Split (1)

train · 199k rows

post_text stringlengths 0 17.5k	post_title stringlengths 8 314	comment_texts listlengths 1 74	num_stories int64 1 74
	[WP] You are captured by Abstergo Industries and are sent through the Animus onto the lives of your ancestors, Assassin's Creed style.	[ "I am dragged in, I am in pain, and I can't move. They've me onto a chair after rushing me through the building. I see a giant screen, and some machine in the center of the room I'm in. The screen flashes on. It says:\nHELLO....WELCOME TO THE ANIMUS. YOU ARE HERE TO HELP WITH RESEARCH, FOR THE BETTER OF THIS WORLD. PLEASE, DON'T SCREAM.\n\nThe thing, the machine turns towards me. It chases me as I scream running to the farthest wall. I am too slow. It stops in front of me, then it opens, like a claw. It goes around me, looking like it's ready to close, then it does. I scream, I squirm, but nothing is working. I yell for help, nothing, I scream \"STOP THIS, I DON'T WANT THIS\"! Nothing works. Then it turns me towards the screen, it says:\nTHANK YOU FOR JOINING IN, PREPARE FOR MIND SCAN.\nMind Scan? What does that mean? I small, share needle comes out of the machine. Then it stabs my head. I faint. \n\nI wake up in a bed. \"Oh thank GOD, it was just a dream.\" I turn, and then fall off my bed, onto a dirty wood floor. I can't see anything, I look for a light switch. Nothing. \"I don't remember having a wooden wall, or a wooden floor, what is going on\" I ssk myself. I find my old lamp, a gas one, passed down for generations in my family. I turn it on. There isn't anything I can see that is familiar, I look at myself, I'm wearing ragged clothes. I look up, the roof is very high up. \"HELLO?\" I yell. No one answers. Taking a look around, I can see that this isn't my room, took me long enough. Okay, so where am I? The floor is extremely dirty, but even though that, I can see a door, on the floor. I grab the lantern, ready to throw it, just in case something tries to attack me. I open it and back up immediately. Nothing comes out. There's a ladder though, so I climb down. As I'm going down it, I start connecting the dots, people kidnapping me, saying don't scream, research, and now I'm here. When I'm at the bottom, I slowly walk, making sure every step I take is safe. I bang into a wall while looking behind me. Swing myself quickly thinking that I hit something, I actually hit something, a doorknob. I do the same as I did earlier, while opening the door. A burst of cold wind rushes into the room as I open the door, with sunlight in the room, I see a coat, I put it on. I look at the sky, beautiful. Taking steps outside I can start hearing people in the distance. There are houses as far as I can see. This is not a village, but a kingdom. \n\n\nShould I continue? Tell me, and I will.", "Number 24.\n\nThat's me.\n\nOr at least, I thought that was me. I honestly couldn't tell you anymore. I'd been back to times before Christ. I'd been to times shortly after his death, sometimes Christian, sometimes a Jew. I'd been to the crusades, sometimes a killer, others a victim. One time, I was an eastern European Jew who fled to America to avoid the Russo-Japanese war. One time I was a Christian Englishman who fled to Canada to avoid the first World War, since he was a pacifist. Yesterday I went back as an American Jew, fighting in WWII, as part of a submarine crew. Today I'd go back to that same war, as the son of the previously mentioned pacifist, willing to prove he wasn't as much of a wuss as his father.\n\nI gain consciousness as the world loads in around me. It's nighttime, in a plane nearing a German town. Cologne, 1942. I hear a man with a slight accent talk to me.\n\n\"Oi, Smith, how close're we?\"\n\nThat was Adams, I quickly remembered. He was W.O. and one of A.G.'s. I looked out the window and saw some of the lights on some major buildings that I recognized from training, then checked the skies, and then compared to all the charts and maps that were laid out on my table.\n\nI responded, \"E.T.A. five minutes, I'd say.\"\n\nThen Adams yelled to the rest of the crew, \"We're 'bout five minutes out! Get ready!\"\n\nAfter a minute, we got the response of, \"Ready!\" from the other A.G.'s, shortly followed by the pilot and F.E., who were then followed by our B.A. Things were getting more and more tense every inch we got closer, and everyone was on high alert.\n\nOnce we got over the city, we started doing our job. Adams and I were navigating for Frie, our pilot, so he could accommodate for May, the B.A. Buildings were being destroyed, we could hear the faintest whispers of screams from below, but I signed up for this job, and I was gonna see it through.\n\nAll was going well(well, whatever you can consider \"well\" when bombing a highly populous city) when we started getting some return fire. Our front two A.G.'s started going to work, and Adams switched to his A.G. position to help with the fourth guy. They had plenty to deal with, but they were doing good.\n\nI guess that just wasn't good enough.\n\nI looked out the window to see a round come through, and somehow not hit me. I heard Frie yell, \"We're going down!!\" and Brown, the F.E. go, \"It's gonna bl-.\"\n\nHe was cut off by an engine exploding and annihilating the back half of the plane, while somehow still keeping the front half intact enough to not kill Adams, May and me outright. But we fell.\n\nWe fell a good while. We fell for a good thirty seconds or so, before we opened our parachutes. The slowdown was so abrupt that my boots fell right off my feet. \n\nAs we descended, I saw all of the destruction we caused. Buildings on fire, people yelling their lungs out in horror. I might never agree with him, but I could at least understand why my father became a pacifist. He didn't run out of fear. He fled to avoid causing _this_. He left to avoid _these_ kinds of horrors.\n\nThe world derendered, and I got pulled out." ]	2
	[WP] A nuclear bomb is about to hit your country. You have one hour left before you die. You have three kids who don't understand the situation. Now you must spend the last hour telling your children what death is like.	[ "Sometimes things come to an end. That sometime happens to be today, and upon my family and I, by the second. It isn't a matter of luck or survivability, it's an issue of explaining to my three kids that they won't grow up to see all of the beautiful things in this world.\n\nJack, my eldest son, he had turned eight last Tuesday. He understood more than the other two. Jack was a quiet, brown headed boy, with vast quantities of intelligence. He sat in front of the TV in diabolical horror. His pale figure erupting inside of him, screaming out to me, deliberately asking me to do something, even though they're was nowhere to go. We both knew the situation all too well.\n\nLeah, my eldest daughter, she was five. Playing on the iPad, she galloped around the room, unaware to the preposterous, inevitable fate that was upon us; a radioactive gravestone that would disintegrate us into smithereens. \n\nHannah, my youngest, was three. She was looming over the digital screen, watching Leah play her games, she was a rather curious gal'. I loved all of my kids to the extreme. Seeing them for my last hour, and their last hour absolutely broke my heart. \nThey didn't deserve this, and I really wish this was nothing more than a gruesome nightmare. In reality, this was more real than anything else. I was immersed in a situation of explaining to my kids why they were going to some place else soon.\n\nJack was my only obstacle, he was old enough to understand the concept of death, and explosions, and the more complex variables of human exposure. Whereas, my younger daughters were still learning basic academics and processing erratic systematic problems. \n\n\"Jack, I need to talk to you.\" I said.\n\nHis body condensed and froze as he glared at the TV, my tone of voice sent exhilarating chills up and down the course of his body. He breathed slowly as he turned around, barely audible as he spoke, \"What's happening, Dad?\" \n\n\"We're going to the next place son. We'll be there soon, don't worry about it, things will be nicer there, as long as you've been a good boy.\"\n\n\"Am I going to die?\" Jack said.\n\nThe girls froze up for a second, staring up at us in curiosity as we conversed.\n\n\"Son, death is a hard topic, let's not use that word.\" \n\nLeah chimed in, \"Why's Jack gonna' die daddy?\"\n\nMy world has become a nightmare. I couldn't explain the situation to them. Water surged from the crevices of my eyes and poured down from my cheeks, dropping from my chin. \n\n\"Come here children, let's pray.\" I said.\n", "\"Dad what's going on?\"\n\nHe had just started kindergarten, spending almost the entire month before September trying to decide if he wanted the Spider-Man book bag or the one covered with Hot Wheels. I knew he'd pick hot wheels, he'd always loved cars. \n\nHis twin sister say besides him, too absorbed to my phone to even pay attention. She was tapping really hard, as if the harder she tapped the more points she's get. I'd always told her she'd end up breaking the phone one day. I guess that wouldn't happen.\n\nThe youngest started crying again, his sister's taps had woken him up. She really did like tapping that phone. I went over to pick him up, holding him as tight as I could. He looked a lot like his mother, but she never knew that. I know if she had ever gotten to see him she'd know it. \n\n\"Dad what's going on?\" \n\nTim was always the one to ask questions. He was going through that phase. I loved him but sometimes it would get excessive explaining why the sky was blue for the fourth time that week. Now I wish he'd never stop asking.\n\nHow could I explain that everything around us was going to disappear. That because a few angry men had hurt each other's feelings, everything was going to end. That I'd never get to see him ride his first bike. I'd never see him make his way onto a college campus, tears running down as I said goodbye for the first time. I'd never see him look at his kids the way I look at them. \n\nI couldn't.\n\n\"Everything's fine buddy, we're going to be okay\" " ]	2
	[WP] The gods have commissioned a very skilled but very old blacksmith to create a divine weapon for a great hero. However due to his age, he mishears and makes a frying pan and gives it to the Hero. It works out quite well.	[ "Along the banks of the Boyne Fionn sits and prepares camp, The bright heads of his spears point towards the heavens and his horses graze contently among the watercrests and rushes that line the mighty river. \n\nFerchra and Durmid have been sent on ahead to rouse Finn and let him know that the salmon has been caught, within its rosy pink flesh lies the Knowledge of man, a great gift to give to Finn he thinks, how they will sing in the great halls of Tara of the nobel deed that he has performed this day. \n\nTaking his short sword he cuts away a swarth of rush and hawthorn and lays it on the sweet grass to prepare the fire. He lays his tinder and blows from the mighty cavern of his chest and delights as the hawthorn and rushes crack and brust into flame. Now content with his young smoky fire he sits and begins to prepare the fish. \n\nThe blade of his knife rasps and throws the silver scales of the fish across his strong forearms . What mighty armour the Formodians made from scales such as this. Content in his work his mind wanders and he thinks of the fair and lovely Sadhbh tending to her loom back in the great halls. \n\nThe mighty knife enters the belly of the fish and the entrails spill forth, he remins himself to ask Finn for any sign in the entrails, and mention of his heroic deeds written in the belly of the fish. \n\nWork complete he takes the fillets and lays them on a bed of fresh rushes. Now to cook the Salmon! Surely this great fish and knowledge it holds should not be cooked on anything less than a mighty Hazel spit. Finn stands, and looks for a hazel from which to fashion a spit, but there is none to be seen. THen surely the flat pan that Sorcha the smith gave hime before he left. The old man with his hands as quick as the ebb of the Boyne and his skill still evident in the worksmanship of the pan, its edges singing great praise to Lug, its bottom adorned with the mighty eye of Bolrag and its inlay in the finest silver and gold from the Sperrins. What more noble device to prepare a dish for the mighty poet Finn!.\n\nThe gold and sliver glow and Fionn judges it is time to lay the Salmon on the pan, its skin curls and crisps as the heat transforms the pinkness of the flesh into the creamy flakes of goodness. His mouth waters at the smell but he knows he cannot taste even the smallest morsal of the meat until Finn has had his champions portion. \n\nThe greasy fat splutters and dances across the pan as his chariot men return with Finn. \n\nGreeting mighty Finn! how pleasant it is to look apon you while the spring winds rises from the south and the cattle are lowing softly in the medow!! \n\nWell met young Fionn! it is indeed a wonder to view your fine countanance and the smell of Salmon softly apon the morning breeze. \n\nSit now, i tell you Fair Finn and let me bring to you the great Salmon that you have searched for, for so long, with its loins full of the knowledge of man. \n\nThen sit i shall Fionn, for no better man could have brought such bounty to my lands. \n\nFionn reaches down to the fire and takes the pan, but what trechery has Sorcha wrought into the workings of the pan, for no sooner than the hands of Fionn touch the device than the fat leaps and burns his lilly white finger and as if bitten by a snake Fionn puts his finger in his mouth and sucks to soothe the pain. \n\nAhhhh by the light of Lug, Finn laments! what have you done Fionn!, oh mighty Fionn!. \n\nFionn falls to the ground as the world becomes clear to him, the knowledge of man now courses through his veins! \n\nOh what wickedness has Sorcha wrought with his pan!\n\n( Finn McColl of course) credit to the original story \n", "The hammer smashed with cold shiver, and panic. A flash of light from eyeball's edge, sparks unfamiliar. \n\n\"Please, Hephaestus! Don't let me die without a few more strikes, my masterpiece is in this iron.”\n\n\n “Your sweat alone keeps you alive.\n The Gods appear to seal your fate. \n Accept our will or die in debt. \n Old man decide your shape.”\n\n\nThe old man's grip returned with strength, defiant and proud. He was mostly blind and completely deaf; he shrieked his will out loud. “I'm the best blacksmith, as far as I can see! I'll make anything!”\n\n\n “A new God's birth is upon us all.\n My father's favour I do call.\n To meet his will, I must complete\n a skill I lost by tricked defeat.”\n\n\nThe old man, unsure of what was being said, screamed again. “I'm the best blacksmith, as far as I can see! I'll make anything!”\n\n\n “Craft a sword, to cut his path.\n Light but strong, with speed and wrath,\n primal strengths defying man,\n charging bull and flying ram.”\n\n\nOn those words, Hephaestus disappeared.\n\n\"Frying pan, gotcha!”\n\nThe old man died smiling as he sealed the box containing Hephaestus' gift.\n\nOn the day of the new God's birth, a lavish ceremony took place with Zeus' guests' piled across the clouds. However the generous heap of well wishers was not without its shadow. Each gift accepted by the king of Gods would choose his child's fate, and though he was rich, his alliances depended upon tradition. No offer could be refused. One gift for each day of Hera's labour.\n\nDolos' tricks were thick and rich, of seven gifts, five were his. Each box unwrapped left the child strapped with a harsh fate. The child would know only how to be bitter, pungent, salty and sour, astringent.\n\nHera, vigilant through exhaustion, was allowed one gift. Though she could not outdo what tradition and trickery had done, she knew the child needed a trait beyond both Zeuz and Dolos, one of compassion that would never play games of war so close to life's edge. With gentle strength she gave the child sweetness.\n\nAll eyes fell on the final box.\n\nThe same flash of terror the old man felt when he answered the Gods washed over Hephaestus, as his gift lay open for all to see. To his surprise Dolos cried, and Zeus clapped his hands in glee. \n\n\n “Your weapon young god is strong and settled,\n your curse of all flavours shaped by metal.\n With lightning's touch and Hera's love,\n the God of cooking will reign above.”", "The gods looked upon the potential hero and they knew he had a destiny before him. They saw him fighting against the demonic scourge plaguing the land, but none could see if he would be victorious. As was there way, they bickered over who would take the boy as their champion, knowing full well whoever did would have full bragging rights should he succeed. \n\nAfter a fortnight, the arguments had settled and it was decided that they would all have him as a communal champion, but they would all also have the option of backing away if they so desired. They ordered the greatest blacksmith in the land to construct his greatest weapon and then ordered the greatest enchanter to bestow the greatest enchantments to it. But disaster struck. The blacksmith had gone almost deaf from his years of work and did not fully hear the divine order. In his attempt to follow the command, he made a frying pan. The enchanter was confused, but didn't want to make the gods angry, so he placed intricate enchantments onto the pan and presented his work. \n\nThe gods were furious. The enchantments irrevocably bound the pan to the potential hero, meaning that there would be no way for him to simply get a different weapon that would be of the intended power. The deities began arguing who was to blame. \n\nThe first one to leave was the god of war. He walked away from the group's chambers stating simply that without a weapon, there would be no chance. The others pondered their options a moment, before following suit. The potential hero watched the gods leave and he felt abandoned. They had turned their backs on him.\n\nBut then he heard a small voice in his mind. It said, \"Do not fear, little one. Not all the gods have left you yet. I am a god forgotten, and it has been years since any have spoken my name. I was once the god of hunting and cooking and I watched over your people while they lived in huts and tribes rather than buildings and cities. I helped them fight to survive and it seems rather fitting to come to their aid once more.\" ", "Ganglar smiled his toothless smile, \"It's perfect. I spent the better part of a month refining it.\"\n\nGalihad stared quietly at the object placed on the table. \"It's... not what I expected...\"\n\nIt's exactly as the gods degreed. I followed their divine pan.\"\n\n\"Divine pan?\"\n\n\"That's what they said. That's what I made.\"\n\nAre you sure they didn't say Divine Plan?\"\n\n\"That's what I said, divine pan.\"\n\nGalihad drummed his fingers on the table. \"You uh, don't have anything else I could use... right?\" Ganglar shook is head, \"Of course you'll never use anything else. This is perfect for your quest. No other creation matches it's might.\"\n\nHobbling to the training dummy at the corner of the room, he continued, \"Come on, give it a good whack. You'll see, you'll see.\"\n\nGalihad tetitively lifted the pan. \"If you say so...\"\n\nMarching to the wooden dummy, he wound up a swing. Galihad spared a glance to the blacksmith, who had taken up a position behind a upturned table, with a pot as a makeshift helmet on his head. Galihad shrugged, then swung the pan. \n\nShepard's Ilse\n\nTom sat under the shade of his favorite tree, watching his favorite sheep, listening to the songs of his favorite birds.\n\n\"The peace and quiet of the country. No bustle, no noise, no danger.\" He let out a long breath, sinking a bit lower, letting his hat shade his eyes as be started to drift off to sleep.\n\nA blinding flash lit up in the distance. Tom sat up, \"What in the he-\" A Shockwave uprooted his favorite tree, scattered his favorite sheep, and defeathered his favorite birds.\n\nThe crater formally known as Ganglar's Shop\n\nGalihad's eyes blinked open. He sat up abruptly, gazing at the remains that had been the blacksmiths shop, the pan still in his hand. \n\n\"Me best work, see? What'd I tell you?\"\n\nGalihad turned, blinking slowly. The old blacksmith hung upside down in the splintered remains of a tree. \"That'll show 'em.\"\n\nGalihad looked down at the pan, still steaming, \"I... would have to agree.\"", "After your long day of pillaging and plundering, you steal off into the twilight. You are eager to escape your pursuers, sell your goods, and find a nice, hot meal and a warm bed. \n\nYou have a long road ahead of you to the nearest thieves' town, but at least it's a deserted one. You trudge underneath a fiery red sunset, already dreaming of all the things you'll do once you turn your loot for a profit. The finest clothes! Kegs of ale! A mountain of steak! The best room at the inn! Heck, maybe even that bar wench that works Saturday evenings might be convinced to go out on a date with you. Alas, you must keep the fantasies to a minimum, for it is very torturous on an empty stomach and tired feet. \n\nIt is almost nightfall when you happen across a lone wagon and a humble fire. The scent of roast game wafts out towards your nostrils, drawing you near. A shadowed figure steps out of the wagon. Ever cautious, you reach for your dagger, but the figure raises a hand as if to say, 'It's all right, I mean no harm.' With your fears at ease, you approach the campfire, and peer upon the figure. \n\nIt appears to be a regular man of no great strength, yet no weakling either. In fact, everything about him appears to be quite ordinary: not young, but not old; not handsome, but not hideous; not a pauper, but not a rich man either. In any case, he does appear to be friendly. He smiles and gestures for you to take a seat. You heave your sack of treasures to the ground and plop yourself down by the fire, letting your toes take in the heat. You observe the sizzling black pan on the fire, with herbed chunks of meat, and oh does it ever smell so good. The man must have noticed your longing stare and gaping mouth, for he takes a knife and skewers a piece off the frying pan, offering it to you. \n\nYou hesitate at first. What if this is some sort of ploy? Are there strings attached? As if sensing your discomfort, the man puts it in his own mouth, chewing and swallowing it in front of you. Then, he takes a second piece and makes another offer. Satisfied, you accept. \n\nIt's heaven. The warm juices ooze around in your mouth, the tender flesh flakes and melts like butter. And the taste! The notes of each herb and spice dance in your mouth. Oh, you could die happy. \n\nPerhaps you shouldn't have thought that. Almost at once, your vision gets blurry, your limbs get heavy and weak. In a panic, you feel for your weapons, but it's like moving through mud. You get a glance at the frying pan, and on its side, you notice the arcane inscription, glowing red-hot from the flames:\n\nMay all evildoers rue the taste of justice. \n\nThat's when it hits you. \n\nThis is the man they call Origanum, Chef of Righteousness. ", "\"I mean, I'm grateful and all but -\"\n\n\"Son, your Daddy told me to make you a great frying pan. Said you was a-goon' adventurin'. Now I don't know how it is up on high with you fellers, but down here when the Big Man shows up, you hop to!\"\n\n\"How the hell am I even supposed to use this thing?\"\n\n\"Well, it's a fry pan. Ain't that complicated. Though I did make it outta cast iron so you'll need to season it and don't never wash it out. Jus' a little elbow grease and a paper towel or the like.\"\n\n\"Yeah. Yeah, ok. You know, it actually has a pretty good balance. Handles well.\"\n\n\"Yer damn right it does. You ever try flippin' flapjacks on a wonky pan? Might as well just feed 'em to the dog - he'll be gettin' 'me anyway.\"\n\n\"Hey, that big angry looking bull in the next field over - he yours?\"\n\n\"Ol' Brahma? Naw, he's half wild. Don't belong to no one. Ornery as all get out too. He tore up my strawberries last summer. I'd-a kilt him but he's magical and all I had was my 12-gauge.\"\n\n\"Hmm, I think my new fry pan needs a test drive.\"\n\n\"You figurin' on killin' Brahma with a pan?\"\n\n\"Yeah, that's what you made it for, isn't it?\"\n\n\"Only cause your Daddy said so. Tell you what, you kill that mean ol' cuss and I'll show you how to season the pan using the fat off-a his bones.\"\n\n\"Deal.\"\n\nCLANG\n\n\"Holy shit! I got him! I killed him with one shot. Man, I thought he had me there when he started charging. Did you see me lay him out with the one shot between the eyes?\"\n\n\"He-he-he, yeah son, I saw it. Maybe your Daddy knew what he was doing. Lemme go grab my knife and we'll field dress him. I think there's a block and tackle out yonder in the shed. You go get that and set it up in that big oak tree in the back yard. We'll have plenty of steaks for dinner!\"\n\n\"Hey, this pan worked great. Could, uh, could you make me a stock pot to go with it?\"\n\n\"Son, for killin' Brahma, I'll make you a whole damn set. Now go get that block.\"" ]	6
	[WP] Hurtling through deep space, there's a knock on your airlock. A quick survey of the cabin shows your confused crewmates, all accounted for.	[ "Mark and I stare at each other with the same struck-stupid look. There's a few seconds of the kinda silence you only get in space, when every sound’s one of yours. But this one? Wasn't me. Wasn't Mark. Wasn't the ship.\n\n\nMark jerks his head toward the airlock all pointed-like.\n\n\n\"Oh, I ain't doin' it,\" I tell him. \"No thank you, sir. I never had any ambition of provin' there's slime-spittin' aliens among us, and I haven't changed my mind.\"\n\n\n\"Well, I ain't gettin' a probe up the butt,\" says Mark.\n\n\n\"Good. So no neither of us is getting probed, then.\" I wave at the airlock. \"Neither of us is gonna answer that door, 'cause whatever it is's nothing good.\" I sling my gun over my shoulder, muttering, \"There's a reason this ship don't come equipped with a fuckin' doorbell.\"\n\n\nMark and I go about our business checking cargo. It's a daily thing 'cause Mark used to be a military man, and all they care about’s schedules and shit. I tell you what, those uptight officer folk can kiss my ass for turnin' Mark into some kinda anal robot.\n\n\nMark's got his checklist all official-like, markin' crosses as he looks through the containers. Sometimes we gotta tell the cargo to shut the hell up, but most've 'em learned better weeks ago.\n\n\nThe knocking comes again, and Mark and I both had this kinda thing where we decided it was just space debris even though it don't sound like no space debris I ever heard. Sounds like knocking.\n\n\n\"You got nothing on the lidar?\" Mark asks.\n\n\n\"Already told you I didn't,\" I tell him again. I whack the blank screen, though hittin' it never does much. \"Damn thing's emptier'n a man's head after his brain gets pushed out his ears by those Federation whackjobs.\"\n\n\n\"You think it could be them?\"\n\n\nI snort. \"Federation wouldn't knock, Mark.\"\n\n\nThe sound comes again. That's three times, and it didn't scare me on the first two, but now I'm gettin' a little antsy. Mark is too. He cranes his neck at the lidar screen, and I say, \"It's empty, shit-for-brains.\"\n\n\n\"Well then, what's out there?\" Crying comes from the nearest container, and Mark slams his hand down on the top. \"Quit your wailin'!\"\n\n\n\"How'm I supposed to know? I'm the tech guy, and the tech ain't workin'. You're the knock-em-out guy, so why don't you go knock out whatever's knockin' on that damn door?\"\n\n\nThe fourth knock shakes the ship a little, and Mark and me stare wide-eyed at each other. Then the comm screen flickers green, and I run over there like I'm about to be made into jackrabbit stew.\n\n\nThere's a call comin' through. Signal's weak but it's there, and it's comin’ from-\n\n\n\"Fuck. Fuck.\" I turn around, spittin' at Mark. \"No one was s'posed to know our route. You fucked it up by gettin' us all tied in with that gunslingin' nut, and now he's gone and told somebody-\"\n\n\n\"Who the fuck'd he tell?\" Mark asks. \"And who'd come knockin' on our airlock?\"\n\n\nWe think for a minute, and when I get it, I spit at Mark again. \"Bounty hunter! It's a bounty hunter after your hairy hide!\"\n\n\nThe call's still ringin' through the ship. Mark looks at the comm screen and asks, \"You gonna answer it?\"\n\n\n\"No, I ain't gonna answer it!\" I shove Mark outta the goddamn way and slide into the gunner's seat.\n\n\n\"You can't shoot at it!\" says Mark, following like the beaten dog he is. \"You'll shoot the ship!\"\n\n\n\"What d'you wanna do then, Soulja Boy? Ask your daddy Commander for help? Well, I don't see any buzz-cuts around here, do you?\"\n\n\nHe screws his face up like he's thinkin'. Sure looks mighty painful. \"You answer the call. Talk to 'em. Distract 'em. I'll get to the port side airlock, come 'round, and shoot 'em.\"\n\n\nI freeze where I'm at, mouth open like I'm catchin' flies. Fuckin' Mark, man. Throws you off with all the stupid up in his brains just to come at you from behind like one'a them Catholic priests.\n\n\n\"Fine,\" I say, \"but if you screw this up, I'm gettin' a new partner. Go on, now.\"\n\n\nHe skitters away real quick. I get back the comm controls and chew at my lip for a minute 'fore I take the call and shut up all that ringin'.\n\n\n\"'Lo?\" I say, leaning forward so the mic can catch me.\n\n\nNo answer. I hear breathin' though, real steady-like.\n\n\n\"Need sumthin there, mouth-breather?\" I ask. \"I'd be real pleased to help you out if you ask for it.\"\n\n\nThis a-hole was on my nerves from the start, but he's gettin' near my last one now, and I gotta keep talking else Mark'll get shot quicker than a hare.\n\n\n\"Look, I know you probably gotta job to do and all that, but we're real nice folk. We just had a bit'a hard luck, that's all. Why don't you tell me what you're gettin' paid to take Mark's head along with you, and I'll see if I can't talk you into leaving it here.\"\n\n\n\"I'm not getting paid.\"\n\n\nI pull a face at the screen. \"Everyone's gettin' paid, lady. And we pay better'n anyone. We're good for our word--ask anyone down at the slave markets.\"\n\n\n\"I already did. I asked a lot about you.\"\n\n\n\"Didya now? Well, I know you heard good things, so why don't you tell me some?\"\n\n\n\"I heard you deal primarily in children. I heard you abuse them. I heard the only reason the Feds haven't turned you to dust is because they cannot catch you. But I caught you.\"\n\n\nI roll my eyes. \"Yeah, you did. Kudos. What's your plan, then? Got any buddies out there?\"\n\n\n\"No. I do not have any buddies.\"\n\n\n\"I'm sure you don't,\" I tell her. \"I'm sure you just used your shiny, fire-spittin' rocket boots to catch up to one of the fastest models of spaceship in this here galaxy.\"\n\n\n\"What was your friend's name, again?\"\n\n\nI frown at the green light dancin' on the screen. \"Mark.\"\n\n\n\"I'm sure Mark was a very 'nice folk,' as you say.\"\n\n\nI barely get time to swallow 'fore sumthin starts hissin’. Mars-red smoke comes pouring outta I-don't-know-where 'cause it's all over the damn place.\n\n\n\"Whoa! Hey, lady, you can't kill me!\" I shout as I'm scramblin' for my mask. The fuck, I swear to the gleamin' ass-crack of every god there is I put it right here. \"You can't kill me! You'll kill the kids, too!\"\n\n\n\"Luckily they are in self-contained shipping crates. They will not feel fire in their throats and in their eyes.\"\n\n\nI'm scrambling 'round the cabin 'cause by all that's holy my mask's gotta be in here somewhere-\n\n\n\"They will not scream in agony as a thousand needles prick their skin.\"\n\n\n-fuck, fuck, where'd that great hulkin' brown noser put it-\n\n\n\"They will not die not choking, blind with pain, suffering another death every second until- Hello? Ah. What a terrible way to go. Now let us see if I remember how to fly one of these.\"" ]	1
	[WP] In the future, humans from different planets look as different as each breed of dog to their common wolf ancestors. A planet with particularly hostile alien creatures is used as a breeding ground to produce the human version of pit bulls	[ "Endymion grunted, the scanners piercing through his jacket, through his pants and underwear, examining the minute details of his scrotum, or so he imagined. The security personnel - from a lo-grav world, from the look of them, over seven feet and whippet-thin - had their heads tilted over the screen, whispering ferociously at each other. One of them looked down and made eye contact. \"Sir,\" she said, \"I'll need to you move to the side for further screening.\" \n\n\"Fuck off,\" Endymion blurted out, before he could stop himself. Immediately hackles went up, an agent reaching for his maser. Endymion raised his hands, kept talking. \"It's because I'm from Kakkab Bir, isn't it? Fuck you. You can't do this. It's profiling!\" \n\n\"Sir,\" said the agent, circling around behind him. Big, owl-like eyes with flickering irises that could probably see in more than one spectrum. Fleshy nose with the wrinkles to capture scent. A hound. Sure, as if anyone was going to do much tracking in a spaceport terminal. Endymion rolled his eyes. Stereotypes at work. \"I'm going to have to ask you to remain calm,\" the agent said. \n\n\"I'm calm,\" Endymion insisted. \"But I also know my rights. You're not allowed to profile like this.\" He lowered his arms just enough to shrug his jacket back, showing off the scars at the back of his neck. \"Yeah. Born and bred on Kakkab Bir. Seen my share of scorpio patrol. But if you think I'm dangerous just because of my goddamn phenotype -\"\n\n\"Sir-\"\n\n\"We're all human!\" he insisted. \"We've got more in common than we got different! And any differences we have are more than compensated for by technology!\" \n\n\"Sir!\" one of the security personnel said. \"I assure you, I assure you, this is not due to any prejudice on our part! You were simply selected for a random security check-\"\n\n\"Sure,\" Endymion grunted. \"Random.\" \n\nShe put her hands on her hips. \"Sir, right now I don't care if you believe me or not. Are you going to cooperate with us?\" The agent was twitchy, hair raised behind him. Completely unprepared for a fight. Endymion could spin around, snatch the maser right out of his hands - \n\nNo. Endymion sighed. Bad enough another pit worlder was getting hostile, getting defensive. Just evidence of how unstable they were. If he let it escalate to violence... \"I'll cooperate,\" he said, lowering his eyes. \"Let's go.\" He felt the agent's hand on his shoulder, leading him off to the side. He kept his gaze on the ground, fuming. \n\n\"I feel bad,\" Apsa muttered to her co-worker, watching him go. \"I mean, it was scary, but seeing him go through something like that...\" \n\n\"Nah,\" said Oudry. \"Pit worlders like that. They do everything for 'em. Can't help them adjust. No good for civilized worlds.\" \n\n\"Oudry!\" she said, glaring at her co-worker.\n\n\"It's true,\" he said. \"You remember that whole integration campaign? They were trying to sucker other planets into taking them in, calling them Antareans instead.\" He looked back down at his screen, studying the naked body mass and skeletal structure of some displastic midget waiting in line. \"Surprise, surprise, multiple incidents of violence.\" \n\n\"It's still not fair,\" Apsa muttered. \"Judging people by breed.\" \n\n\"Hey,\" Oudry said, and shrugged. \"It's fairer than what we used to do before.\" ", "Klapson the Conventionally Handsome cleared the air from his segmented neck valve in a tellingly somber manner.\n\n\"Sir, is anything the matter?\" said Gelvord the Historically Underpaid, bouncing anxiously on his three double-jointed hind legs.\n\n\"The castle is too quiet,\" said Klapson, waving an armor-plated forehand dismissively. \"That is all.\"\n\n\"Too quiet?\" said Gelvord. \"Well, perhaps sir, it is time to begin a new brood hive?\"\n\n\"New brood hive?\" snarled Klapson. \"No, no, little Gelvord. The memory of my previous brood hive's untimely demise haunts me still.\"\n\n\"You ate your previous brood hive,\" said Gelvord. \n\n\"All in a single go,\" said Klapson, shaking his great, scaly headpiece. \"I told you not to let me binge.\"\n\n\"You're right, sir. I'm terribly sorry.\"\n\n\"It's no matter,\" said Klapson, more air whistling with obvious melancholy from his assorted neck valves. \"All great rulers must rule alone. So said Vuvoliun the Presumably Ingenious.\"\n\n\"Right before you ate him,\" said Gelvord, nodding. \"Yes, I remember. Well, perhaps sir, we might fetch for you a royal pet?\" \n\nKlapson's great, creaking headpiece tilted slightly. \"Hmm. Pet, you say?\"\n\n\"Yes, yes,\" said Gelvord. \"A mist-grendel, perhaps? Or a jibbercroak - those are very popular these days.\"\n\nKlapson's face hardened. \"I would not want a common pet, such as any being with a name and a few credits might purchase. Mine must be a special pet. Unique. Unlike any in the realm.\"\n\n\"Hmmm,\" said Gelvord. \"Well, I have heard tell that there is a distant string of planets inhabited by various broods of semi-intelligent bipedals and their descendant herd-clans. Perhaps one of these would serve? I do not believe anyone else in this system has such a pet.\"\n\n\"Are they dangerous?\" asked Klapson, eyes sparkling with interest.\n\n\"Depends on the breed,\" said Gelvord. \"While all are descended from similar core stock, each planet produces quantifiably different species. Perhaps we could go take a look at what is available and see what suits you, sir?\" \n\n\"Yes. I should like that. Commission my ship. Let us go pick out my... what were they called?\"\n\n\"Uh, humans, sir,\" said Gelvord. \n\n\"Human,\" said Klapson. \"Let us go find me a human.\"\n\nSome great time later, Gelvord and Klapson huddled together at the viewscreen of the cruiser. \n\n\"This is a lush green world of plenty,\" said Gelvord. \"Much vegetation. Few predators. The humans of this world are smallish and comparably timid. Their instincts are also less honed. You could expect great loyalty from one of this breed, but very little self-direction. In other words, it would be no challenge to break one of these.\"\n\n\"Hmm,\" said Klapson. \"Might I see a sample?\"\n\n\"Certainly, sir.\" A small crew was dispatched to the lush green world, returning a short time later with six specimens for review. Each quivered and whimpered. They whispered to each other in wavering voices. \n\n\"Rather doughy, are they not?\" said Klapson.\n\n\"Susceptible to numerous diseases and structural maladies,\" said Gelvord. \"Due to the ease of life there has been little culling of weak genes, resulting in the docile creatures you see before you. As I noted earlier, they will come to be almost distressingly loyal in time, but these are a low energy breed.\"\n\n\"Many seem to have soiled themselves,\" noted Klapson.\n\nGelvord hissed slightly. \"That is to be expected.\"\n\n\"I do not think many would take me seriously to see such creatures in my service,\" said Klapson. \"The whimpering alone is very offputting.\"\n\n\"Let us move on to the next planet.\"\n\nThe samples were returned to their lush green planet and the ship jumped to a new planet, this one red and orange and laced all over with treacherous crags and depressions.\n\n\"A typical battle planet,\" said Gelvord. \"Very harsh. Only the strong survive. Nearly every moment is a fight. Consequently, this species has developed into something rather different than the last lot.\"\n\n\"Not as doughy?\"\n\n\"Not by half.\"\n\nKlapson nodded. \"Samples.\"\n\nAnother crew was dispatched. This time it took very long for them to return. They seemed to have lost a few of their number down on the planet.\n\nThese humans were wiry and wild, snarling and clawing at their restraints.\n\n\"Very lively,\" remarked Klapson, dodging back as one made a jump at his throat.\n\n\"These will not be easy to break,\" said Gelvord. \"Clearly quite dangerous. But they can be loyal, too, under the right circumstances.\"\n\n\"And under the wrong circumstances?\"\n\n\"There is the very strong possibility that they will eat your face off.\"\n\n\"I like my face,\" murmured Klapson. \"Can we call this a maybe?\"\n\n\"Certainly,\" said Gelvord, smacking one of the lunging humans with a length of pipe. \"Next planet.\"\n\nThis planet was circled all over in heavy, white fog. \n\n\"Something of a mixed bag here,\" said Gelvord. \"Very clever species. They no longer have any natural predators, but go through regular cycles of inter-species conflict.\"\n\n\"Clever is good,\" said Klapson. \"Let's see them.\"\n\nThe landing crew returned in full a short time later. \n\n\"Are they... are they blind?\" said Klapson.\n\n\"No,\" said Gelvord, reaching out and plucking a small, rectangular device away from the forepaws of the nearest human. Its head spun around, as if suddenly aware of its strange surroundings. Then it noticed the small rectangular device in Gelvord's hand and made to retrieve it, jumping and grunting and grabbing ineffectively. \"A bit of a distracted breed.\"\n\n\"What's clever about them?\" said Klapson, eyeing the other samples as they stood, absently gazing into their own rectangular devices. Many had begun to grunt and shake their device, as if it no longer did what it was supposed to be doing.\n\n\"Good problem solvers when motivated,\" said Gelvord. \"They can be largely docile, until they are... watch out, it's got a gun!\"\n\nThe aggrieved human had managed to smuggle away a ray blaster from one of the landing crew and was pointing it at Gelvord. Gelvord tossed the small, rectangular device to the human, who caught it, dropping the ray blaster in the process.\n\nKlapson nodded, impressed. \"And the rest of the time?\"\n\nGelvord shrugged. \"Mostly just this,\" he said gesturing at the wandering, uninterested humans. \n\n\"Excellent,\" said Klapson. \"Get me a breeding pair and let's go home.\"\n\n\"Breeding pair,\" said Gelvord uncertainly. He scanned the samples, then pointed at two at random. \"They all look the same to me,\" he muttered. \"Throw back the rest and get these two a water bowl, some fresh beds, and unsecured WiFi.\"\n\nIt was an exciting day. And although Gelvord knew in his heart that Klapson was almost certainly going to lose interest within a sunskip, leaving Gelvord to take care of the humans, at least for this day his master was happy. For a servant like Gelvord, that was really the best he could hope for. " ]	2
