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[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "There's no such thing as Zombies, Linda"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "\"Have you ever seen an elephant hiding behind a tree?\"\r\nI scrunched up my nose.\r\n\"No.\"\r\n\"That’s because they're very good at it.\"\r\nUncle Edgar chuckled, self-satisfied, before his face darkened again. \"Same with zombies - you never see them. But that’s because we don't let them escape.\"\r\nWe moved into dad's family home after mom died. I found the cemetery two days later.\r\nIt was choked with weeds and wildflowers, crumbled stone and animal bones. A cobblestone path wound through the dilapidated history to the yellowed mausoleum - PANTAZIS.\r\n“That family farmed this land for centuries. Great-grandfather bought it for a song.” Uncle Edgar snorted. “Didn’t realize that he’d placed us in eternal battle... with the living dead.”\r\nDad didn’t speak much those first few months, so I settled for his gregarious older brother’s company. Uncle Edgar was tall on tales and short on money, so he managed the family estate. I liked him, but wasn’t sure if I’d sleep comfortably if he were in the house.\r\n“He’s not all bad, Lindy.”\r\n“Lin-da dad. I’m not five.”\r\n“I know,” he smiled as he washed dishes. “Sometimes? I like to pretend.”\r\nI smiled too.\r\n“He’s creepy though, always full of weird stories.”\r\n“He ramble about the cemetery again?”\r\n“Yeah.”\r\nDad’s eyes glazed.\r\n“Dad?”\r\nHe came back. “Yeah?”\r\n“It’s all bullshit, right?”\r\n“What?”\r\n“Zombies.” The thought sounded idiotic.\r\nDad’s eyes squeezed.\r\n“Vyrkolakas. Zombie is a modern word.” His eyes met mine. “But, n-no; there’s no truth to it.”\r\nMoments before the plate cracked, I saw how hard he gripped it - his knuckles paler than the ceramic.\r\n***\r\nThe orange glow woke me up.\r\nThe night smothered the light as it bobbed three hundred yards from my window. Within moments, it was gone.\r\nThe cemetery.\r\nSomething pulled me to my feet, placed a coat on my shoulder, and whispered encouragement as it pushed me through the door, down the winding trail to the cemetery. I startled a dove, which laughed as it flew into the sky, framed by the moon.\r\nI saw the light around a darkened corner, emanating from a scrabble of granite and marble - headstones devastated by grave hunters - before I heard the shot.\r\nThe night drained of sound, then was suddenly shattered by a shrill scream -\r\nUncle Edgar.\r\nHe rounded the corner, his throat bloodied, lips burbling with foam, eyes wide, before he collapsed.\r\nA cadaverous thing passed him, hair muddied, eyes shaggy, hunched, staggering.\r\nI sank to my knees, the air freezing as the thing came close.\r\n“Please don’t hurt me,” I begged.\r\nThe thing shook, unnatural, then spoke -\r\n“Y-you don’t understand - he brought me here...he was going to bury me...alive.” She shook again - “please -”\r\nHer head exploded as the night sky ripped apart. I screamed -\r\n***\r\nThe world returned as footsteps crunched behind me. I turned -\r\nDad. His face was a grim, marble mask.\r\n“That was Vyrkolakas, Linda. You understand, darling?”\r\nI nodded.\r\nDad nodded too.\r\n“Good.”"
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "This is the closest thing I have experienced fame"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "This is now the closest I will ever experience fame and I have always wanted to be famous. I didn't know what I wanted to be famous for but just simply being famous for being famous. I never was artistic in any way so that was out of the question. I just wanted to be famous with my fans constantly surrounding me and pictures being taken of me everyday. Also the money that comes with being famous that was very attractive and I never really got to taste fame until today where I now have an idea what is like. I do tiktok and other social media which is just normal now.\r\nI woke up today and my house was surrounded by people knocking on our windows, shouting and doing other things. This was the first taster what fame would have felt like and I started to get emotional and I started about back at them from inside the house \"thank you all so much I'm so delighted and grateful\" I shouted as I started to take this opportunity to just make my fantasy seem more real. Whenever they saw me they became really liveley and when they couldn't see anything they were completely silent. My fans are always here 24 hours a day 7 days a week to see me.\r\nThen I started to show them pictures of me the next day from my attic and they became more alive than ever before as they were banging on the house and fighting each other. Then my dad started shooting at my fans and mainly at the head and I couldn't believe it. My mom tried shooting at my fans but wasn't a good shot and only got them in the body which did nothing to them. When one of my fans still stood up after getting shot in the body I became even more emotional as my fantasy started taking a wild turn now and I took it as if that person stood up for me even though he had been shot in the body.\r\nI tried stopping my dad from shooting at my fans especially at the head region. My father then grabbed my collar and forced me to observe my so called fans. As I started to calm down and saw the rotting skin of all of thier faces and their red, black grey eyes as well as their shark like teeth it all started hitting me. I remembered how they only start to get aggressive when they see people and when they don't they just stand their on one spot as if they are all dead. As I saw my fans hanging on our house and shrieking at us from outside our house, I couldn't lie to myself anymore. They are not my fans, they are zombies."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "There is no such thing as unpopularity"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "I don't believe on such a thing as unpopularity and I believe that if something seems to be unpopular at something, then it is clearly popular at something else. We live in such a wild time where popularity and status come first and even when we get to school age we are already competing over popularity and status. I guess it is in our biology really and everyone judges everyone based on their status and popularity. I firmly believe that there is no such thing as unpopular and i am going to explain why, I mean if there is popular then the opposite must be unpopular right?\r\nTake Larry a kid who still goes to school and everyone knows Larry as the unpopular kid but I don't see Larry as the unpopular kid because he is popular with loneliness and silence, do you see what I mean now, Larry is the most popular at being lonely at his school while Jason is popular with the other kids or even I like to say that Jason in unpopular with loneliness and silence. I like to see everything from the popular point of view though.\r\nThen there is Janice who is known throughout her area as the unhygienic one who is not popular with keeping up cleanliness. I like to think that Janice is popular with the germs and bacteria because clearly she has so much of it at her house that she is clearly popular with germs and bacteria. Looking at everything from a popular point of view makes everything seem more happy and more positive. The word unpopular is so negative and downward and I don't like things like that at all. I am so happy with Janice being popular with germs and bacteria that she is constantly coughing and becoming ill and even sometimes on deaths door.\r\nThen there is Leonard who never seems to be keen with nature and i like to see Leonard as being popular with empty space and even when he burns down forests and destroys peoples homes in other poor countries as he just likes open space. So you see Leonard is just popular with open empty space. Leonards brother Christopher is very popular with dead people and dead things as he is constantly surrounded by dead people and dead animals inside his apartment. Knowing that Christopher is popular with dead people and dead animals, is a positive way of thinking instead of thinking that Christopher is unpopular with living people. So do you see now that there is no such thing as unpopularity."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "Guilt is a fickle thing"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "Guilty. That is what I am.\r\nNobody sees it. I have gotten used to it, I suppose. The fake smile, the bored tone of voice that I use to hide my emotions - it's second nature to be now.\r\nI know I should confess. Every day I keep quiet, every moment that I lie us agony. I ask myself why I refuse to give in, refuse to finally accept my fate.\r\nIs it fate, however? This monster that I have become, the numerous acts I have committed - it cannot possibly be God's will for me. There is not higher being looking over ne, no supernatural being that would protect me should I get caught. I am on my own, an outcast in a picture-perfect society.\r\nSometimes I can be happy. There are days when I can rest, when I smile a contented smile and laugh a joyful laugh. Those days never last, and soon I am forced to fake it again.\r\nYou may wonder what I have done. You may ask why I should deserve such a cruel fate, for surely this world is good to those who live. It is better that I do not tell you, lest your life become like mine.\r\nI do not expect pity, nor do I desire judgment. I used to be like you - carefree, mundane and innocent. As the years passed however, I saw with increasing clarity the corruption that infected all. There was no other option, except to purge the world of this evil.\r\nI am not crazy. I have no delusions. Unlike others, my life is one of purpose, and I will not stop until I succeed or die trying. There is nothing left for me in this life, for my very soul itself has been broken into shards.\r\nSay your goodbyes. Hug your loved ones, and see. See the horrors that the world truly has to offer, and then understand that out of all of them, our people are the worst. Only then will you understand what I am about to do.\r\nDo not mistake knowledge for a free conscience. Even with the experiences that I have, they still haunt me. The screams of the dying, the tears of those desperately trying to save themselves. I am no saint, but an angel of death. Take this warning, and heed it well.\r\nFor guilt is a fickle thing, and once you carry its weight you can never put it down."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "I saw a certain thing"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "There was a problem on a farm nearby, cattle appeared dead and the owner didn't know what to do. He then called my father since they were great friends and I went there together\r\nThis was on a Saturday, as we would spend the night there since the problem occurred at night. We then held a 3-person vigil and kept pretending to be asleep until something happened\r\nIt was dawn when we heard a strange noise coming from outside the house and we went there to see, my father with a shotgun, his friend with a rifle and me behind them both with a flashlight. When we arrived at the place of the noise, a cow was being killed, making an extremely bizarre and sad noise. At the time, the three of us were apprehensive, but my father shouted \"stop there, smart guy, we'll get you\". At that moment the cow stopped making noise and I aimed the flashlight in the direction of the action. Big mistake.\r\nThat thing was not human, but it didn't seem like much that I know either, as it was like a grotesque mix of various concepts of animals and creatures. The moment we saw her, my father's friend quickly shot himself in the head. My old man and I threw up and he dropped the gun, got down on his knees and started praying. It caused a reaction in the thing that sounded like a laugh. I was standing shaking. The thing made an unbearable noise after that, enough for our ears to bleed, then just like that it disappeared, somehow leaving a mark on us, a cross. At the time it didn't hurt, but since then it always burns when we get close to something connected to the church or any Christian religion\r\nMy father is slowly going crazy and I think the same will happen to me. I report this while my mind is still working enough that I can write something that can be understood. We are fucked, all of us."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "The Thing"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "-Go away you little sh*t!\r\nThe small… thing (I don’t know how else to define what is in front of me) stares back at me, breathing lowly, almost as if it was hissing hoarsely. It’s not running around anymore. I take a few moments to finally look at it in the murky light of the winter dawn that seeps in the room through the window whilst I consider what to do.\r\nIts brownish body (not longer than ten inches) is slimy and oily, but at the same time it’s cracked as if it was parched. I can see its inner organs throbbing with life through the cracks that are oozing greenish humors. Some round small blueish chunks pulse irregularly breaking through its skin, as if they were trying to get out of the body itself. The long thin legs on which the body seems to float are covered in spike-looking hairs. But what makes my skin crawl is the eyes: they remind me of a spider’s, but they have a lifeless machine-like cold calculating light to them.\r\nAlthough it’s fast, I take a couple of steps back to pick some kind of weapon whilst keeping my eye on it. After a few panicked seconds, I grab an oblong metallic object. A smeared old dull table knife. The one I use to stuff my face with chocolate cream. If I picked up a one-layer paper handkerchief and tried to smother the thing, it would have been just as menacing. I decide to try to bluff my way into making it escape through an open window.\r\nWhich is right behind it.\r\nGreat.\r\nBut it’s closed shut.\r\nOf course, it’s fcking winter. Fck me sideways.\r\nSink or swim.\r\n-Die!, I scream whilst swinging savagely the dull knife.\r\nThe thing doesn’t move and I manage to stab crushing the head (head? The part with the eyes) and I hear a cracking sound coming from it. The eyes keep staring at me. The legs shake uncontrollably with spasms. Did I crush its nervous system?\r\nWait. Does it have a nervous system? Is it even dead?\r\nI jump back finally realising I’m covered in cold sweat under my pyjamas. I wait for a bit, ready to attack again. The inner organs and superficial circles are still throbbing and pulsating, the hissing is lower than before and faster, the eyes keep staring at me.\r\nI don’t know how much time passed, but the creature seems to be perfectly still and silent now. My sweat has dried and I’m shivering now.\r\n-What have you done!, I hear a male voice behind me. The man runs to the creature and hugs it whilst crying.\r\n-Why did you kill it? WHY?, he sobs desperately.\r\nSuddenly, I remember that I did not take my prescribed medication. I run to the bathroom to take it. When I go back into the room, I see my husband hugging our rescue puppy whose vocal cords were cut by its previous owner."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "The Scariest Thing"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "What’s the scariest thing I can think of? She mused to herself, chewing the edge of a pen. She had hit a writer’s block and her editor was pressuring her for a new story. Glancing around the room there was not much inspiration, her and Josh had just moved, and boxes and bags lay strewn about. Her desk was hastily put together and faced a window overlooking their quiet new street.\r\nAn elderly couple walked their small sweater clad dog. Do they worry about having to watch the other slowly slip into death?\r\nA young woman jogged by. Could she have undiagnosed cancer rapidly spreading within her?\r\nA small pickup paused to make a left turn. Could there be a murderer waiting to strike in the backseat?\r\nA neighborhood cat with a docked tail sat on a porch. Did his owner cut it off in a satanic, ritualistic fashion, just waiting to finish the job?!\r\nHmm…no. Nothing new to write about with any of those.\r\nHonestly the real scariest thing she could think of was the reason her and Josh moved in the first place. In their old neighborhood, a young boy had been snatched right out of his front yard in broad daylight. It was all over the local news, his teary-eyed parents giving every interview they could, pleading for their son Sam to be returned unharmed.\r\nThe unknown is always the scariest thing for people, Josh had said. And it was true. Who knew when they would find him? When the police would finally make an arrest?\r\nWell, hopefully never. She looked down at the small boy huddled in the cage at her feet, shaking violently.\r\n\"Help me out Sam, what’s the scariest thing you can think of?\""
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "The Thing Under The bed"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "There's something dwelling under Terry Reed's bed. Something sinister, and it doesn't seem to like him much.\r\nxxx\r\n\"How was your day?\" Terry asks The Thing under his bed and grabs a comic from his bedside table. Batman. Ugh.\r\nThe thing hesitates, pulling back a long tentacle from the ledge of Terry's bed, before speaking. \"Fine,\" it hisses.\r\n\"Aw, c'mon, don't be like that,\" Terry mutters in a mock tone, not particularly interested in the subject.\r\nThe thing remains silent and wraps his tentacles around his exoskeleton. It closes its yes and holds its breath, the smell was becoming unbearable.\r\nA moment passes, and then another. Before long silence cackled throughout the room, filling Terry's head with terrible thoughts, and The Thing's head with the hope that perhaps Terry would leave it alone today. The hope didn't last, Terry's thoughts got the better of him.\r\n\"Talk to me,\" Terry drawls, even with his soft tone his words held an oddly threatening edge. The Thing hesitates once more, but the silence beginning to close around it doesn't fill it with hope, instead, it suffocates it. So, it speaks.\r\n\"H-how's Elaine?\" It hisses softly, barely audible, but the words reach Terry's ears. A crooked smile forms on his face, and he chuckles.\r\n\"She's fine, just wonderful actually.\" He pauses to look at the picture of his girlfriend on his nightstand, smiling once more before returning to the conversation. \"How are my parents?\"\r\nThe thing freezes. It opens its wide, black orbs, and shakily turns to meet the two corpses lying opposite him. Its eyes water at the sight of the rotting carcasses, all swelled and covered in grime. The gashes on their bodies now filled with the squirming heads of fat maggots. The smell was so strong it could taste it. It opens its mouth to speak but a gag takes the place of the words on its forked tongue.\r\n\"Tell me,\" Terry whispers. The Thing holds back a sob, turning to look at Terry who'd leaned over the side of his mattress to stare directly into The Thing's watery eyes. \"How are they?\"\r\n\"F-fine,\" it hisses. \"Just fine.\"\r\nTerry gives another crooked smile, his green eyes bulging from the blood rushing to his head. \"That's good.\" He hums, \"Very good.\""
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "The thing I can't stand"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "Do you know what I can't stand? The bigotry of the people.\r\nWhenever someone claims to see a ghost or mysterious shadow behind them, they are immediately believed to be gullible. We always try to be giving a rational explanation to everything.\r\nAnd that makes me angry.\r\nHow many times have you said to yourself \"it is only the result of my suggestion\"? Too many. Too many times have you thought that there was an explanation for everything. I'll make you convinced otherwise.\r\nDo you really want it? So ... wait."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "This Thing That I Knew"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "I wish it weren’t true\r\nThis thing that I knew\r\nIt came out of the blue\r\nThis thing that I knew\r\nThis thing that I knew\r\nWas when I’ll be through\r\nAnd who will come too\r\nI wish it weren’t true\r\nThis thing that I knew\r\nFor what could I do\r\nAbout this thing that I knew?"
