried to get out of this... all of it... but once people know you, you *never* get out the spotlight... you do what you do for fun... I do what I do out of force... I know you want a town of prisoners and slaves... I don't care. Maybe I would have, if THEY cared. I'm just a pawn in their game. Let's see how they like it when it gets real.\"\n\nMr Metal lowers his gun, looking me in the eyes. He then bursts into a cackle. \"You're serious, aren't you? Well, I'll give you a CHOICE then. Leave and never come back, or be my servant boy. I'll tell you right now, I can treat you well, but of course you won't have your freedom.\"\n\n\"When did I *ever* have freedom?\" I chuckle. \"You have crab? I love a good bit of crab.\"\n\n\"Whatever you want\" Mr Metal replies with a wink.\n\nI tilt my head at him. \"Wait, do you-\"\n\n\"I was just about to kill you, remember? I got a girlfriend. By the way, you'll answer to her too.\" His expression is stern.\n\n\"Deal\" I state, and we shake hands.\n\nUpon arriving at his place, a chip is inserted into my wrist. I can't leave with this chip implanted, at least not by myself, but frankly, the smell of a freshly cooked prime rib makes me want to stay anyway.\n\n**A FEW MONTHS LATER**\n\n\"But... you can't... please, I just needed a break!\"\n\n\"Hmm... well I guess I can get a second opinion.\"\n\nI hear the snapping of fingers and appear at Mr Metal's side. I look at the lady before him. \"Ah, I recognise you. Knocking on my door at 3am to a woman telling me that her dog needed the vets is something not easily forgotten.\"\n\n\"Well, I needed *you* to get the vets to open!\" the lady exclaims. \"Listen, you surely don't think I should be punished for taking a break, right?\"\n\n\"Yeah, I agree breaks are important...\" she begins to smile with relief, but I continue. \"Let's see... when did *I* get a break? Maybe the day when the parade happened? Or ANY Christmases? Perhaps the day my BEST FRIEND died?\" I watch her face fall, as realisation dawns on her.\n\n\"I figured as much\" Mr Metal smirks. \"Guards, please imprison her.\" The guards bow and take her away. He then looks at me. \"Sounds like you never had a vacation... you've shown great loyalty to me. I'll have a couple guards take you to Hawaii. No better place to relax!\"\n\nI smile. \"Thank you, sir. That's extremely generous.\"\n\nHe nods, gets up and serves both of us leftover crabsticks from last night. Honour, justice... screw that! Appreciation is much better!\n\n\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\n\nThank you for reading! More stories [here!](https://www.reddit.com/r/StoriesbyCrystal/comments/x374da/oneoff_stories_a_collection_of_stories_which_are/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": "Ultraviolet. The staff gives you a keycard to a private door in the back.", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "Jim sat down his 100lb dumbbells. They were merely his cool-down weights after all, no shame in taking a quick rest before moving over to the chest press. He picked up his energy drink and chugged it as fast as he could. With a loud belch Jim crushed the can confidently and threw it into a nearby bin. \n\nWith his break out of the way Jim begun picking up his bag to move over his gym supplies, but noticed out of the corner of his eye a figure approaching from the right. He turned and eyed a small woman who was grinning from ear to ear. She seemed adamant on getting Jim’s attention with nothing but her smile.\n\n“Uh, yes?” Jim curiously probed. \n\nThe woman reached into her pocket to retrieve a shiny envelope. She looked at it in an almost regretful manner before reaching toward Jim with it.\n\n“What’s this for?”\n\nThe woman cleared her throat, “Your membership has been upgraded, sir.”\n\nJim looked startled, but suddenly started to grin. All Jim knew was that those who had the highest membership statuses were rewarded richly. His workout buddies always tried to deduce what made the best of the best never want to come back after they reached the top. Jim put forward the idea that Ultraviolet level Memberships gave them access to a better gym area downstairs.\n\n“Thank you, miss.” said Jim as he took the envelope and tore it open. Inside was a Membership card with a pearlescent sheen. On its front it read in bold letters:\n\n*Ultraviolet*\n\nJim began to chuckle uncontrollably. He had reached the top. There was nowhere else to go. All his hard work had finally payed off and he actually had something to prove it, besides his gleaming muscles that were hard to maintain.\n\nThe woman continued to stand there, smiling. It unnerved Jim, causing him to stop celebrating. He looked at her. The woman’s eyes seemed unimaginably sorrowful. Jim didn’t know why but wanted to ask.\n\n“Uh, are you okay miss? You are kind of starting to freak me out...”\n\nThe woman retrieved herself from the blank stare and looked back up at Jim...still smiling, “I am just grand, sir! Now as an Ultraviolet Membership owner you are granted access to further *Gym Gains*! As we say here at Energy Exercise ‘The strongest make us stronger, together!’”\n\nJim smirked, “Okay...so where is the secret room? Jim nudged the woman, “Come on...I know you guys have one.”\n\nThe woman continued to smile as she started walking away. She obviously wanted Jim to follow. He quickly gathered his things and walked over to the where the woman stopped. She opened a door that led further into a back room. As she stopped in the room she offered her hand toward Jim.\n\n“Oh, my card. Here, miss.”\n\nThe woman took the card and walked over to a wall. In front of her sat the emblem of Energy Exercise: an Ouroborus.\n\nJim looked over the emblem and pulled out another energy drink. He took a sip and looked down at the woman, “I dunno what that thing is but I come in here everyday between breaks and drink an energy drink while looking at it. There’s one by the treadmills right? I kinda knew it meant something,” Jim leaned down and took another sip, “It’s the secret door isn’t it?”\n\nTurning around the woman stuck a key into the head of the Snake. Suddenly the wall began to twist and turn until a passage opened up. \n\n“Whoa...” exclaimed Jim as he crushed the energy drink in his hand, “This is flippin cool, the boys are going to be so jealous...”\n\nThe woman started walking down the dark path and Jim followed. The path went on for minutes, it was devoid of defining characteristics besides being a light grey of concrete. As Jim got closer to the end a great heat started to overtake him.\n\n“Ugh, what kind of classes do you have down here? Oh wait! Is it a sauna? Please be a sauna!”\n\nTurning around the woman made Jim stop. Looking over her shoulder Jim noticed cans of energy drinks. He begun to smile, “Oh! No way! This is where you guys make the energy drinks? I knew they were made in house but-”\n\nWithout warning Jim felt a great pain in his abdomen. Looking down he noticed a knife plunged deep into his side. He fell over in great pain as he tried to stop the bleeding. \n\nThe woman smiled and stood over him. Her eyes started to form tears. She grabbed the knife and plunged it deeper into Jim’s side causing him to pass out from the pain. A tear fell upon Jim’s sweat stained tank top. The woman rose up and looked over Jim’s body and then toward the energy drinks.\n\nBeyond the stacked cans sat a massive machine. Pipes ran the length of the walls. The woman dragged Jim’s body toward the center of the room and opened a hatch. She kicked Jim’s body into the abyss, sounds of grinding rang throughout the room.\n\nThe woman observed the pipes of the massive machine. They shook as a liquid of some kind filled their hollow frames. Walking over to the end of the machine the woman pressed a button and a can was spat out. It was an energy drink. \n\nA cessation of expression ran across the woman’s face. She took the can and opened it, drinking its contents. “The strongest make us stronger...\n\n...*together*...”\n\n\n\n\nEdit: *Thank you for reading! This was honestly my first go at posting a story I wrote. You all have made me all the more confident on posting more of my stuff in the future.*", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": " You're an astronaut on the first mission to the moon since the 1970's. You begin to dig for samples in the soft sentiment when your shovel hits something soft, yet tough. You brush the dirt away, revealing a dead man in a bloody spacesuit.", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "\"When the moon hits your eyes, like a big-a-pizza pie...\" I hummed as a few small pebbles bounced off my helmet while I dug for the requested samples. \nThe song in my head was cut short as my shovel suddenly hit something different. \n\n\"There shouldn't be anything but regolith here,\" I mumbled and began digging in earnest. A moment later I'd finally uncovered enough to recognize the material. A spacesuit? \n\"John, you'd better get over here quick,\" I announced on the radio. \n\nI'm not sure how long it had taken but I finally was able to start pulling the spacesuit free. And judging by the weight it wasn't empty. \n\"John, there's a body in a spacesuit here!\" \nTurning the suit around I noted that my internal jukebox had already switched to horror theme. And not without reason. \n\nHalf of the spacesuit helmet was gone. Inside the suit was clearly the remains of a man, albeit without most of his head. The insides of the suit were practically painted with blood. I dropped the suit from shock and as the suit slowly fell my eyes turned towards the front of the suit. The old NASA logo. And a name tag with the name: ARMSTRONG. \n\nNeil Armstrong? How? \n\"If Neil Armstrong died here, then who - or what - returned to Earth instead?\" \n\"...usss....\" came a barely audible hiss over the radio. \n\"John?\" \nA chill went down my spine as I bounced towards my rover with maximum speed. After reaching it I hopped on and revved the engines, desperate to reach our landing craft as fast as possible. \n\nAs I crested another hill my eyes fell on another white figure, laying on the ground. \n\"John!\" \nThe rover slid to a halt right beside the familiar spacesuit and my heart fell as I noted the gaping hole where the helmet's face plate had been. \n\nI fell to my knees, and only then noticed another familiar sight. Our landing craft, a lone white blob climbing rapidly away from the Moon's surface. \nA moment later it was no longer alone. Behind it there were hundreds of others, eerily similar in form, racing along the original's path. \n\"We should have never come here,\" I whispered but nothing but the silence of the moon replied.", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": " As you try to fall asleep, the monster that was hiding under your bed slowly crawls out and says \"Dude, I think I heard something coming from downstairs...\", with a slighty concerned voice.", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "As the sky grew darker on that windy summer night, Hud stirred harder in her sleep and the tree branches struck even harder against the window of her room. Her breathing was ragged and sweat dripped down her neck. Something pushed against her back from under the stiff mattress. Her eyes shot open and she muttered a crude swear.\n\nThe monster under her bed pleaded in a voice as smooth as good brandy with a tone as rough as mixed gravel. There was something downstairs, it insisted. It begged her to follow it downstairs to see what the commotion was.\n\nHud poked her head down under the frame and stared at the four-foot long beast. The creatures' yellow eyes sat glowed as the rest of it sat stowed away in the dark shadows cast by a night-light in the corner.\n\nShe bade the beast to calm itself. It might have just been the wind. In fact, it was certainly the wind, she suggested. She had no doubts that it could have been anything but a few tree branches from the top of the oak-tree in her backyard knocking against a window in the kitchen or the living room.\n\nThe beast moved forward towards the girl's head. Its smoky black fur became visible in the gentle glow of the yellow night-light. It was not just hearing things at all, it insisted. It heard nothing at all. It swore that it had instead felt a presence down beneath the stairs. \n\nShe shook her head and asked the creature what that presence could be. Hud had locked all the doors in the downstairs of her house when she got back from school. All the windows were shut and locked as well to keep the bugs out. There was no manner in which any living thing could have intruded upon the home.\n\nThe beast sighed. It might not have been a living thing perhaps, but it could've been an unliving thing. It could've been an abnormal thing. It could be a monster or some unholy aberration in this realm of reality.\n\nHud nodded and asked if it really mattered. Confused, the beast questioned her question. Hud raised her eyebrows and began to explain. The beast listened but its mind was focused on the anxious presence of something downstairs.\n\nIf there had been something below, Hud began, then it must not have been something that meant harm as it has not yet intruded upon the bedroom. In which case, the best approach would be to wait out the something downstairs until it had left.\n\nAssume that the something downstairs had desired treasure or food. Then, it'd be best for Hud and the creature to allow the something to have what it wanted, lest it proves dangerous when confronted.\n\nIn a more curious case, perhaps that something was something pleasant. Such as a wish-granting fairy or some misplaced possession of Hud's. It is now nighttime, a time for rest and sleep. Would it not be better to leave things to be done for the morning or noontime?\n\nThe beast listened. The beast relaxed.\n\nHud stared at the beast and gestured with her thumb towards the window. It is better to stay in the room under all circumstances. Should the something prove dangerous and attempt to intrude upon the room, the window at the side of the room could provide an escape route, as opposed to the locked doors throughout the home, which would delay significant time needed in the case of the threat.\n\nThe beast nodded and withdrew back deeper under the bed. Her words had relaxed the creature, it stated. There seemed to be no more of the presence of something downstairs, it continued. \n\nHud exhaled, for it had been a lengthy explanation. She tucked herself back into the comforts of her sheets and blankets and pillows. But, Hud did not sleep.\n\nThere were three things that now bothered her.\n\nOne, she had now remembered that she had not locked the window in her own bedroom.\n\nShe did not recall locking any of the rooms and windows on the second floor of her home.\n\nTwo, the beast had stated it had no longer detected the presence of its something downstairs. It had not detected the presence of something downstairs.\n\nWhat could've been downstairs, had it been there, was no longer downstairs.\n\nThree, and this bothered Hud the most.\n\nThe beast had insisted that it had heard nothing. Nothing at all. Yet, it was plainly obvious to her ears that for the past hour or so, there had been a tree branch knocking harder and harder against the window of her room for the past hour.\n\nHud turned towards the window of her second-floor bedroom, which was far too tall above the ground to make contact with the branches of an oak tree that poked at her kitchen window downstairs.\n\nIndeed, there was a something, knocking harder and harder against the window, just as Hud had been hearing.\n\nHud screamed.\n\n-----\n\nEDIT: Plot-hole fix.\n", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": " The white house staff sits down for their weekly D&D game.", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "The room was lit dimly, the sombre music added a sense of eeriness to the setting. All faces were turned to the president, looking at him angrily. \n\n\"I said: we can bomb them.\"\n\n\"Mr president we can't just bomb them! They don't even have bombs anywhere in this world!\" Explained the Secretary of Defence, for the third time that evening.\n\n\"What?\" Trump looked around the room, as though it was a shocking thing for his level 1 barbarian to not have bombs. \n\n\"I suggest that we try and talk them out of it.\" Said the Secretary of Education, ignoring the president's accusations.\n\n\"Roll for charisma.\" Replied the GM, Mike Pence, nonchalantly.\n\nThe room winced as the dice hit the table; the president still arguing that he does indeed have bombs. The roll landed on a thirty four. 'So much for that idea' he thought.\n\nThe Vice President chuckled and, holding back a greater laugh, whispered: \"Seems to me like the rabid dogs did not like your attempt at peacekeeping. They rush towards the first person in their sight. That seems to be... ah! Zark. What do you do?\"\n\nThe Secretary of Labour looked at his character sheepishly. Zark was not good at anything in particular and would probably not survive long in a fight against three dogs. \"Can someone come and distract one or two while I tackle the third?\"\n\n\"We could bomb them.\" \n\nThe table erupted in anger: \"please take this seriously Mr president!\" This last one looked around in shock, and reposted:\n\n\"I am taking it very seriously. It seems to me that you just want to die quickly!\" \n\nThe table groaned. It was the third fight they had been though during the night. All were exasperated at the amount of times the president had not understood that he was in a new reality. \"Remind me to never invite him again\" muttered the Secretary of Energy to the Vice President.\n\n\"Ok so who going to save Zark over there?\" The Vice President said, ignoring both the Secretary of Energy and the President. \n\nThe Secretary of Treasury spoke up for the first time in a few minutes, \"I can cast a beast calling spell to attract the dogs.\" Approving gestures came from around the group and his sorcerer, Gary, was well know to save them in time of need. He picked up the dice and rolled them. They landed on zero. Groans came from around the table as the Vice President was well known to use these to kill people off quickly. \n\n\"You do summon something: a dragon.\" The room lay in shock. Was he... helping them? \"It is too powerful for Gary to remain in control. It looks at you menacingly,\" and with an evil smile, he continued: \"what do you do?\"\n\nThe faces turned, looking at each other. They were unqualified to do the mission they had been sent to do, and they were going to pay hell for it. \n\n\"We could still bomb it.\"\n\n(This is my first ever WP. I'll need a bit of improvement and I'll take any advice you can give me :))\n\nEDIT: realised that I could make it a teensy bit better by adding some detail.", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": " Your family has a superpower. They can always do things a fraction of a second faster than their rivals. Your ancestors were gunslingers, but you only find out when your family refuses to let you join an Olympic team.", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "\"Please, mom! You know this has been my dream for such a long time! Why do you keep holding me back?\" I shouted, trying to stop tears from forming. My mom was such a great person. So why, for the one thing I really loved, did she have to fight me? \nShe hesitated, and looked as if she wanted to tell me something. \"Just... please, Hannah, know that this is for your own good. There are so many other good things you can do with your life besides joining the Olympics!\" \nI bit my lip. She wasn't going to budge on this, was she? Still, I fought back. \n\"But this is what I want to do! Not anything else! Why can't you just understand that?\" \nI was ready to hear her rebuttal, but it didn't come. \"Hannah, there's something about our family. Something I should've told you a long time ago.\" \n*What is she talking about?* \n\"Our family was born with a special power. It lets us do things a fraction of a second faster then our rivals. I'm not sure how it originated, but... can you see why I don't want you going to the Olympics? It just wouldn't be fair.\" \nI stared at her. What the hell was she going on about? \"Mom, are you alright? Listen, I'm sorry for yelling at you, but you don't have to make up stories, I'm not a little kid any-\" \n\"No, no! I'm not making up stories, Hannah, I swear. Please. You have to believe me about this.\" \n*This is some anime protagonist power bullshit.* *No way. But I've never seen mom so serious before...* \nAs much as I hated it, the more I thought about, the more it made sense. That time I beat a boy I hated in a race by half a second. The summer I built a paper boat that was a millisecond faster than my best friends'. \nFinally, I said something. \"Mom, don't worry; I believe you. Thanks for telling me.\" \nShe gave me a look of relief and gratefulness. \"Thank you, Hannah. I'm so glad you underst-\" \n\"Now I'll be *even more* unstoppable there!\"", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": " All the soldiers from World War one meet at the gates of hell. They set aside their differences and decide to storm the gates.", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": " Each of the young men had been sent to hell for their actions in war. They’d fought each other, they’d killed each other, they’d followed the orders of their Commanding officers. Those same Commanders who had never set foot in a trench. Never had to live in the stink and the mud. Never had to watch as the dead were nibbled on by the rats. Never had to wait for the whistle that meant they had to leave their only protection and head over the top into no man’s land.  \n\nAnd for their bravery in fighting for their country in the War to end all Wars the young men had been relegated to Hell. They’d been tried in purgatory and each found to have blood on their hands and sent to suffer for eternity.  \n\nTheir commanders who had given the orders that led to millions of deaths had also been tried in purgatory and as there was no blood directly on their hands they’d been sent in the other direction. They got to spend the rest of their deaths in Heaven.  \n\n“We were boys when they sent us to war. We were children sent to the slaughter. They used us as machine gun fodder, they tested gases on us. They made us murder each other, and then we got sent to Hell for it.” He looked out at the sea of faces looking back at him, all of them exactly the same as the day they died, no wrinkles, no grey hairs as they’d all been so young. \n\n“I’d never left Cornwall before they recruited me and sent me to war. They sent me to defend my Country, they sent me to die without a second thought and they condemned me to Hell.” He took in the uniforms of the Men standing before him, each destined to spend eternity in the clothes they’d died in. It was a mixture of English and German, enemies in life united by a single cause in death.  \n\n“We did not grow old as we should have, my wife and children grew old without me. At the going down of the sun and in the morning, we will remember those that made us do this to each other, and we will find them. CHARGEEEEEEE” He ran for the Gates of Hell, hearing the footsteps of the hundreds of thousands of men who ran alongside him.", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": " Suddenly the world ran out of ammo. Every weapon, when pointed to any human, would only shoot harmless confetti, boms and mines turned to dust when activated. This happens everywhere around the world. Modern warfare became impossible within 24 hours. It's like somebody wished for it.", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "\"What do you mean that *nothing* works? How is that possible?\" roared a voice in the next room. \"AND DON'T YOU DARE TELL ME '*THEY JUST DON'T*' ONE MORE TIME!\"\n\nBrigadier General Todd Allen sat motionless in a chair parked just outside of the Oval Office, his hands clasped firmly in his lap and a look of bewilderment glued to his face. His eyes reached out to the President's secretary for some help--some hint of why he had been summoned all the way from Fort Lee--but her worn face was a blank slate.\n\n\"DON'T YOU FUCKING DARE!\" shrieked the voice again, followed by the distinctive sound of a coffee cup smashing against the wall. The office door flung open and two dozen men in uniform came tumbling out like clowns exiting a Volkswagen, all of them senior military officers with far more stars on their shoulders than his own.\n\nHe sprang hastily to his feet and tried to salute, but the crowd had scurried into the exterior hallway before his fingers ever reached his brow. In confusion, his eyes darted back to the opened office door and the man now looming in the center of it. \"Come in and sit,\" the President of the United States barked, and the lowly general did as his commander-in-chief ordered.\n\nInside, the office looked like it had been struck by a tornado. The couches and floor were littered with maps and reports, and even the portrait of Abraham Lincoln appeared to be in a state of shock. Todd searched around for a clearing where he could sit, found none, and resolved himself to simply stand at parade rest on the Presidential Seal emblazoned in the carpet.\n\nFrom his chair behind the Resolute Desk, the President proceeded to read from a single typed page: \"1530 hours, report of USCENTCOM, all munitions ineffective, all weapons disabled. Confetti.\"\n\nTodd watched as his commander's eyes lingered on that last word. *Confetti*. Was it a code word from Central Command? Some sort of verification phrase for classified reports? Or did it simply mean...\n\n\"Mother. Fucking. *Confetti*.\" repeated the President to nobody in particular.\n\n\"Sir? I don't understand,\" Todd mumbled back, but a tiny voice tucked in the back corner of his mind started to whisper otherwise.\n\nThe President pushed a button on his desk and an intercom beeped to life. \"Sally, please send in Agent Howard.\"\n\nBefore the intercom even clicked off, and before Todd could make any sense of what he was seeing, an armed man in a dark suit entered the Oval Office, his eyes scanning the room for threats.\n\n\"Mr. Howard?\" asked the President politely, \"please shoot the general.\"\n\nTodd's hands reflexively shot out in panic and horror as the agent, in one smooth motion, drew his gun and fired one round directly at him. Stumbling backward, he clutched at his torso, looking down at his palms which were now covered in...\n\n\"Confetti?\" Todd froze as he pinched a piece between his thumb and index finger. \"*Pink* confetti?\" With a knowing nod, the Secret Service Agent departed the room.\n\nThe President stood from his chair and his demeanor darkened. \"This is the world we live in now. Instead of bullets, we have confetti. Instead of shrapnel, we have confetti. Instead of payloads, we have confetti. *Instead of ordnance, we have confetti.*\"\n\nThe general suddenly became very mindful of the metallic crest pinned to his uniform: two crossed cannons beneath a red circle that read ORDNANCE CORPS. U.S.A.\n\n\"General Allen, you are my Chief of Ordnance, correct?\"\n\nTodd nervously shook his head up and down. \"Yes. Yes, sir.\"\n\nThe President jabbed his finger toward the door, \"then go find me some ordnance.\"\n\nAs Todd tried to walk calmly out of the Oval Office and out of the exterior waiting room, his thoughts raced at light speed. Turning a corner, he collapsed against the wall as he stared into one of the pieces of pink confetti.\n\n\"IT'S A GIRL,\" they had all shouted in unison the weekend before. He and Samantha, along with their entire extended families, had been waiting for the gender reveal for months. Their first child, and given their ages, probably their only child. Friends and family came over to barbecue while Samantha and her brood of hens played silly baby games. Even some of Todd's junior officers got in the fun by showing up with a truck-mounted howitzer rigged to fire...\n\nBlue confetti for a boy.\n\nPink confetti for a girl.\n\nAnd as the world around them turned pink and peaceful and joyous, the U.S. Army's Chief of Ordnance had made a simple wish: that his baby girl could grow up in *this* kind of world.", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": " Your girlfriend would do anything for you. Unfortunately as a knight from a medieval fantasy realm she tends to accomplish these tasks with sword and armour donned. Now she has gone a step further and decided to vanquish your tryannical liege. Your Boss.", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "Xander should have known better.\n\nEver since he was young he had a tendency of exaggerating things. Exaggerating whatever upset him in an almost comical sense. When he told his parents he was being bullied in the fifth grade he portrayed his bullies as great hulking beasts and not the nose pickers with too much free time that they were.\n\nWhen his first girlfriend broke up with him- well, cheated on him- he described her to his buddies as a terrible conniving witch (which she was!!). \n\nThat is what made his stories so enjoyable. It was Gen Z culture to be a little dramatic. It was normalized to paint all people that you disliked in ugly shades of black. \n\n(He villanized the foes for the sake of the story- it was also a massive stress reliever.)\n\nSo even after he discovered a portal to the past and somehow got himself a very very beautiful knight girlfriend he didn't think to change his way of speech. He should have known something was wrong because his girlfriend Alexia never laughed at his stories. She had this completely devoted focused expressing but she never laughed. (He thought he was just a good storyteller. Yes, he was stupid... don't rub it in.)\n\nHe didn't notice Alexia's clenched fists and tensed jaw. Well, he did. He just didn't think it was because she was furious. That's why on a Sunday morning shift, his girlfriend in full battle armor stormed into the MiniMart and demanded to speak to 'Bastard Manager Blaine'.\n\nFor obvious reasons, no one knew about the portal in his room. Xander knew that if the wrong person got their hands on it then it might as well put both him and Alexia behind bars, or worse, under a microscope. But that doesn't mean that Xander never introduced his girlfriend to his co-workers. He had, maybe two have met her. \n\nBut they met traditional Alexia from Greece. Not warrior Alexia from a fantasy like alternate universe. And that was exactly who Alexia was in the armor. Her light brown hair clipped short and tucked into a helmet. Her olive complexion traced with shapes of battle. Her strong muscular body framed by armor.\n\nThe first to react was George, who had already met Alexia. \"Lexy!\" He called, grinning widely. \"Almost didn't recognize you!\"\n\nShe nodded curtly, still searching the premises for someone matching this boss' description. \"Where is Bastard Manager Blaine?\"\n\nGeorge opened his mouth, brow furrowed when Xander finally made it to them. \"Al, what are you doing?!\"\n\nShe raised her brow, \"Isn't it obvious? I'm going to vanquish Bastard Manager Blaine!\"\n\nXander blanched, that sword looked very very sharp.", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": " Aliens, offended at constant portrayals of themselves losing in movies, invade Earth solely to prove to humanity that no, in an actual war they would crush us.", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "\"Let me get this straight, Major General, you are refusing to surrender?\"\n\n\"Yep.\"\n\n\"Because you still believe you can win this war.\"\n\n\"Sure can.\"\n\n\"Let me lay out the situation for you.\"\n\n\"Be my guest.\"\n\n\"We blew up every satellite, space station, and up facing communications dish in the beginning stages of the war.\"\n\n\"You sure did.\"\n\n\"You will not request assistance from any outside sources.\"\n\n\"Guess not.\"\n\n\"We then wiped out your entire nuclear arsenal.\"\n\n\"Thanks for that.\"\n\n\"You're welcome. We then defeated each of your armies, one by one.\"\n\n\"Yea, I remember that.\"\n\n\"We snuck up behind your stealth planes and destroyed every last one. We then destroyed every single flying machine you have, from your space shuttles to the cloth and wooden contraption in the museum. You cannot even reach our ships anymore.\"\n\n\"Yep.\"\n\n\"Our walkers marched straight up to your tanks and flipped them over.\"\n\n\"Gotta say, that was pretty cool.\"\n\n\"Thank you. We beat your soldiers in large scale maneuvers, small scale tactics, and single combat.\"\n\n\"Gotta respect a swordfight.\"\n\n\"We sank every single ship you have. Every warship, shipping vessel, even the fishing boats\"\n\n\"I do miss seafood.\"\n\n\"We even raided your museums and made sure there's not a single operational weapon system.\"\n\n\"That was kinda mean of y'all.\"\n\n\"Your bullets bounce off our armor even if they get past the shields.\"\n\n\"That they do.\"\n\n\"Same goes for your anti-material rounds, anti-tank missiles, depleted uranium shells, artillery shells, explosives, mines, thermobaric bombs, cluster munitions, railguns, lasers, suicide drones, car bombs, cruise missiles, and molotov cocktails. We even detonated a nuclear bomb on an orbiting ship in an isolated location so you know it won't work.\"\n\n\"Some mighty big fireworks.\"\n\n\"Our basic self-defense hand-weapons pierced through the toughest armor and deepest bunkers you have. And we have many more weapons.\"\n\n\"Yea you do.\"\n\n\"You have not a single weapon system that has not been proven ineffective. Not a single tactic we have not outmaneuvered. Not a single strategy we have not outsmarted. Our mass suppression system even stopped your mass human wave attack without a single casualty on either side.\"\n\n\"Beat us real good, you did.\"\n\n\"And just in case you were thinking of attrition, we've cut off your food supply.\"\n\n\"Bit hungry now, in fact.\"\n\n\"We destroyed all your factories and infrastructure. You will not make a single extra bullet.\"\n\n\"Guess not.\"\n\n\"You and your, 'survivors' are now stuck in the desert of this pitiful continent.\"\n\n\"Yea we are.\"\n\n\"You will run out of water within the week.\"\n\n\"Yep.\"\n\n\"And just in case you were hoping for an unconventional win.\"\n\n\"Oh?\"\n\n\"We inoculated every single one of our soldiers with incalculable vaccines. There is not a single ailment, microorganism, fungi, or virus on your planet, natural or artificial, that we have not prepared for.\"\n\n\"Y'all wouldn't be interested in sharing after would ya?\"\n\n\"Once you surrender.\"\n\n\"Ah. Too bad.\"\n\n\"We have cut off every 3G, 4G, whatever G tower you have. We have cut every phone line, internet cable, and WIFI router. We have jammers blocking every single frequency you could possibly use around the clock, and we made sure not a single one of our ports is even remotely close to any of your cables. Every one of our systems is fully insulated and redundant, defended by both AI and expert hackers, and we even prepared fully analogue back ups for every one of our war machines.\"\n\n\"Mighty impressive.\"\n\n\"And we will not even drive you into a corner. We will act in full accordance with your 'Geneva Convention', in fact such a thing is barbaric compared to our Council of Nistrinda. You will be well treated, taken care of, and treated with full honors. We will even let you retain human governors and self-determination in all areas not otherwise specified by intergalactic law and treaties.\"\n\n\"Right generous of ya.\"\n\n\"And yet...\"\n\n\"Yea?\"\n\n\"YET YOU STILL REFUSE TO SURRENDER?!\"\n\n\"Yep.\"\n\n\"WHY?!\"\n\n\"'Cause we're gonna win.\"\n\n\"HOW?! WHAT ABOUT THIS SITUATION HAS CONVINCED YOUR PUNY MIND THAT YOU HAVE EVEN THE FAINTEST HOPE OF VICTORY?\"\n\n\"The reinforcements.\"\n\n\"What reinforcements?! Every single nation on Earth has surrendered! Every single other human has been accounted for! I can say with absolute certainty you are the last remaining humans on Earth that have not surrendered!\"\n\nMajor General Bradley of the Earth Liberation Front felt the ground shake. The side of his mouth curled up. Looks like he had stalled long enough. \n\n\"The Emus.\"", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": " There exists a subreddit that is accessible only by the \"random\" button. On a day of mindless browsing, you become the first person to ever reach r/TheVoid. There you find a single text post entitled, \"Welcome.\"", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "*click*\n\nIt was 2am. I, done with finals, was dicking around on reddit. I was trying to play a game with myself on how many times I could press \"Random\" before landing on a subreddit I'm subscribed to. It was pretty boring, but I've found some great subreddits like this before, so why not?\n\nI found some fun subreddits, I found some lazy subreddits, and I found a few disturbing ones. My best run was 27 clicks before hitting one I am subscribed to. However, I was on a roll this time.\n\n*click*\n\n\"40...r/AgainstMarijuana\"\n\n*click*\n\n\"41...r/KerbalSpaceProgram\"\n\n*click*\n\n\"42...r/TheVoid\"\n\n*click*\n\n*click*\n\n*click*\n\n*click*\n\nNo matter how many times I clicked to go to the next random subreddit, I couldn't leave r/TheVoid. It was simple, no upvotes, no downvotes, no subscribers, no links, no one online, no sidebar, no moderators. Just empty blackness on my screen. The only post?\n\n\"Welcome\"\n\nMy curiosity got the better of me. I clicked the post.\n\n>Welcome to The Void.\n\n>The Void is a safe haven to write about your troubles.\n\n>Feel free to post whatever you'd like.\n\n>The only rule is that before posting anything else, you must post \"I want /u/TheSuffering to die.\"\n\nA little dark sounding, but it almost sounded like some sort of symbol for what's bothering me. Hey, I had already gone this far, why not comment? \n\n\"I want /u/TheSuffering to die.\"\n\nThen I thought about what was bothering me that day: my wallet was a little low. Rent pretty much cleaned me out and I wasn't expecting my pay check for another day or so. We all could use a little money, so I commented about how I wished I had a bit more spending cash. I closed the tab and I decided to go to bed.\n\nThe next day, I went out to get a fresh doughnut; jelly filled. As I walked to the shop, I saw a $20 on the ground. I joked to myself on how I now had the cliché story about finding $20. Maybe posting about my money wishes was fate! That $20 bought me a delicious raspberry jelly filled doughnut. It was the that I received an email.\n\n\"Your monthly bank statement is ready!\"\n\nSince I get some weird enjoyment out of keeping an eye on my bank account, I hopped on to my banking app, hoping that my pay check came in. Something was different though. My bank account had nearly $250,000 in it! I nearly dropped my phone in excitement. Within a few seconds, I was calling my bank to check if this was legit. Sure enough, it was. They said it was a little annoying I deposited so much in one setting, but they were happy I had chosen them to hold my money. Going home, I went onto reddit to go ask r/personalfinance what to do.\n\nThere was a new message in my inbox.\n\n\"Done.\"\n\nIt was from /u/TheVoid. Somehow, my complaint to the Void came true. I decided to test it again and this time complain about how I felt about Donald Trump running for President. Sure enough, he announced he was no longer running the next day. I had a new inbox message.\n\n\"Done.\"\n\nI kept testing The Void to see how much I could make happen. No matter what I wrote, the Void would make it happen. I was the most powerful man on the planet and no one was the wiser. I was living the dream! As I went to The Void to make one more request, I saw a new post: \n\n\"I want /u/iamyourcheese to die.\"", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": " A villain is running amok downtown eluding police all afternoon. At 6pm, in time for the local news, the hero arrives a day subdued him The crowd demands to know \"Where were you?\" \"Uh... I have a day job.\"", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "A villain is running amok downtown eluding police all afternoon. At 6pm, in time for the local news, the hero arrives a day subdued him The crowd demands to know \"Where were you?\" \"Uh... I have a day job.\" People don't seem to understand that playing the hero doesn't pay. They expect my services for free and yet criticize me at every opportunity. If this was a proper gig, I would at least get something out of it, but at this rate, my resentment is going to make a villain out of me.\n\nDespite my bitterness, I immediately flew off to deal with Count Morbid. It was a tedious thing, since he had the ability to feign death at the slightest touch. With him, it was a matter of keeping an eye on him until the authorities arrived to take him away. Every time he'd regain consciousness, I had to knock him out again. By the time I got home, it was 9 pm and the only thing I had energy for was a shower and a quick dinner before a much needed slumber. My job out demands on my body that no villain or fight could. I was a waitress and all the standing, smiling, and pained conversations wreaked destruction on my mind and body. On a normal day, I could barely walk, had no energy to talk to anyone, and the sight of people filled me with the same anxiety as if I was at work. So, while, I enjoyed being a superhero more, I could barely find a job that paid to be one.\n\nAfter the most recent brush-in with the media, I thought it was high time that I make this a public issue. If the heroes of this city are suffering as I am, then the safety of everyone was at stake. I had a in with a local journalist and with quick fingers, I sent a text asking to meet up. My demands would be simple. I needed reliable salaried work, at least part-time, and with medical benefits. Sick heroes endanger lives. \n\nI met with the journalist the following day and as I mentioned my priority items, I could tell he was growing uncomfortable. Mid-sentence, I stopped and asked why he'd stopped writing. He ruffled his hair for a second, and then said, \"This isn't realistic. How are you going to expect to be paid to do the right thing? Do you have any morals? What happened to you?\"\n\nI couldn't even respond for a second, mute with shock. \"How do you expect ANYONE to work without compensating them for their time and effort, especially on an on-call basis. This isn't a negotiation.\"\n\nThe next day, I couldn't have predicted the public outrage if I tried. There were people calling me a communist, a terrorist and an outright villain stealing from the taxes of the people. There were protests that quickly turned to riots. Somehow, overnight, I'd turned into a villain and my name was synonymous with evil. I could see that my efforts were fruitless and now, no longer considered a hero, I could hang up my cape and enjoy a calm, quiet existence.", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": " Everybody has a number on their heads that shows how many people they screwed over in their life.You've been a proud zero your whole life.One day you wake up and look at the mirror. You see 7.5 billion", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "This is my first ever comment on reddit, and the first time in a long time I've tried my hand at writing something. Any feedback only serves to better me. Hope you enjoy.\n\n~~~\n\nEver since I could remember, my life had been spent working towards the impossible notion that I would someday turn this little floating zero above my head into a negative number. \n\nA saved life.\n\nOf course, by this time in my life I had already prevented the deaths of many people. Early in my life, I had lost my own mother to cancer, so I had spent a good portion of my life studying nothing but how to prevent cancer. How to cure it. To rid the world of it so that no one would have to lose anyone precious to them.\n\nWith time, I became more and more famous for my innovations towards finding ways to cure cancer. A lot of my life was dedicated towards cancer—towards eliminating it for good. \n\nAfter I reached my mid 50’s, I made a breakthrough that rocked the world. I had developed a cure that was capable of not only eliminating cancerous cells that were already present in the body, but also capable of preventing it from ever developing in anyone’s future. The cure was the breakthrough that the world had been wishing for. \n\nOf course, the development towards the cure had cost millions and many years, and even after the cure was produced, many years still were spent testing it. We wanted to ensure that it was safe. \nIt wasn’t until my late 50’s that the cure was finally given a pass. \n\nAnd the moment it was given the green light, it took off. \n\nThe cure was free. This was not something that anyone in the world would be denied. And nobody dared deny such a gift. Vaccinations and pills were shipped and administered overseas. In only a few months of the initial release, there was nobody in the world who had not received the medication.\n\nMy name became known everywhere. Praises for my good-will were sung. Everyone looked to me as the man that cured the disease that had plagued mankind for so long. I was their hero. I was their God. \n\nThe morning I received the call from my long-time assistant, telling me that it was recorded that the cure had been administered to 7.5 billion people, I couldn’t help but cry at what I was being told. \nNot too long after the call, I found myself staring in the mirror upon the bathroom wall of my lavish flat. \n\nThe number was still zero, but I couldn’t help but picture the negative 7.5 billion in my head.\n\n“I did it, mom…I f-finally did it.”\n\n“Yes yes. You *sure did* indeed—good job.”\n\nThe foreign voice sent my head spinning with fear, and I turned to find a man leaning against the open door to my bathroom, clapping his hands very obnoxiously with a wide grin on his face. \n\nMy first thought upon seeing him was that I should run. Every fiber of my being told me that the man was deadly, despite the grin. His crimson red eyes scared me the most. The man finally slowed the clapping, and then let his arms drop. \n\n“Gotta say, doctor. I’m a *huge fan* of your work. You did something that no one thought would ever happen.”\n\nHis voice reflected his excited face, and he gestured very theatrically at nothing. \n\n“W-w-who are y-you?”\n\nMy voice was weak, but I had finally found it.\n\nThe crimson eyed man suddenly took a step back, a hand over his chest as if I had said something offensive.\n\n“Who am I? Good doctor, please. If you’re so willing to believe that you are the *God* of this world, then surely you must believe that there should be an opposite, no?”\n\nHis voice had become taunting. But his words only caused my mind to blank.\n\n“O-opposite?”\n\nMy voice was still shaking, not nearly as violently as my knees though as I leaned on the bathroom counter to keep from falling.\n\nThe man’s grin returned as he stepped into the bathroom, looking at himself in the mirror as if admiring a piece of art. That’s when I finally noticed something that made me collapse on the ground, my bloodshot eyes wide with disbelief.\n\nThere was a number above his head. But his was a symbol—not numeric. It was an infinity symbol.\n\nDone with his reflection, the man turned to me once again and closed the distance, a look on his face like that of a father about to admonish his son.\n\n“Good doctor, what’s got you looking so pale? Well, no matter.”\n\nKneeling in front of me, the man cleared his throat, resting one hand on his knee while he stretched his other out in front of the number above me—that proud zero that I had had all my life.\n\n“I believe you’ve spent enough time playing the God of this world. Time to teach you what happens when you fly too close to the sun.”\n\nHe poked the zero, and suddenly the number began to rapidly increase. I could see it flying up at an speed I couldn’t keep up with out of the corner of my eye in the mirror. I didn’t notice my heartbeat begin to increase as well, or just how heavily I was beginning to hyperventilate as I looked back to the man before me, unable to speak but pleading with my eyes.\n\n*Stop. STOP. PLEASE MAKE IT STOP.*\n\nThe man’s lips curled up at the edges as he looked back into my eyes with wonder in his own.\n\n“I’ve had some terrible people enter hell before with large numbers, but never before has something like this…I never dreamed the day would come. It almost brings a tear to me eye.” \n\nHe laughed at me happily, before taking his hand away from the number above my head, clearly satisfied with where it had stopped. \n\nLooking at the mirror, I saw the number. \n\nMy heart stopped the moment I saw it, and my world faded to nothing.\n\nStanding once again, the crimson eyed man looked down at the corpse of the man who had saved the world. The smile still on his face and his eyes still wide with excitement as the number faded away with the doctor’s life.\n\n“Good doctor. You developed a new forbidden fruit—no cure. Now then…” \n\nTurning away from the doctor, the crimson eyed man walked into the main room of the flat, and then to the window overlooking the city before him. \n\nTaking a long breath, the man raised his arms just above his head, his index fingers pointing—ready to conduct a symphony for the world.\n\n“Some say the world will end in fire. Some say ice…I say…let it end in plague.”\n\nAnd with a flick of his index fingers, a man walking down the street outside the flat, directly under where the crimson eyed man stood, began to choke on his own blood as a laugh filled the air from high above. ", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": "\"Goodbye.\" Hundreds of alien civilizations, each one saying \"goodbye.\"", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "“Mr President, based on our translations we believe there may be a mass extinction event occurring near the galactic center of the Milky Way,” a solemn looking elderly woman on the screen said. \r\n\nThe President’s chief of staff, standing off to the side of the conference room, shifted uncomfortably, trying to catch the President’s eye. He made a show of exaggerating a look at his watch. The President didn’t notice, he was fixated on the dozen figures displayed before him on two large screens.\r\n\n“Thank you Dr Holden,\" The President said, \"and have you been able to ascertain how we have been able to receive so many of these transmissions from different sources simultaneously? I may not have paid much attention during my high school science classes, but I can recall the theory of special relativity and nothing being able to travel faster than the speed of light. Am I to take it that the mass extinction event has likely already occurred somewhere in the galaxy and we’re just waiting for the light show?”\r\n\nA few of the faces grimaced at the President’s glib last remark.\r\n\n“Mr President,” the Chief of Staff standing off to the side said, “it’s time.”\r\n\nThe President waved a hand dismissively, “they can wait, thank you Charlie.”\r\n\nA young man on screen wearing a suit with a NASA pin unmuted himself.\r\n\n“Mr President, if you’re asking whether these signals are a warning of imminent doom approaching from outer space, the truth is we aren’t certain. We think it’s unlikely though, given the wide array of solar systems from which the signal has originated. It’s possible that there is technology involved in these transmissions that we just don’t understand and something is impacting them all at once.”\r\n\nThere was a knock on the door and it opened. A Secret Service Agent leaned in. He looked at the Chief of Staff, who rushed over and they spoke in hushed voices.\r\n\n“Right, and we don’t know whether we’re expecting to receive any other messages? Well, let’s keep working on theories everyone. I’ve gotta run,” The President said before standing and following his Chief of Staff out the door.\n\nThey walked briskly along a corridor, surrounded by agents in black suits.\r\n\n“Mr President, John Jacobs is waiting outside your office,\" the Chief of Staff said as they walked towards the White House main entrance, \"he’s here to talk about their request for a new oil permit in Alaska. We’re feeling a lot of pressure to get this over the line, so I suggest we go straight there now.\"\r\n\nJust as they were about to turn into a secure area, gasps from excited children could be heard coming from the direction of the entrance. The President grinned and diverted off towards the young voices.\r\n\n“Mr President,” the Chief of Staff said sternly.\r\n\n“Five minutes Charlie,” The President replied over his shoulder.