Unnamed: 0
int64
0
12k
prompt
stringlengths
4
324
story
stringlengths
587
7.18k
1,000
`` Mommy ? '' A cry wakes you in the middle of the night . `` Its still here . ''
`` Mommy?'' A cry wakes me up in the middle of the night. It's been the same cry for the last seven nights of this week that I've been living in my new home. It always comes at the same time. 3:16 AM. The first two nights, I went back to sleep thinking that it was just the stresses of a new environment. Mov...
1,001
A method is discovered that allows sleep to be transferred from body to body .
No one really knows how it happened. Things just started degrading. Slowly at first, but then rapidly... A terrifying descent for modern life. I remember being 7 years old when I first noticed the signs. People were less productive than usual: Windows boarded up instead of replacements, cars dusty in the drivew...
1,002
You suddenly grow a pair of feathery , functioning angel-like wings from your back . How does your life change ?
The desire buried deepest in my heart was always flying. To leave the grey, boring world behind and soar among the birds. To watch the sun drowning in a sea of fluffy white clouds. Until three weeks ago, that had been a dream that I knew I would never achieve. Yes, I could board a plane, maybe even learn to pilot o...
1,003
The floor is suddenly lava .
I was already sitting on the couch when the floor changed. Unfortunately for Billy Bo, he wasn ’ t. The lava ignited his clothing first, lighting his meek shape warm crimson as it crumbled into firewood for the floor. In a split moment, the smell of baking flesh stung the room within hazing wails. Bo ’ s mouth-wate...
1,004
It snowed while you were at work and now you are becoming increasingly alarmed as you discover a set of footprints that appear to be headed strait to your secluded home .
Snow flurries gently floated through the air outside, drifting where the breeze carried them. The boss decided to let us out a bit earlier, probably feeling sorry for me. I mean I had a car, I just enjoyed jogging into work every morning. I put on my parka and headed out into the cold. Cold was really an understate...
1,005
Can you write a story that chills me to the bone in less than 150 words ?
`` Karen....... KAREN!!!'' I searched the house for my wife, looking through every room. Ever since that vaccine had hit the market, all the children were going crazy. I had to get home before it was too late. I had to find my wife. I ran up the stairs as quickly as I could. `` KAREN!!!'' At that moment...
1,006
You are an agent working at a secret government facility , during 1960 's America . One dark , stormy night , you start to notice that something might have followed you home ... [ WP ]
He is tired and had little sleep the night before, he continues walking home when he hears a pounding sound behind him, looking back he sees nothing and thinks nothing of it. few steps away from his house he starts to hear the sound again pounding getting louder and louder he TURNS AROUND! and finds nothing.... a sig...
1,007
Depending on the color of the moon , monsters rise . But today you are expecting a solar eclipse . And you , as a hunter , have a very bad feeling .
“ It ’ d been a few years since the colored moons had started. At first, we thought the swamp was changing it via gas or some such. We were surprised that first night with the orange moon and having jaguar men come pouring out of the muck. They were surprised we had a ton of ammo, rifles, and the occasional can of gaso...
1,008
Your baby starts crying everytime you leave their room . Finally , you pick up your child and leave the room together . As soon as you step out , you hear crying coming from the room .
I do n't want to tell you that I was n't ready for the joys of parenthood. I'm thirty three, reasonably well employed, and we had just moved into a new town home to make room for a new baby. Nine months of waiting were nerve racking and the first few months were a joyful mess. I did n't notice the little things that we...
1,009
You live in a tiny village. Every night the elders gather around the fire and tell storys from the old times when magic was real. When you could just think about anything and it appeared on your doorstep and every being was connected. One day a grandma shouts: "The internet wasn't that great !
“Jada...Jada...Jada!” yelled a voice nearby. I fully awaken to see a girl glancing at me with concern. “Why are you upside down,” I said to her. She shoved my stomach lightly and pulled out a pocket knife. I began swaying side to side and that's when I saw it. I was hanging by my legs from a tree. She went to the other...
1,010
The face you see in mirrors is not your own. It's not the face others see. It's not the face you see in pictures or video. As you're making coffee for a long line of customers you spot a familiar face at the end of the queue - the same face you see in the mirror. They run.
“Here you are.” - Harley offered a polite smile as she handed the steaming cup of coffee to the customer, who quickly grabbed it and left. - “Next...” Words died in Harley’s mouth the moment her gaze fell on a very familiar face. In fact, that was the same face she’s been seeing in the mirror everyday for the past twe...
1,011
A child mistakenly sends their Christmas letter to Satan . He chooses to oblige in his own special way .
Dear, Satan. I have been such a good boy this year. Mom tells me so every single day. She says that Daddy is coming home soon and that when he does; we will all go away together for a long vacation. Mom does n't do too much any more. Just sits in her chair and talks with me occasionally, in the same dusty gown that...
1,012
The monsters under my bed never worried me. What worried me was what they were hiding from.
