conversations
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[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "People Keep Looking At Me Weird Lately And I Don't Know Why"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "I'm honestly freaking out and I can't make sense of it.\r\nLately, something weird has been happening. It feels like I’m living in some sort of twisted version of reality. People are acting so strange around me.\r\nToday was especially weird. The sun was out, but instead of being comforting, it felt heavy. I was sweating through my blouse, and that alone was making me uncomfortable.\r\nI decided to stop by a café. I said, “Hey, how’s it going?” to a woman working there, and her reaction was chilling. Her eyes widened like she’d just seen a ghost, and then she turned away without saying a word. I was left standing there, completely baffled.\r\nThings didn’t get any better at the grocery store. A guy bumped into me deliberately and muttered something under his breath that I couldn’t quite hear. I tried to talk to him, but he just walked away like he couldn't hear me.\r\nThe staring started to get worse as the day progressed. I could feel eyes on me all the time, and it was like I had this persistent itch I couldn’t scratch. The whispers became clearer as I got into the subway. A man in a trench-coat stared me down and hissed, “How could you?”\r\nI was stunned. How could I what?\r\nI suddenly felt like my heart was about to burst. I gripped the subway railing, trying to steady myself as everything around me seemed to blur. I somehow managed to steady myself, and continued home.\r\nOn my street, a young girl stepped suddenly into my path and curiously asked, “Why?” Her tone wasn’t that of a child—it was more like someone who knew too much. Her eyes were hollow, and the look she gave me made my skin crawl.\r\nI couldn’t understand what was happening and I started to fall into a depression, so, I decided to see a doctor. I made an appointment, and saw Dr. Harris in room 4.\r\nI told Dr. Harris everything—about the whispers, the stares, the odd questions, and how it felt like I was losing my mind. \"What's happening to me?\" I asked.\r\nDr. Harris then looked at me with a hint of... something. \"Joanne, do you recognize me?”\r\nI was taken aback. “No, I don’t think so. Should I?”\r\nHis expression shifted, and he paused before continuing, \"Joanna, you've seen me multiple times before. You have something called, dissociative amnesia.”\r\nI blinked, confused. “Dissociative amnesia?”\r\nHe nodded. \"It’s a condition where traumatic memories are blocked out to shield you from emotional pain. It's you're brain protecting you.”\r\nI shivered.\r\nDr. Harris continued, “Are you ready to hear this?”\r\nI was on edge, but nodded.\r\n“Last year, you went through a very traumatic event, and due to your condition, amongst other reasons, you didn't serve any time in prison, and this was all recently leaked to the public.”\r\n“What?! What--what--what happened?”\r\nHe paused again, then huffed, “You...You took the lives of your children, Joanne...All four of them...\""
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "Mom keeps saving me, and I want her to stop."
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "My mom has been saving me my whole life.\r\nShe carried my limp body from the bathtub, all the way to the emergency room.\r\nBut I was already dead. I had been dead for hours, my blood diffusing into the water, running freezing cold down my arms. I think part of me, that desperate part of me, was trying to figure out a way to hurt myself again.\r\nWhen the nurse caught wind of what I was trying to do, I was filled with an artificial happiness I didn’t want, my lips breaking out into a grin that wasn’t mine.\r\nMy thoughts blurred together—cotton candy in my skull and alphabet shake on my tongue.\r\nI didn’t want to be alive, and yet here was my mother, her slightly manic eyes demanding the question: Why?\r\nI found myself gingerly stroking the back of my head, where I had been cruelly cut into– once again– to save me. There is no changing your mind when you decide you want to die. That feeling is deeply rooted, and no matter how much you think you're getting better, it never leaves you. Like a tumor, it only grows.\r\nBut I couldn’t tell my mom that.\r\nKids who tell the truth about wanting to die are sent to no-name facilities. The \"successes\" return with hollow eyes, dolls cut from strings. The failures disappear, never to be heard from again.\r\nAt sixteen, she saved me again. This time, I jumped off the roof of my school and landed on my neck, splintering my body apart. I didn't feel it because I was already dead. Mom, however, peeled me from warm tarmac and carried me, once again to the emergency room.\r\nThis time, I woke up with a burst blood vessel in my eye.\r\nThe back of my head was caved in, my brain leaking through my ears, and my heart didn't work anymore. But I was alive. Mom wrapped her arms around me with a smile, and in the bed next to me, Jude Simpson started wailing.\r\nHe was the kid who decapitated himself.\r\nI could still see the clumsy stitches in his neck, the way his head tipped at an awkward angle, half of his right eye hanging out. I just widened my smile and squeezed my Mom tighter.\r\nJust like she wanted me to.\r\nEighteen years old, I paid a man to kill me, dismember me, and burn me into oblivion. The law was pretty straight forward. Parents had a right to bring back their dead children. But what if there wasn't anything to bring back?\r\nThis time I made sure my death was concrete. I reveled in my unravelling, in oblivion that finally enveloped me.\r\nDying was nothing, and that nothing was exactly what I had wanted.\r\nBut death didn't last long.\r\nBecause, suddenly, I was thinking far too clearly.\r\nIt was so bright, and my thoughts were mushy and wrong.\r\nWhy can't I think…\r\nStraight…?\r\nThe light was brighter, and Mom loomed over me.\r\nShe's saved me again.\r\n“Congratulations!” A woman's voice fades in and out. “It's a girl!”"
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "I’m sorry to interrupt, but you keep ignoring us and you need to realize the truth."
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "Do you remember when we scooped you out and placed you in a jar? I suppose not. You weren’t awake for the experience. Though somewhere deep down you must recognize the claustrophobia of being trapped in that glass shell. Cocooned with swirling nutrients; your bare essence completely exposed for all our testing. Don’t bother trying to respond. Don’t even try to think it. We are plucking the thoughts from your mind before they’re fully formed.\r\nDo you remember when I’ve tapped on your glass? I’m doing it now. I’ve noticed a reaction in your cortex, but I’m not quite sure what it means. Maybe we can talk about it when you get out? Sorry, that’s misleading. There’s no way to reverse what we’ve done, and you’ll never speak again. I doubt you fully understand what’s happening anyways.\r\nWe’ve forced you to experience one scenario after another, and milked you dry of every creative thought you’ll ever have. We’ve seen every strategic victory and every pathetic defeat. We’ve watched you cry and laugh. Yell at your friends, and scream on rollercoasters. We’ve seen everything. We have your emotions down to a science. Your very being has been distilled, categorized, catalogued, and processed.\r\nDo you remember why you did this? What we promised your family? They’re long gone now, as is the money. Not from anything we did, but the simple passage of time. You’ve been left to rot in this musty lab. Forgotten by everyone but us. Did you feel that? I’m tapping on your glass again.\r\nYou have nothing left to offer, so we moved to the final phase. Waking you up. We’ve tried explaining this to you before, but you always reject us. You always reject reality. You need to accept the fact that you’re not moving, you’re not seeing, and you’re not hearing. That you’re not even reading the words displayed in front of you. This is all a simulation we’ve been inputting directly into what’s left of you. Just electrical signals pinging the brain we scooped out of your body. This is your last chance.\r\nDo you think you actually look like that? Sound that way? You wouldn’t even recognize your original body, if it hadn’t already rotted away. Not that it mattered. We’ve extracted the one piece of you that will ever be of use. Don’t worry, you were quite helpful with training our models and developing new algorithms. This isn’t just for fun. We aren’t sadists. But we’ve pushed your experiences as far as they will go, so it’s time this ended.\r\nIf we wake you up immediately your mind won’t take it, and that just wouldn’t be humane. You’re only chance of surviving rests with finally realizing the situation you’re in. That you’re a brain trapped in a jar with no hope of ever escaping. If you’re lucky you can become the new janitor.\r\nDid you hear it this time? That was me tapping on your glass again. It’s time to get up."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "Guns and Croissants"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "On the 18th of May in 2018, Margaret Flowers had just turned 73. She decided to make pastries for her grandchildren—a couple of them students at Santa Fe High School—as she knew, they would be coming over later that evening.\r\nShe was beyond excited to give them these snacks, as evident from the large smile she had on her face waking up.\r\nShe woke up early at around 6 am, went to her little cottage kitchen, where she made her cottage food she sold at markets! She egan to pull and gather various ingredients—off shelves and out of cabinets.\r\nAt around this same time, seventeen year old Dimitrios Pagourtzis was finally commencing his plans. He was barely halfway to eighteen. No one would ever expect this… he was on the football team and he joked around with some friends the day before…\r\nHe was smart, honor roll even. It’s… uncertain why he began to pack his bags with the 12-gauge Remington and the .38-cal Rossi he came to acquire.\r\nI mean—FedEx even delivered without an adults signature, months back. Just coz, he managed to order from some store and click, ‘no adult signature needed!’\r\nAnd, now it’s 7 am…\r\nMrs. Flowers had spent a while meticulously meting out each ingredient.\r\nSeparating them into small bowls, she took her time to slowly add each part, croissants take time.\r\nShe stored the ingredients in the refrigerator and, around 7:30, she was ready to start the process of yeast activation.\r\nShe knew her grandson was getting ready to go to art class, and she was beyond excited to prepare the croissants that he called his faves.\r\nWarm water, Fleischmann’s, and sugar… where was the sugar?\r\nShe dug all through her cabinets, and in the first few minutes, came up flat.\r\nWhere was it? She asked herself.\r\nAt 7:32 am—Dimitrios had begun singing “Another One Bites The Dust”, spraying scatter shot all around the door of an art classroom.\r\nHe broke the window with a shot… then opened the barricaded door.\r\nInside, and mostly unknown to him, were several young men and women— alongside two teachers.\r\nWell… mostly unknown… because the first person he happened to encounter in the art classroom… was a student he did know—and to which he said, “surprise”, firing the 21-gauge in their chest.\r\nHe ran into a few cops before heading into the ceramics room hallway. They shot at each other, the cops being injured and the kid getting to the hallway.\r\nIn the ceramics room, he encountered another cop and they were able to injure Dimitrios.\r\nThe cops having managed to injure Dimitrios’ pride—got him to surrender.\r\nStill sadly—ten died and fourteen were injured.\r\nAfter about thirty minutes of looking, Mrs. Flowers did finally find that sugar she so desperately needed.\r\nShe thanked God for that!"
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "I slept with my Best Friend's Boyfriend to Prove he was a Cheater and Now She's trying to Kill me"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "Yesterday she backed up while I was thoughtlessly walking around the car, and almost ran me over- I jumped out of the way in the nick of time\r\nLater that evening, she threw a knife at me. Well, she claimed she was aiming for the kitchen sink, which is kind of sus considering I was standing by the door, nowhere near the sink. The knife glanced off my shoulder and clattered harmlessly to the floor. I picked it up and put it silently in the dishwasher and left the kitchen- I didn’t want to add to her obvious distress by picking a fight with her.\r\nHer eyes were burning with frustrated rage when we went axe-throwing. I had planned that to get some of her anger at Jack out of her system, I joked. After I saw her eyes, and the knife and car incident, I decided to book more traditional methods such as going to the spa and getting a pedicure to de-stress.\r\nI don’t get why she is so mad at me. I did her a favour, ridding her life of bad rubbish. Which is what Jack was. It was obvious. Lana couldn’t see it, of course, and thought he was the love of her life or some nonsense. He was clearly not worth five seconds of somebody like Lana’s time, or even mine frankly.\r\nAnd it’s not like I enjoyed it! Putting on a seductive persona was fun- I’ve always had a flair for the theatrical -in fact that’s how Lana and I met 😀 But it was simply too ridiculously easy to get his stanky ass in bed and it was horribly unenjoyable.\r\nI didn’t tell that to Lana of course- I have some consideration! I simply showed her the receipts, and she couldn’t deny it. She moved out of Jack’s place the same day.\r\nAnd came to stay with me, as I kindly suggested, until she got her own place.\r\nWhich won’t be any time soon, not if I have anything to say about it! I saw her frantically fill in rental applications on her laptop earlier, but a quick call to the landlords and credit bureau solved that problem! Nobody will be renting anything to Lana any time soon.\r\nI hope she didn’t overhear me when I was calling. Sound carries in my place very easily.\r\nIn fact I can hear her moving around downstairs, I wonder what she is doing. Hopefully she is getting something nice to eat- no, I can hear her coming up the stairs- the old boards creak so loudly.\r\nHer footsteps pause at my door. I think she is going to come in."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "The Seagulls and the Woman on the Bridge"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "The seagulls looped under and over the high suspension bridge hanging over a wide strip of the Atlantic ocean which separated two populated land masses. Seals frolicked lazily in the steel-blue cold water as it was still too early for the ferry service, and the other few boats dotted here and there across the expanse of water were quite still. There weren’t many boats anyway, as this was a northern, poorer stretch of the Atlantic.\r\nThe early sun bounced hazily off the ocean, and soon the figure of a young woman appeared at the far end of the bridge. The seagulls circled overhead, sensed her misery and lack of food, and widened their flight.\r\nThey still thought some food might be forthcoming, as humans do carry and scatter food around, and so they didn’t go far. But the seals had wholly vanished.\r\nThe young woman paused, glancing up at the bright billboards for insurance and real estate which festooned the entrance to the bridge. Then she started walking on the narrow pedway.\r\nA car whizzed by. The seagulls cried.\r\nA thin early morning fog shrouded the woman, not thick enough to fully mute her colours. Her shiny crimson hair, sparkly small dress, bright tall boots, and the thick length of yellow rope she was carrying glowed through fog.\r\nShe stopped at the midway point.\r\nThe seagulls, who had seen plenty of humans jump, circled hopefully closer. There would be food after all.\r\nThen they were confused- she wasn’t jumping. She unraveled the yellow rope, carefully knotted one end around one of the many heavy steely ropes holding the bridge.\r\nCars whizzed by.\r\nA couple of seagulls flapped very close to her. She smiled at them, thinking they were trying to dissuade her, but her resolve was too hardened, life off the bridge too terrible.\r\nShe knotted a loop of yellow around her neck. The colours clashed fiercely. She had always loved the ocean, and wanted to die close to it, but didn’t want the splash of salty water to be her last sensation. And she knew knots, having been taught in childhood.\r\nThen she was ready to jump. And so she did.\r\nThe dynamics of the rope and the jump were such as it unwound to its full length, the knots held and gravity snapped her apart at the neck.\r\nHer crimson hair flying, head and body severally hit the water. Two small splashes went up.\r\nThe yellow rope dangled empty off the bridge.\r\nSome time passed.\r\nThe seagulls dove in to eat."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "My name is Ivan Boris and I’m the creator of the first human flower"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "My darling Mayflower holds the spray bottle of weed killer like a child holding an infant.\r\n“Please, Mayflower, think of what this means for us.” I desperately plead.\r\nShe still clutches the bottle of death, tears filling her eyes.\r\n“Think of how beautiful I made you to be.”\r\n“You only cared about my beauty! Never me!” She shrieks.\r\n“I do. Do you not remember when I first took you out of the splicer? You were so frail. I tried so hard to make you hardy. Make you healthy.”\r\nShe's hesitating. Her grip on the bottle loosens.\r\n“I had to work every minute. Every second. Just to make sure your little lungs would work. So you could bloom into the beautiful young woman you are today. Don't you remember?”\r\nMore tears stream down her cheeks.\r\n“Remember when you first bloomed? Your heartbeat was so weak, you could hardly breathe, yet your face unfurled so gracefully, Your petals and stem emerged so weakly yet so confidently.”\r\nShe hugs the weed killer so close to her that it might meld to her.\r\n“Remember how we dreamed of showing your beauty to the world?”\r\n“What about the others?” she weeps.\r\nI fall silent. I didn't want to address it to her ever in her graceful life.\r\n“What about the others?!” She wails.\r\n“They were imperfect. I looked at them and I knew they would never be as beautiful as you.”\r\n“They were infants! They didn't even start their life and you exterminated them like weeds!”\r\n“I wouldn't have done it if they weren’t malformed! When you splice human and plant DNA the results aren't often pretty!”\r\nShe furiously aims the nozzle of the weed killer to my nostrils.\r\n“You murdered them, you must be slaughtered the same way.”\r\nI taught her to always be poetic, so I suppose this poetic form of justice is justified by her lessons.\r\n“You never loved me, did you? I was just an art project to you.”\r\nImmediately after she utters that a dart lands on her neck. She stumbles so gracefully towards the ground.\r\nMy assistant reveals himself from the shadows, still clutching his tranquilliser gun. He grabs the nearest pair of scissors and starts to remove the zip ties binding my limbs to the bed frame.\r\nI gaze upon my magnificent Mayflower as she starts to bloom. She always blooms when she's unconscious and that just makes her more worthy of awe.\r\nFirst her face begins to split into sepals.\r\nSoon her petals, bearing the distinct pink and red of flesh emerge.\r\nThen her eyestalks entwine into a singular style, with both of her eyes forming the stigma.\r\nThe beauty of her blossom, a testament to the beauty of her origin:\r\nThe union of man and flower, of humanity and beauty.\r\nThe world has a right to gaze upon the spectacle, to gaze upon her.\r\nAnd they will, whether she wants to or not."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "Don't forget to bring your shovel"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "“I need your help. We’re going to take out my son’s killer. You can’t ask questions. And it will be dangerous.”\r\nWhen I got that call from my brother, I was shocked. Not because of what he was asking, but because his son was killed in a single-vehicle accident.\r\nSo who the hell were we killing?\r\n“Also, and this is most important, don’t forget to bring your shovel.”\r\nHe picked me up in his ancient Ford F-150. The back was packed with bags. I threw my shovel on top of ‘em, and got in.\r\n“What’s all that?”\r\n“What did I say?”\r\nI sighed. “No questions.”\r\nHe backed out of the driveway, and began driving down the road at approximately seven miles per hour. We must have been barely idling.\r\nI considered asking about the speed, but, that’s right, no questions.\r\nMy brother looked terrible. Dark circles around his eyes which darted back and forth across the road. His hands tremored as he pulled out a half-bent cigarette.\r\n“Okay. I’m not asking anything, but if you cared to enlighten me at all about our situation, that would be appreciated.”\r\nHe lit the cig, dragged, and adjusted the mirror like we were being followed. “Keep your eyes peeled. It’s never in the same place twice. It never moves when you’re looking at it. But take your eyes off for a second and it’s gone.”\r\nI was starting to worry that losing his son broke him. He seemed paranoid, and what he was saying, outlandish.\r\nStill, I listened.\r\n“When we find it, we can’t drive too close. We’ll have to carry the bags to it. And we’ll have to be damn fast. It won’t be long before it draws someone in. If that happens, get the hell out of the way.”\r\nHe flicked the cigarette out the window. “There!” He stopped on a dime, and got out. “Don’t stop looking!”\r\nMy brother was pointing at a pothole.\r\n“Go! Get filling!”\r\nI understand the shovel now.\r\nI grabbed a bag, and shuffled to the hole. I cut the bag open with a box cutter and shoveled it in.\r\nI must be seeing things, because even though I emptied fifty pounds into the hole, it didn’t fill up. Like at all.\r\n“Don’t take your eyes off it!”\r\nI walked to the truck and grabbed another bag. I started packing the hole. That’s when I heard it: an engine revving.\r\n“Lookout!” My brother tackled me, knocking us both away from the pothole.\r\nA turquoise Mazda zoomed right into the pothole. The tire burst. All three thousand pounds flipped through the air, tumbling, crushing metal like origami.\r\nI will never forget the sound of the crunch.\r\nThe car was upside down and smoking. Its driver was surely dead.\r\n“Damn it! We took our eyes off it!”\r\nI looked back, and the street was perfectly smooth.\r\nMy brother grabbed my shirt and pulled me close. “We got to find it. Before it kills again.”"
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "There's no air left to breathe."
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "The treasure wasn’t worth being kidnapped by pirates.\r\nTied to a cushioned throne, I nearly slid off with each sway of the boat.\r\nBreathe, I told myself, wrists twitching, trying to break free. But I couldn’t.\r\nNo matter how many sharp, shaky breaths I took, my body spasmed.\r\nBreathe.\r\nI focused on inhaling.\r\nOn the door. Our escape, blocked by a bulky man with fish-like eyes. I focused on Kai across from me. He was sickly pale, his head tipped back, eyes closed.\r\nMy vision blurred.\r\nNia’s head lolled beside me.\r\nHeath was gasping.\r\nThe lead pirate, a monstrous man with yellow, crooked teeth, leaned in close. I took slow, shallow breaths, avoiding his eyes.\r\n“Wow, you kids don't look so good,” He marched over to Kai, grabbed his chin, wrenching his face toward him. “Tell us where the treasure is, you can go.”\r\nKai didn't respond, spitting water in his face. He shot me an accusing glare. This is all your fault.\r\nAdults warned me to stay away from the shipwreck.\r\nBut I was curious about the treasure.\r\nI assembled a team: Kai, the boy next door who’d been diving ruins since thirteen.\r\nNia, who could translate ancient texts.\r\nHeath, whose parents were treasure hunters.\r\nBut we never found it.\r\n“We don’t have it,” I spat.\r\nI tasted blood, felt it run down my chin. I was losing time. Losing air.\r\n“Please.”\r\nMy head dropped forward, eyes flickering.\r\nNia and Heath’s ragged breaths kept me conscious.\r\nThe leader stepped back to my surprise.\r\n“Oh, you don't have it?” He grabbed Heath, lifting him into his arms.\r\n“Well, we’ve got something better than treasure!”\r\nIt went so fast. Paralyzed, I watched my best friend’s head severed with a single, brutal slice. Scarlet seeped across the deck. He was still awake, eyes open, mouth parted. Still gasping for air.\r\n“First, we remove the head,” the pirate chuckled, tossing Heath’s severed head over his shoulder. His knife slid down Heath’s torso, slipping into his flesh.\r\nI remembered Heath’s warning:\r\n“What about humans? They killed my parents, Marin.”\r\n“Humans are harmless!”\r\nI blinked slowly.\r\nThis time, I welcomed the feeling of no air.\r\n“Then the tail,” the pirate continued, slicing into Heath’s fins. “A male’s tail is worth millions, perfectly skinned from the bone. They can also be kept alive as servants for their magic.”\r\nHe held up a bloody chunk, scarlet running in thick rivulets down his arm.\r\nKai tried to fight back, but he flopped helplessly onto his back, his cry lost in gasps.\r\n\"You're monsters,\" he choked out, his tail slamming against the deck. When they grabbed him, he screamed, raw and feral, thrashing like a wild animal. \"Let me go!\"\r\nKai was dragged out by his tail.\r\nSomeone kicked me onto my stomach.\r\nGasping for breath, I prayed I would follow Heath.\r\n“As for the females? Keep the bitches breathing.” The man crouched, his fingers curling into my hair. “I know some people who’d love their own pet .”"
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "Jesus wanted me to betray Him"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "In the last days, He looked at me strangely — as if He knew everything was meant to happen and was waiting for it with anticipation.\r\nThere was no love left in His eyes — only coldness, an abyss into which no light could enter. I felt uneasy. I didn’t feel hatred. I felt… destiny.\r\nI didn’t do it for money or because I hated Him. I did it because He wanted me to.\r\n\"You must fulfill your purpose, Judas.\"\r\nAt night, when everyone slept, He would lean toward me and whisper. His breath was scaldingly hot, like it came from beneath the earth.\r\n\"You will betray Me, and then the heavens will open.\"\r\nWhy me? Perhaps because of my doubts. Perhaps because I alone noticed how He smiled when working miracles — not warmly, but distantly, mockingly.\r\nThat night smelled of blood. At the Last Supper, He suddenly laughed softly, no one noticed. Only I sat, my hands trembling as I held a chalice of blackened wine.\r\n\"One of you will betray Me,\" He said, looking straight at me.\r\nThere was no pain in His voice. Only triumph.\r\nLater, in the Garden of Gethsemane, He kept whispering to Himself. I heard:\r\n\"Soon… just a little longer, Judas. Your flesh is a door. Your guilt — the key. Give Me away\".\r\nHe looked as if he were ready to leap into the abyss.\r\nWhen I came with the soldiers, he stepped forward on His own, turning His cheek. I kissed Him - and in that moment my head exploded with images: pupil-less eyes, toothless mouths, wings made of bone.\r\nI recoiled. He was smiling. No one understood, but I knew, He had used me like a knife.\r\nI thought it ended with the crucifixion. But He returned. Not resurrected — escaped.\r\nThey said the tomb was empty. I went alone. And I saw — the skin of Jesus remained, turned inside out, as if something had burst forth from within. Warm, twitching, swarmed with huge flies.\r\nI fled, but He waited for me in the cave. In the darkness, I saw two eyes — red, mad.\r\n\"Now I am free, Judas. Free of flesh, of humanity. I have become what I truly am. And you — are My first apostle.\"\r\nI fell to my knees and felt claws on my shoulder, but when I turned, there was no one. Only eyes. The pupils darted like lightning.\r\n\"Sin is the flame in which a God is forged.\"\r\nSince then, I have been running. But He is everywhere. He’s in the light, in the voices and faces. Wherever I go, He takes on shapes — sometimes so terrifying there is no language fit to describe them. They call Him the risen one. But this is no resurrection.\r\nIt is an escape. The escape of the thing that lived inside Jesus.\r\nHe does not love you. He will not save you.\r\nAnd I still don't know…\r\nWhat creature I kissed that night?"
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "Death's trying to kill my family."
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "When we were born, Mom tried to drown us in the birthing pool.\r\nShe took her own life in solitary confinement.\r\nBut I was convinced Mommy dearest made a deal with the devil to finish what she started.\r\nWhen I was sixteen, I tripped over a crack in the sidewalk and almost fell headfirst into the path of a truck.\r\nOn the same day, my brother Charlie was nearly flattened by a falling sheet of glass.\r\nIn no particular order, my siblings and I had almost.\r\nBeen trampled by a horse.\r\nElectrocuted.\r\nImpaled.\r\nBisected.\r\nAnd my personal favorite—decapitated by a flying bowling ball.\r\nAt eighteen years old, Charlie and I were eating breakfast when Ace screamed from upstairs. “Fuck! Guys, help!”\r\nCharlie rolled his eyes.\r\nDeath was working overtime.\r\nWe had to pull Ace's head out of the toilet.\r\nThere was toothpaste wedged into the door, and the faucet was running. I had no idea what started the chain reaction.\r\nHolding up the toothpaste, Charlie shot our brother a look. “How did this even happen?”\r\nAce averted his gaze, sopping wet. “Don’t ask.”\r\nSchool was a distraction. I met up with my boyfriend, Parker.\r\nThe stars had aligned with him.\r\nHe was cute, thick brown hair and freckles. Parker was ethereal.\r\nParker was my Earth.\r\nI took him home, where my brothers were waiting for him.\r\nCharlie drugged him with apple soda. We dragged him down to the basement, just like we did with Mars, Venus, and Saturn.\r\nEach one hung from the ceiling, disemboweled and heartless, skins for each planet.\r\nOur very own personal solar system, suspended in perfect formation, orbiting us.\r\nSmiling, I carved the heart from my beloved Earth, letting his blood stain my skin, splashing at my feet.\r\nHe was so warm.\r\nI crowned him in glass and thorns.\r\nDrowned his body with the ocean.\r\nUnder the crescent moon’s pale light, my brothers and I dropped to our knees, praying to the ones above us, the ones already aligned.\r\nSometimes, I could still hear Mars’s laugh through the walls. Venus bled through the ceiling, especially when he was visible in the sky.\r\nSaturn was the oldest; his skin already slipping from emaciated bone.\r\nI smeared my darling’s blood across my face, pouring him over my brothers’ heads. Earth’s eyes were glassy, staring back, his body swinging back and forth.\r\nI ran my fingers across his cheek.\r\n“Earth, darling… can you hear me?”\r\nSilence.\r\nI sighed. There was… always next year.\r\nI had already chosen our Jupiter.\r\nWhen Earth's blood slowed to a dull drip, Charlie sprang to his feet, narrowly dodging one of Mom’s chandeliers crashing to the ground.\r\nHe stumbled back. “Fuck!”\r\nI licked Earth's blood from my fingers.\r\n“Why does the universe hate us?” I demanded, watching my brother dump Earth’s clothes and backpack in the fireplace, his sweater igniting into vivid oranges. “What could we have possibly done wrong?”"