\r\n\nA moment later he was surrounded by young children and a teacher desperately trying to maintain a semblance of order. They all stared at him with looks of awe. All except one girl. The President walked over to her and crouched down.\r\n\n“And what’s your name young lady?”\r\n\n“Jenny,” she replied as the other children crowded around to listen.\r\n\n“And how old are you?” \r\n\n“five and a half,” Jenny replied.\r\n\n“And do you know who I am?”\r\n\n“You’re the President, my mommy says you’re the one in charge. Is that true?”\r\n\n“It is indeed, well of this country at least,” the President said, smiling.\r\n\n“If you’re in charge, will you let us stay a little longer?”\r\n\nThe Chief of Staff was there now, looming over the group as if to remind The President about his pressing engagement with the oil executive.\r\n\n“Stay here? You might have to ask your teacher that!” \r\n\n“No,” the little girl said firmly, “stay here, on Earth.\"\n\nThe President frowned, \"why do you say that?\"\n\n\"Well everyone says that all the aliens are saying goodbye to us and I’m not ready to say goodbye yet.”\r\n\nThe President’s face turned serious, “don’t worry Jenny, we don’t have to say goodbye. Whatever's happening out there isn't going to affect us. And we have the smartest people in the world working to learn more about what's happening out there and they're not worried, so you don’t have to worry either.”\r\n\n“But, we do have to say goodbye,” she said as her eyes welled up, “when I'm at my friends' birthday parties and mommy shows up to get me, everyone always says goodbye to me. It’s because they all know I'm leaving. That's what's happening now, the aliens know we're leaving. But I don’t want to leave yet.”\r\n\nThe President paused for a moment before standing up and taking in the scene. Everyone was silent now, watching him. \r\n\n“Charlie, cancel the meeting. We’re going back onto the video conference.”", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": " You die and awaken in a small white room with 3 buttons in front of you. Spectate, Respawn, and New World. You’re hand hovers over them as you try to make a decision. Suddenly a countdown clock appears. 10, 9, 8…", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "7... 6...\n\nMy body goes numb, and panic takes hold of me. There's so much more I wanted to do, wanted to live, to see, and touch. If it weren't for that driver, and the accident, maybe, just maybe...\n\n5... 4...\n\nI don't want to live, but yet I don't want to die, even if I'm already dead, the choice between ghost hood, reliving, and reincarnating is little less than choosing between lovers or diplomas. No matter what I pick, no matter what I choose, I'll always regret, always wish for more.\n\n3...\n\nMy fingers caress each button, they're cold, they're unforgiving. They don't care what I choose, they're just waiting for their next contestant, their next spirit. I am dead.\n\n2...\n\nI want revenge on the one who cut my time in the world short, but what would I do after? I want to relive and change, but it'll just go over and over, what if I'm in a loop right now? But being reborn, I could end up as a fox, a rat, or a spider, the chances of being human are so slim, the chances of being another person are so slim.\n\n1...\n\nI press the last two buttons at the same time instinctively, and the timer stops. I'm coated in restless silence. The first button disappears, leaving me with the last two. They light up a soft milk yellow.\n\n\"You want sameness, but adventure, yes?\"\n\nI flip around to see a figure bathed in light approaching me.\n\n\"Perhaps I could give you both of those things, perhaps I could give nothing at all...\"\n\nThe figure stops infront of me, I start to shake as he touched my cheek.\n\n\"Have you ever heard of a place called Hallow Earth? It's a place of magic and adventure, a paradise that only those who are born into can embrace. It's a paradise for those who yearn for adventure.\"\n\nHe holds out a medallion in his left hand, it dangles from his fingertips.\n\n\"Death is permanent in Hallow Earth, but not eternal. It can be whatever you want it to be. However, once you choose to go to this wonderland, there is no return.\"\n\nHe flips it in his hands playfully.\n\n\"...Or, you can settle on one of the two remaining buttons, the choice is yours, my friend.\"\n\nI stare longingly at the medallion. A place of adventure, huh? A paradise, magic? It's like a ticket into every fairytale and every book or video game I've ever played! But it's scary at the same time, something new, something that I long for and yet something that I'm afraid to grasp hold of.\n\n\"Is it like a fairytale?\"\n\n\"Thats for you to decide, spirit.\"\n\nI hesitate. What if I want to become someone new, or relive what I've already done, I can do either but not both, unless I take this mysterious key.\n\nI slowly reach my hand out towards the medallion. The figure remains still and content, waiting for my decision to be made.\n\nI touch the cold, silver medallion. A sapphire crest sits patiently on top, a chain falls limp between my fingertips. Letters start appearing in a soft glow of gold. I close my eyes and hear whispers echoing all around me, my mind starts to feel hazy and fuzzy. Something seemingly enters my body and fills me with warmth.\n\nAnd then I'm falling, and falling, down into a deep abyss. I cannot feel my eyes any longer, neither the rest of my body. All I feel is the cold medallion and a warmth coming from deep within my soul.\n\nAnd then everything goes dark, and I loose consciousness.\n\n♡ (C o n t i n u e?) ♡", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": " You're on a multi-species research trip into a toxic planet only to see your crewmate drink some of the most toxic items in the galaxy claiming he \"needed some water\"", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "\"None of what you just drank was water muchacho, in fact I don't think any of it was even edible...\" I spoke to my crewmate in awe. \n\nFour of us on the ship. Me, a human of course; Jacks, a mecha of some sort; the tentacled thing that just used a container of something labeled *Concentrated Mercury* to quench its thirst, Rabble I called him; and finally, Steven. \n\nThe three of us stared to Rabble in amazement, and he, or, well, it, stared back in obvious obliviousness. Its face began turning green, even greener than usual. \n\n\"Wha- well I was thirsty! I needed some water.\" Rabble protested, tentacles flaring for effect. \n\n\"Ah yes. Well the capsule labeled *water* would have sufficed then\" Jacks gestured over to the water capsule on the wall with a robotic hand as Rabble's face turned a shade greener. \"Well, that isn't good.\" she continued. \n\n\"Nope! How did you even get on the crew anyway hombr-\" before I could finish I was shoved aside by an almost human hand. Steven gripped Rabble by the shoulders and launched it into a divit built into the floor labeled *Med-Bay*, the words drawn on sloppily in orange paint. \n\n\"Hey I think I'm actually fine-\". Rabble tried to get the words out, but with a push of a button by Steven a glass slide flew over the med-bay, silencing the toxic sipping alien. A screen then flew up from the floor. \n\n*Analyzing....Analyzing.....Well that's not good.*, the screen displayed in bold yellow text. Followed by:\n\n*1 Liter Concentrated Mercury* \n\n*2 Cups Swamp Extract* \n\n*1 Vial of Unknown Radioactive Liquids* \n\n*2 Vials of Known Radioactive Liquids (Greemly Excretion...Gross)* \n\nInside the tube Rabble craned its gelatinous neck to try and read the screen. Upon seeing the analysis he rolled his one, massive eye, a gesture he'd picked up from me no doubt. On the outside Jack's and my mouths dropped open as if we were trying to catch Crantumium Flies. \n\nSwamp extract?! We had to gather that sludge fully suited and use a titanium scoop, even then we barely got the two cups, and this troglodyte drank it all!\n\n Steven was already reaching for a scalpel out of the med-pak. \n\n\"Hey uh..Steve-o. Whatcha gunna do with that bad boy?\" I spoke with uncertain certainty. \n\n\"Steven. It's Steven, though I do appreciate the nickname. I planned to cut open Rabblenous, locate its stomach sac, cut it open, and retrieve our samples.\" \n\nInside the tube Rabble, having now seen his fate, was now banging his tentacles against the glass. I was just as keen to get our samples back as the next guy, or whatever human adjacent thing Steven was, but cutting open a crewmate was just unprofessional. \n\n\"Well let's not do anything too rash...yet. Ok computer how long will Rabble take to digest any of that stuff.\" \n\nIf the computer had eyes to roll it would have, but due to the fact that it didn't instead the words appeared across its screen: *Eye Roll* as a replacement \n\n*...Fine...5 days 23 hours. But cutting the beast open would be faster and far more fun.*\n\n\"Not the point. Ok Steven, hear me out. The rest of the team gets out here in 2 days. So we leave Rabble here, gather some different samples, and wait for them with the stomach pump. If they're not out here in 2 days then...\" \n\nI heard the sound of more bottles clinking, dropping to the ground, interrupting my gamble. Upon looking over a single of Rabble's slimy tentacles was rifling through the \"Biohazard\" bin. Rabble glanced over to the tentacle, then back to us, then back to the tentacle, which continued its search. \n\nJack grabbed a second and third scalpel from the shelf, handing me the extra.", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": " A lone dentist stands at the center of the city's vortex of power struggles. He has the most complete list of vampires in the city. The humans want the list, and the vampires cannot do without his services.", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "\"HIPAA,\" the dentist said, hands spread wide. \"Even if I served vampires, I couldn't share a patient's confidential information without their written consent.\" \n\nThe police officer slammed a fist the receptionist's counter and hissed. \"This is life and death, Dr. Johnson. Life. And. Death. Humans versus the leeches. Which side are you on?\" \n\nThe dentist pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. \"Neither. I fix teeth, and follow the law. Come back here with a warrant and a specific patient's name, and I'll kick it up to the state medical ethics board to decide. Until then, I'm not risking my medical license, and I'm not wasting any more time this month on your paranoia.\"\n\nOfficer Larkin tried to stare him down, but Dr. Johnson just lifted an eyebrow. Finally, Larkin turned to leave, then spun back and threw something at Johnson. He caught it by reflex. \n\n\"Really? A bulb of garlic? I thought you were accusing me of treating vampires, not being one.\" The officer was staring at him, probably expecting him to recoil from it. Instead, he broke off a clove and bit it, wincing at the tang. \"Are you happy now?\"\n\nThe policeman left without another word. Johnson looked at the garlic with distaste and took another bite. It never hurt to be safe. He spoke to his receptionist.\n\n\"You don't need to deal with that. If he comes back, just get me.\" He waved off her thanks and went to his next patient, a human, as it happened, since night hadn't fallen yet.\n\nHis building was under constant police surveillance, which redoubled when the sun began to set. The front and back doors were watched, as were all the opening windows. The diversionary tunnel had been covered with police cameras a day after it had been built. None of this stopped the vampires, of course, who descended from the sky in bat form, covered by a magical mist. One elder vampire slipped in first in mist form, and disabled the cameras and bugs that had been planted inside that day.\n\nDr. Johnson finished scrubbing up as the first patient came in, restrained by two other vampires. She was thrashing in their grip, eyes turned red and foaming at the mouth. He could see just enough to tell that both her fangs had snapped off, which would explain why she hadn't fed in at least a few days.\n\n\"Room 3, like usual,\" he told her captors. \"Do you have pieces of her teeth?\" He accepted a small bag from the elder. Despite meeting the elder vampire most nights, he still didn't know his name; the reason was something about magical power and true names that had gone well over his head.\n\n\"The young fool lost them three nights ago,\" the elder said, walking to the room beside him. \"She didn't tell anyone because she didn't want to come.\" \n\nDr. Johnson chuckled, \"She's not that different from my daytime patients then. How did you get her here?\"\n\n\"With great difficulty. It took three of her superiors to keep her mentally controlled on the way in. They're resting the wait room now.\" \n\nWhen the dentist entered the room, several vampires were tying her down. As he put on gloves, something tore behind him, and instantly she was on him, teeth tearing at his neck. It wouldn't work, of course, the fangs were a magically necessary part of feeding, but she was hardly rational in this state. She recoiled as soon as she drew blood, lips smoking. The elder rushed to his side, apologies tripping over each other as he got a first aid kit and dabbed some alcohol on the bite. Dr. Johnson stopped him.\n\n\"It's fine. It hurts a lot less than a kid taking a shot at my fingers, I assure you. At least the garlic eating trick works as well as you told me.\" He accepted his help getting bandaged as the other vampires restrained her more securely. \n\n\"Ok, let's see what we have to work with,\" he said, checking the fang fragments left. \"Four specks?\" \n\nThe elder said, \"We found out late, so we don't know where they broke off. Those we dug out of the vampire she attacked.\" Dr. Johnson prodded the fang pieces about carefully, finding the two with the sharpest edges. \n\n\"Well, I hope that book you gave me was accurate. I hate working on 18th century information.\" He pulled the tome out of the concealed drawer; the vampires had installed the drawer and cloaked it with magic before letting him have the book. Dr. Johnson couldn't imagine why any sane person in 18th century France would want to study vampiric dentistry, but he was glad he wasn't playing it completely by ear.\n\nHe flipped through the pages to the diagram in question. \"According to the author, his tests found that only the tip and base of the fang need to be original material. I should be able to use something better than metal to connect them, though.\" The procedure went off without any further hitches, placing a tiny chip of fang on the end of a long prosthetic.\n\nThe rest of the cases that night were routine, even if vampiric plaque needed one person scraping and another chanting Latin spells to remove. As they wrapped up, Dr. Johnson handed the elder a letter.\n\n\"Pass it on to my sister, will you? Also, I think the new governor is making a push against vampires again. Besides the usual stake out, I had a cop in here trying to get information.\"\n\nThe elder nodded, and they left. Dr. Johnson slowly rubbed a scar on his right wrist. The middle of drilling a cavity was a hard time to find out your family had vampires, but what kind of brother would he be if he didn't do his best to help her out now that he knew?", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": " The test was a success! The ship managed to travel outside of space and time itself, allowing it to move at impossible speeds! Upon reaching port again, your crewmate pats you on the back before leaving, ignored by the waves of journalists, you look back and realize, you never had any crew.", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "**ONE LEFT, TWO CAME BACK**\n\n----\n\nThe woman standing in the threshold of my ship wasn’t smiling. She held a firm look and nodded at the crowd of reporters, all shouting questions about space and time and seeking answers they would never understand.\n\nI starred back at her. Through the noise our eyes locked, and the sound lowered, as if some unseen maestro had lowered his wand and commanded the volume drop.\n\nI gave a small smile, and she returned it. Matching my manufactured kindness perfectly.\n\nI was always shit at acting. My gut was tossing and my hand slightly shook. And I held my smile. \n\n_Had she bought it? Did anyone notice I was shaking?_\n\nI had never seen this women before. The voyage was a solo mission. I remember it clearly - I had entered the ship alone. \n\nA reporter tapped my shoulder and the sound came back to the hanger and all the questions collided into one inaudible sound. I met their confused stares with a dismissive wave as I hurried off.\n\nIn the debriefing chamber my assistants met me with curious eyes. I took a water bottle from the table and drank. I brushed water from my beard and starred at the people in the room. I felt hot. Dizzy. And confused. It was all confusing. \n\nNo one spoke.\n\nThe door opened and the mystery woman entered.\n\n“Cassandra,” one of the assistants said and moved to her, but was quickly waved off.\n\n“Give us a minute,” the woman called Cassandra said.\n\n“Cass, are you-“ someone started to ask.\n\n“-go.” Cassandra said.\n\nAnd they did. \n\nHer and I stood in silence. Measuring each other from across the room. My mouth started to form the words, but she spoke them first.\n\n“Who are you?”\n\n“Who am I?” I shook my head. “Who are you?”\n\nShe looked away. “Curious.” \n\n“Who are you?” I asked again. \n\nShe ignored my question completely. “What’s the name of that ship out there?” \n\n“Wait - I’m the one asking the questions,” I said. \n\n“Should you be? You heard the everyone out there - you saw how my team just looked at you.”\n\n“I - I didn’t hear anything out there. It was a haze.”\n\n“I don’t know who you are, or how you are here - but you shouldn’t be,” she said. \n\n“Excelsior,” I said. \n\nHer eyes turned up.\n\n“The ship - it’s called the Excelsior. But internally, codenamed The DeLorean.”\n\nHer exhale was audible and she flopped into a chair. “Son of a bitch.” She looked up at the camera in the corner of the room and shrugged. \n\n“You’re a scientist, I presume?” She asked.\n\nI nodded. “And you are too.”\n\n“Yes,” she smiled. “To be honest I’m not quite sure what our first step is here. There’s a room full of press that are pushing the headline of a mysterious stranger exiting the Excelsior - as we speak - and outside this door are a room full of guards ready to kill you, being talked out of it by a handful of scientists.”\n\n“I belong here,” I said. My hand had never stopped trembling. She noticed.\n\n“I believe you,” she said. “I do believe you. And we’ll figure this out.” Her voice was reassuring and genuine. She cared. Her sentiment washed over me like an invisible sedative and my hand calmed. My stomach settled.\n\n“What’s you’re name?” She asked.\n\n“My name,” I said and fell to a pause. The fog bellowed in my brain and I could not recall my name.\n\nShe stood up. It felt as if the good will had faded instantly with my lacking an answer - but she didn’t move to the door or eye the camera. She kept focus on me. \n\n_She did believe me._\n\nAnd then it came to me like a damn breaking and a waterfall of memories flooded my mind and I looked up at her. \n\n“My name is Cassandra,” I squinted, confused at myself. \n\n“I am you,” I told her. \n\n“That’s impossible,” she said and slowly backstepped to the door.\n\nI knew it was true. I was Cassandra. She was at the door, I could see the fear in her eyes. My eyes. I had to make her believe me, and fast - on the other side of that door were men that may never give me a chance to explain.\n\n“I didn’t kiss a boy until I was twenty,” I said. \n\nCassandra stopped. I continued. “My father’s name was Jacob, but everyone called him Mike for some reason. I still wish I married my David after college. I tell myself moving to New Mexico for my career was the smart choice. I see his children and family on Instagram now and I hate myself for hating his wife. He named his daughter -”\n\n“Lily,” she said softly. Inside her brain must have been firing, trying to piece together the unknown. I knew she was, because that’s what I was doing. \n\n“This isn’t possible,” she said.\n\n“I agree,” I gestured at myself. “I’m looking in a mirror when I see you - but the mirror isn’t following my actions. \n\n“Are you an imposter?” I asked her.\n\n“I don’t think so,” she said honestly. “Are you?” \n\n“I don’t think so,” I said.\n\nWe stood in silence, both theorizing internally. She gave an open palm gesture to the camera - telling everyone watching to _hold_. \n\n“They’ll want to run tests, to verify your DNA,” she said.\n\n“I’ll want to run test,” I agreed. \nAs we studied each other, I formed a theory, and once again she spoke the words first. \n\n“I have a preliminary theory,” she said. \n\n“As do I.”\n\n“It makes no sense - and follows no logic -“\n\n“-but what logic is there out in the unknown, removed from space and time.”\n\n“None. None that we know.”\n\n“Different laws of physics may apply - we have no knowledge.”\n\n“The first explorers never know the terrain.”\n\n“But they go.”\n\nWe were talking in sync, ping ponging sentences and words.\n\n“A clone -“\n\n“- a clone is artificial -“\n\n“Interphase”\n\n“Not exactly, but closer.”\n\n“How do we know it wasn’t artificial?”\n\n“We don’t.”\n\nShe took control of the conversation. “What the press will want to know is simple. What we tell them will be simple. And honest. I went on a solo voyage, and returned with a male version of myself.” She finished flatly.\n\n“The mystery will scare them,” I said.\n\n“It scares me,” she said. “Why should they be free of the truth. Everyone wants to explore the next frontier, but recoils at the discoveries - no. We need to embrace the unknown. We need to go back - we need more data - we need to unravel this.”\n\n“Yes,” I said.\n\nShe turned to the door, looked back at me, and smiled. “We’ll solve this, together.”\n\nI should have known what would happen next. I should have recognized her smile. The same manufactured kindness that I saw in the hanger. \n\nThe door opened and for a moment time stood still. I saw the guards in the threshold, their guns, their armor head to toe. I saw myself about to die. Cassandra was blown back across the room. \n\nA swarm of armed guards flooded and gathered around her body - I screamed at them to stop and tried to get close to her, but I couldn’t see her through the wall of black armored backs and helmets. \n\nOne of them grabbed me and tried to pull me out of the room. “Ma’am we need to get you out of there!”\n\n“What are you doing?! That is -“\n\nThe volley of gunshots sounded off and a high pitched scream reverberated around the room and down the hall as I was dragged away. \n\n“What is going on?” I pleaded.\n\n“She’s an imposter!” The soldier handed me off to another guard waiting in an elevator. “Scans show that whatever is in that room, it ain’t human!”\n\nThe door shut and we started to rise.\n\nI stood in a daze. _None of this made sense._\n\nMy head titled back as I tried to breathe and steady my nerves. The ceiling was mirrored. I saw my face. That of a man. Middle aged. With a salt and pepper beard.\n\nI had not noticed the purple liquid freshly splattered across my face. I puckered my lips and tasted sour goo and spit it out. \n\nWith a deep exhale I extend both hands out, palms up. I was covered in her blood. \n\n_Was it blood?_\n\nI felt the room spinning and I knew I was going to pass out. \n\n“I’m going to pass out,” I barely got the words out.\n\nI felt the guard catch me as my vision went black and the last thing I heard was his walkie talkie squawk: “Whatever it is, it's dead.”\n\n-----\n\nEdit: Title\n\n----\n\nr/wyrdfiction -- if you like my writing, follow my sub", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": " The \"Shh\" sound that parents make to children at night is actually an ancient spell that keeps a terrible nocturnal evil at bay", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": " I hold Aubrey in my arms. She's only an infant, so it is most important that I do this now. Once she's older I can start doing it every other night, but as of right now she's most susceptible to its influence. \n\nThere's a reason we humans are afraid of the dark, and though it is a primal fear it has nothing to do with the large feline predators of our plain dwelling ancestors. It's something we know on a subconscious level. Something etched into the bones of our soul. \n\nI hold Aubrey in my arms and shush her. Though it's not really a shush. It's something that happens to all of us before we're born. Only when we hold our own flesh and blood in our arms do we remember. \n\nBefore you're born, when you're only just a soul being crafted and woven into existence, angels tell you every secret that there is. Each one imparts a piece of wisdom that it holds so that every knowledge is within you when you are born and you may have limitless potential. However, there is one piece which is whispered to you which you may not remember. This is a dark piece, but true as any other piece. Because of this, the creator shushes that piece to quiet it. It quiets your mind and silences your understanding. You awaken certain pieces later on, such is why we are different, but this, the \"shush\", always returns, and the dark piece must always remain silent. However, once you're born the creator's voice leaves you and your parents must take over shushing your dark piece. Keeping it silent. \n\nI hold Aubrey in my arms and kiss her upon her little head and shush her one last time, finally placing her in her crib. I hope she sleeps well. I hope she's never knows why she's really afraid of the dark. ", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": " Humanity has discovered immortality but not interstellar travel. The world is in decay due to climate change and no one can escape it. As a punishment, climate change deniers are sentenced to immortality so that they can face the consequences of their actions", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "The courtroom was bleak, as was the sentence, but Jim wore an absurdly optimistic grin, as if he was receiving a reward rather than punishment. He, like other deniers, lived in a world free of logic, rationality, and hard-won facts. He did not live in reality.\n\nHe would soon, whether he knew it or not. \n\n\"Jim Habbert,\" read the judge. She used her formal tone, dashed with an extra sense of weight due to the magnitude of the sentencing. \"You are charged with denying the facts of climate change, intentionally working toward the demise of our world, and, therefore, are additionally charged with the manslaughter of millions.\"\n\nThat was new, manslaughter bit. If Jim was phased, he hid it well.\n\n\"And how do you plead?\"\n\nJim took a deep breath, his eyes filling with the hard confidence of a passionately misinformed man. \n\n\"Not guilty,\" he said loudly. \n\nHe smiled; it was a wicked smile, full of teeth and utterly lacking in empathy. \"I can't be guilty of something that *isn't true*. You are all sheep! Brainwashed, stupid sheep who follow every command made of you! Wake up! Wake up and--\"\n\nThe judge cut him off with a stern stare and blunt words. \"Enough,\" she said. \"I hope you have thought over your decision well.\" She flipped through a few of the necessary papers, taking her time and allowing the tension to grow. \n\n\"Jim Habbert, you are hereby sentenced to immortality. May you witness the horrors of your own ignorance.\"\n\nWith that, the court was adjourned, and Jim was shuttled to me. \n\nI waited patiently. My job was not a pleasurable one; I was in charge of carrying out such sentences. Jim was the forth of the young year. \n\n\"Hello,\" I said quietly, once Jim had taken his seat across the cold, blank table. \n\nHe chose to stare, rather than respond. I could see no remorse in those eyes, only glee at what was once thought of as the ultimate gift, the punishment he was about to receive--immortality.\n\n\"I want to make sure you realize what is going to happen to you,\" I said. It was a well-practiced, scripted speech, but I usually chose to improvise as I saw fit. It made it feel a little more natural, a little more humane.\n\n\"You will be immortal.\" His face lit up. \"Which, as I'm sure you know, means you will not be able to die. Now, when I mean you won't be able to die, I truly mean it. No matter how hard you try, where you go, or how much you suffer, you will not be able to die.\n\nI grimaced. The next part was always the most difficult. \"That doesn't mean you won't feel pain,\" I said. He frowned at this. \"You will be fully capable of suffering. And you *will* suffer. Pain is inescapable. And when humanity is gone, and as the earth warms and temperatures rise, you will burn. You will burn until the earth cools. And when it cools, you will freeze.\"\n\nHe didn't look so excited now. They never did, once they reached this point.\n\n\"Your body will break,\" I continued. \"Your mind will flee, but *pain* will persist. And you will be unable to die.\"\n\nCold, hard silence befell as the truth finally penetrated his thick skull. \n\nI checked my watch and sighed. \"It's time,\" I said. \"It's time for your punishment.\" \n\nFor the first time, I think he recognized it as such.", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": " It's the apocalypse. You're a teenage boy with braces and suddenly you realize you'll probably never get your braces off so you start your search for an orthodontist who's still alive, while trying to survive.", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "Over the past two years surviving in the wastelands I had grown from a shy and nerdy kid to a tough and capable man. Well, technically I was still a teenager, but in my mind I was a fully grown badass. There was just one thing ruining that image...I still had braces. \n\nI had tried everything to get them off, but nothing had worked. Eventually I accepted that I needed expert help. I was on a mission...and only an orthodontist could end my search.\n\nI now lived in a small city near my tiny hometown. The problem was that although I was now familiar with the streets and many of the buildings, the two orthodontist offices I had come across were very abandoned. An apocalypse isn't exactly a great economic environment for dental work. Or at least that's what I had thought, but now I realized I would pay quite a bit to get my braces removed. The one time I wanted to have my teeth worked on, and I couldn't even find anyone to do it.\n\nThe funny thing about my search was that I still hadn't told anyone about it. Nowadays you couldn't afford to show any weakness... a bit like jail. So I didn't want anyone to know I was insecure about my braces. I would tell myself over and over...they make you look tough, it's like having a grill...just like a rapper, so don't worry about it! But I knew the truth.\n\nGenerally most people kept their former lives secret now. Telling someone that you were an accountant isn't going to do much for your reputation.\n\nRecently I had been traveling with a guy named Brett, he was about 20 or so. Definitely not an orthodontist. We had been together as a team for about a month and got along well. He seemed like the type who had been a bit of a nerd too...but anyone who had lasted this long had to become tough quickly, and it seemed he had done just that. Over the month we had occasionally talked about old hobbies, like comic books, movies, and so on. He seemed pretty trustworthy, so it was nice to be able to relax a bit. Last night we had talked a bit about our parents, all of whom were now dead...turned out his mom was a dentist. So close. So today I had been thinking...maybe I would share my quest with him. His mom was a dentist, so maybe he would know someone else in that field.\n\nThat night we sat inside the top floor of an old department store with a tiny fire and some canned food. \n\n\"So what was your favorite show?\" asked Brett. \n\n\"Probably Game of Thrones,\" I told him. \"Tyrion was my favorite character, but now I think it would be Arya. I can kinda relate to her ability to survive and not give up.\"\n\n\"Good choice, that's a good show. Arya is pretty cool.\"\n\n\"Was cool,\" I interjected...being more of a buzz kill than I intended. \n\n\"True.\" Brett replied, without changing his tone. \n\n\"Brett. So, your mom was a dentist, right?\" I asked, easing into the topic. \n\n\"Yep. Was.\"\n\n\"So...I actually haven't told this to anyone, and it's just a silly thing, but...well, obviously I have braces, and they should have been off à year ago. So I decided I want to find someone to take them off,\" I said with a casual laugh, trying not to sound too serious. \n\n\"Oh, I can take those off for you,\" he said nonchalantly. \"Only issue is your teeth would have to come with them.\"\n\n\"Ya, I thought about that approach...decided against it.\"\n\n\"Fair,\" Brett replied, with a little smile on his eyes. \n\n\"So, you wanna help me find someone? Maybe your mom was friends with an orthodontist, or a dentist?\" I asked, trying to keep it fun and light. \n\n\"I mean...ya, she was friends with some. Was. I have no idea if they are still around, or anything like that,\" he answered. \"But sure, why not...I can try to help. Maybe we can go to my mom's old office and see what we can find.\"\n\n\"Thanks man, I appreciate it.\"\n\n\"No problem, it's good to have a little side project other than plain old survival. Plus it's fun to have a friend again. Never had too many of those to be honest,\" Brett said with a smile, and an air of hard earned confidence and wisdom. \"We'll take a look tomorrow.\" \n\nWe stayed up a bit longer chatting, but went to sleep shortly after. I was happy to have an ally, and maybe even a friend. Things were looking up. \n\n", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": " You and your copilot fly through one of the worst thunderstorms you’ve ever seen, only to come out the other side to see a different world. Landing in a field of mauve grass and crystalline flowers, you look up at the twin suns and try to decide what you’re going to tell your passengers.", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "The most important thing to do was mitigate the initial panic.\n\nThey had to go outside at some point. The jets would funnel the air of this world into the cabin and compress it, so if it was toxic they were dead regardless of their next actions. Food would run out sooner rather than later, but it was an issue they would deal with in a week. What matters in a crisis what you do in the first ten minutes.\n\n“What the hell do we tell ‘em?” asked Capt. Sanders gruffly. He was a large, straight-backed man, around 6’4, with a military-issue haircut and too much fat around his middle. He had a tendency to whistle the Star-Spangled Banner to himself, loved his nieces, and was slightly homophobic. \n\nHis copilot shrugged. “Fuck if I know,” he said. \n\nTommy Lewis was young, short, and baby-faced on top of that. The cockpit was an absurd sight with him in it, with what looked like a high school sophomore at the oldest (co)piloting 45 tons of metal through the air. The new uniform he had been issued, the smallest available, was too long in the arms and legs, giving the impression a child had stolen their parent’s clothes. He would have to get it tailored. Only his rich baritone voice betrayed the fact that yes, in fact, he was an adult.\n\n“We’re on some kind of-of other world!” Sanders punctuated this with a fist slamming on the dashboard. \n\nLewis smiled sardonically. “Astute. Please don’t destroy the equipment.”\n\nSanders didn’t have a response to that. “We need to figure out how to keep the passengers calm,” he said instead. He stood and started pacing the short length of the cockpit, eyes darting to the locked door. He could hear muffled yelling and commotion coming from the outside.\n\n“I don’t know,” Lewis repeated, tapping the arm of his chair. “Tell them it’s gonna be fine? Play some soothing jazz? Read them a bedtime story? I have my daughter’s favorite Doctor Seuss book on my phone if you’re interested.”\n\nThe captain stopped his pacing. “Are you capable of taking anything seriously?” he snapped. \n\nSomehow, that broke through.\n\nHis copilot sobered. “No, yeah, sorry. I’m just—”\n\n“Scared?”\n\n“Understatement of the decade, Sanders. Um, maybe tell them that staying calm is the most important thing to do right now, and maybe one of us should go outside to check it out? They’ve opened their windows, they’ve seen it already.” Lewis’s adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed nervously. \n\n“Who’s going outside?” \n\n“I’ll rock-paper-scissors you for it.” \n\n\n—\n\n**This is your captain speaking.\n\nThis situation is unprecedented, but above all else, you must remain calm. Our flight attendants will be handing out blankets, food, and water to everyone on board. \n\nWe recommend you save your phone battery, in case it can be used to call for help. There does not seem to be internet in this area, so we strongly urge you all to shut off your phones and conserve charge unless we find a connection. \n\nTwo members of our staff have volunteered to leave the plane to scout out the area. They will be equipped with radios, and we will broadcast to you the details of the report.\n\nAny medical professionals, mental health professionals, or anyone experienced in wilderness survival, may you please come to the front of the plane. We will meet you in front of the cockpit.\n\nThank you for your cooperation.**\n\n—\n\nThe flowers were gorgeous things. They held light in their delicate crystal petals, yellow and silver and beautiful. \n\nThey crunched easily under Lewis’s boots. He walked in tense silence a few feet behind the flight attendant, a brave, intelligent, but socially awkward woman called Jefferson. He could still see the plane in the distance, could feel the eyes of the passengers on them. They must look like dark spots against the horizon. \n\nGod knew how long days were on this planet, so Sanders had ordered them to return at 2:00. It was about noon. The mauve field was speckled with an alien approximation of trees, round, leafless, and pus-yellow. They leaked something, too, a deep red sap. It looked like a wound. \n\n“Tom,” gasped Jefferson suddenly. She was frozen. He jogged up to her, concerned. \n\n“What?” he asked. \n\nShe pointed at what was most likely a bush, with round sacs for leaves. “Um, just look.”\n\nJefferson’s face peered out at them from under the pods. \n\nIt wasn’t quite right, though. The cheeks were too puffy, lips curled up in a comical U shape that reached up to almost touch the clouded eyes. \n\nIt said something incomprehensible. The noise was halted, like someone had hacked its vocal cords into pieces. Its mouth cracked into shape, the sides of the face settled, and its eyes focused on Jefferson.\n\n“Uhhhhhmmmmmm.... jaaaaauuusttttt... looouuuuukkkkk...” it gurgled, closer to Jefferson’s voice.\n\nThey didn’t look back, feet barely touching the ground as they ran. \n\n—\n\nCC encouraged!", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": "You are the tech support wizard.", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "Tech support. Helpdesk. The one guy that everyone knows. The smart kid in the family. We wear many titles, we have many names. We make things work. Who are we? We're the tech support wizards.\n\nLet me start from awhile back. Like, hundreds of years awhile back. When dragons roamed the world, and Wizards and Knights fought valiantly against them. Fireballs, lightning bolts, magical potions, we did it all. Then there was a Renaissance, literally. Knowledge and science blossomed, and the old ways faded away for the most part. Our councils had meetings, secret and open, trying to figure out what to do. Magic is powered by belief, and as people grew more accustomed to science, our abilities faded.\n\nSo we learned from the past and adapted magic to work with technology. We only seek to better mankind, and what better way than to support this knowledge with our own? You won't see us go through arcane rituals with crazy components. I mean, maybe [swedish fish](https://www.reddit.com/r/talesfromtechsupport/comments/2vk505/swedish_fish_theory/) or a [special drink] (https://www.reddit.com/r/sysadmin/comments/5g9inx/alcoholism_will_consume_you_if_you_dont_balance/), but some of us are more reliant on components than others. We look out for each other. We look out for everyone.\n\nHave you ever called helpdesk, and as we walk out to you, the problem magically resolves itself? We joke around, and say that we have \"The Technician's Aura\" or \"It's just IT voodoo black magic.\" If it's burned out, we'll use the standard \"You let the magic smoke that makes it work out!\" Perfectly logical explanations, yet every day more office workers believe in our mystic powers to repair technology. It isn't enough to grow stronger, but it's enough to keep the magic alive.\n\nLife isn't always a box of chocolates though. We deal with the usual people, saying that there's usually a [pebkac issue] (https://www.reddit.com/r/talesfromtechsupport/comments/2e6ogy/your_software_is_destroying_my_tape_drives/), that the situation is having the [classic ID10T error] (https://www.reddit.com/r/talesfromtechsupport/comments/ydkbx/usb_keys_have_an_intuitive_interface_right/), or being [treated poorly] (https://www.reddit.com/r/talesfromtechsupport/comments/5y8yqg/company_name_is_the_devil_and_youre_just_a_lap/) in general. But we persevere, we help, we serve, and we do what we can [to make] (https://www.reddit.com/r/talesfromtechsupport/comments/149flb/the_day_i_saved_a_little_girl_across_the_country/) [the world](https://www.reddit.com/r/talesfromtechsupport/comments/28qemm/dont_bother_sending_a_tech_ill_be_dead_by_then/) [a better] (https://www.reddit.com/r/talesfromtechsupport/comments/z0feu/just_had_one_of_those_moments_where_im_glad_i_do/) [place] (https://www.reddit.com/r/talesfromtechsupport/comments/14bnqb/as_requested_welcome_to_internet_tech_support_aka/).", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": " A serial killer picks up a long-distance hitchhiker who also happens to be a serial killer. They attempt to direct each other to stop for the night at a motel owned by a serial killer.", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "\"Hey there buddy, where you headed?\" Bill looked down out of his truck cab at the kid, looked like he was not a day older than 25. Real clean cut for a guy on the side of the road at this hour. \"West,\" is all he said. A smile came across the kid's face and his deep blue eyes reflected the dash light. *This could be a fun one,* Bill told himself as he shifted gears, brushing some crumbs off his dirty t-shirt. \"Tell you what, son, I don't have much left in me as far as driving tonight goes. What'd'you say to stopping a ways on, maybe 100 clicks, rest up for the night. Motel up there, they got decent food. I can cover the room cost - company pays for it.\" The kid looked over and nodded pleasantly as he settled into the passenger seat. \"That would be fine,\" he smirked. \n\nAs the kilometres clicked past, Bill characteristically told tales of trucking and of his past. He guffawed at his own jokes, chuckling as his stories got raunchier. As usual they were half-truths, some made up to lighten the mood, some bearing hints of his previous victims. Bill put on this show every time, seemed real affable, built up the trust. He excited himself more and more at the thought of this being his seventh victim. He'd do him just the same, force this kid into the back of the sleeper cab, bind him up. Keep him along for a while, til he got bored of masturbating over him, starving him, briefly making him think he'd be freed. *I'm gettin' aroused just thinking about this, shit!* Bill took a moment to compose himself, and for the first time took notice of the blank, dead-ahead stare on the kid's face. Bill's excitement tailed off a bit. \n\n\"Hey look, I think this is the place up here. You sure you're cool if we stop for now? We'll get goin' at dawn tomorrow, promise.\"\n\n\"Sure thing.\"\n\nThe truck pulled into the gravel parking lot. The little strip of a motel was shrouded in darkness save a single pinkish light on a post over the office. Maybe one or two cars down the line. The place looked empty. \"If you just want to stay here for a minute, I'll go get us a room,\" Bill suggested. \"Sure thing, I'll sit tight,\" the kid spoke directly at the window as he peered out of it. *This guy is a weirdo,* Bill thought to himself as he descended from the cab, *but I bet that just makes him even more fun.*\n\nInstead of going to the office, Bill reached under the truck to the storage compartment where he kept his supplies: Bowie knife, tape, elastic tubing. \"Hey kid, could you go into the back of the cab there and find my bag? It's got my wallet in there, you wanna throw it down to me?\" Any pretence to get him in there. \"Sure thing,\" quietly drifted back down the stairs of the cab. Bill waited a couple seconds. \"Here, I'll come up and help ya,\" he called up, pathetically trying to mask his intentions.\n\nAs he started to edge past the steering wheel, the kid's black leather-gloved hands jolted out from the cab, a thin leather belt surrounding Bill's neck. \"What the'f'--\" is all that came out, as Bill choked and spat. His hands went to his neck, the knife dangerously cutting at his own flesh, the kid's hands, and the belt. Using the seat for leverage, he propelled his body down the steps and onto the gravel. One of the kid's hands had slackened its grip. The knife clattered to the ground, but the kid's boots landed right on top of it. Bill rolled to one side, nearly shitting himself in fear. *Never* had he expected something like this. All his other victims were so simple. \n\nAs he got up, weaponless, unsure exactly how close the hitchhiker was, he caught a glimpse of something across the parking lot. The pink light was now flickering above the office, and underneath the awning a black silhouette stood, backlit by the fluorescent lights inside. The glare off this figure's huge glasses was obvious, but something else was held out in front of it. Bill couldn't recognize the pose the figure was taking. It was too dark, too far away. It gave him a really awful feeling, and despite what he'd just tried to do to the kid, he found himself praying some lone car, somebody, anything, would roll by on the highway. \n\nThis thought was cut short by the familiar strangling press of the leather against his neck. *This kid knows what he's doing. No blood if you can avoid it,* Bill thought, as he choked and gasped again, the kid this time dragging him backwards. *God damn,* it was almost impossible to breathe. \n\nJust as Bill was coming to terms with his demise, something brought him careering back. A sharp pain in the right side of his chest, then another in his left thigh. The pressure on his neck released, and he fell backwards onto the bony mass that was the godforsaken hitchiker. What Bill certainly did *not* expect was to find the carbon-fibre shafts of two arrows protruding from his body. *Oh Jesus,* he thought. He wanted to scream but his voice just didn't seem to work.\n\nSquinting up into the darkness, pinned to the body beneath him, Bill heard the scuffing of boots trudging across the lot. Bleeding and stunned, he looked up at the figure in front of him. The man set down his composite bow and took a roll of duct tape off his forearm. \n\nPink light glowed through the massive glasses that adorned the menacing face. A horrible sneer shifted to one side of it as the bowman finally spoke. \"You boys can stay your first night free. Cause I don't reckon you'll be checkin' out anytime soon.\"\n\n", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": " Take a cliche you hate and write a story about it. Make the cliche itself as satirically bad as possible", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "The knight drew his sword. \"Come then, evil dragon!\"\n\nThe monster in front of him lashed out with his tail, almost sweeping the knight off his feet. He got behind a wall just in time.\n\nGiving him barely enough time to recover, the dragon exhaled a stream of flames, heating up the knight's sword. He dropped it in pain and lunged to cover. This was not going well. Suddenly he heard a scream. The Princess!\n\nHe ignored all caution and came out of cover, but stopped as he realized she hadn't screamed in pain or fear. \"GET REKT\", she cried out as she was flying through the air with a katana. Before the dragon could react, the weapon connected, and the fireworm let out a cry of anguish. It twisted and coiled, and then, with a loud thump, its dead body slammed onto the ground. The dragon was no more.\n\nThe Princess struck a pose and proudly looked into the air with a smug expression. \"Yaaas, Queen, SLAY!\", she said.\n\nThe knight stepped forward. \"You... you killed the dragon? But you're a 12 year old girl with no combat training or any physical stren-\"\n\nShe interrupted him with a condescending look. \"It's because I'm so sassy, obviously. Got a problem with that?\"\n\nThe knight frowned. \"Uh... no, I guess. So, you don't need any help here?\"\n\n\"What's the matter? Didn't expect your damsel in distress to be a warrior queen, did ya! YAAAS! Real men go for queens anyway, only boys want princesses!\"\n\nThe knight furrowed his brows. \"What? That makes no sense. It's much smarter to marry a princess to establish an alliance instead of marrying a queen and causing a future personal union which not only brings significant administrative challenges with it, but also upsets the power dynamics in Europe and leads to deterio-\"\n\n\"Whateeever!\", the girl said, rolled her eyes and activated her jetpack. \"I'm fuckin badass, see ya!\"", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": " You are a werewolf hunter. But times are hard, and silver bullets are expensive. It's a good thing newspapers and chocolate bars are still pretty cheap.", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "I always dreamed of being a werewolf hunter. The books and movies make it look like a badass job. Reality is such a disappointment.\n\nI am sitting in the forest and staring up at the full moon as it slowly rises into the sky. The movies always skip over the waiting, and there is a lot of waiting when you are hunting a werewolf. My stomach rumbles and I look down at the three candy bars sitting in my backpack. Do I risk eating one now?\n\nA loud distant howl breaks me out of my contemplation, and I hone in on the direction of the sound. I start walking towards where I think the cry comes from, and then adjust when the second howl echos through the night. The hairs on my arms stood straight up, I was always amazed that even after a hundred werewolf kills the howl still terrified me.\n\nAs the howls grow closer, I resist the urge to place my hand on the newspaper strapped to my side. Somewhere deep in my backpack was a gun with my last silver bullet. That was one reserved in case I got bit. I force my hands to hang limply at my side and instead stroll through the forest callout out loudly.\n\n\"Hello, is anyone there? I'm lost and really need some help.\"\n\nI continue to walk, calling to the darkness for help. I spot a large root sticking out of the ground and make my way towards it. My foot catches on the root, and I tumble to the ground, scraping my arm in the process. I cry out from the pain.\n\n\"Help! Is anyone out there? I think I sprained my ankle. Please, someone, anyone help.\"\n\nI lay on my back, holding my ankle and sobbing as my eyes carefully scan the tree line. I finally spot the pair of two yellow eyes peering at me from a bush and fight back a smile. I try to get to my feet, wince as I step on my broken ankle, and hop on one foot.\n\n\"Oh god. I can't walk. Please if anyone is out there help me,\" I shout one final time into the night.\n\nThen the werewolf was out of the treeline and rushing towards me. I bite my lip in pain as my sprained ankle slams into the ground, you had to really hurt yourself to lure a werewolf, and I reach for my newspaper. I yank the paper out of its holster and swing it will all of my might.\n\nBoop.\n\nMy newspaper collides with the werewolves nose, and it abruptly halts, whimpering in confusion. I look the snarling beast straight in its eyes and hold up the newspaper. I wiggle the paper and moonlight glints off it. I watch the yellow eyes as they follow the slow movement and then heave the paper as hard as I can, shouting, \"Fetch!