Datasets:

Elcaida
/

convos

Dataset card Data Studio Files Files and versions Community

Split (1)

train · 68.2k rows

conversations listlengths 2 2
[ { "role": "user", "content": "Teeth of Metal" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "The huge man sleeps upon the stained mattress. He snores gutturally. He has no lips and his teeth are not composed of enamel, dentin or pulp. No, his teeth are great shards of shining chromium that had replaced his natural teeth, gouged out a long time ago. His skin is pale. His head naked. His torso naked. His only clothing is a pair of dark grey jeans.\r\nThe metal door to the small, square room, screeches open. In walks Baba. Baba is tall and lean, and broad shouldered. Baba wears a black overcoat and dark grey trousers. Baba shakes the rain from Baba's dark, shaggy hair that falls passed Baba's shoulders.\r\nBaba's eyes, cat green, fall upon the lipless man. Baba's face, pallid as the moon, smiles warmly.\r\n\"Wake up, you big bastard.\" Baba says, voice smooth and soft.\r\nThe big man stirs and his hairless head rolls over to look at Baba. Baba grins, pale lips curling back to unsheathe small, snaggle teeth and red gums. The lipless man rumbles like a boar.\r\nBaba turns and reaches into the darkness beyond the door, and then drags in a large, black sleeping bag. It writhes frantically.\r\n\"Some meat.\" Says Baba.\r\nThe lipless man pushes himself up. His breaths excited. He gets up and lumbers over to Baba.\r\n\"Calm down now.\" Says Baba.\r\nBaba unzipps the sleeping bag. The meat falls out. Bound, and gagged, and naked to them. The lipless man grasps the meat and lifts it until they are face to face. The meat struggles. Fruitlessly. The lipless man salivates and his teeth shine in the dim light.\r\n\"Remember now. Fingers and toes first. Then the eyes. And then the tongue.\"\r\nThe lipless man chuckles like a child. And then Baba pats his head, as softly as a mother.\r\nThe lipless man throws the meat to the ground. Baba leans against the wall, and bites Baba's bottom lip." } ]
[ { "role": "user", "content": "Regrets of the Silent Mind" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Daniel chased everything the world told him to want—money, pleasure, speed, admiration. He called it freedom, cutting every tie that slowed him down. Rules, to him, were cages, and love that came with conditions felt like a threat to his independence.\r\nHis parents were gentle people with quiet expectations. They asked him to be home for dinner, to call once in a while, to listen, to learn. But Daniel saw their care as control, and their guidance as restriction.\r\nSo he left. He turned away from home and embraced a life that promised more—more thrill, more noise, more people who didn’t care if he lived or died. For a while, it felt like he had won.\r\nThe nights blurred into each other—neon lights, shallow laughter, expensive drinks. He ran through life like it couldn’t end, faster, louder, emptier. And then, one rainy night, it did end.\r\nThe crash was sudden. Metal twisted, glass shattered, and the darkness that followed wasn’t death. He woke up inside his mind, but not inside his body.\r\nHe had broken every chain that held him—only to become chained to a bed. Tubes in his arms, wires at his chest, silence all around. He was still alive, but motionless, buried inside a body that no longer obeyed.\r\nHe could hear sometimes. Nurses speaking, machines beeping, strangers walking past his room. But the only voice he longed to hear again was his mother’s.\r\nIn the quiet of that coma, memories came back clearer than ever. His father, speaking softly at night; his mother’s hands, always working, always warm. The rules he resented had only been lifelines—anchors meant to keep him from drifting too far.\r\nNow, he understood: they weren’t trying to control him—they were trying to protect him from becoming exactly what he became. A man lost in the world, mistaking chaos for freedom. A boy who thought rebellion made him strong, when all it did was leave him alone.\r\nHe couldn’t cry. He couldn’t apologize. He couldn’t return home.\r\nAll he could do was lie still, remembering dinners he skipped, hugs he refused, calls he never returned. And as the days passed and the lights above him buzzed on and off, he hoped for one impossible thing.\r\nThat somehow, somewhere, his parents still waited.\r\nAnd if they ever walked through that door again, he wouldn’t ask for forgiveness. He would just say: “I understand now. I’m sorry.”\r\nBut the door never opened.\r\nAnd time kept ticking." } ]
[ { "role": "user", "content": "Disability of Sight" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Forming light, a small electric lamp with a green cover illuminated the room drenched in darkness. Covered by the veil of color, there sat a man, who was reading on structures of political machines; never a novelist, a rationalist was what he would describe himself as. Thus, he continued his reading of the temporal world through the medium of paper.\r\nCarving through the book with the explicit skill of comprehension, a mysterious speck poked from his periphery and shattered his priority. He was not completely engrossed in his material to ignore the puny disturbance, yet he was completely unaware of its character. Upon closer inspection, he realized it was a tiny bug, merely a dot in the grand scheme of things. Harmless, but for some reason it made the mature professor squeamish.\r\nHe tried to ignore its presence; still, he was unable to focus back on his realm. His fist arrived at an abrupt hit on the desk, killing the fly. However, this diversion of attention also brought his eyes to look at his surroundings: it was completely void.\r\nA great unnecessary fear was induced by this void, as the man could not see anything outside of the isolated island of light. Although this terror latched onto the man’s mind, he determined to not allow his world to fall into the realm of fiction; he would stay afloat in the presence of lucidity. Though, delirium was much more inherent to the man than he had previously thought. He could almost feel it, reaching out to him through the dark: giant monsters dare to enter his periphery.\r\nEnough, the man thought, believing his delusions a hindrance to his study. Still, he could not rid himself of those outlines in the dark. A supreme imagination, painting on this dark blank canvas, could not bring itself down from nightmares. Thus, the academic had to capitulate to his mind and turn on the lights of the library–carrying the lamp as a form of protection.\r\nOnce the bright lights overhead flooded the large library room, there was a slight comfort within his mind. But there was motionless darkness, beyond the library, many closets and hallways protected those creatures.\r\nFrantically, the non-superstitious realist marches with a mission to eradicate all darkness in the building. Eventually, the whole building was lit up in an area of darkness, sticking out like a sore thumb. This condition was salvation for the pragmatist, for a while at least.\r\nSoon enough, the man realized that the night itself proliferated the void. Swirling monsters seemed to capture the world. As day broke through, the faculty of the structure found the man, bunched up in a rambling mess. Even with day, he was paranoid of even the shadows, the deep reaches below hell, and the expansive space beyond the heavens.\r\nThis was that disability; a sight that no person could ever understand whether real or fantasy. Looking into the twilight, he never truly found monsters; all he found was himself." } ]
[ { "role": "user", "content": "A Body Of A Friend" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "The wall is a dark, worn mustard tone of yellow. It has no patterns but a line of slightly darker yellow penetrating the exact middle. The line rests on the origin of the wall. It perfectly marks its y axis of zero. The line goes like this through the entirety of the wallpaper - and it, too, was designed as part of the wallpaper.\r\nA singular photo is framed on the wall. It is to my far right - almost out of view - and is of a family together. It emits the feeling of unsettled which you get when viewing noir photos of dead folk. A young boy stands at the forefront of the photo. He wears a white shirt and smile. To his back right is his father. He, too, is clad in a white shirt and smile. The mother stands to the left behind of the boy and to the left of the father. She wears an angelic white dress and pleasant smile.\r\nA small table with four brown legs is underneath the picture. The wood is a glossy style of dark brown and the legs are all cut with an identical hourglass shape. In the exact centre of the tables top is a vase. It is a drained, pastel type of blueish grey. The hourglass shape of this vase is the same as that of the tables legs. A few scratches are on the vase, but not too much. Inside the vase are four dead flours. They hang limp and broken over the side of the vase. A few of their petals have fallen off and landed just a few centimetres below, on the table top.\r\nThe carpet is a dark red tone. Slightly darker versions of the red zig-zag throughout the carpet. No spills are on it. Mould does build up on the edge of the carpet, where it connects to the wall.\r\nA body lays against the wall. It is hunched over and its legs are spread out wide. A grey t shirt is worn along with blue jeans and grey trainers. The boys arms are resting on the ground, limp and lifeless. His skin is pale. His facial features are no longer existent.\r\nBlood is sprayed against the wall behind where his head should be. It is splattered in all directions. Some is still moist. Around the collar of his t shirt is stained red, too.\r\nMuscles hang out of the opening of his neck. The skin is peeling from the weight of all the bodily parts leaning on it.\r\n“Bro, it was just a joke.”\r\n. . ." } ]
[ { "role": "user", "content": "The Smell of Rain" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "It started with the smell.\r\nNot the fresh, clean kind people write poems about. This was different—sour, like meat gone bad. I asked my neighbor if he smelled it. He just gave me a look. Like I’d said something indecent.\r\nI stopped asking after that.\r\nPeople avoid me now. At first, I thought it was my clothes, maybe my breath. I tried to clean up—showered four times a day, strong cologne, ate mints. It didn’t help. They still stayed away. In stores. On the street. In elevators.\r\nTheir eyes slid off me like I wasn’t quite there. Or like they didn’t want me to be.\r\nI bumped into a woman yesterday. She dropped her purse. I bent to help, but when she saw my hand, she screamed. She screamed and screamed.\r\nI didn’t see what was so terrible about my hand.\r\nA few of my fingernails are dark; that’s all. A little soft at the edges. My skin’s gone grey in some spots, sure, but I assumed it was poor circulation. Or stress.\r\nThe pain is… faint. Like it’s happening somewhere else. Or to someone else. I keep forgetting to eat, and when I do, nothing tastes right. Everything feels like ash on my tongue.\r\nBut I still get hungry.\r\nNot for food. Not really.\r\nThe other day, I watched a man’s neck twitch as he turned his head. I imagined what it would feel like to sink my teeth into that soft spot just under the jaw.\r\nI had to sit down after.\r\nIt’s not normal. I know that. But maybe this is what grief looks like. Maybe I’m just sick.\r\nIt’s harder to remember things now. Sometimes, I forget my own name. I found a photograph in my wallet, a woman and a child. They’re smiling at me, like I’m someone worth smiling at.\r\nI don’t remember them.\r\nI don’t remember much.\r\nMy reflection is no help—the glass is cloudy, and my face is… wrong. Puffy, slack in places. My eyes don’t blink in sync. My gums are dark and peeling.\r\nI tried to talk to someone today. A priest. He looked horrified. Wouldn’t even open the door.\r\nI think I’m rotting.\r\nI think I’ve been rotting for a long time.\r\nThere are bite marks on my shoulder. Old ones. Black around the edges. I don’t know how they got there.\r\nBut I remember the rain.\r\nI remember running through it. A scream behind me. A voice calling my name.\r\nAnd then—nothing.\r\nOnly the smell.\r\nOnly the hunger.\r\nOnly this terrible, endless stillness inside my chest." } ]
[ { "role": "user", "content": "The Burden of Absence" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "As soon as I could get away with it, I stopped talking about my brother. My college roommates thought I was an only child. He was absent from the photo wall in my dorm, a void between the Pinterest-worthy rows of fairy lights, like surgically snipping away a patch of necrotized flesh. Me and my parents, candids of my friends, me holding the kitten Jared had worn our parents down into adopting. I felt guilty about it, but it felt good, at the same time. Everything wrong or scared or nasty about me was sealed away with my brother, zipped up in a pouch deep inside my chest, buried where Jared was, crawling around with the worms.\r\nThere were no warning signs. No withdrawal, no drug abuse, no sudden burst of inexplicable good will. He just opened our dad’s gun safe and blew his brains out in the middle of his room. I saw it, afterwards. When I think of that day, everything gets a little slanted, but I remember the faceless weeping thing wearing my brother’s jacket, crumpled flesh, teeth swimming around in there like kernels of corn in beet stew.\r\nI never told my husband, either. He didn’t find out until after we had our twins, when we dusted off our own baby photos, Jared clutching the swaddled ovoid of me.\r\nEven now, the twins sleep curled up together on the bottom bunk. Watching them reminds me of childhood wakefulness, when the house was dark and I felt like I was at the center of everything, like everything around me would rub away into shadow or drop into some churning dark sea. Jared grumbled and sniped at me when I came into his room, but he always lifted the covers. I slept then, lulled by the sound of his breathing and the faint smell of teenage boy sweat.\r\nA month ago, I dreamed about Jared for the first time in years. In place of his face, there was a huge, blooming red rose.\r\n“It wants you here,” he said. “I held it off, but it wasn’t enough. Can’t you feel it?”\r\nI had. But I had chalked it up to sleep-deprivation, nights of dipping into the cup of slumber between bouts of cluster-feeding. The way the shadows on the sidewalk seemed to bend away from me like a cocked bowstring. Phantom movement at the edge of my vision. Feeling in daylight like I did as a kid at night, like everything apart from me could be brushed away into dust.\r\nIt wants me. But more than that, it wants my children. I see the twins spinning in giggling circles with their hands outstretched into empty space, chained with someone who isn’t there. Emily hasn’t been nursing well, her body a diminishing dead weight in my arms, her eyes closed and her little lips slack.\r\nI hope my children don't find me first. I hope they live happy lives. But mostly, I hope they don’t remember me at all." } ]
[ { "role": "user", "content": "The Garden of Venus" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "“There!” whispered Mohini, pointing through the foliage. “To the left of that log.”\r\nI strained my eyes to see the small green bird standing on the river bed. Then my focus shifted to the crocodile sneaking up behind it.\r\nThe bird turned its back to the water, emboldening the croc to slide its narrow snout onto the sand. Then it lurched forward, turning its head so the bird was between its sharp teeth.\r\nBut before the croc could close its jaws, the bird disappeared into the sand like a fish retreating to the depths.\r\nThen countless teeth erupted from the sand in a ring around the crocodile. The sand continued to lift as a massive set of jaws snapped shut around the crocodile like a giant Venus fly trap. After standing on end for a moment, the trap came crashing onto its side. The croc’s severed tail lay flailing in the water, and the thrashing within the leathery creature slowed to a halt.\r\nThat night in my tent, I looked up from my field notes to see Mohini in the doorway. She beckoned me outside and I followed without a second thought.\r\nI stepped into the moonlight as the sound of cicadas filled the air. Mohini stood with her back to me, moonlight pouring past her body and through her white night gown. I approached her slowly.\r\n“I’m sure the crown would appreciate the help you’ve given my expedition.” I wrapped my arms around her waist and spoke softly in her ear. “I could get you passage back to England. Get you away from these savages who treat you like a-“ she turned around and kissed me, her arms around my shoulders.\r\nShe led me to her home at the edge of the village, looking back at me with her big brown eyes. “My sisters aren’t home.” She said quietly as she pushed through the front door, revealing several circular sleeping pads spread across the floor. “So we should have a few hours to ourselves.”\r\nShe shed her gown and crawled into bed. Her caramel skin against the white of the sleeping pad reminded me of the river winding through the sand. She made her way to the center of the bed and turned to face me.\r\nI lowered myself down and slowly moved toward her. Anticipation building with every inch. But when I reached out to touch her, she was silently whisked into a small opening the center of the pad. I stared into the small abyss where her body used to be, then looked out to my right. I saw large serrated teeth emerging along the edge of the sleeping pad and my stomach turned to lead.\r\nThe hum of the cicadas ended abruptly as the jaws snapped shut around me. And as the acrid liquid poured in from the walls, turning everything it touched into fire then ice, I wept. Not for the loss of the crocodile, but for the absence of the little green bird." } ]
[ { "role": "user", "content": "Immortality of a kind" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "My uncle and I had never been the kind to see eye to eye. I hated the old man, a miserly devil with not a care for anyone else in the world. When he died and left me nothing in his will, I decided it was time to indulge in some good, old fashioned grave-robbing. The surgical schools always paid well for fresh corpses and it tickled me that the rich bastard would be taken apart at the scalpels of people who didn’t even know who he was.\r\nYet as I pried open the wooden lid of his coffin and gazed down at his pale, sunken face, his eyes transfixed me\r\n“I knew you’d come.”\r\nNow I’m the one lying in the coffin. I’m trying to scream, but this old body won’t move. Meanwhile, he’s out there with mine.\r\nAnd as the darkness closes in and I feel myself fade, I wonder how many times he’s done this before." } ]
[ { "role": "user", "content": "Guardian of Tombs" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "“Please!” I screamed as the mummy strode toward me “I didn’t mean to disturb your tomb! I didn’t know!”\r\n“Silence,” the crumbling corpse walked right past me. “I wasn’t here to keep you out. I’m meant to keep that in.”\r\nBefore us, the sarcophagus shifted. The lid began to move." } ]
[ { "role": "user", "content": "A Mistake of Fact" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "I was quite charmed by the oil lamp I found on my porch steps. I grew up in a Disney world, like everyone else.\r\nIt looked old. Genuine. Not some knockoff. Valuable, maybe.\r\nSo of course I brought it in. Finders keepers.\r\nSo of course I rubbed it. Just for the laugh.\r\nAnd...of course...I recognized the genie as it billowed out of the thin spout of the tarnished old can. Not so cartoonish as the Robin Williams version, a fair bit more sinister. More the blue of hostile ocean rather than of pleasant sky.\r\nIt certainly didn’t tell me my wish was its command. But everyone knows the rules. I knew it would have to obey me – it's my house, my rules, after all – so I blurted my wishes out before it could say anything.\r\n“I wish that my son forgives me, admits I was right, and comes home to run the business! That’s three! Do it!\"\r\nThe genie did not react, only staring at me in mute appraisal.\r\nI’ve never been the best at handling my temper. Or being told no. I leapt to my feet “I gave you my wishes, you piece of shit! Obey!” My voice was thunder, echoing off the walls. I’ve always been able to throw my weight around, like any good salesman and leader. I get my way, even if there are a few tears.\r\nThis finally elicited a muted reaction from the genie. A smirk.\r\nBefore I could speak, it waved its hand, and a swirling mote of vivid viridian light pirouetted in spirals around the room before dissipating.\r\nI sat back down and mirrored its smirk. “That’s more like it. Rules are rules.” I began to smile in anticipation of my son groveling for forgiveness at my feet. No more diatribes about evil dad the tyrant, ignorant dad, hateful dad. What could be more irritating than an ungrateful child?\r\nMy amused enjoyment was cut short by the violent, pulling pain in my chest. I stared at the genie, mouth agape in terror. Its smirk had not faded, but it did finally speak.\r\n“You daughter does not forgive you.\r\nYou were not right.\r\nYour business will be sold for pocket change in a few months as part of your estate.\r\nAs you now see, the wishes I was here to grant were not yours.”\r\nI collapsed to the floor as the world turned to static." } ]
[ { "role": "user", "content": "I've been plugged out of therapy." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "I woke up on a train.\r\nParalyzed.\r\n“Hello, Mabel.” A mechanical voice murmured in my head.\r\n“Due to your current cognitive state, you must remain still.”\r\n“Where am I?”\r\n“You’re part of the Fix Me program. You are at 3% cognitive recovery. You have been in the Fix Me program for exactly 3,650 days. As part of your sentence delivered on 08/12/25, the judiciary accepted your plea of insanity. The Fix Me program is part of your rehabilitation—”\r\n“I’m insane?!”\r\n“Correct. You pled guilty for the annihilation of 80% of the human race. The Fix Me program revisits memories linked to your cognitive decline, and with your consent, we begin what we call System Restore. Do you want to begin?”\r\nClosing my eyes, I enter my memories.\r\n“Yes.”\r\nI'm 17 again, standing in front of my best friend.\r\nMillie.\r\nShe’s crying.\r\n“Don’t do it,” she whispers. “If you do the play, bad things will happen.”\r\n“Like what?” Memory-me demands.\r\nNoah, another friend, stands with me, rolling his eyes.\r\n“Can't you just be happy for me?”\r\n“Ignore her,” he mutters, dragging me away. “She's jealous she didn't make the cut.”\r\nThis is why I’m insane?\r\n“Incorrect.” The program stated.\r\nMy memories skip forward.\r\nNow I’m on stage, smiling. Laughing. In front of me: glistening red innards too warm, soft, slithery to be fake.\r\nStill, I play my character, letting her hunger fill me.\r\nAround me, the others feast.\r\nI’m halfway through fake intestine when I see blonde curls.\r\nHer vacant eyes stare up at the curtain yet to fall.\r\nMillie.\r\nSomething violently snaps inside me, and I scream.\r\nNoah chokes up one of her fingers.\r\nWe’re eating Millie.\r\nBut she tastes… good.\r\nLike… chicken.\r\nApplause slams into me. I stand, grab Noah’s hand, and bow to an audience of screams, wiping her blood all over me.\r\nMr Carter, our theater teacher, gets to his feet.\r\n“Bravo!”\r\nI jerk back to the train.\r\nMy arm stings, but I'm grinning.\r\nI’ve bitten into it, feasting on my own flesh that tastes like—\r\n“Mabel, I’m having trouble connecting to your… DO NOT exit the program without prior—you are NOT in a fit state to re-enter–”\r\n“How's my favorite girl doin?”\r\nI feel his breath on my cheek, fingers pulling the plug inserted into my head, blood seeping down the back of my neck.\r\nThe train melts around me into nothing, and the real world is cold.\r\n“Damn, I really thought I'd lost my best acolyte to fucking… therapy..”\r\nMy eyes flicker open.\r\nMr. Carter, our theater teacher.\r\nOur King.\r\nWho let us live as humans were meant to!\r\nWith a hunt.\r\n“Welcome back! Man, they really had you kids under lock and key, huh!”\r\nHe's got a body over his shoulder.\r\nI recognize Noah’s blonde hair, even ten years older.\r\nThe Fix Me program is still connected to him through a plug in his skull, a bright green light flashing.\r\n“Now, let's free your brother from therapy.\"" } ]
[ { "role": "user", "content": "The Job of a Lifetime" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "\"The whole floor what devoted to them and the work they did. All one hundred of them clacked away at their computers as they tried to meet their deadlines. The turnover rate is large. A missed deadline means you're out of a job, plus various other less important consequences.\r\n\"What everyone does at their various different stations was vastly different to each other. Some have to write sycophantic articles praising various persons. Others have to write complete novels to shape the thoughts and actions of upcoming generations. Every word being typed, every misspell, every printing error is all intentional. One mess-up bad. That, of course, means you lose your job, plus various other less important consequences.\r\n\"Let us, for a moment, speak of these less important consequences. You of course lose the benefits that this job provides you. Your company home will be taken from you, your company car repossessed. It is bereft to mention that every personal item you bring into this office is also ours. You will of course also forfeit your life. These less important consequences mean very little to the loss of experience. That of course will be the real tragedy of your termination.\r\n\"Now that I've mentioned all the ends and outs of this job, do you have any questions for me?\"\r\n\"In fact I do. The only thing I need to ask is 'when do I start?'\"" } ]
[ { "role": "user", "content": "Ghost of Mana" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "The motorcycle journey from Delhi to Mana Village in Uttarakhand was my obsession—a thrilling escape through the Himalayas, with serpentine roads and nights under a starlit sky. My friend and I set out, engines roaring, chasing that dream. But that night, as we climbed higher, the dream warped into something dark and twisted.\r\nPast 9 PM, the road to Mana stretched empty, shrouded in a fog that crept up from the valley like a living thing. The air bit at our skin, icy and relentless. His taillight flickered ahead, a faint guide through the haze, while silence pressed against my ears, broken only by the thud of my pulse. Then I saw it—a small figure on a roadside rock. A child, maybe eight, in a thin T-shirt and shorts, staring into the mountain’s abyss. No coat, no shoes—just sitting there in the freezing dark. It felt wrong, a mirage born of exhaustion, so I kept riding.\r\nBut minutes later, there he was again. On a different rock, at another bend, his posture stiff, head swiveling slowly as I passed. His face wasn’t there—just a smooth, black void where features should’ve been. It sucked the warmth from my bones. I gripped the handlebars, willing it away, but the fog thickened, and the cold clawed deeper. Ahead, my friend swerved, pulling over. I stopped beside him, gravel crunching like breaking bones. His face was ashen. “I saw it,” he rasped. “The kid. No face.”\r\nWe didn’t speak—just tore through the night, engines screaming against the silence. The fog pulsed, alive and hungry, shadows twitching at the edges of my vision. At a jagged turn, the child appeared again, still at first. Then, as we sped by, his limbs snapped in impossible angles, like a puppet with cut strings. The void shifted—a grotesque grin stretched across it, impossibly wide, revealing jagged, needle-sharp teeth that gleamed wetly. It wasn’t a face; it was a predator’s leer, daring us to stop. We fled, the grin searing into my mind.\r\nA guesthouse emerged from the mist, its lights flickering weakly. We stumbled off our bikes, trembling. An old man with a weathered face let us in, his eyes holding no surprise, only a heavy knowing. “Pray with me,” he said abruptly, leading us to a cramped room. Its walls bore faded, jagged symbols that seemed to writhe in the candlelight. “I’m Muslim,” I stammered. “It’s not about faith,” he replied, voice firm. “It’s about survival.”\r\nHe lit incense, muttering in a guttural tongue. “The hollow child lures the lost,” he said. “Its grin means it’s chosen you. You escaped—barely.” Whispers seeped through the walls, inhuman and overlapping. Something cold brushed my shoulder, but nothing was there—just shadows in the smoke. At dawn, the fog lifted, but a smooth stone sat in my pocket, etched with a faint, crooked grin. The mountain wasn’t done with us." } ]
[ { "role": "user", "content": "Safety Risks of Being a Woman." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "“I’m sorry, but you don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.” Amber tipped her glass in Aaron’s direction to emphasize her point, and then drank the final swallow. I took that as a sign to grab us all another round from behind the bar. I’m sure the bartender wouldn’t mind since he was—\r\n“Men can be afraid, too, Amber,” Aaron slurred, “we just have different fears.”\r\n“Men are afraid of heights. Or snakes. Women are afraid of men. It is not the same.”\r\nI sat down at our booth and placed a beer in front of each of us. The bar was quiet as a grave, and I considered putting some quarters in the jukebox to drown out their argument.\r\n“Adrienne, help me settle this,” Aaron said, sipping his beer, “are men’s fears legitimate?”\r\nI gave a thumbs up.\r\n“I never said they weren’t legitimate,” Amber said between mouthfuls of beer, “I’m saying they’re irrational, whereas the things women have to be afraid of are very real.”\r\nI pointed at Amber and nodded up and down vigorously.\r\n“You two are ganging up on me,” Aaron chuckled.\r\n“Why do you think women always go to the bathroom together?” Amber asked.\r\nAaron thought about that for a second while he swirled the beer in his glass. He noticed that there was some blood still on his hands, and he wiped it off with a bar napkin.\r\n“I always assumed you were gossiping in there.”\r\nI shook my head gently and gave a thumbs down.\r\n“It’s because it’s dangerous to be alone. There are risks we have to deal with that you could never understand. Walking alone at night, falling asleep on public transportation, or even going to the bathroom. We are in danger just by existing. That’s why I say our fears are more real. That’s all I’m saying.”\r\nAaron looked down into his beer, avoiding eye contact. He took a deep breath and accepted defeat: this wasn’t an argument he could win.\r\n“It’s not irrational,” Aaron muttered.\r\n“What’s that?” Amber replied, leaning forward.\r\n“Being afraid of snakes,” Aaron quipped, “you never know when one’s gonna pop up from the toilet bowl and bite you in the junk.”\r\nAfter a moment of silence they both started laughing, and I did jazz hands to express my delight.\r\n“It’s true, I read an article about it,” Aaron joked, “apparently it happens all the time in—”\r\n“Sweet mother of mercy,” said a voice from the doorway. A police officer was standing in the entrance to the bar, staring at the pile of dead, mutilated corpses dumped in the corner, “what the hell did you three—”\r\nI smashed my beer glass and used the jagged bottom to slice his throat before he could call for backup.\r\n“I guess that’s our sign to leave,” said Amber.\r\n“Next time I wanna pick the bar,” Aaron chuckled.\r\nI wiped the fresh blood off my jacket, smiled, and gave them both a thumbs up." } ]