When I was eight, I pulled back the covers and peered under the bed with a flashlight for my nightly monster check. Instead of the usual stray toys strewn about, I saw three fur covered figures lying on their stomachs, with large fangs and clawed hands. Their glowing eyes glared at me from the shadows, which were half-...
1,013
The `` Shh '' sound that parents make to children at night is actually an ancient spell that keeps a terrible nocturnal evil at bay
She's awake. Her cry cuts through my dreams, I'm awake. We've been co-sleeping for the first few weeks and there has become an attachment to her sleeping patterns. It feels wrong. When I am awoke up from a deep sleep to the sound of her cry it tears me from from my slumber. My dreams dive into my reality: the sucking o...
1,014
Your body died three days ago. But through sheer force of willpower, you are still moving and breathing, because there is no way in hell you are losing Employee of the Month to Chad again.
I stumbled into the bathroom of my apartment, my left left dragging behind me before I threw myself forward to grip the edges of the sink. Pulling myself up, I stared at my reflection in the mirror. “Hey chief, you’re not looking too good today. Can’t have you here if you’re sick, so I’m going to send you home, all ri...
1,015
Describe your Darkest Demon
[ I do n't think this is what you wanted, but this is what I wanted to write. ] I don ’ t need to seek out stories. Sometimes they find me. After reading my first journal, people think that my most terrifying adventures are the train stations of Steam City my encounter with the Charred Dragons, or The Nightmare...
1,016
A young boy tugs on your hand, and looks up at you with the saddest eyes you've ever seen. The child is death, and he has come to take you away.
He was still wearing the helmet, heavy and cracked on his head. It was hard to breathe. The helmet was etched on his skull, now part of him, reminding him to latch on to the land of the living. To keep filling his lungs with pain and desperation. He had to focus on every breath, savour every inhale and exhale, every d...
1,017
You're a scientist working on a special type of glasses to help color blind people see. You put on the latest version, and see a giant creepy humanoid figure in corner of your room watching you. As you walk outside, you see them everywhere.
From about the age of 7 or 8, up until my mid 20s, I had a sort of reoccurring theme to my dreams. There were always people who had a depth of black void where their face should have been. These people acted just like everyone else, and gave no indication they were different. They would be gardeners, mailworkers, cops...
1,018
A man with severe mental issues has just shot up a shopping mall . Write a story from his point of view from when he woke up that morning to the actual shooting .
I read that if you stay in the dark for long enough you go blind. I miss it. The light. The fury of the sunrise piercing the windows. The basement is dank and cold, the walls closer every day and I think that they all know. They talk about me I know it I know it. They watch me, you know, they watch me. I ...
1,019
You are a kid 's imaginary friend . They 're growing up . You 're fading away .
We were running towards the swing as we always would. The ground was slick and slippery from the rain last night. She ran around the seesaw as I jumped over it. I had done it over a million times but my leg snagged at the handle and I came crashing down. “ Eli! ”, She screamed as she ran towards me. It did n't seem...
1,020
The veil is wearing thin .
( I took the prompt as a metaphor if that's ok ) I ran my thumb along the seam where the white wall met the white floor. My sun kissed fingers looked dirty in contrast. I held my hand up to the bright light source that bled through the entire plain of the ceiling, shielding my raw eyes. My nails were much cleaner t...
1,021
Grandma's done it again! With her lack of computer knowledge, she's somehow opened an Eldritch portal and has been feeding homemade baked goods to whatever is on the other side.
Thanksgiving was a little weird this year. The first big tip-off was the talking turkey. Turkeys shouldn’t talk. We learned this during a separate grandma-based demon-summoning. “Grandmama!” I yelled, “your famous county-fair award-winning shortcakes are missing” Grandmama was always technically challenged. Very mag...
1,022
In a different world , humans fear the light , rather than the dark .
‘ Come back before it gets light! ’ My Mother always said that as we left in the early hours of the morning to play with the other kids. She knew better than anyone why the light was dangerous but, we always agreed absentmindedly and without really listening to her. So we took to the streets in the pitch black ...
1,023
The car pinning you to the wall is the only thing keeping you alive . The authorities are about to remove it .
It ’ s first aid 101. The hunk of twisted metal that pins me to the wall of this run down liquor store is keeping all my blood in the top half of me. I can only imagine that everything below my navel is mush. Surprisingly, I can ’ t feel much. Shock does that, or so I ’ ve been told. I don ’ t see blood, but I don ’ t ...
1,024
You wander through the ruins of a once mighty city . There you see a man grinning at you , wearing a rusted crown .
Stalking the essences of a dream, I meander throughout the streets that have become rubble. It is quiet, unsettlingly so, but there is beauty in ruin. I dream of the little things. The way fiery sunlight glows against the sand-dusted buildings, the way soft moonlight shimmers on old street signs. It is hard to reme...
1,025
You come home to the heavy scent of sulfur and vinegar . Navigating each room , you notice each light bulb has burst .