	[WP] Hiking in a forest, you step on a rock and a floating window appears with the text "developer console >>"	[ "Trevor had heard the simulation theories from his brother. He'd heard about Elon Musk and his acolytes, yammering on about our universe being a simulation, being a kind of game in a console. But he never paid those theories much mind. He wasn't a real deep thinker like that. He was more of an old school guy, from a small town, who enjoyed the simple things in life. Simple things like walking through the forest, alone, on gloomy days like this one.\n\nSo that's what he was doing.\n\nHe trekked about bushes, sidled around tree-trunks, stepped deftly over roots that protruded from the forest floor. It started to rain. A light pitter-patter. He kept on walking towards his favourite spot. The rain picked up. A flash of lightning. A crack and rumble. And then it really started pouring. \n\nHe spotted a stout and gnarled old tree with dense foliage. A good stopover offering shelter from the rain. He hurried over to the tree and stepped under its canopy. There was a large rock embedded in the dirt near the trunk of the tree. He sat down on the rock and put his foot up on another, small rock, as if on a footrest. \n\nHe listened to the sound of the rain and smelled the dampness of the earth. He jostled the small rock at his feet.\n\nImmediately a translucent screen arose before him, floating in the air. It seemed to have come out of the rock itself. He touched the floating screen. It was mostly firm but still a bit elastic and malleable, and his finger depressed where he touched and as soon as he removed his finger the depression relaxed and the screen returned to its flat form. Text appeared on the screen:\n\n developer console >>\n\nHe jostled the rock with his foot again. The screen shrunk back down and out of sight, as if it had returned into the rock. He jostled the rock again and the screen reappeared. He touched it again and the text returned.\n\n developer console >>\n\nHe touched the screen another time and a keyboard window opened at the bottom of the screen, under the text. There was a cursor blinking at the front of the blank text line below the line with \"developer console >>\".\n\nTrevor looked around. The rain still poured on the woods around him and though he had not seen anymore flashes he heard thunder occasionally rumble in the distance. He lifted his arm and raised his hand to the screen and extended his finger before the keyboard. He was trembling. He went to press the letter \"h\" but missed and pressed \"g\" instead. The letter \"g\" showed up on the line with the blinking cursor. He pressed \"delete\" and then tried again and typed \"hello?\". Then he clicked enter and on the screen appeared \"hello?\" and underneath it appeared:\n\n invalid command >>\n\nHe jostled the rock and the screen disappeared. He looked hard at the rock and the air where the screen had been. Then he got up and hurried through the woods and the rain towards the town.\n\n---\n\n\"I don't believe you,\" said Mitch. \"It's the craziest shit I ever heard. I literally will bet you a thousand dollars, shake my hand on it, that you're full of shit.\"\n\nTrevor did not look like he was lying. He looked genuinely frightened and confused.\n\n\"Either that or you're crazy,\" said Mitch.\n\n\"I'm not,\" said Trevor. \"Come and see.\"\n\n\"There's nothing to see. I'm not buying it. Really I'm not. Did mom put you up to this?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"To get me out of my room, off my computer? I'm not you. I'm not like you. Both you need to get that straight. Maybe I'd be better in her eyes if I liked hunting with you and dad and quadding and shit. But I'm not you.\"\n\n\"This isn't about that,\" said Trevor. \"Honest. I need you to come look. I don't know how to work computers. I don't know how to get it to do anything.\"\n\n\"Get what to--what, your screen? It's bullshit.\"\n\n\"Please.\"\n\nMitch looked at his computer.\n\n\"I'm in the middle of something,\" he said.\n\nTrevor didn't move. He kept staring at his brother. \n\nMitch looked out the window at the gloom and the rain. Then he looked at his brother, the family favourite, the selfless angel, the meek who inherited the earth and all their parents and aunts and uncles and neighbours and schoolteachers' affections. But there was still that look of earnest concern in Trevor's eyes.\n\n\"Fine,\" said Mitch. \"But just so that I can be the first to break it to mom and dad that their baby boy is a schizophrenic.\"\n\n\nI'll write a part two if there's interest for it\n\n\n\n\n\n\n" ]	1
Life is like a Goosebump book - When decisions are made you have a few options but if you don't like the one you chose; you get to go back to your thumb in the page and choose again.	[WP] Everyone is able to make life decisions like Goosebump novels, but if you don't like it you get to go back to the fork in the road.	[ "The side of Chloe’s face was stinging. Owen looked at her, wide eyed, concern overtook his rage.\n“I don’t...I don’t know wher-”\n“Don’t.” Chloe said. “I can’t even look at you right now.” she started to cry.\n“Baby, baby, listen to me, I didn’t mean to. You just wouldn’t stop!”\n“I can’t live like this, Owen.”\n“Don’t.” Owen was choked up by his own tears now. “”Don’t, please don’t. We can make it work, it won’t happen again.”\n“I can’t.” Chloe whispered, her hand now covering her mouth, her tears covering her face.\n“Just don’t change it, please don’t change it. You remember that time?” Owen asked. Chloe looked at the ground in embarrassment. “I wanted to change it that day, I wanted to change it all. I didn’t, I knew we’d make it past that. Don’t change it.” Owen continued his plea.\n\n\n--\n\n\n“Alright class, everyone get out a number two pencil and I’ll start passing the tests out now.” a slender woman called out to her class. Chloe sat in her desk, “I have to,” she whispered. She looked to her classmate, sat in front of her, with two pencils on his desk. Owen, she thought. “I have to,” she reminded herself. The first time she did this, she asked Owen for a pencil, starting their relationship. Instead, she turned over to Jessica, who gave her an extra pencil. Chloe bit her lip as she grew anxious of her choice. “I can always change it again.”\n\n\n\n(The idea I was going for here is that after you remake the choice, you have to live that life past the point of that major decision. Also, no one knows you ever made that change, for example, Owen doesn't know Chloe made the change. We can assume Owen doesn't even know Chloe exists, since she never asked him for the pencil. Anyway, hope you like it!)" ]	1
	[WP] "I'm sorry," she says to him, raising her bow high in the air, letting the arrow whiz into the atmosphere.	[ "Forty years ago the Earth changed forever. Technology as humanity knew it became inept thanks to several drastic and unnecessary decisions made by a few powerful individuals. Two-thirds of the world's population has perished, many from starvation and lack of resources. All of Echo's friends are dead, all except one. He stood by her since the collapse, kept her company on an empty planet, and looked after her health as best he could. She did not deserve Kanyon, though Kanyon didn't seem to care. \n\n\"For what it's worth, I hope you're the one to kill me once this is all over,\" Echo said as she shuffled up the hillside. Her steps were heavy; sloppily dangling one over the other as she pushed through the grass. She had a bow slung over her right shoulder, a quiver of silver-tipped arrows strapped to her hip. \n\n\"Don't talk like that. You know I couldn't ever do such a thing,\" Kanyon replied as he followed her up the incline. He carried an absurdly long knife that rarely left his hand. A backpack full of supplies hung from his shoulders. \"Besides, we'll be the immortal ones, remember?\" \n\nEcho stopped and turned toward Kanyon, her stringy blonde hair waving quickly in front of her face. \n\n\"Listen, I understand your dreams are what keep you pressing forward toward some sort of livable future. I get it. Somewhere weaving between the memories of old and the vision of new you hope to build something sustainable for us. A future without worry, a utopia, if you will. But I have enough burden for one frail woman to handle without the empty promise of a better life. This is it, Kanyon, nothing you conjure within your mind can change that.\" Echo carried on up the hill. \n\n\"But you don't understand! It's so real! I've seen the trees, and the parks, and the huts.\" Kanyon waved his bulky arms in excitement. \"Oh the huts! They're made of the finest rock, and leaves, and twigs. The people are nice, and greet you with a smile! Everyone is in harmony and-\" \n\nEcho sharply turned, placing her wrinkled finger over Kanyon's lips. \"Shhh! Do you hear that?\" They both crouched down, listening to the cool air whisper against the land. A feverish clicking some hundred feet ahead. They silently crawled up the remainder of the hill. \n\nEach of them let out a quick gasp followed by their hands covering their mouths. As they approached the crest of the peak, they overlooked a large camp filled with burly men in suits sitting in executive desks. The desks were arranged in a crescent, looking away from the duo. The men, hunched over and sweating from their brow, worked tirelessly over out-dated typewriters as their fingers stroked key after key. Beneath the desks the men's fine leather shoes soaked up the soil as if beginning to grow roots. Their ties hung loosely against their collars, damp from prodding their foreheads after each new page. Before the men, stood a slender being bellowing orders in a synchronous fashion. \n\n\"Could it be,\" Kanyon whispered. \n\n\"The Gentlemen of the White Collar,\" Echo replied. \"We've found it Kanyon. After all this time, trekking all this way, all the deaths we've witnessed, they're finally here. In front of us, oblivious.\" Echo notched an arrow into her bow the silver tip reflecting in the setting sun. Kanyon grabbed her wrist holding the arrow in place. \n\n\"Echo, no! It's not within the guidelines, you'll be killed! This isn't how my dream went, we're meant to negotiate-\" \n\n\"I'm not here to negotiate, Kanyon! It doesn't matter what your dreams say, it's all the damn same. We wake up, we eat, we starve, we sleep. Then we repeat. Dreams are dead here, Kanyon, don't you get that? Don't you understand they are the reason your dreams are incompatible with this world? They are the reason we do not live in beautiful huts, next to beautiful trees, within beautiful parks. All they care about is the bottom line, and that bottom line cannot exist unless we suffer! Now let go Kanyon.\" Echo shook his hand free, aiming her bow down at the men. \n\nKanyon's shoulders dropped, his head turning towards the Gentlemen. \"Haven't you ever considered it may be you that is withholding my dreams? Well, perhaps not my dreams, but certainly the idea of dreams. You've always told me, Echo, that without these men my dreams could flourish. That without these men, the beautiful pictures in my mind would be as clear as a painting of equal value. That without these men, I wouldn't be limited. The thing is, Echo, you've been the only one who has put a limit on the only thing I've ever wanted.\" \n\nEcho's arm began to shake as she held the bow taught, the arrow aimed at the slender man issuing commands. A tear streaked down her face. \n\n\"I never meant to limit you Kanyon, you know that! You've been the only one there for me, the only one who's survived, the only one who's cared. I-I didn't know how to repay you. I figured it was easier to risk failing finding these men, failing at my objective, then putting our efforts into your dreams only to succumb to the harsh reality that they cannot be achieved. I didn't want to be the reason you couldn't find fulfillment with our remaining years.\" Echo's fingers began feeling numb against the bowstring. \n\n\"Then repay me now. Put this revenge nonsense behind you and help me build our future. Even if we fail, even if we die in the effort of finding the finest twigs, or planting the most beautiful trees, I would rather perish in the pursuit of a dream than lose my best friend in her lust for revenge.\" Kanyon placed his hand on Echo's shoulder. Echo's face resembled two parallel rivers competing for space down her cheeks. \n\n\"I'm sorry,\" she says to him, raising her bow high in the air, letting the arrow whiz into the atmosphere. She hugged Kanyon, \"let's go build your dream.\"\n\nKanyon held Echo by the waist as they descended the hill, matching her footsteps and holding her weight. Behind them they left the Gentlemen of the White Collar, typing away on their typewriters, following orders issued by a slender being. Kanyon stopped a half days journey on, where he found the most beautiful tree. It was there they began building the most beautiful hut, using the most beautiful twigs, and the most beautiful leaves. It was there that Echo realized life was beautiful.\n\n\n\n\n\n" ]	1
	[WP] You are still "it" in a game of tag from childhood. Many years have passed and you are determined to tag the others.	[ "Their shadows danced across the cracked, forgotten sidewalks of Mulberry Lane. James and Sally ran, their business shoes sank into the soft hill of Mr. Henderson's front yard, where we had first met, and they evaporated into the dry, March heat, leaving me and their shoes behind. My vision grew hazy, as I grew tired. I bent over a forest green and chipped brown - from rust - bench, and sighed heavily as my face dripped sweat onto the faded pavement. \n\nTwenty years ago, I fainted biweekly at recess. The doctors told my mother that I had asthma, and that I was to not have any strenuous physical activity without the use of an inhaler. But, upon seeing the cost, she turned to me, bowed and shook her head to the man, and we took the bus back to the hotel. From then on, I read Faulkner at recess. I couldn't blame her, though. She was a single mother, trying to support an overweight child. And waitresses usually don't get paid much. \n\nShe would work until eight, so after school, I would sometimes follow my peers to their respective homes, out of both curiosity and loneliness. Some lived in sedans, others in trailers while I lived in a hotel just two blocks from a house of burlesque. But she lived across from him. In houses on Mulberry Lane. And they would write notes to each-other after dinner every night. It would be their secret way of communicating. But, little did they know, I was looking on with a brown, toy telescope I took from school after lunch. Her hair was golden as her face was a doll's, and she was my first real crush.\n\nOne windless day, I followed nearer than I usually did. And softly laughed at jokes they made, and ran through scenarios in my head of what I would respond to them. I got nervous just thinking about it. And as we walked towards their houses, they decided to take a left, down a narrow path lined with cigarette butts and green benches towards a large hill. I tepidly followed to see a white house peaking atop it.\n\nAnd there started their tradition. And there ended mine. For they saw me and ran to me to broach why I followed them. But beyond outrage and concern, all I had heard was the silk of her tone and longevity of her syllables. Two seconds after they had finished talking, I forgot what they had said or why they said it. But her soft fingers touched my arm and yelled \"You're it!\" and she and him ran from me and I looked on, confused.\n\nSo I ran. For the first time in ages, I ran. They were together, always together, but I could never tag her back. After nearly grazing their clothes, they pressed their tennis shoes into the hillside and left my grasp to laugh and hold hands back to their houses. \"Same time tomorrow?\" I heard one of them yell. Sure I yelled in return before fainting.\n\nSo for afternoons after school, I agreed. For days on weekends, I agreed. For days in breaks I agreed. I agreed. I agreed. And fainted almost every day for the next Seven years. Contact between them only increased from then on as contact between me and her had ceased. Their notes became phone calls and their walk homes became car rides. They would summit the hill and roll down with each other, and one day they kissed in front of me. He began to drive and they soon forgot about the hill. About me. About whatever was there from the beginning. And I grew lonely again. And more curious.\n\nBut as I went to University and studied the arts of man, the conquering of Mathematics and intricacies of the soul, I realized that what was left of myself was a mere stepping stone for them, a shell for every endeavor they needed me. But I chased anyway, I chased an impossible goal at the time. Even after several failed relationships, parties, and self-discovering explorations I still wanted to catch them, to find the piece of myself that got away. To fulfill my empty childhood.\n\nSo whenever I had free time, I would go to the hill and read Faulkner. In the rain, in the sun, in times of sorrow and in times of light. After my mother's funeral and even when I had broken both of my legs, I still found a way back to the hill. And, in the process of doing so, lost what I had sought to gain again time after time. Until one day they had returned and saw me sitting upon a bench, reading under a streetlight and began again what had started when we were children. \n\nOnly, what stood before me were two, worn adults. One in a two-hundred dollar suit and one in a black dress, both expected to be on the next cover of Forbes magazine. Though prim, their inner children had not died. For they then proceeded to duck and dodge, just as they did in distant years past. Trailing me in impossible loops, having me jump over benches and under branches. And then escaping me again by climbing Henderson's hill. They laughed and squealed at their victory atop it. And, with matching rings, they overlooked their kingdom and their sweating fat jester from primary school to yell \"Nothing's changed, fatass!\"\n\nThey watched him sweat, and pant, and nearly shed tears over his loss. They watched him then clench and hold fists and stomp furiously up the hill, knocking their left-behind shoes down. They watched him edge closer, still laughing, their remorse ever absent. They watched as he grabbed them both. Then they became silent.\n\nHe wadded what he grasped into balls and extended each arm forward, toppling the couple down the hill once more. Yelling \"You're it!\" when they snapped their necks on the benches.\n\nHe's the one you want, your honor. Not me. For I am not that man. I am a tortured soul, withered by years of malice and ill-will! What is a man but what he was made into as a child? Fortunately they are still alive, your honor. But the consequences of actions in this case beg the question: who deserves it?\n\nThank you.", "\"OW! WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU?\" Jenine shouted at Harold after she was smacked right across the face.\n\nHeads pop out above the other cubicles.\n\n\"I, it, I'm it, now you are!\" He stammers, as Chad walks out of his cubicle, approaching with an angry face.\n\nJenine stands up and punches Harold, landing a clean shot straight into his bladder. \"I'm it again,\" he coughs out. He slowly stands back up, urine running down his dress pants. He lightly tags chad on the shoulder.\n\n\"You're-\" WHACK\n\nHarold wakes up on his back, rolling into an ambulance on a stretcher. The only thing running through his mind is that he was tagged last." ]	2
	[WP] Astronomers today made made a startling discovery. Recent solar flare footage showed them something, something alive, on the surface of the sun.	[ "\"So, doctor, there is—there is definitely something alive on the surface of the sun?\" \n\nVictoria swallowed. She really wasn't used to the media attention, \"The photographs taken on the sixteenth of July definitely show a—an irregularity in the solar flares, a dark projection which changes its position very rapidly in just three shots. Its patters don't match those of typical solar flares, nor does its visual density. Zooming in on the second photograph, we can even make out clear appendages attached to the end protruding from the surface of the sun,\" She said. The reporter didn't respond. \n\nVictoria clenched her jaw, slowed down, \"We have reason to believe that this, this irregularity is something formed not out of hydrogen of helium, something organic. We have reason to believe there is something alive on the surface of the sun,\" Silence, \"And we have just managed to capture its arm on tape.\" \n\nFlashes, overlapping questions, reporters rising from their chairs. The guards tried to restrain them. \"Alright, alright, that's enough. This press conference is over!\"\n\n\n\nThe lab was nearly empty, now. \n\nShe saw herself on television for the fifth time, and cringed. \"Well, that went incredibly well.\" \n\n\"What can you expect, Vic? We had to tell the country, the world, that there's a creature living inside the sun in a manner that didn't trigger mass panic. A pretty tall order.\" \n\nThomas scrolled through the pictures, again pausing on the second one. This was the one floating around in every paper, every website, magazine. The dark silhouette was clearly visible against the white solar flare, a limb with nine fingers at the end. \n\n\"You know what they're calling it?\" \n\n\"Hm?\" \n\n\"Lucifer.\" \n\n" ]	1
	[WP]: A doctor from the year 2217 gets thrown back in time to 2016. She tries to make the best of it, but the world of the past is grim, the people are savage, and the medical practices are downright medieval.	[ "Jan 1st: 2016\n\nWell, I read that the practices were bad for the period but this… this is almost torture, what are these savages thinking touching the body’s of there patients do they not know how stupid that is and how wrong it could go if the wrong strand of bacteria gets into the patient’s body, not the mention the basic form of disinfectant they use any virus from the year 2217 would be unaffected by that pathetic excuse for “cleanliness”. ugh they have some much to learn so much to discover, and maybe just maybe I can be the one to prevent that discovery, after all that is why I was sent here although it may not look like much today some ground breaking discoveries were made in the near future well future form now anyway. As dr. mint sat there reading over his mission report through his contact lenses.\n\nMISSION OBJECTIVE: DELAY THE CURE FOR CANCER, BY A MINIMUM OF 100 YEARS. \n\nSecondary objective: Attempt to convince the public that vaccines are harmful to children. \n\nBleak thought Dr. mint but a necessary evil, you see by the year 2217 overcrowding on the planet earth had become a serious issue of course there was in 2165 the start of the mars program were many of the great minds of earth were sent to colonize mars but that had failed by the year 2205 the mars people had formed there own government and declined to accept any more people native of earth to there new planet, calming that there were no way to shelter them, but everyone left on earth new that was false and the real reason they didn’t want anyone else is because they viewed us as lesser people with lower IQ and higher crime rates. So the only option was to go into the past to kill millions now and save billions of lives later. Well not kill more like leave to the course of nature Darwin’s theory of evolution only the strong and those who adapt will survive.\n\nFeb 2ed YEAR:2020 \n\nWell that was easy Dr. mint said aloud as he was watching the T.V broadcast officially announcing the start of WW3, if this works it should kill to birds with one stone all he had to to was slightly manipulate the American elections so Tump would win. With the mind of trump as the most powerful man on the earth how could war not break out. War how beautiful it would kill millions and the funds currently used to find cures to diseases will be transferred to finding new and exciting ways to kill people delaying overpopulation by so many years, brilliant why did no one in the future tell me it would be this easy. As dr. mint stepped into his teleporter to go back to the year form which he came, thinking to himself, I have just saved the human race. \n\nYEAR:2217\n\nNothing, no one, the world had ended due to the catastrophic events of world war three “for god sake, not again” as he began recalibrating to go back to Jan 1st 2016 for the 100th time, was there noting he could do to prevent humanities eventual extinction. \n\n\n", "Imagine that you're some divine doctor, and you get sent back to 201 years before you get your doctorate. Those slippery colleagues of mine, they thought I was too stuck up. My slang words weren't divine enough for them, and they thought it laughable to send me back to this era. Here I was, 2016, and I was going to use my mannerisms to make these sandwiches crumble! At first they didn't accept that I was divine, either. They overused the words \"literally\" and \"cool\", possibly as part of their slang. That didn't stop me, however, from implementing the technologies of our \"lit\" future, as they'd called it. Being great as I was, I implemented all future technologies into this small, divine world of Earth. The people were no longer sick or in pain, for I stopped that slippery suffering. Who knew a springy medical student such as I could fix the past this easily?\n\n--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\nI tried to add the element of future slang and the ignorance of a college student within the writing, I hope you enjoyed it!", "Dr. Charlotte Hargreaves woke up, baffled as to what happened. The last thing she remembered was a flash of light and the feeling she was getting pulled. She looked around and saw the world was very different from the one she knew.\n She approached a news stand and looked at the paper; which she found to be odd. Newspapers haven't been in circulation for centuries. The date: November 12, 2016. A plethora of complex emotions flooded her. Fear, anxiety but for the most part curiosity. Being a doctor from 201 years in the future can bode well for the people of New York. She thought of all the advancements made in the medical field and how, with just the tools in her bag, she can save numerous lives. \n \"Can you please direct me to the nearest hospital?\" she asked the clerk and he pointed up the street. \n \"It's just down the road.\" \n She graciously smiled as she went on her way. Upon her arrival she witnessed things that she had never seen. The emergency room was loud and hectic. People we're screaming, nurses running and family members crying. In 2217 most ailments could be cured with a few drops or a quick injection. Even serious injuries weren't a big deal due to the progress of pain medication. Knowing that she couldn't perform procedures legally without a license she informed the people of the waiting room, \"I may be able to help. Please meet me at the park just out side.\" \n Folks were skeptical. She didn't look like a local but the genuine concern led people to investigate. Her first visitor, a tall young black man, limped up to her. \"I was playing basketball. I think it's my ankle.\"\n \"Let me take a look,\" she said eagerly. She pulled out a sterilized syringe, drew a small amount of liquid into it and said, \"this should help.\"\n The young man was worried but all of her equipment looked legit. He allowed the injection. 30 seconds later he felt no pain. He watched as the swelling went down and the normal color returned. Astonished, he jumped up. \"What's in that thing?!\"\n \"This stuff? It's nothing but an aspirin and aloe compound. 100% natural. Can you tell more people? I can't stay for long and I want to help as many people as possible.\"\n The young man agreed and ran to the ER. Shortly a small group of people came. The first with a rash covering most of his back. She disinfected the area and applied a cream that showed immediate results. \n The 2nd was an older woman who was bald from chemo therapy. She explained that she suffered from breast cancer and has been getting increasingly worse. \"Breast cancer?\" Charlotte thought. \"Cancer has been extinct for years.\" She rummaged through her bag and found a prescription bottle with 8 pills. \n \"Take this. 1 now and 1 before you go to sleep every night.\" The woman took the bottle and with a little bit of water, swallowed the pill. \n \"Are you sure this will work?\" the woman asked clearly concerned, but desperate for an alternative.\n \"Yes. Do not go to chemo anymore. You'll be fine.\" \n The third was a family. A young white couple with a child that looked to be no older than four. The child was in pain and holding his ears. \"We think it's an ear infection,\" said the husband as he handed Dr. Hargreaves the child. She comforted her, bounced her back and forth until she put 2 drops of liquid in her ear. Slowly the crying stopped, the little girl wiped her eyes and relaxed to try to sleep. Charlotte handed her back to the parents. \n By this time a small crowd started to form. \"Who are you?\" \n She declined to answer, \"Just a good Samaritan trying to help those in need.\" As she said this more people came. Each illness different from the last. Each patient shocked by the results.\n Charlotte spent hours there. People were insatiable. The crowd began to get wild. Pushing, shoving. Despite her pleas, they couldn't be calmed. She explained that her supplies are running low. This caused more mayhem as some wanted to be the last patient. She tried to leave. The mob grabbed at her. She tried to pull away. The desperation turned to anger. \"WHY WON'T YOU HELP US!\" \n \"I've done all I can!\" Someone tried to grabbed her bag. At this point she is terrified. Surrounded by an angry mob with very few people trying to protect her. See saw any opening and ran as fast as her legs could move. She could hear the crowd but would not look back. She almost excited the park when they caught up to her. She was pushed to the ground. She begged, \"Please! I don't have enough!\" as she tried to crawl. Hands grabbing at her bag, arms and legs. Then.... \n A blinding white light flashed. When she opened her eyes she saw the young black man she helped first. \"Where are we?\"\n \"2217. We're back.\"\n \"We're?\" she ask perplexed. \n \"Yes.\"\n \"Who are you?\"\n \"Don't ask questions. Get rested. We are leaving again tomorrow.\"\n \"I can't go back there. Those people almost killed me!\"\n \"We have to. There is a virus that has mutated over the passed 200 years. We have patient 0, but we haven't made progress.\"\n \"You have patient 0?\"\n At that point the a little girl walked in and said, \"My ear hurts.\"\n ", "18 March 2016\n\nMy problems multiply. I cannot change food policy or economic disparity so most people still kill themselves with improper macros. Mind you the food is delicious - the rationing for interplanetary travel doesn't allow for the volume of salt and butter I've ingested here. Three weeks in and I'm two kilos heavier. People will eat themselves to death and there is nothing g I can do about it. I know from history that they will soon learn want. It is not my job go teach them what nature will didact some enough.\n\nMy frustrations reside in my lack of primitive diagnostic and restorative capacity. Our machines work on such a high level that the end-user can no longer comprehend the low-level construction of our own basic tools. Even the best Captain cannot build a space-faring vessel. I am the best Doctor that I know and I cannot build the simplest plasmometer or DON device. I am left with MRI and x-ray and scalpel. \n\nThese practitioners do their best with meager means. They haven't injectable micronmasmacells yet. They can't regrow a liver overnight, and people love killing their own livers here. Or, I should say, now. And I cannot help them! I cannot open flesh with a knife. That was considered barbaric when I was trained. Let the machines do it. They're more precise. So we did, and we never learned. \n\nI am am end-user when an inventor or engineer would be of infinite worth. Pei Kim, where are you? Not for a century, I know.\n\nI cannot discern a cold from sinusitis, a viral infection from bacteriological. We have to use time to let disease hurt far longer than it should before showing up in a diagnosable manner. DNA re-coding for pre-cancer prevention is barely in the infancy stage. Some people still find out in 4th stage. It is horrific, but I cannot fast forward through time. I can only learn what I must for my own return and teaching. \n\nWhat do my students need to know should the world reverse course in my day? My students must be able to re-create the wheel, so to speak, no matter how pedantic they might find such low-level exercises. Medicine is machines now. I must teach them (and myself) to be able to make and master the machines, not merely manipulate them. \n\nThis is my mission. I was sent to learn what to teach, and now I see the teacher himself must be taught. Back to the basics. A scalpel and stethoscope. We will learn together in case the worst ever happens. " ]	4