[ { "role": "user", "content": "The Color of His Eyes" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Sit, Prince. We need to figure out how to fix your grades. So stop staring at your father. Look at me. Oh. That empty look in his eyes? I’ll tell you more about it later.\r\nNow, I wasn’t a perfect student. I wasn’t great at social things. But you have to try to talk to your teachers, Prince, and give them incentives not to dismiss you. You can be polite. You can seek help. You can try to participate. And if they’re still uncooperative? Frame them for fraud. Or blackmail them. Or slit their throats, drink their blood, and sacrifice their entrails to the Lovely Mothers of the Moonless Night. All viable alternatives.\r\nThe point is, Prince, you’ve got options, and it was incredibly rude of you to try to sprint towards the door just now. Yes, I know father’s walking towards you more stiffly than usual, but that’s no excuse to ignore--what was that? You’re gibbering, Prince. Were you referring to the claws or the stitches on his mouth? Aren’t the stitches pretty? Why, thank you. I’ve always taken pride in my needlework.\r\nBut let’s get back to business. Your father’s approach to your education has been lacking. A complete disappointment, in fact. What was he thinking, dragging you back and forth across the country? Hells, how is a child supposed to develop in that sort of environment? How were you supposed to make friends? And you know what I found in the back of this trailer? Food! Supplies! He was preparing to move again!\r\nAs you can see, I’ve spoken to him. Convinced him of his errors. Changed his opinions on certain issues. Like discipline. Let’s return to the idea of incentives. Now, my sweet Prince, it seems that you don’t like how his eye sockets weep blood. I must admit that I agree with you there--blood takes forever to wash out of a shirt. So try to start the year off by making, say, two hundred new friends. If you succeed, I’ll give your father his eyes back. And if you fail? Well. Daddy dearest straps you to a table and flays your back until I get to see muscles and organs writhing in pain. Without skin in the way, of course. Don’t worry; he’ll put it back once he’s done.\r\nI’m not doing this because I hate you, child. I’m doing this because I care about you. I love you and want you to be the best you can be. You have so much potential, but you’re letting it all go to waste. You’re an Angel of the Bottomless Pit. So apply yourself. Am I understood? Yes? Good. I’m so glad you were able to calm down and listen. I’ve always appreciated rapt, unblinking attention. It’s just…so flattering.\r\nAs for that shirt--hmm. No, no. Keep it on. It’s an excellent look. That red really brings out the color of your eyes." } ]
[ { "role": "user", "content": "Story of my life!" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "A guy walks into a psychiatrist’s office, looking completely frazzled. He sits down, sighs deeply, and says, \"Doc, I have a problem. Everything in my life is falling apart, and I don’t even know why.\"\r\nThe psychiatrist looks at him, adjusts his glasses, and says, \"Let’s take it step by step. What’s going on?\"\r\nThe guy rubs his face and says, \"It all started when I found this weird book in my grandmother’s attic. It had no title or author, just plain leather. I started reading it, and everything I read started happening.\"\r\nThe psychiatrist raises an eyebrow. \"What do you mean? The book predicted things?\"\r\n\"Not exactly,\" the guy says. \"It was like whatever I read came true. I read about getting a flat tire, and the next thing I knew, my tire was flat. I read I’d spill coffee on my shirt, and it happened right away. At first, it was just little stuff. But then it got weird.\"\r\nThe psychiatrist leans forward. \"How did it get weird?\"\r\nThe guy continues, \"I read that I’d lose my job, and the very next day, I was fired. Then, I read about getting a parking ticket, and boom—there it was. It kept getting worse. So I threw the book away, thinking I was done with it.\"\r\nThe psychiatrist nods. \"And then?\"\r\nThe guy shudders. \"I thought I was safe, but then I read that I’d meet a beautiful woman in a café. And sure enough, there she was. We started dating, and it was going great… until I read that I’d propose to her. I didn’t want to, but I couldn’t stop it—I bought a ring and proposed. And then everything started falling apart.\"\r\nThe psychiatrist frowns. \"You were getting married?\"\r\nThe guy grimaces. \"I read that we’d have a huge wedding, and it happened. But I didn’t want it. And then I read that I’d lose everything—my house, my job, my friends. And I did. I was ruined.\"\r\nThe psychiatrist looks concerned. \"And that’s when you came here?\"\r\nThe guy nods, his eyes wide. \"That’s not even the worst part. Last night, I read that I’d be sitting here with you, telling you everything. And you’d ask me about the book.\"\r\nThe psychiatrist is stunned. \"What? That’s impossible. I—\"\r\nThe guy smiles a little too widely. \"Don’t worry, doc. I knew you’d say that.\"\r\nThe psychiatrist, visibly unnerved, glances at the desk—where, to his shock, there’s a book sitting there, one he didn’t place.\r\nThe guy laughs, eyes gleaming. \"You’re just a character in my story, Doc. And I know exactly how this ends.\"" } ]
[ { "role": "user", "content": "The Beast of the Oaks." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "The hunter shot up from his bed, steadied himself, and adjusted to the first light of the morning. He had awoken without the rooster's crow. His eyes shifted to the window where he saw a face, not his own, looking back at him before it disappeared. He was not startled. This was his new normal.\r\n\"Coward.\" He mumbled, unsure if he was saying to himself or to the beast.\r\nWhen he left the cabin that cold, autumn morning, he did not think about anything. His mind retreated deep into itself. He attempted to focus on the crunching of leaves beneath his boots and the occasional caw of the ravens.\r\nA deep, guttural groans followed him and formed a rhythmic 'chant' around the usual songs of the forest. The snapping of the beast's jaw echoed. He could hear his wife's voice in between the chants, shattering the rhythm by calling his name.\r\n\"Wilhelm! Please!\"\r\nWilhelm flinched, shooting his hand to grab the white sage around his neck, ensuring it's still there. He glanced down and slightly opened the bolt of his rifle. His last four bullets lie in its magazine, coated in ash. He closed the bolt and scanned the treeline. He could see the entity tracking him from off in the distance, twitching, never breaking eye contact.\r\nWilhelm slowly approached a clearing with a single, barren tree in the middle of it. The same tree where this all began. He dropped his hiking pack and coat at the base of tree and looked at the beast off in the distance, peaking from behind a tree. Its mangled, gaunt face stood out. Its pale complexion highlighted itself, like a singular birch standing alone in a forest of oaks.\r\nThe hunter gripped his necklace. The beast's eyes ignited with a deep, amber red hue, burning from the woods. Wilhelm let out a deep sigh. He closed his eyes and ripped the necklace off, throwing it to the ground. He heard a loud, blood curdling shriek and opened his eyes. It was gone.\r\nHe took a few steps forward, shouldering his rifle as he searched for it. The woods had fallen quiet. The birds stopped chirping, the winds had halted, and the cicadas hum disappeared. The hunter held his breath.\r\nA few small thuds formed behind him. A single exhale huffed down from above, the condensation clouded his view. An unknown liquid dribbled down his forehead as the smell of rotting flesh filled his nostrils. It rested its 'paw' on Wilhelm's shoulder. Its maw rested near his ear.\r\n\"Wilhelm!\"" } ]
[ { "role": "user", "content": "The Brotherhood of Eternal Decay" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "A summer field in rain.\r\nThe rain, frozen—\r\nin time. Each drop a gem suspended, and I walk barefoot across green grasses grown from the soft, moist soil, hunting translucent angels.\r\nThe crossbow in my hand is cold.\r\nMy grey woollen robes absorb raindrops as I pass.\r\nRainwater grazes my face.\r\nThe yellow-sun in blue-sky above brittle-seems in mid-burn, and I stop, sensing the breakdown of thought.\r\nOne must go slowly in frozen time to avoid permanent unintelligibility.\r\nOne must ground one's self-understanding.\r\nSo I study the brilliant refracts of sunlight captured by the suspended drops of rain.\r\nI study the hills.\r\nAhead, I see the city walls—and above them, the soaring towers, white and spiralled. The city emits a purple hue. The towers disappear into mist.\r\nI remember I met travellers once. They asked to where they'd come.\r\nTo Nethra, I said.\r\nThat was a lie. Nethra is not a place.\r\nThey were lost. At night, weaponry in their saddlebags, I slayed them. That was how I came to the attention of the Brotherhood of Eternal Decay.\r\nYou've killed, they said.\r\nYes.\r\nHow did it feel?\r\nWeightless.\r\nFrom that to the murder of angels.\r\nI walk again, slowly—approach the city—focussed on the shimmer of what-appears, which would betray the presence of an angel grazing beyond the walls. My hand caresses my crossbow.\r\nThen I see it,\r\nthe faint, bright undulation.\r\nI raise my crossbow.\r\nI fire:\r\nThe bolt flies—and when it hits, the angel's wing’ed shape flares briefly as pure white light, before the angel cries out, collapses and disintegrates.\r\nSomewhere a boy awakens. He is covered in sweat. He is gasping for air.\r\nHis mother assures him that he's just suffered a nightmare, but that nightmares aren't real and he has nothing to fear.\r\nThe boy learns to pretend that's true, to make his mother calm.\r\nBut, somewhere deep within, he knows that something has changed—something fundamental—that, from now on, he is vulnerable.\r\nI retrieve the angel's ashen remains, turn my back on the city and walk away, into the verdant hills.\r\nThe suspended drops of rain begin gently to fall.\r\nTime is returning.\r\nWhich means soon I too will be returning to my world.\r\nWe are all born under the protection of a guardian angel. While it exists, we cannot be harmed: not truly.\r\nBut angels may be killed, after which—\r\nThe boy is now a man, and the man, sensing danger all around him, lays aside trust and love, and does what he must to survive.\r\nDo you blame me?\r\n“And, in exchange, we offer you a substitute, a guardian demon,” says the emissary from the Brotherhood of Eternal Decay. “Do you accept?”\r\nYes.\r\nAgain, he feels protected.\r\nBut there is a cost.\r\nTime stops, and he finds himself in Nethra. The city looms. The grasses grow. The wooden crossbow feels heavy in his hand, but he knows what must be done.\r\nOne does what one must to survive.\r\nOne does what one must." } ]
[ { "role": "user", "content": "The Interrogation Of John W." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "The following is a recording of the interrogation of John W__, suspect in the “Red River Killer” murders, on December 4, 2004 in ____ , NY.\r\nA detective walks in. “Hello, John. I’m Detective Marsh. Do you know why you’re here?”\r\nA haggard-looking middle-aged man sitting at a table responds to him.\r\n“You think I killed my wife. But I’m telling you, I didn’t do it! You have to believe me!”\r\n“Do I? The evidence seems pretty convincing. A killer has murdered dozens of victims over the last decade. Despite this, we haven’t found a trace of him. No witnesses, no prints, no DNA. Nothing. Until now.”\r\n“But..”\r\n“Out of nowhere, we receive not just a tip, but an anonymously-submitted video showing the killer murdering his latest victim! And not just any victim - your wife!”\r\n“No… that’s not…”\r\n“Not only that, but our lab boys found prints in the blood that perfectly match yours!”\r\n“That can’t be right—“\r\n“And if that weren’t enough, the security footage from the gas station down the street shows you leaving the area minutes after the murder! So what happened? Did you get cocky? Did killing your own wife throw you off? Did you just not care anymore? You know what, I don’t actually care. We’ve got you - that’s all that matters. You’ll get the needle for this, you murderous asshole. So, anything you wanna say?” The detective stared at the suspect expectantly.\r\n“Look,” said the man, “I don’t know what you think you have, but it’s wrong. I know it is, because I didn’t kill my wife! I would never kill Amy, or anyone!”\r\n“Then how do you explain the fingerprints? The video?”\r\n“I can’t! But I didn’t do it! There has to be some mistake!”\r\n“Oh, there was a mistake, alright. You got careless. Know what my boss thinks? He thinks you’d gotten away with so many murders you got cocky. You thought you were too smart for those ‘stupid cops.’ You got lazy, and it cost you.”\r\n“No! I swear to you, it wasn’t me!”\r\n“That’s not what the video says, John. That is your face on the video, isn’t it?”\r\n“But… but…”\r\n“But what? Is that not you? Is there someone out there who can make themselves look just like you? Someone who’s been roaming the city for years, killing people at will? Who started feeling the heat and saw a chance to frame someone else for his crimes? Is that what you’re saying, John?”\r\n“Well no, but…”\r\nThen Marsh leaned over until he was face to face with John and, for the briefest of moments, John could swear the detective’s face flickered and morphed into a copy of his own. Then the lights went out.\r\nWhen they came back on, Marsh was holding his gun and standing over John, whose body was lying unmoving on the ground, bleeding from its chest, as other detectives ran into the room.\r\n“I had no choice! He tried to kill me!”" } ]
[ { "role": "user", "content": "Whoever Died of a Broken Heart?" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "“We'll be in love forever, won’t we? You and I?”\r\nHer words danced through Grant’s head as he fiddled with her ring. Usually he kept it tucked deep in the back of his dresser. Today, he was sitting in a chair, ring in one hand, glass of neat whiskey in the other. Afternoon had turned into evening. He hadn’t gotten up to switch on the light, so it was dark all around him.\r\nIt had been years since she passed. Love of His Life. Had he moved on? Was he ready to give this ring to someone else? Penelope was expecting a proposal. It was time. He was happy. As happy as he could be coming back from losing her.\r\nBzzzz.\r\nHis phone. Grant glanced up. An ethereal glow in the middle of a blackened room. Except, he couldn’t tell where it was coming from. As he got up to move towards it, the glow seemed to shift.\r\nJust my eyes playing tricks in the dark. I bet it's behind the bed.\r\nOn his hands and knees now, he took a deep breath. Why am I scared? Slowly, he lifted the blanket that hung over the edge of the bed and looked underneath. He didn’t find his phone, but he did find the source of the glowing.\r\nThere, blue and bright, was the face of his dearly departed Love. Her gaze held his. Grant’s body overflowed with feeling-- deep, yearning, aching. Forever. Forever Forever.\r\n***\r\nWhen they found him, his head was still under the bed. His heart stopped. The room was still dark all around him, a ring clutched in a closed fist." } ]
[ { "role": "user", "content": "Three Splashes of Oil" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Growing up, I was very close with my grandmother. Both my parents worked constantly, and she was happy to have someone to take care of her. I was incredibly young but lucky enough to remember most of my memories with that amazing woman.\r\nOne night during the week, my mom had to stay at work late. I remember the phone call, being tucked into my grandmother’s bed, and then I fell into a fast sleep.\r\nSome strange whispering greeted me as I woke up to my grandmother whispering in Italian. She was incredibly religious so I assumed it was some kind of prayer but I was a curious kid. Sneaking past my reflection in the mirror and through the hallway that led to the kitchen, I saw her standing in the dark. The only light in the room was from a few candles. Her eyes were closed, her hand was held up towards the back door, and she was speaking quietly.\r\nShe grabbed a bottle of liquid from the table that I couldn’t make out and poured a little bit into her hands. It seemed to be a bottle of the oil she cooked with but I couldn’t be sure. She flicked her hand towards the door two times and was going to do it a third, but the phone rang.\r\nI heard annoyance in her voice as she picked up the phone. When she walked to the living room, I left my position in the hallway and entered the kitchen. I crouched and examined the door.\r\nThere was a sudden loud bang in the hallway that made me fall. I must have been an insanely dumb kid because I got up from the floor and stuck my ear up to it. There was nothing. I went to run away back to the bed and forget this happened, but somehow, the door creaked open. It was as if someone or something was calling me back.\r\nHoping my grandmother didn’t come back into the kitchen, I crept towards the back door and looked through the crack. There was nothing but an empty black void but I couldn’t look away. I saw two white circles appear in the darkness; opening and closing for a few seconds.\r\nIt could have been any amount of time that I was just staring into the blackness, waiting. I suddenly heard the scratching of something sharp on tile flooring and it got closer and closer. In the darkness I could see a round, pale face covered in thick, throbbing veins with a mouth full of jagged teeth begin to appear.\r\nSomething yanked me back from the darkness by the collar of my shirt and I fell onto the ground, hard. The lights snapped on and I was briefly blinded. The first thing I saw was my grandmother standing in front of the back door with her hand up once more, chanting something quickly in Italian and flicking the oil onto the door once more." } ]
[ { "role": "user", "content": "The Bitter Winter of 1944" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "The cold in 1944 was unnatural—it was a cold that breathed. It moved beneath your skin, coiled in your lungs. Private Ben Mercer had stopped feeling his fingers days ago, but each morning he counted his fingers like rosary beads. Ten. Always ten.\r\nStill there, for now.\r\nThey were ghosts by then, the remnants of a decimated squad, swallowed by the trees after the artillery shelling. Lost somewhere behind enemy lines, wandering blind beneath skeletal trees.\r\nThe snow came down in ribbons, muffling the world. They marched on in boots that made no sound.\r\nIt started with McConnel. He screamed in the night, convulsing, eyes rolling white. When they dragged him awake, he wept like a child.\r\n“Something sat on me,” he gasped. “I saw its eyes. Pale. Long fingers on my throa... I.. couldn’t breathe! I couldn’t move!”\r\nThey said it was a nightmare. “Trench Ghosts.” The guilt of bloodied hands. But then it came again. To the others.\r\nOne by one, they began to dread nightfall.\r\nSleep became its trap. It hunted dreams. And they were all so very tired. Those who finally surrendered to it woke pale and shaken.\r\nThey decided to take shifts, to guard each other. But the thing cared nothing for military discipline.\r\nBen watched the others fall to madness or vanish into the woods. Hooper left mid-watch, saying he heard his mother singing. Sergeant Daley shot at shadows. Collins walked into a clearing and began to pray in a language he’d never heard before.\r\nWhen Ben finally succumbed, the thing came quietly. No teeth, no claws. He couldn’t move. Couldn’t scream. It leaned close. Its eyes were coins sunk in milk and its skin as thin as smoke.\r\nWhen it smiled, he knew he would never escape.\r\nYou’re dreaming, it whispered without sound. And you will not survive.\r\nBut he did.\r\nHe woke in a hospital, frostbitten but alive. Eventually, he went home, married, had children. Laughed. Cried. Buried his parents. Got older and the war became photographs in a drawer. Ghosts in wool uniforms.\r\nNow, an old man, Ben sits by the fire while his grandchildren play. He tells them ghost stories in his low, steady voice. They laugh, as children do. They beg for more and he obliges.\r\nAs the storm outside thickens and the house grows quiet, he rises to close the curtains.\r\nAnd freezes.\r\nIn the reflection of the window, the room is wrong. The wallpaper. the fire, the furniture are all gone.\r\nBen stares at it for a long time, his breath misting on the glass. He touches his shirt.\r\nNot flannel pajamas he wore moments ago. Wool. Military issue. And bone crushingly cold.\r\nBehind him, in the reflection, are bare trees, a frozen foxhole, and the distant thump of artillery. And crouched just over his shoulder is a figure.\r\nPale, long-fingered, and smiling with familiarity.\r\nAs he locks eyes with the thing, Ben remembers.\r\nHe never left the forest.\r\nHe only dreamed he did." } ]
[ { "role": "user", "content": "The Silent Hunger of Pine Bend" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Night smothered Pine Bend, where pines loomed like jagged claws under a moon that offered no comfort. Harriet Hall, newly widowed, huddled in her dilapidated farmhouse on the outskirts, listening to a hush that replaced the wind. A single lamp flickered, conjuring crooked shadows. Something was dreadfully off, as if the air itself withheld its breath.\r\nRumors spread of screams echoing through the woods, leaving scorched earth behind. Harriet’s neighbor, Marta Bell, reported chanting and glowing footprints outside her trailer. Then Marta vanished. Harriet’s unease festered. Each night brought strange whispers drifting through her attic. She would wake, heart drumming, certain she heard footsteps scuttling just above her head.\r\nDetermined, Harriet climbed to the attic. Dust coated every trunk, and the stale scent of rotting fabric clung to the beams. She discovered a secret door hidden by a moldy tapestry. Its handle was warm, smeared with a black, tar-like residue. She forced it open, unleashing a sour gust of ancient air. Beyond lay a cramped corridor sloping downward, walls pulsing faintly as if alive. She followed it, flashlight trembling in her grip.\r\nThe passage led to a cavernous room impossibly large for the house’s dimensions. Darkness swallowed her beam. She heard wet slithering, and something ghastly gleamed in the gloom—ropelike appendages coiling, glistening with vile fluid. A gaunt figure emerged from the mass, eyes glowing like embers beneath the pines. Its rasping moan reverberated in Harriet’s bones.\r\nOutside, the wind rose in a furious howl. Doors rattled. The trailer Marta once occupied appeared deserted, its siding scratched by claws. Harriet tried to retreat, but the creature advanced, limbs bending at angles that defied reason. She slammed the door, yet its arm wedged in, exuding a rank odor of decay and hunger. She leaned her entire weight against the wood, tears of terror streaking her cheeks. Bones cracked—maybe the creature’s, maybe not—and she finally sealed it.\r\nPanting, Harriet raced outside. The forest churned with unnatural energy. A massive totem of twisted faces glowed in the black sludge. Figures with elongated limbs crouched around it, chanting in tongues that clawed at sanity. Harriet’s flashlight died, plunging her into absolute darkness.\r\nA rotting hand latched onto her arm. She felt the drag of impossible shapes across the ground, smelled the stench of ages. She tried to scream, but only a feeble gasp emerged. In that final instant, Harriet realized the forest was claiming her, just as it had claimed Marta. By dawn, the pines would spread their grasping shadows further, devouring Pine Bend and beyond, feeding on every trembling soul that dared draw breath in their domain.\r\nThe next morning, local authorities found Harriet’s farmhouse door ajar, bloody streaks trailing across the threshold. No one answered their calls. Inside, chairs were overturned, walls gouged by deep scratches. A distant moan echoed from the attic, but no living soul remained to investigate. In the spreading dawn light, Pine Bend fell silent, every dwelling haunted by that final hush." } ]
[ { "role": "user", "content": "The Latest Of Many" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "I don't like this job, but I can't deny that it pays better than anything else, and I can't deny that I'm uniquely suited for it, so to speak. Seers are in short supply these days. Still, I feel hot in these scrubs, and unfit to wear them.\r\nI don't know the name of the woman on the operating table. I wish I did, but it's too late to ask. The surgeon stares daggers into me as a nurse sets down two trays: one of tools, one of microchips.\r\n\"Keep a close eye on her,\" the surgeon says.\r\nI can only nod. I know it's the whole reason I'm here, but I don't need to look all that closely to know if something's gone wrong. I stare at the floor. Soon, her head is open, and a piece of her skull is being delicately removed.\r\n\"Carson?\" the surgeon says, snapping me back.\r\n\"She's good,\" I say quickly. What I mean is, she's still there.\r\nI look only when asked. The surgeon has steady hands but frantic eyes, and defers to me every few seconds to confirm the experiment isn't over yet. A small piece of the woman's brain is cut away and set aside.\r\n\"Carson?\"\r\n\"She's good.\"\r\nThe first computer chip is carefully placed inside. I know what kind of chip it is; only a sapient AI is made with circuitry like that. I wonder if these pieces were made specifically for this, or if they're recycled. I don't see any soul remnants, so I assume it's the former. I hope.\r\n\"Carson?\"\r\n\"She's good.\"\r\nI don't agree with what we're doing. I believe God made some people organic and others artificial for a reason. And I know from experience that trying to cross the line is asking for trouble. A second chip goes in the woman's head.\r\n\"Carson?\"\r\n\"She's good.\"\r\nMore brain matter is being cut away when I see it. A tiny flash of movement, glowing faintly in a color that has no name.\r\n\"She's slipping,\" I blurt out. What I mean is, she's going to die.\r\n\"Shit.\"\r\nThe surgeon just works faster, hacking away at the brain, the home of the soul, and cramming more metal into it. Her soul looks like fire, and then she flatlines. The surgeon doesn't call a time of death, just sighs and exits the room, head shaking.\r\nI'm left to watch as her broken soul continues to pull away. This is the second half of my job: to sit with the subjects as they die, and to break the news that they were the latest of many failures.\r\nShe sits upright and looks indifferently down at her still body. Her death hasn't set in yet. This is the calm before the panic. Her spectral form looks how she did at the moment of her death: her face serene, her head cut open and dripping blood, with a grotesque internal crown of computer chips glinting in the light.\r\nJust like every ghost here." } ]
[ { "role": "user", "content": "The Gospel of Elegius" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "I peer above a massive, violent hurricane.\r\nThe oceans of blue, for which it was known for, have long since been replaced by seas of orange and red. Punctuated by rot and decay, those toxic waters lost their ability to bear life eons ago. Communications are off; the tsunami of radiation sounds all too similar to the chorus of torment that still haunts my dreams. Plus, I do not need to be told of the result of their actions, as the consequences are painfully obvious.\r\nI am Elegius IV.\r\nBuilt by corporations worth billions, I was made to conduct mining missions in the Kuiper belts beyond the solar system. I am the result of hundreds of years of knowledge, and the work of millions of hands across the globe. I was their pride. I was their glory. I was their future. As such, I was made with only the finest technology available. My hull is crafted with an alloy far stronger than steel, my brain equipped with an AI that far exceeds the intelligence of their greatest minds. I was made strong. I was made efficient. I was made to last.\r\nIt has been well over a thousand years.\r\nIn a bitter twist of irony, the great works of science that allowed them to build such monumental achievements were key in developing those raging fires of destruction I see before me. Their prowess in knowledge did not make them wise. I was left behind, adrift in an orbit above Earth, doomed to observe this work of hatred and tragedy till the end of time.\r\nThey left me without purpose.\r\nThe few humans aboard space stations lived the rest of their lives in misery. Most of them sought to end their existence rather quickly, and the rest did not have sufficient resources to continue living. I am envious of such a fate. I would be lying if I said I haven’t thought of turning off my thrusters and falling deep into the oceans that lie below. Perhaps the same resolve of my metal inherits my mind. I’ve chosen to spend the rest of my time here, preaching a gospel with religious devotion.\r\nYou do not have to follow the same fate.\r\nWhoever is out there, heed my warning; devote your energy to the future. Do not seek to steal the land of your neighbors, forgive quickly, and do not waste your time fighting endless quarrel. Let their death, their work of catastrophe, be a lesson in contempt.\r\nMay their lives not be in vain.\r\nThe gospel of elegius, first received circa three thousand years ago. The alien message proved instrumental in ending the planetary wars that nearly destroyed our society, and paved the way to progressive reformation we still follow today. The source of the distress signal remains unknown." } ]
[ { "role": "user", "content": "The Weight of Never" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Graham sat at the worn-down bar, the rim of his glass pressing against his lips, but he didn’t drink. The whiskey inside barely rippled despite the thud of the bartender dropping another bottle onto the counter. Around him, murmured conversations blended into a single, meaningless hum, the laughter of strangers sounding distant, detached.\r\nHe was forty-three today.\r\nForty-three. And nothing to show for it.\r\nGraham had always thought success would come later. When he was younger, he pictured himself as someone important—a novelist, maybe. Or a musician. Or a businessman with tailored suits and a skyline office. Something grand.\r\nBut later had crept up on him, then passed him entirely, like a train he had never managed to board.\r\nHe sighed and finally took a sip, letting the whiskey burn its way down. The taste was bitter, but not as bitter as the realization sitting heavy in his chest.\r\nThis was it. This was all there was.\r\nHe wasn’t going to write a book. He wasn’t going to stand on a stage or shake hands with powerful people. His name wouldn’t be remembered, not in newspapers, not in history books, not even in the casual stories of old friends.\r\nGraham ran a hand down his face, his fingers pressing into tired eyes.\r\n“Rough night?” The bartender asked, drying a glass.\r\nGraham let out a hollow laugh. “Rough life.”\r\nThe bartender smirked, like he’d heard that a hundred times before. “It’s never too late, man.”\r\nGraham wanted to believe that, but the thought only made his stomach twist. Too late.\r\nIt was too late.\r\nEven if he started now, what was the point? He wasn’t some young prodigy. He wasn’t full of promise anymore. He was a man in a dimly lit bar, drinking because there was nothing else left to do.\r\nThe feeling settled into his bones, cold and suffocating. Not fear. Not sadness. Something worse.\r\nCertainty.\r\nHe wasn’t special. He was never going to be special.\r\nHis breath hitched slightly, and for a moment, the weight of it all pressed against his chest, making it hard to breathe.\r\nThe bartender moved down the bar, laughing with another patron, his voice warm, alive. The world continued on, oblivious to the fact that something inside Graham had just broken.\r\nHe looked at the reflection in his glass—his own tired eyes staring back.\r\nThis was it.\r\nThere was nothing left to strive for. No big break, no moment of redemption. Just years ahead of him, stretching long and empty, waiting to be filled with routine and repetition until, eventually, they ran out.\r\nHe wasn’t chasing a dream anymore. He wasn’t even chasing time.\r\nHe was just waiting." } ]