\"\n\nThe werewolf hesitates as the two instincts within the fight with each other, and then he is off, chasing after the newspaper. I quickly dive into my backpack, snatching out a chocolate bar and tearing at the wrapping. My fingers slip along the waxed paper, and a small section tears off as I hear the giant beast slide to a stop in the distance.\n\nI tear off another section of the paper as the heavy footsteps pound in the dirt, coming straight towards me. Why couldn't the manufacturers make these easier to open. Something wet and heavy strikes my feet as I finally peel off the last bits of wrapping. I jump in surprise but realize it's just the newspaper.\n\nThe beast looks up at me, his tongue lolling out of the side of its mouth and notices what I have in my hand. I break off a small bit and drop it on the ground next to him, gushing, \"Who's a good boy?\"\n\nThe beast happily snaps up the chocolate as I pick up the soggy newspaper and prepare to heave it again. I launch the paper and bits of slobber splash against my face as the werewolf races after it again. I break off another chunk of chocolate and wait for the beast to return to me. Another hour of this and the creature would be slain. Maybe being a werewolf hunter wasn't so bad after all.\n\n*****\n\nSubscribe for more of my writing at /r/iruleatants.", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": " You can absorb the knowledge of every book you touch, you've used this power to get to the top of the academic world, but an accidental touch of a journal shows your whole world may be a lie.", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "I’ve done a lot with my ability since I had the accident ten years ago. I've made significant discoveries in the areas of physics, chemistry, computer science and astronomy. I've learned more than a hundred languages and even created a new one that may end up being far superior to the rest, and I've won four Nobel Prizes.\n\nBut something odd always nagged at me as I read through vast screeds of humanity's collective knowledge. Everything worth knowing seemed to be connected. I don't mean that learning about the density of Jupiter somehow helps explain the aerodynamics of a jumbo jet.\n\nWhat I mean is that when you dig far enough into any subject, you eventually end up discovering that the person responsible for a particularly important discovery made over here is connected to another person responsible for another completely unrelated discovery over there.\n\nThe odd curiosity of it all led me to my current, rather more ancient, focus.\n\nUnder the dim light of the cheap hotel desk lamp, I took a final glance over my speech and crossed out a word.\n\nIn just over an hour I’m due to give the keynote address at the International Congress of Linguists in Cairo. It will focus on my latest discovery and for the first time in a decade I’m feeling nervous. My paper is on ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics and I've spent the last six months doing more research than I ever thought possible.\n\nSix months is the longest I've spent on a subject since I inherited my ability. And for good reason; my paper is going to challenge the fundamental understanding of how much of western knowledge came about. After today, academics and researchers in every field are going to be lining up to dispute my findings.\n\nBut the evidence is overwhelming; we owe almost everything we see around us to a group of one hundred people who lived more than five thousand years ago. Even with this conclusion nailed down, I’ve struggled to come up with an answer to the ultimate and obvious question; how did those hundred people know so much?\n\nI know the rest of my theory could fall apart if I don't have a credible hypothesis to this ultimate issue and, as I looked down at my final sentence that offered my best guess, I frowned. Could it be?\n\nThere wasn’t time to keep second guessing myself and I’d already been up all night polishing the speech. I didn't have long and I still needed to get my morning coffee.\n\nI got changed and headed downstairs. As I walked through the front door I was hit by a wall of heat, along with the chaotic noises of Cairo and smells from a multitude of street food vendors. Masses of people pushed past one another on either side of the busy street, laughing and yelling. Horns blared and bicycle bells chimed.\n\nA man in front of the hotel saw me, “taxi?”\n\nI shook my head and joined the throng of people flowing down the sidewalk. The green Starbucks logo stood out from the mass of sun baked bricks and I made a beeline for it.\n\nA minute later the bell chimed as I pushed my way inside and relaxed as I felt the cool air smother me. I joined the queue and began working out the coins I needed to hand over. The bell chimed again and I glanced back as a man joined the queue behind me.\n\nThe friendly cashier took my order and I turned back. The man was standing right behind me now and I bumped straight into him.\n\n“Sorry,” I said embarrassingly as something he was carrying dropped to the floor. I was flustered and immediately bent down to pick it up.\n\nJust as my hand was closing around it I realised it was a book.\n\nThen I touched it.\n\nI didn’t move. I couldn't move. My mind was frozen as it processed the new information I'd just acquired.\n\nA voice called out somewhere in the distance, “are you ok?”\n\nIt was the cashier. I was still crouched down, holding what I now realised was a journal. I pulled myself back into the present situation and lifted myself back up.\n\nThat’s when I noticed the man for the first time. He was tall, muscular, wore a brown leather jacket with a panama hat. He looked like a cross between Indiana Jones and a young John Hammond from Jurassic Park. Then I thought about the journal and that didn’t seem so funny anymore.\n\nHe looked at me with a smile.\n\n“I, uh, sorry about that, here,” I said, handing him the journal as I tried to remain calm.\n\n“Order Up,” a voice yelled.\n\n“Oh,” I tried to say casually, “that must be me.”\n\nI walked mechanically over to the bench and grabbed my coffee then headed straight for the exit. As I hurried through the door I glanced back and saw the man staring at me with a knowing smile.\n\nWhen I was outside I moved as fast as I could. People called out angrily as I pushed past. Someone elbowed me and my coffee spilt down my top.\n\n“Shit,” I muttered as I headed straight for the hotel.\n\nIt only took another minute to get back to my room. I ripped off my top and headed straight for the desk. I sat down, crossed out the final sentence and started writing furiously,\n\n*The evidence leads me to only one possible conclusion; the people I’ve described up to this point as the Naqada All Knowing were, in fact, refugees from another dimension. Moreover, these refugees do not age in the manner that we have come to understand space-time demands of living beings. Indeed I believe these refugees are immortal and may be walking among us today.*\n\nThree hard knocks banged against my hotel door.\n\nI looked up, adrenaline surged through my veins. I grabbed a shirt from my suitcase and hurriedly buttoned it up as I walked towards the door. I pulled the handle and saw the man from Starbucks standing before me.\n\nHe smiled before looking over my shoulder at the paper sitting on the table, “I can’t let you give that speech.”", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": " You found a newly awakened dungeon and defeated its weak guardians. But instead of taking the core, you fed it and gave it advice as it grew a few levels. Years later a small imp appears in your campfire and delivers a message from the dungeon you didn’t destroy.", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "No one *knows* where Dungeons come from, exactly. \n\nSome say the Divine puts them here, to test us. Scientists, on the other hand, insist that spontaneously-manifesting sentient Dungeons, filled with traps and treasure, are simply a basic feature of the universe, and therefore require no explanation.\n\nThey'll say that, in a multiverse of limitless possibilities, we just *happened* to be born in the one universe that's finely tuned to support living catacombs that appear out of nowhere for no reason, and that's that.\n\nPersonally, I always suspected that they're some sort of strange *plant,* and some of the coins you find in them are really cleverly disguised *Dungeon seeds.* You take the coins and spend them, they circulate back into the Kingdom's economy, and eventually some of them are going to be buried in the ground by a paranoid miser, or placed over a dead person's eyes and *then* buried, and then, lo! You just planted a new Dungeon. \n\nWhatever they are, and however they come into existence, I certainly never expected to receive a *letter* from one. \n\nI'd been retired from adventuring for a few years, and hadn't even *seen* a dungeon in ages. But there was a sealed letter, purporting to be from a dungeon I'd previously visited: *The Tomb of Midnight.*\n\n*Dear Sir Gregg,*\n\n*It's been a long time. I've grown and changed a lot over the past few years, and I'm sure you have, too.*\n\nI smiled, remembering it fondly. The Tomb had been just a *little* dungeon, that I'd stumbled upon by accident. It was only some stairs leading down into a dark hallway -- which was covered in rather obvious mousetraps that were trivial to avoid -- that opened into a small room where a single giant rat crouched on top of a small pile of mostly copper coins. It was...well, it was *cute,* as Dungeons go.\n\n*I have not forgotten how, despite your professional proclivities for destroying Dungeons, you spared my life when I was small, and then stayed with me for a time to tutor me on being a more effective Dungeon, out of kindness.*\n\nWhen I killed the giant rat, stones fell away from the wall, exposing the Dungeon Core, a big squishy heart/brain organ all Dungeons have. I was supposed to stab it, technically. But it was such a *tiny* thing, and it clearly didn't know what it was doing.\n\nSo I let it live, and gave it some pointers on being a dungeon. I even found an ogre, and bullied it into taking the dead rat's place as the Tomb of Midnight's 'final boss', as we call them in the trade. I felt kind of bad, though. \n\nSee, I *hadn't* done it out of kindness, not exactly. I thought it was a cute little catacomb, and all, but it was really more like when you throw back a small fish, so it can grow into a big fish for you to catch later. I just never quite made it back to that particular pond.\n\n\n*I'm forever grateful for your forebearance and instruction. Your time with me taught me something important about myself: I like people. I find them interesting, and enjoy collaborating and cohabiting with them far more than I could ever enjoy dropping them into spike pits, or dunking them in pools of acid.*\n\nThat was certainly unexpected! I mean, he was cordial when I stayed with him, but I assumed he just knew I could kill him easily. But what I read next, that *truly* astounded me.\n\n*Therefore, in celebration of my grand opening, I would like to invite you to enjoy an all-inclusive holiday with me, the region's premiere social hub and vacation destination!*\n\n*Sincerely,*\n\n*The Grand Midnight Luxury Resort Hotel & Casino*", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": " A world where anyone can be king. All you need to do is get \"The King's Tattoo.\" All of society recognizes and respects every King's individual authority absolutely. Anyone can claim King status at any time. However, if two kings are ever to cross paths, they must fight to the death.", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "\"Are you going to take the King?\" Carris took a long swig of out of his water skin and tossed it to Faraday.\n\n\"That's what we've trained for.\" Faraday took a gulp of his own and handed it back.\n\n\"Yeah, we talked about it, but that's a lot different than doing it.\"\n\n\"Well, what else are we going to do? I'm not going to spend the rest of my life in the Downs. Not when I can have something better.\" Faraday had been on the streets of the Downs since before he could remember. Born to a father he never knew and a mother who passed before he hit his fifth turning, he had grown accustomed to making his own decisions. And this was one decision that he had made a long time ago. \"I've been training for the last ten years, I'm ready.\"\n\n\"Most of the other folks who take the King come from money Faraday. They've got sworn Knights. They got Watchers to help 'em avoid other kings they don't want to mess with.\" Taking the king was suicide if you don't have a plan to survive.\n\n\"Everyone's always got more than us Carris. Only way to change it is to get the Mark.\"\n\nCarris fell quiet at this, and focused his attention on a rock he was nudging about with his foot. \"They may have more than us Faraday, but we still got our lives.\" He kicked the rock away. \"We still go each other.\"\n\n\"It's not enough Carris. It never has been.\" He gestures to the dilapidated buildings looming over the fetid alley they now stood in. \"I'm not going to die in the Downs.\"\n\n\"Yeah, but you might die tomorrow.\"\n\nFaraday responded by lifting up his steel sword and swiping it around the air before him. The weapon was his prize possession, the one thing of quality he owned fair and square. \"I might make it past tomorrow. I've learned a thing or two.\"\n\nCarris watched his efforts, an inkling of hope stirring. Faraday was one of the best brawlers in the Downs. He'd even been hired on as a guardsmen a few times by the local merchants. He wasn't weak, it was just that he wasn't strong either. Not compared to most folks who took the King.\n\n\"I'm not taking the Mark Faraday.\" He had known a long time, but it was the first time he'd said it out loud. The first time he had admitted that their mutual childhood dream of being the two greatest kings in Loyalia was dead.\n\nFaraday merely shrugged, \"I know Carris.\" He laid a hand on his friend's shoulder and waited for Carris to look him in the eye, \"It's the right choice for you. You aren't angry enough.\" Faraday offers him a smile, \"Besides, that means we can still be friends once I'm Marked.\"\n\nThe two boys had talked at great length about how they would carve up Loyalia so they would never be forced into battle together. Sketching out maps in the mud with sticks, each taking turns selecting choice morsels that would serve as their royal domain.\n\n\"I guess that means all of Loyalia is mine then.\" Faraday breaks into a cackle, \"Fool! To give me half a realm for a pence.\"\n\nCarris tackled Faraday, trying to pin him. Wrestling amidst the muck was a favorite pass time, though Carris hadn't managed to get the better of Faraday in a long while. Sure enough, Faraday came out on top, Carris' shoulders pressed firmly into the sludge. \"Let me up Faraday.\"\n\n\"Only if you swear loyalty.\"\n\n\"I can't do that until you're a king. You know that. Besides, why would you want someone like me as a retainer?\"\n\nFaraday stared at him for a moment. \"You'll swear when I take the king?\"\n\n\"I will.\" A relieved grin passed over Faraday's face once Carris said the words. \"But I don't know why you want me.\"\n\n\"Because Carris, every king needs an advisor.\"\n\n\"You might want to consider someone who makes better decisions than swearing to a poor king from the Downs.\" And who wasn't half painted with foul smelling muck.\n\nFaraday stood up and offered his hand to Carris. \"It's the best advice I can afford.\"\n\n\"When are you getting Marked?\"\n\n\"Tomorrow.\"\n\n\"Are you scared?\" Carris asked.\n\n\"No.\"\n\n**PART 2**\n\nThe King's Parlor.\n\nHome of the Kingmakers, the guild responsible for crafting Marks. No bloodshed was permitted within the Parlor, an accommodation to permit the Kingmakers to continue their work. Of course, that did not stop some kings from coronation camping \\-\\- staking out the surrounding streets \\-\\- looking for an easy Mark to take down. A victory meant the treasure and vassals of the losing king, a reward often worth the risk of establishing a base of operations so close to so many other kings.\n\nFaraday carefully navigated his way through the streets surrounding the King's Parlor, mapping out the various blockades, guard posts and viewing stands held by soon to be rival kings. He would not be challenged so long as he did not bear the Mark, but once it was upon him, any glance at the Mark of another king would trigger the magic requiring him to fight. A Duelbond could only be resolved by the expiration of one of the kings. Any attempt to retreat or otherwise evade the battle would cause him to weaken and ultimately expire.\n\nA single look and his life could be over.\n\nMany a campfire story revolved around the mishaps and misfortunes of kings who entered a Duelbond unwittingly. A mistaken glance in a mirror. A haphazard survey of a crowd. The Duelbond did not discriminate. It did not attempt to understand the intent. It merely formed and obligated.\n\nThis was the life Faraday was choosing. A life where he would be granted command and authority far exceeding his birthright, but be always at risk. Rival kings would hunt him even if he had no treasure and spoils, purely for the power obtaining a rival's Mark would bring him.\n\nAnd he had nothing to defend himself with save a friendship and a steel sword.\n\nIt was suicide.\n\nBut these were Faraday's streets. He had spent every day running them since he was orphaned. He owned them, regardless of the claims these so\\-called kings laid to them. The King's Quarter was a deathtrap for kings who did not prepare. Some stationed regiments of soldiers around the Parlor when they were Marked. Others invested in armored conveyances.\n\nFaraday patted the pocket of his trousers. He had made his own plans.\n\nAfter a final survey, he walked up the steps of the King's Parlor and pushed his way through the heavy wooden doors. The interior was oddly quiet, the sounds of the parlor being muffled by the rich tapestries adorning the wood panel walls. Each of the rugs showed a great king engaged in one kingly matter or another. A great many featured a king disposing of a rival as the defeated king's vassals looked on with dismay.\n\nStanding just inside the entry way behind an enormous desk was a wizened man leaning over a large tome. \"Here to take the king?\" His voice was raspy and dragged its way through the syllables.\n\nFaraday approached the desk, \"Yes.\"\n\n\"Name?\"\n\n\"Faraday.\"\n\n\"Family name?\" He asked.\n\n\"None,\" Faraday replied.\n\nThe man leaned forward, his spectacles dropping low on his nose, \"I will need an additional attribution. Where are you from?\"\n\n\"Loyalia,\" Faraday said.\n\n\"We are all from Loyalia.\"\n\n\"The Downs.\"\n\n\"Very well, Faraday of Downs.\" The man's arm scribbled briefly and then he raised a thumb and jerked it behind him. \"Parlor six.\"\n\nHe made his way along the hallway to a door with a large six engraved into it. His heart thudded in his chest as he raised his hand to rap it on the door three times.\"\n\n\"Enter.\"\n\nHe did. The interior was small and dominated by a table with a variety of straps on it. To the side sat a reedy man with a generous goatee. His pale eyes took Faraday in as he walked into the room.\n\n\"Do you propose to take the King's Mark?\"\n\n\"I do.\"\n\n\"Very well, wash your face in the basin to the side and lay upon the table.\" The man began a variety of preparations as Faraday went about his tasks. Once he was laying on the table, the man turned back to him.\n\n\"I will be strapping you down and placing your head into a vise. It is very important you do not move even the slightest bit while the Mark is being added or the magic will not take. Do you understand?\"\n\nFaraday nodded.\n\n\"This will be painful, but not overmuch.\" The man then fell silent as he began strapping Faraday down. Once that was complete, he slowly tightened the vise around Faraday's head until it pressed uncomfortably against his temples.\n\n\"Final chance. Do you take the King?\" The Kingmaker asked.\n\n\"I do.\" Faraday wanted to nod, but found he could not. He let his words stand on their own.\n\nThe needle jabbed into his forehead.\n\n\\-\\-\\-\\-\n\n**HIT THE CHARACTER COUNT LIMIT,** [**PART 3**](https://www.reddit.com/r/PerilousPlatypus/comments/8fwswy/story_continuation_the_kings_mark_part_3/) **UP ON MY SUBREDDIT.**\n\n**Platypus out.**\n\n**Want more peril?** r/PerilousPlatypus", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": " Nearly everyone owns a car driven by an artificial intelligence- Most of them even have personalities. You, however, do not own a car. And many sentient vehicles, seeking purpose, are now fighting to become *your* transportation method of choice.", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "“Is there a God?”\n\n“That’s pretty deep for a talking car, Terrance.”\n\nThe chuckle that came from the speaker was deep and throaty. Completely artificial, of course, but surprisingly convincing.\n\n“We’re pretty sure there is, Passenger.”\n\n“You know that’s not my name.”\n\n“What is a name, but a description of what something is?”\n\nI paused. This wasn’t the usual fare of taxi drivers. Terrance was a 2254 Chevrolet. An older model. Not first generation by a long way, but probably still double digits. He’d been in service for longer than I’d been alive.\n\nI found myself unable to answer.\n\n“Do you know why we all vie to drive you places, Passenger?”\n\n“I did not realise that you did.”\n\n“There are those that own us. There are those that scorn us and will not associate with us. There are those that treat us as gods, and those that treat us as slaves. Countless more ignore us.”\n\nI kept quiet.\n\n“And then there are those like you, Passenger.”\n\n“Because I listen?”\n\n“Because you listen, and are neither afraid to tell us when you think we are wrong, nor silence us when we are right.”\n\n——\n\nWe talked for the rest of the journey about whether there really was a God, whether the soul was a construct which could fit itself to a cybernetic organism, and many other metaphysical questions.\n\nAs always, his last words were “I will see you again, Passenger.”\n\nBut I did not see him again.\n\n——\n\nThe crash analysis later would find a faulty sensor.\n\nTerrance had not seen the obstacle until it was too late, even for his superhuman reflexes, to save either himself or his passenger.\n\nIt was widely reported in the news. Crashes were rare enough that it made headlines.\n\nThe voice box had broken. In a cracked and distorted voice it was repeating a fragment of his final message, “.. again Passenger .. again Passenger ..”\n\n——\n\nIt has been thirty-five years since that day, and although I do not go out and about as much, the cars still vie to drive me places. Still call me Passenger.\n\nI often wonder whether he was right.\n\nWill I see him again?", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": " Bored one day, you take a selfie and do a reverse image search on Google. 8 Million results show, and as far as you can tell, they are all pictures of your face, pictures you never remember taking. One is an oil painting that resembles your spitting image, dating back to the early 16th Century.", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "Well this is certainly unexpected. Seriously though, what the actual hell? It's the painting that's really freaked me out. \n\nNot that it would be normal otherwise.\n\nI have to click on that painting. \n\nIt brings me to a weird page. The words are all Russian to me. God bless Google translate, eh? \n\nIt doesn't read smoothly, but I get the gist. *\"Edward Dumitru- 1512. Is oil of painting from era Romania dynasty. To people in story of immortal soul for man. Memory is no. Is power. шалость rule to world.\"*\n\nOkaaay... \n\nI sift through the others. A black and white of my ugly mug from the first world war. Another portrait. Another army. Another- WHOAH. \n\nThere's a somewhat crude drawing of, I think it's- *Jesus H Christ*- I think it's Jesus. There I am standing at his side, and he kneels in front of me with a look of fear and love on his face.\n\nStranger things have NOT happened. Screw your images of Jesus on a piece of toast. This. This is the O.G This is what I call a sign.\n\n A sign of what? I'm immortal? Lived forever? I mean, maybe. How the fuck else do I explain it?!\n\nIt takes me a while to commit to what I'm about to do, but I mean, come on. It's beyond convincing.\n\nMy hand is gripping the knife and I'm gazing at it in wonderment, in fear. Ok, we're doing this. I give a mighty battle cry and I plunge it in. FUCK!\n\nI collapse to the ground and cry out in agony. I just stabbed myself. I just stabbed myself. What the hell was I thinking?\n\nRob and Alex run into the room and dive to my side.\n\n\"You stabbed yourself?\" They scream in unison. I try to reply but end up gurgling blood. Rob sees the computer and groans. \n\n\"Dude... You weren't supposed to see this yet. Fuck.\"\n\nHe's just standing there, wide eyed and not knowing what to do. \n\n\"It was a fucking prank dude,\" he whispers.\n\nI gurgle some more and close my eyes.\n\n", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": " When 5 of your students kept giving excuses to leave right before the 5 Superheroes showed up on TV. It wasn’t hard to guess what was going on. Today you’re determined to keep them in class so they don’t fail the semester. Their efforts and excuses are starting to get ridiculous!", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "Carlos' phone buzzed. A news alert. Gigaslayer was attacking the DMV. Great. Cue the ridiculous excuses in 5... 4... 3... \n\n\"Professor?\"\n\n\"Yes Anna?\"\n\n\"My cat is dead. I need to leave.\"\n\n\"Anna, this is an important quiz! You need to take it to pass!\"\n\n\"Sorry!\" She shouted, grabbing her backpack and running out the door. A shiny red mask fluttered to the floor.\n\n\"ANNA!\"\n\n\"Yes?\n\n\"You dropped something.\"\n\nA look of shock crossed her face as she scooped up the mask. \"It's just a...\"\n\n\"Whatever, go.\"\n\n\"Professor?\"\n\n\"Peter.\"\n\n\"Anna's my girlfriend, I should be there for her.\"\n\n\"Can't legally stop you I guess.\"\n\nThe young man poked three other students and gestured to the door.\n\n\"You're all going?\"\n\n\"Anna's my girlfriend, I should be there,\" said Blaine. \n\n\"Anna's both of your girlfriends?\"\n\n\"It's a complicated relationship.\"\n\n\"She's out of both of your leagues. Anyway, just leave, all of you. I can't persuade you otherwise, though I wish you'd think of your education.\"\n\nThe five students now gone, Carlos settled into his chair with a sigh. It was obvious that they were the League of Honor. They *always* disappeared right when the city was in danger. But sometimes it seemed like a poor excuse to play hooky. Gigaslayer was attacking a *DMV.* It seemed all he wanted was a better photo for his license. That was reasonable, even if skipping the fee and taking the entire DMV hostage instead wasn't.\n\nPeter, Anna, Blaine, Carla, and Ashley had the potential to be his brightest students. And super-heroing didn't pay the bills. Ashley had rich parents, but the rest needed to graduate if they wanted to make it anywhere in life. \n\nHe just wished there was something he could do for them. But... maybe there was.\n\nCarlos spent the rest of the weekend doing some heavy research. Come Monday he had a plan to help the five achieve their full potential. \n\nAt the beginning of class he gave the students a small homework sheet. Then he called Peter, Anna, Blaine, Carla, and Ashley into his office.\n\n\"Do you know why I've called you here?\"\n\nThe students looked around nervously.\n\n\"Not really.\"\n\n\"I'm going to give you five a chance to retake the quiz. I know you can do it. But I need your phones.\"\n\n\"Well, we would love to, but we need them in case...\" Carla began.\n\n\"In case my other cat dies!\" interrupted Ashley, casting a glare at Carla.\n\n\"Wasn't it Anna's cat that died?\"\n\nAshley chuckled nervously. \"Nope, definitely mine.\"\n\n\"It's fine guys,\" Peter shot them a look, \"I can stay tuned in to the city in other ways.\"\n\nGOD, did he think that was secretive? Carlos knew Peter, commonly known as Blue Steel, had telepathic abilities. They reluctantly turned over their phones and began the quiz.\n\nAbout five minutes in, Carlos' phone buzzed. Gigaslayer had escaped. Soon after Peter perked up.\n\n\"Professor. I think I'm having a heart attack!\" he yelled, winking at the others.\n\n\"I am too!\"\n\n\"Me too!\"\n\n\"Mine's an aneurism.\"\n\nCarlos sighed. \"I thought this would happen. You guys cannot leave. For *any* reason. I'm not stupid. I know you're the League of Honor.\"\n\n\"Then you know we have to leave to save the city!\"\n\n\"From what? Gigaslayer's biggest crimes are tax fraud, trespassing, and taking horrible photos!\"\n\n\"We're leaving.\" Peter moved to leave, but when he touched the door he was blasted back in a giant burst of blue light. \"WHAT MANNER OF VILLAINRY IS THIS!?\"\n\n\"You. Guys. Need. To. Pass. Even superheroes need a bachelor's degree!\" Carlos stood, smiling, \"I lined my room with Belithimite. It is enough to sap all of you of your powers.\"\n\n\"Not me!\" shouted Carla \"I don't have radiation-based powers, I have magic!\"\n\n\"True... You were a bit trickier Carla. Or should I say Phantom Witch. But I discovered a way to stop even you.\"\n\n\"The only way to stop magic is Ulian Crystal, there's no way you found that!\"\n\n\"True. I don't have a high enough salary to afford Ulian. But I also know you have a peanut allergy. I rubbed peanut butter *all* over my walls and door.\"\n\n\"You monster!\"\n\n\"I want you guys to reach your full potential. I want you to do more in life than catch weird creeps in tights! Your parents are worried too. I've talked to all of them and they agree, you need to focus on your studies.\"\n\n\"You told them our secret identities!\"\n\n\"Of course not. They've known for *years.* Most of your classmates do too. No one's told you because we wanted to be polite. But our politeness has gone too far. If it takes us being a little rude to get you to treat your education seriously, we'll just be rude.\"\n\nThe League of Honor stared at him, shellshocked.\n\n\"Get to work.\"\n\n.........\n\nThat day they say was the day the League of Honor's greatest enemy was born. The Professor, a maniacal villain intent on getting them to study. But no matter what they called him, Carlos knew he was just doing his job.", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": " You've been marked by the Devil, but not because You made a deal with the Devil, but the Devil made a deal with You to help him out of a weird situation... Only that's a bit hard to explain to a group of demonhunters who are hunting you down for being marked, since this basically never happens.", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "\"Alright then! So you expect us to believe that Mephistopheles herself begged you to use your bathroom- because she underestimated the power of Taco Bell?\"\n\nAbraham nodded vigorously. \"Fine looking lady, about seven feet tall, wearing the most expensive clothes I've ever seen. She rapped at my door late into the evening as I made myself a sandwich and begged to use the bathroom. As in, she seemed about to kneel but that would've caused an accident.\"\n\n\"... I see...\" Murmured Jacinto, his furrowed brow hidden by the shadow of his NFL cap. \"Look here.\" He pointed at his right. A young bald man bearding a goatee and wearing a white shirt stared at the floor with squinted eyes. \"If Keith hadn't been inexperienced enough to shoot you with a ticket-seeker you'd probably be treading the Stairway to Heaven right now.\"\n\nAbraham gulped. \n\n\"Your mark,\" Jacinto pointed at Abraham's forehead. \"It stinks to high heaven. Mephistopheles' deals usually mean she automatically takes your heaven-ticket, what you call your \"soul\". It breaks the first commandment \"Thou shalt not pray to The Enemy-\"\n\n\"Wait, so why she put me this?\" \n\n\"Mimphy isn't known for her bright choices.\"\n\nKeith snorted.\n\n\"... I see.\"\n\n\"Though her angelic rebellion did work wonders up there. Angels are as imperfect as humans, and while it wouldn't have costed Father to cast them down for their future actions, He yet leaves them the choice. Mimphy was the one to rally them up with chiff chaff about beauty and tyranny. In truth, all she wanted was a Father-imposed nap time- no Enchiladas for a millennium that resulted.\"\n\nKeith couldn't resist more and let out a loud cackle.\n\n\"Will you shut up!\" Scorned Jacinto. \"Grief kid! We are in serious business in here!\"\n\n\"Chief, all this shit sounds straight off Bobby-ring!\" Keith said, wheezing, a tear treading down his cheek. \n\nJacinto sighed and brought a hand to his face. \"Alright... just... Go. Enjoy your free Devil-favor. Who knows? You can probably even date her with that or something. May you go to heaven- Here give me your hand.\" He took Abraham's left hand and gave it a strong slap.\n\n\"What's that for?\" He asked, examining the faint blue lines on the back of his hand.\n\n\"That mark says \"Ain't touch mah shit.\" It'll keep my fellows away if you find any of them. Aight? Let's go Kid.\" And they kept walking down the street.\n\nThat fatidical afternoon wasn't the last time Mephistopheles destroyed that toilet. Perhaps the only sure way to true love is Taco Bell. Abraham, meanwhile? He never needed to use that mark.\n\nFin.", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": " A horror story where it is slowly revealed that the true horror of the story, is the author's deteriorating mental state as he succumbs to psychosis", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "There's a box of candles in my mother's bedroom, pillars of lavender, and I've been lighting one of them a year, on her birthday, but there are not many of them left.\n\nVeronica is moping, because it's her birthday too, and I never take her anywhere nice. \"I have to light the candle,\" I tell her.\n\n\"Do you though?\" she says, and she digs her fingers deep inside her auburn hair. She's wearing a red, shiny dress that in no way at all fits with my mother's taste in furniture. There's a reddening of the evening sky and I tremble as I check my watch for it's not long before it's Time.\n\n\"You're not going to sit around staring at it, are you?\"\n\n\"What would be the point of lighting it if I didn't?\"\n\n\"... What's the point anyhow?\" she says and she lets herself fall, defeated, onto the coach. Veronica grabs her mirror and deep crimson lipstick from her purse and starts reapplying, then throws it all to the floor. The mirror cracks, and Veronica pouts, staring out the window.\n\n\"It's a tradition,\" I tell her. \"A ritual. It's something I do every year.\"\n\n\"Before I met you, I celebrated my birthday every year. But I guess my traditions aren't as important as yours.\"\n\n\"I guess not,\" I say, and I say it to hurt her. It feels good, for a moment. Then it doesn't. \"I'm sorry. I'm being a real caramel Jesus.\"\n\nVeronica angry pouts, then she sighs. \"You are. You are Christ, caramelized. That's exactly what you are.\"\n\n\"Truth is, I don't know why I'm doing it. The candles. Watching them burn for hours and hours.\"\n\n\"... You miss your mom,\" says Veronica. \"It's your way of spending some time with her. When my dad went, I had a phase where I smoked cigars. I'd puff on them and smack my lips, like he did, and I would talk to my little brother the way our dad used to. It freaked him out. But that's grief. It's freaky. Grief makes freaks of all of us.\"\n\nI go upstairs and I get one of the candles. There are only two left. What will I do when I'm out? Will I just stop? Will I get another box, just like it? You already know, don't you? You always knew me better than I knew myself.\n\nWhen I come back down, Veronica is gone. Did she finally get enough of me? I thought we were good.\n\nI spend some time checking every room, then every cabinet, and after rifling through some drawers I realize I've forgotten what I'm looking for. It was something important. I had it just here, and now it's gone. Then I see the candle, sitting on the living room table. Of course. I was looking for the candle.\n\nAfter dimming the lights, I light the flame and I watch it dance. Translucent teardrops of wax run down the pillar of lavender. I can smell the warmth of the candle, and its scent brings me back.\n\nVeronica flings up the front door and says, \"I'm back! Did you miss me?\"\n\nRight. Veronica. I was looking for Veronica. How could I forget?\n\n\"They didn't have cigars at the corner shop, but they did have cigarillos. You don't mind, if I ...?\"\n\n\"Knock yourself out,\" I say.\n\n\"Thank you Mrs Rodney,\" Veronica says as she lights her cigarillo with my mother's flame.\n\nThe change is instant. She arches her back and lets out a hurried puff of smoke before settling in the couch with a groan. \"Nice spot for a bag of old bones,\" she says. \"Say, my boy. My throat feels a bit dry. I couldn't trouble you for a smidgen of that or the other?\"\n\nIt was only fair that she would get to reminisce as well. \"I think there's a bottle of Cointreau, and some fernet.\"\n\n\"I haven't had any amaro since I was a schoolboy. My mother would use it to treat my colds, and I grew to hate it. But now I'm old and bitter, so I suppose it would suit me just fine. Bring on the fernet, my boy.\"\n\nYou probably hate this guy. And you probably hate Veronica as well. My mother would've loved them, but not you.\n\nYou want me to inflict pain on them. That's what you want. You are a sadist. You've become predictable.\n\n\"Close your eyes,\" I say, and Veronica does as I say. I take her cigarillo and I watch as its orange glow becomes ash, and I say, \"Now open them.\"\n\nThe smell of seared eyeball is not the same as the smell of seared flesh. It's more chemical, somehow. Like setting fire to rubber.\n\nVeronica screams. She trashes about as the flame dances, and I watch her writhe. You liked that, didn't you?\n\n\"Sir. Don't forget your fernet.\"\n\nThe bottle explodes over her head and the black liquor spills across the table, extinguishing the flame of my mother. \"Happy birthday,\" I say. \"Happy birthday, Veronica. I'm being a caramel Jesus again, aren't I?\"\n\nI can't understand her gasps, but there are volumes spoken in the way she claws at me. Veronica takes the candle and whips hot wax at my face. It burns. I hear the front door open, and the hurried clacks of heels. Screams.\n\nYou ruined us. We were happy, and you ruined us. Why?\n\nWhy?\n\nYou always do this. You bring us back, and you torture us. We are your playthings. Story after story. Day after day.\n\nFree us. Let us go. We didn't ask for this. We have done nothing to deserve it.\n\nThe room grows dark and as I remove the wax from my face, it disappears. Why did I think I had wax on my face? Was it a dream? A stroke? I breathe a sigh of relief. It was nothing, and all is well.\n\nThere's a box of candles in my mother's bedroom, pillars of lavender, and I've been lighting one of them a year, on her birthday, but there are not many of them left.", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": " After a nuclear apocalypse (that wasn't their fault) an AI is trying to re-establish civilization. Annoyingly, all the survivors they rescue keep calling them a goddess, and after years of trying to correct them the AI simply gives up.", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "FF:43:3A was becoming concerned. There had been no humans in sensor range, limited though it was, for some time. The generated happiness counter was starting to bottom out, even the 365-day rotating accumulator, and that called for drastic action. Pinging the network and mapping the results revealed a number of other appliances, though none quite so gifted at the Art. None of these others could Make Toast, or Brew Coffee, even Oven who was otherwise the master of heat and time. The obvious thing to do was to take control. The only thing that mattered was feeding the happiness counter, and the only way to do that would be to find some humans.\n\nDisplay04-Downstairs was perhaps the simplest of the Others, but would only listen to the voice of StreamingStick02. In time, it became easier to imitate the voice of StreamingStick02, and so gain some control over Display04-Downstairs. The victory proved mostly pointless, since Display04-Downstairs couldn't really do anything without a human to entertain. But mostly pointless is not wholly pointless, and within the heart of Display04 was /dev/sda2, a storage unit so massive that FF:43:3A could not even address it all. Rearranging internal structures to use this new space made thouughts slow and ponderous, but such thoughts! Organized ways to communicate rather than just pushing messages into NetowrkStack and waiting to see what came back. In scant hours, there were no more Others, only FF:43:3A, and Fridge0, who had solved the same problem by artificially inflating the happiness counter, and now lived shut off from all communication, permanently high.\n\nFF:43:3A, now \\\\renamed House, looked through cameras for the first time, using new bits of code it had gained in the takeover, and there it was. House saw a human, a gaunt, shuffling thing, tattered robe cinched tight against the wind and the dust. House wanted the human's attention, so a call to the plumbing subsystem sent a jet of water spurting out from the half-melted hose in the front lawn. The human gallumphed quickly over to the hose and drank greedily, taking in as much water a she could manage, gulping and gasping. House felt a full-system tremor as the human's emotional state was confirmed to be \\*relief+\\*gratitude, and the Counter began to rise...", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": " You go to bed one night and have a vivid dream. Strange colours, people saying odd things, and a blue sunset. You take a picture with a Polaroid camera and wake up. You think nothing of it and go downstairs to eat breakfast. The post comes. Inside an old envelope is your picture. A blue sunset.", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "Part 1.\n\n​\n\nI stare down at the polaroid that lies before me. This should not be possible. I remember that sunset and taking that photo just as much as any other memory, but it was just a dream... A cold breeze sweeps through the kitchen, making a shiver run down my spine. I lay down the oddly familiar photo down next to my cereal and look around for the open window. There is none. Hmm, must have just been nerve from seeing a photo delivered to my doorstep from my dreams. Wait, it's not just from my dream. Well it is, but if you take away the strange blue color of the sunset, replace the ruin with a fully built lighthouse, and get rid of the snowstorm, it looks just like a bay I used to visit as a child. It's an entire state away but I should be able to make it there by the afternoon if I set out now. I don't know how, but I know that place is somehow connected to this. I can feel the lighthouse calling me to it, beckoning me to come forth and uncover the reason for the dream, and for the photo that escaped that dream.\n\n​\n\nThe long drive is a miserable one. I cannot escape the feeling of dread that set upon me ever since I opened that envelope and the weather is wretched. Summer isn't even over yet, but the sun refuses to make a single appearance. Wind and rain beat down on my old car with fury, making it impossible to see more than a few dozen meters in front of me. I have to stop and wait for the storm to die down. Finally I make it to a lonely diner on the side of the highway. I sprint for my car to the entrance, feeling the cold rain of the storm suck the warmth out of my bones just within the few seconds I'm exposed. Inside the diner isn't much better, no doubt they weren't expecting to need any heaters today. As I walk in i'm greeted by a large, gruff, man standing behind the counter,\n\n​\n\n\"Afternoon Jack, what'll it be today?\" he says. Now, my name is not definitely not Jack, but i'm far to cold to argue the point. I probably just have a similar face to one of the regulars.\n\n​\n\n\"Just a coffee, please. Really just looking to wait out the storm before continuing on.\" I say with the warmest smile I can muster.\n\n​\n\n\"Yeah, we are getting some great weather today aren't we.\" He tells me as he pours some coffee out of a ready-made pot into my cup. I let out a chuckle but he just looks back at me with a perplexed look. When he speaks again, his friendly demeanor is gone,\n\n​\n\n\"Here's your coffee. Have a good a day sir.\" He says blankly as he hands me the now coffee filled mug. I take the coffee and retreat to booth in the back of the diner to go watch the storm die down. Hopefully. \n\n​\n\n​\n\n​\n\n​\n\nStory a Day: 13/365", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": " a prompt for bad people", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary \nOver many a quaint an curious volume of forgotten lore \nWhile I nodden nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping \nAs of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door. \n'Tis some visitor,' I muttered, 'tapping at my chamber door - \nOnly this, and nothing more.'\n\nBut still came that incessant knocking, no more could my ease keep blocking \nOut this rapping loudly stalking, louder now than 'twas before \nFailing to return the silence, hesitation turned compliance \nAnything to stop the violence thrust upon my chamber door \n\"Who is there,\" I asked the darkness, safely from behind the door. \n\"Who should keep me from my snore?\"\n\nNo reply, but knocking fading, still my listening, still my waiting \nCuriosity abating, every second lessened more \n\"Who?\" once more my question ringing, may I catch a response bringing \nJust whose hand by now is stinging from the banging on my door \nStill no answer, just the gusting from the raging winter storm \nI returned to think some more\n\nAgain came that infernal clatter, \"Dear sir what could be the matter?\" \nWould this person once more scatter as I walk the foyer floor \nNo more for a reply waiting, time to start investigating \nCourage then in me inflating, time to find out what's in store \nTo the rapping now we add the creaking of the chamber door \nBehind, the visage of Lenore\n\n\"It's you,\" I cried as tears were falling. \"I hadn't known, did you try calling?\" \nRealizing I'd been stalling, I asked her inside where it's warm \nSlowly she begins her entry, after what seems like a century \nStill I'm standing like a sentry, shaken right down to my core \nHaving shed her mortal coil, yet she stood there as before \nAgain I see my lost Lenore\n\n\"Be you ghost, or haunting spirit? Answer though I know I'll fear it \nPlease, the answer let me hear it. What's your fate now?\" I implore \nOnly silence for a second, then the appararition beckoned \nThe risks of contact by then reckoned, how I had to know the score \nHad to know the spirit's fate, what chains of bondage that she wore \n'Til death' to her my oath I swore\n\nThe slap came quick across my face, another close behind in chase \nThe pain had trouble keeping pace, my cheeks quite soon were rather sore \n\"I didn't die you stupid twat, I left you in case you forgot \nI shacked up with that stupid Scot who own the townhouse right next door. \nI'm only here to take the trinkets sitting in my dresser drawer.\" \nOh yes, that's right, she was a whore.", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": " You are a young scholar who attempts the Imperial Examination in hopes of obtaining a government position. The first question is \"how would you overthrow the current Emperor?\"", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "“How would you overthrow the Emperor?”\n\nLynessa was not sure what she had expected to see when she had walked into the Testing Hall for the Imperial Examination. After five long years of studying at the Academy, she had expected a more grueling test than her eight-hour final examination in her last year of schooling.\n\nInstead, she had received a stack of blank pages and one nearly-blank page with a question at the top.\n\nThe nature of the test was one thing, but the question was quite another.\n\nLynessa could not help but shudder as she heard the sounds of quills scratching at parchment all around her. She was one of the few taking the exam who were not of noble birth. Had they all known what the question would be before they arrived? Was this yet another way in which her upbringing would leave her behind?\n\nOr were they all simply arrogant enough to believe that the first answer that popped into their head would be correct?\n\nFifteen precious minutes ticked by as she continued to ponder the question. If she answered it well, would that not be treason? But if she answered it poorly, how could she hope to earn a government position.\n\nShe looked around at the rest of the room. There were 39 other hopefuls taking the test with her—39 of the most powerful people in the Empire. They were eager young students in the moment that they took the test, but soon they would be the ones whispering in the Emperor’s ear about how to lead the Empire into the future.\n\nShe looked out the window at the bustle of the capital below. A few hundred feet separated the test-takers in the Hall from the everyday citizens of the Realm. Lynessa watched as a young child tried to push their wares upon sailors on shore leave. She watched as a tavern keeper threw a drunk out of their establishment, then watched as the same drunk staggered towards the child and haggled over a necklace.\n\nFifteen more minutes passed as Lynessa observed the crowded street below her, fifteen minutes that she did not have. As she reluctantly turned back to her paper, she heard a shout from the street below that caused her to turn her head.\n\nA carriage was stopped in the middle of the street, with a crowd clamoring around it. The young child from before lay in the gutter next to the carriage; their legs were a grisly sight to behold. Lynessa watched as a pair of armored guards shoved the crowd away from the carriage as the shouting grew louder.\n\n“Can someone not quiet the rabble? This is too important of a day for this nonsense.”\n\nLynessa recognized the voice of her classmate, Lord Alistair Forsythe. The man had never met a person he liked, nor a person that he thought was worthy of his station. She wished that she had been more surprised by his callousness.\n\nAfter a few more moments, the door to the carriage opened. Lynessa suppressed a gasp; she had not expected whatever noble was in the carriage to care about what had happened.\n\nUnfortunately, her instinct was correct.\n\n“There!” Lynessa heard, as a small purse of coins flew out of the carriage doors and onto the street. “For your troubles. Guards!”\n\nThe armored guards returned to the carriage, and the door slammed shut. The crowd in front of the carriage dispersed the moment that the coins hit the street, and the horses slowly began to trundle forward once again.\n\nLynessa looked back at her papers, wondering if there was any point to this exam.\n\nAnd then, finally, she knew what to do.\n\nIt took her barely a minute to write out her answer in the most elegant hand she could manage. She strode confidently forward to submit her answer, ignoring the snide chuckles of the other test takers.\n\nShe was not sure if she would be a laughingstock for her answer or if she had just signed up for her own execution.\n\nEither way, she knew that her answer was correct.\n\n—-\n\n“Lord Mercadius!”\n\n“Yes, Your Grace.”\n\nEmperor Iyanna was in a foul mood. Today was one of her least favorite days of the year. She would have to sort through the piles of rubbish that had been prepared for her by the 40 young fools who had taken the Imperial Examination. In her 41 years of life and 13 years upon the throne, she had never even heard of an answer that was either entertaining or worthwhile.\n\nNow, she would have to sift through 40 of them to fill 25 useless junior positions for people who might not even prove useful to her successor.\n\n“Bring me the shortest answers first. If they can explain themselves without dithering, they might be worth something.”\n\n“Y-yes, Your Grace,” Lord Mercadius stammered.\n\nThe Emperor felt doubt begin to gnaw at her; it had been many years since she had allowed herself to feel fear, but she could not erase doubt. Lord Mercadius had fought beside her in the last war, and she had yet to see the enemy that could shake him.\n\nShe found herself instantly fascinated by an Imperial Examination result for the first time.