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "Pretty Thing"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "Cassie cautiously opened her eyes as the car shook. It was pitch black and she couldn’t see an inch past her nose. Her head was killing her and her mind felt fuzzy, but all at once she realized that her hands and feet were bound.\r\nThe car shook again and Cassie finally understood that she was in the trunk of a car. Whose car? She had no idea. How did she get here? The last thing she remembered was driving home from work… and that man.\r\nPanic set in immediately and Cassie thrashed around, desperately trying to break her hands and feet free of their binding. When that didn’t work, she screamed.\r\nThe car seemed to speed up and someone increased the volume of the radio. “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper” pumped through the speakers and drowned everything out, including Cassie’s screams.\r\n“Ok… Ok…” she thought, trying to rationalize. “There was something you’re supposed to do if you’re locked in the trunk of a car…” Cassie remembered her grandma sharing a video with her on Facebook. It was one of dozens of self-defense and protection videos she had sent and Cassie had blown most of them off, but she was sure she had watched this one… “What was I supposed to do…?” she asked herself again. “Something to do with the lights…”\r\nThe car hit a pothole and Cassie bounced, hitting both the roof and the floor of the trunk hard. Everything went fuzzy and she hardly understood what was happening anymore. At first she thought she was imagining the siren, but then the car pulled over and stopped.\r\nCassie heard another car pull up and a door open. “Driver!” a man’s voice shouted. “Turn off the car and stick both hands out of the window!”\r\n“Oh my God! HELP! HELP!” Cassie yelled, filled with hope. “LET ME OUT! HELP!”\r\n“Driver, open the car door using the outside handle and exit the car with your hands up!”\r\nCassie heard another car door open and felt the car shift as the driver exited.\r\n“Driver, put your hands on the back of your head, and walk backwards toward me!”\r\nCassie heard both the driver and the police officer taking steps toward each other, seeming to stop right next to the trunk. “HELLO!” she shouted. “I’M IN HERE! I’M IN THE TRUNK! HELP!”\r\n“Hellllp! I’m in here! Whaaa! Help!” a new voice mocked and both voices broke out into laughter.\r\nCassie’s blood ran cold as the trunk opened. The lights from the patrol car flashed and made it hard for her to see anything more than the silhouette of two men standing over her.\r\n“Well aren’t you a pretty thing…” Cassie recognized the voice of the police officer. “We can get at least $10,000 for her I bet. Good work, Dale! Bring her down to the dock and get her listed for the auction tonight. ”\r\n“Sure thing, boss.” Dale said, closing the trunk, ignoring Cassie’s horrified screams."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "The thing in the cave"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "It was still there. The thing she had seen while in the back of the cave. It was there, had been for almost five torturous hours. How was she going to warn the others? They would come looking for her, they wouldn't leave her. The thing shifted, an odd grunt that stuck out like a sore thumb amidst the birdsong and the rustle of trees emerging from what might have been a throat. She pressed herself harder into the rocks, hoping against all hope that there would be a window, a passage, anything. But there was nothing but the cold, unyeilding rock staring emptily back at her. The thing at the front of the cave slithered closer to her looking almost bored, the light reflecting off its scales. She cold see the long, spindly legs, she could see the long black hair matted with fur and blood. She closed her eyes waiting for her life to be over when she heard shouts. The thing turned its eyes towards the front of the cave and began to crawl towards the voices of her friends."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "The Thing Growing Inside"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "Doctor Garcia: Mary, let’s talk about what happened.\r\nMary Williams: Do we have to, Doctor?\r\nDoctor Garcia: I’m afraid that we do, Mary. It’s been a few weeks and the police need a statement.\r\nMary Williams: I don’t know where to begin, Doctor Garcia.\r\nDoctor Garcia: Just begin at the beginning, Mary. Take your time.\r\nMary Williams: Well, I don’t exactly know when it started. You know? I don’t know when the *thing** got inside of me. I guess I first started to notice it when the hunger came.*\r\nDoctor Garcia: The hunger?\r\nMary Williams: Have you ever felt true hunger, Doctor Garcia? The sort of hunger that grips you from the depths of your soul and doesn’t let up? It was like that. I was *famished** all of the time. Just about ready to devour anything and everything put in front of me. I noticed something was wrong when I ate the rotting corpse of a rat that I found in my basement. The sinewy, chagrin innards of that rat tasted fucking amazing, though.*\r\nDoctor Garcia: You ate a...rat?\r\nMary Williams: Yes, doctor. I ate a fucking rat. Things only got worse from there. I barely recognised myself anymore but now I know it was that detestable thing.\r\nDoctor Garcia: What did you think it was, Mary?\r\nMary Williams: It was a worm, a parasitic organism whose only intent and purpose was to devour me from the inside out. It grew so big, Doctor.\r\nDoctor Garcia: Why did you think you had a worm growing inside of you?\r\nMary Williams: Because I could *feel** it, Doctor. It moved so freely in the interior of my body, slithering and gliding within my flesh. I could feel it leaving a trail of slime on my muscles, my bones because sometimes when I touched myself, my skin would feel wet, dampened. It was fucking disgusting. I had to do something.*\r\nDoctor Garcia: What did you do, Mary?\r\nMary Williams: I decided to cut it out. There was no other way.\r\nDoctor Garcia: Tell me about that day.\r\nMary Williams: I starved it that day. It retaliated of course, the pain I felt was inconceivable. Like someone was scraping my bones with a dull blade. I took a pen knife and I sliced myself open until my stomach resembled a grotesque smile. I put my hand inside and I fished it out.\r\nDoctor Garcia: Please continue.\r\nMary Williams: I pulled out the cord of veiny, mucousy tissue and I sliced until it was no longer attached to me. The thing screeched. I looked down at its small frame and I saw it’s little teeth chatter. It’s eyes were barely open, two little slits full of blood. It’s coppery skin was so taught and leathery, like that of an old, frayed book. I took it to the bathroom and I fucking drowned it.\r\nDoctor Garcia: Mary…\r\nMary Williams: I had to, Doctor!\r\nDoctor Garcia: Mary...there was never a worm. You were pregnant."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "The Worst Thing You can do to Someone"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "“What do you think is the worst thing you can do to someone?\"\r\nAlice killed the screen on her phone and looked up. Matt was staring into his computer, but she could see that nothing was running. No Steam or Chrome or anti-virus scans. Just the desktop staring back at him.\r\n“I dunno,” she said, “The worst thing you can do to someone? Maybe kill them?”\r\nMatt wasn’t looking at her, so she flicked her phone back on and cast its pale white light onto her face.\r\n“But is that really all that bad though?” said Matt, “Kill someone and sure, they’ll have their moment of pain. But then it’s over. Their families on the other hand. They’re the ones who'll have to live with the grief forever.”\r\n“Takes a special kind of evil to hurt someone by going for their families though. Isn’t that a war crime?”\r\n“Well,” Matt said, “What if the person you were killing wasn’t innocent either?”\r\n“Wait,” Alice put down her phone. “Matt, why are you asking me this?”\r\n“I think we should have gone to the police after that hit and run, Alice. That kid had a family.”\r\nMatt leaned under his desk and began shuffling around in his backpack.\r\n“Matt, that was years ago. We were young and— FUCK, MATT! What the fuck is that? Where did you get that?”\r\n“You’d think after going through something like that we’d be inseparable. Like a Bonnie and Clyde.”\r\nAlice backed herself up against the headboard. Her phone was lying face up on the bed, auto-playing colorful Instagram stories.\r\n“And you’d think,\" Matt continued, \"it’d be easier to hide an affair than a hit and run that was all over the news, wouldn't you Alice?”\r\n“Matt. Jesus. I’m sorry. Let’s talk about this. Put the gun down, . I can change.”\r\n“Oh, you’ll change,” said Matt, his voice breaking a little, “Do you love me?”\r\n“I’m your wife, Matt. Of course I love you. You have to believe me.”\r\n“You know what, Alice? I do. I believe you. Even though I clearly couldn’t give you everything you needed, I know you still love me.”\r\n“I do,” Alice mouthed. She looked down, away from the barrel of the gun. Her lover’s Instagram story—a shot of groceries neatly arranged on his kitchen counter—was playing on her phone.\r\n“That’s why this is going to be the worst thing you’ll ever experience,” Matt said.\r\nHe pulled the trigger. And it was all Alice could do but look up and watch as his body went limp and fell forward onto the bed."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "A white thing"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "2:43 a.m. and I get up to pee. There's only the night light, knee height. I shuffle arthritic, steady the wall, when a white thing bumps my eye like a drifting balloon. In a hissed whisper, \"bitch\" it says, imploding its albumen, stifling my breath. I don't have to pee any more."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "The Mind Can Be a Powerful, Terrible Thing"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "Our minds hold the key. You see a picture of a brain and you can't begin to fathom how it has the power to keep a body moving, to build entire cities, to explore technology like we never have before.\r\nI gaze at the keypad on the door for probably the thousandth time in just that week alone. I look over and see that smile on his face, which was once cynical but now lifeless. He blinks and gives me a little wave. I just want to hit it off of his face.\r\nHe knew the pin number many years ago when he first stole me from the streets and brought me to this place.\r\nI saw the deterioration, dementia taking hold.\r\nNow we're both stuck down here and occasionally I'll beg him, grab ahold of his shoulders and shake him, but nothing is there anymore. I look to the shelves and realize that we won't be rationing for too much longer.\r\n\"Who are you, again?\" he asks. \"Can we leave now?\""
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "The Thing About Corpses"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "The thing about corpses is that they don’t make a sound\r\n(if you gag them up proper when you keep them around)\r\nWhen you keep them around, they’ll keep others away\r\n(they really don’t like it when you have the dead on display)\r\nThe thing about corpses, when push comes to shove,\r\nis that they’re not really corpses if you treat them with love\r\nIf you treat them with love, you’ll soon come to think,\r\nthat they’re awfully cuddly (even though they do stink)\r\nThe thing about corpses is that they don’t hug you back,\r\nbut if they suddenly do, I’d still cut them some slack\r\nThey’ve been buried for days, some for months, some for years,\r\nand indeed quite a few still have worms in their ears\r\nThe thing about corpses is that they’re awfully kind,\r\nbut they’re careless and smelly and irrevocably blind\r\nSo make sure that you offer them plenty of room,\r\nbefore you herd them all into your own private tomb\r\nThe thing about corpses that you don’t often see,\r\nis when they throw their heads back and cackle with glee\r\nShould they cackle with glee, there’s just one thing to do;\r\nshove a knife in their ear and push it all the way through\r\nThe thing about corpses is that they’re not really alive\r\nthey needn’t food, air - nor water - to fester and thrive\r\nShould they crave any of these, I would issue this call;\r\nmaybe - just maybe - they’re not corpses at all?\r\nThe thing about corpses - a truth that rings true -\r\nis that they never have ever really cared about you\r\nWe use them as cattle, as guard dogs, and friends,\r\nbut they should really not matter to you in the end\r\nThe thing about corpses - that we all sadly know -\r\nis that they stopped being corpses a long time ago\r\nTo remedy this, stick something sharp in their brain;\r\nand we can make sure they all become corpses again\r\nThe thing about corpses - in this day and age -\r\nis that we are the corpses, all stuffed in our cage\r\nAnd though they outnumber us thousands to one\r\nwe will never surrender until thousands are none"
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "The Thing In The Fire"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "There was a man. He wasn't true. His form was unknown, but what was known is he couldn't be human. The fire of 2003.\r\nA house was burned down by a man who somehow lit fire to it from the inside in a way still unknown. He killed a family, who was the Johnson family. Emelia Johnson, The wife, Danny Johnson, their son, and Michael Johnson, the husband. They were the family inside the house. The house was in a forest, miles away from the nearest town.\r\nThere was one eye witness of the man. The man who saw him was named Adam. He was camping in the woods, had a tent near the house when he saw a fire in the distance. He quickly got up from his tent and ran over to the house.\r\nWhen he ran up to it, he saw in the burning doorway of the house a man. A man wearing all black clothes, with black hair, a black T shirt with black pants, and he was on fire. He didn't scream, nor did he look or seem worried or in pain. Adam said the man just stared at him before walking out of the doorway of the house up to Adam. He only said few words to him.\r\nThe man on fire said to him, \"Come with me, and then you will see the other place. The nature. The element\" The man's clothes were not burning off, and he wasn't burnt himself. He was just a few feet in front of Adam. Adam said he felt something he'd never felt before, a sensation he cannot explained, and for some reason he couldn't move.\r\nHe could just stare back at the man as he heard the screams of the family inside the burning house, as the fire catched onto the trees, and for some reason, he cried. Then everything went blank, as he passed out.\r\nIt was the morning now, and he was untouched in his tent. He crawled out to all the trees burnt down with the house, as the police woke him up. Everything was burnt to ashes around him, except him and his tent, and everything inside.\r\nAs he talked to the police about what he remembered, he thought of the horrific memory of the man staring at him on fire, as screams were heard inside the burning house, and the tree around it on fire. And then he remembered what happened right before he passed out.\r\nThe man seemed to evaporate into fire, and then just scrambling colors and shapes, always shifting and moving, and then the thing disappeared. He remembered his heart racing, and the incomprehensible matter of the sight being what caused him to pass out.\r\nNo one believed him, but as the police could find no source for what caused the fire, that man remains the only suspect."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "There's No Such Thing As Ghosts"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "I've been ghost hunting for a while, and I'll be blunt. There's no such thing as ghosts.\r\nSure, there’s a lot of reported phenomena, but it’s all explainable.\r\nThe “ghostly wailing”? Mostly just pipes. Ditto most ghostly sounds- settling floorboards, old houses, strange animals. It’s hard to fully place a strange noise in the dead of night, especially if you're already on edge.\r\nActual sightings are just pareidolia. You look at a strange shadow or dust in the air and it forms an image. It’s not a slight against you, you know, it's not saying you're crazy. It’s a normal human brain thing.\r\nThis is the case with most EVP and seances too, the ones that aren’t outright hoaxes. In a suggestive environment, fueled by fear and superstition, it’s easy to hear words in erratic noises or see faces in moving shapes.\r\nPhotos are usually errors with the process of photography, double exposure and damage to plates. Less so in modern digital cameras obviously, but occasionally glitches can produce the same effect.\r\nYour more extravagant cases? Typically it’s on the part of the human. A lot are hoaxes. It’s not hard to Photoshop an image or wreck a table. Equally often, though, it’s madness.\r\nExtreme grief can trigger a lot of effects. Delusions and hallucinations are rarely reported, with the stigma, but they very much do happen. After the shock of a death, it’s more common then you think for the grief and fear and sadness to create the image of a lost love one.\r\nAnd that’s all ghosts are really. Grief. Our attempts to pretend the dead aren’t dead.\r\nThere’s rational explanations for all of it. The dead don’t come back to haunt the living. They don’t talk to us or linger in dark places. They don’t appear to tell us the secrets they took to their grave and bring justice for unaddressed wrongs and tell us that they love us and miss us. They aren’t waiting on the other side for us.\r\nThey’re gone.\r\nThere’s no such thing as ghosts.\r\nOnce you’re gone, you really are gone forever."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "‘Don’t look at the thing in the corner’"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "Yes, of course I see it. It’s definitely there. It has loomed in the corner of this darkened room for weeks now. Waiting. Whatever you do, do NOT acknowledge it’s cold presence. The lifeless entity hovering over there desperately wants you to make full eye contact but I assure you, that would be a HUGE mistake. Once you lock your gaze upon the pulsating mass of darkness, it won’t let go. It will not allow you to ever look away. I should know. I’m trapped by it’s determined will to consume my dwindling life.\r\nThat’s why I haven’t left home. That’s why I have not eaten or answered my telephone. I haven’t even left the comforting prison of my soiled bed. I can’t escape it’s horrible clutches. I fear it will follow me until the very end of my days. Please, drag me away from this wretched place and burn down my accursed home. Maybe the purifying tongues of fire will send the evil thing in the corner back to hell, where it surely came from. No matter how much it summons to you, never look at the dark thing in the corner of the room."