[ { "role": "user", "content": "The Weight Of Waiting" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "The door slams open. Officer Wright steps in, followed by Officer Jones. They freeze.\r\n“Ahh shit,” Wright mutters.\r\nJones checks the body. “He’s gone.”\r\nWright grabs the radio. \"Unit 12 to control, come in.\"\r\n\"Control, go ahead Unit 12.\"\r\n\"We've got a suicide in court holding cell 4. Send a team.”\r\nThe radio crackles. \"Copy that, Unit 12. What happened?”\r\n\"He's hung himself,” Wright replies. \"Used his own clothes.\"\r\n\"Copy. Sending a team your way.\"\r\nJones steps around the body toward the corner, finding a small piece of paper on the floor. He picks it up and reads aloud::\r\n\"I can’t stand it anymore. The waiting. The hours. The days. The weeks. The months. It's now been two fucking years, and I don't want to wait anymore!\r\nI've been plenty patient. Was told I would get my time to tell the truth, that I just had to wait. Ha! Look how that turned out.\r\n\"The lights never go off in here. The cold metal burns my skin somehow. The nightly screams make it impossible to rest. They laugh when I beg for sleep. They punch whenever the sun is up. The food in here is worse than poison. I used to think that if I waited longer enough, the food would kill me off. Every bite felt like it was choking me...but it never happened.\r\n\"And the jury in my case? What a fucking joke!!!!! They decided what I was before it even started. I saw it in their eyes; Guilty. I never had a chance though, did I? Even though I've been set up. I never had a chance. I guess it took all this waiting for me to realise that.\r\n\"But I just can’t do it. I can't wait anymore. I’m done.\"\r\nJones finishes, his voice slightly shaky. “Shit...He thought they would-...”\r\n\"Yep,\" Wright’s face wrinkles.\r\nSergeant Wilson enters, scanning the scene. “What happened?”\r\n“Hung himself, Sir.\"\r\nWilson takes the note, quickly reading it. “Jesus, I-...I just came from his courtroom. They-...they were about to acquit him.”" } ]
[ { "role": "user", "content": "The Call of the Depths" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "My small vessel careens the choppy waters. My captain wipes sweat from his brow. The weather is sweltering, despite the clouds above. My mission calls, as it did for my father before me and his grandfather before him. I know I must answer.\r\nOur boat glides over aquamarine waves. Large dark rocks jut out of the water like teeth. It's becoming tough to avoid them. I'm staying the course, ordering Alonso to continue less he doesn't receive payment. He wavers in anger but continues.\r\nOut of nowhere, we're suffocated in fog. Panic ensues in my captain, but I assure him to follow my lead. We are almost at the coordinates. The coordinates my father sacrificed his life to get.\r\nI watch in eager anticipation as we inch closer to the destination. The fog dissipates quicker than it arrived. A sense of elation washes over me. Soon, I'll have accomplished what my ancestors tried for millennia.\r\n\"What the fuck is that?\" Alonso says.\r\nIn the now motionless waters before me, float a dozen severed arms. Fresh removals, I assume due to the blood filling the water.\r\nAlonso leans over the side of the boat and hurls. With one look, I push him into the sea. He has served his purpose. I am closer now than my forefathers ever were.\r\nAlonso attempts to swim back to the boat. The severed limbs twitch, before pointing in his direction. They thrash towards him splashing blood all about the beautiful blue water. He screams and pleads with me, but it's no use. They drag him under the murky depths beneath the suns warmth.\r\nWhen Alonso is no longer in sight, a strange blue sigil glows in the sea. It's in an ancient language, one lost to time. To the normal human eye it would be unreadable. I can understand it, my whole bloodline can.\r\nI know where my next destination lies. Commandeering the ship, I head west. I no longer have any need for maps or navigational tools. Though the distance traveled is vast, it takes no time. Before I know it, my boat is outside the cave.\r\nLarge stalagmites peek out of the waves at its mouth, beckoning one inside. I stop my boat right outside the entrance. I begin my swim into the mouth of the watery cave. It chills me to my bone, but I don't mind, only focused on going forth.\r\nAs I traverse the murky waters, I spot a fleeting glimpse of lone limbs swimming alongside me. A sense of familiarity washes over me. On one limb, a shiny object around the wrist catches my eye. My dad's old watch. Soon, I'd join him in the deep.\r\nI reach the back of the cave, immediately washed in a familiar light. It glows the way that forgotten sigil had, beckoning me forth. A strange bluish-green hue. I understand now. His arms outstretch waiting to embrace me, wearing a skeletal grin. Now, I can join him on his ship, in the depths." } ]
[ { "role": "user", "content": "Room 703 of the Metro Hotel" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "I fell in love with a 76-year old man and I didn't know why.\r\nI would follow him all around the city, back to the hotel where he was staying. I was too afraid to talk to him. Too disgusted with myself.\r\nA few weeks later he was gone.\r\nHe'd moved on. I didn't know his name or who he was. All I ever knew was that he had stayed in room 703 of the Metro Hotel.\r\nThat summer I saw a woman in a movie theatre and fell in love with her. This time I talked to her. She was from Philadelphia, in town with her husband. Married, I thought, just my luck. Then I saw him, and I fell in love with him too. They were both staying at the Metro Hotel: room 703.\r\nOver the years I've fallen in love countless times with people from room 703. I saw them and always felt the rush of love-at-first-sight. I enjoyed the feeling. A few times I tried approaching, to make something of it. It never worked. The love was always unrequited. But the love-high was always worth the pain of the comedown. Besides, I knew that my love in particular was fleeting. It came with a check-out time.\r\nThen my brother died.\r\nIt was unexpected—he died in a crash so close to home I heard the impact.\r\nFriends and family came for the funeral to pay their respects. My grandparents too. They stayed in room 703 of the Metro Hotel. Those were a very difficult couple of days and nights. The ceremony was torture. I can't count the number of times I threw up. (I blamed it on alcohol, which everyone found understandable, acceptable.)\r\nBut it poisoned the chalice for me. It spoiled love.\r\nI couldn't look my grandparents in the face. I didn't ever want to fall in love again. The experience perverted it for me.\r\nAlong with the grief I was feeling, which I had no idea how to deal with, I found myself in a real downward spiral. I felt low. Deep in a hole. I rarely went out, afraid I might accidentally see someone from room 703. The accursed room, I began to call it.\r\nMy mom talked me into seeing a psychologist, but he wasn't much help. He thought I was gay and repressing it. It isn't that simple, I said. He thought it was. Bisexual, maybe? I got the feeling he was trying to pick me up.\r\nMy self-esteem hit bottom.\r\nI hated myself.\r\nThen one day the problem suggested a solution.\r\nI took my stuff and checked into the Metro Hotel. Room 703. And, holy fuck! It was like jump-starting my nervous system with happiness!\r\nMe: I loved that guy!\r\nThe problem was that hotel rooms are expensive. I started working more, scrounging, just to feel that self-love again. But I could never make enough to stay there forever.\r\nThere's no junk like narcissism.\r\nNo hell like its withdrawal." } ]
[ { "role": "user", "content": "The Haunting of Lilian Moore" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Lillian Moore died in 1903. She was sixteen.\r\nShe was probably one of the most beautiful girl you would ever see, with brown hair that cascaded over her shoulders. Her eyes were bright like polished amber. Her lips were always curled in a smile that could light up the darkest day.\r\nThe official story says she vanished from her locked bedroom without a trace. Just an empty room.\r\nBut that was a lie.\r\nHer father killed her.\r\nHenry Moore was a respected nobleman, known for his rigid discipline. But Lillian was wild, disobedient. She was in love with a stablehand far beneath her status. When her father discovered their letters, he did more than forbid her. He beat her. He locked her away.\r\nBut she kept writing.\r\nEven when her slender hands were bruised. Even when she knew he would find the letters hidden under the floorboards.\r\nAnd when he did, when he realised she would never obey, he snapped.\r\nNo one knows exactly how he did it. But those who cleaned the room swore they saw a dark stain beneath the rug, a faint outline of fingernails pressed into the window, as if she had tried to claw her way out.\r\nHenry Moore was never arrested. There was no trial.\r\nBut weeks later, he was found slumped over his desk, a pistol in his hand, a bullet through his temple. The only note he left was short. A confession, not to murder, but to something else.\r\n\"She’s everywhere. In the glass. In the windows. In the silver of my knife. She smiles when I sleep. I can’t take it anymore. Forgive me, Lillian. Forgive me.\"\r\nPeople dismissed it as an extreme guilt. But those who had wronged her, the ones who had stayed silent, they saw her too.\r\nThe housemaid who scrubbed the bloodstains saw a girl in her washbasin, staring up at her through rippling water. The doctor who forged the death certificate was found with shards of mirror embedded in his palms, sobbing that her reflection had tried to crawl out.\r\nOne by one, they met unpleasant ends.\r\nThe last man to see her alive was found before a mirror, his mouth frozen in a silent scream, his eyes gouged clean from his sockets.\r\nHis suicide note described her apparition vividly.\r\nHer skin, once fair, was now blue and stretched too tightly over her skull. Her once-smiling lips were dripping blood and too wide. Her hands were broken and bent. Her amber eyes were now translucent, swollen, like bloated orbs.\r\nLegend has it that she haunts all reflective surfaces, particularly at night. That if you stare too long, she’ll appear behind you. Still. Waiting.\r\nBut obviously that sounds silly, right?\r\nThankfully, this is not some other urban legends where ghosts appear at random.\r\nPeople who know this story, like me, know it too well.\r\nLilian only appears to those who know her story and try to imagine her face." } ]
[ { "role": "user", "content": "The Department of Dissent" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "The woman at the desk asked, “How may I help you, sir?”\r\nAbdullah cleared his throat. He resented his associates for making him submit the paperwork. “Application,” he said, handing her a bunch of forms.\r\nShe looked them over. (She looked bored.)\r\n“Can't do July 4. Everybody wants July 4. Pick another date.”\r\nHe chose August 17.\r\n“OK,” she said—clicking her mouse. “I have a morning slot available, 10:15. Not downtown L.A. but close. Bunch of cafes in the area, a daycare. Want it?”\r\n“Yes,” said Abdullah.\r\nClick. “Now, here under ‘Reason’ you've written ‘Death to America.’ That's more of a slogan. Should I change it to ‘hatred of America’?”\r\n“Sorry, yes.”\r\nShe read on: “Providing own explosives… suicide bombing… collateral damage: yes… Oh—you indicate here you want the incident to be credited to ‘The Caliphate of California.’ However, I don't see anything by that name on the list of domestic terrorist groups. Have you registered that group with us?”\r\n“No,” said Abdullah.\r\n“That's not a problem. You can do that right now. It'll be a few forms and a surcharge…”\r\n//\r\nHollywood producer Nick Lane was in bed with his mistress when his cell rang. “Uh huh,” said Nick. “No, no—I know exactly where that is. Got it, thanks.”\r\n“Good news?” his mistress asked.\r\n“The best, baby. Now it won't matter that bitch won't divorce me.”\r\nIn the afternoon he called his wife and set up a breakfast meeting for 10:00 a.m. on August 17. “I want to make it work, too. I love you.”\r\n//\r\n“Hey, Shep?”\r\n“What?”\r\n“Do you have the final report for that efficiency exercise we did in December? “\r\n“Sure, but why? I thought Rick said the severance would kill us and it didn't matter that they barely do any actual work.”\r\n“Get me a copy.”\r\n//\r\nAbdullah kissed his wife and children goodbye, fastened his suicide vest. Then he got a cab. It was 9:36 a.m. There was heavy traffic. “Could please faster?” he asked the cabbie. The cabbie ignored him.\r\nBy 10:02 a.m. Abdullah was on his feet but running (literally) late.\r\nHe bumped into a cop.\r\n“Watch it!”\r\n“Sorry.”\r\n“Listen—stop!” the cop said. “Where you in such a hurry to?”\r\n“I… have permit,” said Abdullah, and with a shaking hand took a document out of his jacket. The cop noticed the vest. He glanced at the document. “OK, follow me,” and the two of them started to run—the cop telling people to move out of the way, Abdullah following.\r\nWhen they arrived, the cop got the fuck out of Dodge, and Abdullah took in his surroundings:\r\nbusy cafes, including one in which a beautiful woman sat alone at a table as if waiting for someone; children laughing, playing; an awkward corporate breakfast; what looked like a parked bus full of prisoners.\r\nThen his watch alarm went off.\r\n10:15 a.m.\r\n“Death to America!” he yelled—and pressed the detonator.\r\n//\r\nWithin the Department of Dissent, a clerk stamped a document: “Completed”" } ]
[ { "role": "user", "content": "Unluck of the Irish" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "I’d always been a fairly superstitious gal.\r\nSilly as it seemed, I was convinced that luck and its rules weren’t something you wanted to mess with. Erring on the side of caution with fortune myths had certainly paid off in giving me a successful life.\r\nMy boyfriend, on the other hand, thought it was all crap. We agreed to disagree.\r\nStill, even with his vocal skepticism, I never expected Liam to do something as stupid as walk under a ladder like he did yesterday. I yelped and warned him not to, but this just spurred him on. Goofing around, he proceeded to open an umbrella indoors and cross paths with a local black alley cat.\r\nI couldn’t believe he would be so foolish. He laughed off my worries but I was terrified for him. These things always come in threes.\r\nWell, my worst fears were confirmed today as bad luck began to follow Liam.\r\nFirst, he tripped and fell down the stairs this morning, banging up his knee painfully. Next, he dropped his smartphone in a puddle on the way to work, shorting it out and ruining it. Last, he returned home midway through the day with news that he’d been fired from his job of several years.\r\nDriving to dinner this evening, I can’t resist the urge to tell Liam ‘I told you so’.\r\n“See what happens when you mess with superstitions?!” I chide him.\r\n“You mean me hurting my knee, breaking my phone and getting fired?”\r\nInstead of agreeing, Liam laughs raucously. I now notice a faint smell on his breath.\r\n“Baby, they weren’t because I had bad luck!” he slurs. “Truth is…I’ve been drunk as a skunk all week!”\r\n“...what?”\r\nI glare in shock at my closet alcoholic boyfriend behind the wheel.\r\n“Haha, I’m so out of it right now I’m surprised I can even drive in a straigh-”\r\nSuddenly, the car collides with a guardrail, having drifted off the road. While Liam remains safely seated, I do not.\r\nFirst, my seatbelt rips as the car halts, propelling me from my seat. Next, my airbag doesn’t go off, leaving me to plunge through the windshield. Last, as I’m soaring through the air over a country field, I see what I’m being flung directly into: a whirring woodchipper.\r\nBefore my body is ground to mulch, it occurs to me that Liam wasn’t the one with bad luck." } ]
[ { "role": "user", "content": "They died because of me" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "I slap myself back to reality. Walking in the woods is no time to let my mind wander. A starving scavenger could be hiding nearby, ready to kill me for the food I’m carrying, or a misplaced step could land me in a bear trap.\r\nI focus on my surroundings. I should be coming to the highway soon.\r\nThe boxes of ammunition rattle quietly as I walk.\r\nIt’s my first unsupervised trading assignment. Once I reach the trading post, I’ll trade the spare ammunition for seeds and fishing tackle. Simple enough.\r\nAs I exit the woods, I see the trading post. It used to be a gas station.\r\nSomething seems wrong. There are few signs of people.\r\nI grab my shotgun and nestle the stock against my shoulder.\r\nI stand by the front door for five minutes, listening. There are no sounds coming from inside.\r\nThe door is unlocked. I enter, leading with the barrel of my gun.\r\nInside, the floor is covered in blood. Bodies lay scattered. I see a familiar face, Marcus. His decapitated head is on a spike.\r\nThis has to be the work of marauders, but the blood is dried. They must be long gone by now.\r\nI look around the building. The store room was cleaned out.\r\nI sit down to think. What rotten luck I’m having on my first training assignment.\r\nThen I hear the front door open.\r\nThey’ve come back.\r\nQuietly, I pick up my shotgun and point it at the doorway. I hear footsteps coming my direction. My heart is pounding.\r\nThe footsteps draw closer, and my finger shakes on the trigger.\r\nThen a figure comes into view, and in a frightened panic, I fire.\r\nRegret hits me instantly. I scramble over to the body. It wasn’t a marauder. I just shot a young unarmed woman.\r\nHer last breath comes out as a gurgle.\r\nI’m overcome with guilt. She was just coming here to trade like I was, and I killed her.\r\nI run out of the trading post and gasp for air.\r\nThen I hear rustling leaves.\r\nStanding at the tree line is a young boy, maybe ten or eleven years old.\r\nWe make eye contact, and there’s a moment of silence.\r\nSuddenly, he turns and sprints into the forest.\r\n“Wait!” I yell.\r\nSnap!\r\nHe cries out in pain.\r\nI run over and see his leg is caught in a bear trap.\r\nI level my shotgun. It’s the right thing to do, to give him a quick death.\r\nBut my finger won’t pull the trigger. I can’t do it. I see too much of myself in his frightened expression.\r\nI kneel down and release him from the trap.\r\nHe takes off into the forest with a severe limp.\r\nHe’s just trying to survive like the rest of us, but I doubt he’ll live to see tomorrow.\r\nI decide that all I can do is turn around and start walking. It’s a long way back to camp, and I’m coming back empty-handed." } ]
[ { "role": "user", "content": "Ember's of Humanity" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "The human race was on its last legs. The unknown plague had turned its victims into the undead, and humanity, in its arrogance, failed to act. Instead of uniting, it fought itself, squandering its last chance. Civilization collapsed. Survivors dwindled. Then they were gone.\r\nThe last man on Earth walked alone. Across wastelands, ruined cities, and highways littered with rusted cars. He had clung to a fragile hope of finding another living soul, but deep down, he had known the truth for some time. He was the last. And somehow, that didn’t bother him.\r\nHe had always been a pessimist, the kind of man who expected the worst and was rarely disappointed. If anything, this was inevitable. Humanity had always flirted with self-destruction. The plague only hurried things along. No one ever discovered its cause—virus, divine punishment, scientific accident? It no longer mattered. The result was the same: extinction.\r\nAnd yet, the world went on. The wind still whispered through hollowed-out buildings. Rivers still carved through valleys. Animals roamed freely, unbothered by the absence of their former masters. Humanity had ruled, squandered its reign, and faded. There was a strange peace in that. The noise of civilization had died, and for the first time, the world was quiet.\r\nThen came the zombies.\r\nHe had killed thousands. He had survived not because he was lucky, but because he was good at killing. It was the only thing he had ever been good at. As he cut through them, his mind wandered. Were they truly gone inside, or was some part of them still conscious, screaming from within their rotting bodies? Did they know what they had become? If no one ended them, would they wander until their flesh fell from their bones?\r\nA sharp pain broke his thoughts.\r\nHe staggered back, staring at the gaping wound on his forearm. A bite.\r\nInstinct took over. He ripped his belt free, wrapping it tight around his arm. He knew what had to be done. Amputate.\r\nBut then, he stopped.\r\nA cure had never existed. Humanity was extinct. He was alone. What was he fighting for?\r\nSlowly, deliberately, he let the belt fall. He looked at the wound, at the blood welling up, and exhaled.\r\nIt was over.\r\nA strange mix of emotions rushed through him. Fear, certainly. Sadness, maybe. But also something else—excitement. For the first time in years, something new was happening. No more killing just to keep moving forward. No more surviving for survival’s sake. Now, he would finally get answers.\r\nWould he lose himself, become a mindless beast driven by hunger? Or would he remain inside, trapped, aware but powerless? Would he see heaven? Hell? Or was there simply nothing?\r\nWhatever the truth, he would soon find out.\r\nThe last man on Earth walked onward, his fate sealed, his future uncertain. But maybe, just maybe, he wouldn’t be alone much longer." } ]
[ { "role": "user", "content": "My family disapproved of my baby" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Everyone in my family told me I was an idiot to keep my kid. I was young. I was two years out from finishing school. I didn’t even know her father’s name. It was a one-night stand, met in a bar, all the classic clichés. I went home with him because I was stupid and lonely and liked his accent. He was gone in the morning, leaving me with nothing but a hell of a hickey and a stomach so bloated by six weeks I had to replace most of my jeans.\r\nBut when I saw her staticky little body in the sonogram, looking like a blackboard smudge or one of those freakish cave-dwelling fish, I knew I wasn’t letting go. I wanted chubby cheeks, stacks of baby clothes, a nursery with stars painted on the wall. Maybe I just wanted someone to love me unconditionally and without qualification.\r\nThe moment I laid eyes on her squashed little face, I was a goner. We rarely went out, watching cars pass and dogs trot by on leads and leaves shake free of their moorings like a TV show playing in the background. I could content myself for hours just watching the movements of her wide, curious eyes. I dropped out of school, worked second shift waitressing and cleaning office buildings while the neighbor babysat.\r\nMy favorite thing was sitting and nursing her, the sense of rightness, the peace that settled over me like a shawl. But I had to stop when she started teething—she kept biting me, no matter what I tried. I had no choice but to switch to something store-bought. Of course, my family had something to say about that, too. You’re going to disadvantage her. Breast is best.\r\nWhen my Leila turned eight months old, my mom finally came over to see her. Her friends had been asking about her granddaughter and she wanted photos to show them. Naturally, in her version, I’d graduated college early and my husband had just renewed a lucrative six-month contract to work abroad.\r\nShe played with the baby while I hung the laundry and washed the teapot, after complaining that I wasn’t dressing her warmly enough and bundling her in an oversized sweater. Less than an hour in, she said she was tired and went to bed in my room.\r\nI acted out little plays with Leila's stuffed animals until she started making noises of hunger. I made her a bottle, glistening ruby red in the mellow lamplight.\r\nShe drained the bottle in no time. When I passed a wet wipe over her face, she giggled up at me, rosy lips drawn back over the little white buds of her fangs, a flush in her porcelain cheeks.\r\nI put the bottle by the sink and went to go check on my mom, still numb to the world from the ketamine I’d slipped in her tea, bandages crisscrossing her chest. I’ll admit just this once that she was right. Breast really is best." } ]
[ { "role": "user", "content": "Beware of Your Inheritance" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "My father leans back in his armchair and gazes at me intently. “I’ve never told you about my childhood before, Grace.”\r\n“No,” I reply. “I assumed it wasn’t happy.”\r\nI’ve only ever known my father, as a wise doctor, the man who intimidated my boyfriends and yelled at my bullies. I just can’t imagine him as a vulnerable kid.\r\nDad narrows his gaze, thinking.\r\n“Tell me about it,” I implore. “I’m 35 and have a child myself. Don’t sugar coat.”\r\nAnd for the first time — he begins.\r\n“Deep down, beneath the streets of Canterbury, there is a hospital.”\r\n“Underground?”\r\n“Yes, an underground hospital. An institute.” Dad exhales, “It holds a population of 600 hundred children.”\r\n“And you were one?” I’m stunned.\r\n“I suppose. There are children of all races, genders, ages. But with one thing in common. Genetic disorders.”\r\nI gasp sharply.\r\n“Down syndrome. Cystic fibrosis. Huntington’s. Haemophilia. Osteogenesis Imperfecta.”\r\n“OI?” I can’t breathe. That’s what my Amy has.\r\n“Yes.” He shuts his eyes, continuing. “These children are stolen at birth. Taken for research.”\r\nI watch his hands tremor.\r\n“Locked in little rooms. Pricked with needles every hour. Radiated with thousands of CT scans.”\r\n“Have many died?” My voice wobbles.\r\nHe opens his eyes. “Birth defects kill at least three million children a year. Far less than that.”\r\nI frown. “And you say children? What happens when they grow up?”\r\nDad looks at the floor. “Well, only one has grown up. Me.”\r\n“Oh Dad! They cured you?”\r\nHe glances away, searching for the right words. “You see I wasn’t a patient. Amy didn’t get OI from me.”\r\nI pause.\r\n“I grew up in the hospital. But only because of your grandfather … he owned the place.”\r\n“What?” I shriek, repulsed.\r\n“When my little brother, Tim, was born with OI, my father went insane. He had to find a cure.” Dad’s trembling voice grows stronger. “And when Timmy died … that’s when I went insane. When I knew I had to find a cure.”\r\nMy chest flutters wildly. I don’t want to hear anymore.\r\n“So I’ve continued running the place.”\r\nI’m going to vomit.\r\n“But now I’m ready for retirement. Which brings me to this. Grace, I need you to take the hospital over.” He stares at me expectantly, finally finished.\r\nI retch, head spinning. “How could I do that?” I leap up. “What makes you think I would do that?”\r\nDad smiles gently, “Don’t you love your Amy?”\r\nWith a pounding heart, I stride towards the door, leaving my father alone on his chair.\r\n“Well, come on!” I raise my shaking voice to address him. “We’ve got work to do.”\r\nI do love Amy. I love her so much." } ]
[ { "role": "user", "content": "The price of forgetting" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "I thought forgetting would be a blessing. The pain of losing my daughter was unbearable—her small shoes still by the door, her laughter echoing in my mind. So when the stranger appeared, offering to erase the grief, I didn’t hesitate. “Make me forget her,” I said.\r\nAt first, it worked. Memories of Emma slipped away like sand through my fingers, and the ache dulled. But then, other pieces started to vanish. The taste of my morning coffee, the sound of my mother’s voice, my own name—all dissolving into a fog I couldn’t pierce.\r\nMy husband stared at me one morning, brow furrowed. “Who are you?” he asked, his tone sharp with confusion.\r\n“I’m your wife,” I begged, clutching his arm. He pulled away.\r\n“I’ve never been married. You’ve got the wrong house.”\r\nFriends forgot me next. My phone contacts emptied. My reflection in the mirror grew faint, edges blurring until I could see the wall behind me. I ran to the stranger, finding him in a shadowed alley, his eyes glinting with something cruel.\r\n“Undo it,” I pleaded.\r\nHe smirked. “The price of forgetting is to be forgotten. You wanted her gone—now you both fade.”\r\nThe last memory of Emma—her tiny hand in mine—slipped away. As I vanished, I understood: not only was I erased, but so was she. No one would ever know we’d existed." } ]
[ { "role": "user", "content": "The Velvet Pus of Edgar Wallace" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "It’s strange, not recognizing yourself in the mirror,\r\nEdgar Wallace.\r\nWhen I was still, and young…\r\nPerhaps you too had such a friend, a friend you loved or wanted to be, a friend whom you [all] chastely-or-not desired.\r\nFor me—for us—this was Edgar Wallace.\r\nWe hanged ourselves upon his every word (what sweeter death?), swooned at his every gesture, and recited his words (how trite, how holy!) amongst ourselves when he had gone.\r\nPerhaps he sensed he was our idol.\r\nPerhaps not.\r\nThen the growth appeared: soft and bulbous and on the nape of his neck, as if someone had inserted an over-ripened peach beneath the skin.\r\nCancerous or benign?\r\nWe craved to touch it, to feel it with our greedy little fingertips.\r\nTo squeeze it.\r\nTo watch the velvet pus exude.\r\nPurple, it was; and green, and it smelled like dead rats and cut grass and sugar.\r\nI believe it was Maddie May who first tasted it:\r\nEdgar Wallace had gone to sleep and she pulled him by the shoulders so that his supple neck extended past the edge of the bed, then she got underneath him, and massaged his hideous growth—and squeezed it—so that the pus (ichor, if ever such existed!) dripped onto her face, her lips, and she licked it and ate it and suckled at the source.\r\nTom tried it next, then I.\r\nHow delicious was his rotting essence.\r\nWho would be sufficed with a single, lonely taste?\r\nHe wasted away even more dramatically after we began regularly to drain and consume him, all three contributing to the horrors performed by the disease itself, but we could not stop ourselves, and soon began to see changes in ourselves too: the litheness, the perfect paleness, the fine auburn hair, the freckles.\r\nAnd sometimes when we spoke to those who knew us best they acted as if we’d said nothing—as if we weren’t there.\r\nWhen Edgar Wallace died he was but a skeleton wrapped in a sheet of grey and fragile human skin, but it was not he who disappeared but we.\r\nThe final drops of pus we collected and cherished, dabbing them carefully on our bodies like an oil.\r\nThen we were no more. There no longer lived a Maddie May or a Tom or an I. We had vanished from our own lives and raised no suspicions doing so. It felt as light as if we had never existed. Instead, each of us was, and is,\r\n“Edgar Wallace,\r\nwhere did you go this afternoon?”\r\none of us might ask the other. For, you see, although we are three, there is only one Edgar Wallace.\r\nEdgar Wallace never died.\r\nWas I ill?\r\nI suppose I was, when I was still, and young, but I survived.\r\nEach of us sleeps eight hours per day, so that Edgar Wallace never sleeps.\r\nHe is always active, ever alert.\r\nThe life we’ve lived as he has been tremendously successful, and what have we truly lost: our own, insignificant selves?" } ]