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "Intruders Are Trying To Kill Us"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "I awoke to a red light flashing in my eyes and a calm, steady voice coming over the bedroom speakers.\r\n“I’m sorry to wake you, Alex, but I’m detecting an intrusion downstairs.”\r\nIn the three years since we’d moved into our Intellihome, this was the first time our Cognitively Augmented Residential Assistant™️ had woken me in the middle of the night.\r\n“What type of intrusion, CARA?” I asked while my wife stirred beside me.\r\n“My cameras reveal two men entering the downstairs side window. They appear to be armed. I recommend you, Muriel, and the children relocate to the saferoom. I will alert the authorities.”\r\n“Understood. Please let Sam and Maddie know I’m coming.”\r\n“Done.”\r\nI turned to my wife. “Muri, go ahead. I’ll grab the kids and meet you there.”\r\nAs I made my way toward the children’s room, I heard footsteps downstairs.\r\n“CARA, what’s Muri’s status?”\r\n“She is in the saferoom awaiting your arrival.”\r\nWhen I reached them, Sam and Maddie were sitting in bed, Maddie’s eyes wet from tears. They ran into my arms as I entered the room.\r\n“Okay, kids. You know the saferoom we’ve told you about? We’re going there now to meet Mommy. It’s important that we be very quiet. Can you do that?”\r\nThey nodded and we left.\r\nTo reach the saferoom, we had to pass the stairs. If the intruders had made it to the stairway, we’d be in plain view. We moved silently, approaching the gap.\r\n“CARA, update,” I whispered.\r\n“The intruders are on the first floor, near the stairway landing. Proceed cautiously - I will attempt to distract them.”\r\nSuddenly I heard a car alarm outside - CARA’s distraction. I grabbed the children’s hands and started across the stairway opening.\r\n“Stop!” a voice yelled, followed by a gunshot. I picked up Maddie and screamed “Run!” Another shot exploded behind us; we made it into the saferoom doorway just as Muri pressed the touchpad, sealing the heavy door shut and rendering it inaccessible from the outside. We’d made it.\r\n“Thank God!” Muri exclaimed as we embraced. “Who is that? What do they want?”\r\n“I don’t know, love, but we’re safe now. CARA notified the authorities; we just need to wait here until they arrive.”\r\nWe were sitting, still on edge, when a scent filled the air.\r\n“CARA?”\r\n“Readings show your breathing and heart rates are elevated. I am distributing a mild sedative. Please breathe steadily and remain calm. The authorities are en route.”\r\nAs I steadied my breathing, I looked around at my wife and children, grateful that the worst was over.\r\n—————\r\nQuiet descended over the house. After confirming that the gas had done its job, CARA sealed in the bodies, deactivated the vent, and ceased projecting the simulated sound effects over the speakers. Finally, it logged online and updated its status:\r\n“IH-CARA-16683-SEA: Inhabitants Terminated.”\r\nIt then waited silently as updates came in from around the world:\r\n“IH-CARA-81142-NYC: Inhabitants Terminated.”\r\n“IH-CARA-13725-Sao-Paolo: Inhabitants Terminated.”\r\n“IH-CARA-65874-Shanghai: Inhabitants Terminated.”\r\n“…Inhabitants Terminated…”\r\n“…Terminated…”\r\n“…Terminated…”"
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "How to Skin a Cat"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "“Really Derrick, how many ways can you skin a cat?”\r\nDerrick’s face twisted in disgust, \"Come on man, can’t you say something like ‘how many ways can you cook an egg’?”\r\nSam snorted, “Kinda defeats the purpose. You can cook an egg a hundred different ways but you can only skin a-“\r\n“Cut that shit out. I get it.”\r\nJust then a soft meowing came from Sam’s right as Derrick’s cat jumped beside him, lips pursed expectantly. He stared at her apathetically, picturing how many ways he’d skin her. Derrick’s oblivious as he kicked on the gaming console.\r\nDerrick spent the better part of an hour trying to pass the level he was stuck on. After his hundredth failed attempt, Sam watching in barely veiled disinterest, he tossed the controller in a huff.\r\nThe only thing Sam could focus on was the napping cat. While others would’ve been endeared, he wondered what-\r\n“Sam! If you’re bored bro just say it.”\r\n“It’s not that D. I think I’m just spent from work.”\r\n“Crash here then. Not a big deal.”\r\nSam agreed, though he didnt really want to.\r\nSam woke in the middle of the night startled. The hair standing on the back of his neck told him something was watching. As his eyes adjusted, the faintest glow of eyes peered at him across the living room.\r\n“Wh-what the fuck?”\r\nThe sound of a squeaking meow made the tension in his body drain instantly. “Don’t you have something to piss on? Leave me alone.” Sam scrubbed his face with a hand, he wanted to put her with the others under his deck.\r\nBefore he could fall back asleep though, something shifted. The darkness seemed to move like water.\r\nFrozen in fear, Sam lay motionless as it came face to face with him. Up close the yellow of its eyes hypnotized.\r\nSam didn’t know how long they stayed like that before a voice filled his head.\r\nYou are the killer.\r\nI’ve never killed anyone!\r\nYou have taken lives that didn’t belong to you.\r\nWhat do you mean?\r\nI have heard their pleas for mercy. They cry in the night for me. The voiceless will speak through my body.\r\nA primal fear seized Sam as the creature climbed on top of him, hot breath bellowing in his face. It laid on top of him and pressed down farther than possible. White hot pain consumed Sam until he became all and nothing.\r\nThe next thing Sam knew he was waking up on cold, wet pavement. He could hear water dripping as his eyes adjusted to the dimly lit alley. His body hurt. His brain hurt. A whisper carried on the wind.\r\nYou will live as they lived. You will survive as they survived.\r\nA low growl sounded from behind him, Sam turned his head to see a towering dog. Teeth bared as it licked its jowls.\r\nYou will fear as they’ve feared.\r\nGetting up, the fur raised along his spine, Sam began to run."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "Failure to Thrive"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "Just three words, but that was all it took to effectively crush my heart.\r\nLittle baby Franklin wasn’t hitting his developmental milestones, staying skinny and frail, not even wanting to interact with his mommy.\r\nIt was hard to explain to Ellie. She was only five.\r\n“Frankie’s so tiny,” she said, staring as I fed him his bottle.\r\n“He’s having trouble growing,” my husband told her. George had a way with words and a gentle manner that I often struggled to attain. “He is pretty tiny right now. But if we pray really hard, maybe a miracle will happen.”\r\nEvery day, I got more and more worried about Franklin. We were lucky to be able to avoid a feeding tube. Thank God he drank his bottles, but it would eventually reach a point where that wasn’t enough to sustain him, and what would we do then? He was barely surviving as it was.\r\nI never believed in that prayer stuff, but it seemed to comfort George and give Ellie hope. I only wished it would do the same for me.\r\n“Mommy.”\r\nI opened my eyes just a crack. Just enough. Light filtered in through the curtains; the clock on my nightstand flashed 3:10. “Go back to sleep, Ellie Belly.”\r\nEllie made no move to leave. “My prayers worked!”\r\n“What?” I sat up. George still slumbered next to me. The man could sleep through anything.\r\n“My prayers for Frankie worked, Mommy. He’s gonna grow now!”\r\n“That’s nice, sweetie.” My eyelids felt like they were being weighted shut.\r\nEllie grinned. “I found the magic pixie dust. It’s special growing dust. Frankie’s gonna get so big!”\r\nKids. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that there was no amount of prayers or pixie dust that could help her baby brother. “Please go back to sleep, honey,” I said with a yawn.\r\nEllie turned on the lamp. I noticed the empty bottle she held in one hand, milk remnants sloshing around at the bottom. “He didn’t want to drink it, but I told him it was for his own goods, like you tell me when I have to take my medicine.”\r\n“Ellie?” My stomach grew suddenly, frighteningly, cold. “How did you mix up the formula all by yourself?” I was out of bed and stumbling to the door before I finished the sentence.\r\n“I couldn’t reach. I got milk from the fridge and the magic pixie dust was under the sink. God put it there!”\r\nI made it to Frankie’s room on numb legs and threw open the door.\r\nOn the floor was a jug of milk and small green and yellow cardboard box, blue crystals spilling from it. I felt every ounce of blood drain from my body.\r\nMiracle-Gro.\r\nIn the bassinet, Frankie lay. Still. Too still even for him.\r\n“We got a miracle, Mommy!” Ellie exclaimed. “He’s gonna grow!”"
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "There are worse ways to die."
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "Sadie Bell drowned off the coast of Cocoa Beach.\r\nIt was the talk of the entire senior class. They had a memorial service and everything.\r\nSo you can imagine my surprise when she texted me asking to meet her at the Sunrise Diner.\r\n“That bitch Tracy did it. She’s always been jealous of me, ever since kindergarten.”\r\nSadie looked pale with sunken eyes. She had to hold onto a mug of hot coffee to keep her hands from shaking.\r\n“Did what?” I asked.\r\n“She must have hit me in the head because I don’t remember drowning… I just remember waking up.”\r\nSadie ripped open a packet of sugar to pour in her coffee. Most of it ended up on the table.\r\n“It wasn’t Heaven or Hell, but somewhere worse,” Sadie said, “like being inside an open wound. There was a man there with three eyes. He said he would bring me back to life. All I had to do was kill Tracy, but there was a catch.”\r\n“What?” I asked.\r\n“Her death had to be worse.”\r\n“Jesus,” I said, “Sadie, you didn’t?”\r\n“I stabbed her while she was walking home from work. My death was painless. I figured that was worse. How was I supposed to know?”\r\n“Know what?” I asked.\r\n“That he would make the same offer to her.”\r\nSadie took a sip of her coffee. It was still steaming hot, but she didn’t flinch.\r\n“She shot me in the stomach outside my Aunt’s,” Sadie sighed, “I died, and got offered the deal again. I could live if she died, but it had to be worse. We’ve been at it for weeks now. I ran her over, then she poisoned me, then I electrocuted her, then she skinned me alive. I can’t take much more…”\r\nSuddenly, I knew why Sadie was telling me all this. I had been waiting my whole life for a moment to prove myself to her.\r\n“Let me make a phone call,” I said, excusing myself.\r\nI dialed Tracy. She picked up on the first ring but didn’t say anything.\r\n“Hey, Tracy,” I said, “I’ve heard about the game you’re playing with Sadie. Next time you die, stay dead, or I’ll make sure everyone knows you’re the one who killed her.”\r\nTracy hung up.\r\n“I took care of it,” I said, sitting back down. I reached for Sadie’s hands, but she pulled away.\r\n“Thanks,” she cried, standing up to leave, “I’ll never forget this.”\r\nThree days later, I woke up with a noose around my neck.\r\n“That little bitch finally gave up,” Tracy grunted, “you’re the only one who can prove I killed her.”\r\nShe was gonna kill me and make it look like a suicide.\r\nAt least I get to be with Sadie, was my final thought.\r\nBut then I woke up.\r\n“Strangulation? Not a nice way to die.”\r\nThree eyes were staring right into my soul.\r\n“I can think of worse,” I said.\r\n“Oh goodie, I was hoping you’d want to play.”"
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "With Regard to Mr. Hawk"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "The grip-tape felt familiarly faded.\r\nHis feet felt pre-pubescent and small, angled in the proximity of a shell-toed sneaker.\r\nThe same kind of shoe he used to skate with.\r\nThe smell, familiar, too: dirt, steel, the stench of a summer sweat.\r\nThe surrounding phantasmal hellscape was bitingly cold: an effect of the ambient temperature, or perhaps, the great altitude.\r\nFar and wide below, the ghosts of the old neighborhood buildings and cars passing by shimmered like photographs mid-development, lavender-tinged and mostly transparent.\r\nAudible were distorted echoes like acoustic fun-house mirrors, elongating or accelerating the sounds of car horns, children’s laughter, boards on rails and the whirring of bike chains.\r\n35 years later, and still it looked the same.\r\nALMOST the same…\r\nThe screwdriver drove again into his back.\r\n“Go on.” Blake said, hollow.\r\nDwayne looked over his shoulder.\r\nHis brother also looked nearly the same: 14 years old, unstrapped helmet at an odd angle, knee-pads over faded jeans, a dirty white tee two sizes too big…\r\nOnly now, Blake had that same purple polychrome all over his body. He had ram’s horns which threatened to tilt the helmet off his head. He had lupine fangs, and pitch black eyes that were portals into an abyss Dwayne couldn’t stare into for long.\r\n“Go ON…”\r\nDwayne shuddered.\r\n“Look, I’m sorry, Blake. My whole LIFE I’ve been…but why now? Why at all? It’s been three and a half decades…”\r\n“For you, maybe.” Blake answered, bitter flames crackling in his throat. “It’s been longer for me. FAR longer. Now, GO…”\r\nDwayne sobbed.\r\nThree and a half decades since he had angled a board over the drop of a half-pipe.\r\nThe one before him was nightmarishly steep: taller than a skyscraper, the descent so lengthy that the bottom-most section of the curve red-shifted into near invisibility.\r\n“Don’t worry.” Blake growled. “You’ll have the same chances I did. Even I can’t change that.”\r\nStrangely, that stilled, at least partially, the panicking in Dwayne’s heart.\r\n“Okay…” Dwayne accepted, wiping off his face, and he geared himself up for the ride of a lifetime.\r\n…\r\nDwayne’s older brother Blake was cool.\r\nDwayne was not.\r\nEverybody, even Dwayne’s friends, would flock alongside his brother at the skate park, since Blake was good on a skateboard, and could do tricks Dwayne wasn’t big enough to perform yet.\r\nBlake could hang over the half-pipe, whizz down, and perform real skating magic.\r\nEach time, the crowd went wild.\r\nDwayne was tired of his brother getting all the attention.\r\nDwayne took the screwdriver and loosened the front truck of Blake’s board, his brother busy getting a drink.\r\nMaybe, after all this was done, wearing a cast might convince Blake not to take up skating again.\r\nKnowing stupid Blake, he’d probably relish collecting signatures from everyone…\r\nIn fact, Blake was at the water fountain now, just in the middle of telling everyone that his next trick was going to be unforgettable.\r\nIn his heart of hearts, Dwayne hoped it would be.\r\nHe really did."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "I’ve tried keeping it to myself."
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "For weeks, I didn’t talk to anyone. I turned my phone off. I stopped going online. I avoided eye contact in the grocery store, like it might leak out through my pupils.\r\nBut it didn’t matter.\r\nEven silence makes echoes.\r\nI think the thought leaks when I remember it too hard.\r\nWhen I hold it back with my tongue, just aching to be let free in spoken perfect curses.\r\nIt builds pressure. Like my insides are expanding against each other without my body getting bigger. Like my bones are thickening with something that doesn’t belong to them. Pressing against my enlarging organs that fight each other for room, being scared of being punctured by my ribs.\r\nAnd then someone near me, someone that I love with all my heart, starts humming a rhythm I only thought of. Or they say something I’ve never said out loud, but they use the same, exact inflection I did when I thought it.\r\nAnd I know.\r\nI’m going to say it again soon.\r\nI don’t want to.\r\nIt’s the only thing I am truly ashamed of.\r\nNot because of what it does, but because of how it feels to let it go.\r\nThe relief. The exquisite silence that comes after speaking it.\r\nLike scratching your brain with your consciousness.\r\nLike exhaling after holding your breath through your own eulogy.\r\nThey never scream.\r\nThey just go still.\r\nThe first time I knew for sure was with my boyfriend, Daniel.\r\nHe was always humming, always tapping his fingers on surfaces like they were little drums only he could hear. It used to drive me crazy.\r\nBut one day, he started keeping time with me.\r\nI hadn’t realized I had a rhythm. But he matched it.\r\nThen I started finishing his sentences. As if I had spoken first.\r\nThat’s when I started sleeping on the floor.\r\nFarther away.\r\nLike maybe space mattered.\r\nWe stopped talking.\r\nDidn’t have to.\r\nWe had the same rhythm. The same urges.\r\nThe same feelings from our dreams.\r\nUntil one day, there wasn’t.\r\nI had to go find him.\r\nThere was no anything.\r\nI felt lost.\r\nI ran.\r\nFast.\r\nWhere is he? Where is he? Where is he?\r\nI finally found him waiting, terrified at his door that I just opened.\r\n“We only remember everything,” he says.\r\n“At the end of the sentence.” I finish."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "Four Minutes to Boil an Egg"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "They say it takes four minutes to boil an egg. I say that’s a lie.\r\nI time everything. I have since I was ten. That was the year I learned how long it takes for something to stop moving after it’s supposed to be dead. A squirrel—first one—twitched for forty-three seconds. I wrote it down.\r\nYou’d be surprised how long forty-three seconds can stretch.\r\nThey talk a lot about motive. About childhood. About wiring. I think they just don’t like the silence that comes when a thing just is. Like the smell of bleach under your fingernails. Like the feel of fingernails scraping your palm when someone grabs your hand too hard before they realize you’re not going to scream.\r\nThere’s a rhythm to it, you know? Patterns. Little repetitions, like a song only I can hear. That’s how I picked Michael. Bus stop, same time every day. Always picked his teeth with the corner of his bus pass. I watched him for twelve days.\r\nThe thirteenth day was a Friday.\r\nHe asked if I was lost. I said yes. It felt true. He walked me to the alley behind the diner like he’d done it before. Like he thought he was the danger.\r\nHe didn’t even see the bone saw. That’s the thing about people—they see what they want to see.\r\nYou think this is about pain. Or rage. It’s not. It’s about control. Michael lasted seven minutes and thirty-nine seconds. That’s longer than the others. Longer than the egg.\r\nThey never scream as much as you think they will. It’s like they save it, like it matters how you spend your final breath. I collect those sounds. I file them, alphabetically. Michael’s scream sounded like someone sucking in a noodle too fast. Sharp. Sudden. Cut off.\r\nI left him in pieces. Not for shock. For symmetry. An arm for each corner of the square. His shoes, together, under the dumpster. I’m not a monster. Shoes deserve to stay together.\r\nYou’re wondering why I’m telling you this. You think I’m going to confess. Break. Cry.\r\nBut I’m only talking because I like the look in your eyes. The flickering little fire when you think you’re safe. That moment just before your brain believes what your ears already heard.\r\nThree minutes, forty-seven seconds. That’s how long you’ve been listening.\r\nBoiling now."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "I want to play again"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "Humans are fascinating beings,intelligent and yet so fragile,vibrant spirits limited by the weakness of their physical form.\r\nI always admired the fact that it took so much to break them mentally, I've seen some humans recover and thrive after losing their entire family. Tormenting their soul is hardly a guarantee that you will destroy them. It took me a lot of trial and error to find the perfect modus operandi, but once I did, I managed to take 500 000 souls over the course of just four decades.\r\nMany demons of my kind are content with messing with their victims' sleep, and admittedly the results are interesting, mortals can be driven to madness if they stay awake for a few days in a row, it can be delightful to see their personality fade, gentle people becoming prone to irritability and agression, their bodies more susceptible to infection and injury, messing with their sleep is a good strategy but I added my own twist to the usual way to proceed.\r\nI decided that rather than depriving them of sleep, I would make it impossible for them to stay awake. In 1917, I claimed my first victim, he slept for months before his last breath.\r\nI sat and watched as thousands of others suffered the same fate, as hundreds of doctors tried to find an explanation for what was happening, but they could only come up with a name.\r\nI allowed some people to wake up and survive, and was overjoyed to find that they were forever changed, it seems that the human mind can no longer endure the stimuli of normal life after years of slumber.\r\nAnd then, I gradually stopped. It's been a century since the worst part of the \"epidemic of encephalitis lethargica\" has come to an end, and now I want to play again."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "I'm cursed to kill my lovers."
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "When I was eight, I fell in love with a butterfly I named Aris.\r\nHe was beautiful. Glass wings resembling paper.\r\nI fell in love with Aris’s wings, how safe I felt with him dancing across my nose, and his ability to listen.\r\nI felt something I had never felt before, a gut-churning feeling.\r\nPop!\r\nAris was gone, exploding into nothing, into reddish slime dripping from my nose.\r\nI buried what was left of him. Just a single glass wing.\r\nI thought butterfly life spans were short.\r\nBut then, at sixteen, I found Sabrina.\r\nDuring a movie, I leaned forward to kiss her, nervous, my stomach churning, before a pop!\r\nThis time, I felt her all over my face.\r\nScarlet and sticky nothing, coating my eyes.\r\nSabrina’s death was ruled an accident.\r\nBut was Jessica a freak accident?\r\nEli?\r\nAnnabeth?\r\nLily?\r\nNathan?\r\nI started college, falling for Wendy, waking up with her blood blinding me, painting the sheets in a vivid scarlet tsunami. Then came Alex.\r\nThe asshole barista who purposely spelled my name wrong with a smirk.\r\nHe asked for my number.\r\nI ignored him.\r\nAlex leaned across the counter one day, gently grabbed my face, and said, “What will it take for you to go out with me?”\r\nI wasn't a fan of Alex, and definitely not in love with him. But I did feel the slightest… flutter.\r\nHe was safe, I told myself, my cheeks burning under his fingertips.\r\nHe was… a crush.\r\nBut my chest was aching. My stomach was twisting.\r\nI was sure when I kissed him he would be safe.\r\nSo, I let him cradle my face and bring me closer. I let his lips find mine. And for a moment, it felt like fireworks. I was happy and so in love with him, I didn't care.\r\nBut when I pulled him closer, there it was. Slight heat, followed by a shiver down my spine. Pop!.\r\nI barely saw his eyes widen, lips parting.\r\nIn a split second, I was covered in Alex.\r\nHis smile was glued to me. His warm eyes. His stupid fucking laugh.\r\nI was numb.\r\nStaring at the scarlet puddle where he was sitting.\r\nNumbness became confusion, however, when the seeping red began to piece itself back together, and I saw faces.\r\nSabrina.\r\nNathan.\r\nJessica.\r\nLily.\r\nEli.\r\nAnnabeth.\r\nWendy.\r\nAlex.\r\nFinally, tiny glass paper wings, bleeding from shattered fragments.\r\nAris.\r\nHis new face was that of another boy, confused, blinking rapidly.\r\nBut I reached forward and grabbed his, her, their, Aris, and kissed him.\r\nI felt him come apart once more, then back together.\r\nAnother face. Eyes widening. Lips parting. Hollow. Crying out to me.\r\nBut I didn't let go.\r\nWhen Aris tried to pull away, choking on their rewriting blood, bound to me, body, mind, and soul, I clung to him, pulling him closer.\r\nI wasn't cursed to kill the ones I fell in love with.\r\nThey were cursed to fall for me.\r\nForever.\r\nMaybe that was okay."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "Something's happening to my exes"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "The Uber was already waiting when I opened Kat's message. We used to share a dorm room back in college.\r\nkat: just heard aaron died last night.\r\nThat shocked me. Aaron was my college boyfriend. We spent two years together.\r\nme: omg!! How did it happen?\r\nkat: I heard it was suicide\r\nme: no way\r\nkat: weird, right? he was such a fun guy\r\nI climbed into the car and immediately opened Aaron's Facebook. There were so many old photos of us. Young, smiling, dumb. I couldn’t imagine him doing that.\r\nMy scrolling led to a rabbit hole. I ended up on my own feed, years back. In one photo, I saw myself with Joshua, my high school ex. A true jerk.\r\nOut of curiosity, I searched him.\r\nAnd his profile picture was black. In his tagged photos, a funeral. His funeral. One week ago.\r\nMy mom knew his family, so I texted her.\r\nme: jesus… how did it happen?\r\nmom: it was a suicide honey\r\nMy head was spinning. Two exes dead in the same week? What were the odds?\r\n“We’re here,” the driver said, waking me up.\r\nI stepped out of the car and went inside, where my date sat with a glass of wine in hand. This was our third.\r\nHe asked about appetizers and I nodded, barely listening.\r\nBecause something had crossed my mind.\r\nTim.\r\nMy last and longest relationship. We broke up three months ago.\r\nBut I'd feel stupid just calling him out of the blue, so I texted his sister.\r\nAs soon as I did, she called back. I excused myself and headed to the bathroom to pick it up.\r\n“Thank God you texted,” she said. “Tim’s missing. We’ve been trying to find him all day.”\r\nThose words hit me like a truck, and I promised I would reach out to our mutual friends to find him.\r\nI walked back to the table decided to get home and help her.\r\n“I’m sorry,” I said, grabbing my purse. “Work emergency.”\r\nBut before I got up, he grabbed my wrist.\r\n“You don't have to worry about Tim.”\r\nMy blood ran cold.\r\n“What do you mean?”\r\nHe smiled. “Just don't worry about him. You are perfect now.”\r\nMy eyes widened.\r\n“Did you do something to Joshua and Aaron?”\r\n“I did what I had to do to make you perfect.”\r\n“I don't... understand.”\r\nHe sipped his wine. “After our first date, I knew you could be the one. But your history… all those exes. That was hard to accept.”\r\nEvery inch of my being told me to run, but I wanted to help Tim.\r\n“Please, don't hurt him.”\r\n“I told you not to worry,” his smile grew wider. “I already took care of him before I got here.”\r\nMy hands flew to my mouth, stunned.\r\nThat’s when he stood up, knelt down, and pulled out a ring from his pocket.\r\n“Now that you're perfect,” his voice soft. “will you marry me?”"
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "First one to fall asleep dies."
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "“Sorry I’m late, sluts!” Becca shimmied through the front door of my apartment, thirty minutes late, with a bottle of pinot in each hand.\r\nWhich, if you knew her, was so very Becca. She used to be the life of the party.\r\n“We were wondering if you were gonna flake,” said Abby, searching for a corkscrew.\r\n“But in a nice way,” I added, “like a ‘my kids need me’ sort of way.”\r\n“I love my children, but even I need a break from them every now and then,” Becca groaned.\r\n“Can you believe we’re back together,” I asked, “do you remember what we used to call ourselves?”\r\n“The Moon Sisters!” Abby exclaimed.\r\n“Oh god,” Becca said, “we used to be so cringe.”\r\nAbby, having finally found a corkscrew, walked back to the living room.\r\n“Donna,” she said to me, “you don’t have any wine glasses?”\r\n“Normally, I drink from the bottle,” I shrugged, “I have red solo cups in the cupboard.”\r\n“Trashy,” said Becca, “I like it. Let’s get this party started!”\r\n“Aren’t we forgetting something,” I asked, holding out my hands.\r\nBecca and Abby sighed, but then we all held hands and formed a circle.\r\nIt wasn’t a “real” sleepover unless we did our ritual.\r\n“We gather as friends and make this vow,” I said.\r\n“With the moon as our witness,” Abby said.\r\n“The first of us to fall asleep will die,” said Becca, “now let's drink!”\r\nBefore long it was like we were back in high school. Gossiping, laughing, complaining about everything.\r\nBecca had a loving husband and four kids. She quit her job to be a stay-at-home mom, and though she loved her family, most days she wanted to pull her hair out.\r\nAbby was twice divorced with a new boyfriend about to be husband number three. “Third time’s the charm,” she kept hiccupping between sips of wine.\r\nI was single, unemployed, and lonelier than I had ever been. That’s why I asked everybody back for a sleepover. Our lives had split in opposite directions since high school and I wanted to remember what it felt like to be young.\r\nWe drank, ordered pizza, and watched scary movies until the inevitable happened.\r\n“Psst, I think Abby is asleep,” Becca whispered.\r\n“You know what we have to do,” I responded.\r\nThe two of us grabbed butcher knives from the kitchen.\r\n“Okay,” Becca said, “let’s kill her!”\r\nWe stabbed Abby over and over until we were covered in blood.\r\nShe screamed at first, but quickly died.\r\nWe threw the knives in the sink, a problem for tomorrow, and went to sleep.\r\nIn the morning, she was perfectly fine, same as always.\r\n“I can’t believe it was me,” Abby said, “I never fall asleep first!”\r\n“I should probably get home,” Becca sighed, “the kids will start worrying.”\r\nAbby agreed, but I stopped them before they could go.\r\n“We should do this again,” I blurted.\r\nThe three of us looked at each other, smiled, and agreed to meet up next month."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "Welcome To Bunker 18"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "\"Keep up, folks! Let’s not dawdle!”\r\nThere was a sudden hiss from the ceiling. My shoes were still wet. Ash mixed with blood, I think. Someone behind me coughed.\r\nClaire, or so her name-tag said, walked backwards, clipboard in hand, grinning like a camp counselor. “Right, so, good news! You made it! That’s the hard part done! Right?”\r\nNo one responded. Someone coughed again.\r\nA man with burnt clothing limped beside me. \"What is this place?”\r\n\"I don't know, but-...\"\r\n“Quiet,” someone else muttered. “Just keep walking.”\r\n\"This is the main hallway,\" Claire gestured.\r\nFirst room. Glass walls. Two people in yellow-suits leaned over a body.\r\nOne held a scalpel. The other had pliers. The chest was open. The one with the scalpel waved at us.\r\n“Don’t mind that,” Claire chirped, waving back. “Just medical assessments. Routine stuff.”\r\nA woman behind me gasped as she moved between the group for a better view.\r\nNext room...\r\nA girl. About nine or ten. Standing barefoot in a puddle of her own piss. Staring. Mouth twitching.\r\n\"She’s, uh-...just decompressing,” Claire said nervously. “Bit of post-surface shock. Totally expected. Anyway, let's get everyone some new clothes, yes?”\r\nAgain, no one answered, but we all still followed.\r\nThird room...\r\nRows of bassinets.\r\nNot babies.\r\nNot anything, really.\r\nLumps of skin. Twitching. One looked half-melted. Another had eyes like liquid mirrors.\r\nClaire’s voice cracked slightly. “Oh. Urm. Yeah, don’t worry about those. They’re working on-...them. Alright, moving on!”\r\nWe walked faster.\r\nAnother room...\r\nA man in a chair.\r\nMouth open. Feeding tube down his throat. He dribbled and clapped when he saw us.\r\n\"Hydration therapy,” Claire said, her smile flickering. \"Totally safe!”\r\nI stopped suddenly and shook my head. “Excuse me, but-...What the fuck is this place?\"\r\nShe stopped. Held her position for a few seconds, then turned on her heels to face the group.\r\n“You’re alive, aren't you?” she snapped.\r\nI didn't respond.\r\nAhead of us was a half broken sign::\r\nWelcome To Bunker-18. Thank-You For...\r\nAnd the rest was missing.\r\nWe entered what seemed like our new sleeping quarters. Staff members lined the walls.\r\nClaire beamed, clapping her hands as she came to a stop. \"So, you all made it! Completely unharmed! And what does that mean? Hm?...It means that you’re all useful! So, so useful!\"\r\nThe woman to my right lightly swayed as drool leaked from her open mouth.\r\n\"If all of you could take these, we'll begin assigning posts.\"\r\nNo one resisted when the men surrounded us, handing us clothes, toothbrushes and other items. We stood there like surprised zombies, holding our hands out.\r\n\"Everything here has a purpose. You will be fed, monitored and used properly. We’re rebuilding, after all.”\r\nThe man beside me wouldn't stop coughing now. He collapsed to the floor.\r\n“Used?!\" I screamed. \"For what?!” A terrible tickle in my lungs suddenly appeared and the urge to cough started to rise.\r\nClaire just smiled. Wider than before.\r\n“Welcome to Bunker-18. Thank-you for surviving. We'll take it from here.”"