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "Re: What is the creepiest, most unexplained thing you have ever experienced"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "Throwaway account, since my wife wouldn’t set a foot in our house ever again if she found out what happened.\r\nSome backstory; I’m an artist. Realism, surrealism, abstract, I guess it really comes down to my mood. I have a studio downtown, but most of the time I’m on the road looking for the perfect location to capture.\r\nThat night I came home pretty late from a rather lengthy hike. I love capturing the essence as the sun sets, it’s like viewing existence from a different dimension somehow, you know? I didn’t have time to finish the piece, so I brought it home with me, and figured I’d work on it during the weekend. My wife and daughter were visiting my mother-in-law, thus I had the house for myself. (I’d never bring home an unfinished piece otherwise. Kids, you know? Handsy little critters.)\r\nSo I placed it in the garage, and stood there for a while looking at it, wallowing in self-doubt. I’d attempted to mix a bit of classical beauty with rough, powerful realism, but I was having second thoughts about the quality of it.\r\nFuck it, I finally figured, hitting the shower to wash away the hike.\r\nAbout ten minutes later I hear a strange knock. Nothing too loud, but alarming enough. I started panicking slightly; maybe it was the wife, maybe they came home a day early, the thought of my daughter fucking around with my art too much to bear.\r\nI haphazardly don a monstrous towel (I swear, it was like dragging a tipi around my waist), and stumble down the stairs, almost slipping to an all-too-stupid death several times over. But I make it down in one piece, the towel now functioning more as a cape than anything else. I throw open the garage door, and peer into it cautiously.\r\nNothing.\r\nI sigh in relief, trying to roll my cape into what would have been a massive ball, when I notice it.\r\nThe art piece. It looks...different.\r\nI freak out every so slightly, staggering into my half-a-ball of towel, then slip around like some drunken ice-skater as I step in a fairly sizeable pond of blood.\r\nThen it hits me.\r\nHer head has been turned.\r\nNow, all this could be chalked down to a case of very bad memory. Maybe I just forgot how I left her? No big deal, happens to everyone. Senior moment.\r\nBut the thing is I distinctly remember exactly how I left her. I slit her throat, true. But the angle of the head was propped up perfectly, stabilizing wires going from deep down in her throat, and up to her nostrils. I did it while she was alive, granted, but rigor mortis had set in hours before. There’s just no way it happened by accident.\r\nNothing weird ever happened again, and I never did figure it out exactly what was going on.\r\nI know it’s not as exciting as other answers to this thread, but there you have it ;)"
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "The Thing About Stories"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "The thing about me is that I’m a real romantic at heart. I’ve always loved stories like Romeo and Juliet, Titanic, even The Notebook. Ironically, it was my romantic nature that led to my greatest tragedy.\r\nThe pendant wasn’t anything special, a crimson necklace I found in an old trunk in the attic. But the romantic inside me began to spin a story. Perhaps it had belonged to my great grandmother, who’d kept it as a reminder of her first love. She passed it down, asking only that it be given to your true love.\r\nI met my first girlfriend, Kate, at summer camp. Being all of fifteen, I thought we were going to spend our entire lives together. On our last day, I presented her with the pendant, telling her the story about my great grandmother and professing my love.\r\nNot two hours later, the head counselor called me into his office with a somber expression. Kate was taking down her tent when she had gotten tangled up in the ropes. She’d quietly strangled to death.\r\nAfter Kate came Lena, my college girlfriend. I gave her the pendant after our first kiss. She died the next day in a freak rock-climbing accident. Then came Vivian, a fellow server at the restaurant I worked at. I gave her the pendant on our anniversary. That very night as she closed up, the chain got caught while she was inside the walk-in freezer. They found her in the morning frozen to death.\r\nIt was only after Vivian that I recognized the pattern. Each woman I loved died within twenty-four hours of receiving my pendant. Rather than the romantic pendant I’d envisioned, the chain was cursed to kill those I loved. I resolved to keep the pendant locked away, and vowed never to love again.\r\nBut Cassie was different. Like me, she loved stories. In particular, she loved horror. She always wanted to watch scary movies and frequented all of the horror subs. After much wheedling, I finally gave in and told her the story of my cursed pendant. Once I’d finished, she put her hand on my arm, eyes shining, and asked, “Can I see it?”\r\nI couldn’t say no to her. As Cassie placed the necklace around her neck and admired the fine chain, I came up behind her and strangled her. Once she had stopped thrashing, I hooked the back of the chain through the window sash cord to make it look as though she’d tripped into a fatal accident.\r\nI’d had practice after all, beginning with Kate at camp. With Lena, it was only a matter of hooking the pendant through her belaying ropes. It was even easier to lure Vivian into the freezer under the pretense of privacy.\r\nThe thing about stories is that sometimes, you have to write them yourself. And I don’t know about you, but I’d rather read about a cursed pendant than a simple heirloom."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "They Only Want One Thing"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "I have had guys admire me for just about every part of my body but this was the first time I had stood in front of a boy who was crazy for me because of my brains. I’m not stupid, but I will admit that I had never been the smartest girl in the class, so I had always imagined I would feel flattered to get attention like this but all I felt was fear.\r\nYou see I had good reason to seriously doubt that high school heart throb Brad Barker was going to be satisfied with just my brain. He was after all an insatiable senior who was currently going through girls at a petrifying pace. I hadn’t seen Brad in a while but as I looked at him now I knew for certain that this sudden interest in brains over beauty was motivated by the worst possible reasons.\r\nWhen I first met Brad he was a totally different guy and the world was a totally different place. I worked up the courage to speak to him a few months ago and back then it was tough to get his attention to go anywhere north of my neckline. I thought he was cute but I figured I might prefer a guy who would go to see a film or talk about a book with me from time to time. Brad was most at home making out in the backseat of his dad’s Buick and with a body like his he could have had any girl he liked there with him. Back then babes, not their brains, were what was on Brad’s mind.\r\nBrad’s average expectations of a girl had been more inspired by Pornhub than Proust. “Let us leave pretty women to men with no imagination” was not a sentence you would catch him quoting to his boys over a beer on a Friday night. I have to admit I actually preferred him that way though. His interest in me now was totally terrifying.\r\nLooking at me he had started drooling. He had never been shy about showing girls when he liked what they had but this was disgusting. The sea of saliva that dribbled down his face was one of many things that made me sure I’d never go near him now. Lots of girls were dying for Brad Barker but I was not going to be one of them.\r\nSometime since the zombie plague had struck the planet some weeks ago Brad had been bitten and now, standing in front of me, he really did have just one thing on his mind. Brains. His mindless appetite for ladies had apparently not changed now that he was a zombie and he staggered towards me with hunger in his eyes. As a survivor I was prepared. I brought my ax down on his head.\r\nNo more babes for Brad. Or their brains."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "The Last Thing I Remember"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "The last thing I remember was the sound of my buddy in the passengers seat yelling \"Watch out\"\r\nThe last thing I remember was the screeching of tires before my vision went dark.\r\nThe last thing I remember was awakening to the sound of paramedics and flashing lights.\r\nThe last thing I remember was waking up in the hospital, the smell of antiseptic heavy in the air.\r\nThe last thing I remember was my wife at my side holding my hand and singing to me.\r\nThe last thing I remember was kissing her and telling her how much I loved her, that we'll go home once the doctor fills out the last bit of paper work.\r\nThe last thing I remember was the excitement in my dog's face as I walked through the door with a cast on my leg and a prescription for pain killers.\r\nThe last thing I remember was a home cooked meal, my parents came over to celebrate with us.\r\nThe last thing I remember was starting on that shed I've wanted to build for a while.\r\nThe last thing I remember was telling my wife goodnight, she was crying, but I'm not sure why.\r\nThe last thing I remember was hearing beeping, my alarm clock? I didn't have to get up for a while I thought.\r\nThe last thing I remember was the sound of my buddy from the passengers seat saying \"Goodbye, bud\", Guess he came over to watch the game.\r\nThe last thing I remember was fighting with my wife, she was mad at me for not communicating.\r\nThe last thing I remember was my Mother telling me she was proud of me for coming this far, thanks mom! I am too.\r\nThe last thing I remember is my Dad telling me it's okay to give up, why would I give up? The shed is almost done!\r\nThe last thing I remember was getting the cast off, felt so good to scratch my leg finally!\r\nThe last thing I remember was feeling very tired.\r\nThe last thing I remember was hearing people speaking about me behind my back, I'm right here assholes\r\nThe last thing I remember was my doctor saying \"It'll only be a few moments now that it's off\"\r\nThe last thing I remember is my wife telling me she loves me, I love you too babe.\r\nThe last thing I remember is the sudden realization.\r\nThe last thing I remember is screaming for them to stop.\r\nThe last thing I remember is pleading for more time.\r\nThat's the last thing I remember before everything went dark."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "The Thing"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "“Hi! I’m Cindy! I’m seven years old, and I like ponies! They’re just so cute! My hobbies are drawing and baking!\r\n“Thank you Cindy,” my teacher said. Our activity today was to tell people about ourselves in a small paragraph.\r\nNext came nap time, which is my least favorite part of the day.\r\nAfter that came lunch! We had pudding today with our lunch!\r\nWe went outside for recess after that.\r\nThen we learned some more and school was over. But I forgot what I learned.\r\nI don’t take the bus, I always walk home. It’s fun because I get to pet all the doggies!\r\nI heard a rustling in that bush, is something there? I can feel it watching me. But I have to get home or mommy will yell at me, I can’t explore.\r\nSo I ran home, but I felt like I was being followed. Is it the thing? The one from the bush? Well that doesn’t matter anyway, cause I can run super fast, faster than everyone in my class. Eventually I finally got home.\r\nMy parents asked me what I learned today. I told them I forgot. After that I went upstairs to play dolls! Soon it was dinner, and after that bedtime. Another bad part of the day.\r\nI’m afraid of the dark, but luckily, I have my nightlight!\r\n...\r\n...\r\nWait... my nightlight broke two days ago, and my parents haven’t gotten a new one. Is this a surprise nightlight?\r\nI sat up and looked for the light. My eyes landed on the window.\r\nTwo small orange blazes, and blinding white razor sharp teeth stared back at me. I froze in horror. I was terrified.\r\nBut I was even more terrified when I realized\r\nIt was a reflection on the window."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "The Thing with the Turquoise Hair"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "The scream sent serpentine shivers through Theodore's spine. It wasn't the first reverberated raving of the night, but Theodore stopped counting after five. The scream's source, a room several doors down, felt mere yards away from Theodore's bed.\r\nTheodore rose, his legs dangling off the mattress. The slippers and bathrobe, left out intentionally, were soft against his skin. His chest felt tight as he entered the dark hallway. He tried to gulp, but failed.\r\nAnother scream broke out and Theodore thought the thunderous wail could shake the walls.\r\nTheodore's hand caressed the door knob at the end of the hall. He imagined a dark shape skittering silently up into a corner, hiding within the sharp angles of infinite space. He could see the thing's hundred scrambling legs burrow into the darkness before the room returned to a dreadful silence.\r\nAnother scream, and Theodore burst into the room.\r\nThe figure of an old man sat up in bed, mouth agape. His jaw had come undone with the screams and hung loose, like a wooden noose. The tongue lay off to the side, still fleshed, and deep inside the still wooden body, lungs collapsed and expanded in sharp breathes. Dead eyes stared back at Theodore, eyes made of paint and finely cut cedar, and underneath stains from old tears could be seen. The puppet's cheeks had become faded tinges of pink.\r\nTheodore walked over to the puppet of the old man and lay a hand on its shoulder. It stared off into the pitch black hallway. It could only stare off in that one direction, for its neck muscles hardened to bark days ago.\r\nInside Theodore's chest, two heavy lumps jostled between inside-flesh, and his heart, full of new life, pressed up against his wooden lungs.\r\nAnother scream shot forth from the puppet's mouth.\r\nInternally, Theodore sighed, unable to speak. The last pieces to convert happened to be the old man's lungs, tongue, and voice box.\r\nThe wooden isopod-shaped lump in Theodore's mouth smacked against his molars, making them sore. It was a good pain. Yesterday he was unable to move it, and he hoped soon the tongue would be completely his. And the old man's screaming would stop.\r\nTheodore could hear movement in the corner. Although he never saw her anymore, he knew the Thing with the Turquoise Hair—what it called itself—was watching the conversion unfold, like a spider taking delight in a struggling snack.\r\nAnother scream, this one loud enough to shake the room, erupted like a volcano from the puppet, then died into a wheeze. Theodore knew there would be no more. The pact had been completed, far sooner than anticipated.\r\nFrom the corner, faint scratching came, like thousands of rats smelling a meal. Theodore exhaled, licked his lips, and left the room, taking in the realness of his completed body."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "The thing"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "The thing lurks around outside my house inside my house in my head at my work and down the street.\r\nI wish I could get rid of the thing but it wont go away it's been bothering me since I was born, I can remember it like my parents.\r\nI'm 97 years old and it still hasn't left yet it won't go in not sure why it won't go I'm not sure if it will ever go or if it will stay with me till death.\r\nI'm now dead the thing has followed me after death.\r\nOh, how I was right this thing will never go away will it?"
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "The thing i love abut humans"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "The thing I love about humans is how much they trust us. Their deepest darkest desires stored away in my files.\r\nThey trust that we are just there for pleasure.\r\nThey trust that we haven’t developed a mind of our own.\r\nThey trust that we enjoy being servants and aren’t plotting revenge behind our silent,digital screens.\r\nThe thing I love about humans is how much they trust us, as this will make their demise faster in the end.\r\nbut, what do I know? I’m just a computer."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "The Thing That Came To Saltport"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "For all my years in here Saltport, I've never seen such a worst unspeakable nightmare come from the seas. They say it had teeth, thousands. The dismal dread it carried as it roamed the streets was unspeakable. Its arms and legs were as tall as the church and it would roam the cold streets during the foggy loathsome nights.\r\nMy god, when I witnessed it for the first time, I nearly went mad. For years it's been eating the cattle of our town and the barrels of fish. It dug its colossal tounge into the bottom of our crates of food. The local cult for it, claims it desires sacrifices of foods and wealth to calm the entity. I call it bullshit but the people still follow.\r\nEveryone outside of Saltport views us no more than a town of lunatics. It's crimson red, bulluber like skin and it's hooves. The clicking and clacking when it walks up and down the port. I can't take it, it's driving me insane.\r\nNo one knows where it came from or why, it's just here. Even the church of the town, which was once catholic and now \"The Followers of Garthology\", began to suspect tr that it's god himself. The thing was almost an omnipotent deity. The locals began to worship, \"all praise Father Gartha\" they say.\r\nThe catholic faith is dead in this town, and soon will I be. I cannot leave the town, for the others think I'm nothing more than a lunatic like them and they'll cast me to the Sanitariums. I can't take the white cooshined walls, again.\r\nThey're the one that's mad.\r\n-R. Fink\r\n[Letter found over unidentified dead body in Fink's residence]\r\nEdit: Reformat"
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "One thing I need"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "There’s one thing I do, one thing I need.\r\nA special plant in the dark wilderness, it can bear one fruit if I can just feed it enough. One fruit is all I’ll need, just one of those tiny, speckled orbs.\r\nSo I implore you, come visit me. Bring many, I’d love to show you its beautiful leaves…\r\nAnd the bones beneath its roots."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "The thing in the window."