	[WP] For centuries vampires treated humans as little more than prey for their hunger but that has all changed in the modern era. Now imprisoned they serve mankind as their bodies are harvested for life saving pharmaceuticals and research.	[ "\"I thought we were manufacturing medical products here - why do we need to order all this blood?\"\n\n\"Consider it a reagent.\" Dr Nina Merrick, MD-PhD, smiled as she steepled her fingers over her desk, clearly relishing some secret drama. With her raven hair pulled back in a tight bun, she looked as severe and corporate as ever. There was something unsettling about seeing that smile.\n\n\"We're not licensed for research, Nina.\" I dropped the order forms in front of her. \"We produce FDA-approved medicines for commercial distribution, you can't set up your own little laboratory to cook up some new wonder drug-\"\n\n\"The approval came through yesterday. Well, tomorrow officially, but we just so happen to have the very latest miracle cure on tap. I think we should seize the opportunity, don't you?\"\n\nI gave her a blank stare.\n\n\"Oh right.\" There was a cruel little laugh in that. \"Sorry, Daniel. I sometimes forget we don't move in... quite the same circles. An old Harvard pal was on the panel. You know about transdermal porphyric infusion, don't you?\"\n\n\"Vaguely. Senescence-related stuff isn't it? Not really my field, I'm more of an infectious disease guy. I thought it was just some conspiracy theory thing anyway?\" Nina was beaming in a way I found vaguely nauseating. \"It's real? What is it and how do we have it 'on tap'?\"\n\n\"It's... probably easier if I just show you.\"\n\nShe lead me to a windowless room off one of the maintenance corridors deep inside the plant. The door was locked and barred beyond the point of paranoia, with a number of locks and bolts obviously recently installed. She spent a minute opening each in turn, before holding up her staff card to the original, electronic lock. It beeped courteously and the door swung open, revealing only darkness.\n\nI gave Nina a look and she pressed one hand to my back, urging me in front of her. As I stepped into the dark room, I felt a chill and all sound from the rest of the facility seemed to fall away. I found myself in front of a male figure, dressed in stained scrubs and hunched on his knees in the middle of the concrete floor, with an oddly shining chain around his wrists, ankles and throat, a red line painted in a six-foot radius around him. \n\nIt was a change from all the paperwork, at least.\n\n\"Nina-\"\n\n\"Now don't freak out.\" She appeared beside me, suddenly and silently. \"This isn't quite as human as it appears.\"\n\n\"I-... is it a cadaver?\" The figure hadn't moved since we'd entered, or seemingly breathed. It radiated a kind of cold that took me back to the DR in my gross anatomy classes.\n\n\"Kind of. Bit more complicated than that, hence all the security. It's quite a coup for the company, really, there's only about a half dozen specimens currently held in the US.\"\n\n\"Specimens?\"\n\n\"It's dormant right now, but the sun goes down in an hour or so, and then it's feeding time. We last harvested yesterday, so it gets a few days to recover before we can take from it again.\"\n\n\"Nina, is this a fucking vampire?\"\n\nShe did that condescending little clap she does. \n\n\"I knew you'd get it! Yes, their blood does wonders for... pretty much any condition you care to name, as long as it's applied very sparingly to the local tissue.\" Her smile had widened now. \"It could make pretty much all other drugs obsolete and we can get in on the ground floor! Isn't that exciting?\"\n\n\"You... want to milk him for blood?\"\n\n\"Not just him, if we can help it, but they're in short supply at the moment. Pity we're not in Transylvania, hm?\"\n\nI looked at her like she was as crazy as I felt.\n\n\"You seem very blasé about vampires, you know, existing. And milking them? This is some kind of prank, right?\"\n\n\"Oh you must have heard the rumours.\" She waved a hand airily. \"Everyone knows, don't they? I mean, all the right people anyway.\"\n\n\"This is ridiculous.\" I looked from her to the figure in the centre of the room. \"These are our scrubs. That's Patrick, isn't it?\" I stepped over to lift up his head and probably get sprayed with water from a flower pinned to his chest or something. \"Is this some kind of Ivy League-\"\n\nIt snapped awake suddenly, its head rearing up like a snake with blank, milky eyes. Its tongue flickered out, tasting the air, and before I had time to register it, the vampire's fangs were embedded in my wrist. The pain was blinding, and I felt myself pulled to my knees by cold, boney and impossibly strong hands.\n\nI turned my head to Nina, pleadingly, as I struggled, but all I saw was her back disappearing through that heavily secured door, slamming it shut and taking all the light with her.\n\nI don't know how long it took me to lose consciousness, only that there was darkness, and fear, and pain. \n\n\"-days until we can harvest again...\"\n\nI dreamed of shadows outlined against a door. They seemed to be talking in murmurs and whispers, mostly lost against the pulsating of their warm blood.\n\n\"-much scope for expansion... Internally would probably be best. I know... prefer vagrants, but... know what disease or drug interactions-\"\n\nThe voices were distant, hazy.\n\n\"-be honest... probably do more good this way...\"\n\nAnd when I awoke, there was hunger." ]	1
	[WP] A figurative chess match is taking place between two snipers in an urban city. The people below go about their daily lives, unaware of the life and death struggle.	[ "Nobody thinks of themselves as a pawn. In everybody's game of chess they're the king, the queen, a piece of importance. I used to think that. Truthfully I still do a little bit. My entire life has led up to this point, to me here laying on the cold concrete roof of 239 Main street, the dull ache forming around my eye caused by the consistent pressure of the scope pressing against it. At this moment I hold the power to erase a persons existence and all it would take is less than a pound of force from my index finger. \n\nI've often heard the saying, rarely from those who share my experience, but often none the less, that death is beautiful. Well let me tell you this, at the other end of my scope, death is never beautiful. There is no serenity in half a mans face being shredded off in an instant as my bullet tears through him. There's no beauty as he lie there, blood pooling from the hole in his neck and bubbles of blood spout from his mouth as he chokes to death. \n\nYou get used to it though. Death has become normal for me, the distance between me and whatever poor soul was on the receiving end of my most recent lead deposit becomes the norm. You have to distance yourself from life in order to be accustomed with death. That's what I think is beautiful; life. Or maybe more so the fragile nature of life. Nobody thinks they're the pawn. When a pawn dies, nobody weeps, nothing ends, the game just goes on. Perhaps it's human nature. Perhaps it's ignorance. Whatever word you want to attribute to it, nobody wants to think that when they die, whether they served a purpose or not, that the game continues. What significance does your life hold if the game just continues after your gone? Did you really make a difference? \n\nMaybe that's why I continue to do what I do, to perpetuate my denial of my real insignificance. Laying up here with the scope pressed to my eye and the sights laying on the door to the building my target would soon be leaving, there was no question in my mind of what piece I was on the chess board. A pawn doesn't have this much power. When a pawn faces off against another pawn, it's an even fight no? My target was the pawn, I was not. As he left the building and turned the corner to walk down Main street, all while the the 2 intersecting lines of my scope rested on the center of his chest, I knew then who had the advantage, who had the power. He was a pawn undoubtedly. A pawn can't kill the king, and here right now, he couldn't touch me. I was the king. \n\nAs if in response to my arrogance, the clouds overhead parted briefly, allowing the sun to break through, reflecting sharply off of something in the distance quickly grabbing my attention from the inferior pawn at the end of my scope. The image of my instructor from the academy flashed across my mind. My subconscious screaming for my attention, some memory trying to shove its way to the front of my mind.\n\nThe memory was too slow, only coming to full realization as the bullet tore through the bottom of my jaw, separating it from the rest of my face. It was the memory of the academy's class on ways to spot enemy snipers. It was of videos of what sun reflecting off of scopes looked like in the distance. The pain that had now taken place where a better part of my jaw had once resided began to grow. My vision seemed to blur at an increasing rate, my neck and chest felt wet. I had cognitively recognized the first bullet hitting me, but the following 2 were mysterious thuds in my chest. It was a new sensation to me, however long it lasted; not knowing what had just happened, what was happening. The space where my jaw once was now felt like skin exposed to a freezing wind, a cold burning. The following 2 bullets that struck me felt like I had been punched in the chest, knocking me back on my side. It felt like my brain was refusing to acknowledge that I had been shot. Objectively I knew, I had been on the other end of that scope many times before, but there was some part of me that was still in disbelief, expecting the pain to go away, for me to just roll back over and wait for things to get better. It wasn't an act of bravery, courage or anything of that sort, I was driven solely by curiosity. Running off the last bit of adrenaline, probably the only thing keeping me alive, I managed to rest my eye where it had rested so many times before. With the scope to my eye, I direct it towards where I had seen the reflection, hoping to get a last image of the one who got me. \n\nI found him on top of an apartment building with striking resemblance to the very building I was on. I didn't recognize him. I was lying here, half of my face plastered to the roof of my building and 2 holes in my chest, staring at the man who did this. He had already packed up his rifle and was walking towards the door to what I imagined to be the apartment building stairwell, drinking a Sprite. Moments later, he would be throwing his rifle case in the trunk, popping himself down in the driver seat, probably taking another swig from his Sprite bottle and heading off to wherever he's off to next. People would be going to and from work on their lunch breaks below, some would be shopping maybe, but they'd all be going about their day, unaware that just a few hundred feet above them, on the top of that cold concrete roof, lays a dead man with half a face. \n\nNobody thinks of themselves as a pawn. In everybody's game of chess they're the king, the queen, some piece of importance. " ]	1
Inb4 trump joke responses.	[WP] One day, you gave a homeless man a few dollars to help him out. A few years later, the same man, now a billionaire, calls you. "I owe you one." He says. "How about a drink?"	[ "I could barely believe my eyes. The man standing before me looked nothing like the shaggy man I encountered a few years ago. Usually one forgets the face of the homeless, let alone to those you’ve gained the courage to spare a few coins you had no urgent use for, but would have liked to have saved for a future coffee or chocolate bar. \n\nHis new clothes were astronomically on the other end of the spectrum of the filth he called clothing back then. I was nearing the end of a long battle against college when I came across him during a drunken walk late home one night. Earlier that day I had taken a mid-term and felt I deserved some relaxation. Forgetting the ability to hail down a cab after my phone died - I was that dead brained - I stumbled upon a man dressed down in strips of cloth barely passing by as clothing. And when I mean stumbled, I mean drunkenly stumble into him as he was digging through the recyclables.\n\nHe addressed himself as Genghis Faustgy after I made sure he was okay. I returned my name, still slightly out of it from the many beers I had at Jack’s Bar. If I wasn’t, no way in the world I would have stayed and listened to his oddly named man’s rants on his assumption of what would happen in the future. Crock-pot conspiracies it sounded to me. After a good fifteen minutes or so, I felt the only nice way out of this homeless man’s rambles would be to give him the rest of the money I had in my pocket, which was in the double digits. Mr. Faustgy’s dark eyes brightened up, graciously accepting my money. By then, I had slightly sobered up and redirected myself the right way back to the dorms.\n\nThe only reason I remembered Genghis Faustgy, besides his ridiculous name, was because some of his outrageous predictions came true; a terrorist group redefining a perfectly normal name, a shitty celebrity becoming the president of America, a former Prime Minister’s son becoming the new Prime Minister, and millions of people being outraged over the death of a single gorilla. No one else over the years believed I ever met a homeless man named Genghis Faustgy, let alone the wild allegations he made. Always boiled down to a drunken hallucination. \n\nNow he here was, facing me on a less than desirable crowded street. \n\n“Erm, Genghis was it?” I nervously asked, shifting my briefcase between my hands. I was heading home after a long days work at my new job when he intercepted me. Was he waiting for me? How did he know where I worked?\n\nThe dark eyes I remembered from all those years ago were staring back at me. Judging me. “I am so glad you remembered me, and my name.” Genghis toothless smile sent a chill down my spine. “Did you know you were the only person to ever give me a donation the whole time I was out on the streets?”\n\nI shifted uncomfortably where I stood, feeling my briefcase get heavier and heavier. “Really? I’m sorry man, I mean-”\n\t\nGenghis Faustgy held up a white gloved hand, ordering me to hold my tongue. “It’s okay lad. You housers, erm, others, you aren’t obligated to help. But because you did, I spent half of what you gave me on lotto tickets. And I won enough to get my broken feet off the ground.”\n\nMy own eyes widen, unable to comprehend what I heard. Some convenience store out there actually served this man while he as dressed in rags. And amazingly, against all odds, he had won more than twenty dollars according to his snazzy apparel.\n\n“Well, I had made a few investments. You know, the basics. Apple, Tesla . . . Never mind about that. I was hoping to run into you one day so I could repay you properly.” \n\nAh jeez, I thought, here comes the awkward check I have to reject even though I would need it to pay off my student loans and car payments.\n\n“How about a drink?”\n\nA jolt of pain burst in my mouth as I bit down hard on my tongue. I helped this man out of below poverty and all he wanted to do was buy me a drink. Maybe because I was dead drunk when I met him? Damn college me. “Only if you insist.” I managed to slip out.\n\nGenghis laughed, slightly touching his sleek white hair. “Oh, I do insist. Come on, I know a place.”\n\nI couldn’t help but follow him. My mind was racing, hoping this wasn’t going to end with me in a frozen bathtub, minus one or two organs. I speed text my friend if I didn’t text back in fifteen minutes, call for help. Hopefully Lee took it seriously this time. Only when we had passed by the third bar I grew suspicious.\n\n“I knew a private place, really upscale.” Genghis reaffirmed me, as if reading my thoughts.\n\nI should have ran like hell at that point, but instead I resent a text to Lee reaffirm I was still alive. \n\nSome blocks later, Genghis Faustgy turned down a poorly lit alleyway, expecting me to follow. Which I did. I had already followed him this far, I might as well check out the private drinking establishment. \n\nAnd how private it was. Genghis took a key out, unlocked the door and held it open for me. I spaced out, nearly backing out right there and then, but I felt something push me forward and before I knew it I was inside.\n\nI have to say, it wasn’t what I expected. To be honest, I did not know what to except. Maybe a torture room, maybe some underground gay fight club. Who knows. But it was the last thing I expected; an actual bar. \n\n“Please, sit down.” Genghis had already taken off his jacket, folding it nearly over his arm. Almost all the seats were open, but amazingly a few seats were taken. In the back a woman and man seemed to be in each others company, ignoring us completely. Not once they looked over to us. In the other corner, a sole woman sat alone, completely indulged with her laptop. Every now and then she would adjust her glasses or give off a soft cough. Other than that we were invisible to them.\n\nI reluctantly sat at the bar, placing the briefcase beside me. I was going to ask if there was a bartender when a women in a tank and a modest amount of piercing came out from the back, holding a tray with a single bottle and glass on it. She placed it in front of us before disappearing into the back again.\n\n“You know, life is funny.” Genghis started, pouring the liquid into the cup. It gave off a rosy-pink colour. “I know a lot of things in life, but I don’t know your name.” He slid the cup in front of me. \n\nI stared at the skinny glass, never realizing how thirsty I was, but some part of me screamed not to drink. “How come you don’t have a drink?” \n\nThis time when Genghis laughed, I swear I heard the others in the back join in with him. “Come on, lad, it won’t hurt ya. I just want to properly. Repay. You.” he tapped the glass, as if it was not a request, but an order.\n\nI stared at the hypnotic rosy-pink drink, swearing it was forming faint pictures in its swirls. “You told me a lot of things that came true over the years . . .” My lips licked as my fingers itched to grab the tempting drink. “A lot of crazy things. But the things I could remember came true.”\n\nGenghis lifted an eyebrow “I said a lot of . . . ‘crazy things’ when I was on the streets. Perhaps it was a coincidence some of those things came true.” He pushed the drink once more in front of me, this time successfully getting me to grab it. “And maybe now I’m saying I owe you a drink. Perhaps because I owe you one, or maybe because I have it on good terms this drink will protect you against a future outbreak.” \n\nI didn’t have to turn my head to know everyone, even the pretty bartender with piercing s, had their eyes on us, or me. Now I could smell the rosy-pink drink, triggering memories I had cooking in the kitchen with my mother at a young age. \n\n“Money could never truly repay you for what you did for me. But I was given a plus one for the future and there was no one else I wanted to give it too. Took me over a year to track you down, but I’m glad I found you in time.” I felt his gloved hand touch the middle of my back. “Drink it all, son.”\n\nAnd I did.\n" ]	1
	[WP] You wake up on a desolate road with nothing but the clothes on your back, 50 USD, and a note saying "Run".	[ "As I return to consciousness I feel the heat of the burning cars and taste blood. Everything hurts as I try to sit up. The smell of burning paint, car interior, and flesh overwhelms me and I vomit into the grass next to the road. There are smashed and burning cars all around as I remember the moments before the crash. \n\nI remember seeing cars lose control as people walked onto the highway looking to the sky, seemingly oblivious to traffic. I remember a brilliant streak of light followed by chaos. The last thing I remember is brake lights, squealing tires, and crunching metal before darkness.\n\nI struggle to my feet and fight the dizziness and nausea roiling in my stomach. Looking around I see nothing but destruction. Not a single car on the highway is untouched. Many are burning, most are crushed beyond recognition, and it appears I'm the only person left alive. \n\nAs I stagger into the field next to the highway in the hopes of getting away from the fires and the smell of burning flesh I, without thinking, put my hands in my pockets. Surprised to find anything I pull out some cash and, upon closer inspection, a note that says, \"Run!\"\n\nRun where? Who put this note here? I can't imagine running in my current state anyway. \n\nReaching the end of my strength I sit on a hummock of grass and look back at the devastation of the highway stretching as far as I can see both east and west. In the distance off to the east there is a huge pillar of smoke which can only be Dallas. \n\nI know without question the note in my pocket is telling me to flee from Dallas, from the remains of civilization, from humans. But, how can I? I'm weak, I have nowhere to go, and don't even understand what has happened. What am I running from? Trusting my feeling and the note I walk east until I can't walk anymore. A survival instinct I didn't know I had tells me to keep the road in sight, there isn't much out here that is edible away from civilization. I walk for many hours, pass out, and sleep through the night. Waking up in the cold light of dawn I realize I have no plan and no desire besides walking away from the destruction. \n\nEast, always east I walk. I've been walking for three days now. I've found some water in a couple of dirty streams and some berries to eat yesterday but I'm getting weaker by the hour. Looking back to the unknown destruction I'm fleeing I think I see movement. Not knowing if it is a threat or friends, and being too weak to run, I hope for the best as I sit on a bench at an abandoned gas station and wait for it/them to catch up.\n\nAs I sit staring into the distance I see figures moving along the highway towards me with their backs to the remains of Dallas. As I watch them it becomes clear they are looking for something. I assume they are searching for survivors since they look into every destroyed car and every burned out wreck. One of them happens to look in my direction and sees me sitting helpless on my bench. The figure starts, points to me, and gestures to it's fellow travelers. A couple of them rush towards me but keep their distance.\n\nThey yell to me asking if I'm hurt, do I feel sick, and did I see the meteor. \n\n\"Meteor?\" I ask, confused. \n\nThey explain that a large asteroid has landed near Dallas destroying the city and killing almost everybody who lives there. But that's not the worst of it. It turns out that the theory of panspermia is correct in the worst way possible. The meteorite brought with it a bacteria that has been surviving in space for millennia. It is immune to our antibiotics and kills 99.99% of the people, animals, and fish it comes into contact with. No one knows how to stop it and no one knows why some are immune. All of the survivors who found me are injured, deaf (from the shock wave), or mentally broken at the loss of everyone they held dear. \n\nI have no choice but to go with them but I have no idea how we will survive the week, let alone the years of sickness and famine that must be coming. " ]	1
	[WP] Write about the experience of a video game enemy waking up after having been knocked out by the player character, or write about an NPC witnessing the protagonist going about their duties as the main hero.	[ "Vincent spooned the porridge from the wooden bowl and brought it to eye level absent minded letting it drip back in.\n\n\"I heard if you do that fifty more times the porridge becomes gold of the finest caliber, then all our troubles will be over.\" Marly told him allowing a wheezy laugh to pass through.\n\n\"Sorry sister, the food is great, but I can't get over what happened earlier.\" he replied returning to his meal.\n\n\"You still going on bout' that murderer? If it bothers you that much we can start putting back for a hired mercenary, I've been hearing the criers near the market yellin' of a group of Italian thugs stalking and killing innocents near the chalk cliffs.\" Marley informed him.\n\n\"No, Marley, if you'd seen what I seen this morning you'd be twice as perplexed as I and none the wiser for it. The man was...he was like nothing I'd ever seen before. I've seen my fair share of men snatched from this world, shit the O'Hanohan twins ain't made the month complete without killin' a tourist. The man I saw kill those soldiers at the outpost moved like a divine being.\" Bincent expressed to his sister.\n\n\"Really? A divine being, Vincent? You know they could fill the oceans with your insight little brother and there would no longer be a drowned man to protest it.\" She joked.\n\n\"I was fishing with Francis on the Eider bridge and a noble ran past behind us at full speed cursing and shoving those in his way. No one saw the other man, they were too busy watching the noble flail about and speed off in a panic. He'd just about made it to the church when the other man dropped from it's roof like a gargoyle from a cathedral and plunged a sword through the entirety of his torso, and pulled the sword back out. I only caught a glimpse of it, but of all the swords Pa and me ever made none were as beautifully crafted as the one the man held. The hilt had a bird's head upon it, two fiercly glowing ruby gems for the eyes, the handle a silver so sheen I bet your reflection could be seen in it. The blade was Damascus weave without question, but the pattern was unlike I've ever seen rather than a wave pattern, it was like the boxed circles like the kind you see on honeycombs. The guards came around the corner to see what the commotion was about, I assumed the man still standing would have ran, but he didn't, his face was cloaked hidden in his hood. Out numbered four to one, the man then sheathed his sword, Marley.\" Vincent chugged the rest of his ale and continued the story while using the pitcher to refill his mug, He noted the blank stare of his sister transfixed by the story momentarily contemplating where to continue. \"The guards were so perplexed by this action that they stopped dead in their tracks lowering their rifles, and that's when the movement began. Do you remember that theatrical that Pa took us to in Dublin when we were little, the one with the Persian woman that danced so beautifully?\" Vincent asked her.\n\nMarley was now fascinated and nodded her head, too caught in the story to interrupt vocally.\n\n\"He moved like that, swift and precisely, the man had two hidden blades that shot out from his wrists, the first guard had very little time to react and his throat was cut before he could even get his shot off. The hooded figure caught the man mid fall and shielded himself from being shot by the remaining three. Dropping the first kill he dashed forward piercing the next guard expertly in the crook of his chestplate with the speed of a snake biting and dispatched his third victim just as quickly by breaking the bayonet off the man's rifle and jamming it into his ear, the fourth panicked and began running.\n\nHe did not get far though, the hooded man pointed at him and the fourth guard collapsed, turns out he threw a knife that pierced the back of the man's skull but he did it so fast it appeared to be sorcery. Jesus, Mary, n' Joseph, Marley, the man had a helmet on and the knife went right through it.\n\nAs if it were the most casual of circumstance the man turned toward the bridge Francis and I were fishing at, more guards could be heard making there way towards the chaos. Then the hooded figure sprinted right for us and I thought for sure we were to be targeted as dead men, but all he did was jump to the outer side of the bridge and hang there knocking over my day's catch.\" Vincent finished thinking of how much better bass would be compared to poridge.\n\nVincent contemplated the events in silence, not noticing Marley's expression of eagerness.\n\n\"Well!?\" She rang out making him startle slightly.\n\n\"Well what?\" Vincent asked her.\n\n\"I don't suppose he's still hanging his arse from that bridge, Vincent, what the fuck happened after that?\" She asked him sarcastically.\n\n\"Oh, the guards stopped and asked us what happened and where the killer went, I simply pointed in the direction of the stables at the other end of the bridge. Once they were out of sight the cloaked man jumped up from his hiding spot and told me he was sorry for the fish and said thank you. What kind of cold blooded killer apologizes and and thanks people? I told you, it was as if he were an avenging angel with no qualms toward decent folk.\" Vincent finished.\n\n\"That is a bit odd innit'? A man that kills five people and in the same instance turns around and thanks others. All sounds a bit King Henry-ish to me, maybe the man was short a few wagon wheels.\" She said gathering their plates to wash in the basin later.\n\n\"Odd, I suppose...,\" A knock on their door interrupted Vincent and he looked at his sister. \"you expecting anyone?\"\n\n\"No, t' might be the stable hand with the udder balm I ordered earlier though.\" Marley informed him.\n\nVincent stood up and answered the door to the pitch black night overhead, and on the ground was a bucket filled with eight decent sized fish. Attached to the bucket itself was a note in beautifully calligraphied English reading.\n\n'I want to thank you for your discretion and kindness to a stranger, friend, and to properly apologize as well about your fishing spoils. I have been informed by the other merchants in town that you are the resident balcksmith for these parts. I believe that our meeting each other may be more than circumstance. I am in need of good steel and armor and have more than enough coin to purchase and reserve your services should you be so interested. For the duration of my time in the Ire, I would like to retain your services and discretion. If you wish to meet and discuss further detail and transaction meet me at the church when the sun is highest tomorrow. I will take no offense in refusal of this offer either way. Once again, thank you.\" Sincerely, Giovanni Auditor'e\n\nBeneath the initials was a symbol stamped into a thin wax seal. Vincent had seen it once before during commerce in Dublin at the cartographers guild building, it was a triangle with no base and an intricate design. Stories from his youth suggested the symbol was a emblem of legendary hashishini from the Egypt country.\n" ]	1
	[WP] Science has allowed for a "time-turn" pill, reducing age and appearance back to 18. The pill is ONLY available to those who sign contracts to work until they reach retirement again (money cannot buy). Now there’s a 5th generation of workers, physical and psychological side effects start to show	[ "Fifty years old. My birthday. March the twelfth.\n\nI walked into the banal and bland office block where I worked.\n\"HR wants to see you, Mister Morgan. They've got your release form ready.\"\nI nodded to the secretary.\n\"Thank you, Wendy. Tell them I'll be right up.\"\nI walked slowly to the elevator, running my fingers along the drywall, feeling every dent, pockmark, and scratch. It was hard to believe I'd been working in this building for thirty years now, and a different one before that, and one before that... I was good at my job, it's the reason I was a sought-after employee. 5 generations of accounting will make you near perfect, and it would be a damn shame if I wasn't.\n\n\nI knew that walking into the Human Resources office to get my release form would be the same as all the other times. Go in. Look cheery. Get your form, go out. Go to the rejuve clinic, take a pill. Go under anesthesia. Wake up. Work for another 30 years.\nI wasn't excited for it, to say the least. When would I finally stop taking rejuve pills? How many generations could I bear?\n\n\n\nAs I stepped into the elevator, my finger hovered over the button marked \"forty\". The finger began to move higher. It hovered over the button marked \"roof\". I didn't stop myself from pressing it.\n\nThe doors closed, and as the elevator glided skywards, I knew that I would never work another day in my life. And I smiled." ]	1
	[WP] You're the twin of a famous magician. Before his death, he made sure no one outside of your family knew of your existence. You're now at his funeral, and the media is claiming this is his greatest trick ever: resurrection.	[ "My brother was cunning, masterful, and proficient in his tricks in every way. The slightest mess up and it would of resulted in his retirement.\n\nHe never did mess up. He followed through till the very end. He was always a step ahead of Mother Nature itself. \n\nWhen I found out about how this tragic event had happened, my feet beckoned, as this was inconceivable. Dwight was perfect in every way, it couldn't be possible that he had died from a new trick he was practicing! But...it was true. Mom was barely audible over the phone that night, as Dwight had accidentally punctured vital organs, attempting to walk on spikes. \n\nI was his twin brother he never let out into the public. I never attended public school, I'm not even registered as a citizen. Mom had us under the oak tree down past the creek. We had moved to the city since those times.\n\nThe media was absolutely in love with Dwight, but they had no idea he had a twin brother by the name of Clyde. \n\nIt was saddening to see that his casket was closed at the funeral. I'm guessing the aftermath to the puncture was too gruesome to leave his body out for display. \n\nI would never see his face again, unless it was in a picture we took together, but there was only one. Ever since Dwight was small he had a natural affinity for tricks. He would blackmail me into staying out of each and every picture mom and dad took.\n\nI never understood what his motives were, and I guess they didn't matter now. He was gone. Mom sat beside me with a tissue. \n\nI thought of her and how traumatic this must be for her, to lose a son, and then see his face in her other son. How terrible. \n\nThe garrulous news crew was right outside of the funeral doors, thirsty for news. This was a huge story for them, and the world too. Dwight was by far the most mysterious man in the world.\n\nI found out he was more fascinating than ever today.\n\nAfter The Funeral\n\nThe funeral had ended and I stormed out of the doors to be immediately swarmed by news crew. The looks on their faces went blank as they saw me. I didn't understand their expression. They acted as if they had seen a ghost.\n\nPeople were immediately on their cell phones, calling their companies and speaking in a blunder. The outrage grew to an even greater height as cameras were showered in my face. \n\n\"Dwight! Dwight! Tell us how you performed this magnificent and awe shocking stunt!\" A voice boomed. \n\n\"Dwight! Is this your new trick?\" A woman said.\n\n\"Is this a resurrection trick?\" People were in awe, as I was speechless. I had realized my face was his, and I was in the eyes of possibly millions right now.\n\nI had no words to express myself and no way to get out of this. Mom knew my situation and watched me as I put my acting skills to the test, \"Yes, this is my latest feat. I realize you must be in awe, but do not fear, I died, and now I live.\" I said, interpreting my brothers intense ego. \n\nI forged a smile as I walked through the crowd of people, wondering how long I would last before the smile would fade, and the tears shed. \n\nI got in the car, mom getting in the back, while dad sat in the passenger seat, unable to look at the casket. I drove off from the scene, wondering how my life was going to change from my fascinating brothers trickery.\n\n(Should I do a second part?)" ]	1