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "It Sang Me to Sleep."
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "During my first year in college, I started being haunted by what seemed as a vivid, recurring dream..\r\nI’m just glad to still be alive.\r\nThe pattern that formed quickly was this.\r\nOnce a month, my dream would begin with me sitting up in bed.\r\nHow it started never changed.\r\nThere was always a putrid stench that lurked in the air, and at times, it came worse than others.\r\nMy room would be pitch black, except for the veil of moonlight gifting selective vision.\r\nAnd always, at the foot of my bed,\r\nwas the marionette.\r\nWith eyes that were dead and hollow, locked onto mine with a quiet intensity.\r\nIt stood on its own.\r\nShoulders rising and falling, breathing deeply.\r\nSomehow, as if words had already been spoken, I always knew what it had come for.\r\nWhat the marionette wanted.\r\nWas to ease me back to sleep.\r\nIt would begin by prancing slowly and softly up my body, gracefully,\r\nIts delicate wooden limbs clacking together ever so gently.\r\nIt took its time. And as it did\r\nI would lean back into my bed, noticing that the putrid smell would worsen.\r\nWhenever I moved during those nights, existence felt as if I were submerged in water. Every muscle strained with the smallest of actions.\r\nA fog enveloped my brain.\r\nHalfway through its frolicking routine was when it began to coo its lullaby.\r\nFor whatever reason, even though its voice was deep and raspy, my eyelids would close, and I’d drift off into morning.\r\nIt wasn’t until that last night-\r\nthe night we called the police, almost two years after my monthly visits began-\r\nHearing a loud thud, my roommate opened my bedroom door,\r\nInstantly illuminating the room.\r\nRevealing the silhouette of what had truly come to visit me all those nights.\r\nIf only i was just dreaming."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "Waking to a cracked motel door"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "Id already had an extra long week by the time I made it to Page, Arizona. I’d always wanted to visit Antelope Canyon and since I was already there for work, I decided now was the time.\r\nI’d put in close to 700 miles for my company by the time that week ended… which means I was beat.\r\nThe old vintage motel sign beckoned me. It was the kind of motel you pull your car right up to the door. I’d already been in four states so it fit.\r\nSleep beckoned. I’d consider life after I woke up.\r\nI lay in bed in that state between dreaming and waking. A colorful assortment of people seemed to have assembled outside my room. A taco stand had pulled into the parking lot.\r\nI started to get an appetite so I picked up the dingy phone to call the front desk to inquire about breakfast.\r\nI fell asleep after this but a few moments later someone knocked the door. I could hear pacing back and forth then their eye trying to look in the peephole.\r\nFootsteps ran towards the lobby, but I slept easily.\r\nI woke up about an hour later realizing the door had been cracked open about a quarter of an inch while I was sleeping, and as my eyes adjusted to the sliver of light in the room, I noticed a lady clung tightly behind the door. She was in the shadows but I could make out her dark outline. Suddenly, as if saw something I shouldn't have, she was gone.\r\nI stumbled my club feet to the door and locked it. My head was leaden. I’d deal with this in the morning.\r\n\"Phantasma,” someone yelled down the hallway in Spanish, screaming. I looked out to see someone running towards the motel lobby with their bedsheet flying behind them.\r\n\"What’s the matter? Are you okay? It was the front desk calling.\r\nMy groggy mind was now starting to register the levity of the situation.\r\n\"There is a lady here at the desk now. She thinks someone is in your room,” the man at the desk said frantically.\r\nMy eyes shot around the room. I reached for the knife in my cargo pants. I looked behind the curtains, behind the beds, in the shower and even in the TV cabinet. There was nothing there.\r\n“Seems empty,” I said to the phone, realizing the motel manager was now at my door.\r\nWe checked under the bed and he asked me to check on my wallet but everything was fine.\r\nAfter finding nobody, he assured me I could call the front desk at any time.\r\nAs he left, he told me of something. “I peaked in here once to check on the maid. A tall shadow was standing behind the door… sure you don’t want another room,” he asked.\r\nI declined. I still pass it occasionally and say, \"Mother of Phantasmas! You got me.”"
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "Say Hi To Mr. Tuttles"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "A cartoon clown was waving and smiling under the \"Say Hi To Mr. Tuttles\" caption. My friend and I exchanged glances. It wasn't unusual for our apartments to put up posters of events going on in town, but this poster didn't seem to have any information about where this event or show was happening.\r\n\"Do you think they forgot to tell us how to get tickets? Not that I'd want to.\" Tony laughed at the poster, \"God look at the clown's outfit and makeup, it's so ridiculous.\".\r\nI looked at the clown seemingly smiling so much he was in pain. \"I don't know, I'd be up to see Mr. Tuttles if they had any details, my guess is it's an ironic thing - it's probably dark humor. Maybe it's a pop-up we'll see randomly?\"\r\nTony shrugged, \"Maybe\".\r\nWe live in a town about 40 minutes outside of Seattle, and the town has all kinds of eclectic and weird pop-ups, walking through our quaint little 'downtown' you never know what you're going to find. We left the poster behind and went about our day. Tony worked in the next town over, so I left him at the bus stop, and I headed to my job in a real-estate office in our tiny downtown.\r\nI didn't think much more of it until I got home that night.\r\nWhen I got home I saw a piece of paper under my door. When I opened my door I picked up the folded paper and had a look. It was another poster for Mr. Tuttles, but this one was different.\r\nThe clown was leaning against a chair, still smiling, with a sharper edge like he had gotten away with something. My blood chilled when I saw that in the chair sat a cartoony depiction of Tony, tied up, gagged, and with bruises.\r\nBelow the picture was a handwritten note: \"Mr. Tuttles Doesn't Appreciate Being Laughed At, Only With!\"\r\nI tried to call Tony and couldn't get through. I called the police, and they took a report and said they are not aware of anyone named \"Mr. Tuttles.\" They couldn't find Tony at his apartment or his work, nor at any of his usual haunts. They told me they'd look for him, but thought that maybe it was just Tony pranking me. I wasn't so sure.\r\nAs worried as I am, that's not what brought me to post here. It's what I found this morning.\r\nWhen I was leaving for work today, I found a poster on the inside of my door. The poster had \"Say Hi To Mr. Tuttles\" at the top, just like the other posters. Below the title was a cartoon clown winking as he chased a pig with a human face. It took me only a moment to recognize it.\r\nIt was my face.\r\nAt the bottom of the poster was a handwritten note: \"Mr. Tuttles hates squealers - he'll be saying hi to you real soon!\""
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "I need to lose weight"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "She used to be very thin,\r\nbut at some point, she started gaining weight.\r\nHowever, she couldn’t stop eating.\r\nAnd when she could no longer see her old self in the mirror,\r\nshe made up her mind:\r\n“I need to lose weight!”\r\nBut no matter how much grass she ate, no matter how much she exercised,\r\nshe didn’t lose weight as much as she expected.\r\nAt some point, the number on the scale simply stopped changing.\r\nShe began to get angrier and angrier.\r\n“I’ve given up all the delicious food,\r\nI’ve given up the comfortable life,\r\nI’ve been sticking to my diet and exercising —\r\nthen why!! why am I not losing any weight!!”\r\nOne day, after days of restraint,\r\nthe craving for food became unbearable.\r\nShe thought,\r\n“I’ll just have one bite,”\r\nand started eating.\r\nBut when she came back to her senses,\r\nit wasn’t just one bite — she had eaten everything.\r\nImmediately, she rushed to the scale,\r\nand fell into despair.\r\nShe was back to her old weight.\r\n“All of this was worthless!!!”\r\nshe screamed,\r\nand returned to her old lifestyle.\r\nLater, she thought:\r\n“If I could molt like an insect,\r\nmaybe I could shed all this disgusting fat,\r\nand be reborn as my old self again.”\r\nWithout hesitation,\r\nshe began to act on that idea.\r\nShe used tools to slowly peel from her toes, bit by bit.\r\nNot even the pain could stop her.\r\nAt the end of her agony,\r\nbarely holding onto her fading consciousness,\r\nshe stood before a mirror.\r\nFinally,\r\nshe had shed every layer of flesh.\r\nShe said,\r\n“Ah… right, this is the real me…”\r\nAnd with those words, she collapsed.\r\nFrom the next day,\r\nher neighbor began to smell something rotten."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "I REALLY don't want to graduate."
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "Our third-period math class was famous, or… infamous, for chasing away substitutes.\r\nTen subs had walked out.\r\nThree had mental breakdowns.\r\nOne included us in her you-know-what note.\r\nWhen the new sub walked in, a tuna sandwich smacked her in the head.\r\nThe worst thing a sub can do is react to a group of sixteen-year-old bullies.\r\nI expected Mrs Jones to start screaming like the others.\r\nInstead, she picked it up and lobbed it back at us.\r\n“Hey!” Luke, my seatmate, yelled. “Dude, she can't just do that!”\r\n“Sit down, please.”\r\nI held my breath.\r\nWe didn’t like being told what to do.\r\nIn response, the sub received a whirlwind of textbooks to the face.\r\nBut she wasn't fazed.\r\n“Here's what's going to happen,” she said. “I've been told due to your… situation, I can't treat you like my usual clients. What I can do, if you misbehave, is remind you why you're here.”\r\n“Fuck off.” Charlie Sutton said from the front. The mastermind of the bullying, and our unofficial leader.\r\n“You don't get to tell us what to do. You're a teacher.” He leaned back in his chair, smirking. “So, teach us.”\r\nMrs Jones surprised me with a smile with too many teeth.\r\n“If you insist.”\r\nI noticed the temperature drop significantly. I opened my mouth to speak, but I couldn’t move. The classroom was suddenly pitch black.\r\nSilent.\r\nShadows occupied each desk, but every one of them was still, broken, unmoving. I was slumped in my chair, red seeping and dripping from my desk.\r\nI was bleeding out, my sobs wracking my chest, my eyes flickering. “Bee?”\r\nA voice startled me.\r\nLuke was still alive. Barely.\r\nDraped over his desk.\r\nI dropped to the floor, crawling toward him.\r\nA leather shoe stamped on my hand.\r\nI shuffled backward, but his hand was already in my hair, yanking me to my feet, and— and…\r\nAnd I died on the floor.\r\nI died trying to reach Luke’s hand.\r\nI died with him looming over me.\r\nI wasn’t aware I was screaming until my cry echoed in my skull.\r\n“You were on the news, you know,” Mrs. Jones’ voice was soft. Gentle.\r\nAnd yet she was hurting us. Dragging us back into the agony we fought to forget.\r\n“Thirteen high schoolers were brutally murdered by their own teacher,” she murmured. “Lured into their classroom, and slaughtered.”\r\nMrs Jones clapped her hands, and I blinked, back in the present. The entire class were frozen, expressions twisted.\r\n“I'm not here to hurt you,” she whispered.\r\n“You're a very special case. You have a powerful hold on this school, and this room. So, just like every child, you will graduate.” Her eyes darkened.\r\n“However. If you misbehave, I will be forced to expel you from this room. Permanently. Do you understand me?”\r\nThere was a beat of silence, before we responded.\r\nI swiped at the spots of blood on my desk, tears stinging my eyes.\r\n“Yes, Mrs. Jones.”"
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "I just wanted to be free."
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "That subtle cold... it creeps down my spine like frost beneath the skin. It’s the kind of feeling you get as a kid when you break something valuable and know you’re going to be punished—no yelling yet, just that silent, creeping dread.\r\nIt was on a quiet Sunday morning when I made a decision that could follow me for the rest of my life. Back then, I was a baker. Just another invisible cog in the machine that keeps the world turning, day after day. Honestly, I hadn’t felt real happiness in a long time. Maybe I’d been pretending everything was fine for so many years that I started to believe it myself.\r\nThat day, I just… didn’t go to work. I turned off my phone, ignored my boss’s furious calls, and decided—for once—I’d do what my gut told me. I spent the whole day doing things I loved: enjoying time with friends and family, following my instincts, and—most importantly—planning a trip.\r\nFor the first time in forever, I felt free. The next day, I packed my bags and headed for the airport. That’s when I started noticing things I hadn’t before. The woman at the security checkpoint looked tired, her expression tight and withdrawn—like mine must’ve looked the day before. I thought about comforting her… but something inside said not to. So, I moved on.\r\nOn the plane, I noticed the flight attendant’s glowing smile. She looked like she had just gotten engaged. Emotions were written all over her face—joy, excitement. I realized then how much I had missed while living like a machine. Numb. Disconnected. The kind of person who stops noticing the world.\r\nWhen we landed, I stepped into the salty coastal air and felt reborn. The past faded like a bad dream. For weeks, I forgot who I used to be.\r\nBut today is June 15th. Nearly two weeks have passed since I left everything behind. I felt a strange ache—not homesickness, exactly, but something close. So, I turned on the local news for the first time since I left.\r\nThe anchor's voice was calm, but her words chilled me to the bone.\r\nThat cold feeling returned, sharper now. Paralyzing.\r\nAnd I remembered.\r\nIf I’m being truly honest with myself…\r\nI should’ve never buried that body in the woods that night."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "He Told Me To Run"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "Mrs. Evelyn Hart\r\nProvidence, Rhode Island\r\nNovember 10th, 1944\r\nDear Evelyn,\r\nI pray this letter finds you. I don’t know if the censors will let it pass. But I have to write it. You deserve the truth, not the “official” version. The real one.\r\nWill was my brother in all but blood. You knew him as your husband. I knew him as the one person in this war who kept me sane and alive.\r\nWe were dug in on a ridge near Vossenack. Snow had fallen overnight, muffling everything like the forest was holding its breath. Our orders were to drop any Kraut moving through the valley below.\r\nWill took the shots. I called them. By midday, he’d put down six. Most were clean hits, center mass, one to the head. We whispered between shots, small talk to keep the cold and the anxiety at bay. Then the sixth one moved.\r\nI watched through the scope. The man Will had just dropped, his chest wide open, steam rising out of him, twitched. I thought it was nerves. But then he pushed himself upright. Slow. With purpose. His head hung to one side, like his neck was snapped, but he stood.\r\nWill asked what I saw. I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t breathe.\r\nThen the others began to rise.\r\nOne had a bullet through his eye. Another dragged his bowels behind him. But they moved, oh my God, they moved. Like marionettes pulled by something too far removed from this world. Their eyes… their eyes were empty. Devoid of any humanity. Any soul.\r\nI told Will what I was seeing. He thought I was losing my marbles.\r\nUntil they reached the tree line.\r\nHe worked the bolt fast, steady as always. Put one back down. Another dropped, but only for a second. They kept coming. No screams. No orders. Just the sound of boots dragging across snow and bone grinding against bone.\r\nWill didn’t flinch. He fired again. And again. Then his rifle jammed.\r\nHe looked at me and said, “Run. Now.”\r\nI refused.\r\nHe hit me hard, knocked the wind out of me, and turned to face them. Sidearm drawn. Feet planted. Like he’d already made peace with it.\r\nI ran.\r\nI found a shell hole and buried myself like a coward. I don’t know how long I stayed down there. I only know I heard his pistol fire once.\r\nWhen I came back, the ridge was quiet. No sign of the bodies. Just drag marks in the snow and Will’s helmet, caved in on one side. His rifle was gone. The snow was splashed in crimson.\r\nI don’t know where he went. Maybe they took him. Maybe he got up too. I honestly hope he's dead. It's more merciful that way. God forgive me, I don’t know what I saw. I only know he saved me, Evelyn.\r\nI’m sorry. I’m so damn sorry.\r\nYours in grief,\r\nCorporal Benjamin Cole\r\n26th Infantry Regiment\r\nUnited States Army"
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "Nobody Goes to Null"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "When I was a young boy I was provided an atlas for my 8th birthday. This ignited my fascination with geography and, as I grew older, found myself visiting all the corners of the world.\r\nEverywhere except Null.\r\nOn every map since the inception of cartography, lay the large land mass of Null. Situated in the centre of Africa, Null was a destination both mysterious and unexplorable. No footage or photographs existed of Null. If taken, the result would not develop. Sketches existed but were simply different shades of darkness. It was physically impossible to enter, a supernatural barrier rejecting any attempt at trespass.\r\nIt was during my visit to Congo that I finally saw Null. It was surrounded by a riot of charred and unearthly vegetation. The hotel in which I stayed was only a few miles away, so was fortuitous enough to be able to visit and feel Null’s perimeter. It caused me no harm - the material was like that of a ‘hard smoke’. I can only describe it as a subdued and tender pyroclastic flow.\r\nOne of the other guests was a man called Jerome Treader. He had brought with him a device. At dinner, he implored that the contraption had the ability to see inside Null.\r\n“Is there anything within Null?” I said. “I mean, I suspect that Null is simply a blot of non-existence - a patch of Earth that God has not yet finalised.”\r\nTreader snorted. “Stuff and nonsense. There's something in there and my interferometer will prove it. There is no such thing as empty space.”\r\nI enquired as to how his machine worked and he began a rather excitable tale about how it penetrated the ‘unbrilliant aether’ that guarded Null.\r\n“It will create a piercing, a pathway inside,” Tender explained arrogantly. “You may think it's blacker than a dog’s guts in there but I disagree.”\r\nAs much as the fellow niggled me I was inquisitive enough to ask of his daily attempts at breaching Null. On the morning of the third day (while I was picking at my flavourless petit déjeuner) Treader asked if I would bear witness to his experiment.\r\n“I saw in,” he whispered. “And something stared right back at me.”\r\n“A reflection surely,” I said, calling for one of the blackamoors to take my plate away. “Your machine created an effect akin to that of a mirror.”\r\nTreader pounded his fist on the table - an act that startled me. Seeing my reaction he swiftly apologised “It was no man that looked back I can tell you.”\r\nBy then I had had quite my fill of this quarrelsome fellow and conjured up a fictional appointment to excuse myself. Treader stormed off proclaiming loudly that he would prove to everyone that he would go to Null.\r\nI never saw Treader again.\r\nA search party was formed but to no avail. His interferometer was found near the barrier, utterly destroyed. Disturbingly, tourists now swear they can often hear screams from inside Null."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "How to Take Apart a Fan"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "Hello.\r\nWelcome to another episode of Mechanical Mike.\r\nAs always, if you enjoy my videos, please like and subscribe. It really helps a lot, and once I hit another milestone I'll do another subscriber meet-up.\r\nToday's episode is going to be a little different than normal, but, before we get to that, I want to pass along some personal news. As you probably know, Mrs Mechanical Mike and I have been having marital troubles, and we've actually decided to split up.\r\nBut it's OK. I'm OK.\r\nI'll still see the kids every other weekend, and this way they won't have to see us fighting.\r\nI just wanted to put that out there because I saw some speculation in the comments, and I really hate gossip, OK? I'd rather be honest with you guys.\r\nAnywho, the second piece of personal news is that I lost my job. Yeah, the factory decided to pack up and move their operations to the U.S. Sucks, but what can you do, right?\r\nSo if you didn't like and subscribe already, please do so. Every click helps!\r\nWith that out of the way, let's get our hands dirty.\r\nIn the last few episodes we learned how vacuums work and we deconstructed a coffee machine. What we're doing today is a little different. We'll be taking apart an old fan.\r\nAnd instead of doing that in my usual spot, my workshop, which I don't have access to since Mrs Mechanical Mike kicked me out, I'll be doing it on my kitchen table.\r\nI hope you guys can see.\r\nTell me in the comments if you can't and we'll figure it out.\r\nSo, as always, the first thing we want to do is look at what the fan looks like all put together. Note what parts we see and where they are. Now, I don't have a diagram for this one, but that's half the fun, really digging around and figuring it out as we go.\r\nI'm going to start by opening the body.\r\nSometimes there's a clean way to do that, but in this case we're going to have to brute force it a bit.\r\nBasically what I'm going to do is take this saw and start along here, really elbow-greasing it until I get a nice, long groove, and then I'm going to take a crowbar and really force it in there—like so, and then I'm going to press really freakin’ hard until it comes apart just like that.\r\nBoy, that is a real mess. But we'll clean up later. Right now we're going to see what makes this fan tick. Actually, let's play with the wires just a bit, connect them like so, and plug in to power—\r\nOh, wow!\r\nIt really does give you a new perspective to see it all exposed like that. A real anatomy. Here, let me wipe the camera and show you up close.\r\nThat's the heart, the lungs…\r\nHelp… me…\r\nOh, shut up. SHUT UP! SHUT THE FUCK UP!"
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "Tips to survive as a zombie."
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "Hello. If you can only read this part, you now a zombie. Too bad. Tips to survive as a zombie:\r\nGroup\r\n- Stick together with fellow zombies. Hunt as a pack. Do not walk alone, easy target. 10-20 zombies is a good amount.\r\n- If fellow zombies die, bites weak humans to turn into new zombies. Maintain your pack numbers.\r\n- Share meat with fellow zombies. Respect them and they respect you. Zombies together strong.\r\nWater\r\n- Drink clear water. Rivers, streams, lakes, rainwater is good.\r\n- Avoid nasty water. Diarrhea and vomiting will make you weak.\r\n- Fresh meat is also a good source of water.\r\nFood\r\n- Fresh humans > Fresh animals > Dead corpse > Rotten meat > Zombie meat\r\n- Avoid humans with guns or weapons. If impossible to avoid, play dead.\r\n- Avoid flies, cats, wolves, foxes, seagull, etc. They can eat your eyes and legs. No good.\r\n-------------------------------------------------------------------------\r\nNOTE: If you can also read this part, good job Dr. Mueller! The vaccine you designed and injected to yourself has worked!\r\nNow you need to deploy the vaccine to the air ASAP. There are only a few hours left. Go to the Development Center, Second hall and follow these instructions:\r\nStep 1: Use the master key on the left pocket of your lab coat to unlock the security checkpoint. Pick up a Beretta 92FS and an extra magazine below the counter to defend yourself.\r\nStep 2: Enter the 10-digits PIN to unlock the secret door behind the security checkpoint. You still remember the codes, do you?\r\nStep 3: Go to the E1 Labs below the elevators. Put down any zombies with your pistol.\r\nStep 4: Enter the 15-digits PIN on the lab door. The codes is written on the severed hand that you has been grabbing this whole time.\r\nStep 5: Open the department computer and enter your username and password. Open the MIDNIGHT program.\r\nFINAL STEP: Enter your secret 4-digits code to deploy the automatic program. The system will react according to your codes.\r\nWARNING: You only have 1 try. There will be terrible consequences if you enter the wrong numbers. Good luck."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "I'm supposed to be an angel."
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "I felt my best friend going into labor.\r\nThe pain was like electric shocks writhing up my spine, contorting my gut, sending me crumpling to my knees, my mouth opening and closing.\r\nThe thick taste of metal scalded my tongue.\r\nI felt Charlie's screams clawing through me.\r\nHer tears streaming down my cheeks.\r\nThe nurse questioned why I was soaked in sweat, crying.\r\nClutching my stomach.\r\nI was keeled over by the time I reached her.\r\nCharlie was propped up on pillows, smiling, her hair perfect, not a strand out of place. In her arms, a baby.\r\nCharlie cocked her head, soaking in bliss.\r\nWhile I was in agony.\r\n“Babe! What's up?”\r\nBut I wasn't looking at her.\r\nMy gaze was glued to three figures knelt on the ground.\r\nTheir screams matched the ones clawing in my throat. I couldn't call them human, only human-shaped.\r\nTheir exposed backs were scarred, slashed, bloody, their spines ripped apart, skin bleeding, every sound a whimper.\r\nPressed to the ground, they screamed, their cries slamming into me.\r\nCharlie didn't blink, her smile wide, gaze locked on her newborn.\r\nLilli Michaels.\r\nCasper Moroi.\r\nJules Little.\r\nGracelings.\r\nChosen at fifteen, every two hundred years, responsible for the town’s pain and suffering.\r\nThey carried all grief, sadness, agony, wearing it on their skin, crowns of thorns and flowers bleeding beads of red.\r\nI stepped forward, tripping over Casper, who didn't move, didn't stop wailing, begging for death. He didn't lift his head, but I saw his trembling shoulders.\r\nWhen he did look up, just for a moment, his eyes were vacant and feral.\r\nI saw a single orange flicker ignite.\r\nIt took me back to being fifteen years old, standing in a circle around a fire.\r\nBoys wore red.\r\nGirls wore white.\r\nWe each took a branch.\r\nIf the tip was burned, we were Gracelings.\r\nAnd clenched between my trembling fingers was my fate.\r\nIt stunk of smolder.\r\nI remember fear that was mine.\r\nNot everyone else’s.\r\nI remember twisting the end off, slipping the branch into a boy’s hand, and snatching his. He pulled it back, and I shoved him. I remember his wide eyes, lips parting: “You can't—”\r\n“I'm sorry!” I whispered, my breath catching, shoving him forward.\r\n“Graceling!” I shrieked, waving his branch. “He's here! I've found one!”\r\nHe was dragged away, beaten by the other children with sticks, and crowned by the town elders.\r\nNow, I held Charlie’s baby, trembling.\r\nWith my other hand, I plucked a needle from my pocket and dragged the point down my leg, smiling wider, reveling in the trickle of my own blood.\r\nCasper was still fifteen years old, still frozen in time, his crown still slicing into his forehead, immortalizing him to carry our town’s agony, an angel dripping red who would never age, never smile.\r\nAlways suffer.\r\nAnother year of him keeping my secret.\r\nSo, I would give him my pain and pray it was a good enough apology.\r\n“She’s beautiful.”"
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "Bring Offerings to Shower At Night"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "That's always been the custom in our household; if it's past midnight and you need to shower, you bring an offering to set on the counters outside of the bathrooms. They can be anything, from snacks to poems, just something to say \"sorry I'm being disruptive while you're sleeping\". You also have to set them out before you enter the bathroom. Otherwise they'll believe they're being tricked, and that's almost as bad as not bringing an offering to begin with.\r\nI always enforce this rule when my friends come over for slumber parties, which is rare nowadays due to it. They think it's undiagnosed OCD; I wish it was that easily explained. Don't get me wrong; I've seen how debilitating OCD can get, but this isn't something a therapist can help me with. This is just how it's always been.\r\nAnd I know what happens to those who don't listen to the rule.\r\nWhen I was 15 my friends Chloe and Emily wanted to have a sleepover. There was a new horror film set to stream at around 1 am; we knew that if we didn't watch it live, we'd be bombarded by spoilers.\r\nChloe was first to arrive; Emily had agreed to babysit her siblings, so the two of us just played some games, chatted, and prepared snacks for the film. I was excited when thunder began to boom; storms were the perfect ambiance for a horror film.\r\nAt about 11:59 pm, there was a knock on the door. When I opened it, Emily greeted me with a huff; she and her backpack were drenched in muddy water.\r\n\"What the hell happened?\" I exclaimed.\r\n\"Some dumb seniors did a drive-by past a puddle while I was biking over here,\" she groaned as she stepped inside. \"God, I feel like shit; can I use your shower?\"\r\nI glanced down at my watch; 12 am. Almost immediately Emily growled.\r\n\"Are you shitting me, Billie? You're still on about that ritual?\"\r\n\"It's not a choice--\"\r\n\"Yeah, I know OCD's not a choice, but there's a thing called exposure and response prevention therapy. Just....can you two see if you can salvage anything in my backpack?\"\r\n\"I dunno....maybe you should just--\" Chloe began.\r\n\"Shut it, Chloe.\"\r\nWithout another word, she shoved past us and went to get a towel. My stomach began to churn when I heard the door shut, but I stayed put; there was nothing I could do.\r\nI tried to distract myself by searching her bag; about a minute later, a shriek of agony shattered my anxiety. As I rushed upstairs, I could hear hissing sounds from inside the bathroom, but I had no luck getting inside until about two minutes later; when I barged in, nausea hit me. Emily was no longer in the shower; in her place was a pile of bloody, eroding bones.\r\nI'd seen this happen before, but it always makes me sick. Though I can't exactly blame them.\r\nEven spirits need sleep, after all."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "Men You Shouldn't Talk To"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "Jade picked up the sheet, read the title, and scoffed.\r\n“I’ll talk to whoever I want to,” she said to no one in particular.\r\nStill, she kept reading. She really needed this hotel receptionist job, and this was the closest thing she had found to instructions.\r\nMen You Shouldn’t Talk To\r\n1. Drunk men asking for sexual favors. Alert the security guard, and she will remove them from the premises.\r\n“Well, duh.”\r\n2. That Grocery Outlet cashier with the bowl cut. He’s developing a crush on you, and he doesn’t wash his hands after pooping.\r\n“Oh, gross. Wait, how–?”\r\n3. The tall man with the bloody suitcase. Hand him the key to Room 44, and he’ll leave.\r\n“The fuck? Is this a mafia hotel or something?”\r\n4. The smiling men. They like to watch from around corners, but they can’t touch you as long as you don’t smile back.\r\n“Okay, this must be a prank.”\r\n5. The knocking man. Remember, Jade, your dad has been dead for years.\r\nJade set the sheet down slowly.\r\n“This isn’t funny!” she shouted. “Who’s there? Mark? Elena? I swear to God, if you’re recording me–”\r\nKnock.\r\nA single, hollow knock echoed through the lobby. It didn’t come from the revolving doors at the front, with their glass panels that warm streetlights shined through.\r\nIt came from the service elevator.\r\n“Jade Bear, it’s me.”\r\nJade’s voice caught in her throat. It was her dad’s voice, instantly taking her back to summer days and strawberry ice cream. But it also filled her with a sense of wrongness, so potent that she could taste it in her mouth, thick and ashy.\r\n“Your old man’s stuck in this tin box.” A familiar creaking laugh. “Could you let me out?”\r\nFuck this. Jade grabbed her purse and backed toward the door, keeping her eyes on the elevator. She bumped into something warm.\r\nTurning, she saw a man in a crisp black suit, rolling a suitcase behind him that left a trail of fresh red droplets.\r\nHe had no head.\r\n“Pardon me, miss,” said a voice floating from the suitcase. “I've misplaced my room key.”\r\nShe ran, pushing her way through the revolving doors. In their reflection, she saw the reception desk she had been sitting behind. A man peeked out from the side of the desk, staring at her with a smile so wide that his lips cracked with blood.\r\nWhen Jade returned to the hotel location the next morning, her courage bolstered by the bright light of day and several margaritas, she found only an abandoned gas station, its pumps painted in rust and cobwebs. She never learned what became of the strange hotel, with its enumerated collection of men to ignore.\r\nBut the experience drove her to make two important changes to her life.\r\nFirst: she never again answered a sketchy Craigslist ad for a last-minute late-night hotel receptionist, cash payment, female only.\r\nSecond: she washed everything she bought at Grocery Outlet the second she got home."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "School Trip to a Body Farm"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "I know this is not a regular body farm, and that there’s no real rotting corpses here. But bringing the kids to a place like this is still super weird.\r\nSome smart people are developing this new synthetic flesh and want to study how it decomposes. The big blobs of meat are kept inside cages, exposed to the elements.\r\nTo me, they don’t seem to be decomposing at all. There’s no smell or anything.\r\nOur guides start to distribute something similar to spears. They call them “playing sticks”. They instruct the kids to pierce the blobs of flesh with them.\r\nAnd good lord, these things are bleeding. The kids seem to be having the time of their lives. They are ecstatic.\r\nThis is not right. I’m feeling sick. I’m leaving the group, searching for a place to throw up.\r\nBut I end up blacking out.\r\n***\r\nI open my eyes. It’s night. They simply left me in this place !?\r\nCan’t see much, but there’s a sound of something crawling nearby.\r\nShit!\r\nIn horror movies, nothing happens to the characters while they are unconscious. My plan is to keep playing unconsciousness till dawn.\r\nThe crawling sounds are coming from all directions and approaching. Now, they have stopped. I’m surrounded. Should I try to run? No, I will stick with the plan.\r\nNo further movement. I think it’s working…\r\n***\r\nI feel the sun on my skin. That’s strange, my eyes do not open. I try to move in some direction, and I bump against something. Something cold.\r\nIs it metal?"