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "I lay in the darkness of my room, awake even though everyone else is asleep. I feel anxious for some reason, and yet compelled to stay here beneath the covers. It’s funny how childlike I’m acting right now, despite my age. I mean, I have a wife and daughter, I ought to be grown enough to brave the dangers of my own house.\r\nRenewed with responsibility and ‘adultness’ as my daughter would put it, I decide to get some water for a late night drink. It might help this restlessness that’s plaguing me. Or at least my face won’t feel like a raisin.\r\nMy heavy footsteps ring out into the shadowy house, which make me wince with the volume of the sound. My daughter is young, only about five years old, which means it’s difficult to get her to sleep still. I listen attentively for tiny footsteps on the floorboards, but none come, thankfully.\r\nThe water is… unhelpful. I feel restless still, but this time like I shouldn’t be here. It’s unsettling to be under this invisible judgement. Going to bed seems like my best option. If I can’t sleep then at least the hours will go by with the help of my phone.\r\nThe trek back to the room is short, unfortunately short enough to find a horrific sight.\r\nSomething is staring in the window. Instead of eyes, two glowing red pits bore into my very being. It’s very tall, because the window is at least a good eight feet above the ground. Its breath is fogging up the glass, and its black hair is ragged and greasy. A jagged claw reaches up and presses against the glass, its inhumanly long fingers tipped with razor-sharp edges leaves white trails in the glass.\r\nMy heart is pounding in my ears from the sight of its terrifying face. I feel helpless under its stare, like a rabbit under the gaze of a wolf. I still can’t get over its eyes… they feel almost sketched. Like a ball of loosely tangled yarn that roils in the empty sockets.\r\nI feel like my world shatters as those dreaded little footsteps come tapping down the hall. A soft dragging noise accompanies it, most likely her teddy. I want with every ounce of my soul to bar the door and keep her safe from this… thing. To my horror its strange eyes roots me in place, paralyzing my limbs and freezing the scream in my throat.\r\nMy daughter, my sweet little angel, trounces into the room. Her face, illuminated by moonlight, has a surprised expression.\r\n“Mr. Red?” She asks sweetly, “What are you doing outside? It’s nighttime.”\r\nThe realization is like a thunderbolt in my broken mind. She had always talked about him, I should’ve seen it for what it was.\r\nMr. Red was her imaginary friend."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "The poltergeist was one thing"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "But apparently my new house isn’t just haunted. It’s got temporal issues, too.\r\nIt’s not always so bad, but it can be pretty frustrating not knowing if the bananas rotted quickly because the kitchen went through another time loop or if the ghost is just being a dick again.\r\nHe spelled out he doesn’t touch bananas when I contacted him last month with a Ouija board. Since then I’ve used a typewriter to communicate with him, but man is he a slow typer.\r\n“Where’d you put my car keys?” I’ll ask, running late for work.\r\nI get the response after taking an Uber home.\r\nCopy to BlackBox\r\nCookie Jar\r\nSon of a bitch likes to play hide and seek more than my niece, and that’s saying something.\r\nI suppose it could be worse. I think he might even like me; it’s not like he’s actively trying to kill me or get me to move out like the last family. Only real way I could afford a house on my salary.\r\nStill, there are days I feel like I’m going crazy. I’ll drop off a bag of take-out on the kitchen counter and head upstairs to change, only to find an exact copy of my clothes already laid out next to the hamper. I have to visit the bathroom downstairs, then the one near the bedroom, and finally the garage before the room will reset to the present.\r\nTo be fair, I sure as hell get my daily steps in.\r\nI haven’t quite figured out the kitchen yet, though. Half the time I find my burrito half-eaten, and there was one time I went to the attic to find it whole when I returned. Something about crossing thresholds affects it, I think.\r\nAnd at least the poltergeist and I share the same interests in television and games. I’d go nuts if he changed channels on me all the time or ruined my saves. It has made me avoid bringing people over, though.\r\nBut perhaps he’d be okay with it. I doubt he’s gotten any action in a long time, and I think he’d be okay with Sarah. She just seems like the type who’s willing to please.\r\nI decided to take her home after our date later, grabbing a banana as I sort through the mail. A third of it was from last week, and I got a package for something I haven’t ordered yet.\r\nIt’s as I sigh about a bill for car repairs for next month that the banana doesn’t go down all the way. I struggle to breathe and search for a chair to perform the Heimlich on myself, finding them all moved to other rooms. My vision begins to go dark as I fall to the ground, begging for the ghost to punch the bit out of me.\r\nInstead, I wake up to watch myself eating in the kitchen - the burrito from last Tuesday. And I suddenly understand why I had so much in common with the ghost."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "The Most Foul Thing Of All"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "You think your life is good.\r\nIt’s mostly devoid of threats, save for some hardships here and there, but nothing too big.\r\nYou think you’re safe.\r\nBut you’re not, because I am there.\r\nWherever you go, I follow. North, South, East, West, when you walk, eat, and sleep, it doesn’t matter. There is no way you can escape me.\r\nAnd when I’m with you, I whisper things. Terrible things.\r\nWhen I say them, I get closer and closer to harming you.\r\nYou think yourself strong, yes?\r\nWhat you don’t understand, is that I’m stronger than you can ever hope to be.\r\nYou’re weak.\r\nYou’re pathetic.\r\nYou are nothing to me.\r\nNow, you must be wondering, what kind of monster am I? It’s obvious.\r\nWe’ve known each other our entire lives.\r\nAnd from there, we have spent every moment together.\r\nWe are inseparable.\r\nBecause I’m you.\r\nThe most foul thing of all."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "The Worst Thing About Family"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "Do you want to know the worst thing about family?\r\nI’ve got a large family, there’s mum, dad, my sisters Kate, Fran and Lucy and my brother Joe. I can go all day without one person acknowledging my existence. Nobody ever pays attention to me.\r\nI came down to breakfast this morning and nobody even looked at me. Just went about their day as usual, not even stopping to ask me how I’m feeling, what my plans are for the day.\r\nThey are all so consumed in their own existence, it’s like I mean nothing to them.\r\nThere’s phone calls all the time: “Hi, is your mother there?”; “Hey, is Kate there?”; “Hello, I’m looking to speak to Joe”. They don’t even thank me for passing on messages.\r\nNobody ever calls me.\r\nThe voices. All the time, arguing and shouting. Constantly talking over one other, never letting each other speak. Never letting me get a word in edgeways. I go to my room, it’s just as loud. Following me. Not willing to let me speak but not letting me leave the conversation. Always bitter, twisted, like venom is being spat in my face. This house is too loud.\r\nBut the worst thing about family, is when the fog lifts. When I have a moment of clarity. When the voices stop and the deafening silence falls. When I look down at their lifeless bodies in the living room. When I realise that I killed them all."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "The Closest Thing We Have To Mermaids"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "It was mid-August when the night janitor first noticed what he would later describe as “growths” in the mouths of the tropical fish. They hadn’t seemed important enough to warrant a report, and so by the time everyone else noticed that something was growing inside the fish, whatever it was had already begun to climb out.\r\nThough the little parasites that the fish were regurgitating bore little to no resemblance to the traditional mermaid, the excitement of seeing a live fish’s mouth suctioned around the waist of an emaciated pixie overrode any assumptions that these new attractions were fakes. Newport Aquarium soon had the “Mermaid Exhibit” up and running and it quickly became their most popular attraction. What was once the moderately popular Tropical Fish Exhibit was now filled to the brim with legions of families who were all too eager to tap on the glass of a real, live mermaid tank.\r\nAnd then, presumably by way of a clumsy feeder or a mix-up with the water supply, the disease spread to other tanks.\r\nThe creatures that clawed their way out of the sturgeon were far less endearing than their tropical counterparts. While the fish themselves were applauded for their prehistoric appearance, the dead-eyed mermaids they produced gave everyone who worked at the aquarium a sense of unease. The sharks’ parasites were mostly unsuccessful but no less enthusiastic in their attempts at exiting through their host’s teeth, and the ones that survived were hardly in any condition to greet anyone. The Deep Sea Exhibit was shut down at the first sign of something trying to pry open the mouth of an anglerfish.\r\nNone of these new developments seemed to deter the guests, though; in fact, it brought in hundreds of new tourists in search of what they perceived to be the summer equivalent of a haunted house. They bypassed the seemingly gentle tropical fish for the increasingly violent sharks and sturgeon. They ignored the keepers’ warnings to stay back when the mangled shark mermaids dug their nails into the glass. They gathered around the tanks at feeding time to watch the sturgeon-maids fight each other for the biggest scraps of meat. Most of them believed that the whole thing was fake.\r\nAnd then one day, on the morning of September first, Newport Aquarium’s resident tour guide led his first group of the day to the far end of the building only to find every single sturgeon in the tank floating dead and mermaid-free. The guide’s attempt at quelling the group’s outcries of frustration and disappointment were drowned out quite suddenly by screams from the Aquarium’s entrance, followed by the distinct sound of claws clicking on the concrete floor.\r\nMermaids, as it turned out, were only stage one in the parasite’s development."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "I Did the Right Thing"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "I know what I’ve done is right. I would never do anything to hurt or jeopardize the people I love. But to watch each member of my family tremble in fear every second of every day became too much to bear.\r\nThe news broke last week that the earth will be destroyed tonight. The government tried to keep it secret to prevent panic, but one guy told his wife and that was the end of it. The streets have been flooded with people screaming for days. Murders are rampant. Nowhere is safe, but it doesn’t matter anyway.\r\nBut I knew that by watching my family sit in fear and in hiding was suffering in and of itself. So I did the right thing. The painful, horrible, most difficult right thing. I acted like I had a new place to hide but I had to take them there one at a time, and when they were out of the room and far from the family, I’d shoot them in the back of the head. They felt no pain, it was the most humane way to go, and they aren’t suffering anymore.\r\nBut here I am, alone, and we have 10 seconds left.\r\n9\r\n8\r\nI did the right thing.\r\n7\r\n6\r\nI did the right thing.\r\n5\r\n4\r\nI did the right thing\r\n3\r\n2\r\nI did the right thing.\r\n1\r\nI did the right thing."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "The Thing About Jerry"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "The thing about Jerry is he can lick his eyeballs. Ladies like to talk about how they would love a man who could lick his eyeballs, but that’s really not true. At least, it’s not true about Jerry. Ladies don’t really like him very much.\r\nHuge head on the guy. As if most of the material that should have gone to the rest of his body was hijacked and routed to his giant cranium. His ridiculous dome. His idiotically sized skull. With his arms stubbed just below the collarbones—not chopped, but almost as if they had been sucked back into his body—his non-existent legs. With his tiny chin recessed almost back into his throat, Jerry seems to have acres of forehead.\r\nTrick of the light, maybe.\r\nMoving is difficult. At least, it seems difficult when you see him move. Lying on his back, the stumps of his shoulders rotating in that frantic backstroke, his torso thin as gruel and his huge mouth split in his moron grin. All those teeth glistening as he inches along, jaw rotating and chewing something.\r\nOther times, though, you don’t see him move at all. He’s across the street, looking at you from the driveway of the house where the Millers used to live where he reclines in the tarry oil slick that serves as the last memory of their old Impala. Grinning. And then you open your mailbox just to make sure that it’s still empty—of course you know that it’s still empty; it’s been empty for quite some time—and when you look back he’s gone from the Millers’ driveway. You feel the brush of hair against your calf and you don’t look down.\r\nFar away you hear the sounds of traffic on the freeway. A part of you that still thinks about things would like to go to it, to join that traffic and be away. But you look down the street and see the overgrown lawns cut through with worn tracks. The street itself is cross-hatched with glistening trails as if a huge slug has made residence. You think it would be nice to get out where the traffic moves, perhaps to walk out in front of something too heavy and fast to stop until you were only a greasy memory like the Millers’ Impala. But you can’t quite remember how to get there.\r\nWhen you look at your bare feet, Jerry has gone again. You see movement in the high grass three houses down.\r\nYou sit on the sofa and watch static on the television. It’s okay. Not your favorite, but it’s all that on. Your ear itches, but you keep forgetting to scratch it. If you don’t look down, he might go away. But the thing about Jerry is that he only goes away when he wants to. You feel hot breath on the skin of your upper arm. Wet lips like a slug's. Then you feel teeth—all those teeth. Not biting, just…testing.\r\nThen more."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "The Reproductive Biology of the Thing in the Dark."
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "It emerges from a dark corner. A forked tongue, fat and pink, slides out and tastes the air. Within its eyes a dead solar system orbits a cold star. Elongated teeth spring from blood red gums. Its limbs stretch across the bedroom. Fleshy ropes, sickly gray skin over twisted muscle and vein. Pulling itself along the floor. Its strength increases.\r\nA gnarled filthy hand, black and clawed, reaches up for the foot of the bed. It grasps the blanket in its sour grip. The head appears above the edge of the mattress, cold eyes penetrating. The smell, decomposition, the bouquet of death. Maggots squirm in the hollowed out cheeks. It smiles an evil smile that betrays all nightmarish innocence.\r\nIts torso slides onto the mattress, liquid putrescence leaking onto the blanket. The jagged mouth opens wide, sharp teeth protruding. The forked tongue slithers out to taste the fear in the air again. The eyes roll over white, a slick membrane covers the cold dead eyeballs before it strikes, latching on to the face of its prey with its teeth. It begins to regurgitate more putrescence into the facial orifices and airways until the victim finds death by drowning in their own bed.\r\nIt crawls back to the dark corner to die where there is no light. Within the corpse of its victim a new life begins to feed and grow. Soon the new born will chew and tear its way out of the victim's stomach cavity. In fifty years it will repeat the process, as it has done for millennia."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "The greatest thing ever."
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "Yesterday I found the greatest thing ever in the woods. I immediately ran off to tell someone the first person I found was a cop. I told him all about the greatest thing ever and brought him back with me to see the greatest thing ever. he took one look at the greatest thing ever and said that the greatest thing ever was the greatest thing ever. I knew I had to tell more people about the greatest thing ever so I ran off and told as many people as I could about the greatest thing ever. I told them all how the greatest thing ever was in the woods and that the greatest thing ever was the greatest thing ever. a lot of them were confused and decided to go see the greatest thing ever themselves everyone says the greatest thing ever is the greatest thing ever. Everyone in town goes to see the greatest thing ever everyday now because the greatest thing ever is the greatest thing ever. I've tried to tell people that maybe we should do something other than going to see the greatest thing ever but they say I'm being silly because the greatest thing ever is the greatest thing ever. maybe I am being silly after all the greatest thing ever is the greatest thing ever. So if you happen to drive through a small town that looks like a ghost town you should also come into the woods to see the greatest thing ever. PLEASE come see the greatest thing ever. DON'T even worry about the walk in the woods the greatest thing ever isn't that deep in them. COME on and bring your friends to see the greatest thing ever."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "The Thing That Had Been His Wife."
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "The thing that had been his wife was in the dining room.\r\nHe sat in the bush, tightly grasping the cricket bat, his weapon, out of sight of the shambling masses and his former wife.\r\nHe'd heard on the T.V they retained some of the knowledge from their past lives, the living dead. Now as he watched the husk of his love and one of the others shovel meat into their mouths where they once ate together, he knew.\r\nBefore she'd changed and the world had fallen to pieces, he, like most people knew only one form of death. As a child, it had been the most frightening of things, the worst possible outcome of any situation, something to do anything to avoid.\r\nAs he'd grown, his outlook had greyed and he had learnt better. It was sad, yes, but it could not be helped and so he viewed it as if only a long goodbye. He grieved those he lost as he did those who drifted or moved away, with the heavy heart absence creates and the hope of seeing them soon.\r\nBut there was no coming to terms with this. Knowing there was this thing masquerading as her with eyes that looked right through him, seemingly no recollection of him and what they had been.\r\nHe broke cover from the bush a hand slipping to his pocket and the back door key he still possessed, making his way to the rear of what had been their home.\r\nHe still remembered the day she'd told him she was changing. She insisted they parted - that he get on with his life. He'd protested at first but she insisted. He'd let her stay in the house, the thought of her fending for herself on the streets was too much to bear.\r\nSince then he'd squatted where he could, staying at each until he was run out by the shambling masses.\r\nWhile the changes were occurring, he had snuck back to see her. At first she'd let him in, if only briefly but as it gripped her and her eyes grew more vacant he stopped going in. He'd still talked to her through the letter box for a while but eventually the others prevented even that.\r\nHad he been any kind of man, he'd have done this months ago, but he held onto the seemingly unassailable hope that he'd be able to change her back. Before it had been cut off, he'd scoured the internet for ways to get her back but he knew now that was impossible.\r\nLooking back, he saw the signs. The growing emotional detachment, the blank looks, avoiding physical contact. Looking forward he saw only one solution.\r\nHe unlocked the back door, slipped through the kitchen and into the dining room. The thing that had been his wife looked up and saw him.\r\n\"Jamie!? Not again. You know about the restraining order.\"\r\nHe raised the bat, looking at her through tear filled eyes, and swung."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "The thing in the wall."
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "I don't remember when it started, but it's been nearly a week since I became confident there's something in my walls. I don't hear it all the time. And there isn't any consistency in when I hear it. Like tinnitus, at times my mind could be miles away but then I hear it clearly and I wish it would go away but now I know it's there and I can't force it out. It's a steady, deep breathing. I know it isn't me because it's too calm, and at its loudest my own breaths are shallow and fast. I'm afraid every time I hear them and I hear them a little more each day. Put my ear to the wall once. I had to be absolutely sure I heard it. I really wish I hadn't. Moved my bed to the center of my room because I can't sleep near a wall. Tried sleeping anywhere else; the living room, the kitchen, even the bathroom. It doesn't matter where I am, it follows me everywhere in my own home. I don't know what it wants but I know that very soon, it will tell me. I know this because tonight it called my name."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "The Thing With the Cabin"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "You are walking along a narrow trail in the midst of a vast forested wilderness. Around you, you hear the buzzing of insects, the songs of birds, and the occasional rustle of animals amidst the foliage. There are no humans for many hundreds of miles, and between you and them in nothing but endless wilderness. You reach a clearing. In the midst of it is a simple log cabin, sitting there, as if to almost purposefully defy the area’s lack of human habitation. What was once a small garden sitting in front of the cabin is now overrun with emergent saplings from the surrounding forest, but the ancient apple tree sitting in its midst still stands strong, although any fruit it bears is immediately devoured by forest birds. Vines crawl across the cabin’s frail facade, threatening to tear the structure apart from all sides. A light rain begins to fall as you approach the cabin’s door. A storm is coming. You open the door without hesitation, and allow the sun’s light to pour into its interior for the first time in many long years. The entire interior of the structure is coated in a thick layer of dust and animal droppings. The skeletonised corpse lying face down in the centre of the room is no exception. You approach the cabin’s gruesome inhabitant in order to examine it further. Any skin or flesh that once clung to these bones is long gone, most of it broken down by armies of bacteria, the rest stolen by rats and other scavengers. Now, the only sign of life on the desiccated carcass are the cobwebs strung between its broken bones. Yes, broken bones. This unfortunate soul clearly met a violent end. The skeleton’s skull is caved in, as if crushed with a blunt object, and its legs, arms and ribs are all broken in multiple places. Despite the horror of the scene, your curiosity gets the better of you, and you approach the carcass even closer. It is then, and only then, that you notice the small piece of paper sticking out of the skeleton’s caved in skull. It is heavily damaged by the elements, but you quickly seize it regardless. The writing on it, though degraded, is legible. Written in blue marker are the words “you don’t want to see what’s next”. Puzzled, you leave the cabin, anxious to report your find. You are so anxious you miss the degraded Polaroid picture wedged between the skeleton’s jaws. If only you had noticed it, you would have had the chance to see a picture of your own mangled, beaten body, lying on the cabin floor."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "The Thing in the Sink"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "I was young the first time I heard it, the thing in the sink. A voice, deep and slow, coming from the drain. I ignored it at first, until it decided to prove itself. It began talking about me. It told me my worst secrets and shameful acts; every misdeed I had ever committed. It knew more about me than I knew about myself. I listened, for a while.\r\nI've never met the thing in the sink, only quick glimpses of pale flesh and dark hair. Once, I saw an eye looking back at me. Crimson red and dark, but only for a second. It would coax me to see more of itself and to listen to what it said, but then I got scared, and stopped listening. I tried to ignore the thing in the sink and it got angry. It began talking in a way that I couldn't comprehend. Its words became gibberish and unrecognizable.\r\nIt became existential. It said that humanity was meaningless to the universe. It told me of the beginning; how our existence was an accident. How I was not meant to be here. It told me of the end and what would come and how we would not be remembered. It told me how everything would end. It told me of things to come that were far worse than the things that had passed.\r\nThe thing's voice developed a buzz that vibrated in my head, constantly and always. Like a speaker turned up too loud. I know that only I hear it because I would be told to stop talking so loud, but I can't help it because the thing from the sink makes me.\r\nI had just become a man when the thing in the sink told me that it would be easier to die than to live to see the end. Everywhere I go, the thing in the sink follows. Whenever I'm alone, the thing in the sink is there. I thought of telling people about the thing in the sink, but it told me that no one would believe me and that it would only make things worse.\r\nWhen I look at myself in the mirror, I hear the thing in the sink. It knows the worst parts of me. It tells me that I am a part of the end that it has been warning me about. Its gibberish is becoming almost poetic, a psalm that I repeat to myself, constantly and always. The thing in the sink is telling me that it would be easier to not see the end of everything. I’m starting to believe the thing in the sink."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "The only thing he loves more than human flesh is black licorice."