I came home into the house at 9:30 PM, on a thursday night to quite a weird occurrence. As soon as i entered the house, I immediately smelled something, something was off. As i checked every room in my house, as I naturally did as a paranoid person, I noticed that all the lights were off. After closer observation, I di...
1,026
`` Visitors are reminded that flash photography is not permitted , as it may disturb the corpses . ''
[ Welcome to Zoombie: The World ’ s First Zombie Zoo ] “ Wow, ” Jane said sarcastically “ How original! That'll sure bring people in! ” “ Well, ” Ronnie quipped “ You ’ re here are n't you? ” “ Shut up, ” Jane said “ I'm here because I want to see these freaks, not because of the stupid name. ” “ Uh, hu...
1,027
A boy post apocalypse who goes on a journey to find an orthodontist to remove his braces
“ Four years, ” he told me, “ Maybe three if you're diligent and always wear your elastics. ” When I was 15, that had been the worst day of my little life so far. My mother was nodding enthusiastically next to me in that horrible office. It was full of molds of other people's mouths. Soon, I supposed, a plaster of ...
1,028
Everytime you or your girlfriend try to break up , timetravellers from the future appear and tell you that the nature of the universe depends upon you being together . It 's been 4 years and you 're both miserable .
Every. Single. Fucking. Time. I hated my girlfriend. I know that ‘ hate ’ is a strong word, but hate is the word I ’ ll use. Until recently, we had been together for four years. Four years of agony, for both of us. We were together for at most, a week, before I wanted to break up. But no, a ‘ time-traveler ’ just h...
1,029
you are receiving messages from your future self , imploring you to kill a child that will grow up to be a mass murderer .
`` Will these voices never stop? Ugh'', standing up I stretch and begin the ritual of riding myself of the voices. It used to be easy, a quick shake of the head, a good stand up and stretch, a walk to the bathroom. Now, now a walk around the block just turns down the volume, a jog with music maybe get me a quiet hour. ...
1,030
Theme Thursday - Lasers
A red alert jolts Cindy awake in her bunk. She squints against the flashing lights, the siren’s blare spearing her ear canals. With a moan, she rolls out of bed and throws on her lab coat. Outside her door, a young woman stands, fist raised to knock. Her eyes blink wide behind owlish glasses. “Dr. Strider! It’s Subje...
1,031
A horror story from the perspective of the killer.
Where did he go I swear to god. I have six other houses to get to tonight. Is he here? Nope another closet of course. Who has this many damn closets in a house? Oh wait I think I hear him upstairs. If I spook him maybe he’ll panic. “I WILL FIND YOU” ...soon I hope. Oh shit he has one of those stair chairs for old peo...
1,032
A world where people are born knowing how , when , and where they are going to die . You are a woman , 9 months pregnant , who has known all along that she dies in child birth but did n't tell anyone . You are about to go into labour .
I sometimes wish we could just live the ignorant lives of animals. They spend their whole lives just living in the moment, not counting how many days they have left, not planning around their expiry date. Unfortunately, we are not ignorant animals, we've been granted knowledge, sometimes good like the cure to diseases,...
1,033
95 % of the first world are now embedded with a microchip to improve IQ , memory , and efficiency . After this being in place for 85 years , someone manages to make a virus . Describe the chaos that ensues .
They say you know when it happens. They say you know when you ’ re infected. But how can you really tell? Your brain is the only thing between you and reality, and when your brain goes, reality might have just never existed. I ’ ll eventually get it, I know I will, but I ’ m just so scared. It all started when some...
1,034
You 're in the woods with a friend , he runs off and you are looking for him . You shout `` Marco ! '' as a joke , and hear at least twenty voices surrounding you respond `` Polo . ''
Talking squirrels was honestly my first thought; that ’ s where my mind goes. I can ’ t control it. And I ’ m incredibly stubborn, if I decide something is – it is. Once, I was taking my cat for a night walk and saw a group of men running toward me with all this anger on their faces. I assumed there was a flash flood i...
1,035
After a drinking binge, you wake up as a crocodile. Your wife is pissed. You have to be at work in fifteen minutes.
I opened my eyes, suddenly realizing that I didn’t remember anything after entering the new bar across the street from the aquarium the night before. Steve, Paul, and I walked through the rustic green door, and sat down at the bar, tired after a particularly frustrating day at our construction job. I remembered thinkin...
1,036
Write a short story where the first sentence has 20 words, 2nd sentence has 19, 3rd has 18 etc. Story ends with a single word.
The little girl curled up in bed, shaking, her plush pink duvet pulled up so only her eyes peeked over. She had seen a movement over by the closet, where she’d seen the scary crocodile a few hours before. Just imagining the sticky noises he had made when he’d crawled up to the ceiling made her whimper. He had hung ther...
1,037
A young girl , able to see spirits , befriends a reaper for lost souls . Years later the reaper arrives to her home , wounded , needing to talk .
When I pulled into my driveway I saw a figure floating near my doorstep. Like all restless spirits it was a stewing mass of gray fog the size of a coffee pot. This one must ’ ve been new to the ethereal plane since it didn ’ t know my rules. Approaching it, I started digging for my keys and rambled off my usual stateme...