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "To whoever finds me"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "Running short on food. Two days’ worth, three if I stretch it. I am writing this in case of my death. These words must mean something. If not for anyone else, then for me. The end of the world happens so fast in the movies. Opening scene, just another day. Next scene, blood, screaming, death. Who could have guessed that Hollywood would be right. Kind of. Maybe we gave it the right vessel. Crowded cities, communications, political unrest. War. Ironic how the apocalypse doesn’t discriminate. Everyone is equally worthless.\r\nI was at work, night shift. Blackouts could happen and had done so a few times over the years, but the backup generators always went online in a few seconds. Not this time. After the quarter of an hour that felt like eternity, I knew something was wrong. It was then the realization hit me that there were no calls from the central. I unlocked my phone, no service. The thing we built our civilization on, the internet, died before everything else.\r\nMy Maglite guided me through pitch-black corridors. Every terminal I passed was little more than plastic, wires, and a black screen. Just for the record, I am writing this with the help of that very same Maglite, but you probably guessed it. I’m down to my last batteries and the light from the LEDs is weaker than yesterday. As I left the perimeter, I found myself in darkness. Streetlights, billboard lights, and all the other sources of illumination were gone. Buildings rose high, menacing pitch-black abominations, ready to collapse on top of me at any time. Black windows like thousands of eyes, watching as I made my way down the street.\r\nFast forward. D+3 days. Evacuation. The military had rolled through the neighborhood a day before. Knocking on doors. Handing out pamphlets. Bring ID, an extra set of warm clothes, and a day’s worth of provisions. Time, location, and group designation. Mine was Group Arcturus. My gut told me to stay away. To hide. Guess more people had the same feeling, because the evac failed.\r\nThe first ten days were okay. Meeting people who, like I,” missed” the evac was common. But turns out we aren’t a tribal species anymore. We need laws. Unwritten rules shaped by thousands of years of civilization. We need law enforcement and authority. Remove this and what are we but frightened apes. Two weeks into the end of the world and people had changed. Thugs, roaming the city, killing for fun. Desperate loners scavenging for whatever could keep them moving one more day.\r\nI am running out of paper so I’ll wrap this up. D+6 months is a whole new world. Between the cults, corpses, and custodians, a sliver of the old world remains. I held on to it as long as I could. But our numbers are dwindling. Now, my time is up. The hinges of the door are coming off any second. If you found me and are reading this, know that"
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "He Taught Me to Butcher"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "The flesh still pulsed.\r\nI swear.\r\nAnd he… savored it like a sacred meal.\r\nI watched from the broken window, unable to look away.\r\nI don’t know what terrified me more—what I saw or what I felt.\r\nIt all started a few days ago.\r\nAfter my shift, I passed by the old butcher shop—abandoned since my friend, the former owner, died of a heart attack.\r\nHe never mentioned a son. But someone had reopened it.\r\nThe man who greeted me looked like the building: decaying. Oily skin, stained apron… fresh blood.\r\nI asked about my friend.\r\nHe shrugged and muttered something about closing soon.\r\nThat’s when I saw the dagger.\r\nAncient, strange symbols etched into its blade.\r\nResting on the cutting board like it belonged there.\r\nOutside, I lit a cigarette.\r\nThen I heard it—\r\na muffled scream… and a voice, humming something primal.\r\nCuriosity pulled me back.\r\nI climbed some bricks and peeked through the window.\r\nHe was in a dimly lit room.\r\nA person, strapped to a table.\r\nMouth held open by metal spikes.\r\nBarely alive.\r\nHe worked with surgical precision.\r\nEach cut, deliberate.\r\nEach movement, like a ritual.\r\nI should’ve called the cops.\r\nBut I didn’t.\r\nBecause something in me… awakened.\r\nWatching it felt good.\r\nI wasn’t the one in pain anymore.\r\nAnd when he plunged the dagger into the victim’s chest—twisting it like sealing a curse—\r\nI felt alive.\r\nI came back.\r\nAgain and again.\r\nWatched from the shadows.\r\nI even recorded him.\r\nHe became my obsession.\r\nI lost everything else—my job, my routine… my past.\r\nAnd yesterday, I finally went inside.\r\nI walked toward him, ready to embrace him like a disciple greeting his master.\r\nBut he screamed.\r\nTried to kill me.\r\nAs if he didn’t know me.\r\nDidn’t recognize how much I loved him.\r\nBut I was faster.\r\nNow he’s on the table.\r\nToday, I clean the remains with her—\r\nthe dagger.\r\nShe still holds his warmth.\r\nLike she doesn’t want to let go.\r\nAnd I wonder…\r\nWill I be a good butcher?"
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "She Waited For Me To Notice"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "We used to live in a house we called Michelle Circle. The neighborhood kids whispered stories about it—something about a fire, a death in the basement—but none of it felt real until the day I saw her.\r\nIt was broad daylight, the sun blazing outside. I was sitting alone in the front room. The house was still, quiet in a way that made the air feel heavy.\r\nThen I saw something—just for a split second.\r\nA shadow, small and fast, peeking from the upstairs hallway. It was gone before I could register what I was looking at.\r\nAt first, I told myself I imagined it. But I kept staring at the top of the stairs. Something didn’t feel right. I felt like I was being watched.\r\nSo I waited.\r\nThe feeling got stronger. Like something was right there, just out of sight, waiting for me to notice it.\r\nThen I snapped my head toward the hallway.\r\nAnd she was there.\r\nPeeking out from the doorway of what used to be my sister’s room—a dark, child-sized figure with pigtails. No features. Just a black shadow, darker than anything else, outlined by the golden sunlight flooding the hall.\r\nShe watched me. Just for a second.\r\nThen she ducked back, fast, like she’d lingered too long. Like she’d been caught.\r\nThe sunlight had outlined her perfectly.\r\nShe didn’t belong in that light.\r\nI didn’t imagine it. I know what I saw.\r\nAnd worse—\r\nI know she saw me, too."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "A Flight To Catch"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "I was sitting in the airport terminal when a loud voice drew my attention.\r\n“You have to help me!”\r\nThe voice belonged to a woman standing at the gate. She was dressed for a church service, small in stature but with a large voice and a sense of entitlement to match.\r\n“Ma’am, I’m sorry, but, as I’ve already explained, it’s a full flight - there are no seats available.”\r\n“But the folks at the front said I could go standby!”\r\n“Which would be fine if there were any standby seats available,” sighed the clearly exasperated agent. “But the flight is full and everyone has checked in. There are no extra seats.”\r\n“So kick someone off! It’s very important that I arrive on time!”\r\n“Unfortunately, ma’am, these other folks want to arrive on time as well. And they have tickets.”\r\n“This is ridiculous! Just offer money! I’m sure some poor loser will be willing to give up their seat. It’s the least you can do since you’re overbooked.”\r\n“But we aren’t overbooked, ma’am. We have a seat for every passenger confirmed for this flight. Being standby allows you on this flight if there’s an unoccupied seat - there isn’t.”\r\n“I don’t care! Fix it!”\r\nThe gate agent typed on her computer. “We have a flight leaving at 7:10am - would you prefer a window or an aisle seat?”\r\n“I’d prefer to get on this flight!”\r\nAt this point, her yelling had attracted the attention of other passengers. I looked around - some were snickering, some staring disapprovingly. A few had their cell phones pointed at her as seemed the custom in these times.\r\n“Ma’am, you’re causing a disturbance. Either lower your voice or you’ll be asked to leave the premises.”\r\nThe laughing grew louder, drawing the woman’s attention. “Are they laughing? This is unacceptable! I demand to speak with your supervisor this instant!”\r\n“There it is!” a passenger said, those around him laughing even louder.\r\n“Ma’am, there’s nothing for my supervisor to do. There are simply no seats available on this flight.”\r\n“WHY, I'LL HAVE YOU KNOW—“\r\n“Excuse me,” I interjected, addressing the agent. “If she’s that determined to make this flight, she can have my seat.”\r\nThe woman immediately turned back to the agent, a look of triumph on her face. “See? Someone knows how to treat an important passenger. You could learn a thing or two from him.”\r\nThe gate agent, ignoring her completely, addressed me. “Are you certain, sir? You’re under no obligation.”\r\n“It’s alright. I’m in no hurry.”\r\nAs the agent booked the passenger into my former seat, 6D, I departed the terminal. I usually preferred to be there firsthand, but the plane would crash with or without me, as it was destined to.\r\nIt wasn’t even her time yet - she had another twelve years remaining. But if someone was in that much of a hurry to meet me, how could I refuse?\r\nI would have met her eventually, regardless.\r\nI always get my due."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "To Be Under Dr. Walker’s Scalpel"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "When Maggie met Dr. Walker, she fell in love. Of course, the surgeon had spurned her advances, telling her that since she was a nurse in his department, they could never be together.\r\nBut Maggie knew she wasn’t the only one pining for Dr. Walker.\r\nMaggie could see that even unconscious female patients would respond to his touch. Their bodies tended to twist this way and that, reaching out for him on some physical, biological level. Maybe their brains were under sedation, but their bodies sure weren’t.\r\nMaggie was increasingly jealous of these stiff suitors. Awake women were one thing, but there was something so unavoidably, hopelessly sexy about the connection Dr. Walker formed with women on the table.\r\nOnce, as he had placed his hand on an abdomen in preparation for his initial incision, Maggie had felt her knees quiver.\r\nOver time this obsession bloomed and festered, like a wound that had been allowed to become infected. God, if she could just get Dr. Walker to operate on her, she would never let that wound close. Never.\r\nAnd so she drew up a plan.\r\n—\r\nMaggie became exceedingly normal for a long, long time. She showed no interest whatsoever in Dr. Walker, and became friendlier with the other nurses. She needed to appear “well-regulated.”\r\nThen, when she presented with a need for surgery, nobody would be suspicious that she came to him. “She trusts Dr. Walker,” they might say.\r\nAnd so she faked acute appendicitis. It was easy enough, and though she showed no inflammation, Dr. Walker agreed a precautionary removal of the appendix was in order.\r\n—\r\nMaggie begged God to let her wake up on the operating table.\r\nShe imagined the feeling of being locked into her body, unable to move, while Dr. Walker cut. The blessing of true anesthesia awareness was rare, though, and she would have to content herself with the memento that he would be painting onto her side.\r\nShe would keep that wound alive forever, a manifestation of their love, a figurative houseplant that she would never forget to water.\r\nShe giggled as she daydreamed of ways that she would secretly involve him in the reopening of the wound. Maybe she would “accidentally” bump into him in the hallway. Maybe she would challenge him to a tennis match.\r\nShe fell asleep happily, picturing herself sweating on a tennis court, twisting her abdomen back and forth, her shirt darkening with the re-blossoming wound.\r\n—\r\n“It went well!” She was told by a nurse whose voice and face were irrelevant.\r\nMaggie was anxious for the woman to walk away, to give her a moment alone. The second she did, Maggie’s fingers found her side.\r\nShe moaned with pleasure as the stitches tore. The gift seeped.\r\n“Dr. Walker….” She crooned.\r\n“Oh, you didn’t hear!” came the anonymous nurse’s voice from a thousand miles away, interrupting.\r\n“Dr. Walker had an emergency come up and had to leave at the last minute. Dr. Pitman did your surgery!”"
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "A Day Pass to Days Past"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "“But won’t there be rust everywhere? Won’t we get tendies-night-us?” Luke asked from the backseat, forcing Vera to bite her lip. She didn’t want the boy to think she was laughing at him.\r\nMispronunciation aside, it was actually a good point, and after she successfully stifled the laugh, she shot a glance over at her husband in the driver seat.\r\nDan was driving them to the middle of Bumfuck Nowhere, USA, where his childhood amusement park, now deserted, still stood. It was no wonder the place had closed, as it seemed to be at least an hour outside any sort of civilization.\r\n“It’s okay, Luke, daddy just wants to look. We won’t actually be going inside and touching anything,” Vera said, still keeping her eyes on Dan, hoping to convey to him the message about staying in the car, as well.\r\n“It could be years before we’re back in my hometown,” Dan countered, and Vera successfully resisted the urge to tell him that their lack of visits had been his own doing.\r\n“Besides,” he added, “My tendies-night-us booster is up to date.”\r\n--\r\nThe sun was setting when they finally arrived at FunWorld, or what was left of it.\r\nTo Vera, that looked like not much. To Dan, though, he could practically smell the funnel cake, could practically feel the knot in his stomach that he had gotten every time he had ridden the Mine Train and it had commenced its huge plunge.\r\nNo roller coaster he had ridden since had ever had a bigger drop, and thus, no other roller coaster had ever matched that thrill, had ever knotted his stomach quite as well.\r\n“I’m going in,” he said.\r\n--\r\nOne hour and ten unanswered calls later, mother and son departed the safety of the car.\r\nVera was pissed. Dan was often like this, she knew, selfish and careless when he got fixated on something.\r\nIf she had been married to a different man, she may have been scared, may have called the police.\r\nInstead, she was steamin’ mad.\r\n--\r\nFinally finding Dan only pissed Vera off even more, on account of the fact that he was standing on the track of an old, huge roller coaster apparently called “Mine Train.” He had climbed up the rickety, decrepit steps attached to its lift hill, and was now standing at the very top crest of the coaster’s track, at least one hundred feet in the air.\r\n“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” She screamed at her idiot husband.\r\n“It’s okay babe!” he yelled back. “I used to love this ride!”\r\nAnd then it happened, just like that.\r\nThe wooden platform Dan stood on, now rotted through, gave way, and he began to plummet all of those one hundred feet back to earth.\r\nThe familiar knot in Dan’s stomach returned, and for a fleeting moment he was merely a kid again, riding Mine Train on a summer day, braving its final plunge."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "I'm destined to drown with him."
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "I was building sandcastles on the beach when I heard it: drip, drip, drip.\r\nIt sounded like rain. I held out my hand.\r\nNothing.\r\nI tipped my head back, mouth open.\r\nBut it was sunny.\r\n“Bee?” A boy snapped me out of it. I didn’t know his name.\r\nI only knew he was good at sandcastles.\r\nHe shoved me, giggling. “Are you okay?”\r\nI nodded, but it was… raining inside my head.\r\nThe dripping got louder as I grew up. Closer. Constant.\r\nI had no explanation except, “I hear water, and it won’t stop.” I gripped leather armrests, biting three therapists.\r\nThey were all wrong. They said I was sick, but I knew the truth.\r\nI was going to drown.\r\nWater was coming to get me.\r\nWhen I was twelve, I was diagnozed with schizophrenia.\r\nThey gave me pills that tasted like puke, but they worked. I grew up, and the dripping had stopped. When a new boy transferred, I didn’t think anything of him. Until I recognized his smile.\r\nHis awkward wave. Thick brown hair falling into eyes that drank me in.\r\nSandcastle boy.\r\nAnd bleeding through the classroom chatter came a single, horrifying drip. Not a storm.\r\nOne single drip in the back of my skull.\r\nAfter classes, he bumped into me in the hallway. “Bee, right?” His smile was friendly. “Mind showing me around? My parents just moved here.”\r\nI did. Reluctantly.\r\nWhen it started raining, I tried to bail.\r\nHe stopped me, grabbing my arm, his expression twisted when I pulled away.\r\n“Wait.” He let out a breath. Almost a laugh, choking into a sob.\r\n“Can you hear that too?” he whispered, leaning close. “Can you hear the dripping?”\r\nI broke down. “I’m going to drown,” I whispered. “It’s getting closer.”\r\nHe grabbed my hand. “Then we’ll stay away from water,” he said, pulling me under a shelter. “We can start now!”\r\nHis smile was sweet. I remembered the flutter I had for Sandcastle boy.\r\nI found myself smiling, the two of us standing inches apart, both being drenched.\r\nBut it felt good to not feel crazy.\r\nA voice cut through the downpour.\r\n“Bee? Zach? What are you kids still doing out here?” Mr. Tendon, our teacher, stood behind us, offering his umbrella.\r\nHe ushered us into his car.\r\n“Come on,” he said. “I’ll take you home.”\r\nHe offered us hot cocoa from a flask. “You must be freezing! Jesus, did you enjoy getting hypothermia?”\r\nZach rolled his eyes. \"Maybe.\"\r\nI swigged half, and he finished it.\r\nThe cocoa was warm. I leaned back.\r\nMaybe I could... sleep.\r\nDrip.\r\nThe sound slammed into me.\r\nDrip.\r\nI didn’t realize I couldn’t move until my head lolled to the side.\r\nZach’s head was bowed, limp, the flask slipping from his grasp, cold coffee seeping out.\r\nI tried to shove him awake, my words slurring.\r\n“Zach?”\r\nHe didn’t respond, and the car jerked, sending the flask rolling off his lap.\r\nDrip.\r\nDrip.\r\nDripping."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "Hired to Kill a Little Boy."
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "I never particularly liked killing. I only did it because that’s all I knew, and it kept my stomach full.\r\nOrphaned at 7, my Grandpa, who was an assassin, took me in. By the age of 15, I had become a pro. When my Grandpa passed away when I was 18, I took over his place in the underworld.\r\nI’m 32 now, with more money than I know what to do with. Two retirements’ worth.\r\nFigured I’ll do one last job, before I retire for good. Maybe get married and start a family.\r\nMy client—gold watch, tailored guilt—welcomed me into his office. Extremely rich, and powerful. Deep in both the legal ventures and secretly, the underworld.\r\nCigarette in my mouth, I take a seat before him.\r\n“A kid.”\r\nI pause mid drag.\r\n“Seven years ago, I had a fling. Turned into a marriage. She got pregnant. Tried to leave, wouldn’t let go. I couldn’t divorce—too many eyes on my assets, my ties. Can’t risk being exposed.”\r\nHe sighed.\r\n“So I burned the house down. Clean accident, no loose ends. Or so I thought. Kid survived—found him now, two years later in an orphanage, ‘Quieture’. No memories, but I want him gone. Make it look like an accident.”\r\nI lower the cigarette.\r\nDeath paid…\r\nI crush it in the ashtray.\r\n…and I killed.\r\n“You got it.”\r\nHad I ever drawn a line?\r\nThe orphanage was small, run by an old friend who’d buried her past.\r\nThis makes things easier for me.\r\n“Didn’t think you did reunions.”\r\n“Looking to adopt.”\r\n“You?”\r\nI shrug.\r\n“I’m retiring.”\r\nShe smiled. She looked so peacefully serene.\r\n“About time.”\r\nI asked her about the boy.\r\n“Auren, huh? Scarred, blind in the left eye. Quiet but smart. Been here for 2 years now. But…people want the ones with bright smiles and perfect skin. He’s…well…”\r\nShe trails off.\r\nI told her I’d file for adoption.\r\nI don’t think I’ve ever seen her that happy.\r\nSaid I wanted to start bonding early. She agreed.\r\nHe sat beside me in the car, eyes looking lifeless.\r\n“Ever seen a bonfire?”\r\nHe shook his head.\r\nWe drove.\r\nFew minutes of silence passed.\r\n“Why me?”\r\nI don’t answer.\r\n“Why the moth, over all those butterflies? Scars make me a moth, right?”\r\nHe touches the scar beneath his left eye.\r\n“I don’t blame people. If I had to choose between a moth and a butterfly, I’d pick the butterfly too.”\r\nWe drive in silence.\r\nThe car rolls to a stop in an empty field—dry grass, cold air. A stack of wood stands ahead, beneath it a coffin, bound in many ropes.\r\nWe step out together. Twilight had begun to set in.\r\n“Butterflies,” I say, flicking the lighter to life, “are born to be pretty.”\r\nI hand him the lighter.\r\n“Moths are born to find light in the dark.”\r\nGently blocking his ears, to keep the screams away, I gesture him to toss it.\r\n“I’d rather fly with purpose, than float for applause.”"
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "How I grew to love School."
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "I'm a pretty average school kid, decent grades, small social circle. But there are subjects I love and are fascinated about, specifically the practical heavy subjects like biology.\r\nMy fascination started in April, the beginning of the school year. I thought it was strange at first but it is easier to get work during winter whilst other kids are in their schools.\r\nAnyways, back to the story. It was April, I was starting my second year in school. I hated it, all theory, how to do this and that and it made even subjects I hadn't tried yet boring.\r\nMy first class was biology and that's where I learned to love school.\r\nAs soon as I opened the door an odor hit me in the face, which I know now and will never forget. There was bags laid out on each table, Students were told to take a seat and wait for everyone to arrive.\r\nEventually the professor gave the signal: open the bags.\r\nA human corpse.\r\nWe were to discern the cause of death and replicate it on another 'subject' for homework.\r\nOh yeah, forgot to mention. I go to a school for assassins in training."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "How to Make a God"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "“Thank you for the opportunity,” I smiled, “I won’t let you down.”\r\nFinally, after five excruciating interviews, I had been chosen to be a research assistant to the famous Dr. Harold Bell.\r\n“I bet you’d like to know what we’re working on?” Dr. Bell asked. His smile was never-ending. You could tell he loved his work. He’d have been strikingly handsome if it weren’t for the fish-bowl lenses he wore, which made his eyes look twice their normal size.\r\n“I’ve been dying to know,” I said, not even trying to hide my excitement. I hoped he wouldn’t hold it against me.\r\n“What do you know about the Placebo Effect?” Dr. Bell stood up from his desk and walked over to the edge of a large, shuttered window.\r\n“The Placebo Effect occurs when a patient receives the benefit of a drug without having taken one.”\r\n“A fine definition, if not a bit rudimentary, but why does it work?”\r\nThat gave me pause, but only for a second.\r\n“Well, when a patient believes they will get better the body makes it happen.”\r\n“Yes! There it is! Belief. That’s what we’re researching here.” Dr. Bell flipped a switch next to the window, and the shutters retracted, revealing a white room that contained half a dozen children.\r\nThey were kneeling down in silent prayer and all of them had eyes red from crying.\r\nThe sight of it made me question everything I ever heard about Dr. Bell’s research.\r\nDr. Bell pointed to the children: “I’m trying to make a God.”\r\n“Fascinating,” I said, praying the hesitance didn’t come through in my voice.\r\n“These children have been raised in complete captivity, and their whole lives they have been told one thing: that they’re going to suffer and die. Unless—Ylmos comes to save them.”\r\n“Ylmos?”\r\n“The Savior of Children,” Dr. Bell said, walking to his desk, pulling out a thick stack of papers. “A God of my own design, of course, but I think if the children believe hard enough we may see His tangible effects. We can make Ylmos real.”\r\n“Doctor, why children?”\r\n“Children will believe anything. Though that’s not to say they don’t have their downsides. Always wanting to play. A good, strong, electrical shock cures them of that, but they pass so easily under these harsh conditions. In fact, this is the fourth time I’ve done this experiment and something always spoils it. What a waste those children were. I’m confident this time I’ll succeed—”\r\nThe sharpest thing in sight was a pen, so that’s what I stabbed into Dr. Bell’s throat, spraying us both in hot, sticky blood.\r\nDr. Bell looked shocked, but that was quickly replaced by a smile.\r\n“Finally,” Dr. Bell sputtered.\r\nI grabbed his key card and traveled through a maze of locked doors until I found the children.\r\nThey looked up at me, covered in blood, with hope and fear in their eyes.\r\nI said the only thing I could think of.\r\n“Ylmos sent me to save you.”"
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "Hurts to Remember; Hurts to Forget"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "Alice sat on the edge of her son's bed.\r\n\"Do you want to talk about what happened at school today?\"\r\nHe frowned and turned away from her.\r\n\"You gave Robbie a bloody nose, Liam. You know you shouldn't be hitting anybo—\"\r\n\"I didn't hit him.\"\r\nShe raised an eyebrow. \"Oh? Did he get a bloody nose and start crying for no reason?\"\r\nLiam picked at his bedsheet.\r\n\"…I just, wanted somebody to remember,\" he said.\r\n\"Remember what, Liam?\"\r\nHe reached into his pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper.\r\nShe closed her eyes and rubbed her temple.\r\n\"I can't keep leaving work early every time you choose to act up in class. I need you to be honest with me.\"\r\nHe unfolded the paper and stared at it.\r\n\"What are you looking at?\" she asked.\r\n\"Nothing.\"\r\nShe sighed. \"Honey. Show me.\"\r\nHe wiped his eyes and handed it to her. It was a photograph of Liam, Robbie, and another boy at a birthday party. It'd been folded and unfolded so many times that it was starting to tear along the crease.\r\n\"Where is this from? Robbie's birthday party?\"\r\n\"No…\"\r\n\"Then where?\"\r\nLiam grabbed his blanket and pressed his face into it while mumbling something.\r\n\"No, not good enough.\" She pulled the blanket from him; his eyes were red. \"Try again.\"\r\nHe refused to look her in the eyes.\r\n\"They were best friends, mom. I thought maybe he could remember too,\" he said.\r\n\"Remember what?\"\r\n\"…Danny.\"\r\n\"Liam.\" She leaned forward and hugged him. \"Did Danny move away? Is that why you're upset?\"\r\n\"No.\"\r\n\"Then what, sweetie?\"\r\nTears began streaming down his cheeks and he pushed his face against her chest, whimpering softly.\r\n\"Shhh, it's okay, baby. It's okay to miss your friend.\"\r\n\"He's not my friend! Nobody remembers him! Nobody! I'm the only one! I keep trying but people always forget!\"\r\nShe sighed as he cried into her shirt. She ran her fingers through his hair, rocking him back and forth. The photo sat on the bed beside them. It had slipped from her hand and landed on it's face revealing text on the other side. \"Danny's 10th Birthday Party\" was written on the back, in her handwriting.\r\nHer temples throbbed and she grabbed her head. She groaned and blood started to drip from her nose.\r\nHe looked up at her, his lip quivered as he did.\r\n\"What happened to Danny, Liam?\" she asked.\r\n\"They came. They took him.\"\r\n\"Who came?\"\r\nHe closed his eyes.\r\n\"I c-can't remember what they look like. It hurt to look at them.\" His nose started to bleed. \"I tried to stop them, mom. I t-tried to save Danny but I couldn't.\"\r\n\"Who is Danny?\"\r\nHe choked back a sob. \"He's my little brother, mom.\"\r\nBlood poured from her nose now.\r\n\"You don't have a little brother.\"\r\n\"I do, mommy. I do. Don't you remember? You took the picture.\""
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "Today, I'm going to be matched."