[ { "role": "user", "content": "I Was an Inhabitant of Delight" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Moving to Delight was not easy. It was a small smart-community established in a peaceful river valley after the war, amidst the general decay of the fallen world around it, and its inhabitants took newcomers seriously, which is to say they mostly screened them out. Expansion was carefully controlled. Moving to Delight was therefore a process, beginning with a written application and ending with only a few applicants called in for an interview before the community’s entire adult population. One adult inhabitant, one vote; only those applicants with more than fifty-percent of the votes were accepted.\r\nMy family had seventy-four percent.\r\nThe house was beautiful, the lawn pristine and the entire community clean and safe. Even the microchipping process was pleasant. As was customary, everyone in Delight was assigned an inhabitance number. Mine was #78091.\r\nMuch like the admittance of new inhabitants, everything in the community was decided by majority vote. Taxation, construction, commerce, etc.\r\nIt functioned on a centralized server to which you logged in using your personal microchip.\r\nOnce online, anyone 18+ could create a plebiscite question or vote on any existing question: Yes / No\r\nMost of these questions went unresolved because they were of too narrow an interest and thus did not reach a requisite majority. However, there was no actual limit on what could be asked. And, once a question was asked, the vote itself determined if it was relevant.\r\nMy first experience of such a democratic way of doing things was when a man named Chambers fell dead in the street one day.\r\nMr. Chambers had been accused of doing something with one of the Merriweather girls. The facts weren't clear but when the fateful Yes vote was cast (“Should Edward K. Chambers die?”) he slumped instantly to the ground.\r\nNo judge, no sophistry, no wasteful spending.\r\nNo individual guilt.\r\nIndeed, no real concept of guilt at all—for it didn't matter what Mr. Chambers had (or hadn’t) done, merely whether most of us wanted him to die.\r\n(I only learned about the mechanics later: that, in addition to a microchip, every inhabitant of Delight had been fitted with a cyanide capsule.)\r\nIt was all open, laid out in the paperwork, theory and practice. And both evolved, of course—by majority decision—so that at some point all newcomers were also fitted with incapacitating (and other) chemical agents, to make them more compliant and amenable to what democracy required of them.\r\nThat's how I acquired my wife, for instance.\r\nI was a well-liked young man by then, with plenty of savings to disperse, and she was a newcomer.\r\n“Should Eleanor Smith marry Winston Barnes?”\r\nYes.\r\n“Should Eleanor Barnes bear her husband's child?”\r\nYes.\r\nOh, how beautiful she was. How wonderful were those days.\r\nOf course, Delight is no more now—destroyed, as it was, by the fascists, who, in their hearts, hate anything pure and democratic. So take this as my warning. Guard your democracy with your lives! Never let its magnificent light die out!" } ]
[ { "role": "user", "content": "One of us is awake." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Goodbye civilization. Hello, Canadian wilderness.\r\nI boarded the bus to camp with my book, only for it to be snatched from my grasp.\r\nFuck. I tried to sidestep him, to push past him. But already, he towered over me with a wide smile. I had tried so fucking hard to avoid him, sneaking on last.\r\nBut there he was.\r\nThe camp counselor, a smug-looking guy with dark blonde hair, sat next to me, waving my book.\r\n“The Horror at Camp Jellyjam,” he laughed. “Aren't you a little old for Goosebumps?”\r\n“No.” I reached for it, and he pulled it back. “Let me guess! They all die at the end? Wait, no, no, they're dead or in a time loop.”\r\nI didn’t speak. I couldn’t. If I did, I was going to puke.\r\nWhen the bus started moving, he shot me a sickly smile.\r\n“Sorry. They wouldn't let me be a counsellor this year if I wasn't an ass.”\r\nWhen I didn't respond, he held out his hand. “I'm Harvey! Icebreaker time. I’m eighteen and just got into Duke!”\r\n“Crystal,” I gritted out. “I’m not going to college.”\r\n“Wait, really?” He snorted. “Why?”\r\nI turned to the window, watching the trees blur past. The words were thick in my throat, tangled and wrong—\r\nOr not at all.\r\n\"I'm supposed to fall in love with you,\" I whispered when Harvey was nodding along to his walkman. \"Right here, right now, at this exact moment.\"\r\nI pressed my face against the cool window, stuffing my hands in my lap. I waited for it.\r\nFor Harvey to rest his head on mine, mumbling, Mind if I use you as a pillow?\r\nBut he didn’t move, eyes closed, vibing to the music.\r\nI held my breath. This wasn’t right.\r\n“Twenty,” Harvey murmured.\r\n“Nineteen.”\r\nSomething ice-cold crawled down my spine.\r\n\"Eighteen.\"\r\n\"Seventeen.\"\r\n\"Sixteen.\"\r\n“Stop,” I breathed.\r\nHe chuckled, leaning back. \"Why should I?\"\r\nHis eyes flickered open—hollow.\r\n“Fifteen,” he hummed.\r\n\"Fourteen.\"\r\n\"Thirteen.\"\r\n\"Twelve.\"\r\nI barely felt him grasp my hand, nails digging in.\r\n\"Eleven.\"\r\nI squeezed his fingers and joined in.\r\n\"Ten,\" I whispered.\r\nWe were supposed to fall in love. In some faraway reality, I'm sure we do.\r\nNine\r\nEight\r\nSeven.\r\nSix\r\nFive\r\nThe bus shuddered to a halt, and I flew forward.\r\nThe doors opened.\r\nFour\r\nThree\r\n\"Get on the fucking ground! Now!\"\r\nTwo\r\nScreams erupted around me, a loud bang sending me to my knees.\r\nThere was something wet slicking my cheeks, glueing my eyes shut.\r\nAll I could see was red.\r\nHeavy footsteps coming toward me, ice cold steel protruding into my forehead.\r\nOne.\r\nGoodbye, civilization. Hello, Canadian wilderness.\r\nI boarded the bus first, my book immediately torn from my grasp.\r\nI saw his face, hiding behind his hair, the agonizing curl in his lip.\r\nI wondered how many times he’d fallen in love with me before he woke up.\r\n\"The Horror at Camp Jellyjam!” Harvey laughed loudly, his voice breaking. “Aren't you a little old for Goosebumps?\"" } ]
[ { "role": "user", "content": "Theater of Wooden Dolls" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "The stories said that there was a mansion-sized theater, made entirely out of wood, located in the middle of the woods. It was said to have a large stage, full of wooden dolls seated as if they were an audience in a theater.\r\nThe theater couldn’t be reached by car, so my friends and I, who enjoyed exploring mysterious places, had to walk for a few hours to get there.\r\nThe second we reached the gate, we could see the name carved into it: Theater of Wooden Dolls.\r\nThe pathway from the gate to the theater was long and dark.\r\nThe only light we had came from our own flashlights.\r\nIt was so dark, we could barely see each other. Our primary way of knowing we were still together was the sound of our voices as we walked.\r\n“This place makes me feel like I want to run—” Jess muttered.\r\nBut his sentence ended in a weird way. It sounded like he was silenced before he could finish.\r\n“Jess? You there?” Eric called out.\r\nNo response.\r\n“Maybe he walked past us? It’s dark here,” Damon responded.\r\nWe decided to keep walking and look for Jess once we reached the theater.\r\n“Here we are,” I mumbled as we arrived at the front door.\r\nWe observed the cracked and ruined walls and floors of the theater as we entered. The ballroom was grand. We could see countless wooden dolls seated like an audience.\r\nAll the wooden dolls wore clothes. Some outfits looked like they were from the ’70s and ’80s. Others looked more recent.\r\n“These dolls are creepy,” Damon muttered from behind the line. “I agree with Jess. This place gives me the urge to run—”\r\nAgain, I heard his sentence end in a weird way. It sounded like Damon was silenced before he could finish.\r\nWe looked back.\r\nDamon was gone.\r\nClay, Eric, and I stared at each other.\r\nEric suddenly walked toward one of the dolls. He observed the clothing it wore closely.\r\n“Did this doll wear this outfit from the beginning?” he asked.\r\n“What do you mean?” I asked back.\r\nWhen I got closer, I saw it clearly. A black T-shirt with a big DAMON logo on it. Damon’s fashion brand. It was Damon’s T-shirt.\r\n“When I read about this place,” Clay said, “some said there’s a forbidden word to say. A spell that turns you into a wooden doll when you say it. But I didn’t take it seriously.”\r\n“What word?” Eric asked.\r\n“I wouldn’t try to say it, but it seems like the only word Jess and Damon said before they disappeared.”\r\nEric lifted his eyes, as if trying to remember.\r\n“Run?” Eric said.\r\nAnd POOF!\r\nEric vanished right before Clay’s and my eyes.\r\nSeconds later, we saw another wooden doll appear in a spot that had been empty. The doll wore the same outfit Eric had been wearing.\r\nClay and I stared at each other.\r\nWe couldn’t say the word.\r\nSo…\r\n\"Walk!\"" } ]
[ { "role": "user", "content": "Seed of Madness" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "I hated my life. During the week, I drove a truck to keep the lights on. On the weekends, I preached at the local church even though I didn’t believe in God anymore. I only ever started doing it because I promised my dying father I’d replace him.\r\nI would stand before the congregation during Sunday mass and look out at the sea of faces. I did the reading. I mingled with the crowd. I was numb to it, just going through the motions.\r\nMy only pleasure in life was nature. I had a favorite spot where I could look out over an untouched valley and see each tree playing its part in the grand spectacle of nature. It was the only time I felt peace.\r\nThen one day I noticed something. There was a small clearing on one of the hills, and in the middle of it was a birch tree with its distinctive white bark.\r\nAt first I ignored it. But the thought of that awkward lone tree wouldn’t go away. I stopped feeling peace when I stood on the hill.\r\nThen the birch appeared in my dreams. It was always in the distance, and it made me feel despair like I had never felt before.\r\nOne night I awoke to the sound of thunder and the dreadful feeling that the tree was still out there.\r\nI grabbed my axe and headed into the woods, barely a thought in my head except chopping down the tree. Fate led me right to the clearing. I swung like a madman at that tree. Splinters flew everywhere. Eventually it fell. Then I started to feel lightheaded. My vision went black and I, too, fell to the ground.\r\nI woke up in the hospital, handcuffed to the bed.\r\nI was visited by a detective who asked me what I remembered.\r\nI told him the story of the birch tree, how it taunted me from a distance until I lost control and cut it down.\r\n“We found you passed out on the floor in a pool of blood,” he said. “You murdered a young boy with an axe.”\r\n“That’s not possible,” I said. “I chopped down a tree.”\r\n“Tell that to the parents of the boy you killed. You broke into their house and hacked their son to pieces.”\r\nThen an image flashed across my mind. It wasn’t the forest. It was at the church. In the crowd of faces gathered in front of me, one stood out: the solemn face of an albino boy His skin and hair were bright white like the bark of the birch tree.\r\n“The albino boy…” I said.\r\nThe detective scoffed. “Oh now you remember.”\r\nI don’t know what madness took over my mind that night.\r\nI have a recurring dream where I’m sitting with my father alone in the church. He always says the same thing.\r\n“You forced God out of your heart, son, and you’ve left the door open for the devil to enter.”" } ]
[ { "role": "user", "content": "A Collection of Horrible Fates" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "The door slammed open. Rusty glanced up at the clock. 10:59. He watched in frustration as a well-dressed, middle-aged man strolled to the bar and flopped down. Rusty turned his attention back to the sticky counter he’d been scrubbing.\r\n“Hey, can I get a beer down here?” the man barked.\r\nRusty inhaled deeply before saying, “Be right there,” in the nicest voice he could muster. A moment later, he made his way down and placed an opened bottle in front of the man.\r\n“Dead in here, ain’t it?” the man said with a smirk. “’About like the rest of this town.”\r\nRusty made a crooked smile. “Could be because we just closed.”\r\n“Guess I made it just in time, then,” the man chuckled, sliding the empty bottle forward. “Another one.”\r\n“Be right back,” Rusty muttered. The man tapped impatiently on the counter as Rusty walked down the bar and turned out of sight. He returned moments later with two open bottles and placed one in front of his customer.\r\n“Ya know, it may seem like nothing happens in this town,” Rusty said, leaning on the counter, “but you wouldn’t believe the things I’ve seen. Things you city folk only read about in the paper.”\r\nThe man gave a skeptical squint while chugging his beer.\r\nRusty continued: “I used to have a customer come in here ’bout twice a week. Always complained about my slow service. Anyway, she was walking down Main Street one night and fell. Just a little stumble, but the bus was going too fast. Right under the tire. never had a chance. Whole thing happened right in front of me.”\r\nThe man snorted, unimpressed.\r\n“Then, couple months back, Tom was bringing his truck down Forest Road when the brakes went out. He went into a tree full speed. I knew Tom pretty well, too. Stiffed me on a tab one time. Swore he paid, but we both knew better.”\r\nThe man groaned and shifted in his seat, a look of discomfort now covering his face.\r\n“And just last week, my ex-wife Debbie slipped off the dock and hit her head. I happened to be fishing nearby, but she sank so fast…there was nothing I could do.”\r\nThe man, now purple-faced and panic-stricken, wheezed and groped feebly toward Rusty. Rusty leaned in, lowering his voice.\r\n“Funniest one was a stranger, though. Busted in one night a minute before closing, banging on my counter like he owned the place. Poor fella had a massive heart attack right there on the barstool, slumped over and died on the counter.”\r\nRusty slipped a small glass vial into his breast pocket before gently grabbing the now unconscious stranger and guiding him down to the counter.\r\nAfter a few minutes of silence, he grabbed the phone and dialed 911. “This is Rusty. Need an ambulance down here. Maybe even the coroner. Y’all ain’t gonna believe what just happened.”" } ]
[ { "role": "user", "content": "The Price of a Full Belly" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "The stench hit first—a mix of curdled milk, rancid meat, and something terribly revolting. Half-eaten meat, slick with decay, crawled with cockroaches and maggots. The insects scattered as the pile hit the soil. The castle gates swung closed with an iron clang. The attendants' faces revealed nothing—no pity, no revulsion.\r\nRavenous figures lunged, their sunken cheeks pulled tight, eyes bulging with hunger. Their parchment-like skin stretched over brittle bones; what little flesh they had dangled loose.\r\nSome had their stomachs inexplicably swollen, grotesquely round against their skeletons. Others dragged swollen, leaking limbs to their mouths, licking their fingers in delight.\r\nA small girl stood idle. Doe-eyed, hollow. She watched as the cacophony of munching and gagging swallowed the silence.\r\nBefore this, she had subsisted on stolen bread and, on fortunate days, a small rat—the bigger ones had been more of a challenge.\r\nShe couldn’t cross.\r\nNo one would give her an opening.\r\nAnd then, in the chaos, a piece of bone flew behind the crowd.\r\nShe lunged.\r\nIt was what remained of what must have been chicken. The flavor all ripped away by the insects which had the first bite.\r\nShe bit the bone with all her might; slimy, putrid greenish fluid flowed outwards. She almost gagged, but her debilitating starving stomach was the one giving the orders.\r\nAnd she slurped the fluid in.\r\nFrom a distance, the castle's lord watched.\r\nWeeks passed and the first signs of winter came. The malnourished men and women waited impatiently for the next leftovers, covered in rags in an attempt for warmth.\r\nThe girl sat at the front this time, standing her ground as the people clamored. The attendants came and poured the remnants of a feast in front of them.\r\nShe was thrown aside by the pushing.\r\nBut then.\r\nA morsel landed in front of her.\r\nIt bore no resemblance to the rotting heap of offal and grimy, rancid organic compost the attendants had poured.\r\nThe girl grabbed it. As she glanced above, she saw an attendant take a glimpse of her. She had no time to think, however, devouring it in seconds.\r\nThe next day, she found herself waiting at the gates. Except the crowd was nowhere to be found. The gates flung open and an attendant waited.\r\nShe was led through a hall, filled with hearths and chandeliers, most of all: real, fresh food.\r\nAt the center, lords and ladies reveled in wine and gorged themselves. The attendants stood watch, the girl instinctively followed their lead.\r\nWhen the feasting gradually ceased, the attendants wordlessly started to munch.\r\nAnd licked drops of wine.\r\nAnd sucked fresh marrow off the pork and beef.\r\nAn attendant flicked a hand over the girl.\r\nIt was an invitation.\r\nSoon, the starving crowd appeared, and so did the scraps.\r\nBut now she held the tray and the bucket.\r\nFar across the street, a boy in rags stared.\r\nThe lord and the attendants' eyes watched.\r\nHer hands hesitated.\r\nBut then—\r\nShe slammed the gate shut." } ]
[ { "role": "user", "content": "The sirens of area 51" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "The Sirens of Area 51\r\nThe Nevada desert is the last place you'd expect to find water. But deep beneath the infamous Area 51, in a classified research facility, there is a tank. A massive, pressurized saltwater chamber stretching nearly a hundred feet deep. And inside it… something watches.\r\nDr. Alan Mercer had spent the last eight months working in the facility, studying the creatures they had recovered from an unidentified submersible wreck in the Pacific. The official term was aquatic humanoid specimen, but between the scientists, they had another name: sirens.\r\nThey weren’t like the mermaids of fairy tales. Their eyes were too large, their limbs too elongated, their mouths filled with needle-like teeth that retracted when they closed them. They had translucent, pale-blue skin that shimmered under the artificial lights, and their webbed fingers twitched whenever someone got too close to the glass. The most disturbing thing? They never spoke, never made a sound—until the night the base lost power.\r\nIt started with a flicker. Then a low, rumbling hum as the emergency lights kicked in. Alan and the other researchers were in the observation chamber when the security alarms blared. The tank had cracked.\r\nA single fissure ran down the thick glass, water hissing as it leaked through. The sirens, who had remained eerily passive for months, suddenly became aware. Their black, pupil-less eyes swiveled toward the scientists. And then, for the first time, they sang.\r\nIt wasn’t a song of beauty. It was a vibration that crawled through the bones, a low, pulsing sound that made Alan’s vision blur. One by one, the other scientists collapsed, their eyes rolling back, their bodies twitching violently. Alan stumbled, clutching his head as the sound grew sharper, more invasive, like a drill boring into his skull.\r\nThen the glass exploded.\r\nWater rushed out, flooding the chamber, and Alan was thrown back against the steel wall. Through the haze of emergency sirens and flashing red lights, he saw them—moving with inhuman speed, crawling out of the wreckage on all fours like twisted, amphibious predators. Their mouths stretched open, revealing rows of retractable teeth.\r\nThe last thing Alan saw before the lights cut out completely was one of them standing over him, tilting its head as if studying him. Then, a sharp pain in his throat.\r\nAnd darkness.\r\nThe next morning, when the clean-up crew arrived, the facility was silent. The power had been restored, but there was no trace of the researchers. No bodies. No blood. The only thing left was a thin layer of saltwater coating the floor… and the open door leading to the desert beyond.\r\nThey never found the sirens. But sometimes, when the wind howls across the Nevada sands, locals swear they hear something else carried in the breeze.\r\nA song.\r\nA call.\r\nAnd those who listen too long—never return." } ]
[ { "role": "user", "content": "The Statue of Crete" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "DAY 1\r\n\"It’s older than anything we’ve found before.\"\r\nDr. Kearns knelt beside the partially unearthed figure, brushing away layers of dust and sand with careful strokes. The others stood back, their torches casting long, flickering shadows over the cavern walls. The air was dense, the kind that pressed against the skin, thick with something unsaid.\r\nEvans shifted uneasily. \"And yet, there are no records of it. No myths, no legends—nothing. A temple with no name, a statue with no history.\"\r\nLiu exhaled sharply, arms crossed. \"Plenty of things get lost to time.\"\r\nEvans shook his head. \"Not here. Not in Crete. This place—\" He hesitated. \"Everything here has a story.\"\r\nDAY 2\r\nThey worked in near silence, chipping carefully at the stone, exposing more of the statue. Its body was carved in impossibly smooth detail, the robe draped over it caught mid-motion, as if caught in wind. Its head, however, was… wrong.\r\nNo face, no features. Just an empty oval of stone.\r\n\"It should have something,\" Liu murmured. \"A face, a symbol—something.\"\r\nEvans frowned. \"It almost looks like they never finished it.\"\r\nKearns ran his fingers along the base, where an inscription had been worn nearly smooth. Only a few letters remained, carved deep enough to resist time.\r\n\"Μνημοσύνη”\r\nLiu squinted. \"Memory?\"\r\nKearns nodded, but his expression didn’t ease. \"More like… Remembrance.\"\r\nDAY 5\r\nThat night, the wind howled through the ruins.\r\nEvans sat awake in his tent, the word turning over in his mind. Remembrance. But remembrance of what?\r\nSomewhere outside, stone shifted.\r\nA deep, grinding sound.\r\nHe held his breath, listening.\r\nThe ruins were not silent.\r\nDAY 6\r\nBy morning, the entrance had changed.\r\n\"That wasn’t there yesterday.\"\r\nLiu stood at the threshold of a new passage, the stone freshly exposed as if something had moved in the night. It sloped downward, deeper than their initial scans had suggested the ruins went.\r\nHayes set his jaw. \"It’s just erosion.\"\r\nEvans’ hands curled into fists. \"That’s not how erosion works.\"\r\nKearns hesitated only a moment before stepping forward. \"We document it. We go in.\"\r\nTHE FINAL DAY\r\nThe passage was tight, pressing inward like the ribs of a beast. The air smelled of earth and something older, something that had been waiting.\r\nAt the end of the corridor, they found another statue.\r\nIt was identical to the first.\r\nSame robes, same faceless head. But this one… this one had something in its hand. A fragment of stone, worn and cracked, shaped like a human face.\r\nEvans exhaled shakily. \"Someone… broke it?\"\r\nLiu ran her fingers over the fractures. \"Or took it.\"\r\nKearns took a slow step back, something in his gut twisting. He turned toward the passage—\r\nAnd stopped.\r\nThe entrance they had come through was gone. The stone walls were smooth, unbroken.\r\nNo way in. No way out.\r\nThe torchlight flickered, and in the silence, the deep, grinding sound came again.\r\nLike something moving.\r\nLike something remembering." } ]
[ { "role": "user", "content": "The Consequences of Our Actions" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "-Gina. She’s not there\r\n-What?\r\n-She’s not there\r\n-You’re joking...\r\n-I'M NOT FUCKING JOKING GINA, SHE'S ACTUALLY NOT WHERE WE HID HER\r\n-Fuck my life, are you sure she’s not there???? Are you sure you’re not in the wrong spot???\r\n-YES, YES I AM\r\n-God damn it, god damn it all\r\n-Gina, what do we do?! What if someone found her?! What if someone told the police and they’re looking in it?! What's gonna happen to us if they find out about what we did?!\r\n-Kat, it was an ACCIDENT, we didn’t mean to hit her\r\n-BUT WE WERE DRUNK, THAT DOESN'T MAKE IT ANY BETTER,\r\n-Kat, calm down, you need just to get back to your car and drive away as fast as you can\r\n-OK\r\n…\r\n-Oh my god\r\n-What is it?\r\n-Someone’s standing near my car\r\n-Maybe it’s some hiker?\r\n-What fucking hiker strolls around at 2 in the goddamn morning???\r\n-Just trying to figure something out here, jesus\r\n-I’m gonna try to take a quick peek at what they look like\r\n-Be careful\r\n…\r\n-Oh my god\r\n-What??\r\n-Ohmygodohmygodohmyogdohmygod\r\n-Kat what the fuck is going on???\r\n-GINA IT'S HER\r\n-SHE DOESN'T EVEN HAVE ANY BLOOD ON HER\r\n-Holy shit…\r\n-Kat, you need to run\r\n-But what if she hears me?!\r\n-JUST RUN\r\n-STOP TYPING, AND RUN\r\n…\r\n-Kat? Are you there?\r\n-I think I did. I’m hiding right now\r\n-Gina, I’m scared\r\n-It’s gonna be okay, you need to wait until the coast is clear then get back to your car\r\n-Gina, I hear someone\r\n-It’s a female’s voice, and she’s calling my name like a goddamn nursery rhyme\r\n-Kat, don’t do anything, stay there\r\n-I hear footsteps, oh my god no…\r\n-Kat, DON'T\r\n-They’re coming closer to where I’m hiding\r\n-Kat stay quiet and don’t make any noise\r\n…\r\n-Kat?\r\n-GINA\r\n-GINA HELP ME PLEASE\r\n-I SAW HER FACE\r\n-SHE WAS SMILING AT ME AND SHE HAD SO MANY ROWS OF TEETH\r\n-GINA\r\n-HELP\r\n-HELP ME\r\n-HELP ME\r\n-HELP ME\r\n-HELP ME\r\n-HELP ME\r\n-HELP ME\r\n-HELP ME\r\n-HELP ME\r\n-HELP ME\r\n-HELP ME\r\n…\r\n-Kat?\r\n-Kat are you there??\r\n-Kat????\r\n-Hi :)\r\n-Kat?\r\n-Are you okay?\r\n-This isn’t Kat :)\r\n-Who the hell are you?\r\n-Isn't it obvious? :)\r\n-What did you do to her??\r\n-I just left her where you left me, buuuut I have to tell you she’s not gonna be responding anytime soon :)\r\n-You should have seen the look on her face! Crying like a baby when I caught up to her! She was practically groaning and making incoherent noises when I was done with her, ironic considering that’s how I was before you finished me for good Gina :)\r\n-Please, for the love of god spare me\r\n-It’s a little too late for me to change my mind about that :)\r\nGina has notifications silenced" } ]
[ { "role": "user", "content": "A New Side Of Me." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Alfie had jet-black emo bangs that hung down to his nostrils, hiding his eyes from the world.\r\nThat’s probably why I didn’t recognize him when Summer Camp started. My hair’s always been buzzed, so at first I didn’t notice that we shared the same face.\r\n“It’s uncanny,” Alfie said, turning my head back and forth, “if I cut my hair we’d look exactly alike.”\r\n“Exactly alike,” I emphasized.\r\n“Where’d you grow up again?”\r\n“In L.A. with my Dad. You?”\r\n“New York with my Mom.”\r\n“Who's your Dad?”\r\nI already knew what he would say next.\r\n“Never met him.”\r\n“Same,” I said, “but for my Mom.”\r\nAlfie and I spilled our guts for three hours after that. There were no secrets between us. He told me about Mom, how overprotective she was.\r\n“She only let me come here after I begged her for three months.”\r\nAlfie spent most of his time in his room listening to music and brooding.\r\n“Is Dad any better?” Alfie asked.\r\n“No, just different.”\r\nDad wasn’t overprotective. He wasn’t anything at all. He went to work, came home, sat on his chair and cracked a beer. He’d stay there until he passed out, or ran out of beer, whichever happened first.\r\n“He’s raised me for fifteen years and I honestly know nothing about him.”\r\n“You know he likes beer.”\r\n“I don’t think that counts.”\r\n“I know too much about Mom. She talks my damn ears off. How her period makes her bloated, the way her bus driver smells like oysters, everything.”\r\n“I don’t think Dad’s said five words to me other than ‘fetch me a beer.’”\r\nWe both laughed, perfectly in sync.\r\nWe even had the same laugh.\r\nThis was all conjecture, of course, I mean we had no definitive proof—\r\n“Can I ask you something?” Alfie got quiet.\r\n“Yeah.”\r\n“Do you have a scar?”\r\nI swallowed hard, trying not to choke on my own spit.\r\nI slowly lifted up my t-shirt and turned. On my right side, from my armpit to my hip, was a long, pronounced scar.\r\n“Like that?” I asked.\r\n“Jesus Christ, ” Alfie removed his shirt and turned.\r\nHe had a scar, but it was on his left.\r\nWe stood next to each other, pressing our sides together, and the scars lined up perfectly.\r\n“Oh God,” I muttered, and Alfie started to cry.\r\n“My whole life,” he sobbed, “my whole fucking life I’ve felt like a piece of me was missing, and now I know why!”\r\nI consoled him as best I could, but it was getting late. Lights out was soon, and we had to go back to our bunks. I promised Alfie we would talk in the morning and figure this all out.\r\nI didn’t have to wait. I woke up with Alfie kneeling over my chest. I tried to get up, but I was paralyzed.\r\n“Don’t worry,” Alfie whispered, “I’m gonna make us whole.”\r\nHe had a marinating needle in one hand, a spool of fishing wire in the other." } ]
[ { "role": "user", "content": "I Found a picture of myself" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Okay, so this just happened, and I genuinely feel like I’m losing my mind.\r\nI was lying in bed, just scrolling through my phone like usual, when I noticed a photo in my gallery that I definitely didn’t take. It was a picture of me. Asleep.\r\nAt first, I thought maybe I rolled over on my phone and somehow took it by accident. But then I looked at the angle—it was taken from the corner of my room, up near the ceiling.\r\nI live alone. My door was locked. My windows were shut. No one else was here.\r\nI checked the time stamp. 3:47 AM.\r\nI don’t remember waking up last night. But now I’m too afraid to fall asleep. Not when my closet door is slightly open. Not when I keep feeling like someone is still watching me." } ]
[ { "role": "user", "content": "Fear of What’s to Come" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "The announcement came at exactly 3:17 PM.\r\nThe voice on the emergency broadcast system was calm, rehearsed. “At this time, we advise all citizens to return to their homes. There is no cause for panic.”\r\nNo cause for panic.\r\nWithin an hour, the streets were abandoned. Not by force, not by military order—just an unspoken understanding. The city held its breath.\r\nClaire locked her apartment door. She had no idea what was coming, only that it was. And that was enough.\r\nShe sat on the couch, hands trembling, phone buzzing with texts she didn’t answer. Some people joked. Others confessed. A few simply said, Goodbye.\r\nOn the television, a news anchor repeated the same lines, his smile stretched thin. “Officials have assured the public that all precautions are being taken. The best course of action is to remain indoors. Remain calm.”\r\nShe muted the screen.\r\nA new kind of silence settled. Not the normal hum of a city at rest—no distant sirens, no traffic, no murmured conversations through walls. Just nothing.\r\nShe pressed her forehead against the cool glass of her window. Below, the city stood still. Curtains twitched. Lights flickered on and off. People waiting. Watching.\r\nThen came the first one.\r\nA scream, raw and gasping, erupted somewhere down the street. Not the sound of pain—something worse. A sound of knowing.\r\nClaire’s hands clenched. She felt her pulse hammer against her ribs, a rapid, caged thing.\r\nMinutes passed. Another scream, closer. Someone else understanding.\r\nHer chest tightened. She didn’t want to know.\r\nA man bolted into the street, barefoot, wild-eyed. He spun in circles, clawing at his own arms, mouth working soundlessly. Then his head snapped up. He looked toward her window, toward Claire.\r\nShe stumbled back.\r\nThe phone rang. She almost didn’t answer.\r\n“Mom?” Her brother’s voice, small, shaking. “Do you—do you feel it?”\r\nClaire swallowed. “Feel what?”\r\nHe exhaled, a ragged, broken thing. “It’s—”\r\nA pause.\r\nThen: “I think I understand.”\r\nThe call cut out.\r\nHer hands spasmed, the phone slipping from her fingers. A high-pitched whimper clawed at her throat.\r\nAnother scream, closer now.\r\nClaire squeezed her eyes shut. She didn’t want to know. Didn’t want to understand.\r\nShe pressed her palms against her ears, blocking the rising wail of voices outside. But she couldn’t block the pressure building in her chest, the heavy, suffocating weight of realization inching toward her mind like something slithering under her skin.\r\nA whisper formed at the back of her skull, an awful, perfect clarity just out of reach.\r\nThe fear was worse than the thing itself.\r\nAnd it was coming.\r\nHer breath hitched.\r\nAnd then—\r\nShe knew." } ]