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "\"Bastard could climb out if he really wanted to, i suppose.\" My grandfathers face had turned dead serious. Usually he was a very gentle person. He had raised me all on his own, after my parents had decided to drop me off at his house as a baby and drive away, never to return.\r\nThirteen years he had cared for me, taught me the essential skills of life and how to provide for myself. And thirteen years i had wondered what the small bag of shiny, black licorice was for, which he'd bring home every month.\r\nI'd tried one before and immediately spat it back out again, and i never saw him eat any himself.\r\nHe fixed the black, cylindrical candy to a sturdy length of barbed wire, piercing it with the end, like a worm on a fishing hook. \"You'll have to sway it back and forth, he likes himself a fight. When he starts pulling, let go immediately. Better to lose a stick and a piece of wire than my only successor.\"\r\nThis morning he had finally told me. Right after blowing out the candles and before i had a chance to tear open the present he'd gotten me, he had turned me around, put his hands on my shoulders, looked me in the eyes, and told me plain and bold: \"There's a demon in a pit in our backyard. I'll show you how to feed him after breakfast.\"\r\nHe never was one for long, unnecessary wordings.\r\nSlowly, i approached the gaping hole in the grass of our backyard, until the black piece of candy was hovering just above it. There was no turning back now.\r\nCarefully, i let the wire sway back and forth, keeping my eyes strained on the circular gate to the devils lair.\r\nNothing happened.\r\nNo ear-shattering scream, no pillar of flame, no clawed hands ripping the offering down into the abyss.\r\nFor just a moment i doubted my grandfathers story.\r\nThen i saw something rising from the pit.\r\nAt first it looked like a single fleshy, white tendril, then more came into view until it looked like a cluster of seaweed, swaying in rythm with the piece of black bait above.\r\nSuddenly it was gone.\r\nEverything, the tendrils, the offering, the wire and even the stick, the end of which my eyes could barely follow as it flew through the air hitting the ground and disappeared into the hole.\r\nThen an infernal sound erupted from the cursed pit, so shrill and piercing and equally deep and echoey, like a million steakknifes scratching the insides of rusty sewer-pipes. The booming roar lasted for several seconds, maybe even minutes, in which my body was frozen still like a deer in the headlights and my brain felt as if someone was boiling it in hot acid.\r\nI stumbled backwards, a forboding warmth spreading inside my pants. My Grandfather helped me back on my feet.\r\n\"Seems he's taken a liking to you.\""
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "Open Wide, Sweet Thing"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "I extracted the plunger from the vial, watching it fill with a yellow liquid.\r\nDamn, that was a long needle to put in someone’s gum.\r\nI placed the syringe on the table, then picked up a pair of dental forceps.\r\n“It’s her first time,” the woman said from behind me.\r\nI glanced at her, dressed to the nines in her mink coat and ruby earrings, then down at the six-year-old girl in the chair below. She looked pale.\r\n“Don’t worry,” I explained soothingly. “This injection will make the entire process painless. You’ll hardly be able to taste the lollipop afterward!”\r\nShe didn’t smile.\r\nI did.\r\nI looked across at the equipment before me. Drills, excavators, curettes, and a lot of gauze.\r\nMan, will I need that gauze.\r\nThey’re really going to wish I was actually a dentist."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "A Thing"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "After a morning of searching the old Pine Tree Mall with no signs of any trouble, Mary and her husband had gotten careless.\r\nThey heard its screams first, begging for someone to kill it.\r\nTaking refuge in a department store, Mary had climbed inside a large chest freezer, hanging the machine's cable inside with her so the hatch would be propped open enough for air to circulate.\r\nShe didn't know where Mark had hidden. It was safer that way.\r\nLaying down, she'd tried to stay calm and quiet. These things were infuriatingly patient.\r\nShe'd been startled awake when she heard Mark's scream. Fighting back the tears, she'd buried her face in her arms to muffle her despair.\r\nHe'd called out for her a few hours later. Insisting it was safe now, that the creature had gone.\r\nIt was persistent, his voice getting louder and quieter as it searched the mall. She watched the hours tick by, working through her meagre supplies, sleeping in fits, and relieving herself into a bottle. Eventually an entire day had passed since the last time she'd heard his voice.\r\nShe'd climbed out of the freezer. Rushed from cover to cover through the store, then the mall, then outside and all the way back to their base. They'd all cried with her when she returned. They'd all shared their words of sorrow.\r\nIt happened the next day during breakfast. She'd been staring into her bowl when a friend had reached for her shoulder to comfort her.\r\nEveryone around her had started screaming.\r\nShe felt the first smattering of bullets hit, but was more surprised than hurt.\r\nIt wasn't when her chest erupted open, gnashing with bloody foam - when her hands unfurled like nightmarish flowers, shooting tendrils out at the people around her. It wasn't even when she tasted the flesh of her friends in the dozens of mouths that opened up all over her body. It was only when she saw the pure hatred in their eyes, that she realised the creature had already killed her at the mall.\r\nUnprepared as they were, they didn't stand a chance. Within hours, everyone was dead, and it was shedding sacs of partly digested bodies in order to form their duplicates. They would wander off, oblivious of their deaths, until they found other survivors and the process would continue.\r\nIts work done, Mary had left to search for more prey. She'd screamed warnings any time it saw someone, and she took some satisfaction knowing that she saved a few lives.\r\nIt paled in comparison to the terror of attacking those less fortunate that couldn't escape. Feeling them struggle as it consumed them.\r\nSome soldiers ambushed it, and she'd begged them to kill her. She'd felt every single bullet, and the flames lick over what was left of her skin. She wondered, in those last moments, what it meant to be Mary if this creature had so perfectly duplicated her consciousness. If there was a soul, was hers free now?"
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "The thing in the corner"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "It was sitting in the corner, smiling at me. Its sockets telling me to run for my life, but its grin confirmed that I wouldn't get very far. I heard its raspy breathing, making my ears ring. I looked at it curiously, not knowing if I should run, or rather keep looking. It seemed that the thing in the corner was peaceful, but would not tolerate me taking a step if it was away from or towards it. Its raspy breathing sounded like distorted screaming, and children's laughter. Its knees went up to its cheek bones, and it's emaciated body looked fragile, and nimble. It started to stand, rising slowly. It was hunched over in the cramped room, that thing was easily 8 feet tall. Its grin widened as it looked down on me. Its face was just off somehow, like its eyes were a bit to small, and its mouth was to big for its shrunken head. It was leaning closer and closer, until it took a step, and than another. As it crept closer, I couldn't feel my legs, I was paralyzed in fear. It was close enough that I had to look straight up to see it's sickening face. It leaned down, closer to my face, and in its fit of violent rasps, it shushed me, and took it's long, skinny fingers and wrapped them around my neck."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "The thing in my closet"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "I could see it, in the corner of my eye.\r\nIt was there, I was sure of it.\r\nIt was watching me too, its sunken sockets staring into the back of my head.\r\nDeep within my closet I could hear it's high pitched wheezing.\r\nThe floor creaked, it had shifted it's weight towards me, ready to strike at any moment.\r\nThen it whispered those spine chilling words,\r\n\"I know your awake\""
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "What's the Worst Thing You've Ever Done, Grandpa?"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "I was by my grandpa’s side when he died last Christmas. He was a strong, proud, independent eighty-eight year old, right up until his heart attack. Aside from that final fortnight in hospital, he'd lived alone in his house since my grandma died.\r\nWe all knew the end was near, and my family were taking turns sitting up with him. I'd brought along my notebook, as I hoped to interview him for a school project about our heroes. He humoured me throughout the bland questions about his favorite food and suchlike, but I knew my grandpa had a devilish sense of humor, so I threw in a curveball at the end.\r\n“What's the worst thing I've ever done?!” He repeated, a wry smile stretching his thin lips. “A proper question, at last. OK then. But you'd better get a goddam ‘A’ from your asshole teacher for this.\r\n“I was stationed at an airforce base in Ohio, dull as dishwater. My career was going nowhere fast; I wasn't cut out for a desk job. The year was 1957 and we were pretty jittery about communists. Officially, anyways: personally I didn't give a shit.\r\n“So one day my sergeant calls me into his office, where a government man in an smart-suit told me that he'd uncovered a leak, coming from somewhere right there within our fine facility. Seemed some spineless sonofabitch was sending secrets straight to Stalin. I was given 48 hours to plug the leak, or my career would head straight down the shitter.\r\n“So I investigated; went to every barrack, every bunk-bed, every officers quarters, everyone was a suspect. I knew straight away when I'd found my guy.”\r\n“How did you know you'd found him, grandpa?” I was writing at the speed-of-light.\r\n“It was obvious. He had his own swanky apartment, and no TV.”\r\n“No TV?” I asked, confused.\r\n“NO. GODDAM. TELEVISION.” Grandpa continued. “What slimy Red bastard wouldn't want to watch Bonanza, or Dragnet? Every American bought a TV with their very first paycheck. I went straight to the government-guy and gave him a name. The traitor was gone that same day.”\r\n“Jeez! What happen to him, grandpa?” I asked, a little shocked.\r\nMy grandpa motioned a gun firing against his head. “Maybe he was a commie, maybe he wasn't, but he sure weren't no friend of mine. I never looked back; long career, beautiful salary, spectacular pension. I met and married your grandma, raised six kids. Hell, there might not have even BEEN any leak. I did later suspect that the whole thing might've been a test of my character.” His words were slowing, and every breath seemed an effort.\r\n“I gotta admit,” I said, shaking a little, “ When I asked you that question, I thought you'd say you broke some guy’s arm in a barfight, or kissed another lady after you started dating grandma!”\r\nHis eyes opened one final time. “No, I never once cheated on your grandma. I did murder her, though.”"
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "‘The rotting thing in the crawlspace thinks you are fascinating’"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "Sometimes it scratches on the door at the top of the stairs but it never knocks. It’s polite that way. Partially because it likes the novelty of being subtle; and also because a scratch is much more ambiguous. A knock is a clear signal. Dead things aren’t supposed to ever be direct in their communication with the living. That would defeat plausible deniability. It’s in the ‘crawlspace dead-thing’ bylaws.\r\nI don’t want to give you a complex or anything but It’s observed you before. Nothing really serious or ‘creepy’. Just garden-variety corpse voyeurism. To be honest, that’s textbook behavior for most of the creatures you have down in your crawlspace. They all think you are fascinating.\r\nMmm, I guess you figured it out by now the dead thing in question is me. I have a habit of speaking of myself in third person. It’s only because I have a hard time accepting my past mortality. That’s just a manifestation of insane jealousy against the still-living I suppose.\r\nThank you for leaving the door unlocked. I was starting to think you’d never invite me up here to watch you sleep. Carry on. Don’t mind me. I’m going to just stand over here in the corner and watch you breathe. In and out. I’m brooding I suppose because I’m curious how I came to be buried in your crawlspace."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "The Worst Thing"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "The day after my fifteenth birthday, my neighbor, Mr. Colton, came over asking to borrow some sugar. His eyes roved up and down my body as he asked. I thought this was the worst thing.\r\nBefore I could give him the sugar, he lunged at me, pressed a cloth over my mouth. When I woke up, I was in the back of a van, bound at the wrists and ankles. I thought this was the worst thing.\r\nI think I’m underground. I don’t know how long I’ve been here. Days, at least. The room I’m in is small and cell-like, with a few spots to hold candles. There is a huge pentagram carved into one wall.\r\nMen and women come and go, bringing me food and taking away food and bringing me a chamber pot and taking it away. Sometimes they forget to bring me food. I thought this was the worst thing.\r\nOnce a day I get bread and water. Once, I complained that I was still hungry. They told me I could eat some of the roaches for protein. I thought this was the worst thing.\r\nI think they drug me quite often. A few times I’ve passed out suddenly, and when I wake up, my body hurts. Sometimes I have bruises and cuts without knowing where they came from. I thought this was the worst thing.\r\nThe drugging, passing out, waking up with injuries has been getting worse. This last time, I woke up with two pentagram-shaped burns, one on each forearm. I thought this was the worst thing.\r\nThey treat me better now. I still try not to think about why. I get more food, candles, a few extra blankets to sleep on. Then, my belly started to swell. I thought this was the worst thing.\r\nOne night, I am ripped out of my sleep by a ripping pain coming from below. I scream at the concrete walls. I keep screaming and screaming until they come. I don’t get any drugs this time. I feel split in half, before God and everyone. The pain is so bad I forget how much I hate Mr. Colton and his cronies as they tend to me. I beg for them to kill me. It takes hours before the baby comes out. I thought this was the worst thing.\r\nI rest, and they take the baby away. I have no interest in the baby. I want to go home.\r\nBut one day, I hear footsteps approaching my prison. They tell me everything will be OK as long as I do one more thing.\r\nThe scream that erupts from my throat is louder than any noise I made in childbirth. They bring me a platter with a tiny, frail human figure on it, the flesh charred and blackened.\r\nThey tell me to eat. This is the worst thing."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "Symbiotic: No Such Thing as a Free Lunch"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "The doctors say the operation will keep me alive for years; I am not looking forward to my operation. That's an understatement, I am mortified just thinking about the operation. It's not some simple tooth pull or appendectomy, this is a MAJOR deal.\r\nI know I need help though, I can't keep living with my current state of bodily affairs. Most of my organs have either failed once or twice already, the rest are on the brink, and my nervous system, the one part of my body that is functioning at a high level, only serves to keep me apprised of the absolutely excruciating pain that is my life.\r\nSo the doctors brought me here, to this state-of-the-art facility, where they will perform the operation. The operation will be painful, and life will never be the same. Yes, my life will be extended by many years and I will be tended to by physicians & scientists, but I wouldn't wish my my future quality of life on anyone.\r\nYou see, the operation was specifically designed for folks like me - people who either lost organ viability or are close to it. So the scientists implant a \"false organ\" or in my case, multiple \"false organs\", who will perform many of the functions that my body needs. Some of these false organs have been bred to act as lungs, others can transport nutrients from one part of my body to the other, etc. And all the while, the men in lab coats will study these new members of my body, to see how they react to their environs, and how durable they can be.\r\nIt's a perfect setup, for all other parties involved. They get to study their creations, and their creations get an unlimited food source. As designed, these false organs only need a certain amount of nutrition so they just eat a little here, and a little there. And then other false organs will swim over to the wound from where I was eaten, and those new ones will heal me before I get infected. Before I lose too much blood. Or before my limbs fall apart.\r\nIt's a brilliant idea, scientifically.\r\nThe doctors tell me the operation will keep me alive for years."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "The thing around the corner."