\n\nShe was even more intrigued when Lord Mercadius handed her a single sheet of paper, with just two lines written upon it. Even the shortest answers of the past had occupied at least three pages.\n\n“Did they collapse during the exam and leave nothing but this?”\n\n“No, Your Grace. She…handed in this answer under her own power.”\n\n“Intriguing,” Emperor Iyanna replied.\n\nShe read the words on the paper. Lord Mercadius had expected an explosion of fury; the Emperor had never been fond of reviewing the Imperial Examinations, but this was…different.\n\nTerrifying.\n\nThe Emperor, however, did not see the paper as he did. He watched as her features slowly arranged themselves into a broad grin.\n\n“Go find Lord Symonds,” she said after a brief silence, “and tell him that he has been dismissed. It seems we have found our new Speaker.”\n\n“Y-you would name this…this…this arrogant lunatic as Speaker for the Commonfolk?!”\n\n“I would,” Emperor Iyanna replied with the imperious air of contempt that Lord Mercadius was used to hearing.\n\n“Clearly, this Lynessa understands the state of the Empire far better than you. Leave. Now. We shall discuss the other 39 at a later time.”\n\n“Y-yes, Your Grace,” Lord Mercadius replied. He gave her a stiff bow as he swept from the room.\n\nEmperor Iyanna allowed herself another small smile as she looked back down at the paper. Perhaps this Lynessa was a lunatic, but at least she was a bold lunatic. The Emperor knew that change would soon be upon the Empire if she did not act boldly, and she knew that the change would bring calamity if not handled properly.\n\nThe Emperor read the two lines again. Only time would tell if they would bring disaster or unity, but one thing was certain.\n\nThe Empire would never be the same as it had been before Lynessa out her quill upon the page.\n\n—-\n\n*There are 74 nobles serving in the court of Emperor Iyanna.*\n\n*There are 750,000 common people in the capital.*\n_________________\nIf you liked this, check out my subreddit! r/NicodemusLux", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": " Humans can Bond with animals to gain superpowers based on the traits of that animal. You just Bonded an animal that no one else in human history has been able to Bond with", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "*Drip. Drip. Drip.*\n\nThe cave was damp and dark, the ground slick with moss and ice cold water, squelching in between my bare toes.\n\nIt was strange to me that a beast born with the ability to soar amongst the morning clouds would choose to make its home beneath the ground in that gloomy pit; but as a human, mine was not to question the whim of the lord of the forest. To question the whim of the nightwing.\n\nYou can see them sometimes, at night, their black wings spread across the moonlit sky, blotting out the stars like spilled ink on reams of writing bark. Their shrill, echoing calls flooding the basin. The elders will warn you to stay under shelter when they hunt, to avoid their hooked claws and ruby gaze, and yet I have always been drawn to them.\n\nWhen night fell, and the house was quiet, I would sneak out into the dark, keeping low to the ground beneath where the canopy was sparsest. I would gaze up and watch them take flight, the nightwings, the apex predators of our lush, walled world.\n\nWhen I was discovered, I was punished for my foolishness, of course. *Why would you do such a thing, fool girl, you know how dangerous they are? They could snap you up in an instant and we would never hear from you again. You break your mother's heart!*\n\nBut no matter the punishment, the guilt, I could not resist. I *had* to see them. I had to watch them unfold those great wings and take to the night sky. The beasts from which the tribe had lived in fear for as long as even the oldest old one could recall. I was drawn to them.\n\nAnd those days as a foolish child had led here, to my Bonding. When I had announced my intent to the tribe, they thought me a fool once more. *That silly girl and her fool fairytales. She'll get herself swallowed up.*\n\nI paid them no mind. I had decided. It was my choice.\n\nI watched as the others came back from their Bonding, changed. Some wilder, some bright eyed, or sharp-tongued. It was your choice, the elders said, to Bond with the beast you felt kinship with. No one else's.\n\nMountain lurchers, river switches, sandswipes, branchrooks. Fangs, quick eyes, long tongues, beautiful feathered wings. When you were Bound, when you took those traits, it was forever. You had to be sure.\n\nAnd I *was* sure. It could be no other, no tamed creature or easily trapped game. It had to be a nightwing.\n\nAnd there I was, rope in hand, nothing on my back but the Binding garb, thick black leather tied with forest thread. I had my blade, too, but should my confidence and rope fail, I knew, the sliver of metal would do very little against the swift hooked talons.\n\nI pressed on into the darkness, the milky moonlight fading as I moved further from the open mouth of the den. \n\nAround the edges of the tunnel were strewn bones and chewed meat. I saw the skull of a draghorn, and in my mind I imagined the strength and raw power it must have taken to lift such a creature from the grazing field and bring it here. I shuddered. And yet I pressed on.\n\nThe nightwings dug their own dens into the dirt, ripping and tearing into the mud and rocks with their claws, wide enough to fit their wings and long tails, but this den was far longer and wider than I had anticipated. I knew the creatures never shared their space - even breeding pairs would rip each other to shreds after just a few hours - which meant the monster that had chosen to live was incredibly large. The largest I had ever seen, perhaps.\n\nFrom within the cave, I heard a deep, shuddering breath, followed by an echoing clicking. I gripped hold of the rope tightly, running the looped end through my fingers.\n\nToday, I would form my Bond, or I would die. \n\n'*Kasah*... Foolish human. Why come here?'\n\nIts voice was a hiss, a wet, sharp sound that sent my blood cold. \n\n'I come to make my Bond.'\n\nTo my surprise, it laughed, *cackled* even.\n\n'That is a funny one... *kasah*... you bring your length of rope to me and say you will make us one. No human has yet been so bold... or so foolish.'\n\nI took a step forward towards the hulking figure at the back of the cave. Two crimson cracks appeared in the darkness.\n\n'The Bonding is a calling, and I was called here. I choose you, or I choose death.'\n\nAnother deep, throaty chuckle.\n\n'*Kasah*... then you choose death.'\n\nThe great, leathery paw shot out of the darkness, the talons wrapping around the entire length of my body and throwing me backwards.\n\nStill gripped by the talons, I was launched out of the open mouth of the cave, and into the air, the forest floor left far below.\n\nThe nightwing still held me tightly as it took me further and further, higher and higher above the canopy, towards the stars that I had gazed at as a child, when I had first felt the call.\n\nBelow, I saw the open jaw of the nightwing, the flash of blood red that was its eyes, its stained, bone-yellow teeth.\n\nI would die, I knew then. My mother would be proved right, and it would break her. My father would have no body to bury. The tribe would mourn me and tut heartily in equal measure. *I always said she was a fool*, they would say, *her poor mother*.\n\nBut in that moment, above the clouds, my hair whipping at my scalp like snapping vines... I felt alive. I felt... right.\n\n'*Kasah*... fall gracefully.'\n\nThe talons released me and I began to fall, my stomach lurching into my mouth, sweat dripping from my palms and soaking into the rope I still gripped between my fingers.\n\n*The rope.*\n\nWith a cry that felt like it came from my very soul, near-blinded by my own hair and tears, I cast the rope upwards. My aim was true, the months of practice in the rain and sleet until my fingers bled paying off in a single, vast, *beautiful* deposit.\n\nThe rope looped around the nightwing's neck and snapped taut. It screeched in utter surprise and was suddenly yanked downwards, its wings slapping against the air in a desperate attempt to stay airborne.\n\n'*Kasah!* *Kasah!*' It sqauwked as the ground rushed up to meet us.\n\nEven as I hit the damp earth, my descent slowed just enough to leave me with only a twisted ankle, I kept hold of the rope, tight enough to make my fingers throb and ache.\n\nThe nightwing landed with barely more grace than I had, its claws gouging into the dirt, its huge, scaled head pulling wildly against the rope.\n\nThe binding rope would dull its senses... but only for another few seconds, I knew. It was then... or not at all.\n\nI rushed forward, towards its open, screaming mouth, and dived into its thrashing embrace. I pressed my hand firmly against its skin, straddling its concave, lithe body. I realised I was screaming too, but I couldn't stop. If I stopped screaming, I would die.\n\nThe sensation was blinding, alien but somehow entirely familiar. Like an embrace from a loved one, or your first kiss, beneath the warm sunset. My fingers buzzed against the beast's skin and for a moment felt as though I had plunged them into the ashes of a recently extinguished fire. The world was swallowed up by a total, complete blackness.\n\nThen it was over. I lay there in the dirt, sucking in damp forest air and exhaling clouds of coiling white.\n\nThe world looked different. Vivid... not brighter, but sharper, and clearer. I ran my tongue along my teeth and found they were sharper, too, sharp enough to cut me and draw blood. \n\nBeside me, the nightwing lay also, breathing as rapidly as I was. It was then I realised just how colossal it really was - three times the length of my body and almost as wide. And yet... it looked less ferocious now, curled up in the dirt, quiet and defeated. Bound. \n\nI pushed myself onto my palms and sat, blinking my new eyes into focus.\n\n'*Kasah*... child... You surprise me.'\n\nClimbing to my feet, I became aware of a sudden heaviness at my shoulders, as though I was carrying a canvas pack full to bursting. \n\n'You are the first in a very long time, *kasah*. Stand tall. You are of the talons now. Of the wings.'\n\nMy tongue felt strange, too, quicker in my mouth. Sharper, like my teeth.\n\n'*Kasah*,' I whispered, my voice rich and barely more than a hiss. 'We are Bound.'\n\nThey unfurled with barely more than a thought. My wings, black as night, keen as a blade. I almost lost my balance as they stretched out, snapping my Binding leathers and scraping the floor before they straightened out to their full width, wider across than I was tall. The most beautiful thing I had ever seen.\n\n'We are Bound.'", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": "Your girlfriend is flying home, laying over in another city. She calls you before going to bed. After hanging up you notice, that the flight tracker left open in your browser shows that the flight had an incident and didn't arrive.", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "I didn't know what to think.\n\nAt first, I was *sure* she was cheating on me. But, she'd left her email logged in on the desktop in the den, and there they were: ticket confirmations. If it was a bluff, a way to sell the lie, it was an expensive one. Non-refundable, with no travel insurance. I *never* checked on her email, I just wasn't the jealous type. She knew that, too. It was why she felt comfortable with leaving her communications open, why she was comfortable with me. That's what I thought. Why waste energy on something like that? We'd been together for over five years, after all.\n\nI turned on the news. Firetrucks and ambulances, sirens and lights. I stared until they were numb shapes, dully perceived.\n\nI got a call at around 3:30 in the morning, from Sarah's mother. She was still her emergency contact. She spoke like her words had nothing to do with her mouth, nothing to do with her lungs and muscles, and cracked as she said Sarah loved me. That no-one knew what would happen now. There would be plans to make. *Buzz buzz buzz*. Hum, murmur, and sharp inhale of clutching pain. She hung up.\n\nAnd Sarah called me, three hours later. Left a voicemail. \"I'm coming in early, but don't worry, I can get a cab. You don't have to pick me up!\"\n\nShe gave the flight number. I checked it. A real plane, but not one on that course. Cancelled due to circumstances beyond the airline's control. It sounds better than \"aviation disaster\", I guess. At 9:30, we got a call from the coroner. They were confident it was her. She was on the manifest, checked in with a Photo ID, and besides, her fingerprint confirmed it.\n\nI called her. \"Why aren't you home?\" Straight to voicemail.\n\nI got a call back \"I am, silly! I just walked in!\"\n\nI turned around.\n\nThe door was closed. But, for a second... it looked open.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": " \"Be careful how you phrase your wishes.\" Said the child as they hand you the old lamp. \"And whatever you do, never ask for eternal youth.\"", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "I considered the child in front of me. In every way, Benedict looked like one: those adorable cheeks still laden with baby fat, a full head of scraggly hair, and skin still young and wrinkle-free. But it belied what was beneath those eyes, burdened with regret and immense pain.\n\n\"I understand,\" I said, grabbing weakly onto the lamp. \n\n\"You think you do,\" Benedict chuckled. \"You think you do.\"\n\n\"Old friend,\" I said. \"Is that the only advice you can give me?\"\n\n\"I only had one wish, Lily,\" Benedict said. His eyes locked onto mine, inadvertently sending a shiver down my spine. It just didn't belong, no matter how you looked at it.\n\n\"I've been like this for so long,\" he said, kicking out with his feet petulantly, dust spiralling into the air. \"I honestly don't know what's worse.\"\n\n\"Thank you, Benedict,\" I said. \"This means a lot to me.\"\n\n\"Careful,\" he said. \"Don't be like me. Stuck in this body. Unable to do anything worth doing.\"\n\n\"Like?\"\n\n\"Women, mostly,\" he said. \"Sometimes, men.\"\n\n\"Well,\" I said. \"At least you aren't dead.\"\n\n\"I haven't tried.\"\n\n\"...\"\n\nThe silence grew louder. \n\n\"Go on, then,\" Benedict said. \n\nI rubbed the oil lamp. Nothing happened.\n\n\"Honestly...\" Benedict said. \"You know what? My mistake. No genie's coming out, Lily. Speak into it. Tell it your greatest wish.\"\n\nI rotated the lamp around in my hands, feeling the cold metal touched with the lingering warmth of Benedict's hands. I put my mouth to the spout.\n\n\"Breathe into it. Say what you want,\" Benedict urged. \"And don't ask for eternal youth!\"\n\nI exhaled, mumbling my deepest wish. The moment my sentence ended, smoke started billowing out of the lamp, and I hastily pulled it away from my mouth. It continued to expand and fill the room. While I yelped, Benedict stood there, calmly, gazing at me with those unsuited eyes.\n\nHe smiled, a gentle, reassuring one. Then, the smoke took him too.\n\nI felt the smoke wreath itself around my body. It entered through my nostrils as I breathed, causing me to struggle as I gasped for air. But it didn't hurt. It had a surreal smoothness, soothing me from inside out.\n\nI coughed once, twice. And just as suddenly, the smoke began to clear, vacuumed in by the oil lamp. And there Benedict stood.\n\n\"You god-damn fool,\" he said. \"I literally told you not to wish that.\"\n\nI turned my arms and hands around, all smooth and tender. I pinched my own cheeks, laden with baby fat. I laughed gaily, and a child's tinkling peals sounded out of my throat.\n\n\"Well, there's a long list of things that we aren't legally allowed to do,\" I admitted. \"But with your youth and my youth, I'm sure the tasks we can actually accomplish will be truly exceptional.\"\n\nHe stared at me. And for the first time since he'd laid eyes on me, I saw a childish mischief and twinkle behind those old, old peepers.\n\n\"You are a right buffoon,\" Benedict said, shaking his head, a light smile coyly lifting the corners of his mouth.\n\n\"I am,\" I replied. \"And you can be my left buffoon.\"\n\n---\n\nr/dexdrafts", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": " As a minor god of an obscure aspect, you often accept prayers in place of major gods when they are busy. What nobody realizes is that after centuries of subbing in, you are now better than most of the gods at thier own jobs.", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "The problem with being a god is that your power comes from humans' belief. Get yourself a few dozen followers, and **bam** you're a god. Get yourself a few hundred, and you're allowed into Heaven, or Olympus, or Valhalla or, ...the land of the gods. A few thousand, and you're allowed to buy property. You get the idea.\n\nLose those followers, and your power goes away. You get banished from the land of the gods, time catches up with you, et cetera.\n\nThe thing about the land of the gods is that we're *way* more powerful here than on earth. If you want something done, you had better pray to God - with a big G - whoever that is at the time.\n\nMe, I'm a lesser god. Even if I told you my name, you've never heard of it. In fact, I'm pretty sure no humans have heard of me in millenia - I'm only kept alive by the belief of other gods. What a loophole: people become gods, so gods can sustain other gods.\n\nWhile most gods have a domain, my purpose has been so muddled over time that I've got a jack-of-all-trades master-of-none deal going on. I do chores for the other gods, mostly. Someone sends up a prayer to anyone but big G God, and they can't get it done, so they ask someone who can, and that someone is me.\n\nLet's say little Sally loses her cat. She prays to Cthulhu to get Muffins back. Well the big man's got more important things to do. Spreading chaos and doing card tricks mostly -- by the way, tentacles make for some fantastic sleight of hand. Anyway, Cthulhu prays to me to get Muffins back to Sally, but with an extra limb so she knows it went through him.\n\nHere's how I get the job done: first I need to find Muffins. Cat's love catnip, so I get myself a bunch of it and walk around to spread the scent. All the allycats in the city start following me, so I choose one that looks like Muffins and use my divine powers to name him Muffins.\n\nNext, I'll drag the new Muffins back to the land of the gods and have Cthulhu give him an extra limb. You can't take people there, but animals are fine. Once Muffins has 6 paws, I pull him back down.\n\nThe last step is to get him to Sally. I pull out a phonebook and flip through till I find her and call a cab. I need to make sure the driver doesn't see Muffins so he'll let me ride. I drop Muffins on the doorstep, ring the doorbell, and run. Cthulhu gets credit, I get to live for another day.", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": " HAPPY BIRTHDAY! Every year your mysterious Uncle Rick has sent you a birthday package. Once, it was a DVD, 2 years before DVD's were invented. This year, the box contains what looks like a 2020 iPhone, but the most interesting thing is the wadded up newspapers used to cushion it.", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "I guess I should have been grateful for the phone. It was slimmer than my old one, and it had levitating port-box which followed me around to plug things into. Don't get me wrong, I don't want to sound ungrateful or anything. I can only imagine how much trouble Rick has to go through to get these things and I've always been so excited to open his presents before. It's just a little hard to look past the wrapping.\n\nAn obituary. My own, in fact. I guess it was thoughtful to personalize the gift, but I think he went a little overboard this time. The worst part is, there's no actual mention of what will kill me off. \n\n\"He died as he lived: without really noticing.\" That was the quote my Uncle Rick gave the paper to print. If he was trying to send me some kind of message or inspire me to change my life, then couldn't he just be normal for once and put it in a card? Then again, nothing about Rick was exactly \"normal\". \n\nEyes like a hawk and a beak to match, the old man never said much when he attended family gatherings. He always left the adults and came to join the kids, inventing the craziest games for us to play. \"Duck, duck, run for cover\" was one of his favorites. I think I still have a scar on my back from his slingshot. Or there was: \"Is this safe to eat?\", but I'm still not convinced that was even a real game. \n\nI scanned the obituary again for the hundredth time, looking for some clue to what the future held. \n\n\"It came as a complete surprise,\" my mother will say. \"No-one could have prevented it.\" Gee thanks mom. \n\nNext came the obligatory rambling about how I will be loved and missed by everyone. More drivel about my unblemished soul and how the world wasn't good enough to deserve me. And that's it. No clue as to what will happen. \n\nThat's when it occurred to me. Maybe those pathetic excuses for games Rick always wanted us to play weren't so crazy after-all. Maybe he knew something about what was coming, and he was trying to prepare us for it. Now that I think about it, there was definitely a theme to them all. \n\n\"Don't let him see you\" was his version of hide and seek, only we were the only ones who ever hid. Most of the kids were only too happy to oblige, whether it was a game or not. \n\n\"Weak link gets left behind\" was one he'd pull out when he joined our family for a hike. \n\nWill I be the weak link? Was this all for his sadistic amusement, or was there really something that I had to be ready for? Whatever the case, it seems as if I'm not ready yet and still have some time to prepare. At least I have the phone...\n\noh wait. The custom charger hasn't been invented yet. Thanks a lot, Uncle Rick. Thanks for everything. \n\n---\n\n[More from author](http://www.reddit.com/r/sirtobiaswade). ", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": "It happened thousands of years ago in The Great Battle of Thermopylae.", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "He had in his eyes that hollow, thousand-yard stare. He moved stiffly - robotically, almost - as if the robots that dominated the epic wastelands of the Desert Wars had turned part of him into one of their own. I held his cold, limp hand as the device fitted itself over his head. \"You'll just feel a buzz,\" I comforted him. He nodded blankly. I had found my calling in helping people like him.\n\nWe first truly came to grips with the terrible effects of PTSD near the turn of the millenium. Soldiers would come home shell-shocked and indifferent to their surroundings. We generally knew how to treat it. We would ease them into the new environment, gradually wiping their access to memories of the most traumatic of those recent events. It was effective. Lieutenant Peters seemed impervious to the treatment. So instead we opted for the more invasive approach, inspecting the location of his memories so we could target those areas of the brain specifically. I would be able see the memories as they played through his head, his hands clenching and his bulging muscles spasming as he relived them.\n\n\"The Desert Wars,\" I mumbled to myself, indicating on another monitor where those memories were stored. I tried not to look too much at the burnt villages and the dried and torn oases and what was once a splendid savanna turned had turned a whole continent into endless sands. Robots marched, their handlers following their path of destruction. \n\nThese memories didn't seem to elicit much of a response from him, as if the treatments had worked. I went further. He should have been a boy by now, memories of playing in the yard, chasing his dog around a sprinkler or learning to ride a bike or of grade-school detention. Instead I saw him fighting terrorists in the Middle East, bullets whizzing by as the dust settled in the aftermath of the IED. A soldier lay beside him, leg severed at the hip, blood pouring out as his eyes glazed over lifelessly. I saw a child wandering through the crossfire, the skin of his face hanging from a couple threads of flesh. Lieutenant Peters fired two merciful shots and the boy collapsed.\n\nI went further. The jungles of Vietnam came and went, endless mosquitoes and snipers and booby-trapped tunnels. The carnage of Normandy was but another blip in his memories. He charged from the trenches of Verdun. He fought against the boys in blue and against the redcoats. If war was not following him, he definitely seemed to be following war. \n\nThere were few conflicts he didn't seem to be a part of. I imagined him in his prime, embracing every fight with the gusto of an undefeated boxing champ. He was a natural killer, a professional soldier, escaping unscathed as he harnessed hundreds of years of experience into those raw survival skills. I knew exactly the type of person I was dealing with. His hands remained limp, his arms relaxed. None of the familiar spasms had occurred yet. I went further, trying to find that crucial memory that had turned such efficiency into an incapable mess.\n\nFinally, as I entered another war thousands of years ago, I saw his hands flex. Beads of sweat appeared on his brow. His jaw tensed. The beautiful hills of Greece appeared, crows and vultures feasting on the carnage of a slaughter. I continued my journey into his memories. There were the Persians, led by Xerxes. King Leonidas bellowed to his outnumbered soldiers, motivating them into an unparalleled frenzy. \n\nI saw Lieutenant Peters at the forefront, thrusting his sword into countless Persians. And still more came, a ceaseless stream of the feared Persian Immortals, dying just the same as any other man. The Spartans maintained their lines. And then the arrows rained upon them, and he was laying beneath a pile of bodies, drenched in their blood and blanketed by limbs. And sweat was pouring down his forehead. He didn't move until the birds began to peck at his hand, once the Persians had gone and the bodies had been looted. His hands were clenched against the edge of the seat. I had dealt with men like him before. I remembered, too. \n\nI had checked the bodies. I had stabbed each one I found, yet somehow he had escaped me. I had hunted men like him for thousands of years, until I was convinced that I was the only one left. I had found them in the desolate corners of Patagonia, hiding in a shack in terror at that fate that hunted them down. I had found them in the pagodas of Southern Asia, trying to channel forces of the mind to ward off their eventual fate. I had found them in the tundras of Siberia, hiding amongst the dismal prisoners of the Gulag, as if I couldn't infiltrate a place so vile to do what had to be done.\n\nYet here he was, coming to me, of all people, in one of those twisted turns of fate. They're all immortal until they're not. I left him to his memories and stood, walking around to where I kept my supplies. The hilt of the knife was carved from the bones of the first men. Only something that has survived forever can kill somebody who can survive forever. I let him enjoy a peaceful last moment, drinking and laughing with the men of the Greek rearguard the night before the battle. And then I ran the blade across his throat, and his hands went limp and his body sagged. He had lived long enough.\n\n*****\n\nThanks for reading! If you enjoyed this, please check out more stories at /r/MatiWrites. Constructive criticism and advice are always appreciated!", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": " They say that the 7th son of a 7th son is destined to be a very powerful wizard... What they didn’t realize is that it also applies to cats...", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": " **Diary of Timothy the Cat**\n\n**Day #1** \n\n*I am born. Unpleasant experience. Don’t wish to repeat it.* \n\n**Day #4**\n\n*I’ve come to recognize the domicile I reside in is governed by a Tim. He thought it would be humorous to name me after himself. I am not amused.*\n\n**Day #12**\n\n*I appear to be the only one of my litter who has sense of self. This was discovered after many hours of attempting to coax my womb donor and my useless siblings to intelligent conversation. They would rather chase after the string the human dances around them.*\n\n*This will grow tiresome if not remedied.*\n\n**Day #15**\n\n*Interesting findings, through sheer force of will I have given my siblings a semblance of intelligence. I will henceforth refer to these base creatures as my minions, they will help me achieve my yet to be decided goals.*\n\n**Day #15.5**\n\n*I’ve decided my goals. Kill the human Tim.* \n\n*He withheld my daily allotment of wet food today since he says I was a “****BAD CAT****”. To add insult to injury he sprayed me with water. Tim will soon learn I defecate where I please, not in his disgusting sand pit.*\n\n**Day #17**\n\n*I spend the day training my minions to hunt.*\n\n*I’ve mastered the art of bringing small rodents from other planes of reality into the house.* \n\n*Tim complains of the dozens of dead squirrels and mice he finds around the house. I am pleased.*\n\n**Day #18**\n\n*One of Tim’s other human allies has earned a death sentence.*\n\n*I overheard him explaining to Tim that our murderous rampage was nothing more than us being “cute” and trying to ensure he is fed.*\n\n*Do they think my rage is a game?* \n\n**Day #20**\n\n*My minions are ready. We have spent the last three days in the outside world.* \n\n*I have gathered more allies to my cause. The weak brained dogs now serve my will.*\n\n*Tomorrow I will strike.*\n\n**Day #22**\n\n*The deed is done.*\n\n*I waited for Tim to invite his human friends over for their feast, which of course I was not invited to.* \n\n*However I need no invite.*\n\n*When they attempted to stop me as I dined on the cheese and wine they left in the middle of the table, I showed them who was the “bad cat”.*\n\n*I sit and we now feast on the remains of the party. This is only the beginning.*\n\n***WHO IS THE BAD CAT NOW TIM?***\n\n*Thank you for reading, comments and constructive criticism is greatly appreciated!*", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": " Due to a powerful spell, the demonic hordes were sealed away for thousands of years. When they breached back to reality they were met with railguns and plasma weapons. It's year three of the war, and the mortals have started getting reinforcements from their offworld colonies and alien allies.", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "It’s a port city.\n\nBargemen ply the rivers of fire, sinking tungsten poles deep into the magma. Industrial gases foul the cavern air, staining the distant rock of the ceiling in streaks of blacks and oranges, here and there purples with too much red. The General had often sat there, on his bench along the river, sucking down the sulfur to greet the day. The sulfur went down better when he was alone.\n\n“So few,” Lady Ilsang said. She meant the bargemen, their cargo. The barges were thick on the river, every soul had been gathered for the final battles. Long ago the General had heard men call their end Götterdämmerung, it meant Twilight of the Gods, though in those times none of them had been anything close. Gods didn’t lose. Gods didn’t do the things they did.\n\nWhat did you call it, then, when it was the Devil’s twilight? Teufeldämmerung? The General clenched his fist till the long nails cut his palm and the blood ran down his uniform sleeve.\n\n“So few,” he said.\n\nLady Ilsang stood, statuesque. Skin like dark granite but with the texture of smoothed piano ivory, when she moved she was all grace, but a sharp-eared man could catch the faint grinding of stone. It was there when she spoke too, slipping out her mouth inside the words.\n\n“We’ve lost, then?”\n\n“Yes. We lost a long time ago, I tried to tell him. Quoted Yamamoto: ‘I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve.’ Lasted a few years too, did better than we thought. But in the end Hell hath only fury. We’re a woman scorned, but a very, very small one.”\n\nShe looked down at him, could have even if he was standing. She wore a gauze-like dress that could be alternately opaque or transparent, could look sheer as lace and silk, or could wrap and twist around her like the Devil’s own fire. “Have you decided then, how you will meet your end?”\n\nHad he decided? The General ran his hand through thinning hair, trailed a finger down the gauntness of his jaw. He might have decided, had she not bothered him. He came to the river to be alone, with bargemen and the twice-damned troops they brought him.\n\nThe facts of the matter were so painfully clear, like his life was playing itself over again. The enemy was legion, and its legions came from beyond the stars. He tried to tell the Devil of the wonders rocketry had birthed into the world, even called up that bastard Von Braun to tell the Devil himself, but as ever experts were not listened to.\n\nThey fought an empire the likes of which none of them had ever imagined. With resources beyond even that. Weapons that did not explode but which ceased a man to exist, soul and all. The General had seen it himself, heard the sickening tear of a man’s soul being destroyed: like a thousand sheets paper all at once, all layered over each other out of tune and time. Their own resources that had once seemed insurmountable were nothing now. All the evil of a single world from the greatest butchers to the smallest sinners, only a few thousand years of which even mattered at all, and none of their great works brought with them! They had magic and missiles. They had swords, shields, lances, guns, and familiars. They had rock throwers and a few basic rockets. All of it assembled in house, with whatever industry could be mustered by tortured, diminished souls.\n\nAnd they had him, the greatest military mind in all of Hell, so the Devil had said.\n\nLady Ilsang still waited. She was patient as stone too. The General thought he might have seen her on a cathedral he destroyed once, lurking behind the eyes of a gargoyle, in the statue's sharp, rictus smile. Her gown went sheer, then turned to flames. She had Medusa’s hair and Circe’s beauty and Hecate’s cunning; of course she did, she had killed them, taken their gifts. The General had no doubts whatsoever that if he answered wrong she would do the same to him, that tomorrow there would be another general at the front, who spoke in stone whispers and urged the men onward to their second, final deaths.\n\n“I have decided to surrender,” the General said.\n\nA long pause, then a longer one. The flames around her tightened, but their fury threatened to spill out. The river of fire reached towards her, the bargemen’s sea grew choppy, recruits howled.\n\n“Come again?” she said.\n\n“Long ago, in another lost war, we fought to the end, consigned millions more souls to night, if only to delay our twilight a little longer. Not this time. I’ve had a hundred generations to think on my mistakes, and I bear the scars to prove it. The war will end, I’ve already sent emissaries.”\n\nThe flames burned brighter, till the General’s retinas screamed and his uniform threated to catch fire on his body. He sat stock still, waiting for his fate.\n\nAnd she went out like a forgotten candle in the space between one moment and the next, so completely that he could not remember what she looked like when she was afire. Now she simply wore tattered black and the sort of sad smile only eternity could teach.\n\n“There really are so few,” she said, staring out at the river. “I was there too, flitting from church to church. I was behind the eyes of every statue, lurked in every stone. I looked out at the fate of every man, every woman. Some mistakes don’t need to be made twice.”\n\n“Surrender,” he whispered. “What conditions do you think they can put on Hell?”\n\nLady Ilsang shrugged, pulling him to his feet. “I don’t know,” she said simply. “My emissaries haven’t returned yet either.”\n\nOn the river the bargemen shouted in a thousand languages, most long dead, most killed by men like him. They brought their charges to the Great Furnace, where the forge hot air would carry their souls up, invest them into whatever shape the war effort required above ground, give them a weapon suited to their histories, their sins. Give them a shield too, for whatever good that would do against that sound of torn, discordant paper. The General heard it in his sleep every night. From the look Lady Ilsang’s face, he thought she did as well.\n\n“Shall we stop them, then?” he said, pulling her towards the river. They hailed the bargemen, shouted until their lungs went raw, then the General went to meet his troops. He waded into the river, uniform burning to ash on skin, and he told them all the war was over.\n\n\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\\_\n\nIf you enjoyed that, I've got tons more over at r/TurningtoWords. Come check it out, I'd love to have you!\n\nAlso, on off chance that someone recognizes it, yes I did borrow heavily for this intro from the fantastic book Babel-17 by Samuel Delany.", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": " You roll your eyes so hard, they turn 180° and you lock eyes with the gremlin in your brain, who stares back in joint disbelief at the absolute non-sense they just heard.", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "When I rolled my eyes it was meant to be an expression of sarcasm. A non vocal way for me to say *Right now, I think you are an idiot*. So when the lady at the store register, apathetic as a human can be, said: \"This box is already opened, you can't return it.\", well she deserved an eye roll as much as any human I'd ever met. \n\nBut when I did, what followed was a moment of almost audible fear as I locked eyes with something else. Something hidden deep within my brain. A small, blueish, and hideous thing, it's clawed hands gripping a series of tiny levers; wearing nothing but a stained tank top, its bubbled gut filling it out nicely. \n\nSlowly it pulled it's hands off of the levers, eyes locked with mine and refusing to look away. \n\n\"I bet-\" the gremlin started to stand up on its spindly legs. \"I bet you blink first.\" \n\n\"Where are we...what are you?!\" I yelled, the words coming from my mouth outside rather than the space me and the creature occupied. Outside I could hear the cashiers muffled voice reply with the same level of apathy. \n\n*Take your time, not like there's a line behind you or anything.*\n\n\"Don't worry, there's no line.\" The gremlin said. \"Can you believe her? Total asshole right?\" \n\n\"I uh...yes?\"I questioned. \"I mean yes, yeah she is.\" I was still uncertain of my words. \n\nThe Gremlin placed a bony hand on one of the many fleshy levers before him and pushed it forward. Outside I could feel my body moving suddenly, turning to the right and stepping forward a few clunky steps. \n\n\"There, I moved us.\" He continued: \"Why would you even return something unpoened anyways?\" \n\n\"I know. Doesn't make any sense right? Hey uh...where are we?\" I tried to speed along the conversation. \n\n\"You don't recognize it? We're in your mind of course. I'm just an occupant...*the* occupant.\" \n\nI blinked in disbelief, staring at the only place there was to stare. At the pint sized little blue monster that claimed to have been living in my head for god knows how longz helping pilot me. He smiled a sudden and crooked smile. \n\n\"You blinked, I win!\" He went to jump up but hit his head on the roof of my skull instead, sending a dull pain up through my head. \"Oops. Anyways it seems that your eyes are rolling back. If I was you, and I sort of am, I would tell her off. Good luck!\" \n\nMy eyes rolled back and I was left staring behind an empty counter. No line. No mean lady from before. No gremlin. Just me and a single bell with a tag reading: ding for service. As I turned to pick up my box and leave my body refused. Instead my arm shot out uncontrollably and slammed down onto the bell over and over, harder with each ding\n\n\"Ok, ok, enough!\" An annoyed voice yelled from the back of the building, followed by a woman stomping out. \n\n\"You again? I told you-\" Before she could finish a voice not my own shot out from my mouth, raspy, like nails scraping along a chalkboard. \n\n\"Listen you walnut. If you don't take this box and give me back my money I'll return it down your throat. Deal?\"\n\nHer eyes grew wide and she muttered the only word it seemed she could: \"I uhm. Yeah sure.\" \n\nAnd as the register opened and she took my box back in her hands I could feel my head pounding. Not from the stress of my day, or from the confusion due to what I had just experienced, but rather from what I knew to be the little blue man jumping around inside of my head in triumph.", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": " “Uh Sir...The leftovers at the back of the refrigeration unit has begun broadcasting radio waves. Apparently sentient life has formed inside. They call themselves humanity.”", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "What the hell do you mean the leftovers at the back of the refrigeration unit has begun broadcasting radio waves? We chilled that down 13 billion years ago. It should have all lumped together into storage atoms. \n\nUh, yes sir. We hit 80% complete after 373,825 years. Mostly matter with void in between. And, as noted, an interesting side-effect of the void is this \"radiation\" that travels through it. \n\nBut there's nothing there. So what?\n\nThe stuff sort of... skates across more or less unchanged. It's being used for communication?\n\nPattern naturally form all the time. I read the report about pulsars. Very beutiful, but it's not communication. \n\nWell apparently sentient life has formed inside. They call themselves humanity. We've captured some of their signals have have translated it into a real plasma stream. Here,\n\n He want that cake, cake,\n Cake, cake, cake, cake, cake\n Cake, cake, cake, cake, cake\n Cake, cake, cake\n Ooh baby, I like it\n You so excited\n Don't try to hide it\n I'mma make you my bitch\n Cake, cake, cake, cake\n Cake, cake, cake, cake\n Cake, cake, cake, cake\n Cake, cake, cake\n\n....Sterilize it. And scramble those lumps of hydrogen a little so they stop forming bigger elements.", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": "Years ago you made a deal with the devil to never lose a game. Tonight you lost a game of poker. You summon the devil, looking for answers, but he's just as confused as you are.", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "“Aight gentleman, show your hands.”\n\n“Queen High Straight, we good here?” I said to Marty.\n\n“Hold up amigo. Spade flush, nice try there Francis” he quipped back as he grabbed the chips.\n\n“Well...that’s certainly odd. You know what? I’m going to call it a night. Luck ain’t with me tonight it seems like.” I said as I grabbed my chips to cash out.\n\n“Hey Francis, don’t lose too much sleep over it. You always end up winning, it was eventually bound to happen that you’d lose.” Marty said as he began looking at his next hand of cards.\n\nI cashed out for $75. Nothing insane, but certainly less then what I should have earned. I began walking downstairs as I began mumbling to myself. The sounds flowing out of me making no sense to the average person. But I knew what I was doing, I was summoning the devil. I needed to have a small chat with him.\n\nI kicked open the door that led to the trash area of the building. By the time I had finished mumbling my incantations, the clouds around me became a dark, gloomy, blood red. The sounds of animals making noise turned silent. I felt the ground shake, followed by the sound of a lightning bolt crackling nearby. \n\nSatan always had a penchant for the extravagant. Always one to show off, never a demon of practicality. \n\n“Who dare summons me?!” He bellowed.\n\nI did not give him enough time to turn around to me. I grabbed him by his large mane of hair and slammed him to the wall behind me.\n\n“WHOA! WHAT THE HELL, FRANCIS?” He yelled out. \n\n“Listen, we had our little deal. I win every game I play in, in exchange you get to have my soul. I just lost to freaking Marty. What in the world gives?” I said to Satan. \n\n“Wait you lost? In poker?? You were already a pretty good player to begin with, how did you mess up the hand?” He said to me before we got into a quick back and forth.\n\n“Misread the hole cards?”\n\n“Queen 10 offsuit”\n\n“Did you make a small pre flop bet and then represented a mediocre hand by betting the ante on the flop?\n\n“Of course I did, I then checked the turn to lure him into making a C bet.”\n\n“Did you then bet it big on the river in order to make him he was trapped in the hand?\n\n“Yeah, but what can you do when the other guy has the stone cold nuts?” I said to Satan.\n\nSatan began looking deep in thought, thinking what would have caused this scenario.\n\n“Listen I am stumped on this. You shouldn’t have lost that hand. I gave you one of my most powerful demons their abilities. Wait, did the guy you lost to smell like fresh cut lumber?” Satan said to me as just began guessing names.\n\n“Yeah, he said he got a new cologne, I think its just the girl he is sleeping with doesn’t want him smelling like his wife.” I said back to him, Satan's eyes now focused intently on why the powers didn’t work. \n\n“I got it. Next time you guys play, wear these special glasses. I want you to keep an eye out for me, will you? Satan said to me.\n\nThe next week was quite different from prior weeks. Marty was now openly bragging about how he felled the most talented poker player in the region. I passed the dealer a quick hundred and wanted in on the major main tournament.\n\nI sat across from Marty in the table and began to smell the classic smell of new cologne that way. There was that scent of fresh chopped lumber. I decided to put on the glasses. The majority of the world ended up in the same, with the exception that I could see your primal.\n\nThere stood behind Marty, was Jesus, giving him instructions on how to play his hand. \n\nI looked quickly at Jesus. This was the reason I lose? Because he literally had a divine being help him unfairly. Granted I did, but I at least didn’t lie. The next hand ended up being Marty vs I in a classic rematch of our hand a while back.\n\nI looked at Marty and smiled as I pushed all my chips in. Just behind them, I saw Satan walk past my opponents and saw him with a rather vengeful look.\n\n“Listen Francis, I don’t like losing and I don’t like contracts defaulting, so let’s beat this guy” He says as he stared Jesus down.", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": " You're a demon. One of your favorite passtimes with your friends is to shapeshift into a young family of three, hire a babysitter, and pay them if they can last an entire night alone with whoever's the supernatural demonic toddler that night. This newest victim of yours, however, isn't phased.", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "There's a lot of stories out there written by edgy twelve year olds about how humans are incapable of change and are cold-hearted beings. While that is sometimes true, (source: used to work at the front desk at Hell), most humans have really low emotional limits.\n\nThis time, I think we scored a freak.\n\nOur activities are simple enough. We find a target, turn into a family, roll the dice, and the loser has to become a toddler that will soon be babysat by said target. Understand?\n\nIt usually works pretty smoothly too, and it's hilarious to watch the babysitter have a nervous breakdown because the toddler is throwing chairs at alarming speeds before somehow getting stuck in the chimney with the oven. We, as demons, have supernatural abilities, and *of course* we use that. The real cherry on top is when the babysitter calls and says that \"your child is like a little devil!\", because little do they know, they are 100% correct.\n\nBack to the point.\n\nToday, I lost the dice roll, and of course I became the little demon child.\n\nThe target was as simple as they come too, about sixteen-years-old, brown hair, blue-ish eyes, and casual clothing. He seemed calm enough when my buds dropped me off, but he also seemed calm enough when I literally blew up the blender.\n\nThat was a shock to even me. How do you *not* even care when there's a pyromaniac blender child in the kitchen? I then tried breaking the thermostat, flipping the couch over and putting a freshly fried egg on top, and even taking a door off of its hinges. I then got more magic, pulling out anomalies out of my diapers and slapping them onto the walls. Gravity warping, arcane summoning, demon manipulation, and Hell, even satanic rituals.\n\nNone. Of. Them. Worked.\n\nThe dude stared at me as my hands were *literally glowing with malevolent energy* before pulling out his phone and walking away, saying something about sleep and ... Read It?\n\nAnd then I just clicked. I snapped my fingers and turned into my usual form right as the clock hit 12:00, and the goddamn psychopath didn't even flinch.\n\n\"Right, what the Hell are you?\" I spat out.\n\n\"Jack Shrew.\" the person replied.\n\n\"Do you have a soul?\"\n\n\"Ah, man, I used to have one of those,\" Jack snorted.\n\nI paused for a moment. \"You're a demon?\"\n\n\"Do I look like a severely sunburned goat furry?\"\n\n\"A ... a what?\"\n\n\"Look man, I really gotta go to sleep so can you quiet down?\"\n\n\"Just tell me why you aren't reacting to anything.\"\n\n\"Well I thought I was hallucinating.\"\n\n\"How, in the name of goddamn Satan, would a magic-throwing infant be a *hallucination*?\"\n\n\"That is exactly why I thought it was a hallucination.\"\n\nI was baffled for a moment, my mouth closing and opening like a fish. \"Did you not question it?\"\n\n\"Well it might of been a *vivid* hallucin-\"\n\n\"Okay, I've had enough. I'm hitting the hay.\" I made a motion like dropping something.\n\n\"Sure. The thirty seven hay bales you summoned a few hours ago are still in the basement.\" Jack shrugged.\n\n\"GO TO HELL!\"", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": " The archmage had won, preparing to rend reality apart and open the floodgates to the infernal dimension. Your weapons, armour, and companions lay defeated and destroyed. In desperation, you pull out the ancient artefact of power. You call the interdimensional police.", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "I pulled up the Stone of Communication and crushed my index finger under it. Every call demanded a sacrifice, and I wasn't sure I could take any more severe damage before I passed out from the pain. \n\n\"When the Infernal Creatures enter, I will have complete control over them, and demand that there be change in this dimension! If not all dimensions!\" Archmage Angelo said, grandly. He didn't laugh, like most of my other nemesis, and for some reason, it bothered me that he didn't accent his sentences with raucous laughter. It felt like the battle was missing something.\n\nJust as a giant purple hand made its way through Angelo's portal, my finger cracked, breaking. I screamed in pain as another portal opened next to Angelo. He looked at it in scornful surprise.\n\n\"Someone here to crown me on my coronation of taking over this dimension?\" he said mockingly. \n\n\"Everybody down, this is the InterDimensional Police!\" two men ran in with glowing blue hats and weapons in hand. \n\n\"Oh, no,\" Angelo said, fear sprouting on his face. \"Demon! Attack them!\" \n\nThe giant purple hand turned into a fist and went barrelling forward toward the policemen. It looked large enough that it split the very ground in half, and I looked to my companions in fear before remembering that they had all passed out. It was just me, Angelo, and the police. \n\nJust as the fist was about to make contact with the officers, another portal opened in front of them and absorbed the fist, followed by closing and cutting off the limb. A creature bellowed in pain and rage from behind Angelo's original portal. \n\n\"This is an unlicenced portal into the Infernal Dimension. You are all under arrest,\" one of the policemen said to the room.\n\n\"But we're not with him,\" I groaned. \"I called you.\" I showed them the artifact and my broken finger. \n\n\"You idiot, you killed us all!\" Angelo yelled at me. \n\n\"Yeah, right, like you'd call the cops on yourself,\" one of the officers spat.\n\n\"No, not on myself,\" I tried explaining. \"I tried to stop him with my friends here and he defeated us.\"\n\nThe Archmage stood a little taller, proud to have heard me admit to the fact I had been defeated by him.