	[WP] You are the last bandit standing out of the 6 who tried to rob the main character. Write out your thought process and rationale as to why you keep attacking.	[ "r/WritingPrompts\nThe Nightmare\nu/gavmandog0m\nHe looked like he had sweet loot and would be easy pickings. I'd been doing my warm up yoga stretches before seeing the others charge him down. All five of my boys lay in a circle around his feet, killed by his blade.\n\nI stood a short distance away, blankly looking at the killer in front of me, as i reached for my blade, he shook his head and mouthed, \"No.\"\n\nI tried to consider my options but there was only emptiness.. and something more.. this small flame that grew as I looked at it, I yelled, \"Yes. Yes. YES!\", and the alien flame burned bright, fueling me with a rush of anger.\n\nHe may have skillfully cut my companion's souls from their bodies. But nobody bests Diego The Nightmare Sanchez.\n", "And just like that I had nothing. One-eye at the fire calling Rotgut fat even as he sliced more pig into the stew, and all of us getting the joke. Breeze aloof but...there somehow. Always there, and the feeling of safety that came with it. Crazy D'ergn who we had to call \"Jeff\" because you can't pronounce that name. And Gertie and the furs and Gertie and THE FURS AND GERTIE AND THE FURS AND THIS PIECE OF SHIT IS GOING TO HURT.\n\nWould she be proud of me?\n", "The blue hair should have been a dead giveaway. They should have known. Yet, he and his band of merry mischief-makers had been compelled into a confrontation with this terrible fiend. Years of experience, years. Seamus and his band had controlled this portion of the kingdom with ease with their unique set of skills. Yet, they were now all dead. Almost inexplicably so. He raised his sword, and charged forward by no will of his own. He swung it with all of the force he could muster, only for it to rebound off of thin air. Seamus crashed to the ground, he should have known. Plot armor.", "It wasn't a great plan, but it was our only shot.\n\nMy friends and I had set out a few months ago, determined to find the rebel stronghold. We were excited. We would join the rebellion and help overthrow the king. We were going to be heroes.\n\nJust one problem: None of us knew where the rebels were.\n\n\nWe spent weeks looking for them, relying on tips from strangers. We barely survived the traps the empire tried to spring on us. \nThen, two months later, our supplies ran out.\nWe resorted to stealing from the empire, but soon we could not visit any populated area without someone recongining us, as we were infamous by that point. So we decided to flee the empire, and head for the mountain kingdom of Grimlock, hoping we would have more luck. \n\nFast forward a few weeks, and we are almost at the border of the empire. However, we haven't eaten in a week, and hadn't seen another traveler in a month. Until she showed up.\n\nOf course we all knew who she was. The so callled \"Hero of the empire\" was famous for squashing the last rebellion, as well as defeating the Great Necromancer and his undead army. Clad in Dragonbone Armour, Riding on a black clydesdale and weiding a Lightning embued greatsword, she was dangerous and beautiful. We knew she could slaughter us in an instant, but we had no choice. We needed her supplies.\n\nAfter a few minutes of arguing we decided to ambush her, hoping that if we all struck at once, we could put her down. When she walked past the bushes we were hiding in, we all jumped at her. 6 blades swung at her positon. For a moment, I thought it would work. \n\nThen she vanished.\n\nOur swords clashed as she reapeared us. With one swipe, 3 of my buddies were cut in half. Furious, my two remaining friends tried to charge her again, only for her to effortlessly parry them both, then decapitate them without a word. \n\nI collaped to the floor, filled with despair and waiting for the end. As she walked up and put her blade at my throat. I expected her to taunt or mock our attempt, but as I looked up, I saw a tinge of sadness in her eyes.\n\"Why? What did you think was going to happen? Why did you make me do this?\" She asked, her voice shaking with a mix of regret and anger.\n\"We had no choice. I'm sorry\" I explained the story to her, and her anger flaired up.\n\"You idiots! I would have helped if you had asked!I have spare supplies. You just needed to ask me! But no, you decide to try and rob me instead. I should just kill you now.\" She yelled.\n\"We didn't think you would help a bunch of wannabe rebels\" I replied.\n\nAll of a sudden her facial expression changed into a demented grin. \"Rebels, did you say? On second thought, you are coming with me\" she said as she pulled out a rope and began to tie me up. \"I am gonna have some fun with you, you rebel scum\" my mind went black as she knocked me out.\n\n", "Jon, Dan, Towny, Janna, Carla.. they're gone. Typical. Of course this asshole can fight us all off with a dagger and some crappy leather armour. We've been holding this cave for 5 years. 5 years! This guy looks like he just spawned and now he's killing my comrades... my friends...\n\nI've heard of this happening before, J'ul of Fort Cavero sent me a letter just last month saying how, \"some guy just walked up and shouted at Raymond, sending him flying and killing him on impact.\" Who the fuck is this guy?\n\nOh well, it's my turn now. I'll defeat whoever he is. Better start off with some mind games, \"Never should have come here!\" Yeah.. that'll get him. I approach, shield up and sword ready to strike. He swings for me, ha! An easy block. Pfft, this guy aint so 'tuff after all. Another swing, another block. \n\n^^BLOCKING ^^INCREASED ^^TO ^^23\n\n^^LEVEL ^^UP, ^^CHOOSE ^^A ^^PERK ^^TO ^^UPGRADE\n\nHuh? Oh, right! Hah, this guy aint nothing but free perk points. Now that I think about it, my One Handed needs some work, might as well take a few swings.\nStepping back for a moment, I let my shield down and swing my sword, landing a crucial hit. Perfect.\n\nThe stranger begins to run down the narrow passages of the cave. Pfft, what a milk drinker. \"I'll enjoy looting your corpse when you're dead!\"\nI chase him down the passages, but by Talos this guy is speedy. Must have maxed stamina, what a waste. \nNo matter. I pull out my bow and begin to aim on him, but he starts pivoting from left to right. Ugh! I can't land a shot on this guy!\nAs I ready my bow for another shot, he begins to approach, and now that's he's closer I can see all the wounds I inflicted on him have disappeared. What kind of potions does this guy have? I guess I'll find out once I loot his corpse. Ha, yeah.\n\nAs he's approaching I sheath my bow and equip my greatsword. No more playing around, this guy is going down. He swings at me, but I block a lot of the damage with my sword, staggering him slightly. Perfect. I swing my greatsword to the right and land another hit. He's hurt again, I know it.\n\nFeeling his fear I approach, flailing my sword in the air and laughing, annoying him greatly in the process. He sheaths his dagger and pulls out a... uh.. fire? He pulled out FIRE? WHAT? This is ridiculous. I'm putting and end to this. I charge at, greatsword ready to pounce, getting ever closer. All the while I'm in flames, but no flame in the world will stop me getting to this guy. I jump forward, surprising him and swinging down, clean head hit. He's down again, I swing again, but he looks up and shouts. His voice.. it's louder than anything I've ever heard, agh! He sends me flying back, whacking my back on the rocks behind me. I want to get up, but I'm in so much pain.\n\nHe approaches, still heavily injured and limping, now duel wielding daggers. Looking down on me he starts swinging and stabbing. The pain is indescribable, I feel my life slipping away. My mind begins to go black and everything seems done for.\nThe final swing is lunging towards my back. This is it, I'm done fo- WAIT! \n\nQuickly realising the stupidly of my ways I tap into my mind and increase health, adding a point into one handed. The life comes rushing back into me as I jump up, pulling an ebony dagger I stole from a merchant a while ago out of my boot. I thrust the dagger into his stomach, his eyes widen and blood begins to pour from his mouth. I pull the dagger out and look him square in the eye.\n\n\"Never should have come here\", I whisper, as my blade enters his skull, piercing between both eyes. I watch as the life leaves his body, smirking. \n\n\nBandits sure have had some more victories ever since Jeorg A'rh-A'rh Martinborn came to be high king, I think to myself as I begin looting his body.", "'Turn and run, damn it!' that was what I heard in my mind. Why was my body moving forward? Why was I still attacking? She was obviously stronger than I was, with far more power and skill. I'm just a lowly bandit, but I can't stop going for the kill. My arms are tiring quickly, and my breath is coming in small gasps. My knees feel watery and my movements are slow and clumsy. I'm sure I will die here, but if I could just turn and run...\n\nSomething was stopping me and I couldn't figure out what. I narrowly dodged a swing of her sword, bringing my dagger up too slowly to connect with her body, and desperately tried to find a vantage point. Sure, I was far larger than she was, and far more muscular, but she was winning. Somehow, in a way of backwards logic, she was defeating me! I started to regret my earlier actions. \n\nI had first spotted her golden griffin among a thrall of merchants. They were all dressed in dull browns and greys, while she wore a bright, silver armor. It was embellished with white gold. A startlingly blue cloak flowed down from her shoulders and just brushed the ground. Her swords was kept in a golden hilt that was encrusted with rubies and emeralds. On her hip hung a finely made helm, almost more ornate than the shining armor. The beast drew my eye next. Her griffin was of an impressive bloodline, and I knew his feathers would be lined with pure gold. Compared to the merchants, she stood out like a blazing light in the darkness. Her armor and her beast would be worth quite the pretty penny, and we sorely needed pretty pennies. \n\nShe was small, and we thought the six of us big, burly men would be able to easily take her down. The only problem was waiting for the right moment. All afternoon we followed her through the busy market place, until she left the village. I sent Fleetfoot to run ahead of her. 'Keep her in your sights,' I said to him, 'but don't let her see you. I want you to cut her off if she tries to run.' I had sent Hob and Gillfinger to walk just after her, and to speak of their 'long journey ahead'. Draygon and me, we were to take wide arcing paths around to the sides of her. The plan was to slowly, and uneventfully, surround her. \n\nI tried to account for the griffin, I did. Gillfinger always carried around a pack that reeked of salt and brine, and in that pack were his fishing nets. If he could snare the griffin's wings with the net, and tangle the beast's legs with leftover mooring line, we would be okay. I miscalculated the girl's wariness. She grew increasingly tense the longer my men followed her without passing. She even slowed her gait to an almost crawl. When still they followed close behind her, she grew suspicious. \n\nShe did something no one was prepared for. She mounted that beautiful, golden bastard and turned him on my men. Gillfinger struggled to get the nets ready for throwing, and the griffin screeched. This surprised Gillfinger. He fell backwards as the beast half-flew and half-galloped over him. Putting my face into my hand, I had rushed in with Draygon and Fleetfoot followed soon after. We all drew our weapons. There was a tension that palpated the air and grew thicker than Draygon's chest hair. \n\n\"Now look, we aren't wanting to hurt you, girl.\" I spoke slowly and with as much authority as I could. \"Turn over that pretty armor and the bird and we'll let you go with your life.\" Her smirk irritated me more so than frightened me. She leapt off of the beast and sent it away before Gillfinger had the chance to untangle his fingers from the nets. What an oaf. \n\nWith a speed and grace that surprised me, my men were cut down. It wasn't long before she was coming at me. My eyebrows knit together and I growled at her. This was supposed to be easy. She looked so green, as if she hadn't time to fill in that pretty armor, as if she hadn't seen battle a day in her life. Clearly, she had. There seemed to be an unseen strength that surrounded her, and her abilities far exceeded my own. What a fool I was. \n\nMy knees are trembling now and my brow is slick with sweat. I can't stab her with my dagger, so I draw my axe. With a sting of pain and a flash of heat, I block her downward strike, and angle my axe so the blade of her sword runs down along the handle. At this point, I should be able to to take an easy swing on her exposed side, but she uses the force from my parry to swing the sword back around and into my arm. Her speed was almost inhuman. I growled at the pain. Why can't I stop fighting? \n\nI look down at the ground, red with blood. My best friends are all laying on the ground. Maybe this is a losing battle. Maybe I am truly the fool. I do know this, though, that even though I shall die here, it shan't be for lack of pride. I grind my teeth together and push forward. My body is tired and aching, but my pride will not release it's grip over me. \n\n", "It should have been easy. \n\n\nOne old man tottering along next to a worn-out bull and an overflowing cart. Overflowing with rags and half-rotten food, maybe, but wealth is relative. Reidar fell before the others even knew what happened. He had jumped from their cover on his own, sure on his victory and aiming for a bigger part of the prize. When he grabbed the old man and put his knife to his throat, that should have been the end of it. Instead, Reidar had fallen to the ground with the old man’s knife sticking out from his chest. He took just enough time dying that his expression changed from grim victory to confused desperation. \n\n\nMaybe they should have known then. They should have turned around. But travelers had gotten fewer, bringing fewer possession with them, more like beggars. One lucky shot didn’t mean anything. The twins, Sol and Kol, lumbered onto the road in a rage. Even half jogging they were slow, but so big and powerful they should have mowed down both the old man and his ox. Their woodcutter axes would finish this. \n\n\nI sent young Selia to hold the bull steady, allowing her to help but keeping her out of the fight. I shouldn’t have let those big eyes sway me, but I was getting old and we needed new people to be ready. Even if those people were getting younger and younger. Childhood is one of the first victims of war.\n\n\nI made up the rear, making sure we pinned him to the side of his cart. A howl of rage and grief warned me that Bjorn had left his look-out post and was stumbling down the hill towards us. One hand waving an oversized knife, the other gripped tight around the stick that kept him from falling. “That old bastard is mine!” \n\n\nThat was when I knew that this was going to be bad. Normally, we would beat them up a little and send them on their way. We just wanted the goods, not their lives. Sure, some might put up a fight and accidents happen, but we weren’t murderers. Except this man had killed Reidar, and Reidar’s father had been watching. \n\n\nThe old man seemed to realize at the same moment I did, but where my determination faded his strengthened. He threw off his patched cloak and stood tall, the setting sun glinting on a magnificent wave of grey hair falling over broad shoulders. Sol and Kol barely managed to hesitate before he sprang into action. Those moves shouldn’t have been possible. He slid to the side and a long, slim blade materialized in his hand. One moment shining bright in the dusty road, the next moment dripping blood as the two strongest workers of my village collapsed in a heap at his feet. \n\n\nI nearly dropped my own sword. One of the finest of the village and the pride of my family, it now looked like a dirty and misshapen piece of steel. I couldn’t fight that. None of us could. I managed to collect myself just in time to grab a hold of Bjorn when he reached us. He was frothing in rage, mumbling and shouting incoherently. A dried up old man who just lost both his son and his only support. So many families had lost their support now. How could I ever feed them all?\n\n\nThe strange man stood silently watching us. I didn’t believe him old anymore no matter how much grey dotted his hair. He moved with the speed and strength of a man at his peak. A trained man at his peak. I realized this had been a trap, a set-up to catch us, just as I realized how wrong I had been to bring Selia along. Her first raid and she was filled with the delusion of immortality that would be the downfall of every youth if given the chance. I had given her that chance. \n\n\nI cried out for her to stop, but it was too late. She had crawled underneath the bull, stupid and brave child, and come up behind the stranger. She raised her knife to plunge it into his back. A fierce determination in her face. I almost believed she could do it. The strange man kept his eyes on me and Bjorn the whole time, only straightened a little and shifted his grip on his sword. Then he turned to the side and slid his sword through Selia’s tiny chest. Her eyes opened in surprise and a small sound of pain escaped her lips. I dropped my arms in defeat. How could such life, such joy, be gone from this world? I barely even noticed when Bjorn barreled into the stranger and joined his son on the ground.\n\n\nJust this morning I had kissed my wife goodbye and hugged Selia’s ailing mother. I had promised her Selia would return, completely healthy and probably insanely bored. Even when he saw the cart I didn’t worry. I thought I gave her a safe job. This didn’t happen. This shouldn’t happen.\n\n\n I looked at the ground, my eyes moving over the now still bodies of all my companions. Of the saviors of our village. Then I looked at the stranger. He stared back at me with a challenge, hard eyes in a hard face. He didn’t move towards me, but he angled the sword in my direction. The life-stealer. He had killed not just my companions, not just my friends. He had killed their family, my family, our whole village. And he was so cold about it. If the devil ever walked the earth, it was now and in this man’s shape.\n\n\nI knelt on the ground for a moment, breathing deeply and trying to think of what to do. Then I realized it wasn’t a choice. I was dead anyway, and so was everything I held dear in life. The only thing I could do, was try to send this devil back where he belonged. \n\n\nI picked up my sword and charged.\n\n\n", "For the love of Kynareth...Joe, Sally, John, Blake....even Hjalldmir, all dead. This man is a monster, a true killing machine. We never should have jumped him in the middle of this dark forest, what were we thinking? He'd never let me live, never let me go. I'll have to avenge my friends or die trying. Joe stabbed him four times, Sally shot him in the head with an arrow, and he threw four fireballs at Blake. He should be near dead and drained. If I go now, maybe I have a chance to end it. Now, NOW! Why did he stop moving for a second? Where'd those potions and Mammoth Snout on his belt go?\n\n*Turned to ash.", "Frank fell down with no grace, his dignity crushed together with his armor of flesh. My short-termed comrades panicked at the sight and charged at the traveler with their meager weapons. Unsurprisingly, their sudden burst of courage was not rewarded.\n\nHowever, as I am someone who does not simply let go of an opportunity, I slipped from behind and thrust my rapier to the traveler's back. I'm fairly confident when it comes to swordplay, so imagine my surprise when the traveler evaded it. Mind you, he evaded it in a hair's width, but the fact that he managed to do so at all stunned me. What amazing reflexes.\n\nAs I gaped in awe, his large sword bellowed and aimed to cut me in half. I felt luck shower upon me as I managed to jump away from its trajectory, but alas, the traveler's eyes are still filled with bloodlust. Fear struck my bones, and the coward in me started to take care of things.\n\n\"Why don't we take a break?\" I found myself saying. \"You did just kill my friends. In memory of them, it would be nice if you at least pretend you had a hard time.\"\n\nHis expression didn't change. Looks like today will be my death day. Embracing that fact, I readied my sword, the only thing I could do right now is die a warrior's death. I'm not comforted with the idea, but it did gave me the bravery to move forward.\n\nAs I did so, however, the traveler merely turned around and went away. I stopped in my tracks, no words were exchanged, but I felt grateful nonetheless. We might had been enemies, but we bear each other no ill will. \n\nI spent the afternoon of that day digging five graves. \n" ]	9
	[WP] Everyone is granted a single wish on their 18th birthday. The Devil tries everything possible to screw them over. Luckily, they can hire you, a Wish Broker to draw up a contract attempting to negate ill effects. You have just been handed your most difficult case yet.	[ "\"Okay, so you see, mister Devil, my client wants complete immortality of type gamma. Refer to the interdimensional Wish Code, article 666, subsection A. This type of immortality means the user is not death-proof, they simply come back to life upon death. As you can see, this has a few drawbacks. One example being the infamous Death Loop, where the wish maker would be stuck in a loop of disease, such as heart disease, and die, then get revived back from said death to die again. My client has agreed to give you two lamb sacrifices semi-annually to circumvent the Death Loop. Another drawback we'd like to 'work around' is the Iron Skin Exception, where the wish maker has impenetrable skin, thus making it impossible to receive treatment for Death Loop causes, thus creating a death loop. My client has agreed to give you a pint of his own blood every month to avoid this. Do you accept these terms?\"\n\n\"I do not accept these terms. How about eight pints of blood every day and thirteen lambs a month?\"\n\n\"Your unholiness, those terms are completely outrageous. Eight pints of blood would drive my client to the edge of death, creating another Death Loop.\"\n\n\"He can sacrifice thirteen lambs to circumvent the Death Loop.\"\n\n\"Thirteen lambs a month? Where exactly would my client get that amount of lambs, especially during his bloodless haze?\"\n\n\"Alright, new terms, then. If your client can sacrifice thirteen lambs a month from a goat farm owned and operated by him alone, I'll take the only bones of sacrificed lambs instead of his blood. However, the lamb bones must be arranged in demonic patterns and/or the shape of recognized landmarks. It's not about the bones, really, it's about the effort. You have to work for immortality.\"\n\n\"We accept these terms. Thank you, your unholiness.\"\n\nUnbeknownst to them, the devil stuck in a little... \"secret\". He wouldn't accept the Washington Monument as a landmark. Ha! That was the first thing everyone built with lamb bones.\n\n*****\nLike that story? Check out /r/Picklestasteg00d for more." ]	1
	[WP] You had asked the genie for immortality, convinced that that was the best idea you've ever had. Now, after a long long time of making that wish, you start to think that maybe it was the worst one.	[ "“And for my last wish, Immortality! I want to live forever and remain the same age, without any health concerns.”\n\n\n“Are you sure?” the genie said. “Forever is a long time.”\n\n\nI smirked. “I am certain.”\n\n\nMy other two wishes were to aid my third. I wished for laborless economic stability and intelligence (which the genie defined as “good critical-thinking”). If I am right, I will live the perfect life.\n\n\n-----\n\n\nStupid, bloody stupid! \n\n\nI am immortal. The genie didn’t misinterpret my wish. I misinterpreted my wish.\n\n\nI looked out my window and saw children playing in the streets. Oh, how fun it would be to yell at them to get out of my lawn.\n\n\nProblem was, I didn’t have a lawn. Rapid urbanization had made everything concrete.\n\n\nNo one understood me. Literally and figuratively. \n\n\nLiterally, they thought my speech was old-fashioned and archaic. Think “Shakespearean”.\n\n\nFiguratively, they thought my ideas were weird, that my manner of thought was different. Think “Racist Old Guy”. I didn’t know or understand their social ideas or cues, despite looking pretty young. Most people would always wonder if I was from a foreign country, or they would tell me that my English was very good.\n\n\nI couldn’t make friends. I couldn’t talk to people. I was never a social person back then, and I am not a social person now. I only had friends back then because of school or work. \n\nAll of my friends and family are dead. Gone. Everyone I used to know is dead.\n\n\nWhat do I do in life? Nothing! Absolutely nothing. The only thing I looked forward to was sleep, and that was because it means I had something to do that wasn't nothing. I didn’t go to work, because I don’t need to!\n\n\n“Get a hobby!” you might say.\n\n\nProblem is, I can’t. \n\n\nWith my “laborless economic stability” I only have enough money to be healthy and get food. I can’t afford a hobby.\n\n\n“But not ALL hobbies cost money!”\n\n\nWell you see, the free hobbies revolve around the interwebz. I don’t understand a damn part of this. It has changed a lot from my youth, and everything’s so complex! What am I, a rocket scientist!?\n\n\nCan I just go to some club? No! They are too uncomfortable, which is the exact opposite of what I want.\n\n\nIn my home, I just do the necessities. I eat, shit, and sleep. I have tried not doing one of those things, and all it results in is uncomfortableness.\n\n\nI can’t die.\n\n\nI want to die.\n\n\n----\n\nWhoa, this turned dark too fast. Fun Fact - The ending was supposed to be about the sub me_irl, but I thought that would be too meta or be considered a joke response. Please send feedback!\n\n\n\n\n\n" ]	1
	[WP] Write a story about a lonely night.	[ "There once existed a village at the center of a dense jungle inhabited by dangerous animals and even more dangerous spirits, which for generations plagued the village and interfered with its development. \n\nOne of the earliest defenses the people living in the village came up with was to make noise, especially at night, which would dissuade any intruder from coming close. It got into their heads, somehow, that this should work. \n\nAs the villagers lived on, their weapons and they themselves became stronger, and as a result less of them were taken by forces from the jungle. However, this trend made them believe in noise's power to protect them all the more.\n\nEventually, a chief of the village thought that they were enlightened enough to say, once and for all, that this obsession with noise they had was irrational and a drain on resources. The average hut had over one hundred wind-powered noise-making devices affixed to its sides, which the chief thought was just too much.\n\nAt a biweekly elders meeting, the chief stood up from the grand and imposing chair afforded them, dramatically, and declared that the overzealous production of noise especially at night would stop, immediately after that meeting's end. \n\nNone of the elders responded with much contention, although some made it known that they would have preferred some notice, or at least been afforded the courtesy of being able to pretend that they knew beforehand that this unilateral decision had been made. \n\nReverently, the villagers took down all of their wind-chimes, whistles, and other noise-makers before night fell on the day that the meeting was held. The chief watched, and let certain people know that the way they were choosing to use hammers and ladders was wrong.\n\nUnexpectedly, that night was more deadly than any the village had endured, but the reason was neither dangerous animals nor evil spirits. The cause was loneliness. As a matter of course, the villagers had grown dependent on hearing their noise-makers to know that their neighbors were still there, still alive and willing to collaborate (given agreeable incentives). \n\nThe first silent night in centuries nearly made the entire village commit suicide, and immediately after the sun broke the dark sky on that lonely night, the villagers put the noise-makers back onto their huts. The chief acknowledged that, maybe, they had not taken a thing or two into account." ]	1
	[WP]Aliens have invaded, they are highly advanced, and the war has raged for years. We have finally found their weakness, and it is just too ridiculous...	[ "\"Run it over me again Lieutenant\" I inquired, seriously considering as to whether the man opposite me needed to be given a slap round the head.\n\n\"Middle of the night it was, and being me, I needed a piss, so I head on out to the latrine, and I do what I needed to do. So I'm there and I'm thinking, may as well get it all out in one go so I-\"\n\n\"You can skip that bit\" I ordered, unwilling to hear, from a grown man, a step by step method on how to poo as efficiently as possible, for a second time.\n\n\"Right you are sir! So anyways, I'm wiping up and all, and from behind me, I hear it, it's a bloody stilter, got it's rifle-thing pointed right at me ... \"\n\n\"The long legged bastard had really caught you with your trousers down eh? \n\n\"That's right sir.\" said the Lieutenant, clearly a bit too simple to identify a good joke.\n\n\"So, anyways,\" he continued, \"since I had left my gun in the tent sir, I did what reasonable man in my position would do; my immediate course of action was to-\"\n\n\"Pelt it with your shit,\" I exclaimed with disbelief \"Causing it to explode.\"\n\n\"That is correct sir.\" said the Lieutenant smugly, seemingly proud of his excrement slinging prowess.\n\n\"Dave, you're a bloody genius!\" I cheered somewhat half heartedly, still half-doubting as to whether human crap could really be the weapon to end all interstellar wars. \n\n\"Oh I don't know about that sir, wouldn't go that far.\"\n\n\"Extra rations for you and the others,\" I began, \"and get some bloody sleep; you look like the Ghost of Christmas Past.\"\n\n\"Right you are sir.\" he chuckled, opening the tent flaps and stomping into the snow outside.\n\nWatching him go, I wondered how on Earth I was going to alert my superiors to this marvel of human ingenuity that would, of course, eventually result in the naming of that dastardly conflict we had with the Stilters.\n\nNever forget, the Waste Wars of 2053.\n\n\n\n" ]	1
	[WP] A world where crimes are punished by a game of real life hangman. Smaller crimes are punished by easier words, and larger crimes by difficult words. But if you run out of guesses, you end up hanging, for real.	[ "Four letters? Was that all I rated? Disgusting. I butchered seven families, and they thought that they could get me with four letters? No way.\n\n\"A!\"\n\nA line was drawn. OK, that's to be expected, the word couldn't possibly have all of the vowels.\n\n\"E!\"\n\nI really should have lead with it, being the most common letter. But a second line was drawn, perpendicular to the first. But I was still calm.\n\n\"I!\"\n\nThe third line came, and I still wasn't worried. A few whispers were heard around the room.\n\n\"O!\"\n\nThe fourth line supported the third. Still, there were some four letter words with only a 'u' in them. I stared at the third spot, and triumphantly proclaimed my next choice.\n\n\"U!\"\n\nThe rope was drawn. No, no that can't be. A word with no vowels? Impossible.\n\n\"I move for a mistrial.\"\n\n\"Rejected. The word exists, and is English.\"\n\nNow I was nervous. just six more parts of the diagram left, and I hadn't found a single letter in the four letter word.\n\n\"D!\"\n\nThat was really a desperate one, and quickly earned me the head.\n\n\"M!\"\n\nThe body was drawn.\n\n\"T!\"\n\nThe first arm.\n\n\"S!\"\n\nThen the other.\n\n\"B!\"\n\nThe first leg. I only had one more line until I had lost, and I still hadn't found one damn letter.\n\n\"This is bullshit!\"\n\n\"Do you give up?\"\n\nThat bastard. He didn't choose an English word, he was lying to me.\n\n\"T!\"\n\n\"You've already said that.\"\n\n\"I dunno, fuckin', C!\"\n\nThe second leg was drawn. Now would be the moment, the moment that the judge showed that he was lying. No English word was like that. The four letters flashed up on the screen. LYNX. Lynx. Like that cat, or the deodorant. I really should have known.\n\n\"Let the record show that the accused is to be detained until noon of next Sunday, at which time he will be hanged by the neck, until death. If anyone wishes to dispute the validity of the word lynx, they have nine days in which to do so.\"\n\nI went numb as they dragged me away.", "They thought it was fair. When the ruling council decreed that criminals would face a game of Hangman, it made sense. Small-time crooks could get off easily with words like \"there\" and still get enough of a scare to not commit any more crimes. Mob bosses, on the other hand, would face words such as \"phlegmatic\", uncommon words that would trip them up and mean an execution for sure. But not until the creation of Andrew \"Dictionary\" Willard.\n\nA bestselling novelist turned serial killer, Andrew Willard used a very extensive vocabulary in his books, which would later prove useful, as he had escaped death time and time again, only to murder once more. The judge was sure he had picked a word to send Willard to the grave this time.\n\nThe word was eleven letters, and a very unconventional one. Yet as Willard saw the eleven spaces, a smile formed around his face.\n\n\"E!\" he shouted.\n\nAn E appeared on the 6th space. It was as if he knew what word it was already Impossible, the judge thought. I picked that word in secret, he could never know. Never.\n\n\"A!\" shouted Willard.\n\nAn A appeared on the 9th space. The judge began to sweat.\n\n\"T!\" yelled Willard with confidence.\n\nT's appeared on the 11th and 7th places.\n\nIt was a cinch from there. Soon an \"I\" appeared on the second space, followed by an L, Q, U, and then O and S and finally...\n\n\"M!\" exclaimed a happy Willard.\n\nM appeared on the first space. Without getting a single guess wrong, Andrew Willard had spelled out \"MILQUETOAST\" and was free to go. He grabbed his butcher's knife and left the courtroom. The judge, on the other hand, was feeling a bit milquetoast himself.", "\"In accordance of the Hangman Amendment, Section 1, Subsection 3...\"\n\nI looked down and smirked. This would be a cakewalk.\n\n\"On the charge of two counts of robbery and one count of grand theft auto, you are now sentenced to one challenge of Hangman...\"\n\nThe Hangman Amendment had only been passed a few months ago, giving English majors all over the nation a wonderful alternative career path. This would be my fourth time facing the hangman's noose. And the fourth time this sixth-time Dean's-listed English PhD would walk away without even finishing the body.\n\n\"You may now step forward to randomly draw a word from the box,\" announced the presiding judge.\n\nThe bailiff stepped forward and lay the brown box before the judge's table. All eyes were on me as I stepped forward to put my hand into the brown box full of folded pieces of white paper. I pretended to shuffle the papers around a little for everyone to see, before gripping a single sheet and pulling it out.\n\nAs I gingerly stretched my arm out to hand it to the bailiff, the judge raised his hand in a halting gesture. A lady emerged from the side of the courtroom and whispered something to the judge. With a final nod, the judge quietly turned to face the courtroom.\n\n\"Ladies and Gentlemen, owing to a clerical error, the box contains English words. In accordance with the Hangman Amendment, the defendant may not play words in the same language more than three times consecutively. This court is adjourned for 20 minutes for the correct box to be prepared.\"\n\nSnap.\n\n___________________\n\nLiked it? [Check out my sub for more!](https://www.reddit.com/r/Script_Writes)" ]	3
You can go a few ways with this one. Was there never a war? Does it not exist? Is it worse than anyone imagined, better?	[WP] While traveling through Europe you are misdirected and find yourself in Afghanistan. It is NOTHING like the media has portrayed.	[ "Of all the things I was planning to do on my vacation getting plucked up by a tornado Wizard of Oz style and plopped down several countries over befront a very large billboard reading \"Welcome to Afghanistan\" was not among them.\n\nI had decided to head off to see the great pyramids alone after a heated argument with my family. It was not the wisest decision I had made all day but it was the one that held the greatest impact as decisions that are not the wisest often are. \n\nLets start at the obvious differences from how it was portrayed in the media. Rather than a war zone Afghanistan was a pristine paradise. The grasses green, the sheep without spots and their main export just happened to be afghans. \n\nNow here in Afghanistan knitting clubs everywhere. Forget your Persian carpets; they had genuine Afghanistan Afgans being sold around every corner. Knitting clubs were all the rage. Crochet was so last season. Sheep were bred born and raised in the name of blankets. If your grandma had mad skills you were somebody.\n\nI hadn't been this amazed since when I first moved to New York City at the age of ten from the middle of butt fuck nowhere. There were new sites on every block and the cities were hustling and bustling as the people went about their daily lives.\n\nI thought to myself and wondered how could T.V. and the news be so wrong. There was no war here. The American soldiers who came here set up shop and were smuggling blankets into the U.S. of A. There was big money in it you see as the war on paper meant no one could legally import these works of art into the United States.\n\nLet me tell you these were some fine blankets. Not a thing like what your grandma plopped down in front of the television and spent a few hours crocheting each night for a few weeks. These blankets were a real work of art. They were a labor of love put forth from the shepherd who took care in selectively breeding his flock and ensuring they grazed only in the most pristine fields to the women who cleaned the wool, spun it with silk, and dyed it bold colors. They were often knitted into the most elaborate of patterns depicting anything and everything from traditional geometric patterns to scenes of wildflowers, even calligraphic verses from the Koran were expertly knitted into these lovely works of art." ]	1