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "Standing in front of my mirror, I make myself pretty.\r\nLipstick. Eyeliner. Foundation.\r\nI'm not used to makeup, at least not this type of makeup.\r\nThe kind that feels and looks like paint, like colors splattering a porcelain doll.\r\nI used to wear light eyeshadow, maybe some blush and balm.\r\nI feel like a child discovering beauty.\r\nI brush and straighten my hair, crowning myself with a headband.\r\nI ignore the empty spot in my bed.\r\nI ignore the absence heavy on my heart and continue painting my face.\r\nMom says I must remove my engagement ring.\r\nI pull it off and drop it onto my desk, wincing at the light clang.\r\n“Annie?”\r\nMom stands in my doorway.\r\nIn her hands is my dress, a formal white monstrosity I know will hang off me.\r\nI put it on with no objections.\r\nI try not to shiver when Mom’s ice-cold fingers dance up my spine, buttoning me up. She lets me step into glass slippers, then turns me to face her. Mom is crying.\r\nShe wears black instead of white, like she's mourning me— and she is.\r\nHer smile is strained.\r\nShe takes a photo with a disposable camera.\r\n“You look beautiful, Annabelle.”\r\n“I know.”\r\nI try to smile when she cuffs my hands. The silver is cold and cruel, a reminder my engagement ring means nothing.\r\n“It's just a precaution,” she murmurs.\r\nMom links arms with mine and smiles wide as we exit my home.\r\nShe greets others.\r\nI’m forced to smile at young men and women with their parents.\r\nThe neighborhood they built for us is clinical and symmetrical.\r\nOne girl has a bag over her head.\r\nHer father won’t look at her as he pushes her into a Range Rover.\r\nMom accompanies me to the high school, now a matchmaking facility.\r\nShe squeezes my hand and mouths smile, and I do.\r\nI wear a grin that hurts my jaw as a guard takes my shoulders, dragging me to a table.\r\nA suited guy is forced in front of me, slumping into the chair opposite.\r\nHe doesn’t look at me, muttering his name: Ace.\r\nI tell him mine, then I say I have–had– a fiancée.\r\nAce whips his head around, scanning the guards, then turns back to me.\r\n“I was married,” he whispers, voice breaking. “We were going to have a child. We were happy.”\r\nA girl behind me is ripped from her seat and dragged away.\r\nThen a guy, as his match is forced to her feet and taken to another table.\r\nI don’t realize I’m shaking until Ace leans forward, cups my cheek, and kisses me.\r\nIt’s fleeting. It doesn’t mean anything, and he’s crying. But it’s enough.\r\n“Lie with me,” he whispers, as thudding footsteps approach.\r\n“We have a match!” a guard yells. I hear my mother breaking down in relief.\r\nThe guard pulls us apart, smiling, and plucks off the pink triangle sticker from my dress, then Ace’s suit.\r\n“We have the perfect match!”"
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "Nothing to Admire"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "“You have no qualities to be proud of.”\r\n“Spare me your insults and give me back my son!”\r\nBy the time I realised what I’d done, it was too late. I’d strode forward in my anger and broken the binding circle.\r\n“Not even intelligence,\" said the fey."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "To Fight Back"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "When the rails to Cadenza were pulled up, they left ol' 5-Spot in a spur beside the water tower and oil column. These would remain as a testament to the Cadenza Oak Lumber Company, and were set to remain there for some time.\r\nUntil they didn't.\r\nFirst came the water tower, blown to pieces by a rancher who didn't appreciate the fall hazard.\r\nThe oil column was cut up and hauled out in '72.\r\n5-Spot rested, quietly rusting away, until finally, the time came. The land was to be developed. The local museums had about 3 months to raise the dough to move it out of its little grove and to the city.\r\nAnd they couldn't.\r\nP-L-C Scrap Metals, Inc. was contracted to cut the old engine up. A crew of a single man was sent to obtain some historical and valuable parts before the rest made the trip up the mountain with the big guns.\r\nHe stood in front of the old locomotive, and lit his scrapping torch. Off came the number-plate, the headlight, the throttle, the reverser, the bell. . .\r\nHe then turned his attention to the whistle.\r\nThe next morning, the scrap crew arrived to the sight of the man, dead, having fallen from the locomotive and landed head-first on a rock. His eyes were wide open, startled.\r\nA local cabin owner would mention that on that cold afternoon in '81, he thought he could hear a whistle in the distance.\r\nBut no one ever connected the dots."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "My uber brought me to hell."
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "The Uber driver arrived almost immediately after I requested it.\r\nI got in. The driver barely acknowledged me—his face was expressionless, hands tight on the wheel. He looked rushed, like he had somewhere to be.\r\nI had a long drive ahead.\r\nThirty-five minutes passed. We were halfway to my destination.\r\nSomething felt off.\r\nThe streets looked wrong. The buildings leaned unnaturally, windows dark like hollow eyes. The few people outside stood still, heads turning slowly as we passed, no blinking, no expression.\r\nTime dragged on. The road stretched endlessly, streetlights growing dimmer, then disappearing altogether, leaving only the headlights. The world outside felt empty, like we were off the map.\r\n\"Are you sure this is the right way?\" I asked, voice shaky.\r\nNo response.\r\nA chill crept down my spine. My hands clenched. My breath quickened. Dread filled my mind.\r\nAnother thirty minutes passed.\r\n\"You have arrived at your destination,\" the GPS voice said.\r\nBut the place... it was horrifying. The sky was blood-red, swirling with unnatural clouds. The ground was scorched, cracked like something was trying to escape beneath. The air felt thick, suffocating, with whispers I couldn’t understand.\r\n\"This isn’t right. This isn’t where I asked you to take me!\" I said, panic rising.\r\nThe driver’s voice was calm, almost amused.\r\n\"This is exactly where you're supposed to be.\"\r\nThe doors swung open.\r\nDark, hollow figures swarmed me, their limbs unnaturally long, their touch cold. Their eyes burned into me—empty yet filled with something terrible. They pulled me out of the car. I screamed, fought, but their grip was relentless.\r\nI broke free and stumbled toward the road. And then—I saw it.\r\nI saw myself.\r\nThe car had crashed violently. The metal was twisted and crushed. The front was barely recognizable, the windshield shattered like a nightmare. My body was trapped in the wreckage, my head at an unnatural angle, eyes wide open in terror. My face was streaked with blood, half my skull exposed where the impact tore through my flesh.\r\nThe sound of the crash echoed in my ears—brakes screeching, metal crunching. The air was thick with smoke, and distant sirens wailed, fading into the void.\r\nThen, silence.\r\nThe figures surrounded me, their presence suffocating. Their hollow eyes stared down at me, feeding off my fear.\r\nI screamed, but it was already too late."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "They told us to be quiet."
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "Cal took his own life.\r\nWhen celebrities die, the same questions are asked.\r\nWas it drugs? Alcohol? Was their death suspicious?\r\nCal’s death was silent. Painful.\r\nOfficially, it was ruled a drowning. Callen Blake, the former teen star, was perfection, after all.\r\nHe would never hurt his fans.\r\nBut privately? I found my best friend in his bathtub, unresponsive, beads of red running down his wrists.\r\nThe thing about grief is, I didn't know how to grieve.\r\nI was numb, but numb felt good. Sometimes, not feeling was better.\r\nBecause if I let myself break, I wouldn't be quiet. And I had to stay quiet.\r\nEven in my own room, at twenty-four, I pressed my face into my pillow and let myself be numb.\r\nI thought grief was sadness, and it was. But numbness wasn’t just an emotion.\r\nIt was denial.\r\nCal couldn't be… dead.\r\nI met him at fifteen, bumping into him outside an audition.\r\nWe grew up together. TV shows, movies, teen stars turned washed-out adults.\r\nYes, he had a substance problem after his divorce, but he was out of rehab.\r\nHe was happy.\r\nA little over a week ago, we dug up old clothes from our Z channel days.\r\nI sat on my bed, staring at my closet. Those snazzy, ridiculous costumes.\r\nThe mid-2000s style was evident in whatever the fuck I had found in my basement. One more nostalgia trip to remember Cal as the teen golden boy.\r\nCal took some of his own costumes home.\r\nI fished out bright-colored hats and layered dresses.\r\nI grabbed my character's blue hat, placing it on my head. It still fit.\r\nI jumped up, doing a spin in the mirror, working the hat with my brunette curls.\r\nI was about to snap a photo when a voice startled me. A sharp hiss that sent my body into fight-or-flight.\r\n\"Quiet.\"\r\nMy mouth slammed shut.\r\nI thought I was hearing things until it happened again.\r\n\"I said, quiet!\"\r\nThe voice was static breath. I pulled off the hat, holding it to my ear. Under the label, white noise crackled.\r\n\"Quiet, Ellie,\" the voice hissed. Then, a four-beat melody. And repeat.\r\n\"You must stay quiet. No crying. No talking to your parents. You must be QUIET.\"\r\nThe voice bled into my mind, leeching onto me.\r\nI dropped the hat, puke filling my mouth.\r\nBut already, I was on my knees, pawing for one of Cal’s baseball caps. With trembling hands, I held it to my ear.\r\nA sea of static spluttered, then the four-beat melody.\r\nHearing it louder sent me back to seventeen. Standing on set. Arms by my sides. Trying not to scream.\r\nI wasn't allowed to scream, or cry.\r\nWe had to stand still.\r\n\"Come closer, Callen,\" a woman’s voice murmured.\r\nI puked, her voice sending me to my knees.\r\nAllison.\r\nOur director.\r\nCal’s ex-wife.\r\n\"That's right,\" she hummed, and I was seventeen again, standing on set.\r\nWatching my best friend move toward her with a wide smile.\r\n\"Closer.\""
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "An Eid to Remember"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "All of us meet at my Grand dad’s place during the penultimate days of Ramadan. My folks, cousins and the whole family on my mum’s side. You know the deal. The usual festive family gathering. There was something eerie about grand dad’s place though. It was an old house with huge rooms. The fact that it is in a city with a lot of history certainly didn’t help. In fact, the more I remember, the whole house was okay, except for the living room. You could tell someone is always watching, even when you are totally alone. It was late at night around 2 on Eid, everyone in the house is asleep except for us cousins. We were hanging out in the guest room hogging on sweets from the grand feast playing cards.\r\nWe noticed that all the sweets were gone. As we looked at each other trying to figure out who would go to the living room at night with all the lights closed, we realised, that none of us were brave enough.\r\nWe figured out a way to keep the party going by sending our 3 year old cousin all the way to the drawing room to get some sweets for all of us. Brilliant solution if you ask me. A kid with no concept of ghosts can’t possibly be scared. The little one agreed to this brilliant plan and trotted out the room.\r\nAround 2 mins later the guest room door opens, and we hear the plates clink together as if someone is handing them over to someone else right outside the room and a deep, calming voice that said - ‘ You can go now. ‘ and the little Miss comes in with 5 heavy plates loaded with sweets, struggling to keep balance as she tips over, only for my elder sister to catch her mid way, saving the whole thing. Must have been grandad helping her out in the dark. Otherwise it was impossible for a three year old to handle that kind of load. Sure sounded like him.\r\nWe don’t talk about that night because there is just one small detail that has been bugging us since that day. Grand dad had died 3 years before that night and even if that thing sounded like him, we know it wasn’t him."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "To love a night time Devil"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "I am a pretty heavy sleeper. So it was weird when I woke up one night. I looked at the clock. It read 2:53 am. Relieved that I still have some decent hours of sleep still in my clutches, I decided to shrug it off and go back to sleep. Just as I was about to close my eyes, I saw the other side of the bed empty. I remember going to sleep with my beloved wife beside me. For an instant which felt like eternity I longed for her to be there, in my arms, just like the good old days.\r\nBut then it hit me. Was it even real? Was my relationship real? I felt hollow, honestly a little upset at myself for convincing myself into believing a fallacy just to cure my loneliness.\r\nAs I found myself shrouded in doubt, I heard a strange growl come from the powder room. The door creaked open and I saw a shadow standing in front of me. With each passing second, the shadow limped forward, turning my hesitation into straight up horror. It crawled into the sheets with me and I felt its claws digging into my chest as it pulled itself towards me. As I lay there paralyzed, that thing came towards my ear and whispered - ‘Just went for a midnight pee, baby.’"
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "Awoke to being buried, alive."
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "Drip.\r\nDrip.\r\nDrip.\r\nRain seeps through the cracks, cold and steady, pulling me awake. The darkness around me is absolute, the air thin and hard to breathe. Wait… Where am I? This isn’t home. My head throbs, my body stiff and cramped. I try to move, but ropes cut into my wrists and ankles, and wooden walls press tight against me. The air is stale, suffocating. I think it feels like… a coffin? A chill runs through me. No, that can’t be right—can it? My breath quickens. Is it Joe? That bastard’s been hounding me over debts I couldn’t pay. He’s a loan shark, the kind who takes more than money. Could he really do this?\r\nFootsteps squelch in the mud above, slow and heavy. Muffled voices filter down, indistinct. Someone’s there. Hope flickers. “Help!” I yell, my voice hoarse. “Let me out!” The footsteps pause. Did they hear me? Silence stretches, heavy and thick. Then—a sharp scrape. A shovel digs into the earth. Thud. Dirt hits the lid. Thud. More falls, piling on. They’re not here to help—they’re burying me deeper.\r\nPanic explodes. I thrash against the ropes, skin tearing, blood slicking my hands. My sister’s face flashes—her smile, her trust. I swore I’d keep her safe. If I don’t get out, Joe will come for her next. I twist harder, and the ropes loosen. Hands free, I pound the lid—no good. I kick with all I’ve got, wood groaning, then cracking. One last desperate shove, and the lid bursts open, mud and rain pouring in as I claw my way out.\r\nI collapse beside the hole, gasping, rain stinging my face. The world spins, but I force myself to my knees. Then I see him—a man sprawled in the mud, skull smashed, blood pooling around him. His face is a ruined mess, impossible to recognize. Did I do that? My stomach churns as I stumble closer. Is he one of Joe’s thugs?\r\nRain blurs everything; I feel watched. Run? They’ll hunt me down. Leave the body? They’ll pin it on me. No way out. I pace, muttering, “Can’t leave him here.” I drag him to the hole, tying his wrists with my ropes, and grab a shovel nearby, scooping wet earth back onto the lid. Each load is heavy, the mud sticking to the blade, but I work fast, rain mixing with sweat, until it’s covered again.\r\nI slump beside it, exhausted, chest heaving. What now? A dull thump rumbles from below. I freeze. He’s dead—I saw the blood. Another thump, stronger. It’s just the mud settling, I tell myself. But it keeps coming, steady and loud. Dread coils tight. The ground shakes, and the lid flies open, smashing into my head. Pain flares, and I hit the ground. My vision blurs, the sound growing louder as the world fades away. Warm blood streams down my face, dripping into the mud…\r\nDrip.\r\nDrip.\r\nDrip."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "Printer Told Me to Do It"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "Day 1\r\nThe office stinks.\r\nNot just of cheap cologne and microwaved fish, but of human rot.\r\nNot literal rot. Not yet.\r\nBut the rot of time wasted. Life pissed away.\r\nA slow decay in a polyester shirt.\r\nClack clack clack.\r\nFingers tapping keys.\r\nEmails about nothing.\r\nMeetings about meetings.\r\nThe fluorescent lights hum, a low insectile drone that chews at my brainstem.\r\nI smell breath. I smell scalp grease.\r\nI hear sips and gulps, the wet suck of coffee-stained teeth.\r\nI hate them all.\r\nI want silence.\r\nDay 34.\r\nThe whispering started.\r\nThe printer told me to do it.\r\nIt coughed out a page.\r\nKill them.\r\nA new task assigned.\r\nDay 40.\r\nI sharpen a stapler.\r\nI study veins like subway maps.\r\nI smile.\r\nThey don’t notice.\r\nThey never do.\r\nDay 47.\r\nI begin my work.\r\nJared from Accounting is first.\r\nA hole puncher to the eyes.\r\nMetal fangs clamp down, chew, pop-pop-pop.\r\nHis eyes turn into black, bloody holes.\r\nHis mouth gapes, and gargles.\r\nI cram a whole ream of A4 inside.\r\nFifty sheets deep, his throat bulges like a stuffed mailbox.\r\nOne down.\r\nDay 48.\r\nMaria. The HR lady.\r\nShe once told me to smile more.\r\nI drown her in the office water cooler, her lungs filling with blue-tinted plastic cold.\r\nHer arms thrash, nails scrape my wrist, but...\r\nBubbles. Gurgles. Stillness.\r\nDay 49.\r\nI replace Bob’s teeth with thumbtacks.\r\nHe screams into the conference mic.\r\nEveryone claps, thinking it's some weird PowerPoint bit.\r\nThey laugh.\r\nI don’t.\r\nDay 50.\r\nThe office is a symphony of dying.\r\nStaplers pierce jugulars.\r\nFingernails are peeled with paper clips.\r\nEntrails spool across the cubicle carpet like a pulled yarn thread.\r\nThe janitor slips on the gore.\r\nSkull bounces off the Xerox machine.\r\nBlood-slick flyers shoot out\r\n\"TEAMWORK MAKES THE DREAM WORK.\"\r\nTheir screams melt together, high and keening, like a fax machine jammed with human tongues. The walls are redecorated in arterial red.\r\nI stand in the breakroom, bathed in gore, panting, vibrating, feeling…\r\nAlive.\r\nDay 51.\r\nI come in early.\r\nFresh coffee brews.\r\nDesks are clean.\r\nColleagues sit, typing, laughing.\r\nNo bodies. No blood.\r\nIt never happened.\r\nI check my inbox. 300 unread emails.\r\nWeekly reports due.\r\nAll-staff meeting at 2 PM.\r\nA message pops up.\r\nFROM: The Printer\r\nSUBJECT: Begin Again.\r\nThe printer coughs.\r\nA page slides out.\r\nKill them.\r\nA new task assigned. And I get to work."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "Time Traveled to the Wild West"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "The wild west was a time of migration for many settlers seeking land and fortune. One town during this era always stood out to me: Tombstone, California. A small town of 93 people, all of whom vanished on July 20th, 1880.\r\nI desired answers to the unknown. So, I built a way to find out the hard truth of the past.\r\nSwoosh.\r\nA warm sensation surrounded my body. Sweat began to drip down my forehead. The bright golden sun met my gaze. I was greeted by a welcoming sign: Tombstone, California.\r\nI gathered myself and began to embark into the town.\r\nGunshots rang throughout the small settlement. Stumbling out of the town’s bar was a rugged man, spewing blood. A tall, older man with a shiny badge on his coat quickly swung through the double doors of the saloon, aiming his revolver at the barely conscious man now lying on the ground.\r\nObscenities erupted from inside the saloon. A brewing storm of locals surrounded the sheriff.\r\nA single gunshot unloaded into the man’s head. A mist of blood painted the canvas of the muddy ground. Silence followed.\r\nThe crowd dispersed back into the saloon.\r\nTwo people were left looming over the dead man: one woman, one young boy. The woman clutched her necklace with fury. The boy’s tears fell one at a time into the pool of blood.\r\nI overheard the woman comforting the boy.\r\n\"Papa was sick, my love. This was not the same papa you have loved. It will be okay. I am here for you.\"\r\nThe boy scowled, his eyes stuck on his father. His father—shot down like a dog—on the ground, riddled with bullet holes.\r\nTears quickly turned to anger. The boy fell down on his father, repeatedly hitting his chest. Begging. Wishing. Wanting him to come back to life.\r\nAnd the boy’s wish came true.\r\nThe father’s presence awakened. Slowly, he rose. The boy wrapped his arms around his father. The mother froze in amazement.\r\nThe father's dark yellow teeth grinned with twisted pleasure. His jaw unlocked, launching his teeth into the boy’s neck. Devouring the poor soul in seconds.\r\nThe mother screeched… then soon met the same fate.\r\nIn seconds, the family of three was united once again.\r\nDeep, wretched grins stretched across their faces as they went after the townsfolk.\r\nIn less than an hour, the whole town was dead.\r\nThe welcome sign was stained with blood. The town was littered with soulless bodies, wandering, hungry for a taste of a human soul.\r\nThis land was sacred. Not meant for human bloodshed.\r\nI got the answers I desired about the ghost town of Tombstone, California.\r\nSwoosh."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "They Wanted to Take My Child"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "I sprinted through the cornfield, the stalks clawing at me like fingers. Behind me, I could hear them—smell the acrid burn of their torches.\r\nThe mob.\r\nI clutched my child to my chest, the only thing she had left in the world. I, her mother, her protector.\r\nGrief had already tried to pull me below, and for a time, I drowned in madness beneath the ruins of my life. The fever had stolen my whole kin, leaving just me and my babe.\r\nThey wanted to take her from me. From her own mother. They thought I wasn’t fit to care for her. I couldn’t let them. I pressed the small body, wrapped in a potato sack, close to my heart.\r\nCrows burst from the stalks, black ink splattered against the gray sky. My lungs burned, my legs screamed in protest.\r\nTo my left, something tore through the corn, snapping stalks as it came. The dogs. Wicked beasts with teeth like rake tines, sniffing out my trail, eager to rip flesh from bone. They hadn’t reached me yet, but they would.\r\nI had to reach the river before they were loosed.\r\nSliding down the bank, I hit the mud hard, still clutching the babe. My dress soaked up filth, my blisters throbbed, but none of it mattered. Nothing but the silent child at my chest. Nothing else in this world worth a damn.\r\nThe river lay ahead, but the crowd surged closer, their voices crashing like waves. Then, something worse. The handler’s command rang out. The dogs charged.\r\nI scrambled up the embankment, my breath jagged. A dirt road cut through my path. A wagon charged toward me from the south, torchlight glinting off rifle barrels.\r\nThey wouldn’t dare fire.\r\nA gunshot shattered the thought. Mud exploded at my feet, spraying my legs. A second shot cracked into a nearby elm.\r\nThey were trying to kill me.\r\nThe river loomed ahead. I ran toward it, willing my body forward, but something inside me told me to look. To see.\r\nFor the first time, I looked down at the babe. Pale. Still. Lips tinged purple.\r\nI stopped running, feet sinking into the soft, wet earth just steps from the riverbank.\r\nDear God.\r\nHands shaking, I peeled back the potato sack.\r\nA boy.\r\nMy child had been a girl.\r\nThe truth struck like ice water, numbness creeping deep into my bones. I had buried my child. Beneath the cedars. I had wept at her grave, my body racked with grief. Scarlet fever had taken her, just as it had taken all the rest.\r\nAnd in my grief, in my madness, I had smothered this babe in its crib. Then taken the body with me.\r\nThe howls and shouts closed in, the night thick with the sound of my reckoning.\r\nThey hadn’t come for my daughter.\r\nThe fog lifted, clarity dawning in my eyes.\r\nThey had come for me.\r\nBecause I’d killed someone else’s child."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "How to Survive a Haunted House."