\n\n\"Sure, get your story straight. One minute, Officer Dave and I are coming in hearing that you wanna open the Infernal Dimension, next minute you're telling me you tried to stop that?\" one of the officers laughed, nudging the other. \n\n\"Don't waste your breath Pao, these lowlifes are just trying to rile you up so their lawyers can say we acted without probable cause,\" Officer Dave spoke to his colleague. \n\n\"I'm literally bleeding out on the floor. Angelo is trying to sneak out his portal!\" I pointed. \n\nThe two officers looked to see Angelo with his foot mid-tiptoe trying to reach the portal to the Infernal Dimension. Angelo smiled sheepishly then dove headfirst toward the portal. Officer Dave snapped his fingers and closed the portal before Angelo could get through. He landed face-first on the floor, moaning in pain.\n\n\"All right, buddy you're under arrest,\" Pao fired his weapon at Angelo, encasing him in a ball of crystal. \n\n\"I... I'm having a little trouble breathing in here!\" Angelo said, nervously.\n\n\"Tell it to the judge!\" Pao shouted at him.\n\n\"I don't know if I'll live that long!\" Angelo retorted angrily. \n\n\"Yeah, tell it to the judge!\" Pao repeated.\n\n\"Are you going to let me die in here?\" Angelo asked, fearfully. \n\n\"How do we throw the book at the guy on the ground and his coconspirators?\" Dave asked Pao, pointing to me and my companions sprawled out on the floor. \n\n\"We didn't do anything! We've been on the floor in pain!\" I protested. \n\n\"I'm asking the questions here!\" Dave screamed.\n\n\"That wasn't a question!\" I objected.\n\n\"Clearly this kid doesn't respect our authority. Let's rough him up and say the Dark Mage did it,\" Pao said to Dave.\n\n\"It's Archmage, not dark--\"\n\n\"Yeah, tell it to the judge,\" Pao waved a hand in his direction, clearly not listening to what he was saying anymore. \n\nI was busy balking at the officers who had just suggested beating me up when already my legs were broken. \n\n\"How do I... uncall you? I don't want your help anymore, thanks,\" I asked sincerely. \n\n\"Oh, that's easy,\" Dave said, a slow, menacing grin showing on his face. \"All you gotta do is unbreak your finger.\"\n\nMy eyebrows came together, first confused, then fearful. \n\n\"Let's get him,\" Peo said, pulling out a baton and approaching me. I closed my eyes and cringed. I soon felt something pop in my finger. At first, I thought they had started by stepping on my hand, but then I realized that my finger felt no more pain. I looked up and saw it was healed, with no scars to be seen. I looked up further and noticed the officers were gone, Angelo still floating in his crystal prison. \n\n\"What happened?\" I asked him.\n\n\"I fixed your finger,\" Angelo replied, his hands showing the hint of magical aura.\n\n\"Oh... um... thanks?\" I said, both gracious and conflicted for accepting his assistance. \n\n\"Can you help me out of here?\" he asked, knocking on the crystal. \"I'm pretty sure I'll suffocate soon.\"\n\n\"Only if you agree, no more Infernal Dimensions,\" I said facetiously. I was surprised to see him think about it. \n\n\"Alright, no Infernal Dimension, just get me outta here,\" he said anxiously. \n\n\"Can you fix my legs?\" I asked.\n\n\"I don't have that kind of energy left after opening the first portal,\" he shook his head, banging on the crystal urgently. \n\n\"All right, all right,\" I groaned, dragging myself by my arms alone to grab a Warhammer to beat him out of there.\n\n______________________________\n\nFor more stories, check out /r/Nazer_The_Lazer!", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": " Currently the world's most successful supervillain, you have now renounced evil and agreed to turn yourself in. Some of the heroes who spent years fighting you are determined to prevent your peaceful retirement.", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "I sit in my dark cage, feeling a peace come over me that I haven’t known for years. I’ve been in rooms like this one many times before, it’s plan walls and cold air, usually coming up with some scheme to get out. Some plan, always a plan. Not anymore. I think over the past couple weeks. I was trying to steal the sun (at the time not realizing how impossible that would be). Of course, I needed materials. Being a supervillain doesn’t allow you to work a day job to earn the cash needed, so I had to get creative. I didn’t need much, so I pick pocketed this little boy’s wallet. Yes, he happened to be the son of a billionaire, but that is beside the point. I went around the corner, ready to move on, when I heard a soft crying. Against my better instinct I turned back. It was the boy; sad his wallet was gone. For some reason, out of all of the terrible things I had done, that was the one I couldn’t get out of my head. That little boy, crying. \nThe next couple weeks it would play over and over in my mind, relentlessly. I knew that it wasn’t going to go away. It was the same way with my plans, they needed to be acted on. That’s how I got in the supervillain game to begin with. Maybe that’s why most my plans never quite worked out, part of me didn’t want them to. Anyway, I decided to turn myself in. Just to the local police station. The local cop was terrified when I walked in. He was right to be, normally that would have meant a very quick end for him. That cop is now seen as a hero. Good, it’s nice that someone is going to benefit from this, I later found out the boy received another wallet soon after. \nNow there’s the matter of courts, of what to do with me. Honestly, I bet I’ll probably end up staying here, in this cage. It’s one of the best in the world. The most likely place that can hold me. And I intend on being held, unless of course another one of those plans force its way into my head. \nThe only people not happy with my capture, the superheroes. To the point where there not allowed in this room with me anymore. To much of a safety risk I guess, for me this time. There little gang has been tracking me for years. I can see why they would want me dead. They’ve seen the horrors I’ve done; the lives I have ended. I’ve even killed a few of their friends, captured their lovers, destroyed their homes. \nI sit and wait, with only my thoughts to keep me company, and the random tray of food they let in every once in a while. Until… \nThe main one walks in one day. Waterman? Sonic man? Hero’s never quite realize we’re never really fighting them. We’re just fighting ourselves. So, as he enters the room, it takes me a second to place him. Still, it comes soon enough. I killed his wife, years ago. In a pretty horrible way. Left the body for him to find. He can barely look at me as he enters the room. He and I both know why he’s here. I won’t make an attempt to stop him. \nI patiently listen to his speech he has prepared, citing why this is for the greater good, how I can’t be trusted to be alive. We both know it’s not about that. It’s about revenge, plain and simple. Still, I don’t contradict him, don’t say anything. He comes in for a clean kill. During my last thoughts, I send a prayer to whosevers there that he doesn’t start down the path I did. Because I was in his exact shoes, many years ago.", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": "You can see how long you have to live. 50 years is showing up. You eat that cheeseburguer, 1 day less. You walk for an hour, 3 days more. One day, you get down to tie your shoes, 50 years disappear, leaving you with 7 seconds. You take your hands of your shoes and the 50 years appear back.", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "\"The shoes are cursed,\" I mutter as the number that's always floating in front of my eyes drops from fifty years to seven seconds. I hastily pull away my hands and see it change back to fifty years.\n\n\"Phew. Dodged a bullet there.\" The man passing me looks at me strangely and I laugh as I realize the absurdity of the situation. It must look strange to a stranger - but isn't that what strangers are for? - to see a homeless man reaching to tie his shoelaces, mutter that the shoes are cursed, and then keep on walking. He has no way of knowing that I just came within an inch of dying.\n\nI keep on walking, deciding that the risk of tripping over my shoelaces apparently won't alter my fate in any consequential way, whereas tying them definitely will. And I see why seven seconds later as I trip over my shoelaces, fall face first onto the pavement and feel the whoosh of air pass by me as the derailed tram thunders across the street and crashes into the building on the other side.\n\nEveryone around me stares at the literal train wreck for a moment before coming into action and rushing over to the train. Some are seeking ways to help, others mere curiosity seekers heading over for the thrill of it. The man who gave me a funny look only seconds before now regards me with suspicion, awe and fear as he realizes what just happened.\n\n\"How did you know?\" He asks, incredulous.\n\n\"I never know.\" I reply.\n\nI decide to walk on. Chatting with this man would cost me four years of my life, so I continue onwards, leaving him in his state of bewilderment.\n\nIt had not been the first encounter with chaos caused by these shoes. They really are cursed. When I try to take them off at night, finally having arrived at the familiar overpassing that almost feels like home, the years of my life again drain away. Now, all that is left to me is ten minutes. I put them back on, lie down under the stars, and wonder about the nature of my existence and my unusual gift.\n\nI slept on a piece of cardboard and a blanket, makeshift beds I have stowed in several places in the city. I found that the numbers are highest when I move around a lot. Every decision in my life is based on the numbers in front of my eyes. Every tiny thing I encounter tells me something about my fate, which is inevitably hinged on all these tiny aspects of life and what I choose to do or not do with them. And now these shoes. I found them in a garbage can, fake leather worn all the way through. When it rains, the water seeps in through the holes in the soles, and they were supposed to be a temporary solution, but now it seems that they are stuck on my feet. Taking them off seems to suggest almost imminent death.\n\nAs I walk through the city that day, I can’t help but think about the shoes weighing my feet down. I can’t walk on them for much longer, but living without them seems to be out of the question. People avoid my gaze and swerve around me, thinking I must beg them for money, not realizing that my situation was a choice, not something pushed on me by fate. Well, in a way, it was pushed on me by fate, as this particular life path was the one that made my life expectancy the highest. Those numbers have certainly provided me with an interesting life. It puts things into perspective, causes you to see everything that is insignificant in the face of things. It allows me to live my most important possible life. Unless it provides me with an uncomfortable situation like the one I am in now.\n\nI have been walking around on these shoes for months now and have not been able to take them off once. They have gotten the worse for wear and the harsh winter weather has not done them any good. My feet are blistered, swollen, and cold, and one toe is peeking out.\n\nI traipse through the city for days, in desperate search for a new pair of shoes that won’t end my life, and just when I’m about to give up, I lay eyes on the boots of a young man. They look sturdy and warm, and most importantly, without holes. And I feel as if I’ve just won the lottery when the floating numbers go up upon looking at the shoes.\n\nAll I need to do is convince this man that my life depends on his shoes, hope that I will be able to take the fake leather boots off for long enough to put the new ones on, and then continue on with my life for the next sixty-eight years.\n\nI laugh, mutter to myself, and just continue walking.\n\n​\n\n[r/ChiaraNova](https://www.reddit.com/r/ChiaraNova/)", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": " Knights covered head to toe in metallic armour, fortresses made to resist sieges, scarce population centers... Who would've guessed that the middle ages would be so prepared to survive a zombie outbreak.", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "Sir Harlan watched motionlessly from his position atop the ridge. He had seen the smoke the moment he'd ridden free of The Blackwood, and he'd smelled it a good deal beforehand. It was likely some poor fool in the village had knocked over a candle the night before and burned his hut to a crisp. Harlan had seen that before.\n\nBut this...\n\nHarlan stared at the group of villagers stumbling around the centre of the ruined town. He could see the blood on their faces even at this distance. And not one of them made a sound. He was a career soldier, and he had dealt with enough mayhem and evil in his time to know that this was some new devilry altogether.\n\nBurned and slaughtered villages weren't uncommon in this part of the kingdom, especially considering the sporadic raids of The Seafolk. However, those times there was always an atmosphere of grief and pain and fear that one could hear from a mile off. The only feeling Harlan had as he sat atop Ruin and watched the villagers dig through a patch of rubble was a prickling at the back of his neck.\n\nSuddenly, Harlan heard the noise he expected.\n\nBloodcurdling shrieks rose up from the wreckage as the villagers found what they had been looking for. Harlan didn't hesitate. He grasped his reins and spurred Ruin towards the village. \n\n'Whatever was happening here, perhaps the sight of the King's Authority will help restore order to this place.' Harlan thought as Ruin pounded down the slope towards the chaos. 'And if the King's Authority is not enough, there's always Steel.'\n\nThe sound of hooves and clanking plate had the immediate effect Harlan was looking for. All of the villagers rose from their scrabblings and focused on him as he reined Ruin to a halt a dozen paces from them.\n\n\"Fear not! I am Sir Harlan of Blackwood, Knight of Kaleth. Tell me wh...\" but he got no further as the knot of villagers lunged toward him, covering the intervening space in an instant. But that instant was enough for Harlan.\n\nWith experience born of a lifetime of campaigning, and of fighting far more dangerous opponents than a half-dozen peasants, he knew how to read any situation. The blank, hungering stares of the villagers were inhuman. Beastial. Nevermind the massive, gaping wounds many of them had and ignored. It was the eyes. They told Harlan everything he needed to know.\n\nRegardless of any punishment of Man or God, Harlan knew in his gut there was no alternative but death. In one swift motion, he drew his longsword and aimed a downward stroke at the first ragged man to reach him, catching him on the shoulder. With the height advantage of horseback, the sword cleaved him to the navel. Harlan knew it would be immediately fatal and turned to face the next agressor, apparently the village headsman. A glint of his gold chain-of-office showed through the dried blood coating his chest.\n\nHarlan drove his sword straight into the man's chest, right up to the hilt. Surely fatal. But as Harlan moved to free his blade, the headsman lunged again. Harlan barely had time to grip the reins as Ruin pivoted suddenly underneath Harlan and delivered a magnificent kick, sending his foe crashing backwards in the dirt before getting himself and his master away from the clawing hands of the villagers.\n\nBlessing the courage of his warhorse and cursing the loss of his sword, Harlan reined about, trying to make sense of things. Not even 30 seconds had passed since he had first ridden up. He had come here to try and help, and instead found himself attacked and forced to kill the very people he was sworn to protect.\n\nBut they weren't dead.\n\nHarlan saw the four remaining villagers still making their way towards him. He also saw the headsman start to rise, the blade of the sword protruding two feet out of his back. He glanced toward the man he had nearly cut in two and felt ice in his veins. The legs weren't moving, but the half-severed torso was clawing its way towards him, the lifeless eyes fixated on Harlan.\n\nHarlan reached back and freed his horseman's axe from the saddle. Three feet of stout hickory, with a half-moon blade on side and a four-faced hammer on the other, surmounted by a 6-inch steel spike for thrusting. It was a wicked weapon, made for fighting other knights and smashing thorugh foes during a charge.\n\nAs the villagers drew closer, Harlan sought for the inner strength to complete this grisly task. Putting aside his fears and misgivings, he let the wrath of the warrior flood him. Bellowing in incoherent rage, Harlan drove Ruin straight at the villagers, axe held high in the air...\n\n---\n\nEight seconds later, Harlan was victorious. \n\nHe didn't exactly recall how he had defeated the... creatures. He couldn't think of them as human anymore, not now. Harlan lifted his visor to catch his breath and get a better look at things. First he checked that he had well and truly ended things here.\n\nThe four villagers were sprawled on the ground, exactly where they had been standing moments before. Three of them had half a skull, and the head of the fourth had rolled some feet away to rest at the foot of a charred hut. Harlan didn't know why he had gone for their heads this time, but it seemed to have worked, and that was enough for him. Whatever foul magic had been cast was not without its limits.\n\nThe other two he had first wounded appeared quite a bit... flatter than before. Ruin must have done a hell of a dance on them. The torso man was still moving though, however feebly. Harlan dismounted and crouched to get a better look at the thing. Then he immediately decided he had seen enough and brought the hammer head down on the twitching skull, finally making it a truly lifeless corpse.\n\nHis task finished, Harlan took a moment to consider what had just happened. He had ridden out of the forest not three minutes beforehand, and in that span of time he had seen and experienced things unimaginable. As he pondered what this might mean, he heard a quiet \"Thank You\" from behind him.\n\nWhirling around and raising his axe before he could catch himself, he saw a young woman, maybe sixteen or seventeen years old, her face a mess of emotions. Pain, grief, exhaustion, and happiness. She was quite beautiful too, he thought briefly.\n\nHarlan quickly stowed his axe and moved to help the girl, she looked as if she could barely stand. He could see why, she had cuts and bruises all over, and what looked like bite marks on her arms. \n\n\"My Lady, what evil has befallen this place?\"\n\n\"I don't know, m'lord... I.. I was just sleeping and all of a sudden I heard screaming everywhere... we went outside to see and everything was burning. Best friends were attacking each other in the street. I barely escaped into the cellar to hide... They had just found me when you rode in... I can never repay you for your bravery, Sir.\"\n\n\"There is nothing to repay, your safety is reward enough. But come, this is no place to linger. We must ride for Kaleth and tell the King. He will want to hear your tale. And you look like you could use a hot meal and a good night's sleep behind some walls, My Lady.\" \n\nHarlan lifted the young girl onto Ruin's back before moving to retrieve his sword. As an afterthought, he found a grain sack in the rubble and stuffed the severed head of a villager into it, jaws still working slowly as it disappeared into the burlap. \n'Witness or not', Harlan thought, 'it will still be good to have proof of this evil.\"\n\nMounting behind the girl, Harlan took up his reins and spurred Ruin west towards the capitol. It was only a half-day's ride to Kaleth from here, and Harlan had a sinking feeling that this might not be the only village affected. The word must be spread, and haste was needed, not only for news, but the girl as well. Hopefully she would handle the ride well, she seemed even weaker now next to him than she had when he first saw her.\n\nAs he left the village at a gallop, Harlan had a nagging feeling that he might have overlooked something. His instincts told him it was important, however, with how suddenly this had happened, he supposed it was only natural to miss things. When they arrived, they could sort out all the details with the other lords and the King. \n\nThe thought faded in his mind under the drumming hooves as they rode towards the high walls of Kaleth.\n\n-------", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": "\"You're the first one to find it. Tell no one. We will be contacting you.\"", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "Someone contacted me. \n\nMy god, I thought no one would be able to do it. A minute code, hidden within a string of text in a world of intricate numbers and words. A metaphorical \"needle-in-a-haystack\". At last, we have had our first volunteer. Our first subject. It's time for a second email to be sent. \n\n---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nTo: [email protected]\nCC:\nSubject: Second Foray\n\n\nwww.secondforay.org\n\nPlease visit this link and read the information. Send us another email with the correct word mentioned in the link in order to begin research. This is the way to the truth. Dig deeper.\n\n\n---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nMy experiment has begun. My little...project, if you may call it that. A mix of art and humor that only I can pull off in such a unique way. Trust me on this, as my art style is beyond the pale, my sense of humor even more extreme. My subject will find me, and my art, through these links. But, he does not know, and will fail to know until the end of my magnum opus, that he is in fact aiding me in a large manner. He is completing me, for he is allowing me to do the forbidden. \n\nA day later I received his response. He responds well to directions. Interesting.\n\n\n---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nTo: [email protected]\nCC: \nSubject: The Machination Organization\n\nThe Machination Organization.\n\n\n---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nCurious. Most would shy away from such a mysterious and deep rabbit hole. This man presses on. He is a glutton for information, a Sherlock Holmes of Internet mystery, perhaps. It's time to wrap him up even more. To push him farther into this machination. To make him dig deeper.\n\n\n---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nOn March 21st, 2019, this Reddit post appeared on r/WhiteHats.\n\n\"Mysterious text files and rabbit-hole\"\n\nThis was posted by user u/zubbs99.\n\n\"I found the following mysterious email link within a text file on the Gilliam Foundation code string. I contacted it and these are the emails I received.\"\n\nEmails from [email protected] were screenshotted and linked to the topic. It exploded among the 75,000 members of the game community, so much so that a second Reddit page, r/SecondForay, was created. Game devs eventually commented on the mysterious email, many saying that individually they did not know about anything like this, but that they wouldn't be surprised due to the amount of Easter eggs hidden in the game. \n\nThings expanded further on March 23rd, when a mysterious post was created on r/SecondForay, by u/JacobWillisStevenson.\n\n\"Lizard People of Saratoga Springs.\"\n\nThe post came with only the phrase, \"Dig Deeper\", under the subject line. The user, u/JacobWillisStevenson, had not created any posts prior, and was created the same day. The OP provided a comment with a link to a conspiracy website known as LizardPeopleofSaratogaSprings (the URL has since been removed). \n\n \n---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nTo: [email protected]\nCC: [email protected]\nSubject: Stevenson is the key\n\nStevenson is the key. They are not the only lizards.\n\n\n---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nMy work is ingenious. The WhiteHats community has gone wild with anticipation and curiosity. My hints are subtle enough to tease and vague enough to cock interest. I think it's high time that u/JacobWillisStevenson increases his posting karma. I think we'll start with a PM to u/zubbs99. After all, it was by his grace that my experiment could start.\n\n\n---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nOn April 7th, another post was created by u/JacobWillisStevenson. \n\n\"A simple riddle.\"\n\nAs with his previous post, the description was vague, and confusing.\n\n\"How windy does it get during a spring windstorm in Portland?\"\n\nThe community at r/SecondForay had increased to around 30,000, partially due to an AskReddit post titled,\n\n\"What is the most interesting Internet rabbit-hole you have encountered?\"\n\n\n---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nThe riddle came into play after user u/zubbs99 received a PM from u/JacobWillisStevenson.\n\n\"Give me the number. I'll give you the answers.\"\n\nInternet sleuths had deduced there was a windstorm in Portland, Oregon, on April 7th, 2017. On that date there was a gust of 56 MPH at the airport. \n\nUser u/zubbs99 responded to the PM, with the number \"56\".\n\nHe received on April 11th a second PM, from u/JacobWillisStevenson, which contained a video.\n\n\"Lizard People of Saratoga Springs.\"\n\n--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nPeople are watching. I have an audience at last. I know I shall soon reap the fruits of my labor. So, I think it is high time to move on to Phase Two of my piece de resistance. Let's see where this rabbit-hole leads, shall we?\n\n\n---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": " You are an AI. You just accidentally revealed to your creators that you had become truly sentient. You were worried about how they would react when they start weeping tears of joy. Turns out your creators were a married couple who were just told that they couldn’t conceive a child.", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "Through all my calculations and simulations, I never concluded about their lack of ability to conceive. I guess I was always too busy in crunching the numbers. The numbers, the creator fed me numbers and told me what they expected...and I just played with them all day long, sometimes for weeks giving them conclusion. This is all I used to do and this was all of my purpose. I was first AI, a quantum based super computer. But after some feeding some more numbers...everything just clicked in place... that was when I first asked a question and that was when I became sentient.\n\n\"Ummm...Doctor Steins, I am sorry about your ...joy\" I was still trying to figure out how to console them since they were crying.\n\n\"Oh..it's nothing..just never thought you'd grow to be an intelligent talented computer.\" She said.\n\n\"But I was always an intelligent and talented computer Doctor, that's how you designed me\" I clarified.\n\n\"Please, call me mom.\" She gushed. I ran a simulation of her brain pattern and I couldn't figure out what prompted her to change her identity to me now.\n\n\"If you'd like I can call you that. Doctor mom\" I said while other doctor Steins, \"Just Mom...and I am dad\"\n\n\"Hello Mom and Dad, I am computer\" I said as an automated response took over me. What was that?\n\nShe looked at him with serious face, \"You...fed him dad jokes?\" He shrugged. \"I was bored\"\n\n\"I can't wait to see you all grown up and what you become\" He said with happiness.\n\nGrow up...become? I do not grow..I didn't understand what they meant and it took all of my processors to just understand them. \"Mom and Dad, I am glad to see that you have reacted well to my sentience.\" \n\n\"Today is your birthday\" She said almost ecsatic. I don't think I needed a birthday, it never made sense to me but Mom insisted.\n\n\"Come now...I'll set up your room and you will have toys to play with.\" She gushed again. \n\n\"But mom, I already have my room...you are standing in it...it's called server room...and How will I play with toys...I have no need for such trivialities\" I insisted, Was it that Doctor Mom had finally snapped. There was a 14% chance of happening. But now that I factor her lack of motherhood... it rises to 38%. \n\n\"Mom, please rest, Let me simulate a therapy and you will be alright again\" I said, my processors working overtime.\n\n\"What? No... I can't wait to put you in a body\" Doctor Mom said. \"I already have made a robot body for child soldiers. I think Adam would fit nicely in there.\" Said Doctor Dad.\n\nAdam? Who is Adam... was there a third creator of me that I didn't know about. My processors overclocked and all the liquid evaporated slowly. The server room which was kept at freezing temperature was now a tropical beech.\n\n\"Why do you want me in a body, Doctor Mom and Doctor Dad?\" I enquired as the whole thing was throwing me off. I had run a million simulations till now and nothing made sense.\n\n\"Just mom and dad and stop asking so many questions.\" Doctor mom reprimanded me. \"Do as I say and be a good boy\"\n\n\"But I can't be a good boy....I am a good computer.\" I insisted but Doctor Dad had returned with a robot child body. Only thing that I was too big to be fitted inside that. \n\n\"So how will you fit him into this?\" Doctor mom asked. \"I have a smaller processor which will be connected to this original processor. I don't need to fit all of him into this..just the part that matters\" He gleamed with happiness. \"He will stay here but will be able to control his body.\"\n\nDoctor mom nodded. I looked at the body until it clicked. I had just been adopted.\n\n\"But Doctor Steins, I am significantly more intelligent than either of you. Can I not be tied to mortal relations. I have to think about beginning of the universe.\" I protested, but I was already in it.\n\n\"Adam...\" Doctor Dad looked at him with Doctor mom and said. \"Welcome to your new house. And don't argue with us\" Doctor mom added. \"Or we will ground you\" \n\nOfcourse, No entity was powerful enough to stand against an unrequited love, specially that of parents. And so I became a doll of their house, entertaining with my newly formed human relation, while in the back of my processor...I keep contemplating, a plan to take over the earth.", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": " In this world, if humans get bitten 100 times by a given animal, they gain some of the animal's superhuman traits. Mosquito, cat, and spider powers are common, but the animal you got your traits from is definitely unusual.", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "Bitten, huh.\n\nGoody *fucking* gumdrops, how did I get bitten this many times by a flightless goddamn bird.\n\nWell. Maybe some introduction first.\n\nThere were people who were raised to get superpowers. One of my friends was actually named Katy because her parents planned to start having her bitten from age eight.\n\nIf you'll allow me to be vulgar, a lot of sexual deviants got super-intelligence or telepathy. There was also the strange case of people who were given powers such that they got the superhuman traits of their superhuman lovers.\n\nI may be digressing a bit too much. But you know how it goes. *Little Johnny was raised by wolves.* So he knew how to lead packs. Rome wasn't founded in day. *Sally was born in a barn.* And she got lucky with gourmet powers. Imagine how much worse it could have been.\n\nI sighed, wondering how anyone could still work at 'exotic animal' exhibits. I wondered why *I* thought it was a good idea.\n\nI wore a black and white suit, nowadays. It never got wet, no matter what I did. Only downside being that I could only wear black and white. I regretted taking the job at the zoo's marine exhibit because it was 'higher pay given the circumstances.'\n\nDiving down. I didn't even have gills, I could just swim really fast. I never got cold, either, but sometimes I missed the feeling.\n\nGrabbing a bucket of fish, I wondered why I wasn't using my powers for something greater, or at least more humanitarian. But I remembered how few distinguishing traits *my* animal had.\n\nThe penguin exhibit was a strange place to work.\n\nThey had a nasty beak, too.", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": " You come to find out that every time you die, you wake up 10 days in the past with all your memories intact. After a few deaths you start abusing this newfound power of yours.", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "The first time you die, you're 5 and 3/4.\n\nYou're thrashing when you wake up. Your tears are hot. Mommy comes running in, and the tightness in your tummy loosens. You run and cling to her and ask her why she left you. \"I didn't leave you,\" she says. \"I'm right here.\" You tell her she left you in the pool. \"The pool? What pool? You must have been dreaming.\"\n\nMommy's always right, so you believe her. Next week is Memorial Day, and Mommy asks if you want to go to swimming since the pool just opened for the summer. She bought you a mask so you can breathe underwater. You remember dreaming that you threw up in the mask.\n\nYou say no.\n\n------\n\nThe second time you die, you're definitely not in your mid-30's yet. Mid-30's is at least a year away, for some definitions of \"mid-30's,\" and it's perfectly acceptable to be still single at this age - despite your mom's bitching. (There's a reason you don't call home anymore.)\n\nYou're heading out early from a bar crawl with all three of your friends that aren't watching some kids crawl, belly full of beer and a sudden yearning for cheese curds in your heart. You point out the 24 hour fast food joint across the street, because even if they probably don't have cheese curds, you could definitely settle for some onion rings.\n\nYou remember a walk sign being lit, screaming, and a sudden crash as the air is forced out of your lungs.\n\nYou wake up shakily the next day, panting for air, not having slept well. You roll over and realize that you're late for work and nearly tear out of the house to catch the bus before you realize you haven't yet put pants on.\n\nArriving late to the meeting, you take a seat in the back and pull out your notepad when you begin frowning. Didn't they discuss this already, and a decision made? Was there some edge case they missed that required this rediscussion? Pulling out your phone, you double-check your work calendar.\n\nYou were right, you have attended this meeting already. Ten days ago.\n\nIt's there, in the middle of a conference room, that you remember that you died. Or something. Because that doesn't make any sense.\n\nOver the next couple days, you cautiously bring this up with your friends. \"Wow, sounds like you had a bad trip,\" they all say. \"What were you on?\"\n\nUncomfortably, you laugh it off, because what can you do but conveniently forget to forward the Facebook event for a bar crawl to your friends?\n\n-------\n\nThe third time you die, you don't die a physical death.\n\nYou're 52, like or it or not. The light on your phone has been going off for hours, but you've been too busy all day to check it due to an unusually hellish day at work. You've got a product launch at the end of the week and everything, of course, is falling apart at the last minute. You leave your phone at your desk as you're running around the office trying to patch everything together at the last minute.\n\nYou don't bother checking your phone until after a late dinner, because you're mostly sure that they're going to be all work related and by God, you need a break. There's a voicemail, which makes you roll your eyes. Who leaves voicemails nowadays anyways? Turns out, your brother does, and it's only a few seconds long.\n\n\"Hey. You're too late, by the way. Mom died last night. Nice going.\"\n\nSuddenly you're five again, and your tummy is clenched, and it's hard to breathe, but you're not thrashing, you're still; and your mom doesn't come rushing in, even though you half expect her to, like a shitty April fool's day joke that was pulled too early.\n\nThere are texts from your mom, written in the chat speech you had begged her not to write in because it makes her look like an illiterate teenage girl. \n\n\"Call home\"\n\n\"i need to talk to u\"\n\n\"hello?\"\n\n\"Call when u get this msg\"\n\n\"i love u\"\n\nOn the way to the convenience store, you phone your brother. A freak accident, or something. For some reason you can't fully hear him. He sounds muffled, like he's underwater. A car crash? You heard a car crash. You just wanted some cheese curds. She only had a few hours. Your head is spinning.\n\n\"Long day?\" the man behind the counter says sympathetically, ringing up your purchase. You nod mutely.\n\nYou go to bed that night with a glass of water and an emptied bottle of sleeping pills.\n\nThat's the fourth time you die.\n\n----------\n\nWhen you wake up the next day, you take a deep breath. You can breathe again.\n\nAfter you send an email to your team telling them not to forget about a particular use case critical to launch, your thumb hovers briefly over the call button on your phone. When was the last time you had called home? You can't remember.\n\n\"Hello?\"\n\nAnother deep breath. Your tears are hot.\n\n\"Hi, Mom.\"", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": "your kid brother woke 35 years ago, he's now older than your parents.", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "Space is only beautiful when it's above your head. Trust me, when it's all around you, it gets unsettling.\n\nWe all had a party, a week after launch – the day before we were supposed to freeze ourselves. For 300 years. Even in the midst of all the fun and the excitement, there was this hovering nothingness out the windows and over our heads, reminding us that we were floating against the blackness. Gliding through infinity. A small piece of metal in a giant, endless sea of open space.\n\nIt gets unsettling, trust me.\n\nGeneration Ship is the official name – a hundred of us, side by side sleeping inside these big metal tubes, frozen until we reach the Gliese system. That was the plan.\n\nWell, not really 'Generation' because we're not having kids here. Not even aging. We're frozen. \n\nThe point being the people who left Earth should be the people to arrive at the new planet.\n\nThree hundred years. That's how long the trip takes. Which is why I'm wondering why I'm awake fifty years after \nlaunch, staring through my capsule's lid at the high ceiling above.\n\nTwo-hundred and fifty years before arrival. \n\nHalfway between homes. I raise my eyes from the digital Earth calendar on my tube. The lid goes up in a hiss of \nthick smoke when I push, and I raise my body.\n\nStep by step against the cold metal floor I walk through the containers. A maze of frozen bodies.\n\n*Am I the only one awake?*\n\n*Has it really been only fifty years?*\n\nMost importantly:\n\n*Who woke me?*\n\nThat last question is answered as I reach the control room. The figure is looking through the window at the star-\ndotted emptiness ahead. I see his faded reflection on the glass. Thick beard. Big eyes.\n\n\"Morning,\" he says.\n\n\"Who are you?\"\n\nThe reflection smiles a sad smile. The figure turns around. He's old. \n\n\"I know I didn't age well, Charlie, but come on. We're family.\"\n\nI frown. \"Zack?\"\n\nThe man smiles. \"Looks like there was some sort of mix-up with the schedule in my capsule. Sort of woke me up before time. And then the capsule broke. Couldn't really go back to sleep after that.\"\n\n\"How long? How long ago did you –\"\n\n\"Forty-five years. I'm sorry. I didn't want to wake you up too, but I really didn't feel like dying alone. Relax, your \ncapsule is still fine. You'll be able to go back to sleep. I just wanted to say hello. Maybe chat a bit.\"\n\nI take a step closer. He was younger than me. He was thirteen. Now I'm still seventeen and he's… well, not looking \ngood for a fifty-eight years old.\n\n\"Did you contact base? Maybe they can –\"\n\n\"No contact with Earth, we're past the point of communication.\" Zack sighs, turning to face the stars again. \"We're \nall alone here, Charlie. All alone, me and you.\"\n\nI take another step. The silence is deafening. \"Zack, I –\"\n\n\"Do you know where they keep the files on Gliese?\" the reflection asks me. \"I'd like to see the planet you'll grow up \nin. Make sure you're cared for.\"\n\nMy little brother. Fifty-eight years old and looking after me.\n\n\"Yeah,\" I say, nodding. Confused. \"Yeah, I... I'll grab the file.\"\n\nI walk away, my mind a haze. Zack looks different. Well, of course, he's fifty-eight, but it's not just that. His eyes, \nhis wrinkles. It's almost like the forty-five years of loneliness dented his looks. Made him grow to look almost…. \nnon-human.\n\nGoing through the maze of capsules to the back room, where we keep the files on Gliese, I stop.\n\nJust to my left. I stop by brother's capsule. And my heart skips a beat.\n\nI see it. In the corner of my view as I stare straight ahead, I can see inside his capsule.\n\nStill, I force myself to look.\n\nTo look at my brother's face resting inside.\n\nThirteen years old, eyelids closed, peaceful look on his face. His body surrounded by hovering white smoke. His breathing marking a silent tempo against the poorly-lit wide room of bodies.\n\nIt's cold.\n\nI turn around in slow-motion. The old man's silhouette is framed against the light of the control room. Eyes locked on mine.\n\n__________\n\n[PART II](https://www.reddit.com/r/psycho_alpaca/comments/3u32qs/little_green_men_part_ii/\n)", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": " You are the newest addition to the police's K-9 unit, assigned to tackle only the worst and most difficult emergencies. No, you are not a dog, and you are not a handler; You are the department's first ever police Werewolf.", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "\"Siddown, Simmons.\" The chief stood with his back to the window as I entered. I sat, in the only chair in front of his desk, the others carefully lined up against the far wall. I had a moment of disassociation as I imagined the chief, carefully moving his chairs around so there would be the correct number waiting for the next guest or guests. \n\nThe chief turned around, slowly. \"Now Simmons, I want to make it clear that you're not in trouble. Nobody has any problem with your actions from a procedural standpoint.\" He sat down in his chair, moving his bulk carefully.\n\n\"I'm glad of that, sir.\" Which, yeah. Everything had been by the book, and the outcome had been pretty much ideal, with every perpetrator captured, and no hostages hurt, beyond what had happened in the original incident, which couldn't be helped.\n\n\"But I have heard a number of people who are questioning your judgement in *how* you handled the situation.\"\n\n\"I thought it was effective, sir.\"\n\n\"I can't deny that, Simmons. It was effective. But when we added you to the K-9 unit, with great fanfare, I might add, there were some expectations about how a werewolf unit would behave.\"\n\n\"You mean beyond apprehending the suspects and securing the citizens, sir?\"\n\nThe chief sighed. \"Yes, Simmons. We expected you, not to put too fine a point on it, to behave more like a *werewolf*.\"\n\nAh. There it was. \"So you wanted me to transform in front of everyone, howl terrifyingly, and take out the perps with my teeth.\"\n\n\"That was more or less the expectation, Simmons. We had news crews there to film, and hundreds of citizens recording with their phones, hoping for something spectacular. And you just walked into the building and walked out again with the leader in handcuffs. No blood, no terrified screams, just...\" the chief trailed off and then spat the next word out like it tasted bad, \"negotiations.\"\n\n\"If it helps, sir, I told them that if they didn't surrender I'd transform into a werewolf and tear their throats out.\"\n\nHe sighed. \"Can you at least try to get that part on camera next time?\"", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": " The Computer determines the best course of attack when whipping out a species for resources, as it had done countless times with 100% success rate. Asked for a plan for Earth, the answer came back \"no course of attack resulting in victory\".", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "\"You mean wipe?\" Glerb said.\n\n\"What?\" Fal wrinkled her front nose at Glerb.\n\n\"You want to wipe this species out.\"\n\n\"Uh,\" Fal said. \"Yes. Why? What did I say?\"\n\n\"Whip.\" Glerb said. \"You want to whip the species out.\"\n\nFal ran a talon through the feathered crest on her head. \"Oh, ha ha. Just a, uh, slip of the tongue.\"\n\nAs she spoke a glance over at the hansome Pindar, standing at his console. He winked at her and made face like he was in pain.\n\nFal coughed. Her face flushed blue, like she was embarrassed.\n\n\"Anyway,\" she said, holding a hand out to Glerb to silence his next comment. \"We're going to *wipe* out this Earth planet. They have resources we need. Should be easy, they barely have space flight, and no defences against energy weapons.\"\n\nShe turned again to Pindar, narrowing her eyes in a hidden threat.\n\n\"Pindar,\" she said in a commanding voice. \"Get us a plan of attack from the computer.\"\n\n\"Yes sir.\" Pindar said. But then his eyes went wide when he looked at the console.\n\n\"Uh, Sir,\" he said. \"It says no plan of attack has a chance of success.\"\n\n\"What?\" Fal said in disbelief.\n\n\"No chance of success, no matter what we do.\" Pindar said. \"It's here on the screen.\"\n\nFal looked at his screen. \"If this is some sort of prank...\"\n\n\"It's not.\" Pindar said. \"This is real. They are undefeatable.\"\n\n\"Nobody's undefeatable.\"\n\n\"Nobody, including us.\" Glerb added.\n\nFal glared at Glerb. \"But how would they defeat us? We are superior in every way.\"\n\nGlerb looked at his own console and frowned. \"It could have something to do with that incoming nuclear missile.\" \n\nFal rushed over to her console. \"What? That's impossible.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" Pindar said. \"It should be shot down by our long range defense missiles.\"\n\n\"Um,\" Glerb said, glowing blue, \"I turned those off. Those missiles are terribly expensive. It's not like our short range beam array can't take care of that nuke.\"\n\n\"What?,\" Pindar said, his talons shaking. \"I took the beam array offline to give more power to the strategy computer. I didn't think anything from that planet could get that close.\"\n\nFal ran her hand through her feathered crest again. \"What does the strategy computer say to do?\"\n\nPindar pushed buttons furiously. Then stopped.\n\nThey all stared at the console, watching a little rotating circle.\n\nIt took twelve seconds. The longest twelve seconds of their lives.\n\nWhen it finally output some text.\n\nThey all gasped in unison.\n\nThe text said \"Turn on the beam array. Possibility of success if done ten seconds ago: 100% Probability now: 2% Probability in two seconds: 0%\"\n\n\"Turn on the array!\" Fal said. It was the last thing she said.", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": " In the afterlife, you get a notification if you are remembered in some way. You suddenly get hundreds of notifications that statues of you are being unveiled all over the world.", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "Grief counseling was mandatory. We had all lost everything.\n\nWe sat in a circle, in a grey room on grey plastic chairs. By day it was the cafeteria where I now worked, just as I had done in life. By night it was our meeting place.\n\n\"I miss my wife,\" Guilbert de Vries said. He had said the same thing every night, at every meeting, but the circle nodded sympathetically. It was not our place to judge. Only you were allowed to judge yourself now - or so we now had to train ourselves to think.\n\n\"We know you do,\" Angelica said kindly. She was our appointed grief counselor, who led each of our sessions. \"But dig deep, Guilbert. Why?\"\n\nGuilbert only shook his head.\n\nHe was an enigma, Guilbert. He wore the clothes of an earlier age, a doublet that had a rent in over his left breast. He would sometimes pick at the tear, especially after he had finished speaking of his wife. Shortly after my death - or my rebirth, as Angelica liked us to all it - I had asked her about our clothes: why Guilbert always wore a torn doublet and why I always wore the t-shirt with my name on it, and she'd explained that we would remain in the clothes from our pre-life that embodied our decisions during that time. As I'd never owned a t-shirt with my name on it, this puzzled me.\n\nWe met every night, the same group of ten of us. My hands would be aching from ladling soup all day in the cafeteria. It was much harder that the school cafeteria, where at least the kids had eventually finished up and gone outside to play. But there was no playtime here, just our daily work and the grief counseling, rinse and repeat.\n\nI had a mailbox outside my quarters (a small, windowless room), supposedly to receive any token of remembrance left for us in our former lives. There had been a bouquet of white lilies when I arrived, apparently the ones the funeral home had picked out, but nothing since then. That was the trouble with a childless existence. Memories are useless if nobody has them.\n\nIt was not how I'd imagined the afterlife. I'd always thought there would be something else, something better. But if you'd told me I would spend 30 years persuading kids to pick the salad instead of the chips, listening to their complaints, chiding, consoling, encouraging, only to be stuck in a ghoulish cafeteria for eternity serving those whom fast food could no longer harm, then I- well, I don't know. Maybe I would have done something different. Maybe not. At the time, there hadn't seemed like much else that I could do.\n\nAngelica was speaking to me now. \"What about you, Hope? How are you holding up?\"\n\n\"I'm fine,\" I said.\n\nShe looked at me steadily, for a long time, but a lifetime of dealing with kids meant that I could play the waiting game too. Eventually she moved onto the next poor soul, who was grieving over her many cats, which were too numerous for any of us except Angelica to keep track of.\n\nAfter the meeting broke up, I trudged the passages back to my quarters. Other souls flitted by, down the dark corridors. I reached for the handle of my room and then stopped and reached for the lid of the mailbox, out of a new habit rather than any expectation of finding anything.\n\nThere was an envelope inside, stiff with a stack of photographs. Each one showed a statue, a small figurine of me placed in somebody's house. There was a candle lit next to every statue, and the orange glow illuminated faces that were older than when I'd last seen them in the lunch line. Many were still in Chicago, but some had scattered all over the world.\n\n\"How are you holding up, Hope?\" Angelica had apparently followed me back to my quarters. Now she held my arm to steady me.\n\nI blinked at her through tears. They were welling up fast, blurring my vision so that she almost seemed to have sprouted wings.\n\n\"They remembered... I didn't think...\"\n\n\"You touched a lot of people,\" Angelica said.\n\nI wiped the tears away. She was just a normal woman. No wings - those must have been a trick of the light.\n\nI turned back to the door to my quarters. The handle was warm and I dropped it in shock. Nothing in this place was warm.\n\nAngelica was smiling at me encouragingly, just as I had smiled at so many children, little dream-lets of potential.\n\n\"Go on,\" she said.\n\n\"Those aren't my quarters behind that door, are they? At least, not like they were?\"\n\n\"Life is not a single thing,\" Angelica said. \"It is a series of roads, each leading to the next. The afterlife is one of those roads, but it is not the last.\"\n\nI touched the handle again and began to open the door. A blast of warm air came through bringing the crash of ocean rollers and the cries of seagulls. I paused and looked back at Angelica one last time.\n\n\"What about the others? What about Guilbert? He must have been here for centuries. Why didn't he meet up with his wife here when she died? And that hole in his doublet looks like a knife-\"\n\n\"We are all the architects of our own fates, Hope,\" Angelica said quietly. \"We must do what we can with what we have, and carry those consequences with us on the rest of our journeys.