	[WP] The forest was dying, tree by tree, and from deep within the howls of ancient wolves could be heard.	[ "The forest was dying, tree by tree. The fae slid out of her heart-tree, skin emerging from the bark with a pale birch pattern tattooed over every inch. Her hair tumbled down her back like shadows across the forest floor and moved with fluid grace as she slipped from one tree to the next. \n\nHer footsteps were silent, as were each of her gentle touches of the trunks surrounding her. Only her dress of leaves and ferns made a sound, a whisper like the wind through branches. \n\n\"What ails you?\" she murmured. \n\nWood groaned and branches creaked though no air had stirred them. Her brow furrowed.\n\n\"Do not speak nonsense,\" she replied, snatching her hand back from the nearest trunk. \"They would not dare approach the Dark Wood, not even with the sickness here.\"\n\nLeaves slapped above, and she frowned up at them. \"We are not yet so weak.\"\n\nBelow, the ground churned and ferns swayed. A mouse squeaked and fled into less mobile under-grass. The fae's frown eased. \"Apologies, little one,\" she whispered and the ground stilled. With a sigh, she touched the trees once more, moving in a slow circuit around her heart-tree. \"What have you seen?\"\n\nOnce more the trees stirred, branches quivering. \n\n\"Tracks only? But how is it none saw the passing?\"\n\nA leaf tumbled onto her nose, and she caught it between her slim fingers. \"The trees there sleep so soon? Surely the illness could not move with such speed.\" At the low grumble of swaying trunks the fae scrunched up her nose. \"Hush now, I do not doubt your word. Yet, it could be a true wolf, could it not? The shifter would not dare send his own.\"\n\nLetting the leaf float down to the underbrush, she waved off the reply. \"You are concerned and have right to be. I will go, but you must watch your brothers. Three more fell yesterday. This is our priority; not even rumors of the shifters can match it.\"\n\nThe fae held out one birch-patterned arm and a staff rose from the forest floor like a tree growing. She took it and brushed the nearest plants with a farewell touch. \"Tell Ollian where I am.\"\n\nWith those parting words, the fae moved like shadows at dusk, covering ground quicker even than the rustling branches could pass on her message. The fauna held their breaths at her passing; it was rare to spur such a one to haste. Yet they knew; they all knew.\n\nThe forest was dying, tree by tree. And from deep within, the howls of ancient wolves could be heard. ", "With every passing minute, a spirit perishes. An innocent one. It falls to the ground, lifeless and still, the agony mercifully ending in its final moments. \n\nWho is responsible for this? Man. They invade our sacred home, drive out its inhabitants, and slaughter the spirits, one by one. The blood of countless beings are on their hands. \n\nAnd are we supposed to sit and watch? As our homeland is reduced to dust and ashes? No. For eternity, we have waited in the shadows, praying that man's wrath would end, but it hasn't. We have sworn to secrecy and peace, but the time has come, to enter into the light, and give Man a message, for they are a barbaric and ruthless species. They follow the principle of \"the strong stand, the weak fall.\" \n\nThey will know who the strong are. \n\n~ \n\n\"Timber!\" Yelled Larson, before an oak tree toppled to the ground. Sawdust scattered everywhere. \n\n\"Another few to go and we'll call it a day, yeah?\" Carter asked. \n\nLarson nodded. \"Go get the others. Sun's going down soon, I don't wanna be food for the panthers.\" \n\nHis colleague grunted in acknowledgment and left. \n\nLarson started to pack his tools when he heard a howl. It was deep and resonant, definitely from a wolf, but he'd heard the arctic wolves on his travels before, and it sounded nothing like the ones he was hearing now. \n\nHe shivered. At first he assumed it was just his nerves getting on him, but he realised the temperature was dropping rapidly. From the tropical 30 degrees Celsius, it felt like a cold 10. What was going on?\n\nThen, darkness reigned. Thick, dark clouds spread over the sun, choking it. Larson reached into his pack and brought out his flashlight. He switched it on, and stumbled back, screaming. \n\nA pair of eyes, glowing crimson red, stared directly at him. It was at about chest level. \n\n\"Carter!\" He roared, quaking in his boots. \"If this is some sort of prank it ain't funny!\" \n\n\"No, this is not a joke, human.\" A deep voice spoke. With a start, Larson realised that it was coming from the pair of eyes watching him. \n\n\"Who...who are you?\" Larson whispered, his face as pale as a ghost. \n\nA growl behind him. \n\nLarson turned around immediately and shone his flashlight there. Nothing. \n\nSuddenly, he heard screams and curses in the distance. His colleagues. They were in danger. \n\n\"What's happening?\" Larson yelled. \n\n\"You trod on our home and ravage it,\" the voice said, much closer now. \"You strip it of its beauty and destroy its soul. We are tired of your murders and slaughtering.\"\n\nA furry paw knocked his flashlight out of his hands, but as it landed on the ground, the speaker's face was illuminated. \n\nA wolf. It was almost as large as Larson, with brown fur. Its eyes were filled with both rage and intelligence. It pounced on Larson and growled. \n\n\"I'm sorry we hurt you! Please don't kill me!\" Larson begged. \n\nThe wolf considered it. \"Very well. I think the bodies of your friends have made enough of a point. We've spilt too much blood. Unnecessary. Run to your home, and tell everyone to stay away from this place, or they will face the same fate as your friends. We do not seek violence or war, but we will defend our homeland, whatever the cost.\"\n\nIt started to walk away. Larson called out, \"Who are you?\" \n\nThe wolf turned around in the darkness, and all Larson could see were its glowing eyes. \"We are the Lycani.\" \n\nAnd the eyes faded into darkness. \n\n", "They say when an old man dies a whole library is lost. But they tell you nothing about old trees.\n\nWhen they cut down the giant oak to make way for the pipeline there wasn't a single eco-protestor from the city. Our little rustic community was happy because many of us had land which we'd been compensated for heavily. The old oak went down with a thud- not with a bang but with a whimper.\n\nFall came and the trees lost their leaves. They didn't get them back next spring, or the spring after that. The trees wilted and died, like they'd been sustaining their nourishment from the giant oak which had become someone's furniture now.\n\nAn old native called it the curse of the great oak. It had been planted by a great warrior who wore a wolf's skull on his head. The townspeople were scared his spirit might've been disturbed, for every night the howls of wolves could be heard. The last wolf had been spotted in the area over seventy years ago.\n" ]	3
	[WP] You're in your first month working at a microbiology lab examiming a set of cultures, when you notice something strange. As you peer through the microscope, you swear you can make out the words SOS amongst the bacteria.	[ "Rick Reynolds took off his glasses, rubbed his eyes, and peered through the microscope again. \"What the hell?\" he muttered.\n\n\"What's up?\" his more experienced coworker, Wendy Cohen, said. She had just walked in the room. \"Something wrong?\"\n\n\"Yeah...well, I don't know,\" Rick replied. He stepped away and pulled off his glasses once more. \"It looks like...I'm crazy.\"\n\n\"Well, I'm sure Jim wouldn't have hired you if that were the case. Let me take a look.\" Rick gave way to Wendy, whose face grew tighter each second she looked through the lens. \"No way.\"\n\n\"You see it, too? The SOS?\"\n\n\"I see it alright. Damnit, I knew it was a bad idea.\"\n\n\"What? What's up?\"\n\n\"Come on,\" Wendy said, dragging Rick out of the lab and toward the conference rooms.\n\n*\n\nTwo hours later, the lead researcher of the lab, Jim Herbert, sat at the head of the table. Rick had never seen so many of his senior counterparts in one place. \n\n\"You found him,\" Jim said. Rick nodded agreement, not knowning what to say, or even if he should say anything at all. \"Peter Smith. You're his replacement, Rick.\"\n\nRick nodded again and looked around the room for a short moment. All eyes were on him. \"I didn't,\" he began to say. \"I'm not sure what's going on here.\"\n\n\"Dr. Smith was working on a molecular modulator capable of restructuring matter on a cellular scale. He talked about testing this on himself.\"\n\n\"You're saying he shrunk himself? Like 'Honey I Shrunk the Kids?'\" Rick laughed, but no one else did, and he fell silent quickly. \"Wouldn't someone know?\"\n\n\"He said he was going on vacation, and we didn't see him again.\"\n\n\"But you knew that he was going to test his device?\" Rick said, shocked that his fellow scientists would let their partner do something so drastic as using himself as test subject. He glanced around the room for more than a moment this time. \"No one tried to stop him?\"\n\n\"And how would we do that?\"\n\n\"Jim, you know we could have,\" Wendy said. \"We knew what he was doing. We let him do it because we wanted to see the results.\"\n\nThe room went quiet. Rick looked at everyone, and settled on Wendy. \"So what do we do now? He must be in trouble.\" \n\nWendy looked at Jim, who said, \"We rescue him.\"\n\n*\n\nEveryone gathered in the lab the next day. Rick had a pen and paper and logged what was said, while Wendy communicated by chemically inducing the bacteria to move to different areas that represented letters. Thankfully, Peter had brought enough food and water to last a very long time. \n\nOver weeks, and finally months, they worked tirelessly to determine where Peter had gone wrong in the initial experiment, and how they could rig his invention to allow him to return to his normal size. When he finally did, he received a hero's welcome.\n\n" ]	1
	[WP] The year is 3000ad. The Grammar Nazi's have been in control almost a millenium. One day, the entire system is hacked and displays only this message, "wuz gud?"	[ "\"Wuz gud?\" the message read. \n\n\"We gud,\" it continued. \n\nPanic spread like a fire. Not any normal fire, either. This was a gasoline, ping-pong balled, napalm, white phosphorous fire. \n\n\"Yeah, nah. We ahn't good m8. You fookin destroyed Aussie culture.\"\n\nThis was impossible. Australians were killed in the Second Great Purge. There weren't any survivors. \n\nBut still the dialect was being used right there. \n\nThe other replied in anger. \"Yeah, that's right. dey killed us. Y'all fucked up real bad this time.\"\n\nMore impossibilities. The African dialects were destroyed for being racially impure, alongside the Africans for being the progenitors of an inferior dialect. \n\nSomehow, some way, this was happening. Suddenly, more showed up on the screen. By hundreds. Thousands. Creoles, accents and hackerspeak flew through the internet. Nothing was sacred, no law unbroken, no form unthought. It flew in the face of one thousand years of oppression.\n\nThen came a single message, in a form long thought dead. \n\n\"We ain't kiddin around here. We're the ghosts of dialects past. Looks like your little Reich didn't work out, bless your heart.\"\n\nThings paused for a second. Then came another, before the next storm:\n\n\"But Mousie, thou art no thy-lane, \n\nIn proving foresight may be vain: \n\nThe best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men \n\nGang aft agley, \n\nAn’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain, \n\nFor promis’d joy! \"\n\n\n" ]	1
	[WP] You realize your imaginary friend has outgrown you.	[ "\n\n\nIn high school there was an assembly after lunch one day. Two young women and one reluctant young man all in their mid 20s, sat in grey metal folding chairs in a row Each one shared their story of separation from their links. One of the young women explained the level of grief many of us experience when we are suddenly without something which has been with us since birth. She has said that loosing her link forced her to question whether she had chosen the right path for herself, and ultimately pushed her to make some major, much needed positive changes. We hear stories like this all the time. At 17 though, it went right over my head. I had no clue that my experience might be very similar. \n\nOf course we always had the knowledge that our links would leave us one day, like knowing in childhood that we would lose teeth and grow new ones, and later knowing that we would learn how to drive, get our first job, fall in love, and so on and so fourth. Common knowledge about the timeline of life. Every single person is born with a link. A creation of our own minds. A being that would follow us everywhere, every day, be a playmate, a friend, a teacher. And it would be there until, on an unpredictable day, it would separate itself from us. \n\nMy link was Gregior. He was tall. Very tall. And covered in white fur that was actually almost off white like a polar bear. His eyes were black and small. He had a slight hunchback and a clumsy demeanor. He wore an old brown sweater, and he snored. Gregior didn't talk. But he had kind eyes and more often then not, he had the slightest sweetest little smile. Sometimes I resented him for being a mute. Sometimes it made me loathe myself for creating him that way. Later I came to realize that his silence was what I needed to maintain balance in my adolescent angst. A calming presence amongst chaos. \n\nLinks can interact with and become friends with other links but humans can only see their own, so there has always been a great deal of mystery about the goings on in the link world. Being that Gregior was silent, I never had the opportunity to ask him about the subject. There are many many link forms. Some are made in the image of people, some are animals and others like mine, were mythical creatures. I once met someone who said their link was in the form of a robot. \n\nLinks are essentially tools, created by our minds, with ability to use a deeper wisdom, strength, knowledge and sense. As children, we can't tap into our instincts without life experience to draw on. The link is there to guide us, growing with us, but always just one step ahead, evolving at a more excelled rate without the constraints of the human condition. At some point along the way, they simply outgrow us. For most of us, at that point, we had already stopped needing them. We got comfortable with the monotony of everyday life. We settled in and our growth process drastically slowed. Without us holding them back our links separate to continue their evolution in another realm, \n\nWhen Gregior left me I was 24. A pretty average age for the separation. He had been distancing himself from me, and honestly an had been doing the same. I was in grad school and doing an internship at a local advertising firm. I kept myself very busy working late every night and getting up early to start my 13 hour day over and over again. It was January. It was freezing. I woke up at 4:36am. Two hours before my alarm was set to go off. I sat up suddenly with an urgency, knowing immediately that he was gone. I took a deep breath in and exhaled. I thought about the last thing I said to him the evening before. He was sitting at the window with a look of longing in his eyes. I knew he wanted to go for a walk. He loved evening walks around the small lake by my house. He was constantly leaning about the plants and animals that surrounded our home. I had long since lost interest in bird watching and leaf identification. I traded all that in with my need to obtain a career with a 401k and an annual income that would satisfy my need to order new furniture and take luxury vacations whenever I wanted. Of course I wasn't there yet, but I had a fierce determination that I believed would get my to the top before I was 30. At 24 I had so easily slipped myself into a mold that I thought was the only way to go. \n\n\"We'll go for a walk tomorrow \" I told him as I left him gazing out the window and headed to my room to watch tv for an hour before going to bed. I knew he was leaving soon. I could feel it. I was holding him back. Every day it was becoming more clear that we were heading in different directions. He'd be gone soon, I just didn't know how soon. \n\nAs I sat in bed on that cold morning, Gregior gone, I felt something I hadn't felt in a very long time. Regret. I reflected on the child I had been. The constant curiosity I possessed and all of the amazing adventures I had had with Gregior. We would go to the moon if we could. I constantly wanted to see how far the magic of the imagination could take me. I wanted to always question what else was possible. Always seeking and learning, with my beautiful off white hunchback monster by my side, pushing me to keep feeding the magic. But alas, like so many of us, somewhere along the line, I stopped asking those questions. I aimed my intentions towards consumption and success. I grew tired of risk and did what was safe. \n\nRegret. \n\nI got out of bed, put on my coat and boots and headed straight for the lake. As I walked I took in the feeling of the crisp air as I inhaled. I listened to the songs of the birds and the wrestling of the leaves. A small smile formed on my face and all I could do was say \"thank you\"\n\n\n\n\n\n", "Long ago I created a friend. He had long lanky arms and long lanky legs and a real big smile. We used to dance across the room and watch the stars together. He was my best friend.\n\nBut like I said, this was long ago. I'm not sure what he thinks anymore. Every day I worry that I'm losing him because that's what we're supposed to do when we grow up. He looks at me funny, like he's waiting for something. I look back at him real weird and ask him \"what're you looking at me like that for?\" and he'll just shrug and look away.\n\nIt's the nature of things to change. Entropy takes over and we have to work to make them orderly again. Lately I don't have time to make things orderly. His face looks weird sometimes, different than it used to. I'm not sure if he's just growing up too or if I'm forgetting how he looks. Maybe it's both.\n\nI created him a long time ago, with his scruffy bushy hair, but now it's clean cut. He wears a suit and goes out every day. I try to ask him to play, but he heads out shaking his head, and I stand there dumbfounded at how I used to know what his every move would be. I used to know him, but now I don't know him at all.\n\nI wonder how he does it. Where's he going if he's all made up in my mind? Somehow I expect him to turn around and lose that severe look on his face and melt down into his old happy and bubbly self. \n\nSometimes he'll talk to me. He'll ask me questions about myself. \"Are you ok?\" he'll ask. \"Are you sure you're ok?\" he'll ask again. I usually can't answer those questions because I don't know the answer. I don't know if I'm ok when a figment of my imagination is going to work every day. At least I assume that's where he goes, since that's the only guess I can muster.\n\nI think he's waiting for me to realize something. Whenever I ask him a lot of questions, he gets a look in his eye like he's figured out the world, and then he turns around and disappears. I don't get like that when he asks me questions. Well, maybe I used to, but not anymore. Now I just get sad and lonely when he asks me questions because he'll get frustrated at my stutters.\n\nI just want him to stop and slow down, but he can't. When I ask him he just says \"I have a life to live.\" and I wonder how this happened, how someone I made up in my mind became real. How did I become the imaginary one? How did I become the one who is fading away? Isn't he supposed to fade away?\n\nBut now he looks at me longingly, like I do for better days. I can feel him thinking \"I miss carefree thoughts.\" and I do, too. I am no longer sure if I really did create him. Maybe he is from a far off world, and we are connected by a fragile dimensional network. But I don't really know, and I don't think I ever will.\n\nNow he's telling me \"It's time to say goodbye.\" and I say \"Goodbye.\" He walks off into his life and I am stuck in limbo because he has taken over, and I have been left to float in an ocean of uncertainty, and I slowly sink into nothingness." ]	2
	[WP] Ten year old you is hiking through the Cascades with your family when you wander off and become lost. Through your wondering you encounter the fabled Sasquatch. You don't feel the same fear as others, more of a curiosity as you two stare at each other. The mighty beast then speaks.	[ "\"You,\" said the sasquatch with a gravelly cough, \"have peanut butter. In your pack.\"\n\nIts voice was low and rumbly. There was no hostility or fear but perhaps a little wariness. Billy stood gape jawed for a moment, then said \"oh, yeah, I do. Peanut butter and honey sandwhich.\"\n\n\"May I have it? Please? I won't try to take it from you.\"\n\n\"How'd you even know?\"\n\n\"I can smell it. I haven't had peanut butter in years.\"\n\n\"Sure, yeah, you can have it. Here.\"\n\nBilly held it out for the beast with nary a tremble in his hand. The sasquatch took it and inhaled deeply. It breathed out in deep appreciation. \"I will savor this. Thank you. I am sorry, I have nothing to give you in return. Ah, wait there is something I can do. Can I come closer? I won't hurt you.\"\n\nBilly nodded slowly. The sasquatch stepped forward, put its paw on top of Billy's head and said, \"You are a friend to the land and its creatures. No animal will harm you but may instead come to you in their time of need.\"\n\nThe beast lifted its head. \"I hear others calling for you, you should go. Thank you again for the...sandwhich. Go, now, I do not wish to be found. Say nothing.\"\n\nMoments later Billy's parents blundered through the foliage. They ran towards their son and hugged him, scolding him for scaring them so much but without any anger in their words. When his mother let go a small bird landed on Billy's shoulder and sang a little song.\n" ]	1
Just wanna see where this goes	[WP] You wake up one day to find that your leg is a snake, but nobody else thinks it's weird	[ "The snake had pulled his leg up over the desk in his cubicle, and was now trying to squeeze itself around his hand. It lunged at his hand, then at his arm, and then it went for his face. The helmet he wore - a riot helmet, complete with face shield - protected him from the boa constrictor's teeth for the fifth time today.\n\nHis mentor looked up at him from over his cubicle.\n\n\"The fuck are you making all that noise for?\" he says.\n\n\"My leg is a snake,\" said the coworker.\n\n\"Oh, great. Mr. Leggy-Snakey's at it again,\" he said, and sat down at his desk.\n\n\"I could use a little help here.\"\n\n\"We've got a lot of shit to do. Just wrap it up, okay? We've got fucking deadlines from here to Alabama.\"\n\nThe snake was trying to wrap itself around his torso. He had pulled it off with his bare hands, slapping the snake against the desk. It reared back and struck him in the elbow. \n\n\"Fucking hell!\" said the coworker. He drew blood, not a whole lot. Not like this morning.\n\nThe mentor slapped his hands on his own desk, got up, and walked around the cubicle wall to stare at the coworker. \n\n\"Just go home,\" said the mentor.\n\n\"I can't,\" said the coworker.\n\n\"Just go home. Look, I'll cover for you. I'll say that you weren't feeling okay, all right? Then you can go to the doctor - \"\n\n\"That's going to cost a lot.\"\n\n\"Come on, you gotta grow up. I don't know what's wrong with you - maybe you're not feeling well, maybe you've lost a woman. I don't care. But you need to shit or get off the pot.\"\n\nThe snake lunged at his face helmet again.\n\n\"Cool helmet,\" said the mentor. \"I had something like that when I was in the police force. How the hell did you get it so bent up?\"\n\n\"Snake,\" said the coworker.\n\n\"You're gonna have trouble seeing out of that thing.\"\n\n\"Snake,\" said the coworker.\n\n\"Yeah, right, right. Snake. Go home, dude. I can't stand you here right now.\"\n\nThe mentor walked away as the snake missed the fleshy part of the leg and bit itself." ]	1
	[WP] The reason why no other species has contacted us yet is because we are not considered to be living	[ "The scans turned up normal, not a sign of life. Our Civilization, floating amongst the fake lights; The stars, is alone.\n\nOur kind rejoiced when we found the first intelligent species apart from ourselves in the great void of space. It took long enough for one thing, our algorithms dictated very precisely that there would be many more species out there. We had run through every scenario technically speaking yet the planets that should have been fertile to even basic microbial life were stagnant. A space devoid of anything but natural phenomena, we become lonely. It wasn't until one of our long range, scout based Civ-ships detected that which we now call 'The Red God'. The Planetary system wasn't exceptional, 9 orbital rocks and one low energy sun heating them. The Civ-ship warped within the 4th's Planets' orbit. Our craft were only fitted with simple weapons at the time, millennia of peace weakened us.\n\nThe Planet's' surface was not dirt, ice, rock or ice like we knew, it was metal. Towers of grey reaching into orbit let loose an endless stream of metallic spacecraft which fired on the Civ-ship reletenssly. The entire planet lit up and let loose with every armament from plasma, nuclear, laser and solid. \n\n\"We have encountered life! They seem hostile but they cannot harm us,'\" The Commander of the Civ-ship relayed. It would take a few minutes to reach across the lightyears of distance between them but the message was set. The simple surface railguns of the 4th planet could not hope to penetrate the shield of the Civ-ship, a few hours later our Military showed up. We as a species have fought a lot, when one gets a big gun, the other gets a bigger one. We knew they were an AI at that stage, we had adapted this way of life a long time ago, yet always with a biological base, never pure robotics. Whoever created this made a mistake. It only took a basic Glasser. The Civ-ship engaged it's frontal lasers and accelerated in a rhythmic orbital pattern that covered every square inch of the planet and incinerated every part from the surface to 100m below. We observed lifeboats being ejected from the planet prior. \n\nWe let them spread. We could have destroyed them but we let them journey, because we were lonely. This robotic species. We don't know who created them but we know they are the only beings we share the universe with and shall not interfere with their progress unless they become a threat. We subtly encourage them to search areas of this vast universe we have not yet explored, in the hope we find something alive out there, besides us. ", "The metal doors of the research center eased open with with a puff of air. \nComing trough it was a bland creature with a spring in his step and a smile on his face. \nThat was, if he had the ability do so. In any case, he seemed cheerful. \nThe creature wobbled itself excitedly into the large room ahead. \nA similar creature seated at a desk filled with monitors turned his chair to face him, \"Hello, sir. Today's the day, huh?\" \n\"You're damn right it is!\" he replied with a smile, or he would have if he had a mouth to smile with. \nTelekinetic messages can be puzzling sometimes. \nIn any case, the message resonated with joy so a smile it was. \nHe hurried to the commander's seat in the center of the room and eased himself down. \n\"Earth!\" he blasted out with telepathic glee, \"Stars! It's been so long. I'm so curious to see what they're up to.\" \nThe other creature, Bendrik, brimmed contently to himself like a parent overseeing an excited child, \"Let's find out shall we?\" \n\"Hey, hey. You think those silly Greeks are still at it?\" wondered the commander, \"They made some good progress.\" \n\"We'll find out,\" replied Bendrik, \"I've finished downloading the data from the monitoring station. Soon we'll know what they've been up to these past millennia.\" \nThe commander eased himself into the back of his seat allowing the connectors on it to click in to place and feed the data into his brain. \nA joyful humming filled the telepathic channels as the commander reviewed centuries of data in seconds. \nWith each passing second the joy emitted died down until it was a morose static. \nThe commander disconnected from the connectors and sat up right. \nBendrik, who had also been reviewing the data, silently turned his seat to face him. \nThe commander stared at the floor with defeat smeared across his face, \"What happened, Bendrik? What happened?\" \n\"Well, sir. I..\" started Bendrik. \n\"They were doing so well!\" interrupted the commander, \"The greeks, \"philosphy!\", their whole journey to self-discovery.\" \nTheir otherwise constantly buzzing brains rang hollow. \n\"It seems like Earth, like many other planets, has chosen survival and safety over discovery.\" answered Bendrik. \n\"They content themselves not with knowledge and pursuit of their goals but by whatever those in power tell them to enjoy.\" cried the commander. \n\"Their lives revolve around self-sustain, seeking a mate, reproducing. I thought these creatures had intelligence yet they seem no different from the other animals on this planet.\" \n\"The ability to reflect. The ability to view things from a perspective different from their own. Self-insight. They had it all, Bendrik. Everything was there.\" \nBendrik carefully eased himself back in the conversation, \"They did pretty well, all things considered. They made a lot of progress, Sir.\" \n\"Yes,\" the commander replied blandly, \"They progressed right up to the point where any more progression became frightful and scary.\" \nThe commander sunk back down in his seat, \"The worst thing is they know they're missing something. This inner desire to accomplish, to do and know more.\" \n\"But rather than act they distract themselves until this feeling fades or becomes forgotten.\" \n\"Any goal is only worth pursuing if it ultimately adds to their comfort. Risks are scary. There has to be a return on investment.\" \nThe commander stood tall, stared blank ahead and spoke after a moment of silence, \"An app to measure the amount of water in a water bottle.\" he scoffed. \nA burst of static filled the telepathic channels, mimicking a sigh. \n\"Such a pity,\" said the commander, \"Alright, chalk her down and lets move on.\" \nBendrik nodded, \"Planet Earth, status changed from 'Living' to 'Surviving'.\" \n\"Entry altered,\" said Bendrik, \"What now, Sir?\" \nThe commander slumped in his chair, resting his face on his fist, \"I want to watch the flamingos.\" ", " Class C planets – the bafflingly illogical planets that they are – have caught my attention recently. There never seems to be any clear differentiation between them and Class B planets, but for whatever reason, unlike their Class B brethren, they cannot take the next step to transcendence. My time of late has been devoted to reading theories about why those planets fail, fan communities for particular Class C planets, and planet-side news collected about their failings.\n\n My personal favorite, since you deigned to ask, is a planet in a system in Galactic Arm 2b by the name of SP2B-L9531C in the embassy’s archive and “Big Blue” in the Class C fan community. The two reasons it sticks out amongst the other Class C’s are that, first, the ecological system is absolutely flawless and, until recently, on par with some of the post-transcendent Class A worlds, and second that they’ve gotten past the atomic gap; one of only three Class C worlds to do it in the local galaxy.\n\n Reading up on their archive history, they’ve had more than a few shots at transcending. Their biggest shot, and the one that seemed like it might tip them over into Class B, was about 0.00001 rotations ago with a human named Siddhārtha, but he fell flat in trying to nudge the rest of his ilk towards transcendence. The religion he founded was a mediocre vehicle at best with a conversion rate of something like 0.0003%, and his religion doesn’t even comprise a plurality on the planet.\n\n By all metrics such a poor showing should have resulted in greed and wrath killing off all progress. Arriving at the atomic gap already puts them in something like the 99.999th percentile, let alone making it past it. There’s a reason it’s the most popular Class C planet for enthusiasts. Now what would be downright shocking is if they make it past the rapidly-approaching climate change gap, which would be unprecedented for any Class C planet. I have my doubts though, their sister planet SP2B-L9531B was one of the only other two to make it past the atomic gap and they still couldn’t do it. \n\n Even in spite of their recent news, I can’t help but cheer them on. To be living at the same time as one of the most legendary Class C planets takes on the climate change gap? If there is anything more splendid I could not name it.\n" ]	3
	[WP] Everyone that lives on our planet right now are never been awake. You woke up and you saw billions of capsule sealing each of humanity.	[ "We were on a ship. That much became clear afterwards.\n\nAll of us, in a state of suspended hibernation for who knows how long. Each of us slept a special kind of sleep that saw our brains ticking along while our bodies functioned at an incredibly low level.\n\nWe were all fitted with cortical modems that displayed a fully interactive, VR program. The program had been running for each of us from the moment we were placed in suspension. We had all had comprehensive memory wipes before being placed onboard.\n\nOur purpose? To colonize one of the many exoplanets within reach of ships with our latest EM Drive technology. The trip still takes a century or two, but suspension plus fusion plus EM Drive equals every planet within a hundred light years for those willing to go to sleep and wake up centuries later.\n\nIt turned out that not too many people were keen on this. Not too many is actually kind of an understatement. Ironically enough, it was a certain kind of people who were OK with leaving everyone and everything behind to take their chances several centuries later and an unimaginable distance away. They were mostly social misfits of every possible kind. Not exactly the people you'd think would be selected to begin a new society on another world.\n\nSo we all got offered a choice. Get memory wiped and you get to go. Or keep your memories and stay on Earth with everyone else. I don't remember any of it, but I must have said \"Yes\" when the time came. Same as everybody else around here I guess.\n\nSo we slept while dreaming we were wide awake and somewhere else. Everyone only knew their existence in the program. Nobody even had a clue they were physically a passenger in suspension on an interstellar flight to be pioneers on a new Earth. Every last one lived out an ordinary life as an ordinary person.\n\nFor many of us, the AI controlling the VR ran a version of the program with special additional features to function as a form of rehabilitation. Social misfits, remember?\n\nTime went by. Centuries passed as we lay sealed in our capsules. Our thoughts passed at a reduced pace, but many of us had time to live several lives while in suspension. Then came the awakening.\n\nIt was an unprecedented, system wide broadcast. Clear visual symbols were accompanied by calm vocal instructions. The emotional reaction must have been varied though. I remember wondering if I'd suddenly gone nuts. But it became pretty clear that everyone around me was experiencing the same thing.\n\nIt told us what we were, oddballs and people eager to take a chance. People who needed a fresh start in their memories as well as their circumstances. It told us about travelling in suspension and the starliner itself... finally entering into orbit around our new world. It told us how we'd signed up for the privilege of colonizing our own new Earth. It informed us what would happen and what we'd experience as things happened.\n\nIt also told us that the lives we lived, while in suspension, would be the lives we'd live in our new home. Who we were was who we'd be. Who we were before the memory wipes would remain on Earth. \n\nIn a way, The people we were, were the only kind of people who would sign up for the colonization deal. But the memories that were part of who those people really were... those memories would never leave Earth." ]	1
	[WP] Write about a character who stays silent when what they really want to do is speak up.	[ "Another morning, another day, another 24 hours in silence. She pulls herself out of the comforts of her bed and gets ready, and as she leaves the room, no one of her family speaks to her. Quietly she heads down to the kitchen to grab some breakfast. The coffee filled the whole house with the smell. Still no one said a thing. She sighed and finishing up, grabbed her keys and started the roaring engine of her car. \n\nUpon arrival at school, she simply walked through the halls, hearing the endless chatter about everyone's weekends and what they did. She said nothing. Why? She was too anxious to do so. \n\nBlankly staring in class, she didn't dare raise her hand. It wad already 1pm, half the day gone with nothing said. Of course, typical, but for some reason she wanted to yell, to be heard and understood for once. \n\nAs the day came to a close, she returned to her room, shut it behind her and let tears stream down her face. The worst came to mind for her, how she's a complete failure and can't even speak with anyone. Her silent sobs were never discovered and she just felt more and more alone, silent in this world. " ]	1