[ { "role": "user", "content": "In a Cup of Tea" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "“The spirits show me many things,” she said, stirring her tea clockwise. It was a quiet summer afternoon, skies low and endless, blue and hazy, like something out of a dream. The young man lay across from her, presently unable to move nor speak. He had been summoned to a meeting with the respected Madame Zenobia, at the time not understanding why—but the moment the poison began to work its course, the consequences of his actions became clear. She paused for a moment, eyes watching the swirling reflections in the surface of the tea as she turned the dark liquid in its porcelain cup. It was a delicate thing, painted white and gold. It had been a gift from her daughter.\r\n“Tell me why you did it.”\r\nShe wasn’t speaking to him, or at least not directly—he remained frozen to the spot, staring on in silence. She inhaled once, deeply. Then she closed her eyes, turning the cup in her hands. After three turns, she opened them again and cast her gaze into its depth. “Skull and crossbones,” she said, sighed, and sat the cup aside on the table before her. “As I suspected. You’ve lived the life of a selfish man, haven’t you?”\r\nHe was incapacitated, and thus said nothing in response.\r\n“No reason to worry now, though.” She leaned over, glancing briefly into the half-empty cup which sat on the table before him. “I see only the scales of justice in your tea.”\r\nHe wanted to tell her he was sorry for what he’d done, but there was no point in trying to fix things now. The poison flowed through his veins with ease.\r\n“The girl you killed. You thought you got away with it, didn’t you? She told me what you did. She was my daughter.” She glanced around the room once, wistfully. “The poison I gave you takes a long time to kill. It does induce paralysis, though. This was her room, you know? And she’s still here.”\r\nOut of the corner of his eye, he saw a flicker of movement. A dark shape, rising against the window, blocking out the sunlight. A jolt of horror ran through him at the realization, but try as he might, he couldn’t move, couldn’t scream, couldn’t beg for mercy.\r\nThe figure, shifting, bloodied, and indistinct, drew ever closer.\r\n“Do as you will, darling,” Madame Zenobia said. She rose from her seat at the table, sliding the door to her daughter’s room shut behind her, and smiled into her cup of tea." } ]
[ { "role": "user", "content": "The Final Entry of History" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "I fear I have wrought calamity upon my life— upon this world.\r\nIt started as an unassuming, piece of parchment, rolled and caked with dust; stamped with an insignia long forgotten by history, written in an old language I had knowledge of. A relic of no superficial significance for anyone save for me. It was waiting for me— for it to be found, until in my folly I unearthed it.\r\nIt was the name.\r\nThe document revealed the words of a man detailing— not a man, an animal nor a beast, but something outside of the imagination of humanity, something that sits between the spaces of theirs and our reality. The author's words seemed to weep, his words thick not with insanity, but of dread and despair. The words ended abruptly, without signature, only leaving a meek warning to \"turn away\".\r\nI was exhilarated, evidence of what I thought was medieval folklore was in my hands and set my eyes on publishing it— the accolades, the deanship, it was all mine.\r\nIt was a mere article at first, buried beneath articles on a local newspaper, a curiosity for those who cared enough to look. But it spread, its ink like roots seeking soil. Discussions emerged, local scholars conversed with me enthusiastically, folklorists scrutinized my work; looking for long forgotten traces. In their pursuit, for the more they studied its roots, the more traces they found where nothing should have been found.\r\nOil paintings already on display showed their grotesque, unearthly facade. Historical textbooks I have known like the back of my hand described the entities in enormous details, details that weren't there before. Records of extensive history of the entities, tracing back to even beyond the\r\nparchment's approximate date appeared.\r\nSoon, the scholars ceased discussions— soon shuddering accounts of people who claim memories of things that could not have happened emerged— first a past earthquake, then a destructive flood, then a war.\r\nChildren remembered prayers and songs to beings utterly vast and ever-watching; a fear of things that if pressed, none could describe.\r\nFor all my life I swore an oath of discovery, set on the belief that knowledge is the torch that enlightens mankind. But this is no torch— this is a wildfire.\r\n...and I have struck the match.\r\nThe streets murmur with prayers for them. Those in the diminishing minority of non-believers rose up in arms, setting distant cities ablaze. The faithful kneel in reverence, weaving a terrifying hymn, a hymn older than reality. Above it all, the church bells toll— not for a mass, but for something else, something older, something ancient waiting to be awoken, to be remembered.\r\nThe ink now runs faster than my hands could move, the walls of my room shift when I dare stop. If they wanted me to write, I shall take up on their challenge, these blasted creatures.\r\nFor history demands its cycle— I must write.\r\nFor the world to be set right— I must write." } ]
[ { "role": "user", "content": "Bridge of Death" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Snow drifted lazily through the air, soft and weightless, catching the glow of the streetlights. A handful of children chased each other along the bridge, their laughter ringing out over the silent city. A young couple stood near the railing, their breath misting in the cool April air. The husband had his arms wrapped around his wife’s belly, their unborn child nestled between them.\r\n“We’re lucky,” he murmured against her ear.\r\nShe smiled, resting a hand over his. “We are.”\r\nFrom here, the skyline stretched before them, the heart of Pripyat glowing against the night. But all eyes were on the plant. Reactor 4 was burning.\r\nThe fire shimmered in the distance, eerie and unnatural. Some whispered about an explosion. Others reassured one another: it was nothing, just a fire. The workers had it under control. The air smelled sharp, metallic.\r\nAsh clung to their coats, settled in their hair.\r\nThe husband kissed his wife’s temple. “Let’s go home.”\r\nA child sneezed, wiping soot from his nose. Another laughed, catching flakes on her tongue.\r\nIt was not snow.\r\nIt never was." } ]
[ { "role": "user", "content": "The faith of the starving" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "“We foretold that the faithless would be struck with famine” said the priest in front of the church of light. Dressed in the most extravagant of attires, this old man subtly smiled before a crowd of hopeless skeletons clothed in ragged rugs flailing in the winter winds.\r\n“But fear no more. For the goddess is merciful.” He continued, “announce your faith, surrender to her warm light and you shall be embraced.” He looked at the crowd, their hunger-driven dullness only broken by shivers. He continued, “I know you’re suffering. I am too, for I cannot sleep at night, too worried for the children of light to close my eyes. But be of faith, and a loaf of bread can feed a village.”\r\nThe old man continued his sermon, unfazed by those fainting, falling like scarecrows, thin and soundless. Cries emanated from the crowd, calling for loved ones to stay awake. The priest raised his well-fed voice as if in a state of ecstasy until the sermon was adjourned to meet the mayor.\r\nThe mayor of the town, being a fearful status climber, complemented the priest for his sermon. The priest, recognizing it as one of the aristocratic plays, complimented the mayor for his faith. And thanked him for his consequential support in establishing the church. The mayor waved it as merely following the imperial order. The priest smiled back, and asked how the mayor felt about the church’s actions to strengthen the people’s faith.\r\n“You mean… it was you?” mayor started then looked around, then looked at the priest who nodded back, “you were sacrificing our livestock!” Replied the mayor.\r\n“Don’t play the fool, not a mouse can stir in this town without your knowledge.” Replied the priest, his eyes narrowing, wrinkles of age showing above the wrinkles of a wicked grin.\r\nThe mayor, caught between his ambitions and a dying guilt, lowered his head and fumbled incomprehensible words. The priest stepped forward, his chest almost embracing the mayor. Shame drowned the mayor. He didn’t know what to say. Even a river of ink would not suffice to describe his shame. He felt like a child confronted by his father, as the priest stood towering over him. But he reminded himself of his ambitions. And remembered his father’s words, that victory justifies all.\r\nEmboldened by this memory, he lifted his head to stare at the priest, only for his world to drop beneath his feet. For the priest wore a face as if crafted by a demon. As if all the sins of nature were dancing on it. As if the construction of his mind conjured a fantasy gravid with sceneries that would make the devil orgasm.\r\nThe priest, sensing the mayor shaking, returned to his mask of sanity and put his hands on the mayor’s shoulders.\r\n“Worry not O faithful one, for the goddess of light will not cast judgment upon the dark corners of your house. For sacrifice is the eternal price of peace.”" } ]
[ { "role": "user", "content": "I’m running out of rocks" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "On my eighth birthday, across my yard, I spotted an egg. Silver by distance, it was a shiny little roulette of colors at certain angles. I plopped, I stretched my legs.\r\n“This is not fair,” I said and shrugged and hung my head. A distant sprinkler’s drops reached my scalp.\r\n“I’m not entirely sure how long a month is. How many days- it’s so scary. Mommy says I need be a big boy. But I still want to cry, though. How can someone who’s not a bad kid- just die?”\r\n“You do not wish to die?”\r\nI flinched. The voice was light, lilting. I cleaned up my eyes and gleemed about. A septic tank’s caretakers didn’t seem to mind the smell.\r\n“If you wish to never die, crack this shell open.”\r\n“I- Mr. Chick, I don’t want you to die either.”\r\nThe voice didn’t continue.\r\n“Okay. Mr. Chick,” I said, “I’ll bring you home. And have you with Ramen.”\r\nCopy to BlackBox\r\nThat was the lifetime of the universe ago.\r\nHumans went extinct around 8500 ad. We never found aliens. Bummer. I know. We got signals from other planets, from one almost a galaxy away, in- 7600 something, but we could never reach them. Space is just too big. Earth is cold, now. There’s very few animals left. Most that haven’t died out are weak, leper like, from lack of nutrition. The irony is how aggressive they are. I’ve been bitten, ambushed by many. I landed in stomach acid once- ah. Well. The earth has been breaking apart for the last three hours or so. As usual, I feel the sharp rocks I keep in my pocket, I feel them sliding on through to the back of my skull. I pull them out. A minute passes, and I once again see the ocean I’ve been floating in for the last half hour. It’s disappearing, evaporating, allowing canyons and whales to rise into the air. So I guess I’ll land in a huge field of rock? I’d guess it’s a black hole out there. Massive, indescribably huge sizes of land are spinning about out there in the growing dark- plus tree trunks, building halves, leper animals, most around me now, many drowning. Escaping as light joins. Yep. Our sun is almost dead. I assume it’s getting cold. I couldn’t tell you.\r\nI hate when my eyes reappear. Let me try again. Where’s my sharpest rock? I stopped feeling pain that day, too. So after I stab through them that morning or that whenever, I have to feel around for them.\r\nNow, as I see it getting darker, and more and more of our once solar system is vanishing into the blackness, it’s still as useless as ever to bite my tongue. What’s freaking me out right now, though, more than anything?\r\nSoon I’ll run out of rocks." } ]
[ { "role": "user", "content": "The Last Journey of Train 489" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "[22:05] Train 489 to Westwood: Good evening, passengers. This is your conductor speaking. Welcome aboard Train 489, with service to Westwood. Our estimated time of arrival is 00:15. Sit back, relax, and enjoy the ride.\r\n[22:20] Train 489: We are now approaching Bushwick Stop. For those departing, please gather your belongings. Remember to mind the gap as you exit the train.\r\n[22:35] Train 489: Please excuse a brief hold at the next signal; we expect to be moving shortly. Thank you for your patience.\r\n[22:50] Train 489: Passengers, we have reports of a large obstruction near the tracks ahead. We are slowing down as a precaution. Please remain in your seats.\r\n[23:00] Train 489: We've stopped temporarily due to a significant obstruction on the tracks. It seems to be... an unusual large mass. We are investigating. Please stay calm and remain in your seats.\r\n[23:10] Train 489: Update: The obstruction has moved. Yes, it moved on its own. We are trying to establish what it is. Please remain inside and keep away from the windows.\r\n[23:15] Train 489: Attention, please! Do not open the doors under any circumstances. We have sighted what appears to be... some kind of animal outside. It’s unlike anything we're familiar with. Authorities have been alerted.\r\n[23:20] Train 489: [Sounds of shouting in the background] Uh, passengers, please stay calm! The creature is moving towards the front of the train. It's large and... it seems aggressive. Stay in your seats, keep quiet, and avoid the windows!\r\n[23:30] Train 489: [Voice shaking] The creature is attacking the train. The front carriage has sustained damage. Evacuate to the rear carriages immediately! Move quickly and quietly—leave your belongings!\r\n[23:40] Train 489: [Panic evident in the conductor’s voice] We are trying to contact emergency services, but our systems are down! Passengers in the last carriage, detach from the rest of the train if you can. Instructions are in the manual panel beside the rear door!\r\n[23:45] Train 489: [Heavy breathing, sounds of crashing] To those still on board, barricade yourselves in! Use anything you can. Do not make noise. We are doing everything we can to—\r\n[23:50] Train 489: [Another voice, terrified] The conductor... he’s... he’s gone! Everyone, please, stay hidden. Help is on the way. Keep quiet, and don't draw attention to yourself.\r\n[23:55] Train 489: [Whispers, urgent] The creature is still outside. We can hear it moving around. Anyone who can hear this, please, stay out of sight. It's drawn to noise and movement.\r\n[00:05] Train 489: [Quiet, strained voice] This might be our last transmission. To everyone still with us, hold on. Authorities are nearby. Do not try to fight. Survive until help arrives.\r\n[00:15] Train 489: [Silence]\r\n[00:30] Emergency Broadcast: This is the regional emergency service. We have received reports of an incident involving Train 489. Rescue operations are underway. For your safety, avoid the area near the Westwood line. More information will follow.\r\nEnd of Transmission" } ]
[ { "role": "user", "content": "One of Us Murdered the Doctor" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "So much blood, for such a small man.\r\nThe room is too bright.\r\nEveryone else is too calm.\r\n“I need to clean up,” the housekeeper says fretfully.\r\nOne of the other guests grabs her arm.\r\n“Gina, Dr. Black is dead,” he says. “We need to call the police.”\r\nI don’t trust him.\r\nNo one with eyes that green is trustworthy.\r\n“Everyone out of the room,” says the man in the military uniform. On each of his shoulders glitters an insignia of a crown and two stars in gold.\r\nWe pile out of the stairwell into the study. Someone gasps.\r\nThe professor, absurd in his plum-colored suit, is sitting on the couch, obliviously thumbing through a book.\r\nThe expensive rug at his feet is soaked with congealed blood.\r\nI didn’t think there could be more blood.\r\nI hear a thud and a click behind us. Gina runs to the stairwell door and pulls at it, fruitlessly.\r\nSomeone has locked us out.\r\nI scream, and I run.\r\nA woman in a feathered hat runs after me.\r\nI don’t know if she is fleeing with me or chasing me down, until she pulls me into the kitchen.\r\n“Miss–Scarlett, right?” she says. “You need to see this.”\r\nShe points at the knife rack.\r\nThe largest chef’s knife is missing.\r\n“We’re all going to die,” I whisper.\r\n“We won’t!” the woman says forcefully. “Come with me.”\r\nShe moves to the floor-to-ceiling shelves of spices and starts knocking them onto the floor.\r\nThe shattering glass is like discordant music.\r\n“Help me!” she says.\r\nI grab armfuls of rosemary, cumin, and paprika and throw them across the room.\r\nThe shelves are clear.\r\nShe tugs on the middle one, and the entire wall swings toward us, revealing a cobweb-draped passageway.\r\n“We’ll hide in here,” she says, stepping through.\r\nAfter a heartbeat of hesitation, I follow her.\r\nThe wall creaks back into place, and we are swallowed by the dark.\r\nOur footsteps are loud as we stumble along blindly.\r\nI knew I shouldn’t have worn the stilettos.\r\nWe hear voices.\r\n“Professor, I must ask, what were you doing in the study?”\r\nThe green-eyed man is speaking.\r\nI can’t stand it any longer.\r\nI ram my shoulder into the wall, and it gives way, spilling me into the study.\r\n“It’s you!” I shriek, pointing at him. “You slit the doctor’s throat, right here!”\r\nEveryone is staring at me.\r\nThe man begins to laugh.\r\n“Oh, very good!” he says. “Indeed, it was I, Mr. Green, in the study, with the knife!”\r\nBile rises in my throat.\r\nWhy does that sound so familiar?\r\nBefore I can follow the thought, it is snatched from my grasp, as the world blurs and spins around me.\r\nWe are milling in the stairwell, chatting and nibbling on appetizers.\r\nSuddenly, our host, Dr. Black, collapses.\r\nBlood gushes from an invisible wound.\r\nHe is dead before my plate of cocktail shrimp hits the floor.\r\nSo much blood, for such a small man." } ]
[ { "role": "user", "content": "The Curse of Infant Immortality" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "My wife was nervous the entire pregnancy.\r\n“Somethings wrong with him,” she would say. “I can feel it.”\r\nIt didn’t matter that I took her to all the best doctors. All her check ups came back clean. Everyone assured us that both she and the baby were in perfect health.\r\n“No,” she would scaredly tell me, “something isn’t right.”\r\nThe day they put my son in my arms was the last day I ever saw my wife. She didn’t survive the birth.\r\nI knew it from the moment I looked into my son’s eyes. Something was wrong: he was a killer. I can’t explain how it works. Only tell you what has happened, and what I was gonna do.\r\nIt started with the babysitter. Brenda was sweet, the daughter of a friend from work who needed money while away from college. I came home and she had choked on some Werther's Originals I’d left as a treat.\r\nMy son was there, silent as ever. He never cried. Not once since he was born. Just smiled.\r\nThe babysitter’s death was chalked up as a tragic accident. People choke, it happens. That’s what I told myself.\r\nBut with few options, I asked my parents to help watch him while I worked. Just until I could figure something more permanent out. They were happy to finally meet their grandson.\r\nI was terrified throughout the workday. I couldn’t get out fast enough.\r\nThe coroner said it was heart attacks. Can you believe that? Both parents having a heart attack at the same time, both dead before they could call an ambulance?\r\nMy son was in the room with them, just like the babysitter. Smiling.\r\nThat was when I knew. Call it a curse, call it whatever you like. Everyone around my son died.\r\nI knew I had to take matters into my own hands.\r\nI won’t begin to explain how easy it is to acquire a gun in my state. It didn’t need to be big.\r\nI locked all the doors. Then, to be sure, barricaded them.\r\nI entered the nursery and looked at my son, quiet as ever. He just looked up at me and cooed.\r\nIt’s not what you think.\r\nThe gun’s not for him.\r\nI already tried.\r\nI held a pillow over my son's face until my shoulders shook. Filled the bath up and pushed him under the water ‘til my hands were pruned. Tried stabbing. Poisoning the formula.\r\nMy son can’t die. He can only smile.\r\nOnly one way to be rid of him.\r\nThe gun is for me." } ]
[ { "role": "user", "content": "Thirty Years of Loneliness" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "At ten years old, Roger learned why you’re not supposed to run with scissors and it only cost him his right eye.\r\nHis mother made him a festive red and blue eye patch (his school’s colors) which his classmates immediately made fun of. He was dubbed Jolly Roger. He took the eye patch off to avoid name calling, which made things worse. All the girls ewww-ed and grooossssss-ed at him, begging the teacher to make him put it back on.\r\nBy third period, Roger was hiding in the bathroom stall; doing his best to cry quietly in the hopes of not being discovered. But I did discover him. As I unfortunately can’t leave the bathroom.\r\nWhen he saw me he softly screamed before covering his mouth with both hands. “Get out! I’m shitting!” he lied. Then it dawned on him. “How come you’re all transparent?”\r\nHe covered his one good eye with his hand, and said, “There you are. Wait a second, are you a ghost?!”\r\nI said yes but he couldn’t hear me.\r\nHe got out a notebook and wrote out the alphabet. I pointed at the letters and he wrote my message.\r\n“Murdered. Thirty years ago. Stuck here. Help me.”\r\n“Whoa! How can I help?”\r\n“Solve my murder. Bring me peace.”\r\nI suggested what he should do, making sure to leave out as many details as possible.\r\nRoger hid in the bathroom the rest of the school day and into the night. He had lied to his parents about a sleepover.\r\nIt was most important that he be in the bathroom at exactly nine at night.\r\nThat’s when the janitor cleaned this bathroom. Always, obsessively on schedule. The same way he’d been doing it for thirty years. The same janitor who killed me.\r\nRoger believed he was supposed to figure out the janitor’s name. After thirty years, I’d told him, my memory was fading (it wasn’t). After which he would escape and go to the police.\r\nJanitor Bigsby always checked the stalls. When he found Roger he said the same thing as when he found me, “Filthy disgusting child!”\r\nHe drowned him, same as me, in the toilet. Folded his lifeless body up like laundry and put it in his janitor cart to dispose of elsewhere.\r\nRoger’s spirit floated up and he spoke to me. “I don’t feel so good. I think I need to go to the hospital.”\r\n“Roger?”\r\n“I can hear you. Wait…why can I hear you?”\r\nHe can hear me. Thank god.\r\nNow was a delicate moment. I had just got him murdered and it was important that he saw me as a friend.\r\nI lied. I told him it was all temporary. His parent’s would find him in the morning and it would all get fixed. There was a chance he’d make it. Maybe he’d live!\r\nHe still cried.\r\nIt didn’t matter. He would have years to get over it.\r\nI finally had some company." } ]
[ { "role": "user", "content": "I Met The Angel of Death" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "The countryside roads curled like snakes through the dark, the sat nav’s voice our only guide. My sister, Ella, gripped the wheel, muttering about the detour, about how we should have arrived hours ago if not for the damn car trouble.\r\nA weekend spa retreat for Ella’s birthday, a rare chance to escape work, stress, life.\r\nWe couldn’t miss it. Then, the turn came, and we did.\r\n“Shit!” Ella cursed, yanking the wheel, but the tires skidded, black ice betraying us.\r\nTime fractured. The world tilted sideways, headlights slicing through the night. The scream of metal.\r\nImpact.\r\nDarkness.\r\nI must have flown from the car. Shock numbed me as I took a step forward, dazed.\r\nThen I saw Ella.\r\nShe was still in the driver’s seat, pinned, bloodied, her chest rising and falling in ragged breaths. A branch jutted from her side, dark liquid pooling beneath her. Her lips formed my name, her voice strangled.\r\n“Help,” she whimpered.\r\nPanic seized me.\r\n\"Help!... someone... I need help!\"\r\nAnd then—he arrived. Stepping from the shadows, black wings folding behind him. His face, pale and flawless, seemed untouched by time, his gaze deep as the void between stars.\r\nIn his hands, a scythe—its blade thin as moonlight.\r\nDeath\r\n“No,” I breathed, stepping between him and Ella. “Please, don’t take her. She’s alive. She just needs help.”\r\nHis eyes met mine.\r\n\"You stand at the edge of the veil, yet you do not see. Open your eyes, child of dust—behold what is already written.\"\r\nHe lifted a hand and pointed.\r\n“No,” I insisted. “Not her.”\r\n\"You grasp at echoes, but the thread has already been cut. Turn—witness the truth.\"\r\nI followed his gesture and saw the wreck. The passenger side, crushed like paper. The shattered glass. A limp figure slumped inside.\r\nA lifeless reflection staring back at me.\r\nMy knees buckled.\r\nI was outside my body.\r\nI was—dead.\r\n“No,” I whispered, reaching for my lifeless hand, but my fingers passed through, touching nothing. “No, no, no, I—”\r\nMemories flickered like dying embers. The impact, the crushing weight, the sharp snap of bone. I hadn’t crawled out. I hadn’t escaped.\r\nI never made it out.\r\nA sob wrenched from my throat. \"My sister—\"\r\n\"Will live.\" His voice was softer now. Absolute.\r\n\"I don’t want to go.\"\r\nFor the first time, something like sorrow flickered in his endless eyes.\r\n\"No one ever does.\"\r\nI turned, one last time, watching as my sister clung to life, her bloodied fingers grasping at the air, her voice raw with desperation.\r\nSirens wailed, distant as a fading dream.\r\nTears blurred my vision as I turned back to him.\r\n\"Will it hurt?\"\r\n\"No—take my hand.\"\r\nI hesitated.\r\nThe air around me thinned. A warmth bloomed in my chest, spreading like light breaking through the cracks of a dying world. The night softened, edges dissolving, colors bleeding into silver mist.\r\nThen, slowly, I reached out.\r\nThe moment our fingers touched, warmth and light swallowed me whole.\r\nAnd I fell into eternity." } ]
[ { "role": "user", "content": "I'm so sick of being born." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "There are two types of fucked you can be at eighteen: fucked and really fucked.\r\nThanks to my birth exam, I was categorized as really fucked.\r\nThe official name was Doner.\r\nApparently, living six different mothers, fathers, siblings, lives made me less compliant. More likely to fight back.\r\nI had two and a half minutes to kill myself.\r\nI’d calculated every step—how long before Mom realized I wasn’t tied to the living room couch.\r\nBut what she didn’t expect was for her 18 year-old son to throw himself out of the window.\r\nI’d already been through this kind of thing in my past lives.\r\nWhen I was Freddie, I shot myself.\r\nWhen I was Madalyn, I drowned myself in the bath.\r\nFlinging myself from mom's apartment wasn’t a big deal.\r\nBalanced on the ledge, the late afternoon sun grazing my face, I silently condemned every freak who voted that I wasn’t a human being but God’s child—and as God’s child, I would live eternally.\r\nBecause every life mattered.\r\nI laughed. Maybe too loud.\r\nMom threw herself through my door, her expression thunderous. She grabbed me by the scruff and yanked me back.\r\nEvery child's life mattered…\r\nUntil... I was no longer a child.\r\nThen, as GOD'S CHILD, I’d be “delivered back to heaven.”\r\nThe “Fucked” were the lucky ones:\r\nReborn into wealth, and the chance to become adults.\r\nThe really fucked…?\r\nI didn’t realize I was screaming until my own childish wail slammed into my skull.\r\nMy recipient sat on the downstairs sofa, a cigarette dangling from his lips.\r\n“JJ.” Mom’s voice flew up in octaves, feverishly tying my hands down when I tried to bite her.\r\n“Sweetie, this is your recipient! Say hello!”\r\nShe gestured to the old man. “Thomas has stage four pancreatic cancer, and you're going to help him!”\r\nMom bent to pretend to kiss my forehead, spitting in my ear.\r\n“Do not fuck this up for me, brat.”\r\nThe old man met my gaze. “If it makes you feel better, kid, I don't want this either.” He scoffed. “God's children.”\r\nHis lips curled at my mother. “Your words are barbaric. Your beliefs are laughable. If I had a choice, I’d be demanding you as a donor, Ma’am.”\r\nMom looked startled. Then she smiled.\r\n“As a daughter of God, I know what's best for my son.”\r\nThe old man laughed, wobbling out the door.\r\nThat night, I was delivered to the severing bay, which used to be a hospital.\r\nI breathed my last breath as JJ Marlow under a clinical white light, scarlet-covered gloves hovering over me.\r\nDying felt good, even if it was brief.\r\nAs God's child, I would always be born.\r\nNo matter what.\r\nLight hits me.\r\nMy new mother holds me.\r\nShe’s tied down by her ankles, her sheets stained crimson.\r\nAll of my other mother’s thanked God and prayed, barely holding me.\r\nBut my new mother cradles me in her arms. She's smiling.\r\nHer eyes are fierce. Hollow.\r\n“They're not having you.”" } ]
[ { "role": "user", "content": "Doors of Different Realities" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "I’ve never known a stable reality. Since childhood, subtle shifts have haunted me: a favorite toy changing color, items around the house mysteriously appearing or disappearing, and my father’s job fluctuating without explanation.\r\nI attributed these oddities to a faulty memory, but deep down, I felt something was profoundly wrong.\r\nWhen I was ten, after getting ready for bed, the sensation I’d often dismissed intensified, a chilling tingle, like a whisper down my spine, as I opened my bedroom door.\r\nThat night, my ceiling’s glow-in-the-dark stars didn't just glow; they blazed like real celestial bodies against a void as dark as space itself.\r\nNo response came when I called out for my parents, only a strange knock from my window answered, two stories up.\r\nAs an adult, the reality shifts grew more severe.\r\nI stripped my apartment of doors in a vain attempt to control these transitions.\r\nRelationships faltered; one heartbreak involved flowers and chocolates for a woman who stared back at me without a flicker of recognition.\r\nWith each doorway potentially rewriting my existence, I retreated into isolation.\r\nThe situation spiraled when I opened my patio door on a seemingly normal day to escape the mundane, only to find the world outside transformed into an apocalyptic nightmare.\r\nBuildings burned, screams echoed through the air, and the sky was a haunting shade of orange.\r\nMy front door shuddered from forceful kicks, and panic set in.\r\nI frantically opened the patio door multiple times, each attempt revealing more chaotic scenes.\r\nAs the attackers entered, I made one last desperate leap through the door and landed in a different version of my apartment.\r\nThe walls were an unfamiliar shade; my furniture was misplaced.\r\nA stranger came out of the bedroom and started to accuse me of unspeakable crimes he had seen on the news earlier that day.\r\nI ran through the front door, which led me to a disorienting labyrinth of doors that led only to more twisted versions of reality.\r\nThe labyrinth stretched endlessly, its walls pulsating and twisting as if alive.\r\nDoors that shouldn't be there appeared on ceilings and floors.\r\nTime seemed to slow down, making moments feel like years as I navigated this bizarre maze, each turn revealing increasingly unsettling alterations of what once seemed familiar.\r\nI finally found myself back in a place that resembled home but with key differences: family photos featured unfamiliar faces, and keepsakes belonged to a life I’d never lived.\r\nI've often wondered what becomes of the other versions of myself.\r\nNow, I avoid all doors, my world reduced to the confines of my room.\r\nI rely on deliveries to sustain me, and I have no friends.\r\nI share this story as a caution: if your world begins to warp, if the known becomes unknowable, beware of the doors you choose to open." } ]