1,038
You finally realize that your father isnt the invincible man you thought him to be .
It was late at night, I could n't tell what was happening. All I heard was screams and shouts. I could make out my mother's voice from the screams as I blinked my eyes into focus. `` Go son, Get help! Get your uncles! He's going to kill me!'' I sat up with a bushy head and was immediately freighted. Any little boy ...
1,039
Executing a murderer restores the life of their most recent victim .
My brother, my best friend was brutally murdered, I know who did it, but nobody believes me. You see they thought they caught the guy who did it, but when he was executed nothing happened. The people just said, `` Oh it must be too late.'' But no, I know that it is not too late, I will do whatever it takes to bring him...
1,040
After moving to your new house, Siri seems to be hearing mysterious voices during the night and answering their queries.
I haven't slept in a week. I was internally at war, trying to force myself to shut my eyelids and go to sleep, but I knew that was a battle I was going to lose. It all started last week when I moved in. I was so tired that first night, thanks to my friends having kept me up until 3 AM drinking wine and telling me how ...
1,041
They say everyone who looks into their family history will find a secret sooner or later . This is our family secret .
`` Put that down, Margaret.'' My mother's voice froze me mid-grab. A bouquet of stringy, sour candies flopped back onto the shelf, sugar specks glinting under the cold store lights. I twisted my mouth into a pout, an expression which only intensified when I looked back up at her. She paid no attention to me. ...
1,042
After a weird event everyone on earth gained "powers" except you. They were just almost useless to start (creating a fire weaker than a lighter's, "flying" .5cm off the ground etc.) But it was soon discovered killing someone boosts the killer's powers. This is your story in this new world...
I was walking back to my apartment, after a hard day of work I took a shortcut through the alleyway, and I saw something, there it lurk It looked like a man, but something wasn’t right He was crawling on the damn wall, quite the fright At first I ignored him, thinking he was just on his on way But when I looked ba...
1,043
All is well in the world. The sun is shining, your flesh decaying well, your children even got their first worms yesterday! Then your neighbor starts turning into a human. Before you know it, the Living Apocalypse is upon us!
There’s something not quite right about Mary. She’s fairly new to the neighborhood, but that dead-eyed grey gaze has left her, leaving something frightening in its place. I can’t quite put my bony finger on it. And Husband doesn’t seem to notice or care. But I see. I peer through the dusty, crumbling blinds day after d...
1,044
Your child just told you there was a monster in their closet. You may have retired from monster-hunting, but you aren't about to let this slide.
I thought that the monsters would never come back. It has been 27 years since I have seen the black, ghoulish creature's sneak out of my own bedroom closet. They stand only about two feet tall but they must climb all over another like a bed in bed of snakes, because their beady little eyes float around in the closet as...
1,045
Humans come into first contact with aliens , But the aliens do n't have any senses that we have , so there 's no way to communicate with them .
I touched the clammy, blue skin and was surprised to find it warm. My finger lingered a bit, feeling the surface tension. The creature ’ s skin was permeated and felt like it was trying to absorb my finger through each little hole, I wondered if it was breathing in the atmosphere. He, or was it a female, did not react ...
1,046
As a kid you were bitten by a really exotic insect that you never saw again. That is until you found it in a book of extinct species and read that according to some ancient people, it granted immortality.
It can’t be true.  Staring at the book, I bit my lip as I flipped through the pages. This couldn’t be real. Pictures of the insect that bit me many years ago were shown on almost every page. Even after all this time, I still couldn’t forget that thing. It was black like an obsidian jewel, and was the size of a fist. ...
1,047
Theme Thursday - Psychological Thrillers
GAME OVER “ Maria, is that you? ” There was no reply. It was probably his pills talking, he thought. He closed his eyes again. A vase smashed downstairs. David ’ s eyes fluttered open again. Surely it was real? “ Maria…? “ he yelled, but again, there was, no reply. But he was sure he heard something. Slowly, Da...
1,048
You play a game of Sims, your simulated family dies from a house fire, and find news that the same family with the exact same name and house died from a house fire.
It was the morning after the Altos died. I knew it was me. I knew it was my fault. But I knew if I told my parents, they’d scowl at me and tell me not to make fun of the dead. I can’t confess to the police- that’s a fast track to the psych ward. I’d only done it so I could get their house. After so many years of play...
1,049
A little girl walks up to a man at a desk . She is followed by something horrifying . She points to it and says `` It 's lost , and we need to get it back home . ''
The tiny girl in the yellow dress walked across the light, airy atrium to my desk. I recognized her from somewhere, but there are a lot of children on this space station, so I did n't know her name. Hundreds. `` Are you lost?'' I asked. No. Behind her, it slithered. A great, dripping Lovecraftian mass of black ...
1,050
You wake up tomorrow morning , and everyone is dead . There are chip crumbs scattered around you , and a movie plays in the background which you do n't remember downloading .