	[WP]A message window pops up in front of you with the message "LEVEL UP!"	[ "On a sunny day with his window open, Masato was on his custom-built gaming rig, redditing as usual. He had been panting in anger at another user for a half an hour. Normally, he didn't look at a user's comment history for one misstep, but this moron had such terrible things to say that he had to be brought to justice. As someone who usually avoided confrontation, the stress was beginning to take its toll. He could hear the lawnmower outside, and the chirping of birds and children. Annoyed, he slammed the window shut with a loud curse, forehead contorted in a snarl. Concurrently, his PC chimed ominously. Then, silence.\n\n\"Oh, great. Another popup. Where's the close button? It just says \"LEVEL UP!\" No toolbar to drag. It's blocking the video! Fine, whatever.\"\n\nMasato clicked on the popup out of frustration. Almost immediately, the usual throb of his left arm intensified, as if it was vibrating with electricity. This wasn't completely abnormal. He had been experiencing tingling feelings in his arm for some weeks now. His doctors assured him that without a major lifestyle change, he would find himself dead at an early age. Masato didn't care then, but this time, he felt fear.\n\nYou see, until this point in his life, Masato didn't truly understand mortality. He was trapped in the mode of thinking that he was eternal, unchanging. Until this moment, he felt that way. But at this moment, Masato felt fear. That fear only intensified when he glanced down at his arm. \n\nUntil this, he had actively focused on the devastating comment reply that he was a few keys and a click away from unleashing. Telling himself that it was nothing, he nevertheless glanced down at his arm. He had never seen goosebumps that big... where they goosebumps? They grew larger as he watched, turning purple and brown before his eyes. He screamed and fell out of his chair. The bumps gradually merged to form a network of solid plates on his arm. His hand, covered in similar plates, formed sharp spines on the ends of his fingers. He could feel and hear his bones pop and rearrange themselves; tendons snapping; muscles ripping. He managed to throw open his window and screamed for help. Nothing. No one answered. It was as if everyone in his neighborhood had disappeared.\nMasato's arm stopped changing, finally settling on a form akin to a gauntlet made up of tough, smooth beetle-like shell. It didn't hurt. It just felt, kind of numb. For a moment, a wave of excitement rushed through him, or was it adrenaline? He hadn't felt this energized for a long time, if ever he could remember. It was as if his body was awake after a lifetime of slumber.\n\nHe heard a rushing of wind. Above something was plummeting towards Masato. Something big. He tried to look up to see what this looming thing was, but before he could move his head, he was struck in the chest and tackled to the ground. Held fast to the floor, he could only make out a tuft of feathers on top of him. Some great shuddering being was pinning him to the carpet. He felt claws close in around his heart.\nMasato was frightened. He wondered about his arm and about this creature. He wondered where everyone went and what that popup was. Above all else, he wondered about who could help him. He couldn't think of anyone. He had spent his entire life pushing people away. He played the role of the overzealous gardener, trimming the plants in his domain until there weren't any left. His family, friends, lovers, all of these wronged him or were too stupid or... \n\nMasato thought of this as he died alone of a massive heart attack.", "Ding. A small pop up window appears in the corner of my computer screen. \n\n\"Congratulations Peter you have levelled up\" the monotonous voice called. I move my mouse to the window, surprised by its sudden appearance. I didn't recall having trained for anything lately, nor have I tried to build any skills.\n\nI open the window to get a detailed analysis. In this new technological age anything is possible and I really mean it. This computer here was made just for me. When you turn twelve you get given a watch, laptop and a tablet that is individualised. Not in a twenty first century way but in a twenty sixth century way. They are all special made to suit your productivity, learning style, personality but also importantly track your development as an individual. All your skills are recorded and can be built on and tracked through all your devices.\n\nSkill Achieved: Lover. Skill Level:1. Confused, I click on the question mark next to the skill. I have never even heard there was such a skill as lover let alone have built the skill. In this new world, everyone has a role and job and no such thing as not being productive. Everyday from six to six I'm at the greatest job of all at the Ministry of Children and continue to work at home. In this new world there is no need to sex, such trivial matters are not needed. Technology will take care of everything. The door bell rings. Startled I stand up from my desk to open the door. \n\n\"Mr Peter, there is a package for you,\" a young man calls from outside the door. Here in this new world there is social order and peace so everyone's name is listed at their front door. That way there is no need for confusion and friendliness is always in the air.\n\n\"What's this?\"\n\n\"Well form the X-ray vision, I was not able to determine what it is but I read the front cover. Though I was not able to decipher what it was.\"\n\n\"What did it say?\"\n\n\"Fifty Shades of Grey. There is a letter in the box as well.\"\n\n\"Well thank you James. May the Lord watch over you.\"\n\n\"No worries Peter. May the Lord watch over you as well.\" It is only normal for us to depart each other with that phase, it would be also rude not to. The Lord has bought us peace and order and watches over all is us ensuring safety. If one avoids the Lord then they will not be protected. \n\nI opened the letter. I haven't seen a letter, no one sends letter anymore. Why bother? There are applications for everyone to instantly connect with one another. I look back into the box and notice the words. Could this have something to do with the recent skill? What can this all mean?\n\n\"Dear Peter. Open this book and your life will change forever.\"" ]	2
	[WP] You have been accused of being a serial killer. The truth is that all of your alleged victims died due to random accidents, and you simply happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.	[ "\"I don't believe you!\" The detective slammed his fist on the table in easily the most cliche way possible. \n\n\"I'm telling you,\" I groaned for the millionth time, \"It is a coincidence.\"\n\n\"The restaurant, the library, the gas station, the bar, the cafe--it goes on and on. You were at every scene of the crime.\"\n\n\"But I didn't do anything!\"\n\nThe detective stood up and unplugged the camera in the corner of the room. Again, the most cliche thing one could do. \n\n\"There is no camera, and no one watching us. You can tell me the truth now.\"\n\n\"I have been.\" I told him sincerely. \n\n\"Then why were you at the restaurant?\"\n\n\"Again?\" I sighed, \"You want me to say it again.\"\n\n\"Humor me,\" the detective said. \n\nI know he was trying to find a hole in my story. \n\n\"I was eating dinner, by myself-\" I started before being cut off. \n\n\"Who eats dinner by themselves at a restaurant?\" \n\n\"Losers,\" I shot back, \"I was eating by myself and a very nice looking lady decided to sit with me. I don't know why. She took a bite of my food and then just died.\"\n\n\"You stalked her and knew she was allergic to nuts!\" He screamed, \"That's why you asked for almonds on your salad.\"\n\n\"I like almonds!\" I screamed, \"And why would she eat one if she knew she was allergic!\"\n\n\"And the bar!\" The detective moved on, \"You were there drinking when suddenly...three people died. All gun shots wounds. You were the only one alive.\"\n\nI tried to grab my head with my hands in frustration but the cuffs kept my hands locked to the table. It was a long chain looped under a latch to make sure I couldn't lift them too high. \n\n \"Again...I was in the bathroom stall, you know, shitting my brains out! And I heard gunshots, I was terrified. I hear the bathroom door swing open and I think I'm done for. Next thing I know this thing comes flying into the stall and I grab it. It was the gun. I instantly dropped it. I called the police immediately.\"\n\n\"What a coincidence,\" The detective muttered, \"Got your prints on the very gun that killed everyone.\"\n\n\"I didn't know it was a gun, I never would've touched it. You can help but react when things are going to hit you.\"\n\n\"And what next, the library incident where an entire bookshelf someone tipped over and killed the librarian.\"\n\n\"She tried to get me a book high on the shelf without the ladder,\" I groaned, \"It tipped over on her. End of story.\"\n\n\"You pushed it.\" He jabbed a finger at me. \n\n\"Or...it tipped over. As I said.\"\n\n\"The gas station! Your car just happened to run someone over.\"\n\n\"Someone tried to steal my car, I left me keys in--\"\n\n\"Who leaves their keys in the car when they pump gas!\" He accused. \n\n\"Stupid and lazy people like me!\" I shouted back. \"I forgot, I don't know. The machine wasn't accepting my card so I went inside. Someone hopped in my vehicle and tried to take off. They ran someone over and then ran on foot away.\"\n\n\"And just so happened to be the gas station with no cameras and no other witnesses.\" The detective narrowed his eyes. \n\n\"How was I supposed to know that! That's their fault, not mine!\"\n\n\"And how about the cafe? How about-\"\n\nJust then, the ceiling, somehow out of nowhere, collapsed. It smashed downwards as heavy pipes must've broken free. The first one smashed the table into and broke the latch that held the chain of my handcuffs to the table. The detective lunged forward as another enormous pipe started to fall right above him.\n\nHis dive took him right into me, where I sat dumbfounded with an open chain between my hands. It just so happened to be where the detective's neck fell. I heard a sickening snap and pop. The detective went limp with his neck between my arms. The force yanked me from my chair and I fell on top of him. \n\nThe door suddenly swung open and I saw a female detective with her mouth agape in the doorway. \n\n\"You murderer!\" She screamed whipping her gun out, \"Take your hands off him!\"\n\nI looked down at the dead detective with my hands looping a chain around his neck. \n\n\"You gotta be fucking kidding me.\"" ]	1
	[WP] You die and are taken your "Final Judgment" where it is decided if you are worthy of Heaven or not. However, instead of encountering God or some other divine creature, you are faced with a reflection of yourself. It's a mirror.	[ "I remember the moment I died. \nI remember the looking up at the white ceiling turning into vivid blues and reds as it faded. \nI remember my last breath. \nIt was complete bliss. \t\n\n When you take your own life, it’s the last piece of control you’ll ever encounter. The irony is, you do it because you have completely LOST control. There was no other way to stop the unbearable, agonizing pain of going through another, “autopilot” day, moving your body through the motions.\nI didn’t do it to hurt anyone else. To be honest, I think it's selfish that my family and friends would rather me endure another day because, “their lives will be ruined or hurt if I go.”\nThe thing everyone else has in common, and I’m isolated from, is moving on.\nI awoke gasping, slamming both of my hands to the sides of my head, hoping, if I held and put as much pressure on my aching head as possible, it could somehow counteract the excruciating pain. Suddenly, as I wince and shut my eyes for dear life, my mind creates a vivid picture, a picture of me lying dead on the floor.\nI can’t bear to see it, but for what feels like an eternity, I stare into my own eyes from a bird’s eye view and watch the life slip away from that body, whilst overcoming me in this new form I take. As I reach out to touch my own face for the last time, I’m awoken by a ringing. It’s not a normal ring, more like a sound your toaster oven makes when something is perfectly crisp to your liking is ready to eat. \nMy eyes slowly analyze the reality in front of me. It’s something I’ve never seen before in real life. It is the place that when I meditated, or dreamt of beauty, I’d picture as paradise. A grassy hill with only a new born tree behind me that, if followed in that direction, could lead me into the thick, evergreen woods. But in front of me, I see the ocean. The waves are fierce, but I’m high enough above them to appreciate their fury. The orange and purple skies get increasingly vivid as I become more aware of them surrounding me. For a moment, I’m 100% positive I’m in heaven. Yet, suddenly, the evergreen woods that were once behind me begin to pull my attention back towards them. They are becoming blurry. \nThey are becoming nonexistent. \nBefore my eyes, they are forming into this black hole of nothingness. I watch in terror as I see my own created Zion morph into the unknown. Through the transforming darkness, I begin see a tall mirror. It’s almost like the one your grandmother owned, even your grandmother’s grandmother owned. It’s beautiful, and reflecting the fading sun as it diminishes. I never trusted myself in my first world I left, but in this moment, my intuition is demanding I go towards the strange, new glass. I have no choice but to conform. \nWhen I am face to face with the mirror in front of me, the mirror that took my own new found reality from me, I immediately close my eyes and hope that maybe when I open them, things will go back to being what I want to see. Happiness and heaven. But as I slowly pry my eyelids open, all I see is my own self. \nWith a sigh of relief, I shift my being back into my body comfortably. But I notice that my reflection does not do the same.\nShe watches with a vacant stare. I finally realize she’s not the same as me. In fact, she’s different. Her smile is different. Her body language is unfamiliar. She watches me fidget in horror of my realization that I am not who I think I am and gives me look that only I could help myself to calm down with. \n“Do you know why you're here?” the reflection asks me in a calm voice. \n“I, uh. I think I took a bunch of pills and…” \n“You’re here because you wanted to be.” She interrupts. \n“I just wanted the pain to stop, I didn’t know what else to do.” I blurt out in defense. \n“Well, you have finally begun to take control of your life Jenna. How does that feel?” \n“It feels, invigorating. Like all those bad thoughts… All the walls I built up, are gone. I’m… I’m free.” I say with a sigh of relief. \n“Jenna, this is your judgment day. You are here right in this moment being judged on what you’ve done, so that we may figure out where you’ll go.” I hear myself say. \n“What would you like to say on your behalf as your last statement before you are judged?” \nI pause, thinking with this new-found peace I’ve been submerging myself in since my last breath. \n“If there was a God out there, why would he give me a life full of such pain that he knew I couldn’t take? I remind myself internally. \n“Well, I… I just want to say. I tried my best, but I lost, I lost myself to the sadness.” \nAs I speak the last syllable, everything fades and I wake up in the hospital, seeing strangers around me crying and hugging one another. \n“Maybe you didn’t lose just yet, maybe you still have control.” I hear one last time in the back of my head.\n\n" ]	1
	[WP] It's a post apocalyptic world, you find the last film camera in the universe. You take a journey to fill the camera with the last pictures that will ever be taken.	[ "Old style. Shutter and lens. A big flash on top. Enough film for a single shot.\n\nOne shot. I stare up at the red sky, at the scorched earth, the fragments of the broken moon.\n\nOne shot.\n\nThis is probably the last camera in the world. One shot.\n\nA smile cracks across my broken lips. Moving ever so carefully, I lift the camera up to arm height with my right hand, point it at myself and give it the finger.\n\nClick.\n\nCackling in a way that would get me committed if there were anyone alive to care, I dropped the camera and wandered off into the deadlands.", "“But… How will you decide?”\n\n“You know, that’s a really good question.”\n\nThe old man chuckled, wrinkling the leathery skin of his wind-burnt face. “Boy…”\n\n“Boy? I’m forty-two!” I smiled at him.\n\n“You know how old you are?”\n\nI looked down at the embers of our campfire. “It seemed worth remembering.”\n\n“Well, I don’t know how old I am, but it’s a hell of a lot older than you, boy.” He chuckled. “Now, you have the last camera on earth, and you don’t know what to take a picture of? The last picture that will ever be taken?” His voice was soft and raspy.\n\nI smiled. “Not quite the last. There’s enough film for five pictures.”\n\nThe man frowned. His eyes turned to slits against the cold wind and the scarce smoke that blew into them. Our fire was a few hours old and starting to die down. The warmth was leaving with it, and I was feeling the coming winter chill more and more with each passing moment. \n\n“I don’t know. How do you pick the final pictures we’ll ever take?”\n\nHe didn’t question the finality of the statement, and I stood by what I’d said. In the thirty years since it happened, along the tens of thousands of kilometres of road I’d travelled and oceans I’d crossed, this man was the third person I’d run into. \n\nWe weren’t coming back from this.\n\n“Well,” he asked, settling deeper down into his aging coat, “what do you remember seeing these last few years?”\n\n“How do you mean?”\n\n“I mean, what memories stand out? I’m thinking, start with what seemed worth remembering and find out why. Maybe you’ll find some things that make it worth taking out that camera of yours.”\n\nI thought back. I’d seen plenty of things, but none of them seemed worthwhile in this moment. How do you decide what’s worth keeping, when there’s no one around to keep it after you’re gone?\n\nI couldn’t think of a single damn thing. “Nothing’s coming to mind.”\n\nThe man burst out laughing. “All these long years of travelling an empty world and nothing seems memorable?”\n\nA flash of frustration bubbled to the surface. “Well, what have you seen then?”\n\nHe smiled. “I’ve watched a meteor shower from the Empire State Building. I was passing through New York City about ten, eleven years ago. I’m not sure what I was looking for. The place was empty, like I’d known it would be. Let me tell you, there aren’t many things more… discomforting than walking through an empty city that used to hold ten million people.”\n\nI nodded. “I was in Tokyo when it happened. Seeing the whole place empty… I’ve avoided big cities since then.”\n\n“Tokyo?” He let out a bark of laughter. “You’re a long way from home, son.”\n\nThe smile faded from my face. “I was there with friends. We had just graduated, and decided to go on a trip. Tokyo sounded fun, sounded… different. It was a chance to try something new, before we started working for a few decades.”\n\nHe chuckled. “You make it sound so bad!”\n\n“I was young, and work sounded like prison. Well, as it turns out, I never had to work. It happened before I could get on with my life.” I paused, hesitating as the thought came to mind. I wanted to ask but… “What about you?”\n\n“Hm?”\n\nTaking a deep breath, I pressed forward. “Where were you when it happened?”\n\nHe stared into the coals, the deep red edges reflected in his eyes. “Home, in Vancouver. It was my retirement party. My whole family was there. My parents, kids, grandkids just a few months old… Must’ve been nearly a hundred relatives there.”\n\nI winced at the image, shaking my head. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have brought it up.”\n\n“No, no, don’t feel bad about it. I’ve had a long time to come to terms with it. In the end, nothing I could do. Hell, just another roll of the dice and it might’ve been one of them that lived, not me.”\n\nI nodded. “So what about that meteor shower?”\n\nThe change of topic hung painfully in the air. To his credit, the old man went with it. “So, whole city’s empty. Takes me a day or two, but I get over the creepy feeling of walking through the place and decide to enjoy having the place to myself. Swim in the ocean, walk through Central Park, take the fancy booze out of the restaurants, that sort of thing. Wish I’d had a guide with me. And that the power was still on. \n\n“Since I can, I stay in the penthouse suites of the fancy hotels. These places are swanky, I can’t believe people could ever afford to stay there. One night, I’m out on the balcony of some place, getting drunk off a hundred-year-old bottle of wine, when I see a shooting star. After so many years walking, I realize that I haven’t looked up at the night sky in ages. And here’s a shooting star. So I make a wish.”\n\n“Gonna tell me what you wished for?”\n\nThe smile was completely gone from his face now. “No. But I’ll tell you it hasn’t come true yet.”\n\nI felt the heat rise to my cheeks. “Sorry.”\n\nHe nodded. “Anyways, right then, I see another shooting star. And another, and another. Soon, the whole night sky is… awash, in these stars. Now, the hotel I was in wasn’t the tallest, so the sky’s a little hard to see, what with all the buildings. I’m just a few blocks over from the Empire State Building. So, I go over, drunkenly running down the stairs and out into the street. The whole way over, I’m staring up at the sky, not wanting to miss a single minute of it. \n\n“Let me tell you, it’s a pain in the ass climbing the Empire State Building when the power’s out. I was terrified the whole way up, terrified that the shower’s gonna end before I can reach the top.\n\n“I come out on the observation deck, and it is the most beautiful sight that I have ever seen. The sky, coated in shooting stars, with every star in the universe right there with them. No lights, so I can see every detail of the Milky Way stretching across the sky. All of it, playing out in absolute silence. I fell to my knees and I cried.”\n\nThe old man smiled, a tear rolling down his cheek as he stared up at the sky, trying to catch another glimpse of that moment. I felt my heart in my throat, and I felt like crying right along with him.\n\nThat was it.\n\nMy motions were slow as I reached into my pack. I didn’t want him to notice, to move, to shift a single inch from where he was now. Slowly, so slowly, I lifted the viewfinder to my face, and took a picture.\n\nHe jumped a little at the click and looked back at me, the camera in my hands. “You… took a picture of me?”\n\nI nodded. \n\n“Last camera in existence, and you took a picture of me? Why?” He sounded angry, confused.\n\nI smiled, struggling to find the words. “All the… all the beautiful things in the world, they aren’t leaving. The Grand Canyon, the Pacific Ocean, the peak of Mount Everest… they’ll all still be here, thousands of years from now. I don’t need to preserve them, because they’ll go on, regardless of if I take a picture or not. But the people… we’re leaving. We won’t be here for long. So that’s what I’ll record: people, remembering the beautiful things that they’ve seen. That’s worth preserving.”\n\nHis mouth hung open slightly. A long pause stretched out between us. “I… My wish, that night, was for the bravery to throw myself off that balcony. I missed my family. Still do. I wanted to be with them, but I couldn’t bring myself…\n\n“When I saw what I saw, I cried, cause I realized what an idiot I’d been. I was still here, and there were still things out there worth seeing. And my family would want me to see them.”\n\nThe moment stretched out with the confession. The old man looked uncomfortable. \n\nHe turned and looked through his pack. I heard odd sounds coming from it, sloshes and clicks and dings as a lifetime of objects bumped into each other. After a moment, he let out a chuckle, and pulled out a bottle of wine. He stared down his nose at the label. “2012 Cabernet. I grabbed it out of one of the restaurants. I’ve wanted to try it for years, but I didn’t know the right moment.” He twisted off the cap. “Toasting one of the last pictures ever taken seems like a good enough reason to me. We’ll have to drink it without glasses, I’m afraid.”\nI smiled and rummaged around in my pack, revealing two wooden cups. “No problem.” I handed one to him. \n\n“Ah! Thank-you…” He paused and chuckled. “I don’t know your name.”\n\n“Hi. My name is Lee.”\n\n“My name is Ben. Nice to meet you, Lee.”\n\n“Likewise, Ben. Likewise.”" ]	2
	[WP] It's 500 years after the apocalypse that kills almost all on Earth. Humans/Aliens find Facebook Headquarters and press the green ON button. What do they see/find?	[ "Day +9032\n\nI wake up early today. Sarah is sleeping and I need to put some distance between us so the group doesn't find me. The acidic taste of the berries from last night still on my tongue, I fill my canteen from the rain barrel, empty it in a single swig, and refill it. I don't know how long it's going to take me, so I grab a flashlight just in case. \n\nI follow the path of burned down trees, birds twittering as I consider what else I could have done to sway some of the others during our vote last night. After a year of wandering, most people couldn't believe that an actual man-made building could be anything but trouble. Most of the windows still intact, I make my way toward the front doors, switch on my flashlight, and creeeeeak the door open.\n\nA dim red light flickers. Backup power system at 10%. System in hibernation. Press green button to resume. I push my fingerprint into the dust covering the green button. The screens in a few of the offices nearby flicker to life, as well as one the size of a billboard over the main staircase. All of them flash the same message: CODE 666. STATUS: CRITICAL. \n\nI cross the hallway and enter the biggest office. Mark Zuckerberg, CEO reads the plaque on the door. Wiggling the mouse, the warning disappears to reveal an email. Date sent: 9032 days ago.\n\nMark. You need to look at this. Time is running out and we NEED more likes on this picture. If you don't think of something, all is lost.\n\nI open the attached picture. On the left side, a picture of an old bearded man. On the right, a pit of flames. A text overlay reads: Like for God. Keep scrolling for Satan." ]	1
	[WP] Not all villians monologue.	[ "They always beg. Plead. Ask me about my life, my family. Try to \"engage\" with me, talk... anything that might save them.\n\nI sharpen my knife.\n\nI let them plead for their existence, and hear their life stories. It's quite fascinating really, how much the worthless rats want to go back to their gutters with their spawn. How much they will tell you if they think that somehow it'll help them.\n\nBut now, I'm tired of hearing it. First, cut out that wagging tongue, and sear the stump so they don't drown in their own blood. Death comes when I will it, not before. Then, I sew their lips shut. This is often the hardest part- I like to keep them conscious but they do struggle. Sometimes I have to knock them out. Those ones will be punished for that defiance later.\n\nNow, finally silenced, it is my turn to speak. I tell them exactly what I am going to do to them. But no monologues, no wasted words, no holding back the truth.\n\n\"You are going to die, screaming, on that chair. And no-one will ever know you existed.\"\n\nWhile they cry and struggle...\n\nI sharpen my knife.", "I waited on the rooftop, the tiles were easy to cling to and the view was perfect to the crowded street. I was waiting for one person: Allein. Sneaking behind the Hero of Amar, I suddenly put my hands on his shoulders.\n\n\"Boo!\" He screamed and fell backwards, I politely stood aside to let him fall to the floor rather ungracefully. I doubled over laughing. Man, this was brilliant...\n\n\"The Scarlet Sorcerer...\" he hissed as he got up, still running his neck. \"Have you finally come to the final showdown?\" A crowd already assembled around us, like a pack of wolves waiting to pounce on the losing. Allein fluorished his sword which earned an awesome \"oooh\" from everyone and an eye roll from me.\n\n\"Let me hear your pathetic excuse for disrupting order and wanting to end me before I drive my sword into you!\" This kid is talented poetic talk, I give it to him. I had to turn over the sentence thrice to understand it.\n\n\"So you want me to monologue before we fight?\" Somewhat dumbfounded, he nods. I raise an eyebrow. \"Ugh, how about no.\" With a swift move, I draw my wand and freeze him to the bone, an arcane bomb sends the fragments of Allein to the sky, frozen droplets of blood and flesh rain. Lucky thing I brought my umbrella. I flash a charming smile to my audience, gawking at their grand hero's remains and flip myself to the nearest rooftops.\n\n\"Later, losers!\" I laugh and teleport away. Here, Allein. Was that a good enough monologue?" ]	2
	[WP] A person near you has asked you to watch their stuff for a moment. Surprisingly, people are actually trying to steal it.	[ "There I was, sitting in a bland airport waiting for the next plane to take me away to yet another pointless conference meeting. I had my headphones in, softly playing classical jazz, when all of a sudden a man comes running down my bench aisle. Our eyes met for just a second, I quickly looked away. I wasn't in the mood to talk to anyone. He persisted however by waving his hand two inches from my face. I annoyingly took out my earbuds and glared at him with eyes demanding an explanation. \n\n\"Sir, could you do me a favor and watch my carryon? Here don't even get up,\" he said tossing a brown duffle bag on the seat across from me. \"Im just going to run to the bathroom for a second! Make sure no one steals it alright? Thanks pal!\" \n\nHis phony laugh told me he really believed that someone would steal his bag. Like someone would actually want to take this guys spare clothes. I watched the guy run for about twenty feet towards the bathroom when a short bald man approached me.\n\n\"Oh theres Jim's bag! Mister did you see where Jim went?\"\n\n\"You mean the tall guy in the green shirt? He ran off to use the bathroom.\"\n\n\"I see. Im his brother and, well, we are about to board so il just take this to his seat for him.\"\n\nI looked at the gate and clearly saw the door was shut. I figured there was still at least twenty minutes until first class would be allowed to board. Right as I was about to tell the guy off, a pilot walked up to us.\n\n\"You guys found it! Im so glad I thought that thief got away with it.\" He grabbed the bag and at that moment the first man lunged at it's strap handle. They began to tug the bag back and for like middle schoolers with a rope in gym class. I slid up to the edge of my seat but before I could intervene a woman appeared behind us all and dove onto the bag.\n\n\"It's mine! Let go of it or you are both dead!\" she screamed at the top of her lungs.\n\nBetween all of their pulling and wrestling, the bag finally gave way, tearing into three pieces. Clothes flew everywhere, the three people quickly grabbing all the shirts and socks they could take while dispersing from the area. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. I guess people really did want that guys spare clothes." ]	1
	[WP] You were gruesomely murdered in the haunted house you recently moved into. After the initial fear and shock wears off, you are pissed. You decline a peaceful afterlife to stay on as a ghost. Now that you're dead, you're definitely seeking vengeance on the depraved entity that killed you.	[ "He sits in my chair every night before going to bed.\n\nThere's always a bottle of liquor in his hand. Hard to tell what kind, since I can't smell things any more, and there's no label on the bottle. Sometimes he has the TV on, tuned to channels I'd never watched a day of in my life. Other times he'll have it off, just staring at the dark screen, taking a swig every few minutes.\n\nOn those quieter nights, I always want to know what he's thinking. Most likely, he's planning the attack on his next victim.\n\nThe realtor told me when I moved into this house seven months ago that the previous owner had died in it. She hadn't told me any details. Looking back, I wish I'd asked. Looking forward, I have no need to. He has a journal. I've been able to rifle through it and read the horrors he committed, that he wrote about in his cramped, ugly handwriting.\n\nIt was always the same pattern. Variations on a theme.\n\nPretty young lady moves into the house. The first few days are wonderful, the first few nights peaceful. She lives on the outskirts of town, where the homes are far apart, the trees are close together, and the air is crisp every morning. On the third day, he comes knocking on the front door.\n\n\"This is my home,\" he says. His eyes are different colors, his beard patchy and uneven. There's a rifle slung over his shoulder. The woman makes a mental note of how far away her own gun is, and how fast she could get to it.\n\n\"This town?\" the woman replies kindly.\n\n\"This house,\" he says.\n\nThe woman's heartbeat quickens. \"I bought this house,\" she says firmly.\n\nHe pauses, before giving her a wide, chilling grin. \"Okay.\" His eyes look her up and down once. A chill that has nothing to do with the morning air makes her shudder. Then he turns and walks down the porch steps, disappearing into the trees.\n\nShe feels shaken, but after an hour or two the nerves pass. Evening approaches. The third night. She relaxes in her chair, watching a show with a glass of wine. That's when she hears them.\n\nFootsteps. All around the house.\n\nShe goes outside. It's too dark to see anything. Eventually, she convinces herself that the noises are all in her imagination. The previous owner's spirit is probably still around, after all. They should have no quarrel. There was nothing to worry about.\n\nNights pass. Weeks pass. The footsteps continue. She thinks nothing of it.\n\nA month or two passes. He appears at her front door again.\n\n\"This is my house.\"\n\nShe frowns. \"I bought it.\" The other neighbors have been welcoming, and besides, she's no longer new to the area. It seems ridiculous to bring up this old, not to mention weird, conversation.\n\nThat same smile. \"Okay.\"\n\nOn that same evening, she wakes up in the middle of the night to hear footsteps walking around downstairs. She doesn't get up to check for an intruder. In the morning, there is a dead sparrow on her front porch. It's impossible to tell exactly how it died.\n\nIt's strange. But humans are adaptable, and she can get used to anything. The nights pass. She hears the footsteps downstairs. Finds the dead bird every morning. Eventually, she stops waking up in the middle of the night. A few more months pass.\n\nOne last time.\n\n\"This is my house.\"\n\n\"I bought it,\" she says, angry, this time. And he smiles.\n\nThat night, she only wakes up when the hand is across her mouth. In his other hand is a live sparrow. He opens her mouth as wide as it will go. Her screams turn into gargling sounds as he shoves the bird down her throat, then holds her mouth shut.\n\nAt least, that's what happened to me.\n\nI think with another woman, he used a cardinal.\n\nThe others all decided to move on. I wonder if they'd stayed behind, if they'd known the things he had done to all of us, whether they would have any kind of guilt. I don't blame them. It can be easier to forget.\n\nBut it can be more satisfying to remember.\n\nI've been building my strength. Not having a body takes some getting used to. I could move pages, like a breath of wind, from the very beginning. But picking up sparrows has taken more concentration. If I pretend I still have hands, holding onto them is a little easier. And every day, every night, I practice lifting up the dresser and putting it back down again. I should be able to hold his mouth open, if I can do that.\n\nThree months. Nobody has bought the house yet, so he's been living here the entire time. I've managed to trick about a hundred sparrows into nesting in the attic. He has no idea.\n\nTonight's the night.\n\nIt will be my house once again." ]	1