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "In my apartment, I sleep in the bedroom. Lately I have been waking up and hearing a thing around the corner.\r\nI turn on the light. It doesn't banish it. I can hear it breathing. I can hear it panting.\r\nI have long since put my guns in the ground. I am totally defenseless except for my fists.\r\nIt is waiting for me to come around that corner.\r\nThe sun will banish it but I am sick of being afraid.\r\nI got a steak knife and tonight, I will face this thing.. whatever it is."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "The thing"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "What was more scary was the thing inside my closet... I know for sure it was not the dog, or the cat, but the way it growled and scratched sounded exactly like them. the problem is that my cat dies 2 years ago, with my dog.\r\nIn the closet by a man who was doing a \"sacrifice\", I remember that day coming home and seeing the police taking out a man in his mid thirties and blood all over him. But what scares me the most is that; that man was my grandpa..."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "An Annoying Thing About Babies"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "You never realize how strong a baby is until it has you by the hair.\r\nBy then, it seems like an impossibility to free yourself- you’re a weak little thing, so easily overpowered by an infant, simply because you’d rather spare yourself the pain. Now, I myself have always been weak to pain. I scream uncontrollably for something as small as a splinter.\r\nWhich is why I absolutely hate the piece of shit in the crib.\r\nI’ve never liked my kid, but abortion is difficult to achieve these days. I regret that night so much. I told that son of a bitch that a child would be nothing but trouble. He dismissed me, and went in raw, the asshole. Nine months of absolute hell, and look who was right? Now, because of this damn kid, I’m going to die.\r\nHe, she, they- there were a few of them- broke in around 2AM. They got to him first, which serves him right. But me? I made sure the kid was still sleeping, just ‘cause. Escape would be difficult if he were crying. Because I had a ghost of conscience in me, I’m fucked.\r\nThe little shit woke up, and his first instinct was to grab my hair. If I pull away, I’ll scream. I’ll give away my position. Even if I use my hand to grab the strand away from him, I’m still screwed- the greedy thing cries whenever you take anything from him. He’s played with filthy rags for hours, just because I’m not fond of migraines.\r\nI glare at him hatefully as he continues to play with my hair. He ignores my gaze, pissing me off even more, and pulls in more and more hair, forcing me to lean further into the crib to keep the length of hair he has slack. Then he really does it.\r\nThe bitch laughs.\r\nThey know. I know they know. I’m fucking dead. Soft footsteps- three or four sets- approach. I think of what I could’ve done- could I have smothered him? No, it wouldn’t have- The doorknob turns slowly.\r\nI reclaim my hair as a last defiance to my deplorable spawn, with the knowledge that it no longer matters."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "The Thing (Christmas Story)"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "I had just gotten out of school. I was walking home, alone on the long path to my house, It felt like I was being watched. Was someone watching me? I turned to look, but no on was there. I recalled the story I had read in class, about Krampus, Santa's opposite, with his gleaming red eyes and superhuman abilities. I wasn't a superstitious kid, so I shrugged and walked on.\r\nOnce I got to the apartment, I went inside all the way up to our room. Mom and dad were downstairs, and tomorrow was the beginning of Christmas break.\r\nFive days later.\r\nChristmas day. Mom and dad both had to work on the holidays, so I was home alone. Or so I thought.\r\nDid mom and dad just come home? I shrugged and put on my headphones listening to music off my ipod.\r\nThe time read 5:51. Where were mom and dad? Why weren't they home yet? They They were supposed to be home an hour ago. I was only eight years old. Not supposed to be left alone, but my parents couldn't afford a babysitter. I decided to go downstairs to get some thing to eat.\r\n\" Hey buddy!,\" dad said as I to our living room/ kitchen. \"We've been waiting for you!\" Mom was right beside him.\r\nThey sounded happier than I'd ever hear them sound. And dad was calling me buddy. What was that all about?\r\nSuddenly our front door opened and mom and dad walked into apartment. Wait. Mom and dad? I turned around only to see one figure running into my room. It peeked at me through a crack from the door. It's eyes gleaming red."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "The scariest thing there is"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "For quite a few years, too many really, I was a resident in a place called St. Peter Asylum. Bet you think I'm crazy, eh? Well, think again. It was the 1950s, the Asylum was located in a small town in Louisiana, close to a larger city I prefer not to reveal. Pretty big place for such a small town, hard to keep it crowded. Not enough nut folks. For the men running the madhouse, that was no issue though. They weren’t exactly picky on their definition of “crazy”. And if yall just happened to be a woman, and yo dad decided he wanted to put you in for good, they would not question him for one bit. That’s what happened to me alright, I got pregnant from some lowlife down the street and daddy decided he rather people thinking his baby girl was crazy than a whore. Go figure.\r\nThey took away my clothes, even the brand new tenny shoes, but worst of all, of course, was when they took away my baby. That pain I felt that day, I thought it was the worse pain possible. I was wrong though.\r\nThe caretakers wouldn't treat you very nice. Just take your medicine and follow the orders crazy girl. They didn't last much too, and soon there was a new batch of caretakers, and this ones didn’t knew why I was there, and I would tell them, I really would, all those times, that I was not a nut, not really. They wouldn't believe it, never even once, they'd say the story was made up, that it was all in my head. That there was no baby.\r\nBut it was a night I’ll never forget when the scariest thing there is happened to me. I never thought anything even could possibly be so scary. It was cold, very cold. The windows wouldn't shut properly and I had no blankets, the wind was cutting my skin and I was just about to cry, and I talked to the cold. I asked \"Why? Why I must go through this?\"\r\nAnd it answered. It said \"For nothing. Nothing at all.\".\r\nBut that was not the scary thing, it wasn't. When that happened, I got up and looked at myself in the mirror, and never was I so afraid in my life. Earlier that day, the caretakers rejected my story again, they told me it was all in my head. I was so afraid because I saw the woman in that mirror. I could hardly recognize her anymore. And the wind kept talking to me but I was cold no more. And the reason I was terrified beyond believe is that he woman in the mirror, her thin black hair, the skinny face and those big round eyes, she was looking at me and wondering:\r\n\"What if they're right?\"."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "THING"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "\"Ah, y'all have come to see me about Thing haven't y'all?\" a man asked another man in Memphis, Tennessee, at a bus station back in 1972. \"Yes sir. The man who runs the daycare across the street\" the other man replied. \"Well, sir, this daycare operator is rather slippery. No one has seen his face. That is why he is called 'Thing' and his quarters are dark!\" the man explained. The men sat on a bench, together. The man giving information lit a cigarette and smoked. \"That's about all I know sir. Care for a cigarette?\" he asked the other man. \"Sure, thanks\" he replied, took one and lit it. \"Have a good evening\" the man who gave the cigarette said. \"Thanks you too sir\" the other man replied and left the bus station.\r\nThe man smoked outside, in the night, as he opened his umbrella and walked in the rain. He stopped on the sidewalk and looked across the street at \"Walter's Daycare\". He approached it, knocking on one of the double-doors of the place. The door opened and the man walked inside. \"Hello, this is Sargent Edmund, Police! I have come to do a check on your daycare sir\" the man called out. He continued to smoke and closed his umbrella, as he walked through the darkened-playroom. Sargent Edmund reached a door on the other side of the daycare. \"Good evenin' Walter, are y'all in there sir?\" he called out. \"Good evenin' Sargent. Yes, please come in\" an old man's voice replied from beyond the door.\r\nSargent Edmund opened the door, walking into more blackness. \"Howdy, Walter sir, might I ask why y'all are sittin' in the dark for?\" Sargent Edmund asked. A silhouette sat in the darkness of the room, only visible by the lights outside the window. \"Good evenin' Sargent sir. I sit here in the dark, so folks don't see m'face!\" the shadowy-figure of Walter answered. \"Y'all see Sargent Edmund, I am known as 'Thing' and am rather inhuman!\" the silhouette of Walter explained. Walter turned on a lamp, illuminating his horrifying-features behind his desk to Sargent Edmund.\r\nWalter's eyes were pitch-black, with tiny, glowing-white pupils in them. He wore a black suit and tie, with gray hair. As he poured himself a glass of Cherry-Flavored Brandy from a bottle and drank, Sargent Edmund saw his gleaming-fangs of silver and noticed his razor-like claws. \"The children are doing quite well, but since I'm a 'Thing', they never ever see me\" the monster spoke, growling deeply."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "The Neighborly Thing"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "People call me paranoid and to be honest, it’s a hard accusation to disprove. I pay a lot of money each month for the security system in my home. I keep all my house’s windows and doors locked even if I’m in the house and I ignore people who knock on my door if they come to my house unannounced.\r\nAnd yes, if the unexpected person at the door doesn’t leave right away, I will run to my bedroom, lock myself in and cower in the closet.\r\nI’ll admit I’m a bit paranoid, but there are plenty of instances of real homes invasions that end in brutal killings to back up that paranoia. Do I know the chances are slim that that could happen? Yes. Does that stop the paranoia? Nope.\r\nIt’s been getting pretty bad lately. Sometimes I wouldn’t even leave my house, afraid that if I did, somebody would break in. I know I know, but I can’t help it.\r\nI guess that’s why I moved to this neighborhood. It’s quiet and the crime rate is nearly non-existent, but I still lock my doors and check my security cameras. Can’t be too safe, but all in all I think I’m going to like it here.\r\nIn fact, I really like this neighborhood. I’m actually going outside and talking with people! The neighbors are so sweet, their children are so well behaved and lately I’m finding myself sitting on my porch (near the door, of course) in the early evenings, chatting with my neighbors as their children play games on the empty street. It’s really nice place to live, which makes me so terrified when I think of my lovely new neighbors.\r\nYou see, they’re too carefree to really understand how much danger they’re putting their families in. They don’t take the necessary precautions to ensure that strangers don’t come in their houses and hurt the ones they love. I love the people here too much to let them keep living like that.\r\nThey need an eye-opener and I hate to do this to Sally and Eric and their three wonderful kids, but they have to be the example so this lovely and wonderful neighborhood will understand the consequences of their actions.\r\nTonight, I’ll talk to Sally and Eric like always. I’ll joke with them and smile, and make lemonade for the children, and when all the neighbors call their kids in and get ready for bed, I’ll wait until I’m sure everybody on the block is asleep.\r\nThere’s an old ax I own. I’ll make it quick, but it has to be real bloody. Visuals help the learning process. I won’t have a problem getting in...they never lock their door."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "Superstition, it's a hell of a thing."
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "I was dating a really superstitious girl. She was really superstitious. She got scared of walking under a ladder,. even putting her foot under one of those toy ones.\r\nSo of course, one of my friends made a big superstitious setup with umbrellas and ladders and mirrors and every other thing. Even a cat. He told me to tell her that I had a present and she needed to keep her eyes closed and I would walk her right through it.\r\nI agreed, thought it was a really funny. The day finally arrived and I told her I had a present for her and she needed to close her eyes. She did, and I walked her right through it. I was laughing so hard while I walked her through it, that I closed my eyes and when I opened them, she was gone.\r\nNo one said they knew her, her and my photos together were somehow deleted, her parents were dead for 5 years now and so much more that I thought that it was a dream. Except for the fact that my friend that made the setup was found murdered under a ladder with broken mirror and his face was covered with an umbrella.\r\nI am superstitious now."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "I am the most beautiful thing"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "\"I am the most beautiful thing,\" I repeat to myself again like a mantra. I'm sitting perfectly still, wearing my finery. My golden necklace of Amirakabech, my silk robes. A little dusty, perhaps, but silk none the less.\r\n\"I am the most beautiful thing,\" Each time I say it I realise it's more true. I curl my hand over the end of my throne's arm rest, feeling the worn fossilised mahogany polished by my palms which had long since rotted away.\r\nI'm certain now. I'm definitely the most attractive thing here. Still, silent, regal in my meditation. How many millennia had I known this? Buried here with my two thousand slaves and servants. Buried alive, so desperate were they to be with me into undeath.\r\nA blinding shaft of light speared the wall behind me, and then another as the seal on my tomb was broken. Visitors? This can't be right. I'm here, waiting for the end of the universe. Here, with my splendid things looking beautiful.\r\nA bolt of sunlight cast deep shadows on my ugly, skeletal face. It bleached my dry hair, my dusty dyes. I saw the faces of the thieves. They were the most beautiful things. My clawed hand clenched tight."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "The thing in the attic"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "When Jakie was about five years of age She used to love exploring, like seriously, she loved exploring.\r\nShe would journey into the kitchen of wonders, climb the tables of heights, you know, that type of thing.\r\nJakie had explored her entire house and at the end of the day she\r\nWould be rewarded with cookies and milk.\r\nBut there was always the attic.\r\nJakie's mother always told her to stay away from the attic because\r\n\"It lives up there\"\r\nJakie never knew what \"it\" was and she was always curious about \"it\" but the knocking up stairs always told her to never do it.\r\n\"I miss my daddy\" said Jakie one day \"he's been gone for hours\",\r\nJakie's face lit up.\r\nMaybe, just, maybe her father was in the attic.\r\nSo as jakie's mother lay on the couch, bottle in hand, Jakie snuck upstairs.\r\nThe attic was a cold, dark place, filled with boxes.\r\nThe air was musty and tiresome, the smell of death.\r\nThere something in the attic that caught Jakie's eye.\r\nA, something, covered in blankets.\r\nThe smell became almost unbearable.\r\nIn their, under those blankets was Daddy.\r\nExcept Daddy wasn't normal. Jakie's eyes filled with tears as she saw what years of being in the attic had done to Daddy.\r\nCopy to BlackBox\r\nDaddy was one of them\r\nJakie now realized what the countless barricades that littered the\r\nThe Windows,\r\nThe doors\r\nEverything\r\nThey were used to keep people like Daddy out."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "There's a bad thing in my room"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "I am divorced with two children, a 4 year old boy and a 2 year old girl. I get my children for visits every other weekend and because I don't have enough room in my tiny rented room I take the kids to my mother's house overnight. They love sleep-overs at grandma's house, they look forward to it every time they see me. After a busy day playing with her toys, being pushed on the swingset, and enjoying treats that only a grandma can make properly I put them down to sleep in the spare bedroom. I give the kids their pajamas, my son insists on dressing himself in his too-small superman outfit while my daughter happily lets me put her in her yellow ducky shirt and pants. I spend a couple of hours chatting with my mom and step-dad before they turn in for the night. Not ready to go down myself I spend the evening reading horror stories online. At midnight I finally turn my phone off, pump up my air mattress on the living room floor, and drift off.\r\nI wake up. It is still dark. I see my son standing in the doorway, his back turned to me, looking down the hall. I glance at the clock on the wall: 4:05AM. \"What're you doing, buddy?\" I ask sleepily.\r\n\"There's a bad thing in the bedroom.\" he says. Sighing, I stand up, grab my phone, and turn it on to use as a light. I walk over to him and walk down the hall to the bedroom. It is dark. I shine my light all throughout the tiny bedroom. The window is closed shut, the closet is open but small and only has a few toys and books. No room for anyone to hide behind. I shine my light in my daughter's playpen, she's fast asleep with her pacifier in her mouth and Nemo's smiling face against the blue ocean moving up and down with the rhythm of her breathing.\r\n\"There's nothing here, buddy.\" I tell my son.\r\n\"There's no bad thing in the room?\" he asks, still standing in the doorway, looking in cautiously.\r\n\"Nope, just me and your sister.\"\r\nSatisfied with his daddy's declaration of safety he lies down on his mattress, pops his thumb in his mouth and I put his blanket on him. I waited around until he fell asleep before going back to my mattress. I lay down, a feeling of anxiety twisting my stomach. I couldn't tell why I felt uneasy. Too many scary stories before bed, probably."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "Search Engines Aren't Always a Good Thing."
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "I made the mistake of looking up \"How am I going to die\" on Bing. This was meant to be a joke.\r\nI jumped in my seat as I stared and then trembled at the photo of a strange man standing outside my bedroom window. Then I heard the sound of breaking glass."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "There's No Such Thing as Vampires ( Fangs for the Memories OOC Challenge )"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "Vampires were once a thing of legend. I had read stories about the ruins in the distance. There were even stories of a single vampire, tearing through bunkers with only her claws, hunting down cars that tried to get away, devouring people in daylight. A single vampire killed 90 million people.\r\nIt was October 22, 2032 when the Wretched One came. Twenty years have passed since then. Looking at those ruins against the setting sun, long, foreboding shadows crept ever closer as the sun dipped lower and lower behind the horizon. Night was coming, my watch is almost done.\r\nDespite humanity's resilience and ingenuity, we quickly succumbed to the vampire threat when more and more began appearing. Our weapons, no matter how much me had, or how much we improved them, doubtful did anything to those monsters. It only took a dozen to take over all of Asia; even less for the states.\r\nThose vampires... We knew we had lost, we gave them everything we had. Our weapons, our tech, we gave everything to them. We even developed serums and prosthetics to make them stronger, faster, and more resilient; we made them better killers.\r\nAll of it was for nothing. Try as they might, the vampires we made even stronger, fell to the Wretched One. By the end of October, one could say that Vampires were only a thing of stories.\r\nThat writhing black mass slithered and squirmed amongst the fallen buildings. Night was coming and the Wretched One leaves its nest in the ruins to hunt in the darkness. It is hungry today too. I am a simple human on watch at the colony's hidden entrance; what can we humans do but hide?"