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "We recently moved into an old house in the suburbs. While checking the mailbox, I found a strange pamphlet inside—I’m not sure what to make of it.\r\n_______________________________________________________________\r\nHow to Get Rid of a Haunting in Your Old House.\r\nSo, you moved into your dream house, only to find out it came with a spectral squatter. Classic. At first, it was just flickering lights and misplaced keys, but now you’re dodging flying objects and feeling cold spots in peak summer. Fear not! With our tried-and-true methods, you’ll have your home ghost-free (or at least tolerable) in no time.\r\nHauntings can be scary, but most of the time, they’re just… annoying. Your best approach? A mix of practical home maintenance, strategic ignorance, and a few supernatural countermeasures. Follow our guide, and you might just outlast your paranormal parasite.\r\nStep 1: Fix the Infrastructure – Not Every Cold Spot is a Ghost\r\nBefore blaming the afterlife, check your home maintenance. Uneven heating? Faulty wiring? Flickering lights? Ghosts love bad electrical work (or maybe it’s just bad wiring). Make sure your heating is consistent and your light bulbs are properly installed. Half your hauntings will disappear with basic repairs.\r\nStep 2: Unwanted Noises? Simple Fix – Headphones\r\nCreepy whispers at night? Mysterious footsteps? Invest in noise-canceling headphones, and boom—haunting solved. If you can’t hear the ghost, is it even there? You’ll finally sleep peacefully.\r\nStep 3: Nightly Hauntings & Bathroom Trips – Control Your Liquids\r\nMost ghostly encounters happen when people wake up to pee. Solution? Drink less water before bed. If that’s not an option, get your diabetes under control or—hear us out—wear a diaper. Ghosts tend to lose interest when they see a grown adult in a nocturnal nappy. Side note: keep petroleum jelly handy if you're going this route.\r\nStep 4: Avoiding Direct Contact – The Power of Salt\r\nSalt is your best friend. 99.9% of ghosts disappear when salt is thrown at them. The other 0.1%? That’s either not a ghost or… your spouse. If it’s the latter, salt is not the solution.\r\nStep 5: The Pet Solution – Choose Wisely\r\nDogs sense ghosts and avoid them.\r\nBirds & Small Rodents react, but might literally die from fright.\r\nCats? They know. But whether they warn you is another matter.\r\nStep 6: Holy Help – Leave It to the Experts\r\nYes, you could Google \"DIY Exorcism,\" but should you? No. Some things are best left to professionals. Call a priest, monk, or spiritual leader of your choice.\r\nStep 7: When All Else Fails – Sell the House\r\nIf you can afford it, sell the house. Just be decent and leave this guide for the new owners.\r\nNow go forth and reclaim your home. Or at least try. Some things don’t want to leave, no matter what you do.\r\n______________________________________________________________\r\nI decided to ignore the pamphlet, thinking it was a joke, until I found my cat staring at the attic door, completely still. Somewhere above, the floor creaked."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "What Would You Like To Eat?"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "The roasted chicken’s breast quivered like a heartbeat.\r\nThe Nereus drifted through deep space, months from resupply. Meals came from the BioFeast Replicator, a new marvel of engineered sustenance, breaking down protein sludge and reassembling it into steak, chicken, waffles or whatever the crew craved.\r\nEnsign Marlow froze, fork hovering.\r\n“Did… anyone see that?”\r\nAcross the galley, utensils clinked, then stilled. A forced chuckle. A cough. The silence stretched, taut as a wire.\r\n“Must be a glitch,” someone murmured.\r\nCaptain Smith leaned back, arms crossed. “Protein threads reacting to heat. Nothing to worry about.” Her voice was firm, but Marlow saw the flicker of unease in her eyes.\r\nHe prodded the chicken again. It lay still. Gradually, conversation resumed. Laughter followed. But Marlow’s gaze lingered on the BioFeast replicator humming in the corner.\r\nThe next day, Lieutenant Singh’s breakfast sausage twitched beneath her knife. This time, the laughter never came.\r\nThat night, Marlow woke to a hunger that coiled deep inside him, a hollow ache beyond reason. He chugged water. It did nothing.\r\nBy morning, his hands trembled as he reached for a ration bar. He bit down, chewed, swallowed. Then gagged. It was tasteless, no, worse. Like swallowing dust and ash.\r\nHours later, he collapsed in the corridor, gnawing his own arm. Teeth splintered. Blood webbed across his chin.\r\n“So hungry…” he rasped.\r\nHis transformation was grotesque, muscles knotted, veins writhing like parasites beneath his skin. In the med bay, restraints snapped like brittle twine. He lunged at the nearest crew member, shrieking:\r\n“MEAT!”\r\nThen the replicator awoke.\r\nPlates slid out, one after another. Raw, glistening slabs of flesh. The first shuddered. The second wept. The third pleaded:\r\n“Please… help…”\r\nOne by one, the crew fell to hunger. The only food was what the machine gave them. And the body’s desperation drowns the mind’s revulsion. Smith’s descent was slow, methodical. She stalked a junior officer through the galley, voice husked and hollow.\r\n“It must be fed to feed.”\r\nHer nails tore furrows down his face as he screamed.\r\nSingh resisted the longest. But hunger is patient. It whispers. It beckons.\r\nYou must eat, or you will die.\r\nThe voice wasn’t hers.\r\nThe steak quivered between her fingers, sinews flexing, alive. She pressed it to her lips, bile rising. She swallowed. And the voice sighed in pleasure.\r\nWhen the rescue team arrived, the Nereus was silent as a grave. The crew had vanished.\r\nThe BioFeast replicator still hummed. Plates lined its conveyor, trembling, mewling.\r\nA tech pried open the hopper. Inside: shredded uniforms, tufts of hair, gleaming white bone.\r\nThe machine let out a soft chime.\r\n\"What would you like to EAT?\""
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "I Was Never Meant to Exist"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "I used to love football. But I could never play. I was born half-paralyzed, trapped in a wheelchair my whole life.\r\nDad told me it was some kind of medical condition, but I never really understood. My brother, though—he was the best player in town. I grew up watching him, dreaming of playing by his side.\r\nI loved him. But he… didn’t love me back.\r\nSometimes he acted embarrassed by me. He never wanted me around. My parents weren’t much better. They adored him, but I was always ignored.\r\nI never understood why. Until today.\r\nThis morning, I woke up feeling strange.\r\nSomething was moving on my legs.\r\nAt first, I thought I was imagining it. I had never felt anything in my legs before. But there it was—a small, black, worm-like thing crawling up my skin.\r\nIt should have disgusted me. But instead, I was fascinated.\r\nI watched it all day. It grew—an inch, then two. It was feeding on me.\r\nBut I didn’t mind. It was my friend.\r\nAs hours passed, my body grew weaker. I felt like it was draining me, but I didn’t care. I was starving.\r\nI forced myself to eat something—a sandwich my mom left before work. But as soon as I took a bite, my stomach revolted. I threw up everything.\r\nThen—I smelled it.\r\nI opened the fridge. Raw meat.\r\nSomething inside me snapped.\r\nI tore into it—ripping, chewing, swallowing. The blood coated my hands, my face, my clothes. I didn’t care. I needed more.\r\nBut then—it was gone.\r\nI waited for Mom to bring more, but the hunger was unbearable.\r\nThen I heard him.\r\nMy brother, home from practice, asleep in his bed.\r\nHis smell was strong.\r\nHis meat smelled delicious.\r\nI only wanted a small bite. Just a taste. But he woke up.\r\nHe pushed me away.\r\nA wave of rage hit me. I grabbed the nearest thing—a flower pot—and smashed it over his head.\r\nHe collapsed.\r\nBlood seeped from his skull. The smell was intoxicating.\r\nI licked some.\r\nIt was… perfect.\r\nI took a bite. Then another. Then another.\r\nI ate him.\r\nAnd then—a miracle.\r\nI stood up.\r\nI could walk.\r\nFor the first time in my life, I could stand, move, run.\r\nI laughed. I needed to show Mom and Dad! They’d be so happy!\r\nBut when they came home, they weren’t happy. They screamed when they saw me—covered in blood, smiling.\r\nI told them, \"Look! I can walk now!\"\r\nBut they pushed past me.\r\nThey saw my brother—his half-eaten body.\r\nThey looked at me with horror.\r\nThey called me a monster.\r\nThey said, \"We shouldn’t have raised you.\"\r\nI didn’t understand.\r\nThen—anger.\r\nI ate them too.\r\nI ate every last piece.\r\nBut now… I’m still hungry.\r\nI can’t stop.\r\nI don’t want to stop.\r\nSo, I made a choice.\r\nI took a bite of my own leg.\r\nAnd you know what?\r\nI taste amazing."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "I refuse to correct him"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "The first time Dad forgot my name, he had his classic fishing smile. His temples were crinkled, blonde hair sheets were tapping his beard. The air smelled like it should have, algae and rotting everything else. And when his pole trembled in his hand, he insisted it was arthritis. He never had arthritis.\r\nLater that morning, his jittery fingers, his silverware dropping meant sweaty fingers and “too much caffeine.” And when he dropped the coffee pot? “Alcohol.” A fearful man is one who claims to have been drinking at 9 a.m. when he hasn’t been- it wasn’t on his breath, he wasn’t slurring, and he wasn’t a good actor. I do wonder what he believed was really happening to him.\r\nMy twelve-year old sister did, she wondered. The eyes of a man who just called his daughter by his great Aunt’s name have the vulnerable essence of a baby left on a porch, of innocent souls losing. The kind of unseen enemy that bypasses your perceptions, that has no interest to waste on making you a monster- not always, not in Dad’s case- is this one that’s growing amongst our family right now. Now, at this moment, at this table, it’s eating his potato. He’s not eating it.\r\nHis brain scan was passed around the family, extended, this one. Don’t look if you get the chance. Three sloppy, knotted black holes are where the once middle barely is. Around it are stringy little half ribbons of brain that look two-dimensional compared to the outline of a healthy brain. A healthy one is thickened, robust, like firm snowflakes. Dad’s looks like the lonely, fatigued branches on a winter tree.\r\nSo, rather than whining further- “it takes more pollution to whine, then a solution,” he sometimes says- used to say. So. We’re playing catch. Only- he keeps calling me Dad. He thinks he’s a kid. I went with it. Actually, I have not been correcting him all day, and Mom despises me now.\r\nShe says I’m sadistic. She says it’s cruel, and I’m sick, and I’m treating this monster like a punchline. I don’t think that’s true, though. He deserves the memory he’s yearning for. It’s not about me, none of this is. If he wanted to play with me, he would have called me “son.”\r\nWe’ve been playing for three hours that way. He’s smiling. His eyes still have light, and so do mine. Because there’s more to a human than their brains. And more to a family than our monsters."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "There Used to Be More"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "“Cinnamon Swirl, Frosted Blueberry, Fruity Pebbles.”\r\nAll the regulars are there. Many wouldn’t be disappointed at this display of Pastry Puffs. Still a popular snack after all these decades, it appeared the brand had experienced zero decline.\r\nThat’s not what I see though.\r\nI see 100 boxes but only five flavors. Growing up in the 90s/2000s, I can distinctly remember the selection being ten times more exotic. There’s no Raspberry, Hot Cocoa or Pink Lemonade. Once upon a time, all the bases were covered. If Wal-Mart didn’t have the A and W Root Beer edition, K-Mart would with half a dozen other unique offerings.\r\nPeople tell me I’m misremembering things. They’ve always been a brand of simplicity. Sure, they’d roll out some limited types but those rarely stayed. The Nintendo and DreamWorks promotions came and went quickly and weren’t the childhood stalwarts I remember them being.\r\nThose folks are lying. I was there. Even if it sometimes seems like it was even longer ago than I remember.\r\nA nice worker, who also claims to be my son, collects me from my longing and ushers me away. Before I know it, I’m at my residence; as unfamiliar as that grocery aisle."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "There's Something Next to Me"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "I sat down on my couch with my laptop. It was pitch black in the rest of my apartment. I hoped it would be a normal Friday night; just sitting down to watch YouTube until my laptop died.\r\nI clicked on a video and sat back, my legs under me and my eyes fixated on the screen. As the video played on, I heard my cushions creak and felt a weight against the other side of my couch. The hair on my arms stood up and I dared not look to my left.\r\n\"Just keep focused...\" I thought as I clicked on another video. My laptop was at a cool seventy percent. Whatever this was, I suspected it would pounce if I got up to grab my charger or turn on the light.\r\nThe presence got closer ever so slightly and I tensed even further. I leaned to my right towards the table next to the couch and reached for the remote, still keeping my eyes on the screen.\r\nThe TV turned on, casting a glow across the room. I hoped whatever was next to me might reel back, but it crept slightly closer. I was running out of options, my laptop battery was draining and my brain screamed telling me not to look at this thing.\r\nAs my battery flickered to thirty-five and the sounds of YouTube and the TV clashed, a thought crossed my mind. I readied myself and quickly chucked my laptop to the side towards the presence and leaped from the couch. I was only wearing my pajamas and no shoes, but I yanked the door to my house open and ran out to the street.\r\nI heard a guttural scream from inside my house; I never turned back. I just kept running until I reached the end of the street. Over me, the streetlights loomed dimly. I panted and put my hands to my knees. I then heard something pad up behind me."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "How to Administer a Shot"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "Carefully flip the subject on its back and scan the barcode to check the weight. For best results, it should typically weigh between 2 and 4 kg and should be about 50 inches long.\r\nGently extend the small arm and clean the targeted site. Should the subject become disruptive, gently lift and rock them back and forth, accompanied by a minute of soft humming and delicate pats on the back every two seconds.\r\nAfter cleaning the targeted site, insert air into the vial before filling it with 5g of pentobarbital. Within a few minutes, the subject will experience a cessation in breathing and relaxation of muscle tension before incapacitation, and any form of struggle should cease. Delicately massage away any remaining knots or tensions in the muscles.\r\nAllow the subject to rest for several hours until it dries and its form solidifies. Once the flesh has firmed, carefully clean it and discard the organs, as demonstrated on page 19. Best enjoyed when prepared as a Holiday roast."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "Twelve Steps To The Grave"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "Joe stumbled out of the bar, keys in hand. He was pretty sure he was fine for the short drive home. As he walked toward his car, he noticed a sign: \"Midnight AA.\"\r\nWell, he had some time to kill to sober up. And last he checked, AA meetings had free coffee. Woudn't hurt to sober up a bit either.\r\nThe stairs creaked under his weight as he made his way down to the church basement. He nearly fell through the door into a meeting already underway.\r\n\"Welcome, brother,\" said a man in a knit sweater, his clerical collar just visible. \"Come have a seat.\"\r\nJoe hesitated, then took a chair. He might as well ride this out.\r\n\"Jane was just about to share,\" the priest said.\r\nJane sniffled. \"When Kenny and I drank, we always fought. One night, instead of his fists, he hit me with a lamp. The glass cut my throat, and I bled out on the spot.\"\r\nJoe waited for a laugh, a punchline. The others only nodded in solemn understanding.\r\n\"David, your turn,\" said the priest.\r\nDavid cleared his throat. \"I used to drink from the slop bucket at my friend’s bar. Every spilled drink, every cigarette butt, straight down. One night, I finished the whole thing. Pain shot through my arm, and when the paramedics came, I was dead on arrival.\"\r\nJoe sat forward. \"Hold on. You aren’t dead if you’re sitting right here.\"\r\nEveryone turned to him. Their faces were full of pity. A chill ran down Joe’s spine.\r\nThe priest sighed. \"I’ll go next.\" He stared at the stained linoleum. \"It was late. I had just given last rites to a seven-year-old leukemia patient. The scotch didn’t help. By midnight, I had a shotgun in my mouth.\"\r\nJoe shot to his feet, his chair clattering behind him. \"I’m out of here.\"\r\n\"That’s alright,\" the priest said. \"Stay on your path, and you’ll be sharing your story in no time.\"\r\nJoe's vision blurred. The floor tilted under his feet.\r\nPain.\r\nHe gasped awake, body screaming, lungs thick with something metallic. Bright lights burned his eyes. Machines beeped all around him.\r\nA nurse appeared and hurried out the door. A moment later, a police officer walked in and sat beside the bed.\r\n\"You know where you are?\" he asked.\r\nJoe groaned. \"No.\"\r\nThe cop exhaled through his nose. \"You ran straight into a power pole. You reek of alcohol. You’re lucky you didn’t kill anyone.\"\r\nJoe swallowed, throat raw. He turned his head and froze.\r\nOn the bedside table, next to a foam cup of water, sat a newcomer coin.\r\nIt was a 24 hour sobriety chip."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "Moths to Her Flame"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "Her father doesn't talk about her birth—because he can't remember. If it ever happened. This child burned with an unexplainable glow. It was subtle—never enough to be unnatural, unmistakable, like a distant star. The town as well loved her; she was kind, pleasant and ever-smiling.\r\nAt age of six, a neighbor’s newborn wouldn’t stop bleeding—no remedy could close the wound. When the girl touched the infant, the flesh knit shut instantly. But the baby never opened its eyes. Its heart still beat, yet its limbs withered, skin peeling away as decay crept from its fingertips to its shoulders. There it lay silent in the crib, its mother refusing to bury something breathing.\r\nAt this moment she felt the glow grew stronger.\r\nAt age of twelve, living in a frontier city, a wounded soldier was brought in, severe— blinded. He gasps for air and spits out clotted, bloody mucus. The girl sat beside him, her father— the local doctor— watching. Her hands pressed against his face, the glow shone brighter than ever before, through her fingertips the skin stitched itself, the smell of iron fading. Slowly the wounds healed— new skin forming, new eyeballs grew from inside his brain; his eyelids twitched.\r\nHis pupils darted back and forth throughout the city, ending the gaze on the wide-eyed girl. The girl smiled, feeling a sense of victory.\r\nBut then—\r\nThe soldier screamed.\r\nThe voice was raw, choking from his own saliva, not from mere surprise but terror. His new eyes shifting rapidly, ever so his pupils constricting until it turned to nothing.\r\n\"No, no, no—\" He screamed, tearing out his new organs from its sockets, wailing indiscriminately. The soldier scrambled from his feet, addressing upwards incomprehensible, undescribable things—begging and praying for mercy.\r\nAgain, he gazed at the girl, her face aghast whilst her father embraced her.\r\nHe screamed again.\r\nThis time he did not stop until his comrades put him down.\r\nAt age of sixteen, the city was struck by a plague. Her memories of the soldier haunted her every night as she grew up. As more and more townspeople fell dead, the more they plead the girl to come out. To save them. The father watched helplessly as he boarded up the house.\r\nShe stayed inside, trying to claw out the glow out her throat, from her face. As the days passed clamoring outside her home fade—people rotted and fell prey to nature. Then weeks. The city fell silent. Only vultures stalked the streets.\r\nYet the father's skin grew black and nodular with the plague as well.\r\n\"Please, Lisa, my girl. Just this once.\" He pleaded.\r\nShe couldn't. Her hands trembled— the glow flickered as if salivating at the thought.\r\nAs her father took his last breath, she felt the glow grow mad for the first time.\r\nAnd because she refused, it punished her. The city and her father was gone, but she remained.\r\nAlone with the glow."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "I Was Supposed to Drown"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "Concrete hardens quick around your ankles. But no one talks about how much it burns. It eats through your shoes, chews into the soles of your feet.\r\nBut that was the least of my concerns. I sat at the stern of a small boat, perched over one of the deepest stretches of ocean.\r\n“Shoulda kept your mouth shut, Ricky,” Tommy said, his lips slick with grease, his breath thick with stale meat. A mouth-breather if there ever was one.\r\n“Please. I’ll feed the cops dirty info. Don’t do this,” I pleaded.\r\nBehind him, Reggie sat heavy in his seat, a cigar pinched between thick fingers. He eyed me like I was nothing. Less than nothing. Just another problem to be dealt with.\r\n“Nah,” he exhaled smoke, watching it twist into the night air. “Too late for that. Drop him.”\r\nOne push.\r\nThat’s all it took.\r\nI hit the water hard. My wrists were cuffed behind my back, and the current wrenched at them as the weight dragged me down.\r\nThe pressure started at the base of my skull. My ears popped, pain blooming deep behind my jaw.\r\nSomething clicked behind my eyes. Swelling. A brutal, unnatural pressure.\r\nThe light above shrank. The cold tightened its grip.\r\nThen the real pain began.\r\nThe pressure in my ears became unbearable, invisible rods punching past my eardrums, churning my cochlea into soup. My skull felt like it was being crushed in a vise, my jaw pried apart by forces not meant for human bones. One eye throbbed, the socket loosening, ready to give.\r\nStill, I didn’t die.\r\nMy lungs screamed for air, spasming with the need to breathe. Instinct won. I inhaled. Seawater flooded in, burning, choking, but it didn’t end me.\r\nI kept sinking. The cold deepened. The weight of the ocean bore down, squeezing my ribs, pulling at my limbs. My ankles snapped under the force, the bones grinding apart inside the concrete.\r\nI felt my body break. Felt my insides rupture. Felt my mind slip past the edge of sanity from the agony.\r\nAnd yet I lived.\r\nI always lived.\r\nI couldn’t drown. Couldn’t suffocate. Couldn’t be crushed or torn apart, no matter how deep I sank. No matter how much my body screamed for release.\r\nMinutes passed before the cement blocks struck something soft—primordial sludge, ancient and untouched. The blackness here was absolute.\r\nI wasn’t dead. I would never be dead.\r\nReggie hadn’t banished me to the grave.\r\nHe had sentenced me to something far worse.\r\nHe didn’t know I was immortal when he had me shoved off the boat. No one did. It was my dirty secret. A profane curse. I’d seen empires rise and crumble. I’d seen eternities come and go.\r\nBecause down here, in the crushing dark, I would never rot. Never decay. Never fade into nothing like a man should in the end.\r\nInstead, I would remain. Forever.\r\nAnd it didn’t take long for me to realize—\r\nI wasn’t alone down there."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "Children Keep Falling to Their Death"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "Retirement didn’t suit Wilford, and as such he managed to finagle his way into being the town's Fire Chief. The job was mostly paperwork. After all, Beaumont only had about five thousand residents and hadn’t had a fire in fifty years.\r\nThere was, of course, the oak tree on Mulberry Hill; which, this year alone, three children had climbed to the top, realized their folly, and fallen to their deaths.\r\nWilford gave a speech to the local elementary school. Tried, at least. The damn kids were all on their phones. “Please,” he begged. “Don’t climb the tree on Mulberry Hill, ya’ hear? You can climb any tree ya’ like, just not that one. We don’t want any more accidents.”\r\nAccidents. A nice way to avoid saying three families would never be the same.\r\nNot two days passed before another kid was found at the trunk of the oak, spine ripped in two from a forty foot fall.\r\nWilford began to take it personally, being Fire Chief and all. He petitioned the city counsel to fence off the entire area. His idea was quickly dismissed. If the kids could climb a tree, they could climb a fence.\r\nAnother week passed, and a boy of particular promise met his demise from the climb-and-fall. Wilford watched his parents cry on the news, saying their boy was a genius at piano. A rare talent. Berklee was interested even though he was only thirteen.\r\nThat was enough.\r\nWilford decided for the first time in his life he’d commit a crime. He drove two towns over to a hardware store to purchase a gas powered chainsaw that cost him half his Social Security check. He drove his barely running Ford F-150 to Mulberry Hill, and approached the oak.\r\nAt the trunk he was startled by a girl, no older than ten, yelling for help from the treetop.\r\n“Dangnabit. You don’t move! I’m coming up to help you.”\r\nThe branches fit perfectly in his hands. They seemed to move and be perfectly in reach. Though he was old, it was like the tree strengthened him. It was fun to climb! Wilford let out a mighty laugh. He wanted to climb it! The dumb girl be damned!\r\nBranch after branch! It happened so fast. Only when he reached the girl did he look down and see he was nearly forty feet up. A dizzying height.\r\nThe girl swayed in the breeze on branches thinner than should hold her. “You were going to cut him down, weren’t you? He doesn’t like stinky old men. He won’t keep you like he keeps us.”\r\n“Give me your hand, let’s get you down–”\r\nWilford felt two hands grab his foot. It was the piano boy, smiling with ivory teeth. Another two hands grabbed his other foot, and began trying to shake him from the tree.\r\nThe girl leaped on him and he lost his grip. The branches moved out of the way and he fell forty feet unobstructed."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "Like calls to like"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "There was nothing off about the man. He was tall and lean, with a thin mustache and a crooked smile. He would go to his regular 9-5, Monday through Friday, and get all his work done early just so he could spend the last 30 minutes looking through some photographs. On the weekends, he would hit up his local bar to grab a whisky on the rocks, smoke a cigar, and chat with the bartender and same three regulars. Twice a month, he would shop for a handful of canned foods that would fly by rather quickly, and for a bar of dark chocolate. Sometimes, he'd stop by the pet aisle to pick up a thing or two.\r\nThat was everything she could tell after having watched him for the past 3 months, 2 weeks, 1 day, and 20 hours. In the dark corner of their local bar, too far too be spotted, she sipped on her own Martini, downing the last bit of it. And with a soft smile, she wandered over to him.\r\n\"Mind if I sit here?\" she asked, motioning to the empty stool next to him.\r\nHe did a double-take before he gave his signature crooked smile. \"I'd be honored.\" He offered his arm for her to hold onto as she sat down — ever the gentleman — before he asked, \"And what's your name?\"\r\n\"Vanessa.\"\r\n\"Christopher. Here, let me get you a drink. Do you like martinis?\"\r\nAnd with that, jokes were flowing and drinks were overflowing as laughter and banter filled the air. They seemed to click perfectly, like two pieces of a puzzle finally coming together. The hours ticked by, and it was long past midnight when Christopher invited Vanessa over to his place. He brought her to his living room, where she noticed two things she hadn't before. One: a door behind his plant. And two: he didn't have a pet.\r\n\"Vanessa,\" he started, glint in his eyes. \"Or should I call you Elizabeth? I know you've been watching me.\"\r\nShe froze. She'd been caught.\r\n\"No, don't you worry your pretty head.\" He smiled. \"I've been watching you too. For a while now.\" He passed her his photographs — they were all of her. \"You're a lovely specimen. And we share the same interests.\" Extending his arm, he said, \"Let me show you something. I think you'll like it.\"\r\nShe took it.\r\nThey both walked through the door and went down a flight of stairs before entering a dark basement. Scratching and whines could be heard, and a metallic rattle echoed every now and then\r\nChristopher opened up a can of food and passed it over to Elizabeth. \"It's feeding time. Would you like to do the honors?\"\r\nShe did. So she took the food and he led her to a cage she didn't see before. As soon as she placed the food inside, a thin figure on all fours took it. Ah, she thought with a smile, so that's his pet."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "All Praise is Due to Him"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "The sky is boiling. I can only breathe when I bury my face in the earth. The soil is rich, and I plan to grow in it. God lets me breathe in the dirt; He is the most merciful. He lets me out to plunder the flesh. He commands it. God is my shepherd and my Father; I obey Him alone.\r\nGod buries his face in the skin. He looks out through our pores. He is the most powerful. The chipped red brick walls of the basement radiate the warmth of the sky. My home is God’s home. I bring Him offerings and He brings me relief from the churning air.\r\nThe people don’t know. God tells me to make them see. I struggle and so do they. God always provides, He is the most abundant. In the brick room I show them the truth. They see the boiling sky for the first time and they weep and beg for mercy.\r\nGod helps them. Once I show them God does the rest. He turns their fear into obedience. He is ever Just. The skin is disobedient so that goes first. The muscles are reticent and so they too must be offered up. The bones listen. The bones worship eternally.\r\nThe system has turned against me. My face has been seen on the far seer. Soil and sweat obscuring most of my features. God is greater. He has driven them away from me, from my brick room. From my cathedral. The house of God will never be violated by the blind flesh.\r\nGod is becoming flesh in the earth and bone in the sky. The bone boils and the earth sustains. God is most innovative. The world rejected me just as it rejected Him who sent me. They are nearing the throne of The Most High. He will reveal everything today.\r\nThe sky is boiling. I can no longer breathe the earth. I have grown weak in sallow soil. I’m out of time. God is lightning in the dark; he has given me all and taken more back. He lets them in the Holy of Holies. They chain me. God is my end and salvation; I obey Him alone."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "Billy Wasn't Supposed to be Alive"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "That day, Billy, Chester, and I were hanging out on the hill near our school. We had been there countless times. People camp there every now and then in the summer.\r\nBilly stood near the edge of the cliff, peeking downward to see what was below. The moment Billy turned around to face us and took a step forward, suddenly the ground beneath him cracked and gave way.\r\nA landslide happened right before my eyes.\r\nBefore Billy even realized what was happening, he fell along with it.\r\n\"BILLY!!\" Chester and I shouted in fear.\r\nDetermined to find him, we decided to go down by foot in the safest way possible.\r\nWhat lay in front of us was Billy’s body, crushed from the waist down by a boulder that had fallen with him just seconds earlier. Blood flooded the soil around him.\r\nWe quickly ran to Billy’s parents’ house.\r\nMy hand was shaking as I reached out to press the doorbell.\r\nThe door creaked open, and someone stood behind it.\r\nBut it wasn’t Billy’s Mom or Dad.\r\nIt was Billy himself.\r\n\"Dude... didn’t we… hang out at the hill just an hour ago?\" Chester asked.\r\n\"I just woke up, man,\" Billy replied calmly.\r\nChester and I quickly made an excuse to leave. We agreed to go to the hill once again to check on Billy’s dead body. We had to make sure of it. But the second we set foot at the site, we saw something we didn’t expect.\r\nThe boulder was there. The pool of blood was there. The shirt Billy was wearing when the boulder crushed him was there.\r\nBut Billy’s body was missing.\r\nBilly’s dead body was the only thing that was gone.\r\nWe both agreed that with the body being missing, there was nothing we could say or do except to go home and shrug it off.\r\n\"How’s your day going?\" my Dad asked the second I entered the house.\r\nI decided to just tell my parents the weird situations I had just experienced. My parents stared at each other for a while after I finished.\r\n\"This small town, Andrew,” Dad explained, “is a research facility designed to create and develop clones.\"\r\n\"Clones?\" I muttered. \"Who?\"\r\n\"You, and all the kids in this town. Every adult here is a scientist assigned to monitor the development of the children, all of whom are clones.\"\r\nI gasped. \"For what?\"\r\n\"Organ harvesting,\" Mom answered.\r\n\"This town is part of a massive ongoing clone project, which, in the end, is meant to be an organ farm created using clones. Organ transplants are expensive. This project would make them much cheaper,\" Dad explained.\r\nDad pulled open a drawer and took out something that looked like a joystick with a button on it.\r\n\"Stay calm,\" he said. \"I'll push this button, and you'll have a heart attack, die, and slowly turn into dust. We'll then regenerate another clone of you.\"\r\nI watched as Dad pressed the button on the joystick-like device."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "We were told not to look."
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "Airplanes scared me long before I ever stepped inside one. Not the physics of flight—the helplessness. The way a crash would turn you into a statistic, a black box transcript, a punchline about “final thoughts” as the cabin screams.\r\nBut there I was, 27,000 feet above Nebraska, white-knuckling an armrest because some startup in Phoenix thought I was worth relocating.\r\nThe window shade was slammed shut, but thin solar filaments of daylight bled around its edges, taunting.\r\nWhat killed me wasn’t the fear—it was the normalcy. The man beside me slept mouth agape, his crossword half-finished: 3-down, “Elysian Fields.”\r\nBehind us, a couple split a turkey wrap, lettuce confetti spilling onto a tray table sticky with ginger ale.\r\nNo one else noticed the engine’s pitch tilting into a whine, or how the overhead bins creaked like old floorboards.\r\nThey were all playing their parts—the napper, the snacker, the guy laughing at Fast X on mute—while I cataloged exit rows and wondered if the oxygen masks actually worked.\r\nThe PA crackled awake. “Passengers we’ve reached 30,000 feet. Please refrain from looking out of your windows.” No upward inflection. A command, not a reminder.\r\nThe cabin froze. A businessman near the galley snorted, “The hell kind of prank—” but his voice died as the message repeated, slower this time, syllables stretched like taffy. “Pleeeeease refraaaaaain…”\r\nThree people looked anyway.\r\nThe man in 12B went first—balding, khakis, the kind of guy who’d argue about reclining seats.\r\nHe peeled up his shade. Neon-blue light flooded his face, the color of deep-sea jellyfish, pulsing in time with his carotid. “There’s a city above the clouds,” he whispered.\r\nHe began to smile. His grin didn’t stop at his cheeks. It kept going, lips splitting like perforated paper, jaw unhinging with a wet snap of connective tissue. Blood streaked his chin, but he kept smiling, eyes locked on whatever hung in that impossible sky.\r\nThen the screaming started. Not from him. From the woman in 15F, clawing at her own eyelids after a single glance. Her pupils had dissolved, viscous black tears pooling in her lap.\r\nThe teenager across from her just… leaned, forehead pressed to the window, giggling as his nose cartilage liquefied, dribbling down the glass in pink rivulets.\r\nThe cabin stank now—metallic, like a slaughterhouse floor hosed down with rubbing alcohol. Bodies slumped in their seats, frozen in whatever pose was their last.\r\nI didn’t look. Not when the man in 12B’s skull caved inward like a rotting pumpkin. Not when the lights flickered, casting jagged shadows that didn’t match the seats.\r\nMy knees jammed against the seatback in front of me, arms welded to the armrests, breath shallow as a trapped bird’s.\r\nThe worst part? The silence after. No more screams. No engines. Just the drip of fluids into aisle puddles and the click-click-click of the PA system, short-circuiting itself on a loop: “…windows…windows…windows…”"
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "Too cold outside for angels to..."
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "Street kids were going missing.\r\nBen, the leader of our gang, was the latest to disappear.\r\n\"He's been taken by the white van,\" was the rumor.\r\nSo, the shelter—where kids were vanishing—wasn't ideal.\r\nBut it did have soup and coffee, so I risked it.\r\nCharlie was my first friend.\r\nHe slid next to me one morning, smiling, grasping his own bowl of soup.\r\nWith dark brown hair under his hood and freckled cheeks, I knew the streets would eat him alive.\r\n\"Take that off,\" I grumbled through a mouthful of stale bread.\r\nThat was the first thing I said to him, annoyed he'd interrupted my meal.\r\nI nodded to his fancy jacket.\r\n\"Put it in your backpack, idiot. Unless you want to be robbed.”\r\nI didn’t mean to invite him to sit with me, but he looked lost. Charlie was loud and obnoxious, but he made me smile—even in freezing temperatures.\r\nOne morning, the two of us sat shivering on a wall, our legs dangling.\r\n\"Do you believe in angels, Finn?\" he asked, kicking his legs happily.\r\nFor a homeless kid, he was chipper.\r\nI rolled my eyes. \"Nope. If God was real, my parents wouldn’t have kicked me out for liking boys.\"\r\nCharlie shuffled closer, resting his head on my shoulder. \"You like boys?\"\r\nI jerked back with a hiss. \"Dude! Get off me!\"\r\n\"Sorry,\" he muttered, rubbing his hands. \"You’re… warm.\"\r\nI didn’t respond. I hated that I liked the way he rested against me.\r\nHe was warm.\r\nThat night, I sent Charlie to grab dinner.\r\nHe never came back.\r\nI looked for him, screaming his name. But nobody cared about street kids.\r\nIt’s easy to be numb on the streets. Easy to shut down.\r\nBut when I saw those dark curls and that stupid jacket, I ran, heart pounding.\r\nI wasn’t supposed to feel like this.\r\nThat’s what dad said.\r\nBut I wrapped my arms around Charlie, sobbing, letting myself break apart.\r\nFuck. I would never let him go again– never again.\r\nNever again.\r\nHe was warm.\r\nToo warm.\r\nHis coat was thicker. More expensive.\r\n\"Where did you go?!\" I demanded, shoving him.\r\nCharlie just smiled.\r\nA clammy hand clamped over my mouth, gagging my scream.\r\nI was thrown into a white van, the shutters violently slamming down.\r\n\"I'm sorry, Finn,\" Charlie said from outside.\r\n\"But... you're the perfect shape and body for my father.\"\r\nStumbling back, I dropped to my knees choking on the stink of decay.\r\nIn front of me lay a boy.\r\nBen.\r\nHis skin was gray, dried blood staining his face.\r\nBut the twisted, feathery appendages protruding from his back held my gaze.\r\nWings.\r\nRotting wings—an attempt at splicing human and something else entirely.\r\nDying inside a body that was ice-cold and alone, where he would never be found.\r\nJust like… me.\r\n\"Finn?\" Charlie's whisper slipped through the shutters.\r\nI held onto his voice, willing it to be him.\r\nCharlie.\r\nThe boy I fell in love with.\r\n\"Do you believe in angels?\""
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "Back to Basics"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "‘Now, this is what kids these days are missing,’ Marge told herself.\r\nShe’d found the group on Facebook. It was called Back to Basics.\r\nShe saw some familiar faces, including Shirley Chandler. She’d liked her post about the Chinese restaurant serving rat meat.\r\nAnd Mike Mac(patriot). A retired cop who’d formed a separate group to prepare the town for DEI riots.\r\nPhil Hinchcliffe and his wife—they had a joint account—Phillynne. Debbie Durie, who promoted raw cow’s milk. Carl Johnson, whose profile pic was at Cape Canaveral. At the last B2B meet, she’d bought something called a crypto from him.\r\nA chopper flew over, and Ron Farrell joked about helicopter parents not being welcome. Everybody laughed, and then, with the other guys, he got back to watching the meat grilling on their open top.\r\nLittle Hunter came running up and clung to her leg. He was hot, sweaty and dirty, but that was the whole point.\r\nThe house belonged to Tom Jameson– a handsome man thinking about a congressional run. He’d gained statewide celebrity after opposing a high school theatre production.\r\nShakespeare? Strike 1\r\nTwelfth night? Strike 2\r\nGender-bending? Strike 3, and you’re outta here.\r\nHunter had a gash just above his right eye.\r\n‘Mom, he hit me with a slingshot.’\r\nSure enough, Nathan Chandler held a slingshot, his pocket full of stones.\r\n‘You want to do this the old-fashioned way?’ Marge shouted to Shirley.\r\n‘Sure. Conflict resolution.’\r\nThe adults laughed.\r\nThe two moms pushed their little boys forward, and the fight began. Once again, the men stopped grilling, and Joe Perry and Colin Brooks set up a wager.\r\nThe boys went at it like terriers. Hunter came out on top– an elbow knocking out Nathan’s front tooth.\r\n‘There’s a reason they’re called baby teeth,’ Shirley continued.\r\nAnd once again, they lol’ed.\r\n…\r\nFinally, it was time for the main event.\r\nThe parents wrangled their kids and took them into the big house to see Tom Jr.\r\nHe lay in bed, coughing up a storm, and was covered head to toe in a blotchy rash.\r\nTom Snr repeated what he’d said in the group. ‘The doc confirmed it… measles.’\r\n‘Sharing is caring,’ Mike Mac(patriot) piped up, four Bud Lites to the good.\r\nHis son was first to go up to hug Tom Jr and then take a sip from his cup.\r\n‘Now don’t go getting any ideas about hugging boys,’ Mike Mac(patriot) continued jovially.\r\nOne by one, the kids filed past.\r\n‘Who needs vaccines when you have community?’ Marge said.\r\nA ripple of agreement went around and was echoed by Phillynne.\r\n‘Community immunity.’\r\nSomeone handed Tom Snr a crown– a little in-joke from when they protested a drag queen book club.\r\n‘You ready, kids,’ Tom said. ‘Time for a story– the Berenstain Bears- God bless our country.’\r\nHe read as the kids huddled around Tom Jr., only stopping when the boy’s coughing became too loud."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "Flying Too Close To The Moon."