Any war. WWII, the Civil war, the Cold war, the Korean war, anything.	[WP] Summarize a well-known war as if it was a barfight between countries.	[ "It was full house in the Earth Bar. The year was 1914 and there was a drinking contest going on \n\n\"Alright boys! First one to finish his beer buys the other\" Bosnia yelled, looking down at Austria-Hungry and Serbia as they faced off. \"3..2..1...\" Before Bosnia could finish counting, Serbia slipped something into his opponents drink. \n\n\"What the hell was that?\" Austria-Hungry stopped \"I'm not drinking with this cheat, did you see what he slipped into my drink?\" before anyone could respond, he'd gotten up and walked to the other side of the bar. \n\nBosnia stared at Serbia. \"Fine\" Serbia grumbled, as he picked up two beers and walked over to Austria-Hungry. \"This ones on me\" he said placing the beer before his fellow drunk. Austria-Hungry inspected it closely but could see nothing out of place. He took a sip, and then a gulp. And then he threw up all over.\n\n\"You bastard! You drugged me. I knew I shouldn't have trusted you\" Austria Hungry screamed. He'd now gotten the attention of the entire bar. \"I'm going to fucking kill you!\" Austria-Hungry dived at Serbia. \n\nRussia, who'd been watching from afar nodded at France as he made his way to his feet. \"Oh where do you think you're going\" Russia turned to see Germany staring right at him \"You think I'm going to let Serbia get beat up, he's much smaller than that brute Austria Hungry\" \"I Wouldn't do that if I were you\" Germany barred Russia's path. \"You're not going to stop me\" Russia replied. \n\nGermany swung a fist wildly at Russia, before turning his attention to France who had been advancing towards them. \"You deal with the Triple Entente you had better be ready to deal with all us\" Germany swung at France. \n\n\"Okay this is getting quite out of hand\" The older man in the room jumped into action, his sons behind him. \"Fuck Off\" Germany replied \"You heard me.\" Britain replied, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and Canada stood close behind. Together the group charged Germany \n\nItaly stood close by, \"Germany my friend, we have always been close, but I will not help when you and Austria-Hungry make fools of yourself\"\n\nBystanders were dragged in at random, and soon Japan, Nepal, Portugal, Romania and somehow Italy had joined the fight against now double alliance of Germany and Austria-Hungry. However Germany was a big man, and he simply shrugged off blow after blow growing stronger and stronger and the combined force of all these men could not take him down. \n\nOff in the corner of the bar there was still a bystander. He'd not been drawn into the fighting yet, but that was about to change. \"Tag me in boys!\" The United States of America joined the battle.\n\nFinally the tides began to turn, and blow after blow knocked the combined forces of Germany and Austria Hungry back and back, falling into desperation until finally they collapsed in a heap. Russia nodded at his allied and backed himself away. \n\nAmerica, Britain, Japan, Italy and France. Left the bar, and found another \"Versailles\" it was called, and it was there they formed a pact and drunk together celebrating their victory. \n\nFrom his collapsed heap Germany slowly rose back up, took a sip of his beer and yelled \"You better watch out. I will be back!\" \n\n__________________________________________________________\n\nThanks for reading. Hope it was enjoyable, feedback is always welcome. Check out this story and others at www.writingrookie.com. ", "At either end of a large bar two men sat. Each nursed their pints and went about their business until one man saw that the other man had left his wallet on the table. Despite that wallet sitting right beside the other mans pint, and it being metres away from the first man, the first man decided to come over and take it because he was a fat, greedy, theiving bastard. And there you have the story of the Falklands War.", "America is sitting at the bar, minding its own business, when one of Afghanistan's roommates comes over and kicks it in the nuts.\n\nAmerica falls over in pain, swearing at Afghanistan and questioning why the fuck it lets these dicks stay there.\n\nAfghanistan tells America it will let anyone stay there it damn well pleases, and it's none of America's goddamn business since all America does is beat up its friends.\n\nFrance, Germany, and the UK look up from their drinks across the bar at the growing commotion.\n\nAmerica tells Afghanistan it should stop protecting its roommates and let it and them settle this like men.\n\nThe UK announces it supports the US.\n\nAfghanistan reiterates that it will be friends with whoever it wants.\n\nAmerica punches Afghanistan and knocks it out stone-cold. A few of its roommates also get beaten up but most flee the bar.\n\nAmerica looks at Iraq.\n\nIraq asks what it did this time.\n\nAmerica tells it that it's friends with Afghanistan, which makes it the enemy. America then loudly accuses Iraq of having a gun on it.\n\nIraq furiously denies these charges, and says it just wants to enjoy its drink in peace.\n\nGermany and France look up from their drinks again, now more concerned.\n\nAmerica asks the barman to search Iraq for the gun. Iraq reluctantly consents to this. The barman finds nothing.\n\nAmerica insists that the gun must be well hidden, and punches Iraq in the face. Iraq staggers but catches itself against the bar.\n\nAmerica gestures to the UK, Germany and France to help it deal with this dangerous criminal.\n\nGermany and France say it's not their business, and return to their drinks. The UK reluctantly joins in, and gives Iraq an uppercut to the stomach.\n\nAmerica finishes Iraq off with a right hook to the jaw and declares Mission Accomplished.\n\nSeveral hours later, Afghanistan's roommates and a handful of their friends storm into the bar, announcing that they've taken over Iraq's and Syria's houses and that America and its friends can all go fuck themselves.", "As always, it all begins when somebody drinks too much.\n\n\"None of you understand my struggle,\" people can't tell if he's slurring the words or if it's just his accent. \"Four and a half fucking years of struggle against lies, stupidity and cowardice.\"\n\n\"Fuck is 'e on about?\" an elderly gentleman sipping sherry asks a younger man drinking beer across from him. The younger man shrugs. \"Don't know, don't care, Dad.\"\n\n\"You know, when I encountered the Jew in Vienna, I was nice to him,\" the drunken lecture continued. A few ears turned to the speaker at the possibility of this anti-semitic rant. \"Ja! I was nice to him! And how does he repay me? He bleeds me dry. I am a shadow of my former self.\" He takes a very long swig before continuing. \"Mark my words, untermenschen, he will do the same to you.\" His flourish accidentally tips over a glass belonging to a lone man brooding at the very edge of the bar.\n\n\"Oi, oi,\" the old man nudges another of the patrons at the bar. \"Best get the sod home sharpish.\"\n\n\"Kurwa,\" the small man nods, and sets his drink down before walking slowly to the drunk preacher. Barely ten paces away, the lone brooding man has stood up and is facing the drunkard, their noses inches away.\n\n\"Excusez moi.\"\n\n\"Ja?\"\n\n\"You have spilled my drink. I would like you to replace it.\"\n\nTense seconds passed. The drunkard leans in to the other man's face. \"You...you are one of them, bleeding me dry. You are nothing now. I could take you, you know.\"\n\n\"Try it, pig.\"\n\n\"Hey, hey Deutsche! Deutsche. Come on, let's go home.\"\n\nAnd then it began.\n\nThe drunk Deutsche misunderstood the small man's hand on his shoulder as an attack. \"DON'T YOU TOUCH ME WITH YOUR FILTHY MONGREL HANDS!\" he backhands the man, who is completely unprepared. Angrily and with a speed belying his size, Deutsche jumps onto him and rains down blows upon his face. \n\nThe old man and the tall brooding man both jumped into action. Both tried to separate the big man from the smaller one, beaten to a bloody pulp by the drunkard's large meaty fists, both shouting at him in their respective accents to stop this madness. The small man's hands went limp on the floor.\n\n\"Arretez! Arretez, you maniac!\"\n\n\"Stop it, Christ, you're killing the poor lad!\"\n\nBut the large man did not stop. Annoyed by the interference, and sensing no more resistance from his first target, Deutsche turns his attention to the brooder - by roughly elbowing him in the stomach. Standing up, hitting his face with one, two solid punches, he grabs the tall man by the waist and throws him into a table at which a few other patrons were sitting. There was no reasoning with him now. \"BLITZKRIEG!\" He shouted, and began to pummel everything in sight - but paid special attention to the tall man, now curled up defensively trying to avoid the worst of the big man's blows. Soon there was none who would stand against him but the old man.\n\n\"Back off,\" Deutsche snarled, \"I don't want to fight you.\"\n\n\"Too late for that, mate...By Jingo, someones' gotta stop you,\" the old man barely managed to finish his sentence before Deutsche charged him, almost seeming to fly as he leaped across the room. Both collapsed to the floor, the big man on top, raining blows like bombs from the sky.\n\n\"Son,\" the old man cried, almost pathetically, \"Son, help me!\"\n\nBut the big man he was drinking with was gone. The old man used to get around a lot, however, as a few of his other sons seated at the other end of the room stood up to defend their father. Before they could make it, however, each of them felt a large, meaty finger tap their shoulders in quick succession.\n\n\"Mi scusi, amico,\" was the last thing they heard before they were knocked down. Fists the size of trains rained down on them, knocking them down for the count before they could even move. A large, boisterous but short man grinned, cracking his knuckles. \"Maybe let your padre fight his own battles, si? Bene! I'm glad you agree.\"\n\nDeutsche raised his eyebrow at the fat man, who laughed. \"I happen to agree with you. You and me, we are alike, no? Too long have these bastardi bled us dry. Now it is our time.\"\n\nMeanwhile, the big beer drinking man, the largest of the old man's sons, had left his table to try and break up a minor brawl at the other end of the bar. Several patrons were already beaten bloody. One stood tall over the other one, demanding loudly that his spilled drink be paid for.\n\n\"Hey,\" the beer man said, distracting the attacker long enough for his opponent to crawl away. \"It's not worth it. Let it go.\"\n\nThe attacker, a man who normally kept to himself, stared down the old man's son with bloodlust in his eyes, his face framed with long black hair normally kept tied in a bun atop his head. Clearly, the big man thought, things are not normal over here.\n\n\"Who are you, gaijin,\" the black haired man spat, \"to meddle in my affairs? Go away, and I will not harm you.\"\n\n\"Back away, Tojo,\" the big man snarled, \"And we all go home in one piece.\"\n\nTojo smiled. \"You can't stay here forever, Little Boy. Your father is in grave peril. Soon you will be, too. And when your back is turned?\" He cracked his knuckles in the big man's face. \"Banzai.\"\n\nIt was at this point that the bartender, a small, mousy man, gathered enough of his courage to speak up. \"Hey, hey, everybody calm down. Deutsche, you started this, you can still stop it. If you just back away-\"\n\n\"Nein,\" Deutsche hissed. \"I've been paying for your drinks for far too long.\"\n\n\"Deutsche, please listen to reason!\"\n\n\"NEIN! No longer will the Ubermensch be held back. We will take our rightful place at the top of the food chain...when we cleanse the impure.\" He stood, panting and gasping. The entire bar stared at him, a blood covered madman whose lust for power was only growing and growing.\n\nDeutsche stepped toward the tall man, the one that had opposed him before, and grabbed him screaming by the hair towards the kitchens. The bartender could only cower in fear. Deutsche threw the tall man to the floor and fired up the ovens.\n\n\"This is the only way,\" he snarled, eyes wide, the alcohol no longer holding the insane beast in check. \"this is the only way to ensure our race survives the onslaught of the untermenschen.\"\n\n\"What are you doing? Stop!\" The old man cried ineffectually. Deutsche ignored him, but paused when a large shadow loomed over him.\n\n\"That is enough, tovarisch.\" The shadow belonged to a giant, his face covered in a large matte of tangled beard. \"You are going too far.\"\n\n\"And you,\" Deutsche snarled, unperturbed by the giant's size. \"did not go far enough. I thought you hated them, and their tyranny. What would Marx do, hmmm?\" \n\n\"Not this, tovarisch,\" the giant shook his head. \"And besides, you are simply another tyrant to overthrow. Best you stop now, or I go all Bolshevik on you.\"\n\nDeutsche smirked. \"You can try.\" Without warning, he stuck the tall man's hand inside the oven. For a short moment, nothing was heard but the screams of the tall man and Deutsche's insane laughter.\n\nAnd then it was chaos.\n\nThe giant roared, \"URAAA!\" and tackled Deutsche, who fought ferociously despite being half the giant's size. Deutsche's portly ally cackled and began attacking the giant. The old man and the tall man helped each other up and pulled Deutsche off the giant, raining blows on him as he had done to them before, fists landing in between cries of \"Enculer, Fils de putre!\" and \"Fucking cunt, fucking CUNT!\" Meanwhile Tojo, at the other end of the bar, took advantage of the chaos to brutally subdue and beat bloody all of his former drinking buddies, screaming 'BANZAI!' at the top of his lungs. At the centre was poor Little Boy, desperately trying to simultaneously help his allies and stop the aggression. \n\nTojo saw an opportunity, one that could turn the tide of the brawl in his and his allies' favor. Breaking a bottle, Tojo charged and stabbed Little Boy in the back. He screamed, his cry of anguish and pain echoing around the room. Little Boy turned, shocked at first, then his eyes slowly filling with anger.\n\n\"So that's how it is? Fine,\" he snarled, and tried to make his way back to his seat. Deutsche saw, and tried to bar his way - whatever Little Boy wanted, he had to stop.\n\nHe was shocked when Little Boy charged head on, pushing him back to the floor and started kicking him. His father, the tall man and the giant joined him in beating him down. Once Deutsche stopped moving, they turned their attention to the other two troublemakers, both moving in.\n\n\"No,\" Little Boy said, to nobody in particular.\n\n\"Boy?\" his father asked, an eyebrow raised.\n\n\"No.\" Little Boy dashed to his seat and pulled out a yellow box, decorated with a ship with black sails on it, labeled MANHATTAN. He reached in, and just as Tojo charged to stop him, pulled out a revolver and fired two shots at the man.\n\nThe loud booming stopped everyone dead in their tracks, the only sound being Tojo screaming and falling back in pain. Smoke mushroomed from the nozzle, and all eyes were on Little Boy.\n\n\"Merde.\"\n\n\"Scheisse.\"\n\n\"Shit. Son, what...what did you do?\"\n\n\"Now we are all sons of bitches,\" he said softly, his gun still smoking.\n\nAuthor's Note: All historical inaccuracy is a result of my own ignorance. This was hella fun to write, and I may re-do it properly with more historical accuracy someday.", "#The Russian Civil War\n\nA father and his two of-age twin sons walk into a bar.\n\nThe father orders three of the same drinks for him and his twins.\n\nOne of the twins, dressed in red clothing, states he'd rather order his own drink than drink what his father wants everyone to drink.\n\nThe other twin agrees with his brother, but stays mostly quiet.\n\nThe father, already getting drunk, says he doesn't care.\n\nThe defiant twin, angry with his father that had oppressed and beaten him for years, punches his father.\n\nHis father punches back, and the twin and his father get in a fight.\n\nThe other twin cheers his brother on.\n\nThe defiant twin eventually takes a bar stool and bashes his father's head over it, causing him to bleed.\n\nThe quiet twin asks his brother why he did that, and says he will go contact the police.\n\nThe defiant twin, broken and frustrated, attacks his brother.\n\nAfter a fight that lasts for an hour and a half, the mostly quiet twin loses the fight.\n\nThe defiant twin orders vodka, which he drinks while looking over his unconscious relatives.", "Six brothers sat in the little towns only bar, ironically called \"Unity\". Seron, Crotin, Monte, Maced, Boson and Slovy. I say ironically because they didn't really like each other that much. Their father Tito was a wealthy man,who lived well, splashed around, went on expensive vacations, drove the best cars, had all the ladies. But he was gone now. And instead of the nice chunk of all that wealth each of the six sons anticipated he would get after his death, there came bills. More and more bills, each of the sons expected to pay their part. Turns out old pop lived on credit, taken from the towns loan sharks Ruslan and Murican. They just sat there, thinking what to do, and where in hell could they find all that money? Why did old pop leave them in all those debts? So many questions... \n\nSilence was absolute, then Slovy, the youngest broke it:\n\n\"You know what, you guys deal with this. I'm young, i didn't spend any of that money,it was all you and pop, why should i pay?\"\n\nThe other just sat and watched. Until Seron, the oldest, got of his chair and got into his face.\n\n\"You can't bail on us, we are all in this, all for one and one for all, that's the only way we can get out of this\"\n\nThen Crotin, the middle one,who always challenged Seron and felt pop gave too much to him compared to his other sons stood up in defense of the youngest brother.\n\n\n\"Easy for you Seron, you ware pops favorite, spent most of that money, and now you want all of us to pay?\"\n\nHe pushed him away.\n\n\"No way, me and Slovy are out of here, you guys are on your own\"\n\nSeron lost his temper, in his mind they ware all in the same soup, no way he would let this little prick challenge him this way. \n\n\"Sure, you two can go, but pay your part of the debt first, lest you need to pass over me first\"\n\nHe positioned himself in between the two younger brothers and the doors.\n\nThe tension was high, suddenly the whole bar stood in silence and watched the scene unfold. Even the two sharks, who sat in their dark corners sipping on their drinks.\n\nCrotin pushed Seron back, the other pushed harder in return until Crotin fel back over a table. Slovy saw his chance and he ran for the door as fast as he could, until he was out. The other brothers just sat, trying to comprehend the grasp of the situation.\n\nMaced acted first, he stood up and said:\n\n\"Look what you two morons did, always you two, just grow up!\"\n\nAnd he walked out to search for Slavy.\n\nBoson stood up and pushed Seron away from his younger brother who was on the floor. He thought how Seron was so angry, he never saw his older brother so enraged in his life. He tried to stop him. He thought Crotin had a point, Seron was just one big bully.\n\nCrotin then stood up, his lip bleeding and his pride hurt. He punched Seron and an all out fight between the brothers started to unfold. Seron was stronger, and more experienced so he got Crotin on the ground with a heavy blow to the brow. He was about to strike him on the ground but Boson jumped on his back like a cat and clung to his neck. The crowd exploded. Everyone was amused. Monte just watched, shocked, he even saw some bets go down.\n\nThe fight between the three lasted for a minute,chaos was absolute, low blows, tackles, fists breaking ribs. The three brothers ware a mess of blood and bruises.\n\nThen, after what Monty thought was years, Murica walked out of the shadow of his corner, a cuban cigar smoking from his bristled mouth.\n\n\"Allright, allright\" \n \n\"Break it up boys\" \n\nHe picked up Seron who was this time on top of Boson and threw him off, once again separating the feuding brothers. \n\n\"Don't kill yourselves, who is going to pay me if you fools gut each other to death\"\n\nHe smiled, then gestured on the brothers behind him.\n\n\"You three,come with me. We will work this out.\"\n\nA finger point to Seron.\n\n\"And you stay here, you and i will talk later.\"\n\nHe pushed the now discouraged Seron on his way back aside, while Crotin, Maced and Monte walked out slowly. While passing by, Crotin sent a spiteful smile to his brother.\n\nThe bar was once again silent. Prying eyes ware now on the bloody and smeared Seron. He felt humiliated and defeated. Nothing will ever be the same he knew. They ware brothers no more." ]	6
	[WP] The year is 2800 the earth is in ruins only 10,000 humans have survived. 1000 of them have departed to space to try and colonize the closest habitable planet, they land and encounter a Pokémon only to realize that the planet is filled with them.	[ "At first, we thought the biosterilization procedure had failed. It wouldn't have been a stretch to imagine one of them trapped in the cargo hold, or a few hitching a ride to the exoplanet. Vermin swarmed over Earth, gnawing on the bones of the dead, scuttling through our abandoned cities.\n\nBut this?\n\nMaybe cryo had scrambled my brains.\n\n\"Christ!\" Brink crouched behind a treefern, her eyes wide. \"Sir, did you see that?\"\n\nI said nothing, training my binoculars overhead. The fronds of the treefern swayed in the oxygen-rich breeze. One spark, and this Eden would ignite.\n\n\"Sir?\" Brink glanced sideways at me. \n\n\"I saw it.\"\n\nBrink was our resident exolinguist, but I doubted her skills would be of any use. We had calculated the probability of intelligent life on this planet; the last of the scientists pronounced the results inconclusive.\n\nA bird winged between the trees, a flash of yellow and brown. I didn't get a clear look at it, but I knew in the pit of my stomach. I'd grown up knowing what it was. Memorized its name. Hated the very sound of it.\n\n\"Shit,\" I said. \"This place is infested.\"\n\nBrink squinted into the lush green gloom. \"Infested? Sir, we knew there was a high likelihood of alien life here.\"\n\nI didn't tell her the truth. Couldn't tell her. She would drag me back to the ship and have me frozen in cryo again.\n\nScuttling rustled through the underbrush. I trained my binoculars on the sound; a purple rodent darted between the scaly trunks of the treeferns. Then another. And a third. One of the little bastards brought dozens more. Infiltrating our supplies, devouring our food.\n\n\"Move,\" I said. \"Hurry.\"\n\nI broke into a run toward the ship. \n\nBrink followed at my heels, hurrying to keep up with my long stride. \"But sir, what are we running from? Those looked like rats.\"\n\n\"Not rats,\" I said.\n\n\"The alien analogue to rats.\"\n\nI shook my head, breathing hard. There was no point trying to explain. \"We have to get back to the ship.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\nFor all her supposed deference to command, Brink asked too many questions. I ignored her and kept running through the jungle. The ship wasn't far.\n\nI didn't even make it halfway. \n\nWe burst into a clearing and skidded to a halt. The creature towered over us, meter after meter of solid muscle and gleaming orange scales. It sniffed the air, smoke drifting from its nostrils, and unfurled its blue membranous wings.\n\nI had to see its tail. Throat tight, I lifted my binoculars.\n\nSometimes I hated being right. Down the long sweep of its spine, at the very tip, an unnatural flame burned and spat sparks. My free hand clenched and unclenched, involuntarily, and for one wild moment I imagined throwing a ball.\n\nI had dreamed of this moment as a kid. Now I was scared shitless.\n\n\"Oh my god,\" Brink whispered, in reverent tones. \"A dragon.\"\n\n\"No.\" The word left my lips in a croak. \"Charizard.\"\n\nShe stared at me. \"Sir...?\"\n\n\"We landed on a goddamn planet full of Pokémon.\"\n" ]	1
	[WP] An atheist who has lived a good life dies. Instead of lining up at the pearly gates, he finds himself in a courtroom. He is given the opportunity to prove to a judge and jury that he has lived a life worthy of getting into heaven without believing in God.	[ "“I want the Morning Star as my advocate.” I calmly walked to the prep room. “And time to discuss with him my case.” The court aid was now in the process of picking up the papers she had dropped at the allusion to Lucifer. “Hurry up now.”\nI waited patiently for Him to arrive, scrawling notes on how I wanted this case to go down. I was not going to suffer this indignity.\nWhen He finally sauntered in, smartly dressed with a smile wide as the Pacific, I didn’t even stand. “I want you to move to an immediate mistrial and class action lawsuit against God for crimes against all life for his continued cruelty.” His smile faded. “And what case do you think you have against him?” “Come now, His own book, His followers, parasites, you name it. God is the root of all suffering and evil if he exists and I will not be judged by such a malicious petty childish creature.” Satan smiled, “Oh this will be a fun case.”\n", "\"You have been brought here upon your death that we may judge the state of your soul and determin wether you should enter through the gates—for there is, in fact, a God in whom you have not placed your faith.\" said an elderly judge in a monotonous, pressing tone.\n\n\"Well I'll be damned . . .\" said the now former-atheist, followed by a sigh echoing the disbeleif in his words.\n\n\"Seeing as we are quite mercifull here in the heavenlies, for your good deeds, you may choose any man or woman from all existence to act as your advocat.\" explained the judge.\n\nRelying upon the logic and reason that had been the staple of his past existence on earth, the athiest figured that he landed upon the best choice. With a bit of pride, he epressed his decision \"The one who will be representing my case shall be—myself,\" and he smirked admiring the brilliance that he believed his answer bestowed.\n\nAfter a slight pause and with a sour expression on his face, the judge responded \"Very, well\". He scribbled a few things on a note and drew from beneath his desk a large book upon which was written \"The Holy Bible with Old and New Testaments\". Though the book was worn and torn with age and much use there was no dust to be found upon it. The judged readily opened the book to a certain bookmarked page and, upon clearing his throat, read aloud from the gospel of St.Matthew. \"People will give account for every careless word they speak, for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned\". Before he had finished replacing the text from whence it came he ordered to an official: \"Bring in the next one\" in a tone of dismissal.\n\nIn a sudden panic, the defendant inquired of the judge with his throat now quite dry from worry, \"How can you sentence me when I've yet to say a word?\" The judge slowly leaned foward, removing his spectacles and tilting his head slightly to the side; he spoke, his tone now accusatory yet indifferent, \"Was is not you who said, might I add, quite carelessly: 'Well I'll be damned' ?\"\n\n" ]	2
	[WP] Write a story based on the lyrics of the House of the Rising Sun.	[ "Avery stepped off of the train with his suitcase and a grin. He dusted off of his new blue jeans and began his journey in earnest through the streets of New Orleans. Bands played jazz on every street corner. Men and women walked through the streets eating beignets covered in powdered sugar, listening to the city that pulsed with life.\n\nAvery reached into his pocket and felt his small wad of cash. Every cent he had managed to scrape together was in that pocket, and that cash had a destiny. It wasn't going to be spent on beignets, women or booze. No, this money was for one place only. The House of the Rising Sun. \n\nAvery had learned everything about gambling from his father, and this evening he would put it all on the line. He would either live a rich man or die a poor one, there were no other options in Avery's mind. \n\nThe House of the Rising Sun was a large red building on the edge of town. The paint was slowly peeling away and the wood was weather and worn, but that didn't take away from the beauty of the structure. Avery ascended the steps butterflies dancing in his stomach. After the years of planning and saving he had finally made it. He shook his head and pushed open the the french doors. \n\nThe smell of smoke and spilled liquor assaulted his nose as he walked through the threshold. A trumpet belted out a high pitched solo as women in short skirts served drinks to men sitting at round wooden tables. \n\nIf the city was alive this house was it's heart, the epitome of everything that embodied New Orleans. \n\n\"Can I offer you a drink?\" A petite waitress in a revealing skirt asked Avery.\n\n\"No thanks, I'm just looking for a table.\"\n\nShe nodded and gestured to a table in the corner with an empty seat. \n\n\"Game starts in an hour, make yourself comfortable. In here or maybe . . . upstairs?\" she asked with a wink. \n\n\"No thank you, just here for the game.\"\n\n\"Fine,\" she said with a hint of hurt feelings, \"I'll take your buy in, you take your seat.\"\n\nHe pulled his cash out of his pocket and handed it over to her. His entire life savings in one neat stack of cash. \n\nShe counted it out and nodded. The butterflies came back double as he made his way across the room to the table. Four men sat at the table sipping drinks in silence. Avery took his seat and thought better of introducing himself after receiving a harsh glare from the man across from him. \n\nInstead, Avery spent the hour sizing up his competition. The only thing he learned was that these were serious men, with serious money. \n\n\"Gentleman!\" A loud voice cut through the crowd, silencing the music.\n\n\"Everyone had paid up, everyone knows the rules, let the tournament BEGIN!\" A rotund man bellowed from the stage. The man wore an expensive white suit, and more gold jewelry than any man should wear. \n\nDealers in black and white striped shirts made their way through the room and took a seat at each table. Everyone nodded politely to the dealer and the cards were shuffled. \n\nWith the flick of his wrist the dealer shot out cards to each man, and the first round of betting started. \n\nAvery started slow, betting small amounts to feel out of each of his opponents. \n\nHand after hand Avery folded just so he could watch how the other men played. The man that had glared at him initially bet aggressively trying to bully the others off of the pot. It was working. He won hand after hand slowly building up his pile of chips. Out of desperation the man to Avery's right called what he thought was a bluff. He had bet wrong. Full house over pocket aces. The tournament had claimed it's first victim. Two large men in black suits escorted him out of the building before anything could happen. \n\nCards were dealt chips were bet. Men around the room were eliminated one after another. The scrape of wooden chair legs was the death knell of another gambler. \n\nBefore long the only people left at Avery's table were himself and the man seated across from him. The chip difference was staggering, the man easily had three times the amount of money in front of him than Avery did. Time was running out, he needed to kill time. The cards were dealt Avery sat on pocket twos. As he predicted the man across from barely glanced at his cards and bet enough to force Avery to go all in. And so he did. \n\n\"Call.\"\n\nThe top card was burned, and the flop was turned. Ace, ace, two. Avery's heart raced as the dealer burned and turned another card. King.\n\nThe man across from him smiled and turned his cards over. Pocket aces. \n\n\"Sorry kid.\"\n\nThe river card was tossed out but it didn't matter. Avery numbly stood out of his chair, the legs scraped loudly against the floor. He stumbled out of the House of the Rising Sun, with nothing left but his name. . . \n\n---\n\nThanks for reading! Check out /r/Written4Reddit for more stories!\n\n \n\n\n\n\n " ]	1
	[WP] You seem to be trapped in a strange dream/ fictional world. Every time you die, you wake up in a different, equally strange, situation.	[ "I was old. My wife had already left this world. My family surrounded me. They didn't care about me. My daughters wanted me dead wife's gold and silver. My sons wanted my money for their wives that are 20 years younger than them. Then there were the grand children. They just ran around making noise. Nobody cared about me. They just wanted me gone. I had a good life. I grew up working hard, had a good education and even found a good wife. I was successful in business and I tried to be modest. Oh well. I had my run, it was time to let go. I let out my last breath, and died. \n\nI opened my mouth and breathed. And coughed. The air was filled with gasoline and dust. I opened my eyes. Wrong move, they were filled with the dust that was in the air. I opened my eyes again, more slowly. There were cars all around me, driving in a dust storm. A truck to my right exploded. I tried to shield my eyes. My arms were stuck. I tried to move. I couldn't. My hands and legs were bound to something. I was moving, and fast. Then it hit me, I was chained on front of a speeding car. Another car drove up beside us. It was covered in spikes and was flaming from something shoved in the top. The car was on its last legs. It's drivers face was wide eyed, he new he was going to die. He grinned at me with his silver teeth as he drove his car into me. The spikes pierced my chest as I died. \n\nMy eyes jerked open. The cars the dust the pain, it was all gone. I was now in a broken down castle. Something blue wizzed past my face. Something red returned. I looked around, there were people on both sides of me. I stood up, dumb idea. I heard a threatening low voice curtle \"avada\" and I was stuck by something red, my body was thrown back, dead before I hit the ground. \n\nI slowly opened my eyes, making sure to stay low to the ground. Something metallic zips over head. A young man grabbed me from behind, yanked my to my feet and the shoved me foreword. \"Get up! Go! Go! Over the ridge. Go!\" There are men ahead of me, all running to a cliff face, I follow. There is a cargo net of the the cliff. Everybody else climbs, so that's what I do. There is chaos. Blood and screams and bullets fill the air. The only motivation to climb is the bloodshed on the beach behind us. I get to the top and haul myself over. I stand up strait trying to catch my breath. A half naked man runs at me screaming. I am run though by the mans bayonet and we go tumbling over the edge back down to the beach. \n\nI'm running forward with a large group of people. No not running, riding. I'm on a horse. What the hell is this shit. I've died at least 3 times in just as many minutes. What is going on. Somebody in front of my shouts \"and for Aslan!!!\" And I'm cut down by a little boy brandishing a sword. \n\nWhat the fuck!!! I shout as I open my eyes. A man older than I shouts back at me. It is a wordless shout. I'm next to an shattered window, the size of a wall, somewhere very high up. The man is sitting down looking at me shouting. I am shocked by electricity. The pain as it rushes through my body. How is this happening. Doubled over, I look up at the man. He cackles, lighting shooting from his finger tips as he throws me out the window. Now, I just wait for impact. My smoking body is void of a soul 45 seconds later when it finally comes. \n\nWhat the hell is this shit. Is it actual Hell. I have no time to contemplate this as a chariot runs me over. I'm not dead instantly, but mortally wounded. What did I do to deserve this? Why me? Am I just doomed to die for all eternity? I'm about to die, I can feel it. Very far off I hear a man shout \"Is this not what you wanted!! Our you not entertained!!\" The blackness consumes me as I await my next short life and inevitable death, maybe I'll try to see how long I can live. " ]	1
	[WP] You are Edgar Allan poe. But now you are filled with happiness and positivity. So you start rewriting one of your pieces...	[ "Once upon a noontime pleasant \nAs I wrapped a bitchin' present \nThinking of the birthday party I was getting ready for, \nAs I lingered o'er my wrapping \nThe paper perfect overlapping, \nSuddenly I heard a clapping \nAlthough in truth I couldn't tell wherefore. \n\"Must be wind,\" I chuckled, \"blowing through the sycamore-- \nOnly this and nothing more.\" \n \nAh, with fondness I recall \nIt was crisp and clear a fall \nAnd the sounds of touch football echoed in through my screen door. \nEagerly I wished the party \nAnd noted not to get Bacardi \nBut maybe pick up booze more hearty when stopping by the liquor store \nAs I had done in falls before. \n \nAnd the silken, wily flirtin' \nThat I practiced, smooth and certain \nFor the person at the party I had definite hots for \nWas now met with yet more clapping \nAnd with this now was overlapping \nCheers and flapping emanating from the sycamore \nAnd it grew closer, swooping in toward my screen door \nMaking quite a wild uproar. \n \nAnd though I didn't really mind it \nI wondered what could be behind it \nSo I went to try and find it, this thing that flew to my screen door \n\"Who's there?\" I asked, \"and is it \nMe who you have come to visit \nMaking noise that's most exquisite, is it me you're cheering for?\" \nSaid a voice, \"Oh, hell yeah! Score!\" \n \nOpen here I flung the hatch \nAnd immediately did catch \nA glimpse of something that flew in and settled on the floor. \nIt was a raven, black and shining \nIt looked around, and head inclining, \nIt here made clear I was who it'd been cheering for. \nQuoth the raven, \"Hell yeah! Score!\"\n" ]	1
	[WP] You have been trying to stay healthy, so you decided to keep a record of your pulse to show to your doctor at your next check-up. On the third day you end up checking your pulse. After feeling it for 5 seconds, you realize your pulse is suddenly gone and you're still standing.	[ "I felt fine. I looked healthy enough. Maybe I was just doing it wrong? No, that wasn't it. Then why could I not find my pulse? I was obviously still alive so there must be some explanation. I took to the kitchen and grabbed one of the steak knives and slid it against my palm. Nothing. The knife sliced open my skin but no blood came rushing out. Impossible. Being curious I tested myself once more. I filled the bathtub and laid down in the water, holding my breath for so long I realized I didn't need the air. My lungs didn't burn, there was no urging need for me to rush to the surface. The next day and the one after that were no different. I had no heartbeat, I had no need to breath, I didn't bleed, yet I was alive. Who was I? What had happened? I rushed to the doctor anxious to see if there was an explanation for this. He didn't run any tests he simply looked at me and said \"Son, you're 24. Your change has begun. Your family hadn't warned you this would happen?\" " ]	1
	[WP] She added a charm to her bracelet for every life she took.. Tell me about the charms.	[ "Death is simple: It’s easy to understand and that’s why I like it.\n\nYou’re here one minute, gone the next. Your body cremated, your mind destroyed, and your soul lost. All that’s left of you in this world is a single charm, attached to my wrist by a steel chain. \n\nI won’t know what your charm will look like. It seems two millennia of collecting haven’t been long enough to truly see a man. I watch every moment of your life from beginning to end: every failure, every triumph, every fear, and every joy. Yet, it’s not enough; the complexity of life still eludes me. \n\nAs your life draws to a close, and I start to collect, your charm begins to take shape on the empty chain I prepared. O look, it’s taking shape now!\n\nConfused? Time goes by much faster for me. Your life goes in the time it takes me to tie my \"shoes.\"\n\nIt’s looking translucent and irregularly shaped, interesting, but not unexpected. You live by a pact of honesty. A promise made to your mother before you stood a yard high. Adventure is your only escape since books and movies and other silly hobbies don’t satisfy. Moving every year, going on elaborate vacations, investing in timeshares are your way of healing the pain. Translucent and irregularly shaped was to be expected.\n\nI see some of the details are beginning to form; Simple things like your favorite food (fried broccoli) and your favorite football team (Panthers). These basics always take shape early since they’re easy and take no time at all for Him to form. \n\nIt’s always what happens next that surprises me. Humans are so endlessly nuanced, and He wants me to see this every time. It’s my punishment. \n\nTime is up. Your charm is almost fully formed. How will you surprise me? \n\n" ]	1