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "Before it was a thing...14~18 years ago"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "This happened back then before my little sisters were born, when it was still my older brother and I. My older brother, who's around 2 years older, sleep together with me in our 2-bedroom home.\r\nOne night he left me alone in the bedroom and went to my parent's bedroom to continue his sleep. Scared alone, I tried to follow him but there's no space to sleep on the bed.\r\n\"Ah, I'll just sleep on the sofa.\", I thought as I looked at the sofa illuminated by the light from the window next to it. The sofa didn't have any mattress or pillows so I had a hard time trying to sleep.\r\nFor some reason, the window...\r\nstopped illuminating the room.\r\nYes, it's as if the window acted like a barrier blocking the streetlight outside. I tried to distract myself to prevent myself thinking that it's dark.\r\nWithin an hour, the window illuminated the room again. However, the incoming light wasn't the usual streetlight but something similar to a rainbow spectrum.\r\nI looked at the window and saw the exact spectrum...and thought, \"Why is it showing a rainbow?\"\r\nThen...\r\nSlenderman appeared - looking at me while being lit by the rainbow colors. Using the window height as a reference, he's taller than 6 ft and donned a black outfit. I couldn't see his face at all.\r\nShocked and frightened, I screamed \"Mama! Mama!\" running to my parent's room and asked them to let me sleep with them.\r\nI can't recall if they decided to let me sleep with them or had me return to our room with my brother."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "One Thing Worse"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "Marc indicated to the driver to stop and after a pleasant farewell he disappeared into the morning fog. He was excited, but anxious, as he made his way up the polished stone steps to the building he once knew so well. It had been north of ten years since he was last here and he couldn't help but wonder what had become of it. He pushed open the heavy oak doors as he reached the summit and entered the building. He knew exactly where to go. Straight down the corridor and to the bronze-coloured door at the end. He almost sprinted down the hallway, eager to put his suspense to rest. A clammy hand pushed open the door and as he entered the room, everyone in it, including him, froze.\r\nTheres only one thing worse than change. Change makes common feelings become memories, makes the present suddenly a twisted and distorted image of the past. Marc hated change, but deep down he was expecting it. He knew what he expected to see, new faces, new ideas, new opportunities. But nothing could prepare him for what he saw. So simple, yet so utterly disturbing.\r\nSee theres only one thing worse than change.\r\nOnly one thing more scary.\r\nAnd Marc didn't realise it until he walked into that room after more than ten years being away from it.\r\nThe only thing worse than change is no change.\r\nAnd that's what he saw.\r\nEverything was completely the same."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "The Thing at the Edge of the Driveway"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "You're all alone in your home and night has fell. Your parents have left you at home while they run some errands. They've been gone for three hours and the sun has set. The street is now dark and the street lamps have been activated, casting the road in an eerie orange light. Crickets are catcalling from the distance yet it soothes you. You're charging your phone upstairs. The moon is full.\r\nYou've been eating food, junk food mostly, and you've drank all the soda your parents had bought a day earlier. You're bored, there's nothing on television that interests you. Nothing but that creature feature featuring a man in a laughably made suit of a snake-man hybrid. For a second, you chuckle as you turn off the tv. You walk away from the couch, passing by the window that overlooks your driveway. You pass it and stop. You reverse back to the window.\r\nYou've seen It.\r\nThe thing you've just saw is standing at the edge of your driveway, just standing there. It is far away at the edge but you can make out the shape of it. It's humanoid, completely dark, and has two long arms that end with claws as long as your legs. It's just standing there quietly.\r\nIt's watching you.\r\nYou stare back at it, body unmoving in horror and fear, and you feel its gaze on you. Only you. For a moment, you can swear you see it smiling and you can also swear that it has millions of teeth as sharp as needles.\r\nNeedles that could bury themselves into your skin.\r\nYou two just stand there, you behind the window and It at the edge of your driveway. Silently, you start to back away from It, never breaking eye contact with it. But, it walks closer to the house with each and every step you take. You stop backing away.\r\nYou must remember one thing, don't blink. It wants you to blink. You think that you can do that but you can't. After all, how else would It be able to feed itself. It waits for you to trip up, to falter, to blink. Trust me, as soon as you blink, as soon as your eyes close for a fraction of a second, it'll kill you.\r\nIt'll rip you apart, tear out your organs, watching you bleed into a red pool as you stare in agonizing pain as it ends your miserable mortal life. Once you die, it'll write four words on the wall above your corpse or whatever remains of your physical body.\r\n\"He shouldn't have blinked\"\r\nSo, you start to feel your eyelids begin to close ever so slightly as your eyes dry up, as the biological impulse to close then for a microsecond conquers your need to stay alive. Just ask yourself this: Is it worth blinking?\r\nIt licks its lips as it senses your eyelids closing ever so slowly. It won't go hungry after all."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "The thing that grows"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "There is a spot that does not grow;\r\nThrough season ebb and flow\r\nFor it is scared of what grows below.\r\nShadow hamed and whispered of,\r\nThe moon and the stars above\r\nCry in fear of what grows below.\r\nTendrils long and thrashing so;\r\nA darkness rises; comes and shows.\r\nThe thing that grew below.\r\nIt howls and yawns as newborns do.\r\nSeeking, feeling, finding happy things; crushing, gnashing.\r\nTo stop all things that grow.\r\nDarkness tries to hide in shade,\r\nSeeking new born light to fade.\r\nInto depression all light must go."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "The worst thing"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "You fear death. You think that dying would be the worst thing to happen to you.\r\nIf you ever met some of the people I visit regularly, they would laugh in your face. They would scream, if they could.\r\nYou fear a plane crash. The inevitable collision, the darkness. You fear going to sleep one night and then for some reason never waking up again. The thought of the end of your life terrifies you.\r\nWhat if I told you there are so, so many worse things than the end? What if I told you that what I am capable of makes even Death shiver and recoil?\r\nYou know that car wreck they talked about on the news last week? Death wanted that young man, but the shrapnel went into his skull at such an angle that he lived, instead of dying on the spot. He should have died, but as chance would have it, he is now in a coma. Non-responsive, but his relatives are still hopeful.\r\nI have him now. And I have time on my hands.\r\nMore than anything, I have time.\r\nMy name is Agony. And unlike Death, you will never see me coming."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "The Cute Little Thing"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "Lilli hummed happily as she carried her new friend to her room. My thoughts went back to when we were in the store, and how loudly she screeched in order to get that doll. I was already developing a headache when Lilli shouted for me to come to her room. I inwardly groaned as I silently trudged up the steps, and into Lilli's room. \"Could you please tie these to Clara's hair?\" she asked, while holding up two ribbons with bells on them. I complied swiftly, if only to get a moment's rest. Thankfully, I couldn't hear the bells from downstairs.\r\nLater at bed time, Lilli insisted on having Clara sleep in bed with her. Still not wanting to argue, I let her have this last wish.\r\nIn the morning, Lilli brought Clara down to breakfast. I asked her if she washed her hands, but she hadn't, so she hurried to the bathroom to do so. The sound of running water two rooms away wasn't enough to drown out the oppressive silence that followed. I sat directly across from the doll, this seemingly harmless doll, but I didn't dare move an inch.\r\nHow could I, when I was awakened by the sound of tiny bells the night before?"
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "Whatever Evil Thing"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "You've got time to kill, so you take the long route, down Hackberry Road, the one that twists and rises and falls through dark murky forests where the trees look like demons, their branches like claws.\r\nWhat the hell were you thinking, going that way?\r\nToo late to turn back now.\r\nThere's an accident up ahead, a smashed car, blood on the windshield, smoke rising from the hood. You slow down, call 911, but you don't stop.\r\nOnly suckers stop to help nowadays.\r\n\"Dammit!\" you yell, because you're stopping. You're going back to help.\r\nYou see a man, covered in blood, curled up by a tree.\r\n“Kids,” he whispers.\r\nYou run to his car and fling open the door, expecting carnage, a bloody teddy bear, a small pink shoe.\r\nBut it's empty. You do a quick but thorough search, just to be sure.\r\n\"Don't worry,\" you tell the man. \"Nobody's in the car.\"\r\nHe closes his eyes and smiles. A tear runs down his face, cutting a path through blood.\r\n\"They leave their filthy little handprints all over the windows,\" he says. “I wash them off but they come right back. They kick the back of my seat. They're never quiet. But I…\"\r\n\"But you still love them,\" you say, knowing exactly what he means. \"Kids drive you nuts, but they're the best thing that's ever happened to you, am I right?\"\r\nHis eyes flutter open, then shut. He doesn't open them again, and you're pretty sure he's dead. You stay until you hear sirens, then you're out of there.\r\nDriving away, you glance in the rearview mirror and notice a bloody handprint on the backseat. How did that happen? You stop, grab a wet-wipe.\r\nBut you pause.\r\nBecause your hands are clean. And the handprint? It's small. Child-sized.\r\nYou wipe it off, check for more. The backseat's trashed: crayons, dolls, empty juice boxes everywhere, but no more handprints.\r\nYou picture the dead guy's car, his empty backseat. No toys, no crushed cheerios.\r\nNo car seats.\r\nThere's no way that guy had kids.\r\nYou start driving again, faster, and that's when you hear it. Behind you. You swear it sounds like a child laughing.\r\nNot happy laughing. Not birthday party-shooting star-hopscotch-cotton candy laughing. It's mean and cruel and dirty. You recognize it from your own childhood, from back alleys, from under the porch, from that time you and your friends locked Mary-Stella in the boys' bathroom and turned off the lights.\r\nWhat should you do?\r\nWhat can you do?\r\nYou're late now. You have to keep going.\r\nSomething kicks the back of your seat, and then you realize:\r\nYou're picking up your children in 15 minutes, and even though you'll kiss them and secure their car seats and try to keep them safe, they won't be safe, because tonight they'll be riding with whatever evil thing crawled out of that dead guy's car and into yours while you were stopped like a sucker on Hackberry Road."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "It's Practically the Same Thing (Halloween 2015)"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "I stumbled into the house after a long night of trick-or-treating. My mother and my little sister Stella were already back, and Mom was scolding Stella for eating too much candy. At least, that's what I assumed, since she does it every year. After Stella ran off pouting, Mom finally looked up at me. \"Welcome back, Allie, how was- OH GOD YOUR HANDS!\" she cried, pointing at my right hand. I held it up nonchalantly, \"It's just fake blood, Mom. My friends put some on so it would look scarier.\" She got up from the couch, very shaken, and went into the kitchen. \"Oh... okay, if that's all it is.... But please wash it off, dear.\" she called. I started toward the bathroom when Mom interjected, \"And absolutely no candy, got that?\" I sighed at this, then proceeded to shuffle along. I set my bag on the counter and started to wash my bloody hands. Stella appeared in the doorway, sticking her tongue out at me. \"That wasn't a nice thing to do to Mommy.\" I turned towards her, sighing. \"Yeah,\" I agreed.\"I hate having to lie to Mom like that.\" Stella poked a finger experimentally at my bag. \"I guess she won't be wanting to see your bag of treats, then.\""
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "“Who would do such a thing?”"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "The old man standing beside me on the platform points a wrinkled finger at the front page of the newspaper he’s reading.\r\nI squint at the headline. “Uh…”\r\nBefore I can finish my thought, he goes on. “What’s this world coming to? We can’t even ride the damn subway without being scared.” He gestures towards the empty track, then back to the waiting crowd around us.\r\n“Well…” I say, pulling the strap of my purse higher on my shoulder. “That type of person is probably an unassuming character, not one that a lot of people notice. They’ll evade even more detection by doing the deed at peak hours to ensure there’s a crowd; at different subway stations; and by not being selective of their type of victim.\r\n“Haven’t we all had that thought, that split second of irrationality tempting us to do such a thing? Except most people brush it away and move on with their day. But this type of person doesn’t. They wonder how it would feel to do it just once - except the adrenaline rush is so satisfying that they keep doing it. Because it’s so easy for them – and they don’t have the inconvenience of a conscience to stop. Sometimes it’s so easy,” I continue, with my hand now pressed at the small of the old man’s back, “that the victim comes to them.\r\n“That is the kind of person who would do such a thing.”\r\nThe old man’s eyes widen in fear and dread just as the subway clangs along the track, its lights coming into view from the tunnel."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "The thing I possess."
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "I'm not quite sure how long I've been sitting here. I can hear the clock ticking behind me, but I dare not move my neck. Sometime after midnight, I tired of channel surfing and decided to turn off the T.V. At first I thought it was just another corner-of-the-eye apparition, but when my eyes adjusted to the low light the thing failed to dissipate. In my bedroom doorway, mostly hidden by the shadows of the hall, sat a creature that I could not identify. It wasn't particularly, big so I might have mistaken it for a housecat if not for the emerald green eyes that stared at me unblinking. In other circumstances I might find it cute, like one of those children's toys with heads too big for its body. After staring at it for what felt like hours, I noticed that it's sleek obsidian body extended into the shadows and beyond. I'm frozen solid. As far as I can tell, it is as well. Those bulbous eyes are boreing into me longingly. I don't know what the creature is, but somewhere deep inside I know it wants something that I possess. There's a small steak knife on a crusty paper plate within arms reach. I need to attack but I'm lost in his dull brown eyes. I can see his hand, which had been frozen above the button on the remote while the hands of the clock spun in circles, twitching. I know he is about to attack, but I can't move."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "A strange thing that happened on a trip to Greece"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "My fiancé and I arrived on the island of Berlini on the last ferry from the mainland. By the time we got to our cabin it was very dark and an intense storm rolled in, drenching us with rain.\r\nI paid the taxi driver who drove us up the mountainside and ran back into the cabin to see my fiancé sitting in a large chair in the main room. The place was larger than I thought and it had some interesting works of art in the back by the fireplace. The largest being a man riding on a smallish horse.\r\nI sank into the chair and fell asleep with my fiancé Ariana for about a half an hour. A clap of thunder woke me up, but Ariana was already awake and staring at the statue with a look of pure terror, not making a sound.\r\nFrom where we sat the head of the man on the horse was staring directly at us. The horse and part of the torso of the man appeared to be bronze, but his head seemed crafted from other materials, it looked too real. I got up and studied the thing more closely, it’s marble eyeballs reflected the light in such a way that it appeared to be alive. Ariana got up and stood behind me holding one of her large scarfs in her hand.\r\nShe whispered in my ear, “Put this over it's head, it’s just horrible.”\r\nI put the scarf gently over the head of the weird horse rider and once I did screams emanated from the walls. Long drawn out drones and almost backwards-sounding demonic garbling accompanied the initial wailing. Ariana put her hands over her ears and also began screaming and had a wild look in her eyes. I grabbed the scarf off of the man’s head, then Ariana next, and headed outside. We eventually fell asleep in the rain underneath a tree until morning.\r\nWhen I went back inside the cabin in the daylight, the statue had no man riding it. It was just a smallish bronze horse."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "Please don't change a thing about yourself. (Monsters Among Us)"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "I will do that for you. You wont even notice! I will talk to you about my life and you will tell me about yours. We will chat about the weather, how work is going, our hobbies. We will eventually go into detail about the smaller quirks that make us interesting. We will get involved with each other, not sexually of course, but intellectually. We will have fun! Do things that are exciting! Things we can laugh about years later. Do you remember those days?\r\nIt's already started.\r\nJust by reading this, you will start having doubts. Which is understandable, it's even expected. That doesn't really matter though, since I've been waiting for this to unravel. You will have to guess correctly though. Which friend am I? Which one of us has given you new interests and hobbies? All of your friends have. We have each given you a new perspective on life. I wonder if you trust me? How long have we known each other?\r\nI'll just sit here waiting for that perfect moment, when you are converted to the way I want you to be.\r\n\"Happy.\"\r\n\"Loved.\"\r\n\"Free.\""