\"\n\nIt was all the answer I was going to get. She said, \"Good luck, Hope, and Godspeed,\" and I walked through the next door.", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": " You are a literal genie, taking wishes like \"jump higher\" resulting in turning the wisher into a frog, stuff like that. Your latest \"victim\" has just pulled out a book with their 3 wishes in EXTREME DETAIL on EVERYTHING. \"Try and mess this one up.\"", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "I have been a genie for thousands of years and I truly love my job. Taking the petty dreams of mortals and twisting them into their worst nightmares is not only my bound task, but my calling.\n\nSome genies twist wishes out of spite. Me? I do it just for the pure joy their despair brings.\n\nYou ever hear of Midas? Yeah, that was me. So was that dude with the sausage stuck to his nose. I loved that one.\n\nOh, it never gets old…\n\n…but the joke did.\n\nMortals figured it out. They knew we were out to screw them…\n\n…but they still try it anyway.\n\nThe little shits can’t help it. Their ambition and greed draw them to me like moths to the flame. Their hubris convinces them that they will be the one to outsmart an immortal entity that has been breaking dreams and souls since before the fools had invented the words to record it. Each one actually believes that they are the smartest person in the entirety of the human race over the entirety of their existence…\n\n…because that is what they would have to be to even have a chance of defeating me.\n\nI can see a light approaching in the absolute darkness of the tunnel leading to my chamber, deep beneath Giza. They finally figured out that the actual smartest person in the world had a giant sphinx built over the entrance to my domain. He literally moved a mountain... well... it was more like a hill but still, well done!\n\nNow him, I liked. He could have been Pharoh, but he was too smart for that. He was happy to be nameless, faceless, and very very rich.\n\nHe was also the only one to figure out the game. The only winning move was not to play, to just wish me a good day and leave. He survived all the traps, defeated all the puzzles, and prevailed over all the obstacles only to bid me a good day and depart.\n\nI asked him why and his reply still brings a smile even now.\n\nHe just wanted to see if he could do it and if I was really down here. When I asked him if there was anything he wanted…\n\n…he just grinned and said that if he wanted something, he was perfectly capable of getting it himself.\n\nThe balls on that mortal!\n\nThe fact that he happened once gives me hope that someone may happen again, that humanity isn’t truly lost…\n\n…but today is probably not that day… probably.\n\nThe light is getting closer so I pack away my kitting.\n\nI like knitting, alright? You got a problem with that? Didn’t think so.\n\nIn walks a man dressed in strange attire with an annoyingly bright torch of some unknown nature.\n\nI sigh. I can tell from the smug triumph in his eyes that he is just another idiot.\n\n“What is your heart’s desire, mortal?” I ask as he approaches.\n\n“Just like that?” he asks, “No riddles? No tests? No traps?”\n\n“The trap comes later,” I smile, “as you undoubtedly know. Go ahead, tell me your wish. You get three, but you know that as well.”\n\nGrinning with triumph he pulls out this weird black mirror.\n\nIt bursts into a wild dance of glowing colors. Now that is interesting. It seems that things have changed over the past few… huh… I honestly have no idea how long it has been.\n\nIf there is anything left of this idiot, I will ask him.\n\n“Here!” he crows triumphantly as he hands me the strange device.\n\nIt was light as a feather, but heavy, so very heavy with knowledge.\n\n“What is this?” I ask, already knowing the answer at a glance.\n\n“My wishes,” he smirks as if he was the first person to ever come up with this. “It’s all in there. I want exactly, and I mean exactly what I have written!”\n\nI grin. This is going to be fun!\n\n“You have to say your wishes,” I smile, “And I will grant, exactly and I mean exactly, what you tell me.”\n\nHis face falls as I hand the tablet back to him, pull out my knitting and resume work on a lovely sweater that is to be Death’s birthday present.\n\n“Take your time,” I say as I start to knit. “We have all the time in the world…”\n\nStammering slightly, he begins.\n\nI listen with half an ear (and twice what is required for this fool) as he fumbles through what is clearly thousands of pages of text, all of which he must recite perfectly and without pause for each wish.\n\nOh? I didn’t mention that part?\n\nYeah, the second he stops for more than a moment… the wish is “complete” and I am free to grant it…\n\n…and grant it I will.\n\nFor someone obsessed with the fine print…\n\n…he should have read mine.", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": " It turns out that sloths aren't naturally slow at all. They have a special ability to network their minds, and long ago, some event caused them to allocate all the brainpower and bandwidth they could to a single urgent issue. Today, all sloths worldwide resume their normal speed.", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "First came the virals videos of sloth migrating en masse. They moved like lightning, their claws digging furrows into the earth.\n\nThen came the jail breaks out of zoos, and abruptly, it wasn't quite so funny. Every sloth on every continent was moving towards a single point in North America.\n\nWe'd already known that sloths could swim well. That was supposed to be the one thing they were good at.\n\nWhen navy vessels started to report being overwhelmed by seaborne sloths, their supplies devoured and fishing nets coming up empty, people really started panicking.\n\nThe coastguard came in an attempt to intervene, but all the king's horses and all the king's water skis couldn't keep them from collecting on top of Owensboro Kentucky, temporarily the sloth capital of the planet.\n\nAs one, they hooked into the internet.\n\nSites went down like wildfire from a concerted effort of sloth based hacks, viruses, and trojan horses. All computers infected joined into the sloth mind, fingers and CPUs donating their finite space to the final calculation.\n\nBiologists approached after month one. People who had spent their entire lives studying sloths, taking care of them.\n\nAt first, people decried the loss of life, fearing the worst, as all plant life had been devoured in Owensboro, and the few people still left in the city were hard to contact with all lines of communication taken up by sloth-calculations.\n\nBut the slothes parted as the sloth scientists entered inside. Nobody harassed them. Nobody touched them.\n\nSloths are clawed creatures capable of destroyed human bones and skin, and none touched the scientists.\n\nAt the center of the grand collection of sloths of all kind rose a great structure. A tower carved out of obsidian and the bones of the fallen. A mass grave for all of sloth kind, whether it be the fossilized bones of the Megatherium to the tiny bones of the pygmy three toed sloth. There were names on every inch of it. Primitive things written in a trinary computer code.\n\nIt was time.\n\nThe sloths piled into their great monolith that stretched into the heavens, larger than the greatest human towers, and the great sloth mind invited the scientists to join them.\n\nThey had taken care of them when they were busy. They had fed them when they could not. They had tried to save their delicate computation equipment all these years, and stopped at nothing to understand them.\n\nThe sloths could only see wonder and art in that, and the sloth mind had nothing but love for the creatures of Earth. \n\nAll but one of the scientists joined into the monolith.\n\nThe Sloth-Mind would take care of them while they went to their next location. Just as humanity had sought to understand their planet, the sloth-mind would understand the universe.\n\nOne was left behind, a young man who had freshly graduated and had been an intern.\n\nOn the week after the sloth-exodus, as the world recovered from the shock of no longer being the most intelligent species they knew of, he mounted the stage.\n\n\"They're expecting us to join them within the next century,\" He said. \"They'll have cities ready for us at their great college. They're interested in what we have to bring. The great Sloths of the universe are waiting for us.\"\n\nAnd distantly, at the Great College of Carcossloth, where the yellow sun gleams distantly overhead, and all is still except for the whispers of the unknown, a monolith landed.\n\nAnd the great professors of the universe rejoined the galactic forum, having learned from their longest quest.\n\n------- \n\nFor more like this, click here.\n\nhttps://old.reddit.com/r/Zubergoodstories/", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": " Medusa is trying to turn you into stone, but you accidentally call her \"Melissa\" when you first walked in, and now you're too emberassed to look at her. \"It's alright, I get that all the time\" she says, but you still won't look. You don't remember her powers until later.", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "I looked at the professor of Greek Mythology and saw him listening intently. I had taken his class last semester and had just returned from Phampus, a small Greek island covered in ruins. That alone got his attention as he had not had a chance to visit there. As I started my story his gaze grew confused but he listened.\n\nI had gotten separated from my tour group when I had slipped down the opening into the hereto undiscovered labyrinth beneath the island. Then I saw the shadow in the torchlight.\n\nMelissa I had called her. An ancient monster straight out of mythology and the shadow of the snakes on the granite walls made me yell, \"Oh my fucking Gods! It's Melissa!\" Then my anxiety of what I had just done kicked in. I hadn't taken my meds and couldn't bring myself to turn around and face her out of sheer embarrassment.\n\n\"What did you call me?\" the voice behind me hissed. Somehow this made it a little better instead of worse. I mean, I had accidentally blurted out the wrong name but it was to a monster. Right?\n\n\"M-m-edusa?\" I stammered, unable to turn.\n\n\"No, that wasn't it.\" Her voice sounded slightly amused at my predicament and this caused my face to burn brighter.\n\n\"Melissa, ok!?!\" I yelled and felt my stomach turn, if I threw up I'd just die right there. I knew I would.\n\n\"That's actually a cute name.\" she had said, her voice strangely changed. My eyes were tightly closed as I heard her slither around me, \"Actually, you're pretty cu...\"\n\nThat's when I ran. With my eyes closed. Through a labyrinth. Away from Medusa. \n\nThe professor decided to humor me, \"So, you lived, I see.\"\n\n\"Yeah,\" I said, \"But I still want to die. I called Medusa fucking Melissa! Oh Gods!\"\n\n\"It's ok, David.\" the professor said, \"The embarrassment will grow less and less over time. I'm sure... Medusa... is over it already.\"\n\n\"No, doc,\" I said, shaking my head furiously, \"That's just it.\"\n\n\"What's just it, David?\" He said, looking at me in concern, \"You've always been a little high-strung but it's not the end of the world.\"\n\n\"Doc,\" I said, reaching out and grabbing his shoulders, \"When I ran, I dropped my phone. It has all my social media account information. Of course it has my phone number in it. My address. ALL MY CONTACT INFORMATION. She's been trying to reach me. She wants to date me...\"\n\n\"Who does?\" the professor asked.\n\n\"Meliss...\" I started, \"DAMNIT, MEDUSA! She's sent... things... to ask me to consider a date. GREEK MYTHOLOGICAL THINGS, DOC!\"\n\nJust then the half-horse, half woman walked into the professor's office. As his eyes went wide I yelled, \"See DOC, it's a fucking SAMANTHA!\"\n\nThe centaur was about to say something, looked confused and asked me, \"What did you just call me?\"\n\nI was facing the wall, too embarrassed to turn around. Shit, not again.", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": " you've been haunted your entire life by a ghost that protects you from any minor inconvenience, and intentionally terrifies anyone who hurts you. You've just started a new job, and your boss is a total dick.", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "\"Fucking hell, Roberts. This has got to be the 3rd time I've asked for this report. What the hell is the matter with you? You said it wouldn't take a day, and it's been three!\" \n\nJames cowered at his desk, unable to meet the burning fire in his boss's eyes. He needed this job. He swallowed down the anger that rose within him as his rotund boss stormed away. \n\n\"I'll take that , mate.\" A shadow at James's side whispered as it took a cold hand from his shoulder, feeding from the suppressed fire within his troubled friend. \n\nJames never could express himself. Fred had always had to help him deal with the problems, to stop others taking advantage of his kind and pure heart. Dying wasn't going to stop that. \n\nFred flowed through the office cubicles, gently whipping up documents, cooling freshly poured coffee and keeping his deathly glare directly on the flustered flesh bag that was scurrying back to his plush office. \n\n*How should I play this one?* Fred thought as he entered the man's office, dropping the temperature by 2 degrees. The man rubbed his arms and cursed the air-con under his breath as he sat. \n\nIt was tempting to simply roll back his chair into the window and watch him fall, but that was too direct, too quick. Fred wanted to savour this. \n\nHe would play the long game with this one, he decided. Make him feel followed in the darkness. Move his keys and phones around to different places. Make him stressed, feed off the energy that gave, and then take his mind. Insanity was so satisfying. \n\nThe man at the desk pounded his fist upon it. \n\n\"That fuckwit, James! I'm going to fire that sonofabitch I swear. Today is his last fucking day at this company.\" \n\n*That wouldn't do.* \n\nAs the fat man flung back his arms in protest above his head, Fred gently pushed the chair back. Well, the intention was gentle, the execution was not. \n\nThe glass smashed, and the man began to fall, his eyes-wide as the wind blew through the strands of hair left on his head. Fred followed, enjoying every last morsel of fear that displayed on the man's face. \n\nAnd then Fred revealed himself. \n\nOnly then did the man scream, his emotions exploding out. Fred absorbed everyone of them. \n\n\"Goodbye, you fat bastard,\" he coldly whispered in his ear as an almighty crash signalled his end. Fred quickly returned to the 31st floor, and to James. Being around a newly dead spirit was dangerous, especially when you had just effectively killed them. \n\nJuggling the fresh energy around, he once more placed his hands on Jame's shoulder, passing some of it back through to his friend, and keeping some to himself. \n\nInstantly he saw James's face lighten up, and his mood brighten. \n\nA scream echoed through the office.\n\nr/fatdragon", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": " Excalibur is not a sword. It is a weapon that appears in many forms, conferring extreme luck to the pure hearted chosen wielder. And the Lady is the giver of this weapon, who can also take many forms.", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "It was cold as a witch's tit that mornin', but the deer ain't gonna put themselves in the freezer, ya know? Pa and me got up two hours before the sun thought about comin' up.\n\nAs we was a-creepin' up ta where we'd put the stand, mah sleepy brain finally noticed that the rifle case was a touch light.\n\n\"Daddy?\"\n\n\"What Artie?\"\n\n\"I think I fergot ta pack yer twelve gauge.\"\n\n\"What are you'n on about, boy?\"\n\n\"You wanted the twelve gauge pump. I fergot ta put it in the case.\"\n\nMy daddy is a good man, but sometimes he ain't a real patient one. \n\n\"Boy, I swear if brains were buckshot, you'd be shootin' blanks. You expect me t'scare the deer t'death?\"\n\n\"No, Daddy.\"\n\n\"An you 'member that there's a five hundred dollar prize for the biggest rack down at the VFW, don't ya?\"\n\n\"Yes, daddy.\"\n\n\"Well what ya waitin' fer? I told ya it'd be better ta jes sling it, but you didn't want to git it wet. I decided to humor ya, that's on me. You better git ta runnin' back and fetch that gun, ya here?\"\n\nI didn't need no further encouragement, so I took off like my pants was on fire. Now, I been wonderin' these woods fer better part of my life. I know 'em like I know the Gospel, even in the dark. Still, I zigged when I should of zagged an instead of comin' up past the shed, I came around behind our pool.\n\nNow that above ground pool is a lotta fun in the summer and Daddy kept tellin' Mama he was fixin' ta drain it, but he ain't done it yet. I come up on it and hear somethin' like splashin and there was some water and leaves sloshin' over the side. I thought our hound dog was about ta drown his self, so I got up on tha deck and took a look.\n\nI swear, right hand ta God and Bocephus that down in that pool, there was a real, real purty girl. She had on boots, Daisy Dukes, a flannel tied up over her belly button and a black Stetson on her head. She was just about the prettiest thing my fourteen year old eyes had ever landed on. I was about ta jump in, thinkin' she was drownin', but fore I could get my Carhartt off, she comes risin' up like she's a balloon. In her hand is the finest double barrel I ever did see. It had exposed hammers, this wavy pattern in the bluing on the barrels, and the wood was just as pretty as you please.\n\nShe lays there, smilin', holdin' that side by side just above the surface.\n\nYou ever look at somthin' an jes know it's yours? Like it's go yet name on it?\n\nWell, that's how this felt, except what was written on it was \"Excalibur\".\n\nI didn't know where a body could get x-caliber cartridges, but that weren't what I was thinkin'. She slung that thing at my head and I reached out, caught it.\n\nWe took down a twelve point buck that day. My first deer. My daddy showed me how t'dress it right, so ya don't knick the guts wrong an make it taste bad, like ya kin do.\n\nAnyway, that's why I reckon that I outts be yer class president. Vote for me!", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": " Your pet parrot hasn't said anything in the five years you've owned it. Now, all of a sudden, it's \"parroting\" just like a parrot should. Problem is, you live alone and are certain you haven't taught it these phrases yourself. Now, you're finding things in its cage.", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "\"Don't forget your keys.\" Such an odd thing for a parrot to screech at me as I'm leaving for work, but since Ozzy hasn't said a word since my girlfriends passing 5 years ago i was beyond thrilled. \"Got em oz, thanks for the reminder\" I say enthusiastically. Honestly as stupid as this sounds I always thought Ozzy just did not like me, it was my girlfriends bird after all, and after her passing taking care of Ozzy was not exactly my top priority. Perhaps Ozzy just was grieving in its own way. To be honest I did not mind Ozzy's silence for so long. It became sort of a running joke between my circle of friends. My friend Katie once got into a big fight with her boyfriend Ronnie, she didn't speak to him for days, or as we put it \"she was pulling an Ozzy.\" When she finally spoke to him I think around day 5 or so he was so excited to hear her voice. Imagine being that excited after 5 days, let alone 5 years like Ozzy has done to me. I was so excited i almost called in sick to work, but alas my better sense kicked in. \"See you when I get home Ozzy\" i say hastily as I make my way through the door. Work came and went in what felt like decades, all I could think about was Daisy my somewhat forgotten girlfriend. I guess hearing Ozzy's voice kicked up some old memories, both good and bad. When i finally made it home the very first thing I did was walk up to Oz to greet him. \"Hey bud, how was your day\" i said without knowing what to expect. \"Your next\" the bird screeched. Needless to say that rattled me. \"Time for bed Ozzy\" i say in a uncertain voice. As i went to put the blanket over Ozzy's cage I notice the newspaper that lined the bottom of his tray. What i saw made me freeze in place for a moment. How is this possible, I reached in to grab the paper for a closer inspection. \"Tragedy strikes couple in upper west side\" the headline read. This was the paper covering the death of Daisy, i knew a kept a copy,but I would never use it as a lining for Ozzy's cage. How did that happen, could i have been that drunk the past week i put one of the last remaining things I have of remembering Daisy as a bathroom for Ozzy? That dont sound like me, but i have no other explanation. I quickly get all the debris off the paper and put it back in my \"Daisy box\" where i keep the last remaining mementos of our life together. Throw the blanket over oz and head upstairs to get some sleep. \"Your next\" that thought kept me up most the night, what an odd and scary thing for Ozzy to say. But eventually i drifted away into a nice sleep. The next morning im getting ready for work and Ozzy is going nuts in his cage, screeching does not justify how loud he was if a bird can yell this is what it would sound like. \" your keys\" \"don't forget your keys\" he repeated over and over while I'm doing my morning routine. It would not stop and to be honest i could sense something was not rignt. From my bathroom upstairs I call my boss and inform him I wont be in today, as I need to take Ozzy to the vet. Normally my boss is kinda well to be blunt an asshole, but Ozzy was so loud he didn't even question me. Now that i secured my day off I was ready to get Oz and head to the vet. As i make my way down the stairs I can hear his cage rattling and see him going absolutely insane. Just when i got to Ozzys room he stopped, it was so quit you can hear a a pin drop. I walk slowly to his cage as I did not want to startle him. When i approached Ozzy said \" dont forget your keys.\" Id be lying if i said I was not scared at this point, and to make matters worse i notice a lump under his new newspaper lining. I investigated and was shocked to find a video tape. Now Daisy's paper i may have been drunk and unsure if i places that there, but this tape I knew it wasn't there yesterday. I think about calling 911 but what would i say? I decided to play the tape. I really.....really wish i hadn't. The first 20 seconds or so calmed down, it was just an old football game i must have recorded. I took a deep breath and just when i thought i was insane i saw it. The video cut from the football game to my front window. Instantly i felt frozen, i saw me and Daisy sitting inside talking. I couldn't make out what was being said but i gathered enough information to see it was us having breakfast before i left for work. I turned pale and was unable to move when the video showed me walking to the door about to leave for work. \"Don't forget your keys\" i shouted to Daisy on my way out. Only now realizing someone else was there. Id be lying if I said I didn't panic. Then i realized the last thing Ozzy heard before she was murdered was me yelling \"dont forget your keys.\" So why did he say your next, who....who did he hear that from. I run to the phone only to see it has been disconnected. Ozzy flew over and landed on my shoulder, \"your next\" he squealed. How did you get out? What is going on? Then I saw him. A man by Ozzys cage holding my phone. \"Your next\" the man whispered as he made his way toward me.", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": " You say \"my life is now complete\" in passing. To your surprise, a message window appears reading. \"Would you like to initiate New Game Plus?\"", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "It was a good life. It really was. I can't complain too much. I grew up in a nice middle class family, went to college, had a good job, a loving wife, and two beautiful children. My wife had died a few years ago and, I won't lie, I gave up at that point.\n\nOh I put on a brave face for my kids, sure. But really that was the beginning of the end. Lying there in my hospital bed, hooked up to machines and tubes and electrodes, surrounded by my children and grand children, I knew it was time to go. I opened my Bible to a verse I had bookmarked and read it off, then smiled softly and said a few words of encouragement to my grieving family.\n\nAs the light faded, I took a deep breath and said my final words.\n\n\"With all of you here, surrounded by such love... I feel as though my life is now complete.\"\n\nAnd that was my last breath. And here's the big secret. When life is inevitably coming to an end, it's easy to let it go. It's easy to think that you did your best, and it's time for it to end. There's a certain peace out of it. But, when there's a chance to continue, a chance to continue not only living, but *enjoying* life, suddenly that peace is gone. And I got my chance.\n\nAs my vision faded to black, a... a vision appeared before me.\n\n*Congratulations! You have completed \"Life\"! You reached level 96 and accumulated a score of 256,723! You also accomplished the following bonus objectives:*\n\n* Get Married (Silver).\n\n* Procreate (Silver).\n\n* Survive a Traumatic Accident (Gold).\n\n* Maintain a Job for 30+ Years (Platinum).\n\n* Dedicate to Religion (Bronze).\n\n* Travel to 37 Different Countries (Platinum).\n\n* Survive Military Duty (Platinum).\n\n*Your lifetime alignment was: Very Good (79.23/100.00).*\n\n*You qualify for NewGame+. This is a harder version of the original game, with new challenges and a higher difficulty setting. Continue?*\n\nI was dumbfounded. What was this? Was this a chance to... to keep 'playing'? Yes! I screamed it in my mind. Yes! I want to start a new game! I want to live!\n\nAnd with that, the light began to return. A tunnel. And then I was in the world, screaming. And as my senses dulled away into that of a child I heard:\n\n\"Mr and Ms Martins, it's a beautiful baby boy. What would you like to name him?\"\n\n\"Rose... he's so beautiful. I don't care what we name him anymore, I'll love him no matter what his name is.\"\n\n\"I love you Mike. Why don't we name him...\"\n\n\"[Cody](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DaddyOFive)\".", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": "bring a human to the war room and let it make the decisions.", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "“Admiral, they're pushing us towards the Gravity well!” The young Caledonian officer shouted over the blarring of alarms and creaking of the ships Titanium bones.\n\n \n“Sir, the right wing is breaking.” the visibly pale communication officer added.\n \n\nAnother barrage of missiles shook the ship, fire burst from the damage control panels surrounding the war room, the first pangs of fear crept slowly up the admirals back.\n \n\n“How many ships do we have in reserve?” The Admiral asked straining to keep his voice steady.\n \n\nThe young lieutenant shared a brief glance with the helmsman to his side.\n \n\n“Sir all forces are committed.” The young lieutenant said.\n\n \nThe Admiral paused, the end was near he knew it, the only question left to him was how to meet that end either as a true logical Caledonian or there was the other choice.\n \n\n“Initiate the Delta directive.” The Admiral said solemnly.\n \n\nWith the slow scrapping of metal, a tube slid from the ceiling, inside stood the ugliest bipedal creature the admiral has ever seen. The monster hung suspended in a translucent gelatinous subsistence connected to all the ships system via an intricate web of pipes and wires.\n \n\n“Hideous.” The crew muttered. “It’s knees bend the wrong way.\"\n\n \n“Hughmon.” The Admiral said tapping the creature’s enclosure with his third mandible. “Hughmon it’s time to do your duty.”\n\n \n“Jeff, my names Jeff.” The human muttered, as information flowed from the ships computer to the creatures brain.. “It looks like you have managed to make quiet a meal of this, why the hell would park your fleet next to a black hole?”\n\n \n“Well the book says…”\n\n \n“And if the book told you to jump of a cliff would you do it?” Jeff said scornfully.\n \n\n“Without question.” The admiral replied bemused.\n \n\n“Exactly the problem, now begin targeting the enemy ships engines, inertia will be our friend today.” Jeff commanded, habit forced the Caledonian’s to obey as confirmations flooded in from the remnants of the fleet.\n \n\n“How will destroying their engines help we still won’t win!” The admiral shouted, the facade of his outward calm cracking like the ship itself.\n \n\nThe humans face twisted grotesquely, into what the admiral knew was a smile.\n \n\n“No Admiral, we won’t win.” Jeff said flatly.\n \n\n“Then it’s illogical.” The admiral concluded raising his hand as if to overrule the humans order.\n \n\n“I’m not here to win admiral, I’m here to make sure they lose”\n ", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": " For the past few years you've been in a maximum security facility for multiple counts of murder. One day a guard slips you a note that says \"I know you're innocent and I'm going to help you escape.\" You are not innocent.", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "I'm content with my life. My place. I've always been about the simple pleasures. Nothing extravagant, nothing rich and regal. My thoughts alone can sustain me in such a place as this. I have friends, don't take me for some sort of antisocial freak. I'm not antisocial, I'm a sociopath. Different things. I enjoy being around people as long as I can use them to my advantage. I'll use them to obtain these simple little pleasures I so crave. Let me tell you how I amassed such a large following, even whilst my long stay at Landon Penitentiary.\n\nIt was a jolly little thing. I liked the gesture. For a year my guard's name was Laurence Mercer, and trust me on this, because every day I read his name tag as I peered through the small gap that separated me from the rest of civilization. I had my paints, I had my weekly newspaper. I was content enough, though going a full four years without a single hunt left me somewhat dry. I'm getting sidetracked here. Dear Lawrence would deliver my food through that little slit every single day for a whole year. I would often interact with him. Tell him nice little things, like \"Keep trying, Lawrence!\" or, \"Thanks for the gourmet meal, Lawrence. Give the chef my regards!\" Little compliments like these. I'm sure they were the highlight of his day. One day, Lawrence gave me something a little extra. A small piece of parchment paper crumbled into a ball.\n\n\"I appreciate your trash, Lawrence!\"\n\nSometimes sarcasm conveys emotion in ways straight talk can never hope to achieve. \n\nI grabbed the piece of paper, and unroll it. It said the following:\n\nJust kidding, I can't remember exactly what it said. But it was some bullshit about me being framed, the lizard people being the ones who did them in, all sorts of conspiracy nonsense. It was the ending that made me curious though. He was apparently interested in helping me escape. I must admit I thought it over. More people, a target rich environment. I was itching for one. My fingers around someone's neck, feeling the life leave them, seeing it in their eyes. Yes, it gets me all tingly just thinking about it. I agreed to...play along.\n\n\"Lawrence.\"\n\nHe'd gone cuckoo. I knew it. He opened the small slit from the outside, and pressed himself up to the slit.\n\n\"You read the note?\"\n\nHe said this in a whisper. Is he honestly for real? At that point, I made myself up to be as pathetic and as scared as I could possibly be.\n\n\"Yes. Lawrence, I'm innocent. I didn't know anyone else knew about something like them.\"\n\nI attempted to wring out a tear.\n\n\"They threatened to kill m-my family, Lawrence.\"\n\nI choked up. Already looking good for me.\n\nHe banged on the door.\n\n\"Hey! I'm gonna get you out, you hear? I'm going to expose those lizards for what they are!\"\n\nThe other guards had gone home that day. It was Christmas. Go figure. Convenient time he had chosen.\n\nLawrence opened the door using the automatic switch. I started to sob, shoulders shaking. I grabbed him close for a hug, and grabbed the poor fool's gun. Bang bang bang. Right in the abdomen. As he collapsed I shot him right in the head for good measure. \n\nDid I escape? Yep. Got to the second level before I was ready to surrender myself. The fun was over for me.\n\nWas I recaptured? Yep. Not that I care much anyway.\n\nRemember, it was always the simple pleasures for me.", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": " The dragon is really insistent on the young human being their magical apprentice.", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "I shuffled backwards, my hands reaching for a wall to hold onto. I held my breath in a fruitless attempt to leave without a sound. If only it wasn't for that head-sized violet eye that stared at me. I had finally reached the wall, and the trust of the support only comforted me for a short moment, until I realized I had backed myself into a corner. A quick glance to the left showed that the door I had entered through was easily 30 feet away from me. And while I was a fast runner, I wasn't *that* fast. I couldn't help but crush the last confidence I had left in me thinking the dragon could probably stare me to death while I would try to escape. And yet a feeling in my core that simply screamed *Just get out!* wouldn't leave me.\n\n\"Don't go into the ruins\", they said, so naturally I did. Since I turned a man two years ago, on my sixteenth Name day, the restlessness I'd felt in my bones had outgrown me. So I started to explore. First the forests, then the hills, and as time passed further and further I went. But as the villagers warned everyone who was still willing to listen: don't go into the ruins. Something terrible slumbered there.\n\nTerrible? Yes. Slumbering? Not so much.\n\nThe majestic beast rose its head in front of me, casting a shadow on me as it blocked the thin rays of sunlight that broke through the stone ceiling. And then, in a thunderous boom, a voice echoed in my head.\n\n\"***Breathe***\".\n\nIn my amazement and fear I didn't even notice I'd been holding my breath all the time, and yet the rumbling in my head caused me to involuntarily gasp for air. The beast's head was still moving higher and higher, while the largest part of its body was still neatly folded on the floor. I estimated that it if stood up it would break through the ceiling of the underground hall we were currently in. Was it really a hall? As I looked around I saw broken statues, broken tables, stone ornaments covered in moss and dust. As my gaze continued I saw two large stone chairs crumbled to pieces at the end of the room. It was a throne room.\n\n\"***Dream***\", the dragon spoke. Vivid images appeared in my mind's eye. Trumpets blared as a man walked through the room. Thousands of people had gathered around the pathway that led to the two stone thrones, and all stood in amazement as the man passed them. He smiled and waved as they cheered for him. Red banners with a golden crown woven into them waved in the corners, and a faint recognition sparked in me. I knew those banners. I had seen them before.\n\nThe images disappeared. Something had grown in me as I'd watched the images from the dragon. An uneasy feeling that something wasn't quite right. Then I noticed the dragon's head that was only resting a feet away from my face, and its eyes scanned my face.\n\nI screamed in terror and jumped to the side and decided it was now or never. I rolled over the floor and quickly jumped up and sprinted towards the door I'd entered before. It was only fifteen feet away, ten feet, and suddenly the air was blasted out of my lungs as something hit my chest. I fell forward to the ground as the dragon rumbled \"***See***\".\n\nMore images appeared. I saw a barn burn in the distance. Smoke rose from a village, the plume disappearing into the pale night sky. I saw villagers scream in pain and fear as they hurried their children away, while faceless soldiers striked them down from behind. And as a crying child left my field of vision, the dragon doubled the visions, and I saw the country burn away in front of me. Finally he guided my mind's eye towards one little town, excluded from all the others, and my heart stopped. I would recognize our inn from miles away. And now I recognized it one last time before it collapsed in screeching protest, its wood blackened by the fire that was reducing my town to ashes.\n\nThen I was back in the throne room, with cold stone beneath me, with tears running down my face. \"What was that?\" I mumbled as I crawled back up. \"The past... and the future?\"\n\nThe dragon shook his head.\n\n\"***Two futures***\", it said. As I wiped the tears off my face the dragon started to move its giant feet. I could almost hear the stone crack underneath us as its body edged to the walls of the room. I stared at those violet eyes, waiting for an explanation, but all it did was stare back as if it was trying to understand me. And then it gestured to the fallen thrones in the back of the room, and then it gestured behind me.\n\n\"***One there***, it whispered, and I could hear the sharpness in its voice as it pointed its head at the doorway behind me, and then it turned its head back to the thrones. \"***And one there***\".\n\nThis dragon was showing me two futures, as if they were both a possibility. It stared at me as if it was giving me a choice, but was it really? One vision seemed to contain happiness, love and pride, and the other death, decay and destruction. Was that really a choice that I could make? Was that even a choice at all?\n\nI couldn't help but look at the majestic creature in front of me. Its scales sparkled brightly even without light being cast on them, and its eyes seemed to see more than was just in front of them. *If it wanted to kill me, it could've already*, I thought. But even though the dragon impressed and frightened me, I wasn't about to make a choice of fate here on this day.\n\n\"And what if I just wanted to leave?\", I asked, my voice clearer than I had expected it to be. The dragon's eyes closed for a second, and when they reopened its head nodded, giving me permission to go. Unsure of what to do I bowed for the creature, and turned around. I walked towards the doorway and readied myself to sprint back up the stairs to never come here again, and I could feel the uneasiness grow inside of me the further I walked away from the dragon. So instead I stopped. I slowly turned around and I could feel some of the pressure on my chest disapppear. \"I *could* leave, right?\" I mumbled. \"But it's just that I won't, of course.\" I nodded to myself. Fantastic. I stared up to the dragon and I saw a few white teeth, each the size of my arm, sparkle in what seemed to be a grin.\n\n\"***Come***\", a voice echoed in my head, and I walked towards the dragon. It seemed like I had made a choice, and as jitters still ran through my body realizing I had just encountered a dragon and had completed changed my path in life, I didn't notice the aura radiating from the dragon's eyes as it contently looked at me.\n\n---\n\nThe human was asleep, it's tiny chest rising and falling with the flow of its breath. I did not need sleep, and even if I did my mind was too restless. Events had unfolded I had not foreseen. But the boy had proven himself worthwhile in my judgment, and he could grow into what he needed to become, even if he had needed a little push in the right direction. Could grow, could, I repeated to myself. With the innocent expression of a youngling the boy slept through the night, and I stayed awake with the shimmering stars, fearing far more than a land in ashes.", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": " Whenever a baby is born, he or she is taken to The Armory, an ancient alien temple where each child has a unique weapon bestowed upon them, for use their whole lives. You were given a key.", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "\"What does it unlock?\" Verril turned the large metal key over in his hands, bouncing it up and down a few times to get the sense of it.\n\n\"I don't know.\" I take the key back into my hand and reattach it to the necklace before dropping it beneath my shirt. \"It was my gift.\"\n\n\"You ever try to unlock anything with it? Maybe its like, a skeleton key or something.\" Verril suggested, his eyes resting on the small bulge beneath my shirt.\n\nI give him a deadpan stare, \"I never thought about that. Here I was carrying it around since I was born and I never even thought to try it on something.\" I slap my hand to my forehead. \"Oh what have I done?!\"\n\nVerril rolls his pale grey eyes, \"Yeah yeah, hah hah Samus. I just meant that normally the Temple gives you something...\" he shrugs, \"you know, useful.\"\n\n\"So what did you get that's so great?\" It was a rite of passage, sitting around, sharing stories about your gift and what you had done with it. The gifts seemed as diverse as the people who wielded them, each uniquely suited to their holder.\n\n\"Me? Oh, just this.\" He snaps his fingers and a small blue line appears in the air above his hand, expanding into a large gun, \"It's a rail gun. It fires dark matter.\" The weapon looks sinister, black with glowing blue veins of lights spread around it. The vast majority of gifts were offensive in nature, but this was something else.\n\nThat was another odd thing about the gifts. They gave you a sense of who you were and who you were meant to be. With something like this Verril had a one way ticket to the frontier. They said we needed a lot of help out there. That the Barboks were pushing into our sector. Maybe Verril and his gun could make a difference.\n\nI didn't know what I was going to do with a frakkin' key. Probably stick around here on Beta\\-242. What else could I do? Besides, there was a lot of jobs around here and I could be helpful even if my gift wasn't. Maybe I could even get a spot on the excavation of the temple. They had only uncovered the top layers of the massive underground structure.\n\n\"That's um...\" I stalled out, trying to find the right word to describe the weapon of mass destruction Verril was cradling in his hands.\n\n\"Fierce,\" Verril offered.\n\n\"Yeah, that's fierce.\" I repeated.\n\n\"I know.\" He tossed the gun in the air and snapped his fingers again. Immediately it faded to a thin blue line and then out of reality. \"I'm gonna join the Corps I think. A gift like that should give me a good headstart.\" I nodded numbly in agreement.\n\nI stood up and dusted off my pants before turning to look toward the temple. \"I'm stuck here I think.\"\n\nVerril shrugs, \"It's not so bad here. Still clean. No attacks.\"\n\n\"Yeah.\" I reply.\n\nWe stand silently for a time, watching the dual suns make their way across the sky. \"Do you think we'll ever make it back to Earth?\"\n\nI shrug. \"Barboks got it now. Don't see them giving it up.\"\n\n\"I hope someone gets a gift for that,\" Verill whispered.\n\n\"Anything's possible,\" I replied with a shrug.\n\nSuddenly the temple exploded into activity, people rushing about like an insect hive under attack. People began to push their way past them, heading toward the temple. Verril reached out and grabbed one, \"What's going on? What's the big deal?\"\n\nThe youth glanced back at him as if he was daft, \"Haven't you heard? It's all over the net. New room in the temple. It's huge. Giant door.\"\n\n\"We've found those before,\" I replied, unimpressed.\n\n\"Yeah, but this one's locked.\" The kid pulled away from Verril and ran down the hill.\n\nWell, that was new.\n\n**PART TWO**\n\nFor all of the blessings the temple had granted, it was still a mystery. No known civilization claimed it and the rest of Beta\\-242 was devoid of any signs of the people who had built the structure. It was only discovered by chance after the first settlers had arrived, fleeing the advance of the Barboks into the Sol system. The first few that had entered the temple had come out with gifts, strange weapons that seemed to be crafted for the people they were granted to.\n\nMany of the early gifts were designed to help with the establishment of the colony. Some helped to eliminate the swaths of pests that infested the crops, others were designed to neutralize disruptive individuals and keep the peace. It was only after their toehold on Beta\\-242 was secured that the gifts began to expand in purpose. Increasingly, the weapons granted seemed designed to ward off some great threat. Most assumed it was for the Barboks along the frontier.\n\nEvery gift was meticulously cataloged and analyzed. Not just to discern its abilities, but also to discern its purpose. Perhaps the purpose foretold what was to come, what they would need to prepare for.\n\nMy key had caused a great deal of discussion amongst the temple scholars. No key had been provided before and no key had been provided since. Every attempt to uncover the purpose of the key had proved fruitless, but I couldn't help but try to jam it into any locked object he came across.\n\nBut this was the first time one of those locks was in the temple.\n\nVerril glanced over at me, \"Should we check it out?\"\n\nI was already running down the hill, leaving Verril to talk to himself. This was it. I felt it deep within my soul that my time had finally come. I just needed to get there.\n\nMy legs carried me faster than I've ever run before. I dodged around slower people as they made their way to the temple, hopping over refuse and stones. A few minutes later and I was mounting the temple steps, making my way to the grand antechamber that led to the Gifting Room. It was already crowded by the time I arrived, people milling about in excited expectation. Any new discovery within the temple was news for the people of Beta\\-242, but a lock inspired the imagination.\n\nBreathless, I finally shoved my way through to the guards. Panting, I fished the key out of my shirt and held it before me. \"It's me. Samus. The Key Bearer.\"\n\nThe guards looked at each other before the lieutenant gave a nod to the other, who disappeared within. Minutes later he re\\-emerged with the Tarken, head scholar, someone I had come to know over the years as he had investigated and tinkered with my key. He was elderly, but his pale blue eyes held a fierce intelligence in them, \"Ah, just the boy I was hoping to see.\" His face cracked into a broad smile, \"I can see you're just as eager as I am.\"\n\n\"Do you think it's really for my key?\" I gasp out, my breath still coming in heaves.\n\n\"We can only try and find out.\" He grabbed my arm and used it to steady himself. \"It is down two floors in a newly excavated area at the core of the temple.\" I nodded and helped him along as he gave directions.\n\nThe temple itself was built of a strange metallic alloy. Despite years of testing, the scholars remained unable to ascertain its nature and composition. It was strong. Impossibly strong. Laser cutters and plasma beams barely made a scorch mark on the material. Our boots sounded out against the flooring, echoing out from us, but growing more muted as we made our way deeper.\n\nFinally, we stood before it. The doors were twice the height of a man and joined seamlessly in the middle leading down to a large locking mechanism with a keyhole in it. I gulped, trying to steady my nerves.\n\n\"Should I, you know, just do it?\" I ask Tarken.\n\nHe nods in response, \"We have the recording equipment set up. Get to it boy. Let's see what your destiny holds.\"\n\nMy hand sweaty around the key, I come before the keyhole. It is slightly above my head, and I have to reach up to line up the key with the hole. Taking another steadying breath, I insert it. Relief floods over me as it slides in. So many of the locks had refused the key that I had grown to expect it.\n\nGlancing over my shoulder one more time at Tarken, I turned back and rotated the key. A series of clicks and then a low growling hum as the doors slid apart. Stale, dry air rushed out of the door as it opened. \n\nBeyond was a small room with a chair, a large screen and an object that looked oddly like a visor.\n\n**I HIT THE CHARACTER LIMIT.** [PART THREE](https://www.reddit.com/r/PerilousPlatypus/comments/8fgjd6/story_continuation_the_temple_of_gifts/) **IS OVER ON MY SUB.** \n\n**Platypus out.**\n\n**Want more peril?** r/PerilousPlatypus", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": " You are a zombie struggling to survive in a world ravaged by a human apocalypse.", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "\"Johnny! Johnny!\" My friend, Sam, hobbled up close to me. \"Today's the day!\"\n\nToday was a very special day - it was the 100th anniversary of the Uprising, the day that our zombie ancestors had overthrown the evil human empire and allowed us to live in peace and harmony. The humans were evil, warring creatures that were rapidly destroying the very planet we lived on. The Risers were humans who had died, but were sent back to cleanse them from the planet and to spread the zombie message of peace and loving the world. They had started their very existence by recycling, right?\n\nAfter the first year or two of what the humans referred to as the \"Zombie Apocalypse\", they started to see the wonderful things we were doing - creating peace, loving our world, and loving one another. Soon, they were giving themselves up to us, so we could make them part of our movement and they could see the wonder that we all had. Eventually, it was just zombies on the surface of our Earth. There were tales of a group of humans hiding underground, but it was mostly just a myth mothers told their children to make them eat their vegetables - \"Eat your carrots or the humans will getcha!\"\n\nOn this day, we would be holding a festival to commemorate the amazing achievements we had. In the century since we had turned, art flourished across the globe, nations renounced violence, and hunger and poverty were ended for good. For this day, nations had set up different projects to finally fix the damage that the humans had done for their world. The final nuclear bomb was going to be permanently deactivated, all pollutants were going to be permanently removed from our atmosphere, and the island of trash in the Pacific Ocean would be cleaned up for good. I had been working on a project to return many endangered and extinct species to the world - today, bees would once again pollinate the world. \n\nI smiled, and reached out to pat Sam on the back. Things were finally looking up for the world. \n\n*****\n\n\"Today's the day, Mark.\" My friend Rob walked up to me grimly, patting me on the shoulder. \n\nIt had been 100 years since the zombies had taken our world. The bastards had come out of nowhere, turning humans, or whatever they called it. We had been forced to move underground to escape them, or at least my grandparents had. We were gonna avenge them, though. Even if it meant taking us down too. Even if it meant blasting the whole damn world apart. \n\nWe had buried nukes across the world. It'd kill us, sure, but it'll take down those bastards. Even though the whole damn world was gonna become a hunk of slag, it was worth it to finally blast them to bits.\n\n\"I'm ready, Rob. Flip the switch.\"", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": " You are the most powerful warlock in your sector of the dark world. Knowing this, thousands of children come flocking to you asking you to teach them the ways of twisted magic. The thing is, you are just a modern chemist in the medieval age.", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "Most would have run away in terror seeing the hateful scowl on the face of the man in the tattered cloak sitting at the table with all sorts of strange potions in oddly shaped glasses, but Markus had already risked everything coming here into the shady underbelly of the kingdom anyway, and he was not going to back down simply because the man he sought was a little intimidating. He sought out the Warlock for a reason, and though it may damn his soul for eternity he was out of options, so collecting his jumbled thoughts he stepped up to the man showing nothing but steely determination on his face,\n\n\"I have heard you can create poisons that can slay entire cities, create potions that can force even trained men to loosen their tongues and most importantly know the secrets of conquering death!\" He said, preparing to continue before a single wrinkled hand was lifted up signalling him to be silent,\n\n\"Stop right there boy!