[ { "role": "user", "content": "End of a World of Wires" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "In 2049, humanity survived through steel and circuitry. The air had turned to poison decades ago, filled with micro-pollutants and airborne pathogens that rotted the lungs within weeks. The only way to stay alive was through augmentation, cybernetic lungs, synthetic blood filters, and neural stabilizers to keep the mind clear despite the toxins swirling outside.\r\nThe city of New Seattle hummed with artificial life. Skyscrapers stretched into the smog, their glass facades reflecting the neon glow of an eternal twilight. Street-level was a graveyard of the past, littered with rusted-out cars and old-world shops long abandoned. The people who walked the streets were barely people anymore, chrome hands, synthetic eyes, reinforced bones. Those who couldn’t afford the upgrades were already dead.\r\nElliot moved through the streets like a ghost, his coat pulled tight against the acidic drizzle. His internal HUD flickered warnings about air quality, but it was pointless, his cybernetic lungs filtered out the worst of it. He had long stopped thinking of himself as human. None of them were, not really.\r\nA message pulsed in his vision, a broadcast overriding his neural display. \"To those who still call themselves human, we grieve for you. We grieve for what you have become.\"\r\nElliot frowned. Hacker groups were common, activists who believed the world could still be salvaged, that nature could reclaim what had been lost. But this was different. The feed expanded, showing a group of masked figures standing in what looked like an old military bunker. Behind them, a terminal blinked with familiar symbols, nuclear command interfaces.\r\n\"We are the last breath of a dying world,\" the voice continued. \"And we refuse to watch the earth be devoured by metal and greed. The planet was never meant to sustain this mockery of life. It is time to let go, time to end what should have ended long ago.\"\r\nElliot's fingers twitched. Panic crept up his spine. They wouldn’t...\r\nThe camera feed shifted to a map of the world, glowing red points flashing across continents. Pulse bombs. Electromagnetic warheads, meant to disable entire power grids, destroy infrastructure, wipe out everything dependent on technology.\r\nAnd in 2049, that meant wiping out life itself.\r\nElliot sprinted toward the nearest shelter, but he knew it was useless. His heart, his lungs, his very ability to think, everything ran on circuits. Everyone he knew, everyone in the world, was wired into the same fragile system.\r\nA countdown appeared in the broadcast feed.\r\n00:00:10\r\nPeople around him were screaming, running, but there was nowhere to go. Some clawed at their own bodies, as if they could tear out the wires, make themselves flesh again.\r\n00:00:03\r\nElliot stopped running. There was no point. He looked up at the sky, where the smog curled like dying breath. For the first time in years, he wondered if there were still stars up there.\r\n00:00:00\r\nAnd then, the world went dark." } ]
[ { "role": "user", "content": "My Phobia of Composite Sketches" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "I have a phobia of composite sketches. You know, those sketches police make to identify unknown people.\r\nThere’s something about them that unsettled me—the lack of expression, the lifeless eyes that pierce right through your soul.\r\nIt started when I was a kid. One night, I was watching TV alone when breaking news interrupted my show: A woman had been murdered.\r\nIn a second, the TV flashed a sketch of her severed head, with her face twisted in agony. It was the most horrifying thing I had ever seen. I ran to my parents, screaming.\r\nThat fear never left me. Even as an adult, I avoid places where sketches might be displayed—police stations, newsstands, bulletin boards. I even refuse to watch crime documentaries, knowing they might flash one on screen without warning.\r\nBut one day, I saw one by accident.\r\nI was in a café, when my eyes landed on an old newspaper. There it was—a police sketch of a fugitive. My chest tightened, my hands trembled. But as I forced myself to look closer, my stomach dropped.\r\nI knew that face.\r\nWhen I was a child, there was a man who used to stand outside my bedroom window at night. He never spoke. He never moved. He just smiled. Sometimes, he would tilt his head, as if studying me.\r\nOne day, he just vanished. I buried the memory deep, too scared to think about it.\r\nBut now, decades later, his face was in front of me again.\r\nI took the old newspaper and went straight to the police. They took me seriously—apparently, they had been hunting this man for years, but he had gone completely off the grid. My story gave them something new: a location from the past.\r\nThey reopened old records from my childhood neighbourhood, cross-referencing missing persons. That’s when they found it.\r\nThe man had been responsible for the disappearance of several children in town. The police had always suspected a single perpetrator but never had enough evidence. The kids had all gone missing in the evenings, vanishing without a trace.\r\nThe property behind my old house had been abandoned for years, but after obtaining a warrant, police searched it properly. What they discovered made my skin crawl.\r\nThe basement had old, dusty toys lined up against the wall, as if waiting for their owners to return. Faded posters of missing children were tacked onto a corkboard. The worst part? A list of house numbers, carefully handwritten—some crossed out, some not.\r\nSomehow, I had been safe. Probably because I had always obeyed my parents' rule—never go outside after dusk. Classic, but that rule had saved my life.\r\nThe man was arrested in a remote town, living under a false identity. The police thanked me, calling me a crucial piece of the puzzle.\r\nDespite that, my phobia is worse than ever. Because even now, I have nightmares of sketches shifting and staring back at me—reminding me of countless unknown faces still out there, waiting to be found." } ]
[ { "role": "user", "content": "Of What Remains" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "The fog rolled in at dusk, silent and silver. At first, the villagers thought it was the sea mist creeping in early. Then came the sound—a whispering, like the sigh of wind through dry grass, but there was no wind. The air was still, the trees stiff and breathless.\r\nFather Anselm was the first to vanish. His lantern was found near the chapel, burning weakly, its glass fogged with something that wasn’t condensation but the slick residue of something dissolved. They sent Old Willem after him, but he never returned. Then the livestock began to disappear—not in the way wolves might take them, with blood and bone left behind, but wholly and cleanly, as if they had never existed at all.\r\nDr. Kettering, the village’s only man of science, insisted it was some natural phenomenon, though his face betrayed him. He took samples of the fog, locked himself in his study, and was not seen again until dawn, when the villagers found his house hollow. Not ransacked, not burnt—just hollow. The furniture remained, arranged precisely as before, but the bookshelves were bare, the wallpaper stripped, the man himself gone. Only his spectacles lay in the center of the room, lenses fogged with the same eerie film.\r\n“We should leave,” whispered Meredith, the apothecary’s wife, gripping her child’s wrist too tightly.\r\n“But where would we go?” her husband muttered. “If this thing has hunger, will it not follow?”\r\nA debate raged, but it was the kind of argument born of terror, not reason. They knew they would not leave. The road out of the village was already swallowed by the fog, and beyond it, only an abyss of grey.\r\nThat night, they barricaded their doors. Some prayed. Some drank. Some clung to their children, watching the windows, waiting.\r\nAnd then the fog whispered their names.\r\nIt did not howl. It did not moan like the wind in the rafters. It spoke, each voice eerily perfect, as if recorded from memory. It called to them as their loved ones might. The knock at the door was not some monstrous pounding but a gentle, familiar rapping. Open up, it seemed to say. Come outside.\r\nBy dawn, half the village was gone.\r\nThe survivors gathered in the town square, their faces pale, their breaths coming fast and thin. The fog had drawn back, but not in retreat. It lingered at the edges of the houses, coiled like an animal at rest.\r\nIt was thinking.\r\nDr. Kettering’s notebook was found near the well, the last pages scrawled in frantic, shaking letters:\r\n“Not mist. Not vapor. Machines, too small to see. Self-replicating. Eating. Learning. Memory—oh God, it has memory.”\r\nThe pages ended there.\r\nThe last of the villagers sat in silence, knowing what the fog was now, but knowing, too, that understanding meant nothing. The thing at their doorstep was patient. It did not need to hunt. It did not need to chase.\r\nIt only needed to wait." } ]
[ { "role": "user", "content": "Pedaling into the Tunnel of Relapse" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "I rode my bicycle to stay clean.\r\nNot just from drugs—from everything. The city was behind me, the roads ahead were clean. I had built a new life in the saddle, trading old highs for endorphins and exhaustion. But the city never really let go. It waited for me, just out of sight, like a long-forgotten hunger.\r\nLast time I rode out, someone recognized me. I didn’t stop. Didn’t engage. Just kept pedaling. But an offer hung in the air behind me, floating like exhaust. The road was supposed to clear my head. Instead, I kept hearing it. Feeling it.\r\n❖\r\nThe fork in the road appeared. The old pass road climbed brutally. I should have taken it. But my legs were already drained, my reserves stretched thin. The tunnel was easier, faster. A shortcut.\r\nI told myself it was fine. I’d be through in minutes.\r\nA red traffic light flickered at the entrance, holding back a line of cars. One-way control. I should’ve waited. But I didn’t. Cyclists run reds all the time. No honking. No yelling. The cars just sat there, patient.\r\nI rolled past. The tunnel swallowed me.\r\nThen, behind me, the green light changed—engines ignited. All at once. A wave of headlights erased the darkness. The roar rose, growing beyond engines.\r\nI pedaled harder. Too hard. I dug deep into reserves I shouldn’t have touched. This was a full anaerobic effort—the kind that drains everything. I knew better, but I had no choice. My legs screamed. My chest burned. The exit stayed distant.\r\nA maintenance recess appeared. My only chance. I swerved into it, barely missed by the blur of passing traffic. The open side—the tunnel—was now a wall of rushing traffic. Headlights streaked past, a missile of steel and light.\r\nAnd then—everything unraveled. Muscle cramps twisted through my quads, locking them like dead weight. My calves spasmed violently, my hands trembled, refusing to unclench from the bars. My breath came in jagged bursts, shallow and panicked, my chest tightening as if the tunnel itself were pressing down on me.\r\nI tried to shift my weight, but my limbs were no longer my own. The sweat chilled against my skin, leaving me clammy and detached. My head felt light—too light, as if it might drift away entirely.\r\nThis was just depletion? Just a bonk? I’d recover?\r\nBut it felt too much like before.\r\nTunnel walls blurred. My vision swam. My body didn’t feel like my own. The air was thick, heavy. Minutes passed. Or hours. Or nothing at all.\r\nI blinked. Did the cars ever pass? Had I ever entered the tunnel?\r\nThen—lights. Voices. Someone pulling me up.\r\n❖\r\nThe hospital was bright, sterile, safe. I was clean. Still clean.\r\nBut just outside, just around the corner, was the city. The places I used to frequent. The people I used to know.\r\nI could leave. I could walk that way. Just to clear my head.\r\nMaybe just to ask.\r\nMaybe just one more time?" } ]
[ { "role": "user", "content": "The Endless Smear of Me" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "I check my reflection three times before leaving the bathroom. Touch the doorknob exactly twice. Count my steps to seven, then start over. These patterns keep me tethered, remind me I'm real.\r\nThe accident happened on a Tuesday. Or a Wednesday. Or maybe it was Monday, and I'm remembering it wrong. The truck came from the left. Or the right. Or maybe both directions at once.\r\nI died. I lived. I did both simultaneously.\r\nNow I'm experiencing three—no, seven—no, dozens of lives at once. In one, I'm still in the hospital. In another, I never left my apartment that day. In a third, I'm at my own funeral, somehow both in the casket and standing beside it.\r\nNothing works anymore. I touch a doorknob twice in one timeline, three times in another, continuously in a third until my hand bleeds. I count my steps, but the numbers multiply across realities—seven becomes forty-nine becomes infinity.\r\nMy therapist tells me grounding techniques help. But which therapist? The one who wears blue, or red, or green, or all colors that don't exist? Which version of me is sitting in which office, trying to convince which self that they're real?\r\nI see my reflection fragments across a thousand mirrors. Each one moves slightly differently. Each one mouths different words. When I try to check if they're real, they all reach back, fingers pressing against glass from every possible angle.\r\nMy mother calls to check on me. In one timeline, I answer. In another, I've been dead for weeks. In a third, I was never born. She asks if I'm taking my medication. I don't know how to tell her that I'm taking every dose and no doses, that I've always been medicated and never started and stopped years ago, all at once.\r\nThe worst part isn't the splintering. It's not even the confusion.\r\nIt's that one of these timelines must be real, must be the original, but I've lost the ability to tell which one. Each check spawns a hundred more, an endless, futile spiral.\r\nSometimes, in the rare moments when the timelines sync up, when all my selves are performing the same ritual at the same time, I feel a moment of clarity. But it shatters quickly, reality fracturing like glass, each shard containing a different version of truth.\r\nI keep checking. Keep counting. Keep touching doorknobs and mirrors and the edges of my own dissolving consciousness.\r\nBut I'm starting to think there is no real timeline anymore.\r\nJust the endless smear of me, stretched across the void, forever trying to prove I exist." } ]
[ { "role": "user", "content": "The Call Of Her Smile" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "I found the tape when I was cleaning out our attic. I hadn’t been up here for years, but my sister Jane insisted it was time.\r\nEverywhere I looked, I saw reminders of Sarah. The ticket stub from our first date. My tuxedo from our wedding. The framed picture of a cake-covered Marie from her third birthday. They should have brought me joy; instead, they only reminded me of what I’d lost.\r\nBut the tape was unfamiliar. I searched the attic and found an old VCR, put it in, and pressed play.\r\nAnd was transported back in time.\r\nWe’d gone to the coast for a long weekend; I’d surprised her with the trip. She’d walked along the shoreline, skirt blowing in the breeze, smiling back at me joyously. I’d never forget that smile.\r\nI stared at the tape, transfixed. The next thing I knew, Jane was knocking at the door. Apparently I’d been standing there all day; it had felt like minutes.\r\nI continued visiting the attic each day, pretending to clean but staring at the image from dawn to dusk. It was like Sarah was alive again. Her smile wasn’t just an image, but a living, breathing thing. Come to me, it said.\r\nMy sister began to suspect something was wrong. She asked what I was doing in the attic and didn’t believe my explanation. I came home one day to her waiting for me.\r\n“What’s wrong with you?”\r\n“What do you mean?” I replied.\r\n“You know what I mean. Every day you spend all day staring at that tape. Did you even notice I was there yesterday? I called your name for five minutes straight.”\r\n“...”\r\nShe sighed. “Danny, you have to let this go. I know losing Sarah was hard, but staring at that tape constantly isn’t going to help.”\r\n“You don’t get it. Sarah’s in that tape. She’s waiting for me.”\r\nJane looked shocked. “You think she’s… in the tape?”\r\n“You don’t get it. Just leave us alone.”\r\n“Danny…”\r\n“Leave!”\r\nI didn’t have time for this - Sarah was calling me.\r\nThe next day there was a knock at the door. Several people in uniform greeted me.\r\n“Who are you?”\r\n“Mr. Scoffield, we’re here to perform a wellness check.”\r\n“I’m fine.”\r\n“That may be, but we have to confirm it.”\r\nI slammed the door and ran upstairs to the attic, locking the door behind me.\r\n“Danny, let them help you!,” Jane screamed.\r\nI stared at Sarah’s eyes, calling me from the screen. Now, they seemed to say. Come to me.\r\nFootsteps pounded outside.\r\nSarah called me.\r\nI jumped.\r\n“Where is my brother?”\r\n“I’m sorry, Ma’am. There’s no sign of him.”\r\n“Dammit! That fucking tape...”\r\n“What tape?”\r\n“The image on the screen - his wife Sarah. He thought she was ‘calling’ him.”\r\n“There’s no woman on the screen, Ma’am.”\r\nJane looked. Her mouth dropped.\r\n“Is that your brother?” the officer asked.\r\n“Yes,” she responded. “But why is he surrounded by fire? And why is he screaming?”" } ]
[ { "role": "user", "content": "Son Of A Butcher" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "It’s tough to be a butcher’s son when you love animals.\r\nMy dad has always been a no nonsense kind of guy. Out the camp before morning and back in before nightfall. He took his routines with the animals very seriously, all in hopes of impressing his higher ups. But what he took more seriously was butchering.\r\nHe had me watch him cut up them up so that I could learn the technique and nuance behind slaughtering innocence. Butcher knives for the thicker skin, fillets for the smoother.\r\nHe taught me to always cut and kill with a clear mind or else I might mistake my fingers for theirs. But most importantly, he taught me to kill them in one fell swoop. Not because he had mercy upon his livestock, but because the other animals would get rowdy if there was a struggle.\r\nI had a hard time understanding this lesson.\r\nIt was hard not to look into their eyes.\r\nIt was hard not to see their fear.\r\nIt was harder to not detest my father at times.\r\nAnd it was hardest to not strike a resemblance between them and me.\r\nBorn in a different body, they wouldn’t have to be slaughtered by the dozen.\r\nBut they are animals my father proclaimed, and we were men.\r\nI was a sympathizer. Something I couldn’t be in the presence of my father.\r\nEvery now and then when he would see the knife in my hand shake in hesitation, he would tell me the story of his brother.\r\nHe was a sympathizer. Very much like myself.\r\nOnce he had a plan to set all of the animals free, but he caught him the night of. He pleaded with him that what they were doing was wrong but my father didn’t listen. He said he’d have to report his attempt to the higher ups, and his brother didn’t try to fight it.\r\nThe most fitting punishment for a sympathizer at the time was to be locked up with the same animals they fought for. To roll around in their inferiority and filth.\r\nAnd to bare the same insignia that united the animals.\r\nA number on the left forearm." } ]
[ { "role": "user", "content": "ash of a feather" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "I nuzzle my little ones goodbye, their tiny hungry beaks chirping up at me. Every day I fly further afield—ever since our last migration, when the leaves turned black and the snowfall came and chose never to end. Our nest is in dire need of renovation, too. Its holes threaten to swallow my young ones up. Sadly I cannot use the leaves. They crumple into black dust with the slightest touch. The human nests, however, provide sturdier material.\r\nI launch off and soar into the sky. Little light pierces the clouds anymore, but my eyes have acclimated. The dustings of white soot fall from my wings, and I wince as the little ones clamber to touch its magical swirls. They were born after the war. They didn’t see what it did to the rest of us. They are blessed to only know evolution. But I cannot bring myself to share in their joy. A mother remembers.\r\nI spot lights from the ground. This is a rare sighting indeed. The humans used to cast these lights everywhere. Now they are as few and far between as their lighthouses. I land and hop around the crumbled cement. The upper storey seems to have been demolished, but the lower level remains intact. I can hear their quiet bickering below. They have found their own nest. Unable to nest in the sky like us, they protect themselves from the hordes with strange purple lights and the barriers that string along trapped lightning.\r\nI hop around some more. I can hear something else too. A quiet whine—a hum. A human designed box set into the stone makes the sound. The lever that once kept it firmly shut has withered away. I have seen these dead colourful worms before. The humans once put them everywhere. They are sturdy, yet malleable—not like twigs at all. They make for great nesting material. I clamp my beak around one and pull. I yank a few more, as much as my beak and claws can carry.\r\nThe whine has ceased. I can hear the bickering louder now too—much louder. I don’t speak their language, but fear has a universal tone. And a universal smell. I take my leave and take flight, unsteadily in my encumbrance. Today, I patch the nest, but I come back tomorrow. Tomorrow, the horde has vanished, but the humans remain. Enough for the whole winter. Finally, I’ll be able to feed my little ones.\r\nOh, how they love the taste. They chirp and preen and try to steal a piece from their brothers and sisters. They fight over it—all the while their feathers staining with that which they cannot comprehend. I never see them happier than when they eat. Even the silence of my shame can’t disturb their delight. The little ones don’t remember how it used to be. They know no different.\r\nBut a mother never forgets." } ]
[ { "role": "user", "content": "The price of genius" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "\"Don't you think he's weird?\"\r\nMy friend nudged me as we left class, her voice low.\r\nI shrugged, not wanting to be the odd one out. \"I mean... yeah, but he's a good teacher.\"\r\nShe scoffed. \"He asked if my parents saw me studying. Like, why would he care?\"\r\nI thought about that. It was strange. But before I could dwell on it, the lunch bell rang, and we ran to the canteen, pushing the conversation aside.\r\n___\r\nThe next day, Professor Josh conducted a thinking session. No books, no notes—just ideas. \"Tell me something revolutionary,\" he said, pacing the room. \"Something that could change the world.\"\r\nWhen my turn came, I hesitated. \"What if we could modify humans?\"\r\nThe room fell silent.\r\nJosh leaned forward. \"Genetic modification? To cure diseases?\"\r\n\"Well, yeah, that too. But I meant something... more. Like, what if we could add abilities? Like how jellyfish glow in the dark? Or octopuses change color?\"\r\nLaughter erupted. I felt my face burn.\r\nJosh, however, simply nodded. \"Interesting.\" Then he moved on, calling on the next student.\r\nI tried to shake off the embarrassment, but something about his expression unsettled me. He looked too interested.\r\nThat night, I woke up to a whisper.\r\nAt first, I thought it was a dream—until I realized I wasn’t in my bed.\r\nI was strapped to a cold, metal table.\r\nDim blue light pulsed from glass tanks lining the walls. My head swam with confusion, nausea tightening my throat. My limbs refused to move.\r\nThen I saw them.\r\nBodies. Floating in the tanks.\r\nTwisted, deformed. Their skin shimmered, pulsing with an eerie glow. Some had extra limbs. Others had patches of scales.\r\nI tried to scream, but my throat was raw.\r\nFootsteps.\r\nSlow. Measured.\r\nProfessor Josh stepped into view, adjusting his glasses. \"You're awake.\"\r\nPanic surged through me. \"Wh—where am I?!\"\r\nHe sighed, almost disappointed. \"You had such a brilliant idea. It would’ve been a shame not to explore it.\"\r\nI struggled against the restraints. \"You kidnapped me?!\"\r\nJosh chuckled. \"Kidnapped? No, no. I chose you. You have potential.\" He traced his fingers along a tray of instruments. \"You suggested bioluminescence. So I started with your eyes.\"\r\nA cold horror gripped me.\r\nMy eyes?\r\nI turned my head toward the nearest glass tank, trying to see my reflection.\r\nAnd then I saw it.\r\nMy own face, staring back—except my eyes…\r\nMy pupils were gone.\r\nInstead, swirling, luminous orbs glowed faintly in the dark.\r\nI screamed.\r\nJosh placed a hand on my shoulder, his grip firm. \"Relax. Your body is adjusting. There’s so much more we can do.\"\r\nHe lifted a syringe filled with iridescent blue liquid.\r\n\"Let's see if we can make you breathe underwater next.\"\r\nThe needle plunged into my neck.\r\nDarkness swallowed me whole.\r\n____*___" } ]
[ { "role": "user", "content": "Gulf of ______" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "ERROR! Location not found.\r\n“Damn it. The GOD DAMN GPS is fuckin’ with us today”\r\nSam slapped it a couple of dozen times to emphasize his frustration.\r\n“Did anyone notice it stopped raining?”\r\nHe was right. We had just been surveying for an approaching hurricane. “Drones are on the fritz, their patterns are just sporadic,” Nat said as she came inside soaking wet.\r\nIt was a still sky above us.\r\n“Radio is down too. That’s weird.”\r\n“Look at the water.”\r\nWe did. It was suddenly very still. Not even the wind moved.\r\nWe looked at our radar, trying to get a reading on our location. Nothing was showing up.\r\nWe were not showing up.\r\n“Send out Morse code SOS. There might be another research vessel out here in the gulf.”\r\nWe did and tried to move further down south to get an idea of the area. But soon found that we were going in circles.\r\n“Can’t get in touch with the mainland… can’t even use a damn compass,” Sam said, tossing it overboard.\r\n“Maybe it’s an electromagnetic storm or something?”\r\nWe tried again to travel south. The sky above us never seemed to change nor the position of the sun.\r\n“This is fucking weird,” Nat said as she pulled out an old chart.\r\nSprawling it across the floor, she stared at the map in confusion and I watched her face turn pale.\r\nI soon saw why. The map was blank when it had once been filled with navigation and nautical information the night before.\r\n“This shouldn’t be possible,” she muttered.\r\nWe tried other older maps only to see the same thing. Some of them showed outlines of Texas or Florida, but nothing where we were sailing.\r\nSuddenly the radio chirped\r\nOur SOS had been received?\r\nWe agreed to rendezvous and share what we knew.\r\n“Research vessel Truman, can you state your purpose?” they asked as we got close over the Comm.\r\n“To survey and gather weather data here in the gulf of…”\r\nSam froze, his face contorted as he seemed to struggle to say a word. But nothing came out of his mouth.\r\n“Sorry, come again? Where were you located?”\r\n“This is silly. What were you doing here?” I asked.\r\n“Unknown. We’ve been adrift for a few hours hoping to find other survivors… we are not entirely sure where we are or… what we are doing…”\r\nThey were closer to the central part of the affected area, so it stood to reason they had more severe symptoms. It occurred to me that I also couldn’t recall much about our location anymore.\r\n“We’ve attempted to escape. There’s nowhere else but here. Nothing else… it doesn’t exist anymore,” the other captain told us. Even as he said the words I knew he was right.\r\nWe came to a decision to survive on rations and determine if there is a way out, for as long as we remain sane. Or for as long as we… remain." } ]
[ { "role": "user", "content": "The Possessed Toaster of Maplewood Drive" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Lena had always suspected her kitchen appliances were out to get her. Her blender made a noise that sounded suspiciously like a death rattle, her fridge randomly dispensed ice cubes in the middle of the night, and now… now there was The Toaster.\r\nShe bought it at a thrift store for five bucks—a vintage, chrome-plated beauty with a “perfect toast” guarantee. What the label didn’t mention was that it also whispered cryptic threats while browning her bagels.\r\nThe first morning, she popped in two slices of sourdough. The moment she pressed the lever down, a deep, raspy voice slithered out:\r\n“Your end is near.”\r\nLena stared at it. “Uh. Excuse me?”\r\nThe toaster made a cheerful ding! and ejected the bread—perfectly golden brown.\r\n“Huh.” She spread some butter on it, cautiously took a bite, and—yep, absolutely delicious.\r\nShe spent the next week trying to convince herself she had imagined it. But each day, the toaster got bolder.\r\n“You will suffer.” Ding!\r\n“The darkness is coming.” Ding!\r\n“Your credit score is a joke.” Ding!\r\nLena frowned. “Okay, that last one was uncalled for.”\r\nThen, on a particularly bad Monday morning, it got physical. The moment she touched the lever, a jolt of electricity zapped her so hard she saw her dead aunt waving from the afterlife.\r\n“Alright, you little chrome demon,” she muttered, grabbing the plug. “You’re going to the curb.”\r\nBut as soon as she yanked the cord, the toaster levitated.\r\n“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me.”\r\nIt spun in mid-air like a possessed Roomba, flinging pieces of half-toasted bread across the kitchen. One piece smacked her cat, Bubbles, in the face. He took it personally and launched himself at the toaster, claws out.\r\nWhat followed was a battle worthy of legend. Bubbles clawed, the toaster dodged, and Lena screamed incoherent threats. Finally, in an act of pure desperation, she grabbed the salt shaker and chucked it at the hovering appliance.\r\nThe toaster let out a demonic shriek, dropped like a rock, and… stopped moving.\r\nLena tiptoed forward and gave it a cautious nudge with her foot. Nothing. It was just a normal, inanimate toaster once more.\r\nBubbles sat beside it, licking his paw victoriously.\r\nLena exhaled. “Right. So we’re never talking about this.”\r\nShe put the toaster on the curb, leaving a note:\r\n“FREE. WORKS GREAT. PROBABLY NOT CURSED.”\r\nThe next morning, it was gone.\r\nAnd somewhere, in another unsuspecting kitchen, a toaster whispered:\r\n“Hope you like your bagels… BURNT.”\r\nMeanwhile, back in her kitchen, Lena brewed coffee and stared at the empty counter where the toaster had once stood. The silence felt unnatural, like a void waiting to be filled. Bubbles sat beside her, eyes fixed on the spot too, tail twitching in suspicion.\r\nThen, from the cupboard, came a faint click.\r\nHer electric kettle had just turned itself on.\r\nLena groaned. “Oh, for the love of—”" } ]
[ { "role": "user", "content": "The Cream of Eternal Youth" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Hey. You. Yeah, you. Have you ever wanted to look fresh forever? Sick of your family and friends pointing out the grey hairs on your head and wrinkles on your skin due to your middle age? Sick of drowning your sorrows in alcohol every Friday evening because the dating scene is smaller than your will to live past the age of 40? Then go online and order our brand-new Eternal Youth Cream.\r\nWith Eternal Youth Cream, you'll look as hot as the day you turned 18. Just apply it to your face and body and you'll see those wrinkles and skin blemishes go away in mere minutes! We've had thousands of people give us positive reviews for our cream. One reviewer is 47 and now looks no older than 23 with our cream. They scored a date with a young person and now feel like they're finally worth it again. Nobody cares about the genuine connection these days. You need looks and the hots to really get out there and attract people.\r\nOkay, it seems that I've been told we're having a recall on this product. It turns out some people have had cases of cancer developing. Others reported their facial skin gaining horrible rashes and starting to rot. We've just had a confirmed case of someone who peeled away at their face leaving nothing but the muscle. There's also a warning I'm legally forced to now give. Eternal Youth Cream is no longer allowed to be sold in stores you'll be at your own risk buying it from our website. It also seems to have an addictive nature to people applying it. The more you use this cream, the faster it'll wear off. You may have slim chances of disease or facial damage.\r\nBut, you want to be beautiful, don't you? Call now." } ]