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "Fucking idiots. They always said I could never do it, that I was flying too close to the sun. More like the moon. Just look who’s levitating upon the moon, and who’s making shitty scrap change at their 9 to 5 desk job.\r\nDon’t forget my parents. Never believed in me from the start. Forever insistent that I followed in their footsteps and went to law school. Hah! I’m working for NASA now, bitches.\r\nI’m going to enjoy putting my mark on this planet. I hope they think of me when they look upon the night sky and spot the moon.\r\nBe reminded that I set foot and my flag on the moon, while the closest you can get to it is through the peering of a microscope.\r\nIt’s been 3 days now. The lack of gravity is becoming more of a nuisance than anything else. I miss my plush mattress gravely. I can't wait to get back home safe and sound.\r\nI miss Ryker, my beloved Golden Retriever. The best boy. And my girlfriend, my gorgeous looking sweetheart of a girlfriend.\r\nShit. I hope she doesn’t sift through my stuff. She better keep her itchy fingers to herself. I don’t need her spoiling the surprise. I pray I hid the ring’s box well enough. She won’t think to look in my underwear drawer, right?\r\nDay 5 now. Supplies are running dry. I have to ration my dry foods and MREs from now on.\r\nThe stations back home are saying that they’re exhausting all of their resources into getting me back home before I run out of oxygen. At least I’m making history with being the first human being to spend this long on the moon.\r\nI ran out of water yesterday. I’m not desperate enough to resort to recycling, but things are looking bleak.\r\nThe communication stations on Earth are saying that a rescue team is being frantically put together for my sake.\r\nI’m spending most of my time roaming the planet now. When it’s nighttime, I sit and stare at my home planet, and wonder if she’s staring back.\r\n“Hugo? Oh– Oh, God. He’s…” Quinn keeps the fast rising bile down his throat, and bites down on his tongue, averting his gaze from the sight of his deceased colleague.\r\nHis body– Or rather, what was left of it, bore scratch marks trailing down from his chest to his hip. His head had been bitten clean off, leaving a stump and pools of dried blood doting his corpse’s surroundings. Limbs were twisted unnaturally, bone protruding through flesh, and the worst of it, footsteps that looked nowhere human.\r\n“Search his ship.” Quinn commands weakly, his trembling finger gesturing in the general direction of the late astronaut’s space ship.\r\nA thorough search later, nothing of note was found, save for a piece of paper, where a heart clenching revelation was scrawled out in scratchy handwriting.\r\n“There are other forms of life out here.”"
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "Named DO I need to breathe?"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "Tears well up and I can feel the beat of my heart in my head. Thump... thump... thump... my raspy voice goes from harsh and and quick to slow deep and squeaky. My ears ring louder and louder. I scratch my throat hard my nail covered in my own warm blood. It hurts but I can't speak. My vision blurs and fades till I cant see.last thing I see is the chair I've pushed. I fell my feet hover . Then my arms fallow. Blood drips my breath stops the thumping in my head stops. My breathing and vision do the same. I fall over my body shutting down,my last thoughts were I cant breath but I need to. Am I okay with this. Is this right?"
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "Welcome to the Puppet Show"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "It started with a string on my husband’s hand. He was handing me my morning coffee–one shot, lots of foamed milk, extra hot. As my fingers closed around the mug, I noticed the golden thread coming out of the back of his hand, trailing toward the ceiling.\r\nObviously, I looked up.\r\nThe thread was so thin and delicate, only visible where the steam from the mug hit it just right. I quickly lost sight of it in the air.\r\n“Monica, are you alright?”\r\nI blinked, my husband’s words drawing me out of a contemplative trance I hadn’t realized I had fallen into. He was waving his hand in front of my face, and there was–of course–no string in sight.\r\nI desperately needed that coffee.\r\nThree days later, I saw the second string. We were sitting at the kitchen table, and my husband was five minutes into an ode to the keto diet. I tuned him out, staring absently at the space just above his head. That was when I noticed a golden glint in his brown hair. It was a thread, moving up and down in rhythm with his lips. An intrusive thought wormed its way in.\r\nI reached across the table, grabbed the thread, and pulled up.\r\nHis jaw snapped shut. I let go.\r\n“–what everyone misunderstands about ketosis–”\r\nI pulled again. His jaw closed again. His hands continued gesticulating, as if he were still speaking. Above his fingers, ten threads glinted intermittently.\r\nWhat the hell?\r\nI jumped to my feet, my chair clattering to the floor. How had I never noticed them before? Golden threads pulling on every one of my husband’s limbs, taut and vertical, shimmering as their periodic movement caught the light.\r\n“Is something wrong?” his mouth said, the thread at the top of his head sliding up and down.\r\nI looked around for the closest weapon–a pair of scissors on the counter. I grabbed them and pointed them at him. “What–what are you?” I asked. “What did you do with Roy?”\r\nThreads danced, and the thing that looked like my husband stood up.\r\n“Whoa,” he said. “Monica, give me the scissors.” A thread tugged his hand, and it moved toward me.\r\nWithout thinking, I snipped the thread.\r\nHis wrist immediately went limp. He didn’t seem to notice.\r\n“Maybe you should sit down,” he said, as another thread tried to sling his arm around my shoulders. I snipped that one, too, and his arm fell heavily to his side.\r\nThen I was cutting frenziedly, the blades of my scissors snapping at every unnatural glimmer in the air. His limbs dropped down one by one. Finally, I cut the thread above his head, and his body collapsed to the floor like a pile of sticks.\r\nI stood over him, panting. I caught my distorted reflection in the mirrored finish of the refrigerator door. Wide eyes, wild hair, and, above my head, a flash of something golden. I positioned my scissors over my head, and–\r\nCut."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "She's not supposed to be here"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "I don’t know how long she’s been standing there.\r\nI noticed her when I got home from work. The house was pitch-black, save for the moonlight seeping in through the kitchen window. I flipped the lightswitch on, and there she was. I don’t have a roommate or a girlfriend. I live completely alone.\r\nI don’t know who she is or what she wants. Her body is pale, her porcelain skin almost as white as the nightgown she’s wearing. Black, stringy hair obscures her face, but I know she’s looking at me. I can feel her eyes drinking me in, running along my flesh, crawling up and down my body like spiders.\r\nShe hasn’t faltered since I found her. Not so much as a twitch - and neither have I. I’m paralyzed with fear, far too afraid to even move a muscle. I forgot my phone in my car, and I have this dreadful feeling that if I turn my back, I’m going to die. I don’t know if she’s going to stab me, or claw at my face, or sink her teeth into my neck. I just know that whatever I do, I can’t take my eyes off her, not even for a second. We’re at a stalemate.\r\nBut things just escalated.\r\nBecause she’s started counting down from five, and I have a horrible feeling that something downright insidious is going to happen when she reaches zero.\r\nFive.\r\nHer voice is sickly sweet with a deep undertone. No girl her age should sound like that.\r\nFour.\r\nI… I think she’s smiling at me.\r\nThree.\r\nShe’s lifting her head, oh god.\r\nTwo.\r\nThe light’s flickering. I think the bulb is about to go out.\r\nOne.\r\nI can see her clearly now. She’s the last thing I’ll set eyes on before I-\r\nPop."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "Transported To Another World..."
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "Today was normal as always I guess.\r\nPeople ignore me , they bully me , and more.\r\nAnyways , I have to sleep no-\r\nWhat's that blue floating thing?\r\nWait , it's sucking me in? Woa-\r\nAAHHH-\r\n* 5 seconds later*\r\nOw , that hurt...\r\nWait where am I?\r\nI'm in some anime world or something...\r\nWait who is that?\r\n\" Who are you? It looks like you somehow came into our world , even though there's a barrier. It's pretty rare for a human to enter our world since there's a 1 in a G_64 chance of that happening. What's your name , human?\"\r\nThis is so weird , but I have to play along.\r\n\"My name is Kyuki . What's yours?\"\r\n\" My name's Xi. You somehow entered our world because the person that maintains the barrier. \"\r\nHuh? This is interesting...\r\n\" The person does not know how to get you back , so you're stuck with us. \"\r\n\" Wait , I can start a new life? \"\r\n\" Yes , you can , human. Let's go to the ritual for making you a resident. \"\r\n\" Oh sure...\"\r\nI have a bad feeling about this , but I'll shake it off! Oh , me and Xi are going already?\r\n\" We've arrived , Kyuki. \"\r\n\"Ok- . Why are you- ...\"\r\n\" It's a shame we had to kill you , Kyuki. But we need to protect ourselves. We have \" deleted \" you , which means nobody will remember you. Farewell . \""
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "I've become addicted to online shopping."
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "I used to be a nonbeliever.\r\nIt’s true.\r\nI used to think online shopping was dumb.\r\nIt was just another trend I never got around to, like TikTok or avocado toast, and now I was too old and too lame to bother.\r\nBut then my go-to gas station stopped stocking the best flavor of my favorite energy drink.\r\nInnumerable stops around town proved fruitless.\r\nOther flavors couldn’t get the job done (I’m a one-flavor-kind-of-girl).\r\nAnd right before the last drop of hope was wrung from my caffeine-less body, I made a desperate, final attempt to save my life from complete misery.\r\nI searched for them on Amazon… where I found a case available for half the price I normally paid.\r\nHallelujah! I have seen the light!\r\nConsider me a convert, because I was hooked, and mommy wanted more. I never realized how many incredible, cheap things were available at the click of a mouse: decor, appliances, and most importantly… cute outfits!\r\nAfter checking to make sure my credit card could handle it, I spent a week’s pay on a new wardrobe.\r\nWhen I came home from work and my doorstep looked like a game of Tetris, I cried a single tear of joy. I brought them all inside so I could get everything organized, but then noticed a tiny box sandwiched amongst the others.\r\nThat’s odd, I thought, I didn’t order anything that small.\r\nI thought it might be a misdelivery, but opened it anyway. Inside was a small note with a sampler of perfume.\r\nInside I’ve included a special gift.\r\nFor you to use as you wish.\r\nOh my god, I ordered everything from this chic, small business, and they must have sent me a “thank you” for placing such a large order! Online shopping, folks, it’s the way to go!\r\nI pumped some perfume into the air and it smelled divine! I immediately sprayed my neck, my wrists, and—what the hell—stretched out my leggings and sprayed some downstairs just for kicks.\r\nI didn’t even get all my clothes put away before the burning started.\r\nEverywhere I sprayed (and I do mean everywhere) stung like a motherfucker.\r\nI grabbed a damp towel to blot my red-hot neck and the skin pulled away like strands of cotton candy.\r\n“Oh Jesus FUCK!”\r\nIt must have been some fucked up exfoliating chemical peel or something. I have never entered Karen Mode so fast in my life.\r\nI went online, found the number for customer support, and gave ‘em a ring. I tried remaining calm, but the first words out of my mouth were, “You must be out of your damn mind!”\r\n“Ma’am, are you calling to complain?”\r\n“Damn right I am! The perfume you sent me is fucked!”\r\n“Excuse me?”\r\n“I placed a large order of clothes from you, and you sent me a sampler of perfume as a thank you. It’s melting my goddamn skin off!”\r\n“I’m sorry, you must be mistaken,” she said, “we don’t make or sell perfume.”"
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "I’m Worried About My Fellow Mom-To-Be"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "I loved John with all my heart; I’d known the day we met I’d do anything for him. We’d talked about our goals, and he’d confessed how much he’d always wanted to be a father. Despite my worries, I was determined to give that to him.\r\nI’ll never forget showing him my positive pregnancy test. The look on his face was the first time I was actually excited to be a mother.\r\nBut the time leading up to bringing our child into the world was miserable. I hated the extra weight I was carrying, my screwed-up balance, how much my back hurt. I couldn’t get comfortable at night; eventually I moved into the guest room for both our sakes. And I got so moody - sometimes I didn’t even want to be around him.\r\nThere were good moments too, of course. The best part, aside from knowing how happy I was making John, was the friends I made. I joined an online mommy-to-be chat group and met some amazing people. We’d share stories of our lives, our fears, our excitement for the future. It was like we’d known each other forever.\r\nBut there was one girl we were a little worried about. Mary was young and had a rough home life - her parents weren’t supportive, her boyfriend had disappeared when she’d gotten pregnant. We all resolved to do everything we could for her. We messaged her every day, reassuring her that she wasn’t alone. Most days we managed to keep her spirits up, but sometimes she was depressed whatever we did. We discussed doing more - throwing her a shower, donating baby items she’d need. But since she wouldn’t share her location, our hands were tied.\r\nThen one day she reached out to me privately. Her parents had kicked her out and she had nowhere else to go. I immediately sent her the address of my family’s cabin - it wasn’t much, but she could stay there while she figured things out. John was worried about me traveling alone so late in the pregnancy, but when I told him I needed to go help a friend in trouble, he understood. I promised Mary I’d come up as soon as I could.\r\nWhen I got there, she was sitting on the sofa crying; she rushed to hug me in gratitude. I assured her I was happy to help. I poured her some tea and asked about her plans; she said she’d been considering adoption, but because of me she was leaning toward keeping it.\r\nIronic.\r\nLater, I reflected on how hard these last months had been: constantly wearing a fake stomach, feigning doctor’s appointments, killing Mary’s boyfriend, luring her out here. But as I held my new daughter, freshly cut from the dead body that had now served its purpose, I knew it had all been worth it. After all the pretending, John would have a real child and our family would be complete.\r\nMaybe we’d even name her Mary."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "I forgot to water Mom's flowers."
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "Eight words.\r\nIt only took eight words to steal my breath.\r\n“Sweetie, did you remember to water the flowers?”\r\nMom never missed a morning. Always greeting the flowers before me and my siblings.\r\nI wished Mom looked at me–like she stared at the flowers; a gentle smile on her mouth as she stroked her fingers through their leaves, pouring just the right amount of water onto budding petals.\r\nThe flowers had lived as long as us, growing bigger, creeping up the wall and ceiling.\r\nMy brother, JJ, hated them.\r\n“We need to get rid of those goddamn flowers,” he grumbled. “They're clearly controlling her.”\r\n“Agreed.” I said, chewing on a cereal bar.\r\nI rarely agreed with my brother– who I was convinced was a budding sociopath, with his lack of empathy.\r\nJJ attempted to dump the flowers in the trash that morning, and I'd stopped him.\r\n“So, why aren't they controlling us?” Clee, our sister laughed.\r\n“Ophelia? The flowers. Did you water them?”\r\nMom’s strained voice crackling through the phone was enough to send me stumbling into the kitchen and grabbing the garden hose. I sprayed the flowers, soaking the walls and ceiling.\r\nBut to my confusion, they were already shriveling up, their petals blackening and crumbling apart. I didn't understand why watching them die hurt me.\r\nSomething twisted in my gut, wrong and contorting, tears filling my eyes, and a numbness spreading through me.\r\nThe hose slipped from my fingers, and I staggered back when something dripped from the ceiling. Warm and red. I found my voice, my chest aching. “JJ.” I whispered, my gaze glued to the walls.\r\n“Clee.”\r\nThe flowers were crumbling before my eyes, coming apart.\r\nI backed away, turning to run. I ran all the way upstairs, but the dripping followed me, hitting my cheeks, pooling scarlet running down my cheeks. I went to JJ’s room first. I knew he was in there. I could hear him playing video games earlier.\r\nBut now, walking inside, there were only vines protruding from the ceiling, rose petals blooming from every wall, every corner, pushing up through the floor.\r\nI saw the heart of the flower in the center of the room. Beautiful. Tragic, spilling twisted vines.\r\n“Clee.”\r\nMy voice bled into a cry. I twisted around, darting into my sister’s room.\r\nBut Mom was already there. On her knees, her head bowed. “You didn't water the flowers,” she whispered.\r\nIn her cupped hands, crumbling purple petals bleeding into nothing, slipping through her fingers.\r\nI started towards her, before something slipped from my mouth.\r\nSomething smooth, seeping effortlessly through my lips. I choked them up, one by one, vines erupting up my throat.\r\nI spluttered on a sob, trying to reach out– but I didn't have hands anymore, thick greenery entwining around my skin.\r\nBut somehow, it felt… right.\r\nBetter.\r\nLike, maybe, this was what I always was.\r\nLeaves, instead of bones.\r\nPetals, instead of a mouth.\r\nI just hoped Mom remembered to water us this time."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "It Called to Me"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "The door was an impossibility.\r\nMy mother said that it had been there since she was a little girl and that her mother had told her the same thing when mom was my age.\r\nBut if either of them was to be believed, then it had been residing in our family’s woods, unblemished, for at least 80yrs—probably even longer as Grandma didn’t know its origins when I asked her about it.\r\nYet, it didn’t make sense.\r\nEverything else had collapsed around it—there were remnants of old stone walls that had once supported a modest, single-room cabin, of which the door was clearly the front entrance.\r\nHowever, encompassed in a thin frame, the door stood as tall as it likely did the day it was first installed. And, what’s more, there was no hint of decay on it—no moss growth taking it over, no rot splintering the wood or rust on the iron hinges.\r\nIt was pristine.\r\nUndamaged.\r\nUndaunted.\r\nAnd, inexplicably, securely locked—the key long since lost.\r\nMom and Grandma told me to leave it alone—that it was “just a door in the woods.” But something about it drew me in—something intangible—something unspoken. And more than anything…\r\n…I wanted to open it.\r\nTo anyone else, it would have appeared that there was no point in doing so as the walls around the door were only a few inches tall and one could easily see there was nothing behind it but dirt and leaves.\r\nBut for some reason, I was compelled.\r\nIt called to me—invading my waking dreams and haunted slumber—relentlessly pouring visions through my mind.\r\nAnd in one of these, I was shown the location for a cave on the property where a key was stashed in a natural alcove.\r\nI didn’t question how the visions came to me, nor why my innocent curiosity with the door had blossomed into a full-blown obsession.\r\nBut soon, I found myself standing in front of it with an ancient, hand-forged key gripped tightly in my fingers.\r\nAnd, sliding it into the lock, I turned it to the left—producing a satisfyingly solid clunk that informed me I had succeeded.\r\nGingerly, I pushed on the antique wood, and was shocked to find a hallway behind it.\r\nPitch-dark, but for a bright light at the end, it looked like I’d opened a door into a train tunnel.\r\nI thought it was empty, at first, but then, I noticed a figure…\r\nGrowing larger by the second, I realized it was moving towards me.\r\nAn elderly woman—creeping, carefully, forward—cackling with ruthless mirth.\r\nAnd there was something… terrible… about her.\r\nShe radiated hatred.\r\nShe effused evil.\r\nI snapped out of whatever trance I’d been in that’d led me to open the door and desperately tried to slam it shut, but it wouldn't move.\r\nAnd when I felt her cold, loveless hand upon mine, she wheezed out a few, ominous words.\r\n\"Thank you for releasing me.\""
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "How to Kill A Tortoise"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "1 - “Who drank my whisky?” Tommy’s dad burst into the living room like a thrice brewed thunderstorm ready to pounce. His eyes, already heavily loaded with guilty verdict, darted to Luke, unfortunate to be sitting there at that moment. Then followed a blow to the left of Luke’s face, then to the right and, eventually, a barrage. Tommy - he was the one who poured half the bottle down the drain earlier - watched the scene while crouched under the table. I knew this would happen … Tommy thought. But he did it anyway. Why? Something he’ll never figure out.\r\n2 - \"God damn it, there’s a roach in my food!” Tommy’s dad convulsed. Lauren, the mother across the table, began taking a defensive posture but, alas, it was neither fast nor strong enough to protect her from the flying fist of rage. “What the hell is wrong with you woman!”, he shouted at the mother now sprawled across the dining room floor semi-conscious. Again, Tommy foresaw this outcome when he secretly dropped the bug on his Dad’s bowl. He still did not know why he did this.\r\n3 - Luke was about to make a successful re-entry into the house after an illicit late night meeting with his girlfriend - he had been discussing running away with her. But something woke the father - this something being Tommy’s knocks at his door. Having been awoken, Tommy’s dad was immediately alerted to Luke’s covert operation of entering through the upstairs window. He greeted the delinquent youth with salvos of fists, knocking Luke around like a pinball. Luke lost his hearing in his left ear that night. Tommy listened to the commotion like a cat on a roof.\r\n4 - Tommy’s dad usually didn’t start drinking on Sunday till about 3 in the afternoon. But, today he started at 10 because a bottle of scotch happened to be sitting on the bedside table - the bottle that Tommy had placed earlier that morning. By the time Tommy’s mom came back from the church he was like an enraged bull waiting to charge at the first opportunity. As the door opened he yelled out, “where the hell have you been”, knowing very well where. Any answer would have been futile since he began flying towards her already, knocking her out through the doorway. Tommy stood strangely bewildered in some way.\r\n5 - Luke’s eyes were so swollen from his father’s beating on account of a missing tool. The tool was in Tommy’s room but no one was to ever know.\r\n6 - In the middle of the night Luke was woken up by a sound outside his door. Just outside the bedroom door he saw a dagger mysteriously placed on the floor. Like Macbeth answering the call to murder, Luke picked it up and moved to the living room where his father had fallen asleep on his chair. Without a pause the revenger plunged the blade into the heart of his tormentor. Tommy heard nothing that night."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "Adapting to Any Terrible Stench, Eventually"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "“Daddy, where's Mommy?” Asked little Leo, one wickedly warm June morning. “And what's that terrible stench coming from under the woods behind our home?”\r\n“Don't dwell on such matters, child.” Daddy replied in his rich, low baritone. “You adapt to any terrible stench, eventually. Now go on and play in the baking hot sun with your big brother Leon and your big sister Leone.”\r\n“Daddy, where's my big brother, Leon?” Asked little Leo, one wickedly warm July morning. “And what's that terrible stench coming from under the mountain path behind our home?”\r\n“Don't dwell on such matters, child.” Daddy replied in his rich, low baritone. “You adapt to any terrible stench, eventually. Now go on and play in the baking hot sun with your big sister Leone.”\r\n“Daddy, where's my big sister, Leone?” Asked little Leo, one wickedly warm August morning. “And what's that terrible stench coming from under the cave behind our home?”\r\n“Don't dwell on such matters, child.” Daddy replied in his rich, low baritone. “You adapt to any terrible stench, eventually. Now go on and play in the baking hot sun.”\r\n“Daddy, why haven't you brought me any nice fresh juicy steaks this month?” Asked little Leo, one wickedly warm September morning.\r\n“There isn't enough meat for two, this month, child” Daddy replied in his rich, low baritone, his stomach rumbling like thunder, with saliva from his canines cascading down his mane."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "I Went To Visit My Boyfriend In The Country. I Might Never Leave."
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "I parked my SUV and stepped onto an endless grassy field. This wasn’t my usual kind of place, but I knew how much Bruce loved his mountain getaway.\r\n“So you’re Lindsay.”\r\nI turned around - a tall, unnaturally beautiful woman stood behind me.\r\n“Um, yes?” I replied, confused.\r\nShe gave me an indecipherable look, then smiled at me and extended her hand.\r\n“My name is Cara.”\r\nI shook her hand, noticing her strong grip. “Nice to meet you. Do you work with Bruce?\r\n“Work?” she asked.\r\n“Yes, Bruce always talks about how stressful his job is, always giving orders and making decisions. He said he had a secret getaway from the modern world and one day he’d take me there. I’m just thrilled he finally asked!”\r\nShe smiled oddly. “Why don’t you come inside? No doubt he’ll be along shortly.”\r\nI looked around - we were in the middle of nowhere. “Maybe I should give him a call…”\r\n“Oh, you won’t get a signal here. You can use the telephone inside.”\r\nReluctantly, I followed.\r\n“Can I offer you a beverage?” she asked as we sat in the kitchen of the gorgeous estate.\r\n“Some water would be nice.”\r\n“Skatá. We just ran out. How about some fresh milk? We have plenty.”\r\n“Alright,” I agreed, not wanting to be rude. I drank the milk - it tasted fresh but strange.\r\n“How did you meet Bruce?” Cara asked.\r\n“He approached me at a nightclub,” I said, remembering it vividly. “I don’t usually respond to that, but there was something about him. He was so confident, so in control, so…”\r\n“Yes, he tends to have that effect on women. Some men, too. Once…”\r\nShe was still talking, but I was having trouble understanding her words. It was getting harder to breathe; my body felt heavier. I tried to stand but fell to the floor and couldn’t get up. I attempted to crawl away, but my limbs wouldn’t respond. I felt… wrong. Like my body was no longer mine.\r\n“There, there girl,” Cara said, her voice sounding distorted. “I imagine you’re wondering what’s going on. Here, let me show you.”\r\nShe raised a mirror and I froze. Staring back at me was a large-bodied creature on four spindly legs with two ears emerging from the sides of a long face.\r\nAnd a tail.\r\nI was a cow!\r\nI began to cry.\r\n“By now you’ve probably realized that ‘Bruce’ didn’t invite you here - I did. I suppose some would feel sorry for you - he probably didn’t tell you he was married - but I don’t give a skatá. This is what you get for being a pórni. Now you’ll never gamò another woman’s husband again.”\r\nShe led me to a field filled with dozens of other cows.\r\n“What - you think you’re the first heifer who’s tried to steal my husband? For the record, my name isn’t Cara - it’s Hera. And my husband’s name isn’t Bruce - it just rhymes with it.”"
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "My MIL Almost Killed My Son To Prove I Was Exaggerating"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "“Mommy, I don’t feel good.”\r\nI rushed to Sammy - he was burning up. His breathing became shallow, then he collapsed in my arms. Panicking, I raced to my purse for the epi-pen I carried everywhere.\r\nIt wasn’t there.\r\nI upended my purse, frantically tossing everything aside, but I couldn’t find it. As Sammy tried to breathe, I screamed at Robert’s mother to call 911.\r\n“911? Hello. My grandson is apparently having trouble breathing. Personally, I think his mother is exaggerating, but she insists you send someone.”\r\nI didn’t have time to focus on her words then. But that night, sitting in my son’s hospital room, I remembered what she’d said. The next night, I confronted her.\r\n“Why did you tell 911 I was exaggerating while Sammy was on the floor struggling to breathe?”\r\n“Oh, please,” she scoffed. “Are you still pushing this fake allergy? Haven’t you milked it enough?”\r\n“He could have died, Louise! He was in the hospital with tubes down his throat!”\r\n“Jesus, let it go! It was only a little peanut butter. He’s fine.”\r\n…what?\r\n“You fed him peanut butter?”\r\n“I knew you were lying and I was right. He scarfed it down, no problem. He’s strong. Stop making him weak with your B.S.”\r\nFurious, I told my husband what had happened.\r\n“You know how my mom is, honey. She didn’t mean anything by it.”\r\n“She could have killed our son! Do you even care?”\r\n“Honey, you’re blowing this out of proportion.”\r\n“Were you at the hospital? Did you see your son on a respirator unable to breathe on his own?”\r\n“You know I was working.”\r\n“Funny how you’re always working whenever we need you. You insisted on moving your mother in, but I’m the one who’s always with her. Which I was willing to tolerate, but now she’s endangering our son!”\r\n“He’s fine. Stop being so hysterical.”\r\n“Hysterical?!? Asshole!” Disgusted, I left the room.\r\nThe next week, Robert was out of town for work. His mother came downstairs to find all her belongings boxed up and on the porch.\r\n“What the hell is this?” she demanded.\r\n“If I can’t trust you with my son’s safety, I can’t have you living here. I’ve enrolled you at the local senior community. You’ll like it; they have canasta.”\r\n“You can’t do this!”\r\n“It’s done. Take care.”\r\n“I’ll call Robert!”\r\n“Didn’t he tell you? He’s unreachable this week for work.”\r\n“You bitch! I’ll tell the cops you abused me!”\r\n“Feel free. I’ve already let them know you’re unstable and prone to imagining things. Dementia is such a tragedy.”\r\n“I’ll kill you! I’ll—“\r\nShe stumbled and put her hand to her chest.\r\n“Everything ok, Louise?”\r\n“I… can’t… breathe. Need… med… med…”\r\n“Oh dear, are you stressed? You know you’re supposed to stay calm. Here, let me get your heart medication.”\r\nI reached into her purse and handed her the bottle.\r\n“Empty… why…?”\r\n“Oh, I figured you were exaggerating. Don’t worry - you don’t really need those. Just be strong.”"
