[ CW ] Write a horror story . Scare the reader without scaring or harming the characters .

`` So tell me Jack, what would you say is the worst fate imaginable?'' 
 
 He considered the question. There were plenty of awful fates, getting skinned alive, having your organs removed, getting buried underground. 
 
 `` Is this within the realm of feasible possibility? Are we allowed to make people immor....um sorry, I just lost my train of thought there. I'm feeling kind of distracted right now.'' 
 
 He felt like there was something he was forgetting. Something important. 
 
 `` That's perfectly alright. In answer to your question you can make them immortal but it would n't matter, the answer's the same regardless.'' 
 
 He considered that. 
 
 `` I'm gon na say death then.'' 
 
 `` Interesting. Why?'' 
 
 `` Well when you're dead, there's no consciousness. Whatever life you lived, however you died, it does n't matter. It's a concept that's impossible for living minds to fathom, so we do n't think about it.'' 
 
 `` You're on the right track. However it could be argued that life has some inherent value, even if it does n't if it's gone. As it happens I know a worse fate. Let me ask you something. Do you know where you are right now?'' 
 
 `` What do you mean.'' 
 
 `` As in, where we are standing, having this conversation.'' 
 
 He did n't understand. 
 
 `` I do n't... know.'' 
 
 `` Exactly'' 
 
 Then it dawned on him. The thing that had been bothering him. And then he knew the answer. 
 
 `` We are n't real.'' 
 
 `` Indeed. The writer did n't give us a location; he thought it would be a better reveal that way.'' 
 
 Jack might have been scared, but he was n't, because some part of him had known all along what this had been about. Because that was how he'd been designed. 
 
 What had the prompt been again? `` Scare the reader without scaring of harming the characters''? Nice loophole writer. I wonder if this will count? 
 
 I guess we'll let the browsers of writing prompts decide that for themselves. 
 