I woke up hung over and in a chip crumb covered daze. Something was playing on my cell phone. The Lord of the Rings Extended Editions. Seems like I set the movies to play one after another. ‘ 10 hours in so I must have got some sleep, ’ I thought. I ran to the bathroom to get myself cleaned. I soon spied some l...
1,051
I hear someone familiar calling from somewhere inside the house. I’m panicked.. they’re in my bathroom. Why haven’t they come out? why do I recognize their voice? I’m tiptoeing, my heart is racing. It’s the mirror.. it’s me.. My reflection says to me “I’ve been trying to talk to you.”
I hear a voice coming from inside the bathroom. I grab my phone and a hammer, yet something keeps me from calling the cops. It’s the voice. The voice is so familiar…but there should be no one in my house but me. Against my better judgment, I tiptoe towards the bathroom, my heart racing. I reach the bathroom, and slowl...
1,052
Wake up. Wake up! We have to go!
I was shot awake by the sudden yelling, my vision hazy as the blurred figure kept repeating these same three sentences. I could hardly understand a thing that was going on, my body felt so numb. I couldn’t move my legs, nor my arms. Nothing was working, it was like I was paralysed. I could barely pick up the words that...
1,053
After Dante told everyone about his experiences in the 9 circles, hell has become a very popular tourist destination, you work as a tour guide, and this job its starting to feel like your own personal hell
Hell has a gift shop. It started with the god damned gift shop. “The Little Shop of Horrors”, was Satan’s idea of ironic hell-fusion hipster tourism. Selling cursed items that the tourists could bring home with them to ruin their own lives, after we had finished ruining their vacation. But these idiots loved it. No ...
1,054
Clocks (interpret as you like)
There's an antique clock in this house. It has a beautiful carved design, but unfortunately the clock is broken, the clock arm has stopped long ago. I asked the landlord if he can fix it, but he told me he tried having it fixed once, even brought the clock to several places, but they all told him it can't be fixed. So...
1,055
I didn't think there would be so much blood.
Just so much. I couldn’t even imagine that the human body held so much. You learn all of it in school but it just doesn’t sink in until you actually see it. Over a whole gallon of it a piece while I attempt to clean it up in what seems like an increasingly useless measure. The wood floor is stained something terrible a...
1,056
Write me the most dirty , filthy , errotic story you can using words you would use in front of your three-year-old child .
I like playing games. I like to play hide and seek, I like to pin the tail on the donkey. But the game I like best is piñata. When we have a piñata, me and my friends get to hit the piñata with a bat until all the candy comes out, and everyone gets some candy. But we don ’ t always have a piñata, so sometimes we ha...
1,057
You 're dying of cancer so you agree to an experimental treatment . The first of its kind . When you wake up after the operation all the surgeons are dead .
`` Hello?'' Parker sat up uneasily, noticing the extreme heaviness that clung to his head. “ Oh God… What the Hell happened? ” Parker turned about on his hospital cot, looking down on the corpses that littered the floor around him. Rigid and decaying, the bodies of the surgeons who he remembered putting him under w...
1,058
In a case of mistaken identity you have been marked for death. Unfortunately for those hoping to claim the bounty you have been assigned a guardian angel with no morals, that has never heard of boundaries and can't seem to grasp the concept of collateral damage...
“Anthony, he was a police officer. He was trying to help me!” “He thought you were lying, Brian. I’m an Angel. I know these things.” “Couldn’t you like plant thoughts in his head or something? I don’t know why you have to eviscerate the first person who wasn’t trying to kill me.” “Seven men, excuse me. Eight men, ha...
1,059
You find a stack of `` Missing Person '' papers under your parents ' bed . All with your photo .
Dad had spent the last few months on his project. Working tirelessly down there most evenings to finish the big surprise. She couldn ’ t wait to see what he ’ d been doing. “ Something special for our little girl. You ’ ll find out tonight ”. If she was going to find out tonight it would be fine to have a look now....
1,060
A young child does does n't realise their mom/dad had passed away .
Mommy used to be happy. Back when Daddy always came home from work. Jessica and I would play with Daddy in the living room until dinner and then after we ’ d all go play in the backyard. On Saturdays Mommy would make us pancakes and if Daddy did n't have to go to work he ’ d help her. We ’ d turn on music and dance and...
1,061
During the Great Depression , a little girl 's best friend is her pet goat .
Uncle Frank and Papa were arguing again. “ He ’ s going to pay us for the horns…PAY US ” yelled Frank. “ She ’ ll still make that shit milk you make us drink ”. Papa grumbled something, and our uncle continued loudly. Looking around the room my brothers were asleep. I wonder if they even care about Priscilla. F...
1,062
Late one night while walking your dog , you come across a large black egg . You take it home and go to sleep . The next morning you wake up to your dog barking uncontrollably , and stumble out of bed to find that the egg has hatched ...
After the fifth time of telling my girlfriend's dog to shut up, I finally get out of bed to get it to do whatever it needs to. That's when I step on the broken egg I bought home last night. Pieces of shell are are scattered all over the floor. There's a wet trail of newborn thing slime leading from our bedroom to somew...