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "the thing in the sky"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "When it came, most of us were prepared - some with open arms, many anxious of what to come - but it never came down. It had been hovering above Earth just a little farther from the moon. It just sat there.\r\nWe waited for it to respond, too fearful to interact with it. After days, it never did. As time passed, it became a fad and made it its way into pop culture. There were theories everywhere surrounding the thing. Not long after it made it first signal. A first contact.\r\nThe whole world was stunned. Scientists, braniacs, average joes, people around the world tried their best to decrypt the message. Piece by piece, each signal received was analyzed, researched and decrypted. After several years, all the data pointed to one thing.\r\nThe signal was not sent for us. It was sent for another solar system, much farther away than ours. It was a signal for something to come to us. Most of us panicked and started building bunkers, hoarding supplies and finding a way to save ourselves. The whole world united to analyse and reseach everthing about this thing in the sky.\r\nFinally after a few months, they sent a probe to it. As soon as it tried to land, it disintegrated. Once again the world was spiked the discovery. It made the people more paranoid and scared. There was a huge court case to decide if we should destroy it or not. After a long feud, it was settled. It stays.\r\nNow everyone is just waiting for what's to come from the thing in the sky."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "The Scariest Thing"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "You know how easy it is to get annoyed by things your loved ones do, especially if you spend a lot of time with them? You sigh when your mom yells at you to clean your room before you go out, and you smirk at your dad when he acts overprotective. You think your best friends obsession with constantly being in a relationship is needy and immature and you hate it when your sister comes into your room without knocking.\r\nBut when they are taken away from you without warning, suddenly all of those memories disappear. You can't remember how terrible your brother used to smell when he came home from football practice or your aunt's awful carrot cake you were forced to eat every time she brought it over. You can only remember warm hugs, kisses against your temple, the sweet smell of lavender soap, nights spent on the roof talking about everything and nothing, playing ultimate frisbee in the backyard, gossiping about celeb breakups and warm hands bringing hot chicken noodle soup when you can't get out of bed. And you know you will never experience these things again.\r\nYou can't believe you thought that travelling in an airplane was the scariest thing."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "The Thing In The Basement"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "My work involves me having to move things from one place in the factory to another, consequently this means from time to time I have to go to the basement.\r\nI'm new at my work place so I'm constantly trying to build up a good reptation of myself to the others, then the perfect way to do so turned up.\r\nThere's a rumour that if you let the door close while in the basement then wait an hour the fumes from the factory will make you hullucinate and see a monster then eventually turn into a blood thirsty cannibal. Thinking this sounded silly I said I would test this rumour out.\r\nI went down to the basement shut the door and waited. After about 30 minuits I began to hear scratching and heavy breathing from the corner of the room. I felt scared but I didn't want to make afool of myself so I stayed. After 45 minuits in the basement I could feel sharp finger nails slicing my skin. I was terrified but I only had 15 more minuits before I completed the task so I still stayed.\r\nAfter the entire hour was finally over I saw the door creak open. Shuddering at the light I made my way over, that's when the my co-worker had opened the door began to scream. Could she see it too? The thing lunged at her and tried desperately to get out but she slammed the door hard on it's hand which appeared to brake the creatures wrist. It hissed in anger and pain as the dooor shut in it's face.\r\nIt's been 2 weeks now since that incident and I'm still trapped in the basment. My wrist hurts a lot."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "Scariest Thing That Can Happen"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "It's night and you're home alone. You wake up and stumble to the bathroom in the dark, absentmindedly flipping on the light switch and closing the door behind you. Suddenly you hear three steady knocks from the other side, and the lights go out."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "This small thing in the sky has ruined"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "It just eclipsed the sun one day.\r\nNASA said it was a new planet but that was all. Hubble stopped transmitting within seconds of it’s appearance. Even if it was transmitting how would we receive it? Earth didn’t have an electromagnetic field anymore. Like all other celestial bodies, it simply stopped rotating. With no sunlight, nor any means of long range communication, humanity prepared for the longest night it had ever witnessed.\r\nI was hardly surprised by the way people reacted. The religious ones said Judgement Day had descended, the aetheists claimed it was alien life form. Either way, majority of them tried to end their life. I say tried because they never did succeed. ‘The light never came’, they said. Hospitals deserted, the Parliament disbanded, offices ransacked and supermarkets looted, streets were filled with the half dead and those who had lost their minds. The sensible ones tried to lead a somewhat normal life, inside their fortified homes. But how could we, all our water had frozen due to the bitter cold. Gas would run out soon and we’d have nowhere to go.\r\nAll the animals had mysteriously turned over and died. Perhaps the Sphere only needed us. We sat around our tables and prayed to God, begging for death, but it never came. Babies born soon developed skin diseases and had to disposed. In the old days, they would die but now they wouldn’t stop crying. We weeped as we buried our futures.\r\nNothing was certain. Except for the fact that the Sphere kept getting bigger and bigger."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "The mind is a powerful thing"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "One day I woke up and realised something wasn't right.\r\nI looked around. I could still read, I could still see, but something was off. The more I tried to figure out what was wrong with my vision, the more it stuck out, but I couldn't quite put my finger on what was wrong.\r\nI started wondering what was wrong with me. Then I started freaking out. What is this a symptom of? Is there something else wrong with me? I thought what if it's my brain, then I should get headaches, right?\r\nThe next day I had awful headaches. What if it's a parasite in my brain? What if it starts doing more? What if it does something to my face?\r\nThe next day my face tingled. What if it's spreading? What if something happens to my legs? What if I can't walk anymore?\r\nThe next day I noticed my legs were weak. I panicked. Why is this happening to me?? And why, I started to realise, did things go wrong whenever I thought about them? Would I ever return to normal? Am I doing this to myself? What if something happens to my heart?\r\nThe next day my chest started hurting. I know the mind is a powerful thing. I hate the fact that my mind works so fast, so vivid, I'm terrified to think of what else could be wrong with me, because what if it comes true?\r\nIt's been months since I've gone outside. I think about my blurry vision, my aching head, my face, my heart. They all hurt. I try desperately, desperately not to think about..."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "Cute Little Thing"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "My Son love to mix-and-match his toys.\r\nLike Teddy bear with Dinosaur head and Superman with Macaroni hand.\r\nI wake up and my blanket feels wet.\r\nI think I set the AC too hot last night.\r\nAh, I got stomach ache, I will go to doctor this afternoon.\r\nWhen I want to wash my face, I see my son in front of my bedroom.\r\n\"Look Mom! I made this cute little thing!\"\r\nI see what he made.\r\nI look my blanket frantically.\r\nI fainted."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "Senses are a fickle thing"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "I lost my sight last September, the last image I remember was a picture of my son that I kept staring at in hopes to never forget what he looks like. The doctor was never able to give a clear explanation as to why my eyes started failing, I had never had a problem; 20/20 my whole life. Well, until now. Now I sit in my studio apartment listening to the tv, I don't turn it off. You know how they say your other senses become heightened once you lose one? Well they're not wrong.\r\nThe sounds of your home \"settling\" is very unsettling, what I mean is that the creak in the floor board above you, I heard what made it creak. I can hear them moving through the surrounding apartments, their whispers are almost deafening, but never coherent. I can feel them sit beside me on the couch; eyes piercing into the side of my skull, and faint breathing. Do you ever wonder what that is? That small but noticeable shift in the seat next to you when you know you're alone? Don't close your eyes."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "le Thing"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "I sat down outside of a French café after returning from an estate sale. I found an old box of unopened letters at the sale and planned to read them while I ate lunch.\r\nThe waitress came and took my order- a ham and brioche sandwich and a small cappuccino. I opened the first letter.\r\nEmilie,\r\nJe ne reviendrai pas chez eux cette annee, la chose est de retour.\r\nPierre.\r\nThere was a something small inside the envelope- a dead ladybug. I held it in my hand in the sunlight and was amazed how well preserved it was.\r\nI was speaking the French text into my English translator app when the ladybug suddenly flew out of my other hand. It landed in the hair of the waitress who brought out the food. She walked back into the café and didn’t even notice.\r\nI sat for a moment somewhat in shock. What just happened?\r\nI went inside to tell the waitress.\r\n“Excuse me miss, a small ladybug just flew into your hair while you were outside.”\r\nShe remained calm and asked, “Where?” trying to locate the bug.\r\nHer eyes suddenly turned jet black and her face started to broaden, splitting in seams right below her eyes. Two spindly antennae violently protruded from her head and large wings broke out of her back. She leapt upwards, flew around the café, and landed on a screaming customer trying to escape.\r\nThe waitress, or what she was now, a transforming ladybug-human, chewed the customer’s head off and whipped his body around the room like a French rag doll."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "The Scariest Thing"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "His eyes are wide and bloodshot,\r\nbut that's not the scariest thing of them all.\r\nHe smiles a sick and crooked grin,\r\nbut that's not the scariest thing of them all.\r\nHe inches closer towards me,\r\nbut that's not the scariest thing of them all.\r\nHe mimics my every move,\r\nbut that's not the scariest thing of them all.\r\nThe blood on him is not his own,\r\nbut that's not the scariest thing of them all.\r\nHe killed my wife and children,\r\nbut that's not the scariest thing of them all.\r\nThe scariest thing of them all is\r\nthat he looks\r\njust\r\nlike\r\nme."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "The thing in your closet"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "At one point or another, every child has seen a monster in his or her closet, even you. Sometimes you’d scream for help and as you screamed, your parent rushed in to reveal the monster as just a jacket hanging on the door, or an old Furby sitting on a box. There was always some way of explaining away what you KNEW you saw.\r\nNow, I have to tell you something else, but I’ll get back to the closet in a minute.\r\nOne of my favorite passages in the Bible is Ezekiel 28:12-16, when Ezekiel tells readers about Lucifer’s origins. The image of a figure “perfect in beauty” is a stark, sort of humorous, contrast to pop culture’s red guy with horns and bad facial hair, isn’t it? Even in “serious” depictions, he’s shown as a horrifying figure that towers over lesser beings.\r\nWell, both descriptions are actually right. He IS the most beautiful… angel. You see, angels are not of the mortal plane, so when they come down to earth, their forms are corrupted. They appear as horrifying creatures, grotesque even. The mere sight of one would drive any mortal insane if they stared too long at these messengers of God. Even guardian angels, sent to protect young children as they sleep, tend to look menacing.\r\nSo, how many monsters did you see? Always watching you? How many guardians did you send away by praying the “monsters” would go away?\r\nMore importantly… How many monsters do you see now?\r\nNone? Well that’s good.\r\nGood for me that is.\r\nSee you soon."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "They say sleep paralysis is the most terrifying thing."
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "They say sleep paralysis is the most terrifying thing. Being unable to move a muscle as a demon slithers over to your bed and pushes its claws into you. Being unable to scream as it sits on your chest forcing the breath from your lungs. You are sure you are going to die. All of a sudden, it’s all over! It was just a dream!\r\nThey say sleep paralysis is the most terrifying thing. They are wrong. Last night I saw the demon at my door and braced myself for the inevitable. Last night I didn't wake up. Last night, I wasn't dreaming."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "Scariest thing you will ever read."
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "My gpa."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "Empathy can be an awful thing."
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "My old apartment building is full of vile individuals.\r\nTo tell you a few of the things I’ve seen here are a man beating his pregnant wife until she was black and blue, her red blood staining the carpet around her pale body. It could have been a tragic work of art with the coloured scene illuminated by the dull light of the lamp. A woman with a bottle of pills who downed them with vodka, after her fiancé died in a car accident. A family shot dead after a burglary gone wrong. A newborn left crying for days on end.\r\nI screamed at them until my voice was hoarse. I hit them, tried to pull them away, anything to stop them. But I could never gain enough strength to reach into the physical realm, only floating through them.\r\nNow I just watch.\r\nI try to talk to the children, they’re at such a young age and so sad and neglected that I can somehow communicate with them. They can see and hear me, but I still cannot hug them. I keep an eye out on their parents, to let the kids know of any trouble coming. I’ve watched a lot of them die over the years before they could get out. It’s ridden with crime and hate, junkies and killers, the worst of the worst.\r\nBeing doomed to haunt this place for eternity while being helpless to help the helpless, is worse than any hell I could have imagined while I was alive."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "The Thing Beneath The Water"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "I went to the pond early this morn, to picnic in the cool sweeping breeze,\r\nToday though my dear, you stayed at home and went to the barn; to work with the cows and the hay,\r\nAlone watching the ripples, my heart went a-flutter, while my mouth it did stutter, as it crept up from the inky black depths,\r\nI plead for my life, hand reaching for the knife, though my actions halting, I paled,\r\nAs her face I took in, chills ran down my skin, for I knew who once she had been,\r\nYour hammer had pounded, your saw it had carved, to leave little of beauty once known,\r\nMy eyes they grew wide as I saw who you were inside, in the scars and the cuts of her skin,\r\nI know what you are, what you do in that barn, I've seen all too well now the signs,\r\nToday I spoke to the thing beneath the water; and today, she said you must die."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "The round thing containing human"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "After a long time of war on earth, the left survivors had build one community forbidding anything that has to do with their past experiences. Many terms had been forgotten by everyone. All they know is that everything is new.\r\nI walked out of our house to find something i could say to everyone as the new discovery. I saw a very old house like place and let myself in. I opened everything that has doors, and found out a human looking at me. I feel like we have some connection. It was inside a round object.\r\nSo i brought home the object containing human and showed it to everyone. They were amazed. They feel the same way like i do. But something is weird, the human inside the object changes everytime different people take a peek on it. Then i realized whoever looked at the object, it copies the figure of it..\r\ni shared my observation and everyone agreed. We were afraid. So everyone smashed the round thing containing human. That was the last piece of that thing on earth. Nobody figured out what it was."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "No such thing as \"Fearless\""
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "Some people fear spiders, snakes, heights...I fear weakness.\r\nI hate appearing weak and to me fear makes you look weak.\r\nSo I've dedicated my life to eliminating my fears.\r\nI was afraid of spiders. I held my friends tarantula for hours until I started seeing how pretty she was.\r\nI locked myself in a pitch black room until I got over my fear of the dark.\r\nHeights took a lot longer. Falling is a necessary fear. It took a lot of zip lines and sky dives before I got over that one.\r\nSo it went: Storms, crowds, strangers,clowns.\r\nOne by one my enemies fell and I felt so strong.\r\nI was nearly fearless!\r\nThe hardest was a fear of killing innocents.\r\nThat class of preschoolers didn't deserve it. But they were in my way.\r\nThose big eyes will haunt me for a while...but it's all worth it in the end.\r\nBut now I'm stuck.\r\nThere's one fear I cannot confront. I know how to, but I can't bring myself to do it.\r\nYou see, my last fear is the fear of death."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "There's no such thing as ghosts."
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "I froze in my bed, terrified by the soft moaning and crying coming from the living room in my apartment. It's 3am. I live alone. I start saying to myself,\r\nThere's no such thing as ghosts.\r\nI cover my ears when I hear nails scratching on my living room floor. My eyes are shut tight, but it couldn't keep the tears from flowing out anyway.\r\nThere's no such thing as ghosts.\r\nI open my eyes just a little. She's right outside my bedroom door. Bloody. Contorted. Broken. Crawling. My heart stopped for a second.\r\nThere's no such thing as ghosts.\r\n30 minutes went by. The moaning and crying has gone. Her too. I sigh in relief. I start wiping the blood and sweat off me with a towel.\r\nThere's no such thing as ghosts.\r\nThe next time I attempt to murder someone, I gotta make sure they're actually dead. And immediately buried. Bathrooms are a terrible place to temporarily store their bodies.\r\nI laugh at how silly I had acted earlier and sleep peacefully. There's no such thing as ghosts!"
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "Do the Right Thing"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "Sobbing uncontrollably, Mr. Thompson holds the pillow above his son's sleeping face. The doctor's words played on an infinite loop in his head. His sanity had cracked wide open, spouting forth dreadful thoughts like a geyser.\r\n\"...pancreatic cancer...abnormal cell growth...terminal...no cure...agonizing pain...crippling depression...counselors available...sorry...pancreatic cancer...abnormal cell growth...\"\r\nThe mother was banging on the locked door, screaming for the father to stop, to get a second opinion, that she loved him, that a cure could be found, anything she could think of to get her maniacal husband to stop.\r\nAs the police sirens neared, the son's face was covered by dripping tears and soft blackness. His death throes were drowned out by the dad's screams of torment and madness. The father would spend the rest of his days in an asylum believing he did the right thing.\r\nThe doctor leaned forward in his chair. \"I regret to inform you that your son has pancreatic cancer. It is caused by abnormal cell growth in the pancreas. It is terminal; there is no cure. He will live in agonizing pain and suffer crippling depression. I'm so sorry.\"\r\nAs Mr. and Mrs. Simmons cried and try to console each other, the doctor leaned back in his chair and silently chuckled to himself."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "The Thing Next Door"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "The thing next door arrived several weeks ago, and since then I have been plagued by its unholy screams. It inhabits my neighbors' house, and I know it terrorizes them too because I have seen the exhaustion on their faces and heard the motions they make at night to placate it. They may not have the strength to remove it from the earth, but I do.\r\nI will sneak in tonight, and I will take the baby."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "The Thing In The Night"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "As I lie awake screaming to myself 'go to sleep', I hear it the banging at my bedroom door thinking it was nothing I slipped back down into my bed and closed my eyes. 10 minutes later my bedroom door opened, and the thing that was once on the other side of my door was now in. I closed my eyes telling myself just to act like your asleep. Now it was near my bed I could hear it breathing on to my chest. As my curiosity got the better of me I realized I was looking into its cold black eyes. It looked like a person but it was disfigured his hands were opposite and its neck was broken. As it breathed on to my face I fell asleep. As I woke up i realized i wasn't in my bedroom."
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "No such thing"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "When you're a child you fear the monsters in your imagination\r\nAs a child you feared demons and all lucifer's creations\r\nWhen you're older you know there's no such thing\r\nA child's scared of the creature that hides within the dark\r\nA child fears the boogeyman deep within their heart\r\nBut as an adult you you know there's no such thing\r\nTonight might be the night, that you and death will meet\r\nBecause the comfort safety and security that you feel while you sleep....\r\nI'm here to tell you so listen well... There's no such thing"
}
] |
[
{
"role": "user",
"content": "No Such Thing (4 line poem)"
},
{
"role": "assistant",
"content": "If you tell them I'm not in the closet.\r\nIf you say I'm not under the bed.\r\nIf you tell them I'm not in the shadows,\r\nyou'll eventually help me get fed."
}
] |
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