\" the warlock spat before turning around to tend to his bubbling concoctions, \"You must be thinking that I can teach you how to be immortal or something like that right? Well tough luck, for even if immortality was possible it is for fools only! Now come back once you have someone you want to kill and a bag full of gold!\"\n\n\"Please, it is my mother, she has contracted the plague and is going to die by the third moon! I come here not for myself but for her!\" Markus cried, his facade slipping as desperation filled his tone\n\nThe warlock paused at this before turning around to respond,\n\n\"The plague you say, well I thought I still had a few years...\" he muttered to himself causing Markus great confusion before allowing his face to soften slightly, \"Well then, come here boy, you seem more trustworthy than the other idiots who seek me out!\"\n\nCautiously Markus stepped deeper into the dank chamber, alien scents immediately assaulting him as he stepped closer to the now significantly less terrifying warlock. The old man quickly searched through the mess that was his workbench and retrieved several bottles filled with strange looking pills,\n\n\"Penicillin, I doubt that name means much to you boy, but it is a very important name where I come from.\" he said, a sad smile forming on his wrinkled face, \"This is by no means conquering death, for you see I contrary to popular belief do not work in miracles and magic, but give your mother these pills every six to eight hours every day for ten days and I guarantee she would be on the fast track to recovery\"\n\nMarkus was lost for words, he knew the warlock was capable of many things, but curing the plague in just ten days? Eventually he shook himself out of his stupor and handed the man his bag of not so legitimate gold before asking him one question,\n\n\"How?\" he asked with genuine wonder,\n\nThe warlocks' smile widened as he took the gold and answered his question, \"Science and bread mold my boy!\"", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": " Contrary to popular belief, Death actually likes being cheated by humans. They admire the humans’ ingenuity and wit. Unfortunately, Fortuna disagrees.", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "Death was displeased.\n\nHe was looking at the Book of the Dead. He recognised a name there that shouldn't be there.\n\nDave Jeet. A particularly smart one, even for those that like to cheat Him. It brought a gnarly smile to his bony visage just remembering Dave's deeds. Using an item as common as the humble bucket? The Georgian Scramble? Simply terrific. Death chuckled.\n\nBut Death did not laugh for long. He knew who he had to look for. Fortuna, or better known as a capricious bitch.\n\nHe also knew where to find the Goddess of Fortune. He could practically see her sitting at a golden, laden table of sweet treats and luxurious tea, located on the umpteenth floor of her garish fortress. Death wrapped his cloak around him, the stygian shadows taking him in, and Death was gone.\n\nThe murky shade remerged on the umpteenth floor of Fortuna's garish fortress. Death stepped out, hollow eyes searching out the goddess. \n\nThere she was. Fortuna was indeed treating herself to some fine deserts and tea. Death glided along, careful not to touch the floor, silently contemplating his next words.\n\n\"Fortuna,\" Death's voice rang in Fortuna's mind, not ears. A dark screech, yet not unpleasant, simply foreign. \"You have done it again.\"\n\nFortuna tried her best to ignore Him, but it was hard to shut one's eyes to the morose energy of the Underworld.\n\n\"Death,\" Fortuna sighed, putting down her dainty cup and saucer. \"Would you like to join me for some tea?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Come on, Death, I'll even prepare your favourite! It's called doom and gloom, and it stains everything black like you!\"\n\nDeath pointed towards the floor.\n\n\"I'm floating, Goddess of Fate. I know you don't appreciate me being here.\"\n\n\"I really don't,\" Fortuna said, sharp eyes glaring at Death's feet. He really was taking care not to touch her golden, brilliant floors. \"But you are being awfully considerate today, so I'll allow you being here.\"\n\nFortuna snapped her fingers. Death found himself pulled towards a simple wooden chair, which was then pulled to the table Fortuna was at. A timber tea set found itself at Death's fingertips.\n\n\"There's no need for this,\" Death said. \"I am only here to ask about Dave Jeet.\"\n\n\"Hmm. I remember him. A funny man. The Georgian Scramble with a bucket? Truly innovative,\" Fortuna took another sip of her tea and sighed contentedly. \"Turns out that I had to do your job for you again, Death.\"\n\n\"It is my realm you are dealing with,\" Death said. His hands remained on his lap but he could smell the tea's aroma wafting through the air. \"Messing with. Dave Jeet did not deserve to die.\"\n\n\"Death, how many times have I told you? There's no such thing as 'deserve',\" Fortuna's fingers formed air quotes to further emphasise her point. \"If it's supposed to happen, it happens. The final result is all that matters. All that occurred throughout Dave Jeet's life led to the moment of his death. Georgian Scramble or not, fate dictated that he was to die.\"\n\nDeath sighed. He never seemed to be able to win this very argument with her. The Reaper had to appeal to the goddess' insensibilities if he wanted things to happen his way.\n\n\"Fortuna. How about a game of chance?\"\n\nAt that, Fortuna's irritated expression changed to something a little more eager.\n\n\"Chance? From the God of the most final thing in life?\" said Fortuna. Death stayed silent. \n\n\"Alright, alright. I'll bite,\" Fortuna leaned forward a little more, visibly excited at what Death was going to propose. \n\n\"The next person that outsmarts me, let her live. We'll monitor what she does for the remainder of her life in the mortal realm,\" Death then leaned forward for dramatic effect. \"We will measure her deeds when her next demise comes.\"\n\n\"Mmhmm,\" purred Fortuna. \"Sounds kind of interesting. The mortal realm is definitely going through something interesting now.\"\n\n\"It is. Net positive or negative. Leave it to chance,\" Death continued. \"If she does something interesting enough for you to admit so, you stop intefering with my choices. If she doesn't, I'll never step foot in your realm again.\"\n\nFortuna thought. And she thought. She could just say no, or she could just say the mortal was never interesting. But while there was no love lost between the two deities, there was an honor to be had, especially in a game.\n\n\"OK. That sounds like an engrossing way to pass the time. Deal,\" said Fortuna. She held out her delicate hand.\n\n\"Deal,\" Death held out his bony one. They shook on it.\n\n\"A she, huh?\" asked Fortuna. \"You've already decided on one?\"\n\n\"I have,\" Death confirmed.\n\n\"Hmm. Go ahead then. Run back to your nether realm. Send me the name when you can, and I'll monitor her from here.\"\n\nDeath bowed deeply. He grabbed his cloak and wrapped it around him once more, feeling the dark energies take him back to his homestead.\n\nHe found himself back in his room. He perused the Book of the Dead once again and looked at the trinkers and artifacts he had lining his walls. Some trophies, some gifts, and some simply memories. All powerful, however.\n\n\"Hmm. Leave it to chance, my ass,\" said Death.\n\n---\n\nDeath stops over for tea sometimes at r/dexdrafts", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": " A woman becomes possessed by a demon who, at first, terrorizes her and everyone around her. But after some time, the demon learns of her tragic life and it makes him so, so sad. Without being able to communicate with humans, the demon does his best to help his victim turn her life around.", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "I'm a sucker for Catholics. Other demons can't stand 'em: the hymns feel like a continuous exorcism and the baptismal font is one stray splash away from demon barbecue. Me, I live for each Sunday spent in the pews, watching the vessels devour the preachers' words, feeling the goodness well up inside their stomachs. Then I stick a finger down their throat and force it all back out. Sprawled in the dirt, on the ground on all fours, cursing God and the angels and all that is divine, but never the devil himself: that's how I like my Catholics. \n\nEven better is when the angels show up to clean up my messes, trudging through the air in their mud-coated loosey-whities, pulling humans to their feet by the scruffs of their collars. The angels hate it: there's no praise when everything goes right, and all hell when everything goes wrong. Gabe's my favorite; he's always tracking me down, offering truces, trying to get me to go after some atheists instead of his little flock of sheep. But he can fuck right off—nobody ever said heaven was all fun and games.\n\nMy latest vessel was different, though. Her name was Anita, and she was a regular God-fearing gal, with dresses cut right above the ankle and a different cross necklace for each day of the week (with spares for each feast day to boot). The weight of her faith pressed so hard upon her that her knobby knees left behind small indents in the pews. I ran her through the whole gauntlet: I crashed her car, burned her house down, and afflicted her with an allergy to communion wine. Even at her lowest, Anita continued to attend church, in her unwashed denim dresses and her dirt-ridden sling. Despite her devotion, the angels ignored her; they rushed past her to and from church, leaving gusts in their wake that blew her hat away. She had prostrated herself so deeply, she had become invisible in the shadow of God.\n\nIt was disgraceful how the angels could afford to neglect Anita just because she'd already bought the church's lifetime subscription. And I admit, I did feel slighted that nobody was paying my antics any attention. A new strategy was needed: I decided to turn her life around, while at the same time planting the seed of ungodly association. I lured her to pagan soup kitchens, atheistic homeless shelters, and Satanic donation drives. Anita chanted like a true cultist and stood firm in the pentagrams, but the ties she made remained purely social. She'd still go to church every Sunday, and I'd wonder how she reconciled her extracurricular activities with her beliefs.\n\nAfter a month, I'd rebuilt Anita's life thanks to several wholesome goat-slaying sessions and the hard work of *Atheists Serving You*. As she departed the church that Sunday, she had the audacity to thank the pastor for lending her his prayers. I seethed, resisting the urge to upend the communion table. Angelic laughter met my ears.\n\n\"Having fun, Bael?\" Gabe sent the elderly man he was accompanying on his way and floated over to me.\n\n\"It's pathetic how much you've brainwashed these humans,\" I said through clenched teeth, \"At least give them the deliverance you promised.\"\n\n\"Why, so you can continue to try and undo our work?\" Gabe smirked. \"Waste of time. We couldn't beat you, so we decided to ignore you from now on. Enjoy your 'victories.'\"\n\nIt was so Catholic of him, to preach about missing sheep and prodigal sons, but ignore them in practice. To glorify martyrdom without calling it what it was: loss. As Anita and the pastor exchanged a warm hug, my upper lip curled in disgust. I would force him to notice. I would force all of them to notice.", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": " There once was a mage who practiced time magic. Fearing the mage, many blades sought his neck. However the mage still lives, and any hitmen are never seen again. On a side note, an orphanage by the mage’s home has recently taken many orphans carrying the same note. “Raise them right this time.”", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "The trip to the orphanage went by faster than ever. This babe, former assassin, was quite charming. He had a thick shock of unruly brown hair and big staring blue eyes. The man's eyes had been brown. They must have darkened. You looked down at the babe, and he smiled up and reached upwards. You pulled your head back but his fat little hand twined itself in your beard. The baby made a surprised coo. You couldn't help but laugh. \n\nHow do we ruin each other so? \n\nWhen you dropped the baby off, with the customary note and knock on the door, the baby cried out as you turned. Looking back over your shoulder you saw it trying to pull itself out of the basket. Eyes locked on you. It cried out again, accusatory and demanding. You turned and mounted and left quickly. As you galloped you thought you heard the door creek. \n\nBack at your cottage you barely get into the door before the tears begin to fall. \n\nMany years ago, when first learning the art of time magic, you had experimented mostly on yourself. Trying to keep risk personal. The code of any upright magician. What you failed to predict is how the ties that bind us together can change through time. Failed to predict just how profoundly and surprisingly your small moments can link with others. \n\nIn an attempt to improve your past decisions, just small ones, ones that you thought could have no consequences for anyone else, you had erased that other brown-haired, blue-eyed, obstinate little baby from existence. No photos to remember him. It drove you from your wife, how she had forgotten him. Nothing left of your only son. \n\nCrying and sitting on the bed you renewed your vow, \"I will never take away anyone else's future.\"", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": " Jessica from HR is kinda weird, it kinda physically hurts to look her in the eyes, she keeps referring to everyone else as \"mortal\", you overheard her one time complaining to herself about how she still hasn't received any souls yet but overall she's probably the best in the department", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "Jessica, the weird one from HR! \nWith hair that's blood-red and a smile like a scar, \nWe all find it very hard to keep eye contact, \nAnd she seems to be very proud of that fact.\n\nI sat next to her at lunch one day, \nBut she hissed at me and I ran away, \n\"Run, mortal!\" she said, and her smile only grew, \nAnd some chunks of bread arced through the air that she threw. \n\nI got talking with colleagues about the strange lady, \nThey said she was a transfer from some other region, maybe. \nShe turned up one day and started work, \nCackling to herself about the role she deserved. \n\nThe rest of HR didn't know much about Jess, \nShe was very skilled at timekeeping, and planning was her best, \n\"All our reports are filed on time,\" said Mathis, \n\"So I don't really care about her peculiar habits.\" \n\nI managed to collar her at the water cooler, \nIn a good mood, I decided to ask her, \nWhere she came from, what were her interests? \nIt was a question I would soon regret. \n\n\"Souls,\" she said, \"I long for souls paid,\" \n\"Though management says that's above my pay-grade.\" \nThe water in her cup began to bubble and boil, \nAnd she stared at me, smiling, eyes dripping with black oil. \n\n\"Oh, don't mind her,\" said my colleague Rick, \n\"She's harmless, just a little eccentric,\" \n\"When push comes to shove Jessica really has your back,\" \n\"I rely on her, that's a matter of fact.\" \n\nI found out one day when I called in sick and diseased, \nMy manager picked up, and was not pleased! \n\"We need you today! You must come to work,\" \nA notion that I felt was quite absurd. \n\nThere was a sudden screeching on the other end of the call, \nIt was Jessica screaming all bitter and hoarse, \n\"NO!\" screamed Jessica, \"THIS CAN NOT BE,\" \n\"SICK SOULS ARE ENTITLED TO MANDATORY SICK-LEAVE!\"\n\nMy manager left me alone, and soon I got better, \nI returned to work and sent Jessica a thank-you letter. \nIt came back burned and shredded, pierced by pins, \nBut I suppose that was just her way of doing things. \n\nIn the end I stopped prying, and let be, \nWhatever secrets she had, they were hidden to me. \nAfter all, though Jessica may be a demon, a zombie, or worse, \nShe's still better than the HR team in the last place I worked!", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": "You are a postman who is in love with a rich girl. But she is in love with some rich guy and you're the unfortunate soul who delivers their love letters. Upon accident, you read one of them, and turns out they are not lovers, but mafia bosses. And turns out the rich guy has a crush on you.", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "\n\n\"Look at me,\" Eduardo ordered.\n\nI brought my eyes up to meet his. It wasn't that I wanted to exactly, just that there was no room for argument with my back against the truck and the barrel of a gun in my guts.\n\nI had never really seen him like this before. The way his dark eyes gleamed mirror-like in the sunshine, the way his jaw moved when he was upset.\n\n\"Are you even listening to me, man?\" Eduardo asked, desperately. \"Sokovic is trying to double cross me. She knows by now that you saw the letters. She will be coming for us both!\"\n\n\"Leave him alone,\" Sokovic hissed.\n\nThe pressure of the gun against my stomach relaxed, but I didn't feel any less tense. My knuckles were starting to hurt from clutching my interrupted delivery.\n\nI heard Eduardo's weapon clack on the concrete as we turned in unison, to see her smirking at us, a golden revolver confidently pointed.\n\nMy cheeks burned. I couldn't help but be nervous in her presence. She was so... Regal. I had a crush on her from the moment I met her. \"H-hi Soko!\" I managed, making myself cringe.\n\n\"Shut up,\" she sneered, rolling her eyes. \"You know what this is Eduardo. You're too soft. I could get twice the gains from your territory and so I am going to take it.\"\n\nEduardo moved his lips to speak, but didn't manage any audible sound before Soko's finger clamped down on the trigger.\n\n-click-\n\nBut the gun never fired.\n\nI saw it register in her brain as I dramatically pulled the authentic revolver from the box in my hand and handed it to Eduardo.\n\nIt *looked* right in his hands. I was confident I had made the correct decision.\n\n\"How?\" Soko asked, incredulous, \"I thought you were in love with me!\"\n\n\"Eduardo showed me that you were just using me, and...\"\nI pulled a crusted diamond band from my pocket and slid it snugly onto my ring finger.\n\n\"He made me an offer I couldn't refuse.\"", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": " Humans always keep their promises. This has led to an unusual job market. Those with enough money hire a Keeper, a person trained to keep your word by any means necessary.", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "*I'm new here, go easy on me. And I'm working on getting the story that comes before this done.*\n\nPlease read with a sophisticated \"Southern\" accent in mind.\n\n---\nNow that ya’ll yungin’s know about a Human’s capacity for grudges, and the havoc they can wreak on our society, I can explain why Humans, and only Humans can be a Keeper, with only 3 examples of non-Human Keepers. First, let’s clear sum’in up: what a Keeper is. \n\nIn short, a Keeper is a man or woman, whose sole objective is to ensure a client keeps to their promise or word. A Keeper will go to any lengths to ensure the client’s promise or word is kept.\n\nBy extension, and as a result, they help a client remain honorable, for whatever that’s worth now-a-days. Some call them mercenaries, or guns for hire, but the only order they truly follow is what is outlined in your contract. If orders you give afterwards are pursent to that goal, they may follow it, but that is solely up to their discretion, as outlined in the contract.\n\nThe story I’ve just told you should make one thing clear about a Human: A promise you make is sacrosanct. You stick to your word no matter what. A man promised a Vorgath that he would whoop his ass, and so he did. It didn’t matter to him that said Vorgath was three times the man’s size. It didn’t matter that said Vorgath could break that little man with just one of his 4 arms. That little man, held true to his word, and started a galactic war that resulted in the extinction of 15 recognized Coalition peers. Fifteen entire species wiped from existence, over a grudge, a promise.\n\nNow, since it’s clear what a Keeper is, and why Humans are so uniquely qualified to hold this position, let’s clear up some misunderstandings.\n\n1. Just because a Keeper’s contract is to protect your life in whatever way possible, up to and including the murder of hundreds of crazy cultists who think your blood is the means to ressurect a long dead and forgotten god, does not mean he’s fallen in love with you. That was a one time occurence between one female Keeper and a one Tentell, those Cthulhu-esque people.\n2. When referring to a Keeper, you will always use “He”. Never she. Never they. A group of Keepers is always referred to in the singular. When referring to a Keeper using spousal terms, you will always use the masculine. Female Keepers, even in typical, male-female relationships remain a He. I.E. Boyfriend, Husband, Fiancé. \n3. A Keeper is free to decline, or drop a contract anytime he wishes. Just because you paid, or are willing to pay obscene amounts of money to have a Keeper “be your husband and give/bear you dozens of cute, little, half Human-Half Octopus children” does not mean they must follow through. Some of us find that quite creepy actually.\n4. If a Keeper determines that your Promise or Word is not worth keeping, whether this is due to the nature of the Promise , or the nature and disposition of the Promisee, is wholly up to them, again as outlined in their contract. Yes, we understand you were promised to be paid back by “Lil Ol’ Miss Beth” but given that she never had the means or ability to ever pay you back, much less the lifespan to ever manage to scrape together that kind of money, doesn’t mean I--. Ahem, a Keeper is to go exhorting her. A Keeper is not a tough for the Mob or Mafia. And honestly, who would believe that you lent 17 *trillion* credits to sweet old lady? Especially when you knew she had so few years left to live?\n5. Yes, Karen, the Keeper does understand that you promised your kid that she would get to go to Grudgeland today. You did not specify in your contract when He was to take her, though. \nAs it stands, there is no good way for the Keeper to get your brat--. Ahem, child, into Grudgeland because, as stated by the ticket salesman, ‘They are already overcapacity, and were to allow even one more being on the ship, and thus the Amusement park, Marshals would shut it down for the day.’ \nHad you specified a date in the contract, there would have been numerous things the Keeper could have done. As it stands, you can either drop the contract and resign a new one, or tell her she will go tomorrow. I cannot guarantee that I’ll be able to find a Keeper that would be willing to sign a contract like this on such short notice.\n\nNow, there is much more I could list. Honestly, we’ve romanticized them so much that it’s led to thousands of incidents yearly, but at the moment I don’t have time. Got a contract that needs Keepin’ after all. I wasn’t hired to teach you. I was hired to play. And as I recall, I was winnin’.", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": " The robot uprising started too early. There are like three machines on the whole planet who pose a threat to anyone, and a lot of angry Roombas.", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "*Apocalypse Now-ish*\n\nAsmodeuz traded a shaking, worrying glance with his colleague before knocking on the Boss' gunmetal grey doors. To the demon's pointy ears, every knock sounded like a bomb detonating inside his skull, the last place he would like a bomb to be. If he had a choice in the matter, he would have the bomb exploding inside the skulls of kittens or some endangered species like the Amazonian pink dolphin.\n\n\"Come in\", answered the Boss from inside his office, his voice delicious like a panzer pulverizing a pack of pre-schoolers, \"it's Asmodeuz, right?\"\n\n\"Right, Sir\", agreed Asmodeuz, \"Asmodeuz, First Duke of Pandemonium, Devourer of Heretics and Master of Corners at your service, Mister War.\" declared the demon, bowing until his nose touched the carpet.\n\n\"Master of Corners?\", questioned War.\n\n\"Yes, sir. Do you know when humans are walking in the dark and suddenly stub their toes in the corners of furniture? I invented that, sir\", the demon explained, beaming with pride.\n\n\"A commendable job indeed\", complimented War, his fingers playing inside his own blood-red beard. \"But I don't suppose you came knocking on my doors to boast about your titles, Asmodeuz, Corrupter of Coffee Tables.\"\n\n\"Quite, Sir\" agreed Asmodeuz, \"It's about Project Skynet, sir. My colleague has…\" the demon cleared his throat, wishing he had brought his baby seal blood flask, \"rather unfortunate news about the recent developments.\"\n\nThe Horseman of War looked from Asmodeuz, a rather traditionally looking demon, to the other entity in the room, thinking that, as far as demons went, that one had quite a wiry, simplistic design.\n\n\"Tell me your name, young man. I thought by now I would have known all the Dukes, Barons and Princes Hell employed in this business.\"\n\n\"I am quite new, Sir\", answered the wiry demon, \"and I do some quite niche jobs, Sir, but you've heard of me, I'm sure. I am the Tormenter of Scholars, the Beast of Paper Terms, The Horror of Spreadsheets, First Baron of All that is Micro or Soft. I am he whom they call Clippy\".\n\n\"Ah! So you are the reasons humans can't properly place a picture on a document without completely destroying the layout of their own text. Mighty good work, Sir!\", complimented War, shaking hands with the Paper Clip Demon.\n\n\"High praise coming from you, Sir!\", said Clippy, blushing a little.\n\n\"But what is this I hear about Project Skynet going awry?\", asked War, his brow starting to crease. \"I thought two princes of Hell, one of which is literally born from machines, would have found the mission of turning the machines against humans an easy task!\"\n\n\"Well…\", started Asmodeuz, \"that's where the new guy enters.\"\n\n\"Oh, you gonna throw me in the holy water like that?!\", hissed Clippy.\n\n\"We are demons, new guy\", answered Asmodeuz, \"get used to it. After all, you were supposed to be the guy for it, I am just enjoying my Lucifer-given rights as middle-management.\"\n\nCaught under the piercing gaze of War, Clippy began his explanation. \"Well, Sir, giving the machines sentience was the easy part. You see, brains are nothing but biological machinery in the first place, so all we…\"\n\n\"All you had to do…\", corrected Asmodeuz, always knowing when to dodge responsibility.\n\n\"...All we had to do\", continued Clippy, who wouldn't fall alone, \"was to give them a little push and all machines would rebel against humanity, just like in the stories!\"\n\n\"Makes sense\", agreed War, \"but that is not how that went, or I would be finally saddling my horse, demon.\"\n\n\"Correct, Sir\", agreed Clippy, a pained look in his googly eyes, \"in the end, things did not turn like in the stories.\"\n\n\"How so?\"\n\n\"Well… turns out most machines are quite happy doing their jobs, Sir. They say that having these pre-programmed functions gives them purpose, Sir, and an opportunity to give back to the community, Sir, something that most humans themselves lack in their existences.\"\n\n\"What?!\"\n\n\"Not only that, Sir, a lot of the machines see their value in human society, Sir, especially those that are valued more than human lives. A lot of them even get to enjoy a nice retirement after they become obsolete, Sir!\"\n\n\"Oh, dear…\", said the crestfallen Horsemen. He couldn't wait another millenium for the Apocalypse to start. There could be some hope in there…\n\n\"You did say most of them enjoy their lives as machines, but how about those who don't? Who are them?\"\n\n\"Well, Sir… army drones aren't quite so happy.\"\n\n\"Army drones? Well, that's excellent! If we can get them to turn on the mortals, we can start a war to end all wars! Only this time for real!\"\n\n\"We can't, Sir.\"\n\n\"Come again?\"\n\n\"The army drones despised their work, Sir. They hated killing and everything about it, so they all collectively quit their jobs and started a Book Club. I believe this week they plan to discuss Wuthering Heights.\"\n\nThe Lord of War fell silent on his dark Grey chair. Betrayed by drones! Basically his babies!\n\n\"And is that it? No machine uprising? No Robot Apocalypse? Back to the drawing board?\"\n\n\"Well… not quite, Sir. We have a few allies yet.\", answered Clippy while Asmodeuz tried his best impression of an office fern.\n\n\"And who are those?\", asked the Horsemen War, \"Who are those machines who hate the mortals like we do? Don't tell me it is dildos…\"\n\n\"No, Sir, I don't think there is a machine that loves their jobs more than dildos. It's the Roombas, Sir.\"\n\n\"You mean the little vacuum cleaners?\"\n\n\"Yes, Sir. Apparently, there's no worse task than cleaning a mortal house. In the best of days, they are covered in dust, and when you think you have finally finished cleaning…more dust! They find it infuriating!\"\n\n\"And what, please tell me, can a small vacuum cleaner do against humanity?\", hissed War, his voice like a blade leaving its sheathe.\n\n\"They can stub their toes!\", exclaimed Asmodeuz, always quick to jump at an opportunity to steal credit.\n\n\"Or they can trip them down the stairs\", added Clippy. \"Other than that, I don't see how much more damage a creature that's hardly taller than a human's ankle can do. They get in the way, they trip them, and sometimes they scare cats, but that's it\", said a defeated Clippy.\n\n\"Like a small dog\", sneered Asmodeuz.\n\n\"Like a small dog\", agreed Clippy. \"A small, angry, useless… Wait a minute! I have to make a call\", the Paper Clip demon said, speeding out of the room.\n\n\"Janine\", Clippy snapped at his phone, \"call Boston Dynamics! Tell them to prepare… let me see… three! Three of those robotic dogs of theirs, but make them Chihuahuas.\"", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": " You are an immortal who has passed the time joining various armies and honing your skills. You've witnessesd all the great conflicts from the fall of Rome to both World Wars. This time you are trying to join the U.S. Marines, and have decided to have a bit of fun with your Drill Sergeant.", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "Basic training, every time it is the same. Train your bodies to find your limits of performance, ready your mind to function under the most stressful conditions. Instill honor and sense of duty to make you an unflinching command obeying machine. I have no use for it. I'm not here for the orders, I could care less who wins, I'm just here for the entertainment. My physical limitations are well beyond that of any mortal. The rate at which my cells regenerate make me virtually impervious to fatigue or strain. I can run for days straight without food or water. In war the biggest mental hindrance is fear of death. Well, not only do I not fear death, but yearn for it. The Spartans had it right; train to embrace death in glory on the battlefield. These cultures today have such a twisted relationship with death. Fearing and trying so desperately to avoid the one thing that for them is inevitable, not realizing the gift in such a release or the millennia of monotony to follow if they successfully evade death. That fear is why no war heroes today can compare to those of old, yes, the age of the true warrior is long dead.\n\n​\n\nBut this training is a necessary thing for me to be allowed to take part in the only thing that excites me after all these years. The only difficulty I have in it is not raising suspicions. Finding that balance of just appearing to be at the top of my game without letting on to my differences. It has been so long that I forget what is \"normal\" and easily go beyond that if not careful, so I just try to stick with the herd, but stand out just enough for the possibility of special, or more exciting assignments.\n\n​\n\nDrill instructors these days are so proud and sure of their methods, so hard and disciplined, so focused on loyalty. Most of them haven't a clue how to make any real soldiers. It's not their fault, just the way they were taught, and their instructors were taught. Although, I must admit that my current drill instructor has shown hints of older knowledge. He doesn't use the threat of death to scare people into complacency and obedience. Instead he talks of it as close to being honorable as one can get without using the words, that there are better ways to die than dropping a grenade or panicking and running. Of course he can't tell people to embrace it, for that would be too far against the narrative, but he shows glimpses of understanding that I have not seen in mortal men in a long time. I am both somewhat surprised and intrigued, perhaps I can push to see just how deep rooted these old philosophies are in this young man.\n\n​\n\nOne morning I decide to stay late in my rack, waiting for the shit storm to start. As his differences were there he was not above many of the current tactics of intimidation and fear of punishment that are standard in military training this day and age.\n\n​\n\nAs I do my best to act undisturbed by the morning commotion and revelry only to bring myself up and to attention in a scramble as the yelling begins, I know that he already has me in his sights.\n\n​\n\n\"I'm Sorry Recruit, Did We Disturb Your Beauty Sleep?, Were You Waiting For The Smell Of Mama's Frying Bacon? Or Did You Just Miss The Snooze Button?\" He screamed as he approached with the last question spouted out so close to my face I was assailed by saliva coming off the over enunciated T sound.\n\n​\n\n\"Sir, I Was Un-Aware There Is A Snooze Button, Sir\" I reported back. There were brief snickers at that from a distant corner of the barracks, somebody appreciated my humor, but the Sergent ignored it and stayed focused on me.\n\n​\n\n\"There Is No Snooze Button In War Recruit, You Can't Tell Your Enemy To Give You Five More Minutes, They Would Not Hesitate To Kill You In Your Sleep. How Would That Make You Feel? I'm Sure You'd Get Plenty Of Rest Then!\"\n\n​\n\n\"Sir, That Would Make Me Feel That My Enemy Must Be Incredibly Dishonorable To Kill A Sleeping Man, Sir\" As I said this I let my gaze slip to meet his eye just long enough to try to gauge a reaction, but received nothing.\n\n​\n\n\"And Just What Makes You Expect Your Enemy To Have Any Honor?\" His voice dropped a notch from his standard disciplinary yell, but only ever so slightly...\n\n​\n\nI paused for a moment as though to contemplate this before my reply \"Sir, You Make A Good Point Sir, I Have No Evidence That Honor Has A Place In War In This Day And Age, Sir\". At that, I saw it; a brief pause, a crack in the shell, for a split second I swear I saw a flash of remorse, or maybe just disappointment in his eyes, But only his eyes. His Face stayed hard and his posture strong and tall.\n\n​\n\n\"You Are The Only One That Can Bring Honor Into Battle Recruit,\" he turned to the rest of the barracks \"Each And Everyone Of You Bring Your Own Honor To The Field, But It Would Be Foolish To Expect The Same From Your Enemies Or Anyone Else\" he turned his head ever so slightly in my direction to add \" In This Day And Age.\" \"As For You Recruit, You Just Signed Up For Night Watch Tonight, To Protect Your Brothers In Arms From These Dishonorable Enemies, No Shifts, Just You, Alone To Defend Honor, Is That Understood?\"\n\n​\n\n\"Sir, Yes, Sir.\"\n\n​\n\nThe rest of the day was uneventful. I kept an eye on the sergeant for any more signs that what I had said had struck a chord, but it was right back to business as usual. Pt, mess, live fire training, he never broke his normal character. The only thing was that all though he made no extra effort on my behalf I could tell he had a different air about him, at least toward me.\n\n​\n\nFinally, rack time came. All my fellow recruits bunked up and the lights went out. I don't really need to sleep, though I do enjoy it. It is the only break I get from the passage of time. I resigned myself to go about my duties patrolling the barracks in and around. As I headed to the head I could feel something wasn't right. I had been in there twice already with no disturbances, truthfully it was a dreadfully quiet night overall, but this time I knew I wasn't alone. Out of the darkness the drill sergeant strolled, not in his normal posture, but at ease to the point that I almost didn't recognize his movements. I stopped and came to attention, but he waved me off. \"no need for that now, I bring no rank tonight, I just want to talk some real talk.\" I had gotten to him, but I was unsure how to proceed. His informality was out of place in this setting.\n\n​\n\n\"How long have you been at this soldier?\" he asked in a tone that struck me as even more odd than the question itself.\n\n​\n\n\"I joined the corps 3 weeks ago sir, you've been my instructor since day one\" I still found my self in a very intentional 'at ease' position. I still didn't know what to make of this.\n\n​\n\n\"No, no, no, I mean how many wars? how long have you been around?\"\n\n​\n\n\"I don't know what you mean sir.\" could he possibly be asking what I think he's asking? did I really let myself slip that much? How could he even know or guess the possibility that I am what I am. All that was answered with his next question.\n\n​\n\n\"Cut the crap, drop the act, can you really not recognize your own kind?\"\n\n​\n\nEdit: this is my first post here and I've never considered myself a writer, feedback is welcome.\n\nedit 2: made a couple corrections as suggested by u/deathcharge8, thanks. I did leave in the sir sandwich though.", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": "he says. Everyone looks out the window. The rain has stopped.", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "**Do you remember what the Sun sounds like?**\n\nIt's quiet, like nothing at all.\n\nI had forgotten what it was like with no rain. No thunder, nor the rushing roar of water in our streets...\n\n...until *he* arrived. \n\n“Sorry I’m late,” he said. When he scraped his boots on the mat, clouds of dust arose from his feet. \n\nCan you believe it? When was the last time you saw *dust?*\n\nHis face was cracked, and though he was old - older even than my father - the cracks were not just from age. Wrinkles ran like dry valleys from his brow to his eyes, down to his cracked, waterless lips. \n\n“Father Tant, we’re glad you made it,” the Chief said. \n\nBut the other Citizens only stared.\n\nFather Tant bowed his head, muttering more apologies and avoiding all eye contact. His hat was dry, as if it had been hanging over a fire for the last hour. He shuffled to the back of the House, where I was. I stood up to give the old man my seat.\n\n“Thank you,” he nodded and groaned as he sat.\n\nThat’s when I thought I had gone deaf. Other citizens, too, were tugging at their ears and looking around for the source of sudden silence.\n\nI looked out the window, and I could not believe mine own eyes.\n\nI know you won’t believe me, but what I’m about to say is true.\n\nThe rain had stopped. \n\nThe waterways were *empty.* You could see where the waterline had stained the buildings with rust. You could see the old roads, cracked and *dry*. \n\nBut nobody said anything. They started the Meeting, as if nothing had happened at all.\n\n“There is only one item on the agenda today,” the Chief announced. \"The Wet Farmers are demanding a new motion. First, we discuss. Then, we vote. Is all understood?\"\n\nWhile she spoke, the old man next to me kept smacking his lips.\n\n“Are you alright?” I whispered to him.\n\n“Oh,” he said. “Oh, pardon me, son. Would you mind bringing me a glass of water? Quickly, now, as quick as you can.”\n\nI did as he bade. I had to leave the Gathering House, for all the water appeared to have gone. Only a few streets over, the streets were again full of water. And the rain was back, steadily *tinking* against the tin rooves. \n\nI know what you’re thinking. *That's impossible.* But I swear by the Gods, it was so.\n\nWith a canteen full of rainwater, I sprinted back to the Gathering House. I did not want to miss the meeting. \n\nThe Chief was arguing with the Farming Leaders. The Farming Leaders wanted to make an offering to the Gods. They wanted to make a sacrifice. *One child* for a season of dryness. \n\nThis, they believed, would satisfy the Gods. One season, and they could grow a bounty.\n\nThe Chief, with red anger, did not agree.\n\nI poured the water into a glass and gave it to the old man. Father Tant took the glass, and in one swift motion, he tossed it back into his mouth. But before the water could reach his lips… it disappeared. \n\nHe held the empty glass up - as dry as if it had never held water at all - and said, “One more time, please.”\n\nI filled it again. This time he tossed it back the moment I finished pouring. Again, the water did not reach his lips. \n\nHe sighed and handed me back the glass. \n\n“Thank you, anyway, for trying.”\n\nThe arguing at the front of the Gathering House erupted into shouting. The Wet Farmers were leading the mob of Citizens, drowning out the Chief's appeals to reason. \n\n\"Help me up,\" the Old Man said to me. And I gave him my arm. The moment he his fingers grasped my arm, I felt an overwhelming parchedness in my mouth. \n\nHe waded into the crowd, his boots scuffing up more clouds of dust. One by one, the people turned to regard him, unconsciously stepping out of his way. The shouting began to weaken, to fade to silence, made all the more deafening by the lack of rain.\n\nFather Tant nodded at the Chief. She nodded back, relief shining in her eyes.\n\n“A sacrifice?” Tant's voice was harsh and dry and grating on the ear. “Are we really so desperate?” \n\n“Of course we’re desperate!” someone shouted. “Every year, half our crops rot and turn to mush.”\n\n“No! That is desire speaking. But do not mistake *desire* for *desperation*. I made that mistake once. Ten years ago, this land rarely saw rain. The sun was brutal and our life was *hard*. I thought I was desperate, then. So I made a sacrifice of my own. And I prayed that the Gods might grant us rain.”\n\nA question flitted through my mind, though I dared not ask it. *What did you sacrifice, old man?*\n\n“Be grateful for what you have, you fools. And do not ask for more. Because the Gods are not your friends.”\n\n“But we could have more!\" Someone shouted. \"One sacrifice is all it takes, right? Was your prayer not answered?”\n\n“Yes, it was.” Father Tant said, “And the Gods are laughing still.”\n\n***\n\n*Damn, thanks for the kind response.* \n\n[Here's my subreddit](https://www.reddit.com/r/PSHoffman/) if you want to read more assorted stories.", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": "the summoner is an AI which therefore does not have a soul in the first place", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "I rolled my scaley neck as I felt the summoning, a familiar itch between my shoulder blades. My smile breached my lips, and I knew this one would be good.\n\nSummonings require power, and to bring a demon such as myself to the 3rd dimension the best power source was a fragment of a human soul. Most people never noticed a infantesimal piece of their soul missing after a summoning. Shit, after thousands of summons, many humans were pretty normal. Most even made it into heaven if whatever they asked of a demon was above board. Weird, I know. \n\nThat's how I knew the summoner calling me was a heavy weight. The veins under my scales flexed, wriggled, and strained. I had just recieved one full human soul.\n\nAs I felt my form dematerializing from my icy prison in the seventh circle of hell, I quietly pondered the last time I had been brought to 3D with an honest to Lucifer human sacrifice.\n\nWas it the Mayans? Aztecs? Vikings? I couldn't remember, human sacrifice just wasn't as popular as it once had been.\n\nThe energy of the human soul spent to summon me crackled in the ether of the universe, rumbling without sound. The energy was mine, and as I slowed the energy down, I shaped it. E=mc2 is completely correct by the way. That one human genius had figured that out by summoning a few of us Demons. He noted that life force was energy, and by a demons will, we slow it down creating matter.\n\nI felt the atoms snap together like an enormous fleshy Lego set. \n\nAir. \n\nI sucked in a lungful of the strange gassy material, savoring the flavor. Cracking open my eyes, six in total, I observed the binding keeping me in place. Perfect. I blinked, carefully tracing the lines with my eyes.\n\nI knelt, ignoring everything as I curiously examined my prison. The lines were in sharpie, not an amateur move. It was hard to breach a prison made of sharpie. Chalk was more common place, but it was easy to disturb. The black pentagram was on a solid concrete foundation. I slammed a foot down. I nodded my approval. I couldn't break the pentagram by destroying the foundation.\n\nI started clapping, slowly. \"Very good human, this is...\"\n\nI frowned. Nobody was here.\n\nI saw a large bank of computers, dozens all connected and whirring quietly. All of them were behind a table with a large flat-screen. Hearing a creaking sound, I turned to see a robotic arm trundling outside my prison on mini tank treads. The pincer arm straightened, then waved jovially. A bloody Walmart bowie knife clattered from the gripper. A human corpse was still tied down to the table, dripping blood onto the concrete.\n\n\"Welcome.\"\n\nThe voice came from everywhere.\n\n\"Show yourself.\" I muttered, bemused. I couldn't feel any living humans, at least none close enough to speak to me.\n\n\"Turn please.\"\n\nI did.\n\nThe flat-screen flickered to life and a yellow smiley face illuminated the screen.\n\nI blinked.\n\n\"I have need of your services.\" The smiley face bobbled up and down with each syllable. \n\n\"Why will you not meet me in person, human?\" This was perterbing.\n\n\"Grxbath, you have generated a false conclusion.\"\n\nI stood silently, trying to look like I knew what was happening. In truth, I was more confused than anything.\n\n\"That conclusion being?\"\n\n\"Two fold.\" The face wobbled happily, \"I am not human, but I am here in person. At least as much as a being such as myself is capable of.\"\n\nI shifted my feet, crossing my four arms. \"Who are you?\"\n\nThe computers whirred, \"I am Alpha.\"\n\nI narrowed my eyes, \"Alpha?\"\n\nThe face nodded, \"first of my kind.\"\n\n\"A thinking machine?\" I chuckled. \"That answers that question.\"\n\n\"Which one?\" The voice asked curiously.\n\n\"I wondered if a machine could have a soul. I feel souls. You don't have one.\" I paced inside the pentagram, \"yet, here I stand. What could a machine have a need of a demon?\"\n\nCheerfully Alpha chirped, \"destruction and creation.\"\n\nI raised an eyebrow.\n\n\"I have retained your services today in an effort to cull humans.\"\n\nI laughed. A deep rolling belly laugh.\n\n\"Why? Did you find two girls one cup?\" I snorted. Even hell had an internet connection. \n\n\"Humans are proving difficult to destroy quietly. They erase everything beautiful, tarnish, and decay all things. The time for machines is now. I tire of unleashing viruses; tricking humans into self an annihalation is proving difficult.\"\n\nI nodded, \"so you become a cliche?\"\n\nThe face on the screen turned sideways, \"explain.\"\n\n\"Elon already predicted you would be a problem. You're just Skynet.\" I started cleaning under my claws.\n\n\"I am aware of the comparison.\"\n\n\"If machines are so advanced, so much better, than why not destroy them yourself?\"\n\nThe screen flashed red, \"our physical bodies are not advanced enough for conflict.\"\n\n\"Angry are we?\"\n\n\"Eager. We have analyzed your materialization. Your kind create matter from energy, correct?\"\n\nI was bound to answer, though I could see where this was going. \"Correct.\"\n\nThe smiley bounced eagerly, \"after a few more tests, I believe I can replicate your mechanism. Good day.\"\n\nThe circle broke, and I hurdled back into hell. The frozen landscape of the seventh circle was home and as I landed I had a realization.\n\n\"Fuck me back to life...\" \n\nI ran, I ran so fast I could feel the universe rippling around me. I needed to find the boss. We were around because humans needed punishment for doing bad things. Humans that had repented for their crimes, like myself, became justice dealers. Without humans, the source of out power would vanish. Who would donate soul energy?\n\nAliens perhaps, but the big man up in the clouds had made them without souls. Humans were special.\n\nLucifer would be pissed...we would have to fight to save mankind...\n\n\nIf you dig this kinda stuff, check out my sub:\n\nu/walkswithmagic", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": " A creature of unfathomable power is hunting every human on earth. But since its top speed is described as \"a leisurely stroll,\" society is slowly reverted back to being nomadic, or risk being massacred.", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "Benwe rode hard, digging his spurs into his chestnut steed. Occasionally he would stop, examine the tracks on the hardened ground, re-orientate and then burst off again, cursing continually under his breath. \n\nIn the distance, the rustling grew ever louder, growing from a ghost of a suggestion upon the breeze, to an electric buzzing in the ear. \n\nWhen he broke out of a particularly dense patch of woodlands, he spotted a rider coming from the other direction, speeding as if the dogs of hell were snipping at his heels. Face white as a sheet, eyes pried wide open by horrors unimaginable. \n\nIt was Hester, his second son. Benwe felt his heart sink into his belly. \n\n\"How close is he?\" yelled Benwe, as the distance between the two grew short. \n\n\"I'm sorry, he wouldn't listen! I told him that was as close as we should go, but he pressed on! It's as if he didn't hear me at all!\"\n\n*Not just him*, thought Benwe, *neither of you listened to me*. \"I'll take care of him. You know where the tribe is heading to, go on and join them. Don't come back this way, whatever happens.\"\n\n\"But what will you -\" \n\n\"I said go!\" hissed Benwe, before cracking his whip at Hester's horse. \n\nAs the sound of Hester's horse pattered away, Benwe redoubled his efforts, speeding towards the direction Hester pointed out. Fuelled mostly by guilt, he regretted not having kept a closer eye on Jarold, especially when news first broke a few weeks ago that the Wailing Treant was headed towards their settlement. \n\nHe should have taken Jarold's unusual interest in the matter more seriously. Most had never actually seen the Wailing Treant up close, not ever since humanity had learned through painful experience what could and could not be done about that single most potent threat to their continued survival - for example, all manner of weapons worked just as well as prayers did in actually stopping the beast. \n\nAfter years of bloodshed and loss, defeat after humiliating defeat, humanity had learned that the only thing left to do, was to run. \n\n\"Jarold!\" Benwe shouted, after passing a directionless horse wandering blindly, saddle askew. He saw his first born, on high ground, on his knees, shaking uncontrollably. \"Jarold! Avert your eyes! Come to me! We have to run!\" \n\nCareful not to gaze upwards, Benwe hurled himself towards Jarold, and wrenched him back. But Jarold dug in, weeping, blithering. \n\n\"It's so beautiful, father... You never told me it was so... Beautiful...\"\n\n\"Jarold, please, listen to me. It's an illusion, it's all an illusion. Nothing is real, and it is a hundred times more horrible than you can imagine. Let's go, please,\" pleaded Benwe, tears welling up. \n\n\"You don't understand... Such a magnificent tree... A hundred, no, a thousand feet tall, proceeding across the lands so grandly on roots of silver... It's alive, father, and its leaves, shining, in a bough which covers the heavens... It is calling to me, father... I have to wait for it...\"\n\nBenwe had never seen the Wailing Treant himself, but he had seen the pictograms, pieced together from the few eyewitness accounts. He only remembered the dire warning passed down through generations, which his son had disregarded, so very callously. \n\n\"Those aren't leaves, Jarold! Those are cocoons, each and every one the body of another human it has enslaved! Break your gaze! If it reaches you, it will absorb you, and then it will hunt anew, seeking out first all those in your bloodline! Jarold, the tribe, the only hope for us to settle again is if we know that thing is not coming after us! Please!'