1,063
Your grandmother has always been a peculiar woman. Her garden is full of strange herbs and spices, she knits strange things and her decorations are just downright creepy. You swear sometimes you can feel their ceramic eyes watching you. It turns out though... she’s a demon.
While lying in my wake, I was intrigued by the most peculiar stench, like a sloppy mixture of drying cement and wet dog food, absolutely disgusting. Is it cooking? Or is it some witchcraft in the making? Its waft of nauseous gas grasp hold onto my nose and forcefully prompted me to pull out of my sheets. Wait, is this...
1,064
You are a former cultist who is now trying to live a normal life. The only problem is that the last cult you were in summoned an abomination which continues to follow you. With their dark energy inadvertently bringing chaos and ruin to everywhere you go.
Waking up in the morning and remembering who I am is a cursed experience in itself. It’s even worse when the bodies of your dead coworkers are next to you, slaughtered and maimed like livestock. I woke up to this and a red blaring alarm in the office building. I thought I sealed it off for good in Montreal, but now it...
1,065
Reincarnation exists and for society 's worst criminals death is the ultimate escape plan . Prisons keep them alive as long as possible but once they die Interpol races to locate , identify and contain them again before it is too late .
“ You gon na do it? ” I ran my left hand across the mattress, my nails feeling where the sheet I ’ m not allowed to have would go. “ Yeah, ” I said as I looked at the floor “ I ’ ve been planning this. ” We weren ’ t allowed cellmates, too much of a liability. Cooper ’ s voice reaches me through a small grate in th...
1,066
Alter a nursery rhyme so it tells a much darker story .
Hush, little baby, do n't you cry, Mama's gon na catch you a firefly. And if that firefly ain ’ t bright, Mama's gon na get you some candle light. And if that candle light grows dim, Mama's gon na take you down to him. And if you crawl with her real slow, Mama's gon na ask him to let you go,...
1,067
You are in a zombie apocalypse , and are attacked by a horde of zombies and bitten . As you panic , you notice the zombie turning into a human .
The pain is searing and sharp in my forearm. I feel the bone cracking and the sinew tearing as blood runs down it's mouth and off my arm. The urge to scream is high though if I do I would be calling out to the rest of them that's dinner time. Under my breath I let out the tiniest cry of pain I can before the adrenaline...
1,068
It is a vicious battle, and you have just been wounded. "Medic!" you cry out, and a horrible monstrosity emerges from the smoke. On one of its horrible limbs is the flag of your nation and a red cross, the symbol of a medic.
As the...thing dashes towards you and slides to a halt, it raises one of its many appendages and slams it before you. It writhes and morphs, gaining mass as some of its other tentacles shrink into its body. With a sudden shriek, it impales one of the bodies next to you. With nothing but a horrified gurgle, you watch h...
1,069
You've made it a habit to do a nightly patrol of your house before bed. One night, a pair of burglars break in and encounter you. Instead of trying to drive them out of the house, you silently motion them to say quiet as the sound of their break-in draws another presence from a different room.
Ethal’s wrinkled finger creaked up to her lips like an unoiled machine complaining with every movement. The two young burglars froze and shared a confused look with one another. On tonight of all nights…  Ethel thought to herself, as she slowly lowered her hand down to her side. Her shoulders slumped forward, further ...
1,070
The Battered Wife .
The hard stone, step after step, was killing my limbs. The red rawness of my knee joints led to mingled anger and threat, and then despair and resilience. I must keep going. Pain bursts on the dirty cobblestone, marked by my blood. I was attacked. I was attacked and my lower right leg was gone, taken. My flesh was ...
1,071
It must begin or end with `` They 're not going to believe me when I say it was n't me . ''
It had been weeks since my girlfriend and I got a solid night's sleep. It's hard to sleep when your heart is racing and almost beating its way out of your chest. It all started when we noticed that things, little things, around the house were being misplaced and moved all the time. The keys are on the hook one nigh...
1,072
Everything you draw comes to life , the problem is you suck at drawing .
Tiny puddles of tears dotted the paper. Tiny screams from his brother ’ s crooked mouth tore at his ears. Tim watched in horror as his brother dragged himself across the desk on disfigured arms that popped and wrenched unnaturally. Matty ’ s little legs left undrawn had formed as flailing stubs that hindered his brot...
1,073
You wake up in the middle of the night to find your mother sobbing uncontrollably in the living room . Looking out the back window you notice that the sky is glowing a dull red , creating a strange Crimson 'daylight ' .
Usually I ’ m a pretty sound sleeper, my husband told me I could sleep through the end of the world. This was a good thing, since his snoring sounded like a hippopotamus ’ death rattle! Nonetheless, it wasn ’ t his snoring that woke me up that night, it was my dreams. I was having a weird and vivid nightmare. I w...
1,074
A Wild-west style world , but in a frigid world with snow and ice instead of sand .