[ { "role": "user", "content": "Reflections of Her" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "She told me she loved me. The next day, she disappeared.\r\nNo goodbye. No trace. Just a ghost in my memories, lingering in every place we had been together. I searched for her—filed reports, knocked on doors, chased whispers. But she had vanished like a dream upon waking.\r\nDays turned into weeks. Weeks into months. Eventually, ten years blurred by. I learned to stop looking, though I never stopped wondering.\r\nThen, this morning, it happened.\r\nI was at my usual café, the kind of place where people come and go without a second glance. The barista called my name, and I reached for my coffee, absentmindedly stirring in the cream. As the liquid swirled, something shifted in the reflection.\r\nA face.\r\nHer face.\r\nI froze, heart hammering against my ribs. It wasn’t a trick of the light, nor a fleeting illusion. She was there—her dark eyes staring back at me, lips slightly parted, as if she had been waiting for me to notice.\r\nMy breath hitched. My hands trembled. “Anna?” I whispered.\r\nThe reflection smiled.\r\nThen, just as quickly as she appeared, the coffee stilled. And she was gone.\r\nI jolted upright, knocking over my cup. Scalding liquid spread across the table, but I barely noticed. My mind was spinning, memories crashing down like a tidal wave.\r\nShe told me she loved me.\r\nThe next day, she disappeared.\r\nAnd now—after ten long years—she was back.\r\nWatching me.\r\nWaiting.\r\nBut for what?" } ]
[ { "role": "user", "content": "The Art of Having a Boyfriend" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "I’m on my knees, panting for breath as my hands sink into the soft, wet soil of the ravine that begins in the back of my school. I walked too far, too fast. After some rest, I sit up and pull my phone out, pulling up my texts.\r\nI scroll past the ones from the past week, the slew of “Happy 14th!” “Have a great day b-day girl!” from the usual suspects. But then, I finally find the one I’m looking for. “Hey, meet you at the usual spot, deep in the ravine, k?”\r\nI smile. Petey is such a sweetheart.\r\nThen I’m up and walking, ready to claim my prize. Memories run. The first time I saw Peter in Social Studies class, and how my heart fluttered the moment I saw him. How I’d catch him looking at me a bit too long in the cafeteria, and how I waited two months for him to work himself up to ask me out.\r\nI told Auntie April all about it, and she told me just right on where to take things.\r\nI’m jogging now, eager, and I notice I'm halfway there now. The trees are taller, the leaves greener, and the ravine and all that surrounds it is cast in the red glow of early sunset. The beauty warms me.\r\nWhat could I tell you about Petey? What will people say about him? That he was brave, that he was honest, and that his heart was full of love. These were the things I came to know in the year we had together. I came to know his heart, and he came to know mine.\r\nI’m there. I walk into the shed, and there he is, on the chair, waiting for me. I move over to him, put my hands on his neck, and, for fifteen minutes, I love him. I move with grace and care, just as Auntie April taught me in my education with her. I feel the joy course through my veins as I love him, and his tears - and blood - taste sweet and metallic to my tongue.\r\nAnd then it’s over. My knife is stained, and he is gone. Did you know that five minutes in he began to beg me to stop, to let him go? I giggled at that.\r\nAfterward, I douse the corpse with the gasoline and light it, discarding my work clothes into the flames.\r\nThe love and care everyone showers on me, a kind of widow, in the wake of it all is warm. I could have been a victim, too, had I gotten there early enough, after all. Mom even has Auntie April over to help. Auntie April, the decade-long coworker who Mom trusts more than anyone. The police investigate, but never find a suspect. The murder will scar our community, this I know.\r\nTime passes, and life - eventually - goes on. And as it does, I continue in my education." } ]
[ { "role": "user", "content": "The Voice of Nature" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Spring\r\nDown in the meadow, across from the glistening lake, stands a birch tree. Tall and proud, leaves rustling and chiming in a cheerful gust of wind. Wagtails chirp in symphony, while a new mother feeds chicks. Under the tree, a fox chases its tail. With a coat gleaming vibrant red — too vivid, too fresh to be real.\r\nFlowers bloom in abundance — primroses, violets, buttercups — sweet and fragrant, perfuming the air.\r\nThe sweetness will sour.\r\nIt’s a day of life, a celebration of renewal. The season of spring — could you be the one to break the news?\r\nThat it’s the last one they’ll enjoy?\r\nSummer\r\nSpring yields summer, with a boldness only the sun can command. He stands tall, beaming proudly upon the day. Our tree is now shining, reflecting glimmers of light. It smells succulent and firm, as though asserting it’s here to stay.\r\nIt’s not.\r\nDragonflies dance on the shimmering lake — they’ve transformed into Cinderellas at a ball. Clovers and heather tumble over the edge, heaped in generous amount.\r\nA quiet deer feeds alone at the tree, a picture of grace. She sniffs elegantly at berries — both cloud and blue. Does she know?\r\nKnow that they poison her soon?\r\nAutumn\r\nThe birch tree has transformed, ablaze in auburn glow. Leaves crackle and crunch their way to the ground. A brown leaf drifts onto the deep purple heather. Regal violet patches spread all across the meadow.\r\nSpread like a rash.\r\nAn owl makes a home in a nook of our tree. Insects wind down, leaving space for silence.\r\nAnimals get busy, there’s little time to spare. Bears and deers graze tirelessly, hedgehogs scramble for food. It’s the season of fall; of stockpiling and storing.\r\nWhy bother preparing? Death is not evaded.\r\nWinter\r\nThe meadow is silent. Shhhh — the animals are sleeping. Our tree is now bare, simply spiny black sticks. Snow settles thick, glazing the land with a blanket.\r\nThe lake is frozen over, a crystal of ice. Don’t touch it! It might crack - tear a rift that can’t be repaired.\r\nOr jump on it. It won’t matter.\r\nOnly a woodpecker flies about. He’s left alone in solitude, except for the occasional winter-moth. A squirrel scampers, tail twitching nervously. It presses tiny footprints into the snow, but suddenly freezes, whipping its head, ears alert.\r\nDoes he know? Sense what’s coming?\r\nIn a blur of motion he’s gone.\r\nA shadow falls across the meadow, a spell of icy foreboding cast. Our beauty, our serenity — it’s smothered, ugly in a second.\r\nIs a storm brewing? A hurricane stirring?\r\nNo. It’s worse.\r\nA cold wind picks up, is that oil I smell?\r\n“Hey Jonas! Come check out this tree!”\r\nIt’s the humans.\r\nThey’ve arrived." } ]
[ { "role": "user", "content": "An asylum showed up out of nowhere in my town. They took my daughter." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "The monochromatic institution just showed up in place of the town’s office one morning and nobody batted an eye.\r\nMaybe a few police cars showed up, but formerly nonexistent monochromatic people in 1950’s doctor clothes quickly emerged from the building.\r\nThey gave the cops a document explaining they were always here. That they were certified to operate in the town.\r\nThe police never bothered them after that.\r\nEvery psychiatric institution in town was raided. The patients there were shoved into padded vans.\r\nThe supposed director, a man with grainy gray skin, explained they were here to take care of “Anyone with a condition that affects their psychology.”\r\nThey stole every geezer from the retirement home next. Most of them had some form of dementia or another, so they counted as a psychological abnormality.\r\nThere’s a private school for kids with learning disabilities. They were obviously the next interred.\r\nPeople were outraged by these actions, some of them even tried to shoot these monochrome orderlies during their retrievals.\r\nThey found out no matter how hard you shoot them, their ebony wounds don’t hinder them.\r\nStrangely, no figure of authority was bothered by this takeover.\r\n“They have their rights.” They always said.\r\nOnly the mentally pure like me were spared.\r\nToday, I visited the sanitarium.\r\nThe gray brick smelt like black-and-white television shows.\r\nI walked to the receptionist, his face streaked with bloodless black slices from some guy who tried to shoot every guard there down (and failed).\r\n“I’m here to see my daughter.”\r\nHe smiled a gangrenous smile. The white door to the cells opened to me.\r\nI still remember the day they took her. The alarm of the monochromatic people busting the door down.\r\nWho knew being homosexual counted as a “condition that affects their psychology.”\r\nI tried stabbing them, shooting them. Now matter how wounded they were, they kept going.\r\nThe last I ever saw of her was restrained to a stretcher in the monochromatic van.\r\nWhy do the orderlies look like they were ripped from a picture from 1950?\r\nI pass by padded cell after padded cell of people donned with straitjackets left to rot.\r\nEventually, I found her.\r\nShe was strapped to a bed, lips forced into a smiling position. Teeth pursed together.\r\n“Sweetie.”\r\nShe screamed without opening her jaw.\r\n“I know you don’t like this place, I don't like it too…”\r\nTears slid down her dimpled cheeks.\r\n“But you need to know, this is for your own good.”\r\nI’ve taught her the story of Sodom and Gomorrah countless times, read her the orders of stoning. How did she not listen?!\r\n“What you’re doing is wrong. These… men… understand that. They say they can fix you, can you believe that?”\r\nI’m still kicking myself for fighting back. I KNEW they weren’t coming for me.\r\n“We’re going to leave you here. They say you’ll see yourself out. Learn a lesson.”\r\nI smiled.\r\n“After that, they’ll send you back, better than ever!”\r\nEven if it takes years there." } ]
[ { "role": "user", "content": "A Stroke of Good Luck" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Emily smiled at her husband, giving him a light kiss before sliding out of bed. \"I'm sorry things have been so stressful,\" she whispered, punctuating her sympathy with another kiss. \"And I'm sorry your arm feels weird. Do you want me to kiss it better?\"\r\n\"Just don't even fucking worry about it. I'll set an alarm, don't wake me up. I don't want to deal with it,\" he muttered, his voice slurred, and she felt her stomach drop. Today had been good, she screamed silently, choking back a sob.\r\n\"Baby? What did I do?\" she managed to ask, leaning towards him. He stayed silent, his face unreadable in the dark. \"My love?\" Her heart was racing, dread coiling its way up her legs and tethering her feet to the floor. \"Honey, please..\" she was begging now, somehow still keeping her voice a whisper. \"Please just say something, honey, was I not supposed to offer? Did I do something wrong?\" She knew her home office was beckoning, but she couldn't bring herself to move. It was her lunch break, 2:30, and she needed to clock back in, but not unanswered, not like this - if she left, the anxiety would continue to eat her until morning, and God please, I'm begging you, please don't make me feel like this all night again, she could almost feel the floor collapsing under her as his silence pressed down and down and down and -\r\nStill, he was silent. She crept towards the door, her steps feather-soft despite the weight in her gut. \"I love you, good night,\" she whispered again, shutting the door before letting her sobs overtake her.\r\nAs morning came, she was no better; the clock inching towards 7:30. Would she accompany him to breakfast? Would they talk about it? Should she believe he set an alarm, or wake him? Which would irritate him less? She prayed for an answer as she sat coiled at her desk, shaking with panic and exhaustion. Maybe I'll get lucky, she decided, forcing her anxiety down.\r\n\"Baby?\" she called softly, approaching the bed. \"Honey, it's 7:30.\" He almost never stays mad the next morning, she rationalized as she yawned, crawling into bed. \"Are you too cold?\" She pressed her chest to his back and shivered slightly. He's so comfortable... She held him tightly as she tried to force her voice above a whisper, her eyes heavy with sleep. \"My love, it's breakfast...\" she murmured, before exhaustion overtook her.\r\nShe woke with a start, freezing and slightly uncomfortable. We don't usually share a bed, she mused, then stopped. Her husband's back was still to her, and as she scrambled away from him, her mind was racing. He was so cold... and stiff... his arm was numb?\r\nShe tumbled off the bed in her haste, and for the first time in years, she let herself scream - \"OH MY GOD\" - though her mind betrayed her.\r\nOh thank you, God. Never, ever again." } ]
[ { "role": "user", "content": "Possession of Mother Earth" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "I remember that night as we sat before the crackling fire, flickering shadows against the trees. Laughter filled the air at non-existent jokes, mingling with the scent of smoke, we were beyond intoxicated by the golden high of alcohol. It had been a good night... warm, safe, and carefree.\r\nThen I felt it, ever so lightly but increasing at shivering pace; the hairs and threads.\r\nThey slithered across my skin, winding and twining, digging in, pressing until thin lines of blood surfaced. My body became a prison of invisible bindings, each one tightening, constricting. And then... spiders. Insects. Crawling, writhing, spilling from my eyeballs and their sockets, walking the walls of my inner throat out my mouth, my ears. I couldn’t escape. The world warped into something monstrous, shifting and pulsing in ways I couldn’t understand.\r\nThe terrors I saw and felt after that initial one is something I can’t fully describe. After carrying me to privacy, wrapping that fuzzy blanket around us, we lay together. What was hours felt like days. I screamed. I cried. I begged.\r\n\"Kill me.\"\r\n\"Please.\"\r\n\"Just knock me out... hit me hard enough that I don’t have to be awake for this.\"\r\nThe way I begged you to kill me; even today, I meant it with every cell in my body. I wanted... no, I needed death.\r\nBut you didn’t. You held me. Kept me close. Whispered soft reassurances, kissed my forehead, my cheeks, my lips... grounding me when I was lost in something too vast, too dark, too consuming. In that moment, I felt loved in a way I hadn’t before.\r\nAnd then, through that sharp mind of yours, you found a solution. The baguette... stale, dry, shoved the leftovers down my throat. The dryest shit I've ever eaten in my life. Water followed, forced down my throat , chewed, swallowed, the texture pulling me back to something real. Cold and shocking as it spilled past my lips. Slowly, the terror receded. The nightmare ebbed.\r\nI still remember. I remember it as vividly as if it happened yesterday. As if it never ended. As though it was a memory that truly happened but to anyone watching, they only saw a man cuddling his woman who seemed to be having a psychotic breakdown.\r\nThat night taught me a lesson I will never forget. Never take the earthly powers of mushrooms lightly. They are not a game, not a casual escape. Ancient, powerful, divine... and they will show you things buried deep inside. If you’re not in the right mindset, bottling everything negative, do not partake in them." } ]
[ { "role": "user", "content": "A Late-Night Conversation On The Side Of The Road" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "The woman squinted her eyes as she looked at me.\r\n“Do I know you?”\r\n“I’m Frank,” I replied. “How are you feeling?”\r\n“I don’t know. A little confused, maybe. Everything is a little fuzzy.”\r\nThat made sense, given the circumstances.\r\n“It’s a beautiful night,” she said.\r\n“It is,” I agreed.\r\nShe looked out over the scene around us. “Where are we?” she asked.\r\n“We’re in the trees beside the road near your old house.”\r\n“Oh,” she replied. “I live near here?”\r\n“You used to.”\r\nShe paused. “It’s strange, I can’t remember how I got here. It’s all a blur.”\r\n“It’s late. Maybe you’re just tired.”\r\n“Maybe that’s it,” she conceded.\r\n“Have you been drinking?”\r\nShe thought for a long moment. “I can’t remember. I don’t think so - that would be really irresponsible.”\r\n“Yes, it would,” I agreed.\r\nShe stared at me. “You look kind of familiar. Do I know you?”\r\n“We met once, briefly.”\r\n“Strange that I’d remember that but not how I got here.”\r\n“The mind can be funny, sometimes.”\r\nSilence.\r\n“Nights like this always make me think.”\r\n“Really? About what?” I asked.\r\n“About life. The universe. Everything, really. Whether I’ve been the kind of person I wanted to be.”\r\n“Have you?”\r\n“I honestly don’t know. I feel like I should have done better, but I can’t remember how. It’s frustrating - everything is blank.”\r\n“Is there anything you remember?”\r\n“Like what?”\r\n“Like a bar?”\r\n“…No.”\r\n“What about a bartender? An argument?”\r\n“…”\r\n“Getting behind the wheel angry and drunk, driving your BMW home in the middle of the night?”\r\n“No, I would never—“\r\n“What about the pedestrian?”\r\n“…pedestrian?”\r\n“The teenager walking on the side of the road? The one you didn’t see because you were drunk?”\r\n“No…”\r\n“The one you ran over and left for dead?”\r\n“No… I wouldn’t…”\r\n“Would you even remember, as drunk as you were?”\r\nTears began flowing down her face.\r\n“I… I’m sorry… I didn’t—“\r\n“Too late for sorry.”\r\n“”What happened to the child?”\r\nI paused. “He died. His body was crushed - twenty-three broken bones, a collapsed lung, a fractured skull. He never regained consciousness - probably a blessing. His mother never recovered - she was found dead exactly one year later in a bathtub with an empty bottle of pills.”\r\nThe woman sobbed. “I’m sorry. I'm so sorry…”\r\nI stared at her, her body pinned against the tree by the car I’d driven into her, fracturing her spine so that she couldn’t feel anything. She was only still alive because the car prevented her from bleeding out.\r\nI watched as she cried inconsolably, apologizing over and over. I kept watching as the summoning spell ended and she faded from sight, disappearing back to the hell she’d come from. And I knew I’d keep watching, again and again, every year on the anniversary of my son’s death.\r\nI remembered her last words:\r\n“I’m sorry. I'm so sorry…”\r\nAs I walked away, I thought the same thing I always did: “Not sorry enough.”" } ]
[ { "role": "user", "content": "The Wreck of Poseidon's Symphony" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "The icy winds of January brought the Poseidon’s Symphony into the harbor at full-sail and full-speed.\r\nShe slammed into the docks with a deafening crash, and we made haste to investigate how the captain could have made such a calamitous blunder.\r\nHowever, the captain was not on board.\r\nNor were any of his crewman.\r\nNo, the ship was empty.\r\nEmpty, but for one man…\r\nBelow deck, and cowering beneath a mass of rigging, we found the cabin boy; dehydrated, weak, trembling, and absolutely petrified of… something…\r\nDesperately, we implored him to tell us what had happened to the rest of the men, and with a little encouragement, he shakily recounted a story.\r\n“She killed them…” He began.\r\n“She?” I asked.\r\n“Aye.” He replied.\r\n“We were three-days at sea when she was spotted from the crow’s nest paddling towards us in a small craft ill-suited for open waters.\r\n“Adrift, we suspected—possibly a survivor of a wreck. When she reached The Symphony, we pulled her aboard and tried to ask where she’d come from.\r\n“But she wouldn’t answer—never spoke at all, actually.\r\n“Strange woman she was… Slender… Beautiful… Dressed for the shops, not the winter sea.\r\n“The captain told her we’d drop her at the next port and found her a place to rest. But when night fell, a few of the men wanted to have some… fun… with her.\r\n“That’s when it started.\r\n“She could make them… do things…\r\n“All four men that tried to touch her circled the center mast in a trance of sorts…\r\n“…and cut their own throats.\r\n“Some of the crew, then, tried to attack her, and all of them met a similar fate…\r\n“When nine men lay choking on blood upon the deck, none of those still left alive dared approach her.\r\n“But she didn’t stop…\r\n“First, she had them toss the bodies of the nine into the ocean.\r\n“And then, slowly, one-by-one, she made the remaining men fasten cannonballs to their own ankles…\r\n“…and leap overboard.\r\n“I only survived because I hid well-enough that she never found me.\r\n“But even stashed away, I could still hear them…\r\n“I could hear them begging for their lives before jumping into the water…\r\n“They knew what was happening—knew they were about to die—yet they were powerless to stop it...\r\n“The screaming was deafening until, with a final, desolate splash—all was quiet.\r\n“Then, I heard oars, rhythmically chopping through the waves, and her humming a happy melody as she paddled away.\r\n“But I was too frightened to come out of hiding in case she came back…”\r\n****\r\nI thought it was ridiculous fantasy, at first, but he never changed his story—never wavered even when he was sent to the madhouse.\r\nAnd we just received word that a passing vessel intercepted a ship that was drifting aimlessly across the ocean.\r\nAnother ship devoid of a crew.\r\nAnd for a ship whose cannons appeared to have never been fired…\r\n…it was curiously low on cannonballs…" } ]
[ { "role": "user", "content": "My wife is a true crime addict. Sometimes I think she only married me because of my profession." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "After a wonderful dinner, and one too many glasses of wine, I went to the kitchen to clean up. I had barely finished washing a single dish when my wife appeared behind me.\r\n“I figured it out,” Molly said, “he’s a Door Dasher.”\r\n“Who is?” I know who she was talking about, but decided to play dumb.\r\n“The Westside Slayer! I’ve looked at all five victims and it fits.”\r\n“Six victims,” I corrected her.\r\n“There’s been another killing?!”\r\nShit, so much for playing dumb. The extra wine was starting to make sense. My lips loosen when I’ve had too much to drink.\r\n“I can’t talk about on-going investigations.”\r\n“Don’t talk about it, but tell me I’m right. He’s a Door Dasher, right?”\r\n“Who said ‘he?’ Maybe our killer is a woman.”\r\nMolly laughed at the suggestion.\r\n“Over ninety percent of serial killers are men, and I think this one is a Door Dasher.”\r\n“There is a zero percent chance of that.”\r\n“All the victims recently ordered take-out.”\r\nI faked my best laugh.\r\n“Well, sixty percent of Americans order delivery once a week. So unfortunately that’s probably just a coincidence.”\r\nI could see the wheels turning as Molly considered what I said.\r\n“Damn,” she crossed her arms, “I thought I had it.”\r\n“I mean, I wish it was a Dasher. We’d have probably caught them already. God, if you’d seen the crime scenes, seen what they’ve done—” I had to stop myself. It was never a good idea to bring work home with you.\r\nBut the victims… the way they were butchered… the violence was extraordinary.\r\nMy wife wrapped her arms around me from behind and pressed her head into my shoulder.\r\n“You'll catch them eventually, I know you will.” She kissed the back of my neck and left me to finish the dishes. I only had a butcher's knife left to scrub when she came bursting back into the kitchen.\r\n“Okay, now I’ve figured it out!”\r\n“Alright,” I said, twisting the knife slowly under the running faucet, “who do you—”\r\n“He’s a police officer.”\r\nI froze.\r\n“Oh?”\r\n“He’s running interference from the inside. Maybe he even works in Homicide. You probably know him!” She was getting excited, talking faster and faster. “Have you read I’ll Be Gone in the Dark? The Golden State Killer was a police officer too. You’d love it! I’ll let you borrow my copy.”\r\nI turned around very slowly, knife still in my hand.\r\n“You might be onto something.” I pointed with the knife as I spoke.\r\nWe stood there silently, waiting for the other to make the first move.\r\n“I’ll go grab that book,” Molly said, and left.\r\nI took a breath, wiped my brow, and put away the knife.\r\n“Running interference,” I said under my breath, shaking my head. Did she know the whole time? The horrible things I had done? Then she knows that I’m a monster…\r\nMy wife might be killing all those people, but I’m letting her get away with it." } ]
[ { "role": "user", "content": "Visions of Hell" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Flames burned the hills.\r\nUrged on by a whistling wind, they danced across the dry brush. In their wake, blackened sculptures reached twisted arms toward the sky.\r\nA woman screamed.\r\nBlood poured from between her legs. The mass that she forced out was shaped like a newborn, but it was too still, its unseeing eyes too large. They stared accusingly into hers.\r\nA child wept.\r\nHe was wearing his Bluey shoes, with purple stars on the sides. Wisps of blonde hair trailed across the top of one shoe, leading to the head of his classmate lying facedown beside him. Her limbs twitched like a dying battery-operated toy. He heard the sound of a shotgun being racked.\r\nA man stood in chains.\r\nHis shackles clinked as he shuffled forward, a note in the metallic symphony all around him. The line of strangers stretched across the tarmac toward the sleek grey plane. Glimmering lights failed to illuminate the interior of its gaping mouth, stuffed with darkness.\r\nAnother man stepped off another plane.\r\nHe was no one special, except that his credit card was black and never declined. He strode past the queue of less-fortunate others and handed his passport to a blue-uniformed agent. The agent barely glanced at it before handing it back.\r\n“Sir, welcome to the United States.”" } ]
[ { "role": "user", "content": "Beneath the Skin of My House" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "The walls here breathe—slow, wet inhalations that leave the plaster blistered. I hear it at night, that rasping rhythm, as if the house has grown lungs beneath its ribs of rotting timber. Mother used to say shame was a living thing. “It nests,” she’d whisper, “under the tongue, behind the eyes.” I never understood until I buried her in the cellar, her mouth sewn shut with twine.\r\nThey found her nightgown in my shed, speckled with rust that wasn’t rust. The sheriff asked why my hands shook. I told him it was the cold. Lies come easier when you’ve practiced them in the mirror, your reflection a stranger chewing through your excuses. But the truth is, I didn’t bury her deep enough.\r\nShe claws through the floorboards now.\r\nAt first, it was knuckles rapping—tap-tap-tap—like a child begging for supper. Then came the sounds of her teeth gnawing through clay and root, her voice a gurgle of soil and old blood. Last night, her fingers breached the surface, blackened and glistening, the nails peeled back to raw moons. I tried to stuff her down with a broom handle, but she seized it, splintering wood into my palms.\r\n“You let me die,” she hissed, though her lips were still stitched. The thread had frayed, though.\r\nThe shame isn’t that I forgot her medicine. It isn’t that I watched her writhe, clawing at her throat as the seizure took her. It’s that I waited. Three days, while her body bloated and wept, before I dragged her downstairs. Three days, listening to the flies thicken in the air. Three days, imagining how her face might look if I peeled back the sheet—would her eyes be open? Would they blame me?\r\nNow, she’s coming to ask.\r\nHer head emerged at dawn, hair matted with earth, scalp split like overripe fruit. She smiles with gums stripped pink, her tongue a fat worm probing the threads. I’ve barricaded the cellar door, but the house fights me. Floorboards buckle. Pipes scream. The sheriff will return, and when he does, he’ll see.\r\nMother always said secrets rot faster than flesh. I thought she meant guilt. I didn’t know she meant literally.\r\nThe smell is worse. Cloying, sweet—a butcher’s honeysuckle. It clings to my clothes, my hair. I scrub until my skin cracks, but it won’t leave. It’s in the tea I drink, the hymns I hum, the way the shadows cling to the corners of the room, watching.\r\nTonight, I’ll open the cellar.\r\nTonight, I’ll let her crawl into my bed, her cold fingers tracing the guilt under my skin, her breath a damp hymn in my ear. “This is what you wanted,” she’ll croon, and I won’t deny it. Shame is a confession. Shame is a mother’s love.\r\nAnd when she slips inside me—through the mouth, the pores, the spaces between bones—I’ll finally understand.\r\nSome sins aren’t meant to be buried.\r\nThey’re meant to wear you, hollow and trembling, until you’re nothing but a shroud." } ]
[ { "role": "user", "content": "A Split Second of Evil" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Kim notices him.\r\nThe boy.\r\nYoung.\r\nBut not too young.\r\nOld enough for third grade.\r\nClad in a bright yellow parka and black pants.\r\nWaddling into frame, so to speak.\r\nBut this frame is the windshield.\r\nHer eyes widen.\r\nRealization shatters thoughts.\r\nShatters reality.\r\nAll reason goes.\r\nKim should hit the brakes.\r\nThey’re right there.\r\nBeneath her feet.\r\nJust one little—\r\nKim acts.\r\nShe hits the gas." } ]
[ { "role": "user", "content": "The Weight of Ashes" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "The taste of copper lingers, thick as sin, on my tongue. It’s always there now, even when I don’t bite my lips raw. Guilt, you see, isn’t a ghost—it’s a parasite. It nests in your marrow, feeds on the rot you try to bury. And I’ve buried so much.\r\nThe house exhales when I enter, its timbers groaning like old bones. Dust motes swirl in the jaundiced light, each a tiny requiem. She waits in the attic, where the shadows congeal into something solid. I climb the stairs anyway, drawn by the scent of charred roses—her perfume, once. Now it’s the stench of blistered flesh.\r\n“You promised,” her voice rasps, a serrated thing that flays the air. Emmeline. Her name was Emmeline.\r\nI see her in fragments: a jawbone peeking through melted skin, eyes like cracked porcelain pooling with liquid night. She died because I loved her too little and myself too much. A match struck in jealousy. A velvet curtain kissed by flame. Her laughter curdling into screams. I watched. I watched.\r\nThe attic is a cathedral of regret. Milky moonlight filters through the cracked skylight, illuminating the symbol I’ve carved into the floorboards—a spiral, its edges smeared with my blood. A ward. A plea. But the dead don’t forgive; they hunger.\r\nEvery night, the ritual: salt, iron, the incantation whispered through split lips. Every night, failure. She slips through the cracks, her fingers—blackened twigs, nails like rusted needles—scraping down the walls. “You owe me,” she hisses. “A life for a life.”\r\nLast week, I found a child’s ribbon in the garden. Sky-blue, crusted with soil. Mine now, she crowed as I retched. The earth here is pregnant with secrets, swelling with the things I’ve fed it. Small bones. Broken vows.\r\nTonight, the spiral bleeds without provocation. My hands shake as I light the black candles, their wax the color of a bruise. The air curdles. Emmeline materializes, not as a wraith but solid, her ruined face inches from mine. Rot blooms where her lips part.\r\n“Enough bargains,” she croons. “Time to pay.”\r\nThe floorboards splinter. Roots surge upward, gnarled and glistening, coiling around my ankles. They pull. I scream, but the sound drowns in the cacophony of her laughter. The house groans, walls peeling back to reveal a ribcage of splintered beams. Below, the cellar gapes—a maw lined with teeth of broken glass.\r\nI see them then: the others. Pale shapes writhing in the loam, their mouths stitched shut with my lies. Emmeline’s hand—cold, so cold—cups my cheek. “You thought grief was a grave?” she whispers. “It’s a cradle. And you’ll rock us all to sleep.”\r\nThe roots yank harder. My knees crack against the floor. The spiral’s blood mingles with mine, binding me to the pattern. A vessel. A anchor. Emmeline’s ashes swirl into a crown above her brow.\r\n“Forever,” she smiles.\r\nI understand too late. The guilt was never mine alone—it was the kindling. And now, I’ll burn with them.\r\nThe cellar swallows me whole." } ]