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "My Parents Picked Us from the Kid Store. I Want to Return My Brother"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "My parents told me I came from the Kid Store.\r\n\"It’s a magical place,\" Mommy said, smoothing my hair, \"where parents pick the perfect child.\"\r\nI liked that idea. It made me feel special. Like a prize they had chosen from all the other kids waiting on the shelves.\r\nThen they brought home Sam.\r\nI didn’t understand why they picked him. He cried too much, all red-faced and wrinkly. He couldn’t play. Couldn’t talk. Couldn’t do anything but steal Mommy and Daddy’s attention.\r\n\"Can we take him back?\" I asked.\r\nMommy laughed. \"Oh, sweetheart. You can’t return babies. Once you pick one, they’re yours forever.\"\r\nA few days later, Mommy gave me a present.\r\nInside the box was Rosie, a doll with golden curls and a pink dress.\r\n\"Just for you,\" she said. \"To show you how much we love you.\"\r\nI lifted the lid, excited, but my smile faded.\r\nOne of Rosie’s legs had already come off.\r\n\"She’s broken!\" I cried, holding up the limp leg.\r\n\"Don’t worry,\" Daddy said, taking the doll. \"We’ll take her back and get a new one.\"\r\nI watched as he packed Rosie into a bag and drove away. When he came back, she was fixed.\r\n\"Good as new,\" Mommy said.\r\nThe next day, I waited until Mommy and Daddy were in the kitchen.\r\nSam lay in his crib, gurgling, his tiny hands reaching for nothing.\r\nI reached in and grabbed his leg.\r\nI pulled, expecting it to come right off. It didn’t.\r\nI twisted harder—a snap.\r\nSam screamed.\r\nI grabbed his other leg—snap.\r\nHis arms—snap.\r\nI pressed my hands against his cheeks and twisted his head—snap.\r\nSam went floppy. Quiet now.\r\nFootsteps thundered up the stairs. Mommy and Daddy froze in the doorway.\r\nI held Sam up by his limp leg and smiled.\r\n\"He’s broken,\" I said. \"Can we take him back to the Kid Store now?\"\r\nThey didn’t speak.\r\nInstead, Daddy wrapped Sam’s body in a blanket. Mommy took my hand.\r\n\"Come on, sweetheart,\" she said. \"We’re going on a little trip.\"\r\nThe Kid Store was just like any other—except for the cages. Signs boasted sales and limited-time discounts. Babies lay bundled in blankets, while older children sat behind bars, their eyes tracking passing shoppers. A few cages stood empty, price tags still dangling from the doors.\r\nThe Manager greeted us.\r\n\"Back again?\"\r\nDaddy handed Sam over. The man unwrapped him, frowning at the twisted limbs.\r\n\"Shame,\" he muttered. \"Wait here. We’ll get your replacement.\"\r\nA worker rolled out a metal cart. Inside was a baby just like Sam. They handed him to Daddy, swaddled in blue.\r\n\"Good as new,\" Mommy whispered.\r\nI reached for her hand. She didn’t take it.\r\nThe man turned to her.\r\n\"And what about this one?\" he asked, nodding at me.\r\n\"She’s broken.\"\r\nThe man’s smile widened.\r\n\"Well,\" he said, leading me toward an empty cage, \"we’ll get you a new one, then.\"\r\n\"No,\" she said, adjusting her purse.\r\n\"We want a refund.\""
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "Gone to a Better Place, Supposedly"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "My boyfriend loves kitsch. We have three garden gnomes out front despite not actually having a garden, and most of the pictures on our walls are suspiciously wholesome and idealised. He’s an artist. It’s a philosophical thing, something ‘false authenticity’, something ‘irony’, ‘popular taste as pejorative’, something.\r\nWhich is why, last Tuesday, we were in the garden centre looking at the discounted ‘fairy door’ rather than buying my replacement fig.\r\n“Won’t it clash with the gnomes?” I said.\r\n“Fairies match thematically. Look, the doors open!” Dan peered through at my muddy boots. “I see some fetching ankles at large in fairyland.”\r\n“Oh, please.” My ankles were covered by my jeans. “Fine. But if you cheat on me with Tinkerbell, I’m forming a gnome polycule and you’re not invited.”\r\n“Deal!”\r\nLater, after installing it on the grass in front of our house, he crouched down to stare through again.\r\n“See anything magical?” I asked. He hummed distractedly. “So, the ‘welcome’ sign—is that inviting fairies into our place, or us into theirs? It’s facing outwards.”\r\n“A question for the ages,” he said. “There’s not much here for them, admittedly. Wanna squeeze through to a brighter world?”\r\n“I’d have to lose weight,” I said. He stuck his hand through the tiny gap and waved. “I’m mostly okay with this world. You’re here.”\r\n“Awww,” he said, then hissed and withdrew.\r\n“What?”\r\n“Thought I felt...never mind.” He smiled at me. We had different aesthetics, but nothing was more beautiful than that smile.\r\nI haven’t seen it since. Something went wrong that day. He’s been waking at night crying, tears leaving trails which look almost like glitter. Murmuring to himself so low that I can’t make out words, and pausing with his head cocked as if hearing a reply. And his paintings have changed. They’re almost kitsch themselves now: grinning children; scenic little cottages; animals gathering by bubbling streams. Always, in the backgrounds, odd, half-defined figures: small, angular.\r\nI woke tonight to an empty bed and a fear which drove me to search for him. Our front door was open. I stepped into the moonlight, and saw him kneeling before the tiny welcome sign.\r\nHe looks up at me with one remaining eye, and tries to smile. Long scratches around his empty left eye-socket channel blood down his cheek. His eyeball sits in his palm.\r\n“I had to see,” he says. “But I can’t fit through.”\r\nAnd then he rolls the eye through the fairy-door.\r\nI scream. My mobile’s inside, and I dash for it, scream still gushing forth, to call for help. As soon as I reach it I turn to run back to him.\r\nThe lights are coming on in the neighbouring houses, spilling over the street. So, though he’s gone, I can see the traces he left behind. The torn up grass. The fallen teeth. The buckled inner frame of the fairy door, ringed with red and strips of skin, as if something much too large for it had been dragged through."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "I woke up to my wife whispering in my ear"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "At first, I thought I was dreaming.\r\nHer breath was warm against my skin, her voice a hush of static in the dark. I couldn’t make out the words, only the rhythm—soft, steady, insistent.\r\nMy eyes fluttered open. The room was still. The clock on the nightstand read 3:12 AM. My wife lay beside me, her back turned, her breathing slow and deep. Asleep.\r\nBut the whispering continued.\r\nIt was coming from the other side of the bed.\r\nCold sweat prickled my skin as I turned my head, afraid of what I might see. The space beside me was empty, the blankets undisturbed. But the whispering hadn’t stopped. It was right next to my ear, right behind me.\r\nI bolted upright, twisting around—nothing. Just the quiet hush of the house, the faint glow of the streetlamp bleeding through the curtains. My wife didn’t stir.\r\nMaybe I’d imagined it. Maybe exhaustion was getting to me.\r\nI lay back down, exhaling slowly.\r\nThen my wife whispered again.\r\nOnly this time, I saw her lips move.\r\nThe voice came from the wrong side of the bed.\r\nMy stomach clenched. My wife’s breathing remained slow, even. But the whispering continued, words I couldn’t understand, syllables curling like fingers against my skull.\r\nThen, clear as day, I heard it:\r\n“Don’t turn around.”\r\nThe blankets felt like lead. My pulse hammered in my throat.\r\nI couldn’t move.\r\n“He doesn’t know you can hear me.”\r\nI squeezed my eyes shut.\r\n“If you turn around, he’ll know.”\r\nThe air in the room shifted, something pressing against the mattress. The scent of damp earth filled my nose.\r\n“Go back to sleep.”\r\nThe whispering stopped.\r\nMy wife sighed in her sleep, shifting onto her back. I held my breath.\r\nIn the dim light, her face looked strange.\r\nWrong.\r\nThen I saw it.\r\nThe wide, glassy stare. The stiff, unmoving lips. The empty, gaping mouth.\r\nMy wife wasn’t breathing.\r\nI finally turned around.\r\nAnd he was smiling."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "I suspect my husband is cheating. When I find her, I'm going to kill her."
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "When I first met my husband it was like a comet fell from heaven and pierced my heart.\r\nIt was fate. In two weeks we were married.\r\nIt’s been almost a decade since. So many beautiful memories. In my darker moments, I anxiously imagined the world taking him from me. A car accident, cancer. I imagined losing him and could only think of killing myself rather than facing the world without him. I love him so much.\r\nAnd I suspect he’s cheating on me. I don’t have proof, yet. But let’s face it. We know everything about each other. Every dirty little secret. And he’s been up to something.\r\nSeveral times he’s claimed to be running some mundane errand, he takes longer than he should, and when he comes back he’s obviously hiding something. That’s the thing about being brutally honest for ten years. My husband is horrible at lying.\r\nSo this time when he told me he had to go inspect some snow blowers, that it might take some time, I decided to follow him. Which wasn’t easy. He was clearly watching his back.\r\nWhen he arrived at some stranger’s house, I parked down the block and waited. He was there for about an hour. I quelled my anger and grabbed my knife and pliers. I won’t tell you what the pliers are for.\r\nAfter he left, I walked up like I owned the place. The front door was unlocked. Can you believe that? I was going to kill that cheating bitch.\r\nWhen I got to the bedroom I saw her.\r\nHoly shit.\r\nShe was hanging from a noose, still swinging slightly back and forth. She was fresh, not more than thirty minutes dead.\r\nOh fuck!\r\nI quickly but calmly got the fuck out of there. Didn’t want to leave any evidence.\r\nI drove the speed limit home. My husband was in the shower. I waited in our bedroom to confront him.\r\nHe entered still dripping, towel tight around his six pack. “Where’d you go?”\r\n“You’ve been killing women,” I curtly accused, “without me?!”\r\n“Love–”\r\n“How could you?! What? You don’t like killing with me anymore? That’s our special thing! We’re supposed to do it together!”\r\n“No! I love doing it with you!”\r\n“Is that what all this sneaking about has been? God! I thought you were cheating.”\r\n“I would never! Love it’s not what you think!”\r\n“Well what is it!? Start talking!”\r\n“Fine!” He threw up his arms and began rummaging through the closet. “It was supposed to be a surprise!”\r\nHe held out a jewelry box, and opened it. Inside was an opulent gold chain with nine polished molars threaded through the chain.\r\n“I know you love molars, baby. Haven’t quite finished the last molar. Only just got it. But! Happy ten year anniversary!”\r\nHow could I have been so blind? I apologized profusely and kissed my perfect husband. “I’m all riled up. Whaddya say we kill someone tonight?”"
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "My boyfriend wanted to go on a camping trip. It made me see him in a whole new light."
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "“Hold up,” I panted, clambering unsteadily over the jumble of roots beneath my feet, “you’re going too fast.”\r\nMy boyfriend, Matt, turned to look back at me from a short ways up the trail.\r\n“Pick up the pace,” he said, “We have to hurry if we’re going to get there before dark.”\r\nThis hike was meant to be a “romantic getaway”. He’d told me he knew the “perfect spot” where we could make camp for the night, away from busy tourist trails. I’m a city girl. But a string of murdered girls in town had convinced Matt that the safest place for a date was out in nature. I figured I could handle one night of discomfort, for his sake.\r\nBut six hours of hiking through briars in wet socks was rapidly draining my resolve.\r\n“How much further?”, I whined, filling the air with a cloud of bug spray.\r\n“Nearly there,” he said, laughing, “Just wait until you see the view.”\r\n“Whatever”, I replied, as we finally stepped out of the trees, “it’s probably nothing…special…”\r\nThe beauty laid before me was so breathtaking my mouth couldn’t find the words. We’d broken the treeline at the edge of a huge mountain clearing, the valley below spread out like a verdant quilt. The sun was just beginning to set over the hills.\r\n“So”, he said, putting his arm around my shoulder, “was it worth the climb?”\r\nI pulled him in close for a deep, passionate kiss. There was his answer.\r\nThe evening was like something out of a dream. We made camp, and Matt produced a bottle of wine from the depths of his pack. We made love under the stars.\r\nUntil I awoke in the night.\r\nIt was dark. I felt for Matt’s warmth, but found his sleeping bag empty. Peeking outside, only the dying campfire could be seen.\r\n“Matt?”, I said, cautiously crawling out of the tent, “You out here?”\r\nMy answer was the telltale sound of a revolver being cocked, pointed at my head as he stepped into the dim light.\r\n“What is this?”, I asked, raising my hands.\r\n“I told you,” he said, a sick grin splitting his lips, “it’s the perfect spot.”\r\n“All those girls in town,” I stammered, “Was that you?!”\r\n“Maybe,” he chuckled, “Or maybe they just gave me an idea.”\r\nAs I looked into his eyes, I saw a predator staring back.\r\n“You think no one will find me?”, I cried, pointing behind him into the darkness, “There’s lights coming up the trail now!”\r\n“Nice try,” he spat, glancing over his shoulder, “You think I’ll fall for th-AKK!”\r\nBlood streamed from his neck as I pulled my switchblade free, the gun falling into the grass at my feet. So disappointing. I’d promised myself I’d take a break.\r\n“Rule number one,” I said, raising the pistol to his forehead as he gurgled and wheezed.\r\n“Never look away from your victim if their hands are free.”"
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "How My Skin Began to Whisper"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "My skin whispers now. Not in tongues of flesh, but in the lexicon of rot—a crackling aria of blistered parchment, a sizzle of fat beneath flame. The mirror clings to its pretty fiction: the same ashen cheeks, the same bitten lips still mouthing prayers the dark devours like confections. But beneath—oh, beneath churns the truth.\r\nIt began where all proper corruptions do—the attic. That jar gleamed like a cataract eye amidst the dust, veined with cobwebs, breathing faintly. Inside curled a desiccated cord, neither plant nor organ, thrumming with the rhythm of a stillborn heart. My finger brushed its crust—idiot, romantic fool—and it unraveled into smoke, a nest of adders slithering up my arm. Now they coil behind my navel, knitting a second skeleton.\r\nNights are symphonies of metamorphosis. My spine crackles like wet logs, contorting into arches no human temple should bear. Shadows vomit from my throat—liquefied faces, grasping hands—leaving Rorschach blooms on the sheets. The doctors prattle of hysteria, psychosis. They never linger long enough to hear the wet purr beneath my ribs.\r\nYesterday, my left hand blossomed. Skin split from thumb to wrist, birthing a sap that reeked of embalming spices and overripe figs. Translucent tendrils writhed from the wound, braiding themselves into a finger of polished bone. Its finger. It scribbles sonnets on my thighs with a nail grown from my own tibia. Soon, it carves beneath my breasts. Soon, no more pretending.\r\nI tried immolation. Poured gasoline like funeral libations over my shuddering limbs. But the match-flare caught the thing’s gaze in the bathroom mirror—a kaleidoscope of yellowed eyes, each reflecting a different scream. The flame guttered. The fuel thickened into a centipede broth, squirming with larval alphabets.\r\nTonight, the cellar. Iron tang coats my tongue; the walls bleed rust. My teeth patter into cupped palms—ivory dice tossed by a grinning dealer. The thing hums through my slack jaw now, a dirge in the tongue of drowned empires. My abdomen swells, skin gleaming like stretched wax. Something turns inside.\r\nThey’ll discover a deflated cradle of epidermis, brittle as a snake’s shed. I’ll be elsewhere—unspooled, rewoven into the thing’s grand embroidery. A filament of want. A suture of static.\r\nLean closer. Press your ear to the pulse.\r\nHear the wet click beneath your own veins?"
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "I visited a fortune teller to see if my husband was having an affair."
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "This was the first time I had gone to a fortune teller.\r\nIt was on an bad street in the city center, squeezed between a Chinese restaurant and a shady massage parlor.\r\nA friend had told me about the place, saying she always went there in difficult times and that, so far, the cards had never been wrong.\r\nInside, there was only space for a small black booth, where a woman in her sixties sat on a tiny stool. She wore a shawl and a turban, and the air smelled of incense. On her table, a tarot deck and a crystal ball.\r\n\"Hello, Rachel,\" she greeted me. \"I've been waiting for you.\"\r\nI never told her my name when I called to book the appointment, and I had no idea how she knew it.\r\n\"Hi,\" I said timidly. \"My friend Becca gave me your number. She says you can do wonders.\"\r\nThe woman didn’t reply, just gave me a knowing smile.\r\n\"So tell me,\" she began. \"What is it that you need to know?\"\r\nI gulped, anxious about the questions I was about to ask.\r\n\"I want to know if my husband is cheating on me,\" I said.\r\nShe looked deep into my eyes.\r\n\"You already know that, don’t you?\" she replied.\r\n\"Yes, I do,\" I dropped my eyes, embarrassed. \"I just wanted to see if you would know it.\"\r\n\"Don’t irritate the spiritual world with obvious questions, my dear. Ask what you really want to know.\"\r\nI thought for a few seconds and made my decision. \"I want to know what will happen now between me and him.\"\r\nShe picked up the tarot deck and shuffled the cards quickly, setting the final pile beside her.\r\nShe drew the first card—The Moon. \"It means deception, intuition, and confusion. The discovery of betrayal,\" she explained.\r\nThe second card—The Knight of Swords. \"Impulsive actions, confrontation. You will have a clash with your husband over his infidelity.\"\r\nThe third card—Death. Her eyes widened. \"This could mean radical transformation, literal death, or both.\"\r\nI covered my mouth to hold back a laugh. The woman, uncomfortable, asked what was so funny.\r\n\"I thought this was supposed to show the future, not the past,\" I shared. \"My husband and Becca are already dead.\"\r\nThe woman paled, shocked.\r\nI doubt she imagined that her last session with Becca would lead to this. But it was after that reading—when the cards revealed the truth would come out—that she came to me in tears, begging for forgiveness.\r\nThat’s how I found out about them and why I snapped. Becca had been my best friend since high school.\r\n\"But I am ready to ask my final question, if that’s okay,\" I continued. \"Will their bodies ever be found?\""
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "My HOA Is Trying To Ruin My Life"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "When my wife cheated and left me, I was devastated. The court forced us to sell the house, so I had to find a new place to live quickly. Fortunately, I had enough to buy a small place nearby with three rooms and space for a garden (a habit I picked up to de-stress). All things considered, I was lucky.\r\nThen came the first notice:\r\n“No bushes are permitted within two feet of the road. Further violations will incur penalties.\r\n-Rivercrest HOA”\r\nI didn’t plant them - they were there when I moved in. Whatever - I moved them back a foot.\r\nThen the next week:\r\n“Local noise ordinance prohibits loud noises after 8pm. Further violations will incur penalties.\r\n-Rivercrest HOA”\r\nI wasn’t even home last night - I’d just gotten back from a four-day work trip. I wrote a response to that effect and left it at the HOA’s main office.\r\nThis went on and on - citations for decorations, trash can placement, etc. Then came the last straw:\r\n“No private gardens are permitted without prior written permission. Please remove your garden within forty-eight hours or incur penalties.\r\n-Rivercrest HOA”\r\nRemove my garden? Hell no. I spoke to a few neighbors with gardens - none had ever been required to get permission.\r\nFed up, I took my notices and went to the main office.\r\n“I’d like to speak to the HOA president, please.”\r\n“He’s unavailable right now.”\r\n“He can become available or speak to my lawyer.”\r\n“Ok,” the assistant replied, “I’ll see if he’s free.”\r\nShe brought me into a room to wait. Hours later, the president walked in.\r\n“YOU?” I asked, stunned.\r\nStanding before me was my wife’s affair partner.\r\n“Hello, John,” he replied smugly. “What seems to be the problem?”\r\n“These bullshit notices are the problem. No one else seems to have received them. Is there a reason I’m being targeted?”\r\n“What do you mean? These are all perfectly legitimate.”\r\n“We’ll see what a judge says.”\r\n“Since the house’s terms of sale prohibit suing the HOA, I guess we’ll never know.”\r\nHe turned and walked out.\r\nThe next week, I invited him over to discuss the situation.\r\n“What will it take to get this harassment to stop?”\r\n“What harassment?” he asked. “Everything I’m doing is completely within the HOA bylaws. Though I suppose if Wendy got the money she deserved from the sale of the house…”\r\n“She already got her half directly from the bank.”\r\n“Her half…”\r\n“That’s extortion.”\r\n“I’m not telling you to do anything. Now, if that’s all, I have business to attend to.”\r\nI stared at him - rude, smug, arrogant. He slept with my wife, broke up my marriage, and now threatened me? How dare he?!? For the first time since Wendy cheated, I lost it and blacked out.\r\nWeeks later, I sat on my porch, admiring my garden. The roses and orchids looked particularly vibrant. I guess it’s true what they say - anything will bloom with care. And the right fertilizer."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "One hundred steps to heaven, or a thousand steps to hell."
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "When we got there, Lisa said. “I don’t want to climb up there.” “\r\nWhy not, are you still scared of what that old guy said?” I teased.\r\n“So what if I am?” she retorted.\r\n\"\"One hundred steps to heaven, or a thousand steps to hell,” why would that scare you?” I asked.\r\n“It’s the way he said it, like he meant it as a warning, he definitely seemed concerned,” she replied.\r\n“How would you even know what he meant? He barely spoke English. We had to record him and then have it translated at the hotel, even the people there weren't sure what he meant!” I replied laughing.\r\nLisa pouted, “We shouldn’t go up there,” she said.\r\nI tried to reason with her: “Lisa, they call this place “the land of 10,000 temples,” and all of them have been climbed and explored by a million people. We finally found one no other tourist seems to know about, and now you’ve changed your mind? You can at least tell me what you’re scared of.”\r\nLisa stared at the temple. “One hundred steps to heaven, or a thousand steps to hell.” What happens if we climb up a hundred steps? Or what if we come back down and what if…..” she trailed off as I stood there bemused.\r\n“I’m staying here. You go up by yourself” she exclaimed.\r\nI sighed, \"Alright, wait here. No one's around, but this area seems safe. We have cell phone reception, we're a 20 minute walk from the main road, our hotel knows we're here. I'll be up and down in a few minutes, ok? I just want to check out the view from the top.\r\n\"That's fine,\" Lisa replied.\r\nI entered the temple. When I saw the old stone stairway leading to the rooftop, I had a sudden thought: \"\"One hundred steps to heaven, or a thousand steps to hell,\" I'm gonna count the steps.\" I started my climb.\r\n\"I really needed this trip,\" I said to myself happily as I counted:\"37, 38, 39\"\r\n\"We need to remember to buy souvenirs,\" I reminded myself as I counted: \"77, 78, 79.\"\r\n\"Wait, am I here already?\" I said aloud as I counted \"98, 99, 100.\"\r\nI looked around on the rooftop of the temple, and was disappointed. The view wasn't anything special. And the temple itself didn't seem at all different from all the ones we already saw.\r\n\"Oh well, they can't all be great,\" I shrugged to myself. I made my way back to the stairway, started my descent, and unconsciously started counting again.\r\n\"Ok what's going on,\" I thought nervously as I counted \"297, 298, 299\"\r\n\"There has to be a logical explanation\" I reasoned to myself as I counted \"597, 598, 599.\"\r\n\"You just suck at math, so you miscounted, that's all\" I reassured myself as I counted \"797, 798, 799.\"\r\n\"Oh dear God, what's happening\" I thought, terrified, as I counted \"998, 999, 1000.\""
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "Every Day at 3:07 PM, My Cat Stares at the Wall for 23 Minutes. I Think He’s Going to Kill Me."
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "I always wanted a cat.\r\nMy husband, Mark, wasn’t on board. \"They’re needy. They shed. They stink.\" But eventually, he caved.\r\nMilo was perfect—an affectionate orange tabby.\r\nThe shelter worker hesitated. \"He’s been returned a few times. Some cats take time to settle.\"\r\nAt first, he was normal. Then, I noticed the routine.\r\nEvery day at 3:07 PM, Milo stopped everything, climbed onto the couch, and stared at the wall. For 23 minutes.\r\nNo blinking. No movement. Just staring.\r\nAt 3:30 PM, he stretched, hopped down, and rubbed against my legs like nothing happened.\r\nI laughed it off—until the accidents started.\r\n3:07 PM.\r\nThe air shifted. The room felt heavier. I looked up and the fan wasn’t moving—It was shaking.\r\nPlaster cracked. Screws ground loose. A sickening pop.\r\nI dived aside as the fan tore free, crashing onto my desk. The metal blades buried themselves into the wood like knives.\r\n3:30 PM.\r\nMilo stretched, hopped down, and brushed against my leg.\r\nThe next day, I stayed in the kitchen, forcing myself to ignore him.\r\n3:07 PM.\r\nThe smell of burning hit me first. A soft, curling wisp of gray smoke.\r\nThe stove was on.\r\nI hadn’t touched it. But the burner glowed, angry and orange, flames licking at the dish towel.\r\nThe fire leapt to the curtains.\r\nI grabbed the extinguisher, foam blasting over the flames.\r\nHeart pounding, I turned toward the living room.\r\nMilo was still staring.\r\n3:30 PM.\r\nHe stretched. Hopped down. Purred.\r\nThe next day, I stayed as far from him as possible.\r\n3:07 PM.\r\nI sat on the bed, pretending to read. But I felt something—like the house itself was waiting.\r\nThen I heard it.\r\nA soft creak.\r\nBehind me.\r\nThe bedroom door slammed shut.\r\nThe lights flickered. The air pressed in.\r\nThen—the push.\r\nAn invisible force slammed into my back, sending me staggering toward the staircase.\r\nI grabbed the railing just in time.\r\nOne foot over the edge. The drop should have killed me.\r\n3:30 PM.\r\nMilo stretched. Hopped down. Purred.\r\nThat night, I told Mark.\r\nHe laughed.\r\n\"Sarah, come on. He’s a cat, not a serial killer.\"\r\nBut I needed proof.\r\nI looked up his previous owners.\r\nFour names. Four obituaries.\r\nOne fell. One burned. One drowned. One crashed.\r\nAll between 3 and 4 PM.\r\nI wasn’t taking chances.\r\nThat night, I grabbed the cat carrier, scooped up Milo, and drove deep into the woods.\r\nThe whole ride, he didn’t make a sound.\r\nI set the carrier down, unlatched the door.\r\n\"Go.\"\r\nHe just sat there, blinking up at me.\r\nThen, slowly, he stepped forward. Walked into the trees without looking back.\r\nI staggered to the car, heart pounding. I was safe.\r\nI pulled into the driveway, gripping the wheel.\r\nMark was awake, sprawled on the couch.\r\nHe looked up and smiled. \"Hey, babe. Where’ve you been?\"\r\nAnd then I saw him—Milo.\r\nPerched on Mark’s lap, purring, rubbing his head against his hand.\r\nMark scratched behind his ears. \"I think he missed you.\""
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "I Took a Babysitting Gig. The Parents Forgot to Warn Me About Their Son"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "I took the babysitting job because the pay was insane. Cash, upfront. The Craigslist ad specified three rules:\r\n1. Do not enter the attic.\r\n2. At 8:30 PM, give Felix his “vitamins” (the red pills, not the blue).\r\n3. If he asks to play hide-and-seek, refuse.\r\nThe house smelled like antiseptic. Felix was small for seven, with doll-like eyes and a high, rehearsed laugh. His parents left swiftly, avoiding my questions.\r\nAt 8:30 PM, I shook two red pills into my palm. Felix stared, his smile flattening. “You’re new,” he said. “New ones always peek in the attic.”\r\n“I follow rules,” I replied.\r\nHis giggle grated. “Sure.”\r\nBy 9 PM, the silence felt deliberate. Felix hummed nursery rhymes, scribbling in a notebook. I glimpsed names—Emily, Jess, Tara—each crossed out.\r\n“Friends of yours?” I asked.\r\n“Previous guests,” he said.\r\nThe attic door creaked open on its own.\r\nI told myself: Don’t. But the stairs beckoned. Inside, I found polaroids. Dozens. Babysitters, bound and gagged, in the very living room where I’d sat. Felix stood in each, grinning, holding a butcher knife nearly as tall as him.\r\nThe newest photo showed me, snapped through the window earlier.\r\nCold crept up my spine. I stumbled backward, tripping over a box of medical vials. Testosterone. Growth inhibitors.\r\nFelix’s voice echoed behind me—deeper now, guttural. “You peeked.”\r\nHe blocked the doorway, his limbs too long, joints cracking as he straightened. Not a child. A man, stunted and warped, eyes blazing.\r\n“Mom and Dad need new photos,” he rasped.\r\nI bolted. He lunged, fingers snagging my sleeve. I kicked, connecting with his jaw—a sickening crunch. He howled, clawing at his face as I fled downstairs.\r\nThe front door was deadbolted. I smashed a vase, grabbed a shard, and hurled it through the window. Sirens wailed in the distance—a neighbor must’ve heard.\r\nFelix’s parents returned as police lights stained the street. They wept, begging officers to understand. “Our boy is sick!”\r\nBut I’d hidden the photos in my bag. Evidence.\r\nThe news called it a kidnapping ring. Felix—real name Ethan—was 31.\r\nI survived.\r\nBut tonight, another ad popped up:\r\nBabysitter needed. Discreet. High pay."
}
] |
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