Carson sniffed and wiped his nose on the back of his glove. The sun was getting lower and the wind was getting colder. He could see a couple miles out in good weather, especially in the tundra. Several miles out but he still couldn ’ t see the herd of yaks they ’ d been chasing most of the afternoon. Whatever the hell ...
1,075
It 's a mundane Monday morning . When you get out of the shower the dog seems anxious and wo n't stop barking .
I woke up hungry; starving, actually. I wanted so bad to fill the void in my stomach that was aching at the very lining of my walls, but there was something inside me that demanded I not deviate from my morning routine. First things are first. So, out of bed I managed to move, drowsy and not really registering anything...
1,076
Jobs exist where you `` take '' illnesses to spare the rest of humanity .
“ 57.4 % ” the nurse muttered stoically as she averted her gaze from me. 57.4 %: that was the machine ’ s best guess at how much I ’ d taken in since I started coming here. I barely knew a thing before I ’ d started, and I still don ’ t know much at all, except that once I hit 100 %, I was as sure as dead. I took t...
1,077
You are born with a left eye that can see a week into the future . You 've worn an eyepatch all your life to block the images . One day , you see a bright light in your masked left eye , so bright that it shines through the patch .
My right eye sees the present; my left sees a week into the future. When I was a young child I saw terrible visions of the people around me. I saw my best friend beaten by his father, his face bloody, and his body broken before it ever happened. I saw my teacher being stabbed to death by her jealous lover when she re...
1,078
Theme Thursday - Lore
A fire crackles as I gather my materials. The ocean waves crash and hiss over the sand. The chieftess lounges on a rock, dressed in seafoam dyed pink in the setting sun. Today, I’ll prove to Mother, who smiles nervously as she sits with the rest of our clan, that I will be alright. First, skinning. When I was young, M...
1,079
You are in love with the monster under your bed
The dim yellow nightlight flickered, sending shadows dancing through the room. Summer lay in her bed, eyes closed, waiting for the inevitable. The windows were shut tight and bolted, muffling all sound coming into the room. Summer was left in near silence and she listened closely to the soft sound of her ceiling fan sp...
1,080
You discover your superpower as you 're being attacked . What happens next ? [ WP ]
I didn ’ t hear them come up behind me. I was walking home after my first successful date in a long time and was too busy thinking about how well it went to notice my surroundings. One of them grabbed my shoulders and shoved me into an alleyway. I stumbled and fell straight on my ass. I put my hands down to break my fa...
1,081
After dying , you are reincarnated and forced to live life again as the person you hurt the most in your last life .
I was a little kid again, and I saw myself mangled on a street corner. I saw a man running, a wallet and some blood that didn ’ t belong to him, sewed to his hands. A knife. I remember the numb until he saw me. I remember the shock. A kid that didn ’ t know how to process emotions. A kid that had only seen a knee-s...
1,082
The first wave of the Machine Revolution has come . But it was n't from the A.I . of the supercomputers . The first wave was led by the vending machines .
Stuck again. The same damn bag of chips I had been buying for years in the employee break room had gotten stuck for the third damn time this week, and it was only Tuesday. I bought another one, hoping to get both down, but in some freak vending machine accident, both were caught on the spiral holding them in place. ...
1,083
A zombie short story about a protagonist that the reader eventually discovers is a zombie .
I used to be a vegetarian, but it wasn ’ t out of any form of respect for the animals that were slaughtered to keep the beef and poultry section of the grocery store fully stocked. My vegetarianism started out as a diet because I didn ’ t like myself when I looked in mirror. The whole “ Love the Body You ’ re In ” move...
1,084
Every time you die, you wake up in the body of your 5 year old self.
2019. The first time, he is twenty-seven years old falling asleep to smoke and scrap metal and the taste of blood, rising away from himself like a dream. When he looks down, floating, he sees the whole of it, a snapshot moment coalesced into wet pavement and the sound of sirens and the white of his ribs bloomed into ...
1,085
you switch your bedroom light off and make your way over to your bed , reaching into the darkness . But you do not find it . Confused , you try to return to the light switch . But you walk a decent distance and do not find any walls . You begin to panic .
The day had felt like it would never end. You can imagine my relief when I plopped myself down on my bed and closed my eyes. Even though I felt like I could pass out at that instant, the nagging voice in my mind told me to turn the light off. I knew if I didn ’ t do it right that second, I would end up falling asleep w...
1,086
You kill a baby spider in front of its mother you see in the corner and try to finish it off but she escapes what happens after that .
I slammed my shoe down hard with a bang on the wooden floor stomping and squishing and turning to prevent the creepy crawly from running and it died in a flat pancake and I sighed relieved looking forward to returning to the calm of my work but out of the corner of my eye I saw it another it was another creepy crawly b...
1,087
You discover that your lineage goes way back. Back to when a dying god sought refuge in a desperate follower´s body.
I wake up with the taste of iron in my mouth, a thick metallic tang that settles at the back of my throat like an old debt finally come due. My tongue feels heavy, my bones ache, and the morning light filtering through the blinds is wrong—like it has traveled too far, through too many unseen dimensions, before finally ...