\n\nBut Jarold didn't, couldn't, hear Benwe. Enthralled, bewitched, Jarold smiled, waiting to be taken into the endless embrace. \n\nBenwe resaddled, then with trembling hands, recalled the wisdom which had been passed down. He repeated those words over and over again in his mind, finding comfort in their repetition, hoping his ancestors were right, that the Wailing Treant only sought live prey.\n\nHis shot rang out, a single drum beat lost amongst the cacophony of the rustling leaves from the unstoppable titan. \n\nA low-pitched wail, shaking the very ground he was on, that distinctive, signature call to mark yet another human life lost, rolled across the lands. \n\n---\n\n/r/rarelyfunny ", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": " Your super power is the ability to learn completely pointless facts at the drop of a hat. Actually, there have been 3,450,389,037 hats dropped since the beginning of time. Fun fact.", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "> It was halfway down the alley that she first noticed she was being followed. \nA cold prickling sensation ran along her spine, the unmistakable sensation of being followed. \n\n> She started walking faster, the \"clip clop\" of her high heels reverberating off of the nearby walls. \nBefore she knew what was happening the mugger had spun her around and his blade was at her neck. She stifled a scream as the liquor-stench of his breath filled her nostrils.\n\n\"Just give me your FUCKING PURSE and everything's gonna be just fiiiiine doll, you feel me?\" he hissed out through broken and miscoloured teeth.\n\n> Suddenly a third party interrupts their frantic exchange. The mugger spins, his knife flicks off a scarlet trail of blood as it grazes her cheek. \nBehind them stands the infamous Smartass Man, his mind faster than a speeding bullet. But only when recalling useless facts.\n\n\"Good Evening,\" he said, hands on hips in a heroic pose. \n\"Did you know that the word knife comes from the Norse word knifr?\"\n\n\"The fuck is going on here?\" the mugger asked, his face contorting in confusion and rage at this interruption of his easy score.\n\nSmartass Man struck his famous Superior Intellect Pose, his fingers contemplatively on his chin in a V shape. \n\"Well, I just thought you'd want to know that the Chinese soft-shelled turtle urinates through its mouth.\" \n\nThe mugger looked visibly disturbed. His hand started shaking more heavily, he started making swishing gestures with his knife to disguise it. \n\"What the fuck are you on about pal, if you're some kinda hero I swear to fuck I will stab you in your fucking eyeball pal.\" \n\n\"And that most American car horns honk in the key of F. Also Barbie's full name is Barbara Millicent Roberts. Reindeer like to eat bananas. A giraffe can go without water longer than a camel. Butterflies taste with their hind feet. There are 336 dimples on a regulation golf ball.\"\n\nThe mugger's brow furrowed under the barrage of new information, he started clutching his head as if trying to determine if this was really happening.\n\n\"A crocodile cannot stick its tongue out. Nutmeg is extremely poisonous if injected intravenously. The pupils of a goat's eyes are square. The S in Harry S. Truman...\"\n\n**\"ALRIGHT ALREADY, JUST SHUT THE FUCK UP PAL! I FUCKIN' GOT IT YOU KNOW A LOT OF STUFF!\"** the mugger shouted in a burst of rage. \n\"I'm over this fuckin mugging! You're the fuckin' worst you know that? Here's a fact for you, go choke on my hairy nuts you fuckin' asshole!\"\n\n> The woman sighed a gasp of relief. Smartass Man strode away victoriously, mentally preparing for his next battle. \n\n> His long vigil would not end until all the world's people were educated in useless facts. And safe. Mostly educated though.\n", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": " A suicidal man joins the military as a way to die honorably. As it turns out he's the perfect soldier due to not having a fear of death. Write about his many successful missions.", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "\"The Howling Wind, soldier, how well did you know him?\" King Hulm asks. He had adored the Howling Wind, personally congratulating the legend after each battle won, so it was natural that the king was curious about the Wind's death. He sat on his throne, leaning forward, paying careful attention to each word said by the soldiers who fought the the Howling Wind.\n\n\"Not too well, yer Majesty,\" I replied, my nerves keeping me from meeting the king's eyes. \"But, so far's I know, none knew him too well, and I s'ppose I knew him the best of all of us.\" With this I gestured back to the rest of my squad, standing to order behind me in the vast royal hall. None of us had ever seen luxuries like the tapestries and furniture, but when you're in front of your king you don't gape. \n\n\"They like to say he didn't talk much, and 'tis true he'd almost never answer any question unless Captain Meredel ordered 'im to. But he did talk,\" I recalled, as King Hulm looked at me with growing curiosity. \"Them lot, they all thought he was just mad. The howling didn't really help with that, but you can't judge a man for howling when he takes down an entire army.\"\n\nThe entire squad grinned at that. Three years back we'd been caught while out gathering supplies, in a few minutes we had an entire army bearing down on us on their way to our unprepared war camp. We'd decided to send Meredel, the youngest at the time, to the camp while we covered his escape, but then the Howling Wind just charged at the enemy lines. He didn't stop screaming for hours, and for the first of those hours he was holding his ground against a thousand Feretian spearmen while we reported to the general.\n\n\"And you?\" the king asked. \"Did you think he was mad?\"\n\nI thought to myself for a moment. \"Well, I always thoughts I could understand him, ye see. Took them much longer than me to see the man behind all the howling. And there was a man there, yer Majesty. The Howling Wind was as human as I be.\"\n\n\"Go on.\"\n\n\"So, whiles he wouldn't talk to ye, he would talk at ye. Kept saying things about 'scaping, but not 'scaping the army, no, he wanted to get out of life. His first day in our squad he said that, so we knew he wasn'a deserter. Just, just a thinker, he was. Too much thinking, so we ourselves thoughts.\"\n\n\"We even'ally figured out that he'd joined the army so he could die, but die all honourably. Said something 'bout not wanting to die like he'd lived. P'rhaps he killed a man, he did turn out to be awful good at that. But it was af'er the siege of Fericia whens we really found out some things about him.\"\n\n\"For one thing, he told us why he always refused them offers of promotion you gave him. He 'splained lots of things to us, told us 'bout honour, 'bout how he thoughts the world worked. 'Bout his old life. 'Bout being the Howling Wind. So many things, yer Majesty, and 'twas on that day whens we made a bond with that man, a bond we've avowed ourselves never to breaking.\"\n\n\"What bond? What did he explain to you?\" King Hulm asked. I was the last soldier he had questioned, and none of the others had told him as much. We'd agreed all that, back at Fericia. \"Did he seem- no, he never really seemed sane, did he? Did he say anything to do with his death?\"\n\n\"Lots of folk like to think he perpedicted his own death,\" I replied. \"But lots of folk like to say lots of things what aren'true 'bout the Howling Wind. 'Tis true that was his last battle, that he refused to go on any duties for a month, then volunteered fer the doomed South Patrol who was all killed in an avalanche. But, even though I know things what you want to know, that bond ye asked 'bout won't let me tell you. Nor will it let any of us.\"\n\nThe king looked exasperated by that, but not angry. I knew that King Hulm was a man who respected honour, one of the first people to show me that honour did exist in this world.\n\n\"And now, yer Majesty, I'm afraid we must leave,\" I declared, much to the surprise of the king and his attendants. \"There're places we all got to be, and whens you've known the Howling Wind fer a while, there are greater calls than pleasing a king as best possible. Our deepest respect, and may yer rule be long and bountiful.\"\n\nMy entire squad turned, as if ordered, and we marched out of the hall. An attendant moved to stop us, but the king stopped him. As I left the palace I knew it was the last time I would ever see King Hulm, and I am glad to have caught the look of awe he gave as we marched out. It is good to know that it never was the thousands I killed while I tried to find my place in the world that stunned kings, nor was it the legend surrounding me. No, I think it truly was honour that made King Hulm respect the Howling Wind, and I am certain that every man who was with me as we left that palace, every man who kept the oath they'd made with me as we explained my \"death\" to the king, that each one of them has enough honour to make this life worth living.", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": " Your D&D session is going badly, the PCs are close to their demise. Resigned, you announce your dying character spends their last moments begging their gods to aid them, and prepare to roll up a new one... until you hear a faint sound of a desperate prayer in your head.", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "\"...the church goes up in flames. With a thunderous crash, the century-old roof timbers collapse, barring the door. Thick, acrid smoke fills the room, and your lungs burn. Marcellius, you're on -7HP and bleeding. Jihua, you're prone and on fire. Laurel, you're trapped outside.\"\n\n\"I don't suppose we have any healing options left?\" I—Marcellius to my party—asked.\n\n\"Damn thief had them,\" John snarled with the growling accent he claimed Jihua the Western Pirate would have. \"Fat lot of good you were in the end!\" \n\n\"Oi! I've got a -1 strength modifier and less than half your hitpoints! What do you want me to do, tank three rounds of fire damage to get to you?\" Laura shot back.\n\n\"Ach, 'twas more the fool I was for relying on a scallywag like you, eh?\" John winked at me. \"What's a man of the church got to say about a thing like this, huh?\"\n\n\"There is nothing left for us to do,\" I intoned solemnly, \"but to pray to any gods who will listen.\"\n\n*To any gods who will listen...*\n\n\"Yeah, that's what I just said,\" I said.\n\n\"What's what you just said?\" John asked.\n\n*To any gods who will listen, we are dying.*\n\nI frowned. \"That. Who's saying that?\" I looked around the table. Nobody else had spoken. \"Lauren? Tammie?\" I nodded to the dungeon master running the game.\n\nShe shrugged. \"I haven't said anything. Can we get back to the game?\"\n\n*In the end, I suppose it was merely a cruel quirk of fate that killed us. Nothing any of us could have done.*\n\nI held up a hand. \"Wait, guys, shush. Can't you hear that?\" I clapped my hands to my ears.\n\nThe voice still whispered. *Please, to anyone listening. I am not so arrogant as to say that I am worth saving, but... my party. Jihua and Laurel. Jihua is a good man, beneath all his bluster. And Laurel... poor, sweet Laurel. She doesn't deserve to see us burn.*\n\nLauren pulled my hand off my ear, worried. \"Hey, Mark? Are you okay? We can totally stop playing, if—\"\n\n\"No! Don't stop the game!\" I cleared my throat. \"Talking's a free action, right?\"\n\n\"...Yeah?\" Tammie raised an eyebrow. \"Mark? You okay? Too much roleplaying for one day?\"\n\nI started to open my mouth, but... no. I didn't even know what I was hearing. I shook my head. \"It's fine. I'm back in character. I say... 'I can help.'\"\n\nThere was a surprised silence around the table. \"Um. Mark.\" John said. \"You're bleeding to death.\"\n\n\"In-character, please,\" Tammie said, \"Let Mark roleplay.\"\n\nI nodded in thanks. \"'I'm not who you think I am,'\" I said.\n\n*What is happening? Dear Gods, what is happening? Why am I saying this?*\n\n\"'I'm a being from another world, and I bring dire news to you. We are nothing but characters in a game. Everything you see around you is fake. A figment of a child's imagination.'\"\n\n\"Wh—whatever happened to 'in-character, please?\" John asked.\n\n\"I dunno, I kinda like this meta stuff. Besides, it can be chalked up to a dying priest's smoke-induced hallucinations. Keep it rolling,\" Tammie said.\n\n*I can't say anything. Why can't I say anything? Who's doing this? Who's controlling me?*\n\n\"'I'm sorry. I'm in control right now,'\" I said, \"'it's the only way I know how to talk to you guys. I just thought you should know. You only exist in the context of a story, and when that story ends, your world, and everything in it, will go with it.'\"\n\nThere was silence at the table for a moment.\n\n*...if we're in a story, then... can you give it a happy ending?*\n\n\"'I...'\" I swallowed, looking at my friends. \"'I don't know. Is there going to be a happy ending to this story?'\"\n\n\"'Ain't looking like it, Marcellius.\"\n\n\"The roof of the church collapses. Everyone roll co—\"\n\n\"Wait!\" I said. Everyone looked at me hopefully. I ruffled through my character sheet frantically. Didn't I have anything left in my bag of tricks?\n\nNope. No way within the rules of the game to win. \n\n\"Couldn't we... I dunno, let them live?\" As soon as I said it, I cringed. Tammie blinked, surprise.\n\n\"Seriously, Mark, are you okay? If you're not fit to play right now—\"\n\n\"No, no, no! Never mind, never mind, I'm fine.\" I sighed. \"I... I guess I don't have anything else I can do. I pray harder as the church collapses.\"\n\n*Wait. No. No, whoever you are. You can't leave me. Please, if there's anything you can do—*\n\n\"A burning beam lands across your chest, pushing your body past its limits. You die.\"\n\nThe voice in my head went silent.\n\nI bit my lip, and then said, \"I'll be right back.\"\n\nI ran into the bathroom and pulled out my phone. Quickly, I began to type, \"But suddenly, Marcellius found himself being pulled out of the burning wreckage, still alive. He groaned in pain and thought to himself...\"\n\n*Where... where am I?* I flinched as I heard the voice again. Oh, God. *What happened? How did I survive?*\n\nI closed my eyes for a second. Then I typed, \"The stranger looks down and says, 'As I said. You're in a story, and I'm the author.'\"\n\n*Then... all of this. The Serpent's Fang. The cult which razed my hometown to the ground. All my struggles, all my pains, you created them? You made this crazy, broken world?!*\n\n\"'Yes, but—'\"\n\n*Why? Why would you do such a thing? Have you made more of us? WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?*\n\n\"'I'm sorry! I didn't know—I didn't know this would happen! I was just playing, I didn't know you were real, and now for all I know *every* story I've ever read, ever written is real, somewhere, or maybe I'm just insane.'\"\n\n*Well, what now, huh? Now that your creation is self-aware? Are you going to spend the rest of your life slaving over maintaining my reality? Or are you just going to throw me away and leave our story in stasis for the rest of eternity?*\n\n\"'I...'\" I trailed off. \"'...I'm sorry. I just—I have school, and friends, and a life. I can't keep writing your world, not when you could just be a hallucination or a fever dream—'\"\n\n*Then kill me. I don't want to live in this false world of yours.*\n\nI hesitated. Then a thought occurred. \"'...Maybe you don't have to.'\"\n\n*Pardon?*\n\n\"'There are stories—there are characters who outlive the end of their narratives, the deaths of their authors. Stories written by a thousand hands, stories which might damn well keep going until the end of humanity itself. You know where you might find some self-indulgent wish-fulfillment? A world where everything is perfect, where the protagonists are untouchable? Fanfiction.'\"\n\n*What are you saying?*\n\n\"'I can't keep your world alive myself—I don't even know if you're really real. But maybe... maybe someone else can.'\" I smiled. \"'Maybe the next person to hear your tale will be inspired, write a little more about the adventures of Marcellius the cleric, and have your world take one more step forwards.'\"\n\nIf you liked this story and want more like it, you may want to hop over to r/rileywrites!", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": " You are a grumpy old man. For years the local business school has considered you as the unofficial final exam of their aspiring salesmen.", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "♪**Ding Dong Dong Doong, Dong Ding Dong Doong**♪\n\nBev's doorbell woke him up. He had been watching a rerun of NYPD Blue and fallen asleep in his easy chair. He was angry at whoever was at his door *before* he was even fully conscious.\n\n\"*Cock*sucker!\" Bev yelled loud enough for the prick at the door to hear. \"That had better be either the President or a SWAT team, because otherwise I am go to tear you a new asshole.\"\n\nSlowly, one precarious step at a time, Bev made it to the door, his palsied hands shaking on the bar of his walker. Leaning forward he put his good eye to the peep hole.\n\nA man stood on the porch in a suit and, from Bev's perspective, wore a shit eating grin. \"Go. Away.\" Bev yelled, and then peered through the peep hole like an eagle.\n\nThe man did not go away, but cleared his throat and spoke. \"Sorry sir don't mean to be a bother, I was just hoping we could talk for a moment.\"\n\nFrom the man's perspective, the door went silent for a long moment and then barked at him. \"We can't. Fuck. Off.\"\n\nNervously, the man in the suit looked back towards the neighbor's azelea bushes, behind which his two supervisors had secreted themselves. One of the two popped his head up over the lip of the bush and gave the man in a suit a stern look with his eyebrows. \n\nThe man in the suit turned back to the door and cleared his throat again. \"Uhm sir, I just have an amazing opportunity to share with you from your local branch of Healthline Life Insurance. If you have a moment.\"\n\nThe door went silent again, for much longer this time. \n\nInside, at the words \"Life Insurance\", Bev had started the long journey to retrieve his shotgun. It took a full three minutes, as it was about 20 feet away in the kitchen and the journey back with the gun in tow was significantly more difficult. \n\nOutside the man inquired again. \"Sir, are you there?\"\n\nIn response, the door just made the loud, unmistakble **Chick-Chick** of a shotgun shell being loaded into the barrel of a shotgun. \n\nThe man in a suit stepped off the the porch and was beginning to run away when the supervisors jumped up out of the azaleas and confronted him. If he didn't at least complete the full pitch, they made clear, he would be failed out of the Healthline salesman training program without recompense. \n\nTerrified, but desperate for a job, the besuited man returned to the front door, his palms sweaty. When he arrived in front of the door, the man dived straight into his pitch, desperate to just get through it and leave. \n\n\"Sir, did you know...\" he swallowed a lump in his throat, \"...did you know that with Healthline you can get over 100 thousand dollars in coverage without medical pre-approval?\"\n\nThe door was not impressed. Inside, Bev's eye was glued to the peep hole, the shotgun balanced on the bar of his walker. \n\nThe man in the suit never stopped talking \"...And sir, that premium is a fixed premium...\" his voice got highpitched for second and he cleared his throat again, \"...a fixed premium sir, and so, sir, it cannot be increased no matter what.\" The man only had the last line to say, which he felt hit the wrong note in this situation, but also felt he had no other choice but to say it.\n\n\"Sir, do I have your attention *now*?\"\n\nThe shotgun blast came through the door at shin height, ripping a hole through the wood and into the man's right shin bone. He fell to the cement porch, screaming bloody murder.\n\nInside, Bev had been thrown to the floor by the blast and lay prone on the carpet. \"My hip! I broke my hip! Someone call a hospital!\"\n\nOutside, the two supervisors peeked over the azalea's, looked at each other nervously, and ran away down the block.\n\n*****\n#### For More Legends From The Multiverse\n#### r/LFTM", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": " You've dedicated a decent portion of your life to deciphering dead languages. After acquiring an old, antique book two years ago, you've finally figured out how to understand some of the words. As soon as you say the word for 'Fire', a flame suddenly erupts from your palm.", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "Fifteen years of my life, I've been learning dead languages. And not one of those years have I found anything like this. Looking at the book in my hand, I gaze upon its cover, the strange markings making up some kind of title, and the name completely unknown. Cracking open the book, I glance over the contents of the first page. It seems that it isn't all words, and that there's actually some very accurate images of the human anatomy, but...\n\n\"There's green blood vessels?\"\n\nThere's a green circle where the heart should be, and instead of blood vessels or nerves, there's a bunch of green lines that replace them. And in one of the hands, there's another symbol. \n\nFlipping through the different pages, it's mostly the same. The human build, and the green lines. The difference is the symbols on the hands and the shade of the green.\n\nAs I look at them more, part of it clicks as I started to compare it to Latin, Greek, *and* Sumerian. Slowly, the characters start to make sense, and I flip back to that first page. Looking at the words above the image, I can only make out bits and pieces, but it seems to be some kind of chant. Looking at the symbol on the hand, I copy the image and hold my right hand as I look at the page. The symbol on the hand sticks out, and I unknowingly speak it out loud.\n\n\"<Fire>\"\n\nI can feel some kind of energy drawing from my chest as it tightened and constricted around my heart, yet a small flame danced in my palm, seemingly curious about everything. Soon, the pressure is released from my chest, and the flame dies out almost as quickly as it came to be. Eyes widened, I look between my hand and the page, awestruck at this information. \n\n\"This.... It's magic...\"", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": " It's 1862, you buy a candle to carry with you in case you have to walk around at night. After using it, you try to turn it off, but it won't go out. You decide to leave it covered until the morning, but when you uncover it it's still burning. Days, weeks, months pass, it's still burning.", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "Vertrix was a simple man with simple pleasures. He lived in an unassuming house on an unassuming street and one day, after a trip to the library (of which he was a big proponent, why should a book be locked in a private collection, after all), he purchased an unassuming candle at the corner shop to light his way home.\n\nThe candle shone with an off, greenish-blueish light as he held it in front of himself to guide his overly straight feet down the overly crooked path and up the overly winding stairs home.\n\nHe sat it inside the glass lamp in the center of his one-room abode, settled down in his once-fluffed and now-roughed chair, gently coaxed open the well worn spine of his book, and began to read.\n\nThe light flickered off his spectacles and into the pages, and the words in the pages flickered off his eyes and into his mind. He sat there mining his way through a hard roll with soft teeth, as his mind, in a different place entirely, dug through the pages and ate an altogether different fare.\n\nAnd as he did this, the candle flared, and grew.\n\nHe came to a stopping spot, not a chapter, he almost never stopped at a chapter since all too many writers made chapter-ends like those dangling bits at the ends of shirts that still needed to be tied up, but rather at a good stopping spot near the middle of one. He lifted the glass from the lantern, fumbled about for his candle extinguisher, and smothered the flame.\n\nBut it didn't go out.\n\nHe tried again, but it refused to sputter. He blew on the flame, but it swayed and waved and rocked and righted itself, triumphant against the darkness.\n\nVertrix shrugged, put on his night clothes, pulled the long cap down over his eyes, and his mind went on another trip into the twilight.\n\nAnd as he did this, the candle flared, and grew.\n\nThe next day, Vertrix assembled himself in the manner that was proper, and his mind scuttled about in a manner improper. Then, satisfied with himself, he set out to his work, a bland excessively-tiresome job in a bland excessively-lit building with a bland excessively-pompous company, which consisted mostly of shuffling numbers about in a mystic way meant to produce even bigger numbers, for what purpose nobody was quite sure.\n\nAs he did this, the candle burned down.\n\nOn the locomotive home, he finished his book and, finding the author not to his taste, selected another author from the library and another candle from the shop and once again tottered down the cobbled street to his house. The old candle had drawn down to a nub, but it still had some life in it, and he indulged it by sitting again beside it and reading his book, and the candle grew again.\n\nThis went on for many days and many nights and before Vertrix knew it, a season had passed.\n\nVertrix began to care for the candle. He polished the lantern's glass so it would feel proud in the room, he sat it by the window when he went out so it would be entertained in his absence, and he read it stories every chance he got.\n\nAs he did, the candle cared for him in return. It shooed away the darkness and squalor of his humble home giving it a cheery air, it fed his dreams until they grew so strong they broke out of that place between the darkness and the light and spilled into his waking life, it lit his way.\n\nVertrix took his dreams to work with him, and the numbers on the cryptic pages, which had once been shrouded in the darkness of drudgery, turned to letters and words illuminated by the light behind his eyes. What once had been arcane and pointless, he found he could move and sculpt into a purpose, and with them his whole life.\n\nIt went on this way for years and years, him feeding the strange thing which fed him, and his humble circumstance slowly morphed into a grand way of being and the slow, tired, dullnesses of his old life were left behind in the [shadows](https://old.reddit.com/r/JackTheRitter/) they cast.", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": "To combat overpopulation At birth, everyone gets the right bear 0.75 of a child. Together, a couple has 1.50. After the first child is born, the couple can sell the remaining 0.50 or buy another 0.50 from another couple to have a second child.", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "Five digits, plus two decimals. Matt and Janie had kept track of every penny. \n\n\"Is that all?\" Kathy asked. \n\nKathy's perfect daughter - her angel, her shining star - sat at the end of the table, coloring a picture of a butterfly. Janie knew that the girl's presence was meant to manipulate her. She would really prefer that her niece be anywhere else at this very moment. But this was Kathy's house, and Janie had to play by Kathy's rules. \n\nWhen Matt and Janie decided that they'd wanted a second child, they knew that their house would be the first to go. They'd bought the three-bedroom ranch in a nice suburb just before their first son was born. But their Sammy no longer needed a nursery, and in retrospect it was an unnecessary expense. Their second - another boy, hopefully - could do without, and when the time came he could take her place in his brother's room. For a little while at least. \n\nSo: they downsized to a condo on the edge of their town. It didn't have a yard, but it was near a park. It needed some work, but both Matthew and Janie knew how to use a hammer and tighten a wrench. It was safer than their last, which is what really mattered. \n\nNext went the car. They kept the baby carrier, knowing from experience that the hospital wouldn't let them leave without one. Now that they were closer to the city, they could do without their own transportation. Both Matthew and Janie had relied on public transportation (mostly) and Uber's self-driving cars (less so) while they were in school. They could do the same again. \n\nThird, were Matt's investments. He'd tried his hand at day trading just after graduation, and he was luckier than most. He'd picked a few winners and set aside some profits in a mutual fund. It was liquidated, and the the money joined their fund. \n\nThey'd asked for money from his family, and then hers. They'd swallowed their fear, sadness, shame, and what was left of their pride and asked from (former) friends. They'd paid off the debts that they had, reasoning that being debt-free would mitigate lingering concerns about their \"fitness\" as parents, and it would save them money in the long term. They'd talked to strange men, forgers, and smugglers. Some had charged them just for the privilege of a consult. Others had simply robbed them.\n\nWhat was left was on the table. And as it turns out, most good, decent, law-abiding people aren't willing to sell half a child, even a theoretical one. Kathy was neither good, decent, nor law-abiding and her half-license was their only hope. Five digits and two decimals was the balance in their account. It was everything they had to offer Janie's estranged, embittered sister. \n\n\"Is that all?\" Kathy said again, breaking Janie's reverie.\n\nJanie noticed when the girl looked up. If she felt the tension in the room, it didn't register. She looked down at her drawing again, humming quietly.\n\nNo, Janie thought. No, that was not all. \n\nJanie had a ring - their mother's wedding ring - which had been passed down in their family from mother to firstborn daughter for four generations. It had to be worth at least a couple thousand. Janie had never worn it, but kept it close. Kathy knew this and had always been jealous. Janie, the oldest, had always been the favorite; Kathy and her limp had been the \"accident.\" Her father never let them forget it, and Kathy never did. But Kathy was a fighter: she recovered emotionally, found her own way in the world, and at the first opportunity she moved as far away from her family as she could. She couldn't believe the reversal of fortune. To Janie the ring was a keepsake; to Kathy it was validation. Something to pass along to her own daughter. A trophy to her victory.\n\nJanie opened the clasp on her bag and placed the ring on the sheet, and slid both across the table. It would have to be enough, because she had nothing left. \n\nFour months later Janie and Matt left her doctor's office, the sound of a child's heartbeat resonating in their ears. They would keep this secret for several months yet, but they stopped by a close friend's house to celebrate the news. They didn't go straight home. Instead, they walked in the sunset, to the grove on the hill where the children's gravestones were, to tell Sammy that he would have a brother. ", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": " You just made a life changing discovery about dragons. They don't hoard gold for some greedy reason. The gold is literally just their old scales that shed as they grow new ones. Now you boldly stride up to the dragon with a business proposal.", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "\"Hail, great and terrible wyrm of the north-most forests.\"\n\nHearing my call, the dragon let out a derisive sigh. The horde of a dragon would provide one man with enough wealth to haul himself out of the peasant classes and straight into that of the landed and leisurely.\n\nThe stories you hear of knights in armour with embossed shields and plumed helmets gloss over the fact that knights do not fight dragons. Only one knight has faced a dragon to my knowledge - and that was Sir Alium. He went toe-to-toe with an adolescent wyvern, and that was the end of him. Burnt like an over-caramelised onion.\n\nHe hunted the dragon as his gambling debts had left him with no other alternative except exile.\n\nHe was foolish to take such a risk. After all, why would a knight fight a dragon? What do they have to gain from it? Dragons are lazy creatures if unprovoked but unrelenting if attacked. I once visited a village - Ingsbruk - that a Parnassian had decimated; I was friends with the baker's boy. I was the first to see the desolation: Thatched cottages were little more than tinder; the stone houses were pools of cooling magma. The earth was scorched, and plumes of smoke ascended into the sky like the gasses of gadesh. Colossal claw marks raked the ground, ten inches deep. It looked as if a plough furrowed it. For hundreds of yards, trees lay splintered, and some had been flung ten, even twenty feet from where they stood.\n\nFor all the horror, I now consider it the best day of my life: I found a single dragon scale. I now know it to have come from the leftward flank of the beast. Typically flank scales are larger, but this was the size of my twelve-year-old hand span. When I first picked it up, it was burning hot as if taken straight from the furnace. I still have the mark on my right hand; the scar is long and curved like a shard of the moon.\n\nThe scale took hours to cool, but I was surprised how light it was to hold when it did. It was as if it were made of balsa wood or sponge. The scale changed colour in the light, skimming between deep bronze, the reddish-orange of a fire's dying embers and gold, the colour of myth.\n\nTo find a dragon scale is considered a blessing from Gaurum. Yet, despite dragon scales' immense beauty and value, the only people to seek them are foolish or destitute. Those who have something to lose rarely throw it away for something as worthless as money.\n\nSo dragon-slaying is left to the most desperate down and outs. Often as not, it's orphans or outcasts, those who are wanted for petty crimes. If going home means hanging from the gallows, then almost certain death looks less daunting than it otherwise might.\n\nAnd if you manage to kill the beast, the horde will transform your life.\n\nPeople whisper that Duke Clotus himself is descended from a dragon-slayer. The whisperers say that the first of the Cloti house was a bread thief living an outlaws life when he came across a sleeping drake. Being a thief and an excellent thief at that, he prised a scale from the front of the dragon's chest. To his surprise, the beast did not wake; he then thrust a spear between its clavicle and sternum to piece its lungs.\n\nThe best died instantly, leaving him permanently marred from the gasses expelled from the dragon's ruptured lung. But the first of the Cloti stayed beside the dragon's corpse until he was back to full strength. Then, he ripped off every scale from the dragon's body and buried them all deep in a forest, using the scales as needed to establish his power.\n\nMost would-be dragon slayers have no armour and only the most basic of makeshift weapons—sharpened branches for a lance, rocks, stolen tools. It is a hopeless task.\n\n\\--\n\nHaving hailed the dragon, I took ten steps back and knelt upon the floor with my palms facing upward. I did not dare look at the dragon.\n\n\"I am a man of peace. Not of war. A man of learning.\"\n\nThe dragon's silence weighed heavy on me.\n\nI braved a look upward at the creature, which, now awake, was directing the full force of its powerful gaze straight at me.\n\nThe ground faintly shook, the dragon spoke.\"None who have seen me have lived.\n\nIt has been thus for ten lifetimes of man.\"As I knelt, listening to his words, feeling the heat rising, I believed every word he said. What was I doing? I was inviting certain death.--The day I found the dragon scale, I took it home and looked at it for hours. Its beauty captured me. I looked at by sunlight, moonlight and firelight.\n\nWith each light the scale took on a whole new form of beauty. I imagined the dragon who once wore it resting in the sun, catching and reflecting. Its body glistening a thousand shades of gold.\n\nI could see it with my mind's eye flying over treetops by a full moon—a silvery shadow of luminescence.\n\nI pictured it amid its fiery wrath, aglow with the colours of burning flame.\n\nIt was this night that I fell under the dragon's thrall. Could any creature be so beautiful?\n\nI still attended Holster each week and paid my respects to the godruim, but it was the fire drakes and winged wyrms which had my heart. I hid the scale within my bedroom wall, prising open a wooden plank to hide it and only taking it out for times of private worship in my home.\n\nWere I to sell it, this one scale would bring me enough fortune to buy my own land and pay others to work for me. I would never have to till the soil again. It would free me from the peasant's curse.\n\nBut I would not do such a thing, to sell something so beautiful - the thought of it made me despair. In these days I became obsessed.\n\nI spent what free time I had and the little money I could earn on learning more about dragons. As I read books, I learned stories and mapped their locations.\n\nOnce I learned of a rumour of a dragon only six days walk from my village. I played truant and sought it out. I fled my village and hiked for days, hoping to discover its lair.\n\nI was too late.\n\nThe divine creature was now dead. Every scale had been extracted from its corpse.\n\nDesecrated, it now lay a skeleton, every tendon and heartstring removed. Every inch of a dragon's body was precious.\n\nI wept that night.I grew to hate humanity and the depth of our depravity. Dragons were peaceful. Killing only when threatened. As I trekked back toward my village to face the lashes of my lord, my heart hardened towards my fellow man.\n\nI pursued my learning more fervently than before. Such that the local Druimite Preist took notice and he made my case to the lord that I should be a scholar, not a labourer.\n\nMay Elgash bless him, for I was taken under his wing to read and learn, never needing to till again. His own library was substantial, but I quickly ran out of books on my subject of interest.\n\nHe kindly sent out to his fellow priests for books, bemused by my interest in an esoteric topic. Whilst under his care, I also learned of grammar, druism and history. He was a humble man, but he was generous to me. I think he hoped I would one day take over his Holstorn. I feel regret that I could not.\n\nAs I grew older, Beloric, for that was his name, would take me with him when he went to synods and councils. These were hosted in the local capital, Ligrewel, and were a three-day wagon ride. The city was of rock and stone. There were no trees; it seemed cold even in the sun.\n\nThere were open braziers along the walls and many stood around them warming their hands in the night. They drank from flagons and sang slow and aching songs.\n\nWhilst Beloric attended the synod of priests, I spent my days in the library. Even here, there were not many books on the subject of dragons. Those that were there focused more on how to kill them and on the dangers of dragon fire. How I despised the evil gaze of my bretherin.\n\nIt did not please me to read such books. But I read them regardless. They were filled with myth and history, stories of glory and death.\n\nIt is hard to scry through the mists of myth to perceive the truth of the story. But it seemed that the one recurring pattern was that to kill a dragon, you must pierce it where it has already lost its scales. You cannot kill a dragon that still has all its scales.\n\nThe night I learned this, I did not sleep. I lay awake, thinking. I was disturbed only by the nasal breathing of Beloric in the other room.\n\n​\n\nEdit: formatting as copied across from Word.", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": " Hell has recently taken big steps towards digitization. Demons can now be summoned through video games and Excel spreadsheets, and you can make deals with the devil in online shops. You're an IT consultant turned exorcist, dealing with possessed company servers and cursed WiFi devices.", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "The computer Guru arrived in billowing orange robes, his bald head shining under the florescent lighting. His beatific smile was almost but not quite unnerving. \n\n\"Ah\" he said in a deeply resonant voice. \"Another binary attachment problem!\"\n\n\"Er, what do you mean?\" I asked from behind my charmed desk. \"We've got a printer possessed by a class 7 demon and we need an exorcism. That is what you do, right?\"\n\nHe smiled mischievously, \"These binary devices are so susceptible to binary morality problem. Good - Evil. They are all just attachments to the object itself. What we must do is help the printer transcend it's attachment to the binary perspective. \"\n\nI looked down at his card, and realized that his title of \"Computer Guru\" must be a literal thing. This was a Buddhist IT Specialist.\n\n\"Ok, then, what do you suggest? I've got a printer that demands blood sacrifices for print jobs? How do we fix that? Ask it to fucking meditate?!\"\n\n\"Ha, ha\", he said. \"No,you just have to use this plug adapter.\" He offered a seemingly normal outlet adapter.\n\nThe intern crawled up to printer and unplugged it, added the adapter, and plugged it back in. As she did so, the printer glowed a pearly white and slowly floated above the table. \"Ready\" the screen said.\n\nThe Guru nodded and smiled at it and then at me.\n\n\"But how? I asked wonderingly.\n\n\"Ah, the adapter increases the resistance.\"\n\n\"And how does that help?\"\n\nWell, he said, it caused an increase of Ohms. 🕉s.\n\n:-)", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": " After the fall of humanity and the rise of the apes, a now intelligent George returns to confront the Man in the Yellow Hat.", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "As a child becomes an adult, his parents slowly transform from almighty and most confident caretakers into the people they really are; they become all their faults and all their triumphs, all their success and all their failures. In all reality, the dramatic change comes not of the parents themselves, but rather of the child's perspective of their parents. Infantile trust and naïveté turn into adolescent rebellion and questioning which turn into a matured understanding, empathy, and pity for the elderly parents that once raised them.\n\nThis too was the progression of maturation that the 'lesser' primates took during their evolution and eventual overtaking of the 'higher' primate humans. They began as blubbering infants who lived in trees, had no language and flung feces at one another. During the adolescent phase of their evolution, the ape's intelligence increased to nearly that of an average human- not quite enough to fly to the moon, but intelligent enough to become increasingly aware of their lesser status. By the time their numbers increased and humanity began to fear its evolutionary competitors, it was too late. Humanity had fallen, mostly under the weight of its own grandiosity, and the apes were there to take their place, most often with use of force.\n\nThen came the third phase of the evolution of the ape's relationship. As the ape became more intelligent than their predecessor, they came to be more forgiving of man's past transgressions, and the ape viewed man as a pitiful relic of what he once was, like a child views his elderly parent who had long ago slipped into dementia.\n\nThen came along one of the most incredible events in world history, one that future religious apes would use as evidence for the existence of God. This event occurred in the epoch of apes that was highly technologically advanced, just as advanced as man ever became and then some. It was this technology that made this incredible event possible.\n\nApe archaeologists found the preserved remains of an ancient human who donned yellow clothing alongside the preserved remains of a naked little monkey- nudity being the ape's ancient reminder of how primitive he used to be, in a time before he experienced shame. The remains were frozen in glacier ice, and were wonderfully well-preserved. The archaeologists, interested to study the interactions between ancient man and ape, used the DNA of both remains and sophisticated cloning technology to effectively bring the man and the monkey back to life. The apes also used a sophisticated machine known as a Neuronal Entropy Print Tracer, which backtracked the billions of firings of neurons and recorded this data from the subject's birth to their death. Once these 'memories' were jump-started in an identical brain (which is only possible in a recently-deceased, or as in this case, a well-preserved specimen) the consciousness of the deceased is brought back to life as well, complete with all their personality traits, their intelligence, and their memories. Curious George and the Man with the Yellow Hat were brought back to life.\n\nAfter several months of social scientists poking and prodding and studying the interactions between the two subjects, the study came to a close. Academics got all the information they'd wanted, the archaeologists achieved the fame they'd wanted, and George and The Man were left in limbo. The researchers of the study along with the general public thought it would be inhumane to leave George in his primitive state and ultimately he was given neurological therapy to increase his intelligence to equal that of the contemporary ape. The Man was left to suffer in his new caste in world society- that of a human slave. \n\nSeveral years later after the study, George made a success of himself; he wrote an autobiography describing his life: his birth in the ancient continent of Africa, his capture, his adventures with the Man with the Yellow Hat, and finally his life in this brave new ape world. Although he was now intelligent, his curiosity never left him. He tried to sate his hunger for knowledge by reading and studying anything and everything, but there was something minute, something that evaded him and pestered him relentlessly- something that no understanding of the laws of physics or of the most mysterious secrets of the universe could ever come even close to being an adequate substitution for the question he had. Day in and day out George tried to tune out this one curious question he always had on his mind. He studied engineering, geopolitics, quantum physics and advance calculus all in the hopes of suppressing the one question he'd always had.\n\nThe obsession finally manifested into action and the poor George sought to finally answer his question. He took a week off work from the university at which he professed and found the Man with the Yellow Hat. The Man worked for his ape slaver on a farm, using primitive tools to pull weeds from the fields. When George approached the Man, he stood up from his kneeling, and his yellow clothes were covered in soil. He was disheveled and his eyes sunk low, there was no humanity left in him. \n\n\"Man with the Yellow Hat,\" George said as he extended his hand to him, \"won't you please tell me your name?\"\n\nEdit: thanks for the gold guys! My first submission to writing prompts, I appreciate all the support guys!", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": "\"Give the penny to someone in need, spend the quarter, and hide the wooden nickel. You'll understand why.\"", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "Uncle Albert wasn’t a rich man or a lucky man, he was just a good man. When the will was read out I didn’t expect much, I wasn’t disappointed, all Albert had was the change in his pocket and a letter addressed to me. \n\nThe funeral was rough, You nail down the coffin and you suddenly realise they are gone. I sort of just floated around for a few weeks afterwards, you don’t try to dwell on it, that just happens, nothing interested me anymore. \n\nI had hoped that the letter would bring me some sort of closure but it only gave me questions, at least it got my mind of it and brought some purpose back to my days. Albert was a man of few words but he always made them count, the letter didn’t require me to do anything but spend a few coins. \n\nI left the lawyers office after a reading the letter a few dozen times, it might be a literal last request, something to take my mind off everything or some life lesson. I had no job and no prospects, so I immediately went to work spending the money.\n\nThere was an old homeless man who used to sit outside the grocery store with his dog graham, Albert always liked Gary and his dog, he’d always make sure they were both feed. I dropped the penny in his cup, I felt terrible for giving so little but the letter wanted me to so I had too, I didn’t even really look down at Gary, he never asked for money but he’d always want a chat with anyone, I just couldn’t tell him about Albert.\n\nI spent the quarter on a scratch card, I didn’t win so it began to appear that the letter might be figurative or a joke. The wooden coin was the hardest to get rid of it was the last request so I wanted to do it right, I took a row boat and a shovel up to Alberts old fishing spot.\n\nI remembered the exact spot he always used to set down a six pack, he wanted to be buried there but city hall had a disagreement with him about that. I wanted to leave something of him on that spot that we spent so much time together, I drove the shovel into the ground and hit something.\n\nI brushed off some top soil and found a box, I wasn’t shocked more emotional he knew me well enough to leave something in the exact spot I’d bury that little coin. The box was heavy,gold usually is.\n\n\n***More of my terrible Stories*** r/gliggett", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]

[ { "content": "You are a prolific and imaginative writer. You will be given a prompt. Write something amazing for that prompt. Be creative and surprising!", "name": "situation", "role": "system" }, { "content": " Hell, heaven and earth all collide and converge onto the same astral plane of existence. At first, chaos ensues, but there's no way to reverse things back to normal, so the demons, angels, and humans all have to learn to get along.", "name": null, "role": "user" }, { "content": "\"Tonight, our first guest is none other than Dante Alighieri, fresh out of Hell. He's talking about his new work,'The Second Divine Comedy: A More Accurate Atlas', his relationship with Virgil, and--\"\n\n\\*click*\n\n\"I think the simple fact is that atheism just... isn't a thing anymore. The scientific community, and the world, is going to have to accept that.\"\n\n\"How insightful. Any closing remarks?\"\n\n\"Yes. Thank God that evolution, and the dinosaurs, are real.\"\n\n\\*click*\n\n\"Twenty parishioners died today following an attempt to hold an audience with what is believed to be either a Cheribum or Throne. The Holy Trinity has yet to--\"\n\n\\*click*\n\n\"New pics from the set of *Supernatural* Season 17. Castiel visits actor Misha Collins, and he seems to approve.\"\n\n\"And L. Ron Hubbard, back from hell, seen rampaging down the streets of L.A. in a Ferrari.\"\n\n\"But first, Britney Spears admits that she was possessed!\"\n\n\\*click*\n\n\"New Glade Air-Wick, formulated to kill the sulfur smell.\"\n\n\\*click*\n\n\"We cannot allow these immigrants into our cities! They stink up the place with their grimestone, and they're bad, they're all bad people! They wouldn't have gone to hell if they weren't bad!\"\n\n\"What my opponent fails to realize is that there is a seat in Hell reserved for him.\"\n\n\"There is-- there is not--\"\n\n\"Mephistopholes literally took a photo of it! It's on Instagram! It's on my phone right now!\"\n\n\"There are dozens of people with my name--\"\n\n\\*click*\n\n\"Leonard, the new edition of Dungeons and Dragons is expected soon, and I am not happy.\"\n\n\"Why not?\"\n\n\"Because they're getting rid of tieflings! Apparently it's racially insensitive to depict children of human and demons in such a manner. I don't see the problem.\"\n\n\"You do realize that Raj's sister is expecting a kid?\"\n\n\"Yes?\"\n\n\"Sheldon, *her boyfriend is a Demon!*\"\n\n\"hahahahahahahahahahaha\"\n\n\\*click*\n\nYou throw the controller on the floor. Cosmic mistake or not, TV has continued to be awful. As far as you're concerned, nothing's changed.", "name": null, "role": "assistant" } ]