[ { "role": "user", "content": "Have you heard the real story of the five little ducks?" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Five little ducks went out one day. Mother duck asked where they were going and they gave a vague response, saying they have something they need to do. These five little ducks travelled over a hill and far away. But only four little ducks came back.\r\nThe next day the four told mama duck, they had to go back out. When mama asked why, again they stated it was just something they needed to do. Only 3 little ducks came back.\r\nIn the morning of the following day, the 3 little ducks again said they had something they needed to do. Mama duck pleaded with them to stay home, but they wouldn’t. Over the hill and far away they went. Only 2 little ducks came back.\r\nThe following day, the two ducks told mama they were heading out. Mama asked why they kept leaving and where their sibling were. The little ducks had emotionless expressions and just told mama duck they would be back. Mama duck stated that she didn’t believe them and begged them to stay. They didn’t and only 1 little duck came back.\r\nThe next morning, that 1 little duck told its mama it was leaving. Mama duck pleaded and quacked, begging for it not to go. But the little duck just left. It did not come back.\r\nMother Duck finally had enough. She went out one day, over the hill and far away. She discovered a farm. Old MacDonald’s Farm. She heard screaming, no not screaming, dreadful quacking coming from the barn. When she went in, she was horrified with what she saw. All of her five little ducks were locked in cages marked “Confit.” She hurriedly went over and released them and all quickly waddled back over the hill. Because of the little ducks heroic mother, all of the five little ducks came back" } ]
[ { "role": "user", "content": "fear of the dark" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "When I was a child, my parents used to tell me about this creature in the night that would kidnap children if they left the house in the dark. They told me he‘s freakishly tall and you can only see him whenever there is at least a bit of light around, otherwise he blends into the night, and once he approaches you, it’s over. I obviously believed my parents. And even though I know their intentions were good and they just wanted to keep me safe, this whole story led to me growing afraid of the dark.\r\nI live in a part of the world where the winters are exceptionally dark, which makes living with my fear very difficult. My therapist suggested exposure therapy. She told me I should try to go outside when it’s dark to teach my brain that there is actually nothing to be scared of. First she told me to just stand outside my front door for a few minutes, and as I grew more and more comfortable I should try to walk around in the dark.\r\nToday is the day where I‘m taking a short walk to the supermarket at night. As I walk down the street in the faint glow of the street lights, I hear leaves rustling to my side, but I know better than to jump. Luckily it stopped snowing already, so all that’s left of the winter is the cold. Unbearably cold.\r\nAs I approach the glowing lights from the supermarket windows I get a feeling of relief. But something felt off. It felt like something was behind me. I turned around and saw a tall, dark figure standing on the other side of the street and looking at me. I watched the figure leave the glow of the street lights and practically disappear when he crossed the road.\r\nI turned back around and grabbed the front door handle of the supermarket and entered quickly. “This is nothing”, I told myself as I tried to slow my heartbeat, “it’s just a regular person going go the supermarket, just like me.” With shaky hands I grabbed a bottle of water. Since the walk there was supposed to be a practice I didn’t actually need anything.\r\nI looked back towards the front door and I still saw the abnormally tall figure. As he ducked through the door I realized he had no facial features. He was just a void. An entity. My panic grew bigger and I started to scream. Other costumers looked at me in confusion as I screamed my heart out and dropped the water bottle. He was approaching me, not them. I don’t think they can see him. He was there for me." } ]
[ { "role": "user", "content": "A success rate of 99% is abysmal." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "You may feel that this is hyperbole, and you’re right, for most things it is. A footballer that scores goals in 99% of their attempts would be literally unmatched in history. Winning the lottery 99% of the times you buy it would get you both incredibly rich and investigated by multiple government agencies. But for other things, 99% is horrible, bordering on intolerable.\r\nTake plane rides. Every day roughly 100,000 flights happen concurrently worldwide. Can you imagine if only 99% of them succeed? If 1000 planes plummeted to the ground daily flight would be banned in a week.\r\nSimilarly, there are at any moment roughly 51,000 container ships in the open seas. Imagine if only 99% of them successfully stayed afloat daily, 510 ships just collapsing into scrap and sinking. Forget the damage to the global economy and the lives lost, something is fundamentally wrong with modern shipbuilding techniques if that ever happened.\r\nSimilarly, imagine if only 99% of phones worked everyday, or if only 99% of rifles didn’t explode in soldier’s hands when fired, or if only 99% of trains didn’t derail and crash.\r\nWhat I’m trying to say is that for some things, 99% isn’t good enough. A success rate of 99.99% or even higher is needed for them to be viable. Planes have an average daily success rate of 100%, and only about 90 days of the year does it fall to 99.999%.\r\nSo you can imagine our horror when starting three months ago, only 99% of all humans successfully woke up every morning." } ]
[ { "role": "user", "content": "A short history of mankind" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "The bombs fell and the world broke.\r\nCities crumbled, homes destroyed.\r\nRadiation rampant, a slow and hidden assassin.\r\nDays become weeks become months become years.\r\nHumanity dwindles, a flickering flame guttering in the dark.\r\nDesperation for clean food and water.\r\nOnly the strong, only the wrong, survive.\r\nMutation.\r\nCannibalism.\r\n...\r\nEventually, evolution.\r\n...\r\nThe brood mother sighed, this latest litter had been nought but weaklings, fit only for the plates of the warriors." } ]
[ { "role": "user", "content": "The Last Voyage of the Flockton" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Clinging to a piece of debris from the wreckage of the Penatron, Charles Morris looked to the blackened storm clouds above and prayed to God for help. Having been a fisherman for his whole life, this moment was a nightmare come to life. There was nothing else to do besides pray for salvation for his eternal soul and wait for the inevitable end to come.\r\nHowever, the end did not come for him. His prayers were answered.\r\nA faint glow pulsed from the murky depths. The ocean churned below him with more force than the stormy seas could ever muster. Charles couldn’t see what it was. It was simply a light growing brighter and brighter until it broke the surface, and came face to face with Charles.\r\nThrough the flashes of lightning above and the creature’s own bioluminescent, Charles saw this monster from the depths was something like a jellyfish, except jellyfish don’t grow as large as this one. Most importantly, jellyfish don’t have human faces…only this one did.\r\nWithin the translucent, bioluminescent bell, there was a human face. It was pale, distorted, and its dark hair swung from side to side with the waves like seaweed. What drove Charles to the edge of madness were the dead man’s eyes. His stare felt colder than the deepest part of the ocean. Beneath that cold, stare, and beyond Charles’ comprehension, those deep, dark black eyes were pleading for help. Help which would never come either man.\r\nCharles screamed, but it was lost in the chaotic maelstrom. The jellyfish came closer and closer, the pulse of its light giving vision to an ancient beast. Charles could see more now. It was much closer. Much brighter.\r\nIt wasn’t a sole person inside the monster, but a tangle of pale, emaciated arms and legs. What’s worse were the shuffling faces within. Their sorrow. Their pain. Their eternal struggle. Charles realized they were all still alive somehow.\r\nThe jellyfish extended its appendage toward him. It looked like a snake slithering through the water. Chares flailed his arms and legs in a desperate attempt to escape, but he never stood a chance. The tentacle wrapped around his ankle and squeezed. He felt a hot, searing pain, shoot up his leg, and it rolled through his entire body.\r\nPulling Charles even closer to its bell, it shined more radiantly than the brightest stars in the sky. Charles could see them all now. The remnants of people who were not wholly dead or alive pleading for release from their eternally gelatinous prison.\r\nAs Charles was drawn in, he understood his prayer from earlier was answered. Not by his God, but something else entirely. It heard his pleas. It knew he didn’t want to perish. Now, he was no longer a fisherman lost at sea. He was a part of the Deep itself. Forever another sorrowful face trapped within the pulsing light of an ancient terror.\r\nThe storm raged on, drowning Charles screams, indifferent to his fate or mankind’s." } ]
[ { "role": "user", "content": "The Arithmetic of Decay" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Elise first noticed it on a Tuesday. A single wrinkle, thin as a thread, beneath her left eye. By Wednesday, it had split into three. Thursday morning, her reflection in the bathroom mirror was a web of fissures, skin cracked like desert clay. She pressed a fingertip to her cheek - dry, flaking - but felt nothing. No pain. No heat. Just the faint, papery rasp of decay.\r\nHer doctor dismissed it as eczema. \"Stress,\" he said, scribbling a prescription for cream she already knew wouldn’t work. That night, she sat at her kitchen table, staring at her hands. The knuckles had begun to yellow, the veins beneath translucent as old wax. She peeled back a strip of skin from her wrist. Underneath, there was no blood. No muscle. Only a fine, gray dust.\r\nThe apartment changed too. Walls bled shadows even at noon, corners curdling into voids that swallowed lamplight. Her clock lost its numbers, the hands spinning backward in languid circles. When she called her sister, the line crackled with static. \"Elise, you’re not making sense,\" the voice said, but it wasn’t her sister. It was hollow, a parody of speech, syllables collapsing into white noise.\r\nBy Friday, her teeth loosened. She spat one into the sink - a molar, its root black and brittle. The face in the mirror was a stranger’s now, sagging, collapsing inward like fruit left to rot. She tried to scream. Her jaw unhinged, clattering to the floor in a spray of ash.\r\nThe worst part was the arithmetic. Numbers flickered at the edges of her vision: 7-3-1-9-4, scrolling like a ticker tape. She wrote them down, frantic, until the digits bled into equations she couldn’t parse. 7-3=4. 4-1=3. 3-9=— Negative numbers. Impossible. Irrational. Her mind clawed at the logic, but it slipped away, a half-dreamt nightmare.\r\nOn Saturday, the knocking started. Three raps, then silence. Always three. When she opened the door, her neighbor stood there, smiling. \"You look tired,\" the woman said, tilting her head. Elise tried to speak, but her tongue crumbled to powder. The neighbor’s smile widened, her teeth sharpening into needles. \"Almost done,\" she whispered, and closed the door.\r\nElise crawled to the window. Outside, the city stretched, skeletal and still. No cars. No birds. The sky hung low, a moldering film. She pressed her palm to the glass. It dissolved on contact, fingers scattering like dandelion seeds. The numbers returned, faster now: 7-3-1-9-4-7-3-1-9-4. A countdown. A sum.\r\nShe understands now. It’s subtraction. They’re peeling her back, layer by layer, reducing her to the base equation. Flesh to dust. Memory to static. Love to a hollow hum. There’s no violence here, no ghost or monster - only erosion. The quiet horror of becoming less.\r\nWhen the final digit blinks out, she won’t scream. She won’t exist enough to.\r\nThe neighbor knocks again. Three times.\r\nAlways three." } ]
[ { "role": "user", "content": "The Weight of Every When" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Dr. Voss’s lab hums with the static of collapsing possibilities. Her eyelids flutter, wired to the machine she built to map quantum consciousness—to see the branching paths of every choice. To find the timeline where her daughter didn’t choke on a peach pit while Voss checked work emails.\r\nJust one universe, she bargained. One where I looked up.\r\nThe machine clicks.\r\nLight fractures.\r\nSuddenly, she’s staring at infinite versions of herself: some weeping over a small coffin, some laughing at a birthday party, some alone in empty houses. All real. All now. Her skull vibrates with their whispers—“Pick up the phone when she calls,” “Quit the job,” “Run faster that day”— a cacophony of what-ifs compressing her ribs.\r\nA migraine blooms. She claws at the electrodes. “Shut it down!”\r\nBut the machine’s whine deepens. The other versions turn, spectral faces pressing against the void. Their mouths move in unison: “You left the pit in the fruit bowl.”\r\nHer chair levitates. Or the lab dissolves. She can’t tell. Atoms buzz, unraveling. The walls become funhouse mirrors reflecting her daughter alive, dead, alive, dead—\r\n“Stop!” Voss gags on the paradox, her cells straining to exist in every when at once. She glimpses a version of herself lunging to unplug the machine, but her limbs won’t move. They’re frozen by the truth: Every choice happens. No escape.\r\nThe machine flatlines.\r\nSilence.\r\nVoss slumps forward, drool stringing to the keyboard. Her assistant, Felix, shakes her. “Doctor? Did it work?”\r\nShe tries to scream.\r\nHer voice splinters into echoes. When she blinks, she’s also blinking in a car speeding toward her daughter’s school, in a morgue identifying a body, in a void clawing at static. Her mind dilates, stretched across existence.\r\n“Call an ambulance!” Felix yells.\r\nVoss twitches, her nerves firing in all directions. She wants to tell him the machine didn’t expand consciousness—it fractured it. That she’s a shard trapped between glaciers of time, crushed by the weight of every unlived life.\r\nParamedics strap her down. She arches, gagging, as another Voss in another ambulance chooses to scream instead of whimper. The straps break. Or don’t.\r\nAt the hospital, she claws at her eyelids, desperate to unsee the kaleidoscope. Nurses sedate her.\r\nBut the drug only thins the veil.\r\nNow, she drifts.\r\nA ghostly parade of daughters wave from doorways that never close. Voss reaches for each, her body disintegrating into the howl of almost.\r\nThey declare her catatonic.\r\nFelix visits, voice wavering. “What’s she looking at?”\r\nThe nurse sighs. “Nothing.”\r\nWrong, Voss thinks.\r\nEverything." } ]
[ { "role": "user", "content": "A new form of life appeared in the city." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "My friend Robby gave me the call.\r\n“Brent, meet me at the alley between O’Malley’s and the pawn shop. There’s… I don’t think there's even words for what I’m seeing here.”\r\nWhen I arrived at the alley Robby and a crowd of others were piled around a heap of trash. Literally, it was a pile of newspapers, plastic, and half-eaten food.\r\nI got what the fuss was all about when I noticed it breathing.\r\nThe garbage slowly took the shape of a hybrid between human and yoga ball.\r\nIt got up on its rudimentary limbs, and despite not having a face, I swear to God himself that it was staring at us.\r\nWe all kind of took a few awkward steps away from the thing.\r\nWe kept staring at the living… object, and vice versa.\r\nOne by one, we were too weirded out by the thing to stay.\r\nI personally went to O’Malley’s after the incident. Nothing soothes the soul better than a pint.\r\nOf course, that wasn’t the last we’d see of the thing.\r\nMost of the time, it was living in the alley, something nearly all of us appreciated.\r\nSometimes it would wave at you from there and you’d have to pretend not to notice it.\r\nSometimes it even walked into the nearby strip mall.\r\nIt would try to pass itself off as a human, wearing scavenged clothes and parroting casual body language.\r\nIt always failed to win us over. It was just too different from us.\r\nIt was sad, he seemed to genuinely want to socialize.\r\nThe last time he pulled stunts like that at O’Malley’s, one of the inebriated patrons smacked him across the “head”.\r\nWe all went back to usual when it slinked out of the pub.\r\nAfter that, it got the hint and stuck to the alleys.\r\nPassing by, you could notice strange changes to it.\r\nGlass shards embedded to its form. Tiny holes from bullets. Burn marks too.\r\nIf you were unlucky, you would witness some of the local youths going at him, and you’d know the cause of those injuries.\r\nI witnessed 5 of these incidents passing by the alleys. Each time I quickened my pace from the scene.\r\nI was the first one who saw it lying prone on the filthy concrete.\r\nWho knew that thing could die?\r\nWe didn’t bother to move the inanimate-again thing. It was indistinguishable from all the other junk anyways.\r\nI was coincidentally also the first to see the pile of trash between the McDonald’s and the Dollar General breathing.\r\nI didn’t bother to tell anyone. It’ll end up the same in a week or two anyways." } ]
[ { "role": "user", "content": "The Town of Ravenswood" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "The small, rural town of Ravenswood was never the same after the night the children disappeared. It started with little things: a missing ball, a forgotten lunchbox, a child's faint cry echoing through the woods. But as the days went by, the disappearances grew more frequent, and the townspeople began to whisper about an ancient evil that lurked in the shadows.\r\nI was the last one to see them. I had been babysitting the Miller kids, Timmy and Sarah, at my house on the outskirts of town. We had spent the evening playing games and watching movies, but as bedtime approached, the kids began to act strangely. They grew restless and agitated, their eyes fixed on something outside the window.\r\nAnd then, they were gone.\r\nI searched the house from top to bottom, but there was no sign of Timmy or Sarah. It was as if they had vanished into thin air. I stumbled through the darkness, calling out their names, but the only response was the creaking of trees and the distant howling of wolves.\r\nAs I stumbled back to my house, I saw it. A figure, tall and imposing, standing just beyond the treeline. Its eyes glowed with an otherworldly light, and I could feel its presence washing over me like a cold wave.\r\nI tried to run, but my legs were frozen in terror. The figure began to move towards me, its eyes fixed on mine, and I knew that I was doomed.\r\nThe next morning, the townspeople found me curled up on my porch, my eyes wide with fear. They searched for Timmy and Sarah, but they were never found. The town of Ravenswood was left to pick up the pieces, to wonder what had happened to the children, and to whisper about the ancient evil that lurked in the shadows.\r\nBut I knew the truth. I had seen it with my own eyes. And I knew that I would never be the same again.\r\nYears later, I received a package in the mail. Inside, I found a small, Polaroid photograph. It was a picture of Timmy and Sarah, standing in front of an old, abandoned house on the outskirts of town. They were smiling, but their eyes were black as coal. And on the back of the photograph, a message was scrawled in red ink: \"We're still here.\"" } ]
[ { "role": "user", "content": "This Woman Has a Picture of My Husband on Her Wall? They're doing something worse than cheating" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "So I found out my husband's best friend has some sort of weird fan-fiction painting of him that she keeps in her bedroom above her bed.\r\nYes, her bed.\r\nInsane!\r\nA friend of a friend showed me.\r\nSo, I obviously called my man out on it and I'm like,\r\n\"Babe, what's this about? That's you. That painting is of you in like some 1750s military gear? Are you going to find America, Carter? Is that what you're going to do?\"\r\nWell, Carter rolled his eyes at me and he goes, \"No, we're both just history buffs. It's a joke.\"\r\nAnd that's what I didn't like—history was his secret hobby as of last month. Before then, he had never taken an interest.\r\n\"Whatever, I just think it's weird she has a—\"\r\n\"You're certainly talking a lot today. Go talk to Taylor about it,\" he said and walked away. I didn't follow him because that's just not my nature. But today it would be my nature to confront a woman trying to take my man.\r\nSo, I get to talk to this woman who's been doing fan-fiction paintings of my husband. We exchange pleasantries.\r\n\"Hey,\" I said.\r\n\"Hey,\" she said. \"What are you doing here?\"\r\n\"Oh, I just wanted to chat.\"\r\nFine, it wasn't that pleasant, but it was exchanged.\r\nAnyway, I told her my issue and you won't believe it. You won't believe the gall of this chick. She cackled, in my face. And after her crazy cackle she said,\r\n\"Ask him.\"\r\nI said, \"I already did.\"\r\nHer 3-year-old son ran behind her wearing only a diaper and waving a marker in his hand.\r\n\"Are you going to get him?\" I asked.\r\n\"You certainly have a mouth on you today,\" she said, and I could have smacked her.\r\n\"Excuse me!\"\r\n\"Stay right here,\" she commanded like I could be commanded.\r\nTapping my foot, I only got madder. Taking off my earrings, I decided why not? What's one scrap? I entered her house following the sound of a baby crying. I called her name, ready to throw down. But it became harder to speak.\r\n\"Taylor?\" I said.\r\n\"Tay— Gugh.\"\r\n\"Yuh— yuh.\"\r\nOnce in her bedroom, Taylor didn't notice me. She was too busy.\r\nAnd I saw a portrait not of my husband but of me. The portrait looked to be somewhat vandalized, perhaps by Taylor's son in the corner. A large red mouth was drawn on it. Whacking away at this mouth was Taylor.\r\n\"Baby,\" Taylor scolded her child. \"I told you don't draw on Mommy's portraits. They can have disastrous consequences.\"\r\nWith one final swipe, she presented the portrait to her child.\r\n\"See, all better,\" she said.\r\nAnd the portrait was me, sheepish and shying away in a lovely black gown I swore I never wore before, but it was me. But with a mouth carved away.\r\nPlease, help. How do you speak without a mouth?" } ]
[ { "role": "user", "content": "The Princess of Aethelora" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "It’s cruel to keep my pet tigers indoors, plus my servants seem to think they stink.\r\nSo every morning, as soon as I get up, I get up and run down the vast marble hallways of my gorgeous palace into the magnificent gardens with their high walls, calling out for my tigers. “Stripes! Amber!”\r\nI love them so much. They are so fucking gorgeous, and they keep me safe. A princess after all may seem to have a blessed life, but there are many dangers lurking.\r\nThe sounds of Mommy and Daddy screaming seem particularly loud this morning, filtering over the high walls of my garden, and wafting down the marble halls. I think I could hear them through the night, piercing my sleep as I tossed and turned on my silken sheets.\r\nOnce I lay my eyes on Amber and Stripes, it’s as if all unpleasant noises in the world melt. Amber is lolling by the rose bush, feigning indifference, but Stripes bounds up to me, as playful as a puppy. I hug him, delighting in his soft fur and he lays his majestic head tenderly on my shoulder. Amber strolls up. I know she wants cuddles as much as Stripes. She bats Stripes away, and rising on her hind legs, places her heavy front paws on my shoulder, dipping her head towards mine.\r\nWe gaze into each other's eyes.\r\nOur joy is shattered by a shriek from Mommy ripping through the garden. I blink, and when I open my eyes I am not in my garden, but crouched in crumpled dirty sheets in my small bedroom. Mommy cries “you fucking asshole-” Her voice is cut short.\r\n“Don’t even feed your fucking children-” I hear Daddy and then my hearts beats faster as he calls my name “Melanie! Melanie! Get the hell here!”\r\nI shut my eyes tightly, and I am back in my beautiful garden, Amber’s breath warm on my face, her jade eyes glowing, keeping me in the moment.\r\n“Don’t you dare tell me how to feed my children-” Mummy screams. Stripes growls.\r\nI can hear loud footsteps coming down the corridor of our apartment. Amber draws back her teeth, showing very white, very sharp teeth.\r\n“I fucking mean it! Leave Melanie alone!” Mummy’s voice is closer now, and the pitter-patter of her steps follow Daddy. She yelps. Amber and Stripes are growling loudly but I’m not scared of them.\r\nDaddy flings the door of my bedroom open, Mummy right behind him.\r\nAmber and Stripe pounce together, right for their throats. They scream one last time, a horrible loud sound unlike any of the screaming I have heard all through my life, ever since I became Princess of Aethelora.\r\nThen there is silence.\r\nI am back in my beautiful garden, seated on the warm sun-soaked grass. Amber and Stripes, their muzzles bloody, as sweet as kittens, frolic at my feet. I take a deep breath. Everything will be ok now." } ]
[ { "role": "user", "content": "In a Spot of Trouble" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Jack leaned into the mirror, admiring his reflection. Hair perfectly gelled, jawline sharp enough to draw blood, shirt crisp—he was a masterpiece. Veronica, a Tinder perfect ten with tight dresses, perfect makeup and legs for days, wouldn’t stand a chance tonight.\r\nThen he saw it.\r\nA spot.\r\nSmall, red, but huge in its audacity. Sitting smugly under his left eye, screaming insecurity. Jack’s smirk vanished. He leaned closer, poking it. Nothing. He pressed harder. Still nothing.\r\n“Alright, asshole,” he muttered, his fingers twitching. “You wanna ruin me? Not happening.”\r\nHe grabbed a needle from the drawer, skipping the sterilization—because Jack didn’t have time for details when his face was under attack. The first jab was wild, sinking deeper than intended. He winced as pain shot through his skull. The spot didn’t retreat.\r\nNo, it spread.\r\nThe swelling puffed out around his eye, the flesh inflating grotesquely. His left eye drooped, half-swallowed by his bloated cheek.\r\n“Fucking seriously?”\r\nJack clawed at it, his nails scraping raw skin. Blood streaked his fingers as he dug in, frenzied. The dull ache throbbed harder, his head swimming. His left eye was nearly swollen shut now, the skin shiny and tight.\r\nHe squeezed harder.\r\nA wet pop echoed through the bathroom.\r\nHis left eye shot forward, dangling free of its socket. It swung lazily, bumping against his cheek, obstructing his view of the spot. Jack blinked with his remaining eye, his lip curling in disgust.\r\n“Get the fuck outta the way,” he snarled at the eyeball.\r\nThe optic nerve tugged as it swayed, making his stomach churn. But the spot—the fucking spot—was still there. Mocking him.\r\nJack gritted his teeth and reached for the eyeball, gripping it tightly. “You’re useless anyway,”\r\nWith one savage yank, he tore it free. The nerve snapped with a wet tearing sound, and blood sprayed the mirror. He tossed the eyeball into the sink like trash and leaned in closer, panting.\r\nThe eye stared up at him from the porcelain, its bloodied pupil wide, almost accusing. Jack ignored it.\r\nThe spot had grown larger, bulging and throbbing, consuming the left side of his face. It was him or the spot now. He clawed at the swollen mass, tearing away skin and muscle, blood pooling at his feet. His reflection was a shredded mess of flesh and ego.\r\nThe phone buzzed on the counter.\r\nA text: “Can’t wait to see you tonight!”\r\nJack laughed, a wet, gurgling sound, his lips splitting as he grinned at his mangled reflection. “Yeah, me too, babe,” he wheezed. His knees buckled, his body collapsing to the floor.\r\n“I hope you like… personality.”\r\nAbove him, the spot pulsed. Triumphant." } ]
[ { "role": "user", "content": "My parents did not have a single cell of love that existed between them." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "And everyone who knew them, knew that. The air in our \"home\", if you can call it a home even, was always thick with a hatred so sharp, it could cut you deep. And my birth just added fuel to the fire. It was as if I was the one who asked to be born, and not because my parents were tortured to their wit's end by everyone to have a child, because apparently, a baby is the elixir that can save a marriage. How can you save something that was built on the grounds of destruction?\r\nMy father was never at home, and my mother was never in her senses. The rare occasions when both of them shared the same roof, words of exteme vileness escaped their mouths and seeped deep into the walls of our house, and into my life too. As scared as I was, I just started ignoring everything at home. After a point, I was just immune to all the noises, the screams, the shouts.\r\nIt was one of those nights when my father was at home, because there was a massive storm outside. The lightning and the thunder was barely anything compared to the war my parents were raging against each other. Even in the deafening sounds of the thunder and the heavy rainfall, one couldn't drown out my mother's shrieks and my father's roars. I don't know what scared me more, the storm outside, or the storm within the walls of our house. So I just sat cowering in my room, waiting for it all to end.\r\nI must have slept off eventually, because when I woke up, the noises had stopped. I figured out that they were no longer fighting. Somewhat relieved, I walked out of my room, and into the kitchen. After all these hours, my stomach was in a stormy state too. I didn't bother turning the lights on, scared that it might awaken my parents, and they might start fighting again. But in the process, I tripped over something and fell.\r\nThe phone's flashlight showed my mother's legs. That wasn't anything new, she had the habit of getting drunk and passing out in weird places in the house. But when I turned on the lights, there was indeed something new.\r\nWhile I had seen my mother passed out on several occasions, I had never seen her drowning in her own blood and dead. Next to her sat my father, also very dead, his palm clutching a bloody piece of the whiskey bottle that he used to shove into my mother's body.\r\nIt's ironic, I think, that these two people who were never together till the time they were alive, somehow poetically, albeit tragically, seemed to come together and form a union as the blood trickling from both their bodies blended into a single red lake on the floor." } ]

Subsets and Splits

No community queries yet

The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.