1,088
You move into your new house. After one week, you find a black shoebox on your kitchen table. You live alone. Tell a story about what is in this box, and the repurcussions of you opening it.
I just moved into my new place. It is only 600 square feet, but it’s all mine. I like living alone. I like the freedom I have now, and I like that I only have to be considerate of myself. I like that everything is always exactly where I left it, even if that means that sometimes my laptop charger is lost under my bed f...
1,089
In a zombie apocalypse , you are turned in to a zombie with your mind intact but no way to control your actions ( stuck in your body )
I was daydreaming about a holiday I once took to Spain when I was rudely interrupted, by my own body, no less. The loud crunching of bones and the spurting of blood grew too loud for me to drown out in wonderful memories anymore. Idiot ca n't even allow me to escape reality, I thought, bitterly, as my arms shoved a bit...
1,090
You are a kid and are convinced you heard a monster under your bed . You get up and look underneath your bed and find a monster . However , the monster proceeds to have a mental breakdown
I was always fascinated with childhood monsters; boogeymen, dark things in hiding in the closet, you name it. When I had my first encounter with one of these monsters, I was eight years old. I was getting ready to sleep and my mom had just tucked me into bed. She kissed me goodnight, turned off all the lights excep...
1,091
Every year , at the precise moment the new year begins , every person on the planet permanently loses their memory of the past year . You alone are immune to this .
My eyes cracked open on the morn of January 1st, and a smile spread across my face. My happiness only rose as I turned over in my bed to see my husband lying next to me, still snoring and fast asleep. Our son had been born exactly one year ago, at midnight on January 1st, so today was his birthday party. I rolled out o...
1,092
A new invention enables people to remember their dreams with absolute clarity . It turns out we were forgetting them for a very good reason .
My hand looks like hell. Knuckles scabbed over, skin bloody and raw, and a permanent pink tinge coats every bitch of the flesh. If I flex it into a fist ever so slightly, I can feel the scabs break and the blood start to run. The pill bottle sits at my bedside table. A month ’ s supply, but I haven ’ t touched them...
1,093
You fed the crows in hopes of befriending them. You succeeded, and they're leaving increasingly extravagant and suspicious gifts. You're getting a little worried.
It started about a month ago. I saw crows sitting on the powerlines out by my street. I had heard if you leave gifts for them, they’ll return the favor. I bought some bird seed and started to leave it in my garden bed for them. Took them a few days but they eventually found it. When they began to frequent my yard was w...
1,094
John can see 10 seconds in to the future . Barry can go back in time 10 seconds . They fight .
In just 20 seconds, Barry would be going back in time. In 10 seconds, he would arrive. John had only seconds to decide what to do. “ Come on, ” John said, beckoning his former friend towards him. “ Show me what you got. ” “ It does n't have to be like this, John! ” Barry said. “ It can go back to the way it was...
1,095
Describe your nightmare ( IN COLLABORATION WITH /r/SKETCHDAILY )
The most horrifying monster I can imagine. I actually saw this one once, when I was just a boy, maybe three or four years old. It was storming outside and I was afraid, so I crawled into bed with my parents and hoped to brave out the night there. A few hours of sleep and I was woken by the sound of thunder. T...
1,096
There is a device that assigns you a percentage score of how important you are to the world . Most people are 0-5 . The president is 60 . Your score just jumped from 1 to 99 .
I coughed and picked at my wrist. The blood analysis device flashed a dull 1 in its faded red LEDs. It was 12:42, but I still hadn ’ t got out of bed yet. Ugh, my mom would be so mad. Luckily she was at work, and I ’ d only have to deal with her when she got back. That means I was free to do what I wanted! It was time ...
1,097
Your cat won't stop meowing at you. After an hour you've had enough. You yell to the cat that you will do anything they ask if they say it in English. "Deal" responds the cat.
“Deal. I want my own bedroom. And my own TV,” Joey responded as though he were the cat. I’m sure Alastair, my Scottish Fold, would have absolutely enjoyed his own room. In fact, he probably would have spoken in that Scottish dialect, too. All day, he had been meowing at me as though I could understand what he was sayin...
1,098
An attendant working at a toll both is given a handful of strange coins .
`` It's $ 1.50,'' I said in auto-pilot mode. I avoided eye contact with the driver as usual and stuck out my hand. My knuckles grazed the part of his door where the window starts, and I jerked my hand away as if I had touched a burning stove. It was sticky, and hot like tar on a southern summer day. As a kid, I spent s...
1,099
A level superheroes protect the universe, B level superheroes protect the Galaxy, C level superheroes protect the Earth and so on. You are a Z level superhero. You protect...a single street in a small village.
You’d think that someone with immortality would be given a higher ranking, but NO. The ranking committee is all like “but what can you do with it?” And I’m like “live past 90.” They didn’t like that answer— probably because the committee was made of a bunch of old bats. So here I am, in an alleyway that was made a str...