	[WP] Video games are now illegal. You're a dealer in the middle of selling a game to someone when the police knock on your door.	[ "It started off as a simple deal. A guy by the name of BK sent a telegraph that he would be coming to my house for a \"special service (Prostitution had become legal, yet video games were banned. Probably a historical thing)\". He followed my rules: requested a date, brought cash, and showed me his face, which I background checked to make sure he wasn't a cop.\n\nThat day arrived, and BK was there just on time. He seemed to still be a kid, about 14 or 16. I didn't judge, but I made sure that everything was secure. When I saw him at the door, I made sure that all my merchandise was nearly stacked. I opened the door, and he came right in.\n\n\"Alright, down to business.\" BK said. \"I'm shopping for two systems: PC and 64. Got anything?\" He looked at me with an intensity that seemed to show addiction, or desperation.\n\n\"I got you,\" I replied as I moved over to the box with the PC games. Due to the need for concealment, I had ally PC wares on individual flash drives. \"Anything in particular?\"\n\n\"Yes, actually. I have a certain set of criteria. First, no big name companies. Too many money grabbers. Second, it needs a storyline of some kind. Finally, I want it to be truly emotional; something that will make me want to play it again. Got it?\"\n\n\"I have just the game for you.\" I pulled a green Lexar off the shelf. \"This right here, this is Undertale. Made by Toby Fox, it has many endings, and it can be a true tearjerker, or a feeling of guilt. It costs about, um, I don't know, fifty doll-\"\n\nKNOCK KNOCK \"Hello, this is Officer Omish. I received an anonymous tip that there was illegal activity that frequently occurred in this area. May you come to the door please?\" \n\nBK's eyes widened like he'd eaten a mushroom. \"Shit! I can't go to jail!! What do I do man?\"\n\n\"Relax, I've got this. Just take the game, and here's Smash Bros as well, and get the hell out of here. The back door leads into some trees towards Downtown. Go there and get back home. I don't want you to to get in trouble, so be safe and tell no one where you were, got it?\" I tossed him the games and grabbed a tarp.\n\nBK nodded before sprinting out the door. By the time he left, I had already attempted to cover up my stock before opening the door. It didn't work.\n\nI was found guilty of a lot of things. Not just felony possession of video games, but also felony possession and distribution of anime, hentai, and trading cards, resisting arrest, and battery. Life sentence with no hope of parole. BK got caught, but he was found not guilty (newspapers became popular again too). At least that's a plus.", "Mark sat relaxed in his tattered armchair and gazed across his at his beloved 200+\nPs4 video game collection , they were his prized posetion for many years but the time had come to profit from there sale for two reasons . He was broke and camile his wallet draining High maintenance girlfriend had been freaking out about him still possessing them after the 2018 ruling that video gaming is harmful to society and particularly to impressionable children . He sighed to him self and wondered just how far this crazy nanny state would go , first porn and now this , so he uploaded the list of 200titles to the dark Web market most suitable for this type of sale and had quickly received enquires and bids for them .\n\nHis attention shifted to the window of his second floor apartment which over looked his street. A man in a long hooded jacket and jeans was walking down the street, Mark thought it a little funny the guy had his hood up on a mild day but there was a lot of slightly dodgy characters in this area, it wasn't the best location to live ,he hoped this wasn't the buyer as it had been his plan to assess his customer from this window so he could call it off before he answered the door if he felt unsure amd he didnt like the look of this guy , but the hooded man walked steadily past and Mark breathed a slight breath of relief . He stayed by the window for a further 10 minutes until a shiny new Audi slowly pulled to stop outside his front door , \n\nThe door bell chimed and Mark made his way to the front door , his heart rate increasing slightly with each step . He took a deep breath before he opened the door to try and give out a calm appearance . \n\nThe mid fiftys man that greeted Mark smiled pleasantly and ask if he had the right address for the sale of collected stamps, Mark replied he was correct and that concluded the security check they had agreed online to verify each other .No names were offered and his attitude was business like but friendly .\n\nMark showed him to a table with the illicit games set out in neat rows , All disks and manuals included Mark proudly declared .\n\nHis customer seemed pleased and pulled a chair out from the table .\n\nIt seems we have a deal my friend the customer said in a happy tone, £8000 we agreed if I remember rightly , Mark tried his best to hide his elation and quietly agreed that was the price they had settled at , he started to count out 16 bundles of £500 notes, Mark mind went into overdrive about what he could do with his windfall and marvelled at how some £20 games had now multiplied exponentially in value. \n\nA loud bang startled him and he ran to the top of his stairs and looked downwards towards his front door as it exploded inwards from a second strike ,he turn and looked the customer desperately grabbing the bundles of notes as the first 2 officers reached the top of the stairs and grabbed hold of him and pushed him face down onto his lounge floor, many sets of boots followed the first 2 officers of the Digital Task force, when he looked left again he could also see the customer pinned facedown 4 ft from him , his face pale white, Mark understood why and as the realisation of the trouble he was in hit him, he could feel the colour from his face drain as well , Their hands were zip tied around there backs and we're roughly pulled up and Mark was spruced to see the local g coated MSN from earlier who read out his rights and his charge of being in possession and intent to supply illegal digital content and was taken down his stairs and to a waiting 4x4 police car as Mark was forced in the back seat any thought of his future being happy evaporated. " ]	2
	[WP] By touching anyone's corpse/bones you can absorb their greatest ability. However you realise that it is what they considered their greatest ability, one day you get the chance to get an Olympic athletes ability, only to get something you didn't bargain for...	[ "I couldn't believe it. Right in front of me. I watched Michelle Kwan have a heart attack right in front of me. \n\nI had no idea what to do! I figured I had to help her. I went to feel her pulse, and it happened. It was like being electrocuted. I felt something transfer to me, and I knew right then that she was dead and I must have absorbed her greatest ability. I was to become the greatest figure skater to ever live. \n\nI then went straight to the nearest ice rink to test out my new skills. I rented a pair of figure skates and got right on the ice. I fell right on my face. What was happening? Did it not work? I definitely felt something transfer to me. After a few more tries, I received a text from a friend inviting me out to a bar, so I gave up and took a cab to the bar he said he'd meet me at. I was sad about my lack of figure skating skills. I wanted to get so drunk that night. \n\nTook a shot. Took three more. Half an hour later, took six more shots. Why wasn't I feeling anything?!?!? I WANTED TO BE SHITFACED. \n\nSo I drank everything in sight. I must've had 5-6 gallons of hard alcohol in the span of an hour. NOTHING!\n\nThat's when I figured it out. Michelle Kwan was the tiniest heavyweight in the world. I couldn't get drunk anymore. ", "As I approached Phelps corpse a shiver in anticipation, I've stalked him for days, the last Olympian left in the world.\n\nEver since the happening every high performance athlete had to hide as the world crumbled upon itself in it's search for power. Doesn't matter how much humanity evolves, we always find a way to go back to war, military groups from around the globe went on a killing spree of athletes seeking to create the most powerful army ever seen.\n\nThe Olympic Wars happened years ago, what is left of earth is merely a shadow of what it once was. Society as we used to know doesn't exist anymore, we live scattered in a destroyed ruin the we used to call world.\n\nAnd I was OK with it until last month. We believed that all the Olympians had died during the war, until I saw him, I was near a lake somewhere north of what I guess used to be New York. He just appeared out of the blue, jumped into the lake and started swimming. I had only listened to tales about the Olympians, I could not quite grasp what I saw, he ripped through the calm water with such easy that it took me sometime to realize I was looking at a human.\n\nI was not sure who he was at that time, but I followed him when he left the lake. After following him for no more than 10 minutes he suddenly stopped and pulled a half hidden rope from within the vegetation. It rolled up with him and I could finally understand, there was a fairly large tree house just above my head.\n\nI spent days living near his house. I had to understand what was so special about that guy, I had to know I was not dreaming, I had to be sure he was what the legends used to say.\n\nOne morning, when he left for his swimming session, I climbed one of the trees and jumped inside the house. At first I didn't think much of it, it looked like a regular place, an old matress on the floor and a small pile of books in the corner. I was ready to leave, there was no need to risk my life for the essence of a regular human.\n\nWhen I turned my back to jump back out the window I realized my mistake. Behind me, right beside the window was a big shelf, in it there was a set of small golden circles and a feel golden cups. Just as the legend said, every Olympian carried with then a series of wierd golden objects. My suspicion was right, I had found a Olympian, probably the last of then. In the shelf I finally understood who that was as I read Michael Phelps in every single one of the tokens.\n\nBefore I could set my mind straight he was there, probably came up using the rope when I was checking the shelf. He never moved a muscle, and I didn't have a second thought, without looking I grabbed the closest golden cup and threw it at him. The cup flew half a meter to his right, aiming was never my biggest strength, but it was enough, he took a step back in fear and feel down the hole on the floor.\n\nI can't remember the details of what followed, but as soon as I touched his body I could feel it, power ran through my veins.\n\nAnd I finally understood how he could swim like that, it was like having a motor in my body, I looked down and I could see, it was my penis, it couldn't stop spinning." ]	2
Forgot to add in that you can't see your own clock.	[WP] You have always been able to see how much time a person has left to live displayed down to the second on their forehead. You are sitting on a bus when you suddenly realize, to your horror, that most of the people there have about 5 minutes left on their clocks.	[ "Oh shit.\n\nOh shit.\n\nI glance around. The old lady? Five minutes.\n\nThe newborn with her mother? Five minutes.\n\nThe kid at the front playing music? Five minutes- and thirty seconds. I suppose he must have gotten away but still died.\n\nI needed to get off the bus. No one would believe me if I start screaming \"you're all going to die.\"\n\nMy mind, a jumbled mess of logic, fear, and questions, springs to the most sensible thought I've had in a while - how long until the next stop?\n\nI look outside, trying to remember where I am and where the next stop is.\n\nI'm visibly distressed now - I've started to shake, my arms, my body has started to physical shake.\n\n\"Hey- Hey! Are you alright man?\" the mother is pushing my shoulder forwards, trying to receive any acknowledgment of her existence. I just stare at her, dumbfounded. I need to tell her- but I can't. How could I. What kind of person is going to believe the guy who randomly starts to convulse on a public bus and will probably start screaming incoherent sentences in not too long-\n\nI'm near the pub, so, so, the next stop-.\n\nMy heart skips a beat. \nThe next stop is ten minutes away. \n\nI look back at the mother. \n\n4:24\n\nNot long enough. We're going to die here. \n\nI can hardly believe it.\n\nThis is it. That's all I can take. I just can't deal with this anymore.\n\nWhy me? Why does this have to happen to me? I have a job, I have a wife, I could have kids in the future! Why do I deserve to die here?\n\nBecause you're a piece of shit, you look at people, you judge them, you think you're better than them - don't lie to yourself. You look at that smoker with only a month and a half left, what do you think? You think they've got cancer, you think they smoked themselves to death. You think you know everything. You know nothing.\n\nAnd in my heart of hearts I know it's true. But regardless of what the dickhead voice in my head wants to say, I need to get out of here.\n\n2:07\n\nNot that I have time. Even if I pull the emergency stop, open the emergency door and jump out onto the dual carriageway - most likely into a passing car - it would be too late to avoid the destruction.\n\nI slump back in my seat.\n\n0:58\n\nIt's almost peaceful, knowing that you're just going to die. Accepting that life isn't permanent. Understanding that every action has consequences and contemplating what you would have done differently, if given the chance. I would have asked out my crush in grade 10. Who knows, maybe she would have liked me, maybe not, but there's no harm in just asking her out, is there? Maybe that time I didn't bother applying to the job as an IT Support manager at that University. It was too far away, I argued, it would be a two hour commute. But it was well paying and, hell, if I had gone there maybe I would even be in this damn mess. \n\n0:15\n\nWell, final goodbyes. I turn to look at the baby - it's asleep. Good. No point trying to wake it just so it can see it's last horrific moments. The mother is watching out the window, fearfully - I hear someone ask \"What's that truck doing, trying to undertake that car- holy shit, it's-\"\n\n0:03\n\n0:02\n\n0:01\n\nAnd then the sickening, deafening crack of metal against metal. Bodies falling against each other, being cut open by the smashed windows, being thrust violently against the solid lump of the two vehicles merging together. I feel my kneecap dislocate, maybe my shin break or my toe fracture, as they're blasted into the seat in front of me, ripping through it.\n\nAnd then silence.\n\nCalm, eternal, peaceful silence.\n\n0:00\n" ]	1
	[WP] A death metal love song	[ "[VERSE 1]\n\n> Burning within this a blank abyss /\n> Loathe your spirit with a kiss /\n> Death and Darkness Treachery /\n> Madness Destruction Hypocrisy /\n> Cast you into a fiery hell /\n> Become one with this poison well\n\n[PRE-CHORUS]\n\n> Two roaming souls who lost their light /\n> Two roaming souls and the gods did smite / you /\n> DOWNNNNNNN!!!\n\n\n[CRAZY SOLO]\n\n> (YEAH, YEAH, YEAH, YEAHHH UH!)\n\n[Melodic sythy part leading into verse 2]\n\n[VERSE 2]\n\n> Whisper secrets while stealing sin~/\n> We keep this eternal rage locked within \| us/\n> Now, you clawing upon new righteous skin /\n> Weary bones of these tortured hands\n> I steal your breath, strangling\n\n[PRE-CHORUS]\n\n> Two roaming souls who lost their light /\n> Two roaming souls and the gods did smite / you /\n> DOWNNNNNNN!!!\n\n[CHORUS]\n\n>Smiting you down /\n>Smiting you down / \n>Hitting the ground / \n>Burning in fire / \n>Forged in our sin /\n>Now bent and dishonored /\n>Smashing your immortal crown \n" ]	1
	[WP] Our world has become one with advanced technology. The natural world as we know it no longer exists through the human eye, banknotes and cards are a distant memory, employers control our emotional levels in the workplace, and governments across the globe have the ability to tax our emotions.	[ "They warned us it would come to this, the Independents so long ago had begged us to see what his could come to, but we simply ignored them. The idea of having a computer in our heads, becoming the science fiction characters we read about be simply too tantalizing. Before long, the Independents had been silenced; perhaps some by natural forces, but most by those who did not approve of them. \n\nI am the last Independent, or rather my father was. I do not know who my father was, as he died before I was born, but I know that he fought for the cause of keeping humanity human. My mother told me that he had been the last person on the steps of the courthouse, calling for an end to the “cyborgization of humanity” as he called it. He was eventually struck down by an assassin. The police ruled the shooting as a “stray bullet,” and failed to investigate further, but my mother and I knew it was technology company trying to eliminate his voice, to prevent move from following suit. \n\nEvery night, my mother would read to me from a book she called “our bible.” I do not the know the true name of the tale, but I did know that, while it had been written long ago, it predicted a world where the thought police patrolled the street, where Big Brother watched every move of every single person in the country. \n\nPerhaps it was a prophecy; for one day, the government caught up to us. They did not approve of my mother teaching me about the faults in this world. Because my mother had had one of the computers implanted in her head at birth, we both knew it was only a matter of time before someone came to silence her, and perhaps me as well. She taught me how to not only care for myself, but also to fight. She was as worried as I was about what would happen to her.\n\nI was not around to see them take her; I only saw the aftermath. I had been out stealing something for us to eat that day, when I returned to our home to find her gone. There was no trace of her, or of the bible from which she read to me. \nAt first, my twelve-year-old self wanted to cry, scream, and beg someone for help. But a voice inside my head told me that it would not help. So, I vowed retribution instead.\n\nI dug an old weapon out of the attic. It was an ancient relic of the days before the implants, and it would require some care to get it running again, but I knew this was my only way.\n\nSo now I have been here for years, honing my skills, waiting for the perfect time to strike, as well as figuring out how I can strike. It was on a cool summer day when I figured out exactly how, or rather who, I would strike.\nMy target was a man known as Robert Strom. He was a worker bee in the government security center. His job was to monitor all the citizens of the world, and be sure that none of them were even beginning to think of rebellion. The perfect target. \n\nI turned to my weapon, my computer, and swiftly deactivated his implant. I then allowed myself to speak to him, just as the implant has.\nNow, let’s see how the government works when I have a man who has worked for them all his life, working against them. \n\nThanks for reading! If you enjoyed this, be sure to check out more stories over at https://www.reddit.com/r/WrittenTherapyProject/" ]	1
	[WP] An evil beast has risen from its deep slumber to wreak havoc upon humanity. Thanks to genetic engineering scientists are able to counter the beast by creating a beast of their own.	[ "Ready. Set. Mark. \n\nThe Kami rose from the ocean, its putrid green fin emerging from the sea. There was a blur, a golden blur and the waves stirred and churned as a deep gurgle emerged from the depths. \n\nA wave of silver blood spilled into the ocean, reflecting with a metallic sheen.\n\nThe fin collapsed, sliding into the water like a collapsing iceberg. Several more fins rose in the distance, drawing closer rapidly. In the distance, the water bulged as something larger drew near. \n\n\"Ah~ This is such a drag.\" \n\nHe tilted his head, staring at his companion. She sat on the floor, her legs dangling out of the open doors of the helicopter. Her golden hair flew in the breeze around her and the sunlight glinted off her scaled skin. A single horn curled out of her scalp, like a crooked and deformed bone.\n\nHe touched the screen in front of him, noting down her reaction. \"Are you feeling any strain at all?\" \n\n\"Not a bit, Mister Doctor.\" she told him. Her red, serpentine eyes blinked and fixed on him. She held out a hand and a glow of golden plasma fluctuated in the space above her palm. \"This is too easy. Too easy, Mister Doctor!\" \n\n\"You can call me Doctor Langley.\" \n\n\"That's too boring!\" she looked out of the helicopter, perking up as a massive fin breached the water. All of a sudden, eight glowing orbs appeared in the water. He held on tightly to his seat as searing light shot out of the ocean. \n\nThere was a tremendous flash of light. He blinked and waited for the helicopter to stabilize. He looked out across the open interior of the helicopter and beyond the doors to see a small form shooting down towards the water like a comet. \n\n\"Huh. The plasma dimensional slipping is really working out after all.\" \n\nHe observed the waters below through a sheen of gold. She had pushed their helicopter sideways out of existence. It wouldn't last for long, but he had time to take down a few notes and read the monitors by his side. \n\n\"Subject is adjusting to dimensional radiation, 0.3 second lag in plasma generation. Hmm, core of midtier Kami, Namazu variant, exposed within 2.7 seconds of contact to temporal flux beam-\" \n\nThe helicopter jerked briefly as it returned to real space. Between one blink and the next, the girl reappeared inside the helicopter, shooting him a beaming smile. \n\n\"That was a little more entertaining, Mister Doctor! When do I get to try out the main boss battle?\" \n\nHe adjusted his spectacles, \"I need to run a few more tests before then. It will be better if we could narrow down the trigger for the expression of the temporal flux genes to a more accurate template before Yami's next awakening. Perhaps a Suzaku variant would be more effective than your current set up.\" \n\n\"That sounds boring, Mister Doctor...\" She frowned at him, before turning back to stare out at the sea. \"I don't want to wait that long.\" \n\n\"Saving the world isn't always exciting,\" he shrugged, \"But it has to be done. It wouldn't do to get everyone's hopes up when Yami emerges from the ocean again.\" \n\nShe sighed. \n\n\"However...I'm sure we'll have more minor incursions to handle until then.\" he said. \"It shouldn't be hard for me to get clearance to bring you out for more testing.\" \n\nShe grinned. " ]	1
	[WP] You discover that when you make your kid sister laugh, she can see visions of the future. The harder you make her laugh, the longer and clearer the visions become.	[ "“What’s that new Adam Sandler movie thats out? How ‘bout we go see that?” I asked flicking on the police siren as we sped through yet another red light. I could sense Sarah rolling her eyes in the passenger seat even as the car lurched from side to side while I haphazardly navigated through oncoming traffic.\n\n“Adam Sandler. Are you serious? Adam Sandler hasn’t been funny in years.” she said attempting to reach for an algebra text book that was sliding around the passenger side footwell with every swerve of our erratic drive. \n\t\n\n“Ok then. What if we listen to one of his older tapes? God, you remember those things used to have us rolling around the floor in tears.” I ventured. \n\n“Yeah, sounds great.” she said in a flat tone “let’s go dig through mom’s house for a 30 year old cassette tape then get in a time machine to find something to actually play it in”. I slammed hard on the breaks and stared at her.\n\n“Listen, I don’t care why or how you do it, but I need you to laugh.” Sarah simply glared at me silently for a moment and crossed her arms. “Someone’s life depends on it” I said.\n\n“I don’t do that anymore.” she said, now pointedly avoiding looking me in the eye. “I don’t want to use it anymore. Please don't make me”\n\nFor a moment, all thoughts of the case, the missing child whose life was on the line, the existence of Sarah’s gift all vanished and I was simply left with the incredibly sad feeling that my baby sister no longer wanted to laugh, maybe no longer wanted to feel joy ever again. I took a good hard look at the young woman sitting next to me. Gone was the frizzy haired giggling little girl, dressed in a hodgepodge of cartoon character print clothing and rainbow shoelaces often given in to belting out he worst of whatever pop song of the week was out with such enthusiasm I had no choice but to join her and in her place was this sullen teenager with dyed jet black hair, a nose piercing and too much eyeliner for a girl her age. \n\nWe had always been close, at least I had thought we were. Ever since we were young, even before Sarah started getting her visions and we made the joint decision to keep the secret between us, to not even tell mom and dad. True, there was a huge age gap, I was enrolled in the academy by the time she was giving pull ups a test run. I always tried to make time for her though, trips to the movies, the tapes, I really enjoyed being a big brother. But she grew up. I had more responsibilities. Our weekly trips to the movies turned into monthly ones. The cassette player broke and I never got around to replacing it. After a while I only ever saw her when I had a particularly hard case, one I knew she could help with, one I couldn’t possible find the answer to myself but could solve if I could only make her laugh. \n\n“Its not all good things I see, you know” she said, waking me from my reverie. “Sometimes I see bad things. I see bad things more and more now” tears were welling up in her eyes. “Sometimes I see you. I see bad things that might happen to you”. She was shaking for a bit. \n\n“I know.. but I think we should try.” I said trying not to think of what those ‘bad things’ might be. “That was what we decided, wasn’t it?” \n\nFor a long time we just sat in silence, Sarah wiping tears and me pushing away dark thoughts. Then she turned to me and began singing in a low, sad voice“ Turkey for me, Turkey for you, Let’s eat the turkey, In my big brown shoe”. I couldn’t help but crack a smile at the ridiculousness of the situation. Me and my kid sister blocking a lane of traffic in a police car while she sung a tearful version of the Thanksgiving Song. I couldn’t help but join in. Tearing up myself I began then next line.\n\n“Love to eat the turkey, At the table, I once saw a movie, With Betty Grable”. I sung in my best mock Sandler voice. We burst out laughing at the same time, more than we had in years. Then Sarah’s eyes filmed over, like they always did, flitting back and forth faster and faster as she observed something unseen to anyone but her. \n" ]	1
	[WP]: "Okay on your row we have Trapper, Biter, Bitter Jonah, Strangler-Scoot, Vicious Gregg and Daisy. Whatever you do, do not turn your back on Daisy."	[ "\"Wait but where's the seventh dwarf?\" cried Snow Grey. \"Low budget,\" announced the hunter in charge of dropping her off. \"I really must be going now, I'm afraid I can't hang around here for too long, good luck with all of them!\" he cried, backing slowly away, making sure never to break eye contact with the tall, menacing humanoids that Snow Grey seemed to think were dwarves. \n\n\"Hi, ho! It's off to the mines we go!\" cried Bitter Jonah. Unsure of whether or not she was being directly addressed, Snow Grey followed Biter, Bitter Jonah, and the strangely quiet Daisy into the forest. \"Won't the others be joining us?\" asked the (fair?) maiden. As Daisy began making a subtle chirping sound, Bitter Jonah started to shush it and tried to answer Snow Grey in the process. \"No, they're just lazy sacks of shi-FUCK!\" he shouted, as Daisy savagely bit his ankle. \"My gosh!\" Snow Grey exclaimed, \"Are you ok, you poor dwarf?\" \n\n\"Well, yes, we aren't dwarves lady, but we do know a thing or two about natural medicine. What little we picked up after living in the sticks for all these years has really helped us. Biter, could you dig the hole?\" Biter started to claw at the earthy forest floor, and the atmosphere seemed to palpably thicken. Daisy watched, transfixed, as Biter seemed to be preparing something for... him? Her? ...Probably best to go with \"It\". \n\nBitter Jonah's bite wound started healing, and Biter finished working on the hole. The animals of the woods appeared to be crawling out of it, lizards, mice, and even a bird at first, but eventually a deer popped out of the small dent that Biter had gouged into the earth. They approached Snow Grey, \"Oh, what nice animals you are!\" she cooed. Surging to his feet, apparently healed now, Bitter Jonah approached the still growing crowd of animals that Snow Grey was fawning over. Before she could notice that Biter and Daisy had also joined the growing crowd of creatures, Snow heard a sickening crack!\n\nAll at once, Daisy had stepped on a mouse, crushing it's skull, and Biter had grabbed a deer by the horns to break its neck. \"No, what are you doing you horrible dwarves!\" Snow Grey wailed!\n\n\"Lady, we keep telling you that we aren't dwarves,\" Bitter Jonah boomed \"We are the gods of the forest, and the queen who sent you here was offering you as sacrifice. Unfortunately, you are hardly the finest in the land, so instead of appealing to Lord Daisy with the desecration of great beauty, we shall have to get creative. And Daisy's hungry.\"\n\nOnly now realizing the severity of the situation, and beginning to understand that the blessed life she thought she was meant to live was now forever out of reach, Snow Grey accepted her fate. \"Fine,\" she sighed. \"Do as you will with me. I don't care if it's some black magic ritual that will spoil my soul for all eternity, just get it over with.\"\n\n\"Really?\" peeped a voice, coming from the general direction of the creature known as Daisy. A shuffle of papers, \"then can you sign here, and here, and put the date over there? Here's a pen,\" Daisy handed Snow Grey a thorn from some weed that had been drawn through the blood of the now twitching deer. \"I really need to take out a loan, but my credit score is so low that I need to do it through unconventional means, no banks involved. This arrangement should work perfectly, if I have to quadruple mortgage the house I have no idea what I would do!\" proclaimed the oozing monstrosity named Daisy. \n\nSnow Grey giggled a little bit, \"You guys really scared me, I thought we were going to mine some coal and then you guys started to perform some sacrifice and I was afraid of trouble!\" \n\n\"Here's my signature!\" she said, having now promised to lend the shambling mass of despair referred to as Daisy a few thousand dollars to be repayed in three monthly installments. " ]	1
	[WP] All newborn babies are only female. A male baby is never born again.	[ "\"Do you ever wonder if what we do is wrong?\" asked Candice Glover, a young lab assistant, as she used virtual gloves to manipulate genetic code.\n\nDr. Mura continued her writing without skipping a beat. \"What do you mean?\"\n\n\"Males,\" Glover responded, \"we're making them extinct.\"\n\nDr. Mura finally put her stylus down and turned her body toward Glover. \"We? What do you mean by 'we' in that context? If anything, it is technology that is making males extinct. Nobody has children through classical conception anymore, and thus the spermatozoid is no longer required for reproduction.\"\n\n\"Right, but—\"\n\n\"Do you want to have a boy? Knowing that he'll never pass on his genes because the woman he pairs with will want a designer baby anyway, would you want to have a boy? That is if he finds a woman that wants to bear his child instead of her own.\" She looked at Glover in the eyes.\n\nGlover waited to see if Dr. Mura was finished speaking.\n\n\"On top of all that,\" Dr. Mura continued, \"what place is there in the world for a man now? Society isn't like it was when I was a child, dear. Nobody is going to hire a man for anything other than a model. If a boy is born now, no matter how intelligent he is, he would only grow up to be objectified. What use are they now? Honestly, Glover—\"\n\n\"Dads are great!\" Glover huffed.\n\nA stunned Dr. Mura put down her stylus and crossed her arms.\n\n\"I don't know how anyone can grow up without a father. You had a father too, didn't you Dr. Mura? Did he take you camping or fishing? Maybe he built you a swing. Or a huge fort out of couch cushions, blankets and chairs. And you'd both lie inside with a flashlight to hide from the tickle monster. And then the tickle monster would sneak in and possess Dad's hand anyway. And...\"\n\nGlover recomposed herself. \"It has to be a little unfair at least, that we got to have fathers and all the embryos that pass through here don't. Maybe it wouldn't be fair to the ones that become boys to grow up in a world that doesn't value them. But then it's also unfair to all of them who don't get to grow up with a Dad when they want to vent about Mom.\"\n\nDr. Mura picked up her stylus and turned back to her work. \"Did you inherit any of his genes,\" she asked condescendingly.\n\nGlover also went back to her work, angry that Dr. Mura would bring that up. It's always about genetics to Dr. Mura." ]	1
	[WP] A standard fairy tale, except told as if the villain is the protagonist.	[ "Once Upon a time, there was a knight of great skill and prowess. His name struck terror into his enemies and all were awed in his wake. In time the knight’s ego consumed his heart and he slew his own father under the guise of a hunting accident. At the same time of the knight rising in power, a young squire was given a chance to prove himself and was tasked to prove himself a true knight of the people. It took several years, but the squire complete the task and was knighted.\n\nBaron Lance Vaunstein walked across the lavish meeting room, his boots clacking soundly with each step. “General, why hasn’t the eastern villages been quieted yet?” In the five years since the barony had fallen under Lance’s influence there had been a growing demand for iron, but to keep up with the orders the peasantry had been forced to work harder. Recently, there had been more riots and each one being put down with greater force.\n\n“My Lord, the villagers have found a champion to rally them,” the general bowed deeply as the baron approached, “we have been unable to find him and his skill at arms is unmatched in combat.”\n\nThe general barely gets his words out when he flinches as the Baron’s face flushed with rage and he bellows, “I don’t want to hear about your ineptitude on the field of battle! I want to hear that the matter has been settled! Never mind!” The Baron pulls the sword from the general’s sheath and runs him through. He motions to the general’s second in command as the general falls, “You, you have been promoted! Now take the second and third battalion and I don’t care if you have to burn the countryside, I want this hero’s head! Now!”\n\nThe newly appointed general salutes and runs off as the baron yells for his servants to clean up the mess. The Baron looks over his papers, muttering to himself. “What is this champion? Who would dare stand against me?” The Baron’s rage growing steadily as he reads the reports before him.\n\nOne of the servants walks in with a tray of food and drink, and meekly speaks up, “Your Lordship.”\n\n“What?” The Baron doesn’t even look up from his papers.\n\n“A letter came for you.”\n\n“From who?’\n\n“A Sir Nathan Orson.”\n\n“Who?” The Baron looks up as the servant hands over the letter. A wax seal the Baron doesn’t recognize visible. He takes it and the servant leaves with haste. As he reads the contents, the Baron’s hand shake with fury and he rips the letter to pieces. “That insole-,” the Baron stalks out of the rooms screaming for his general and for his armament. “Challenge me! A coward! I’ll cleave his head from his shoulders myself!”\n\nSix months later, the Baron stands upon the battlefield. His army clashing with the peasantry. Each side having used every trick or advantage they had to strike at the other. In the midst of winter, the snow piled high but instead of the pure white nature intended a crimson and black, hellish landscape was strewn across the hillside. At long last the Baron looks across at his opponent, a young knight, Sir Nathan Orson, and snears, “I finally found you child! I’ve learned about you boy! Barely able to become a knight, taking three years just to accomplish your trial, and your family a noble one only by the thinnest of blood. You dare to come to my lands and dictated how I should rule!”\n\n“The young knight stands ready for an attack, keeps calm but firm in his response, “Baron Lance Vaunstein, you are an enemy of the people. You treat them as if slaves and barely afford them any peace of mind. Taking whatever you wish and putting hundreds to the sword for the pettiest of crimes. You have broken your Oath to the Knighthood and I am here to bring justice!”\n\nThe Baron spits, the scowl never fading, “If you think you can!” The two charge across the gore, blades drawn. All around the two, screams of agony and clashing of steel can be heard. Both soldier and peasant lay wounded or dead, pools of blood everywhere, horses run off without riders, broken blades and shafts litter the ground. Slowly, the two armies stop fighting and watch as the leader from each side clash and send forth a deafening ring of steel. The Baron’s blade is sure and agile, reflecting the confidence and skill he had gained over many years of use. The young knight’s blade is fierce and fast, reminiscent of a passionate and believing soul. Each clash of blade on blade sends sparks as the enchantments in the steel vie for dominance like two lions fighting. The Baron’s strikes are well timed and often strike, but their impression is light. The young knight’s swings send the Baron reeling and relentlessly keep him unsettled and breathless.\n\nAll at once, a blade strikes true and deep. The armor having been cleaved clean through and impaling its opponent in his heart. The gathered forces stand frozen, their collective breaths held. The Baron looks into the young knight’s eyes and smiles, “To think I would have been challenged so fiercely. Well done young knight.” The Baron’s eyes go blank as he slumps to his knees. The young knight pulls his sword free and shouts a cry of victory and the peasants respond with vigor. The soldiers drop their blades in surrender." ]	1
	[WP] You think you're a side character in a safe and boring Oscar-bait film. Suddenly you realize you're actually in a Quentin Tarantino movie and you start to get nervous.	[ "Danny plucked his glass of whiskey off the table as soon as Rachel propped her feet near them. As the lip of the glass neared his mouth, his vision focused with picture-perfect hypersensitivity on Rachel’s violet-painted toe nails, gleaming under the dulling light of the living room lamp. Her piglet digits wriggled alluringly the moment his attention had been snatched by them, enchanting him further. He embarked on a miniature adventure where his eyes snake over the wrinkles of her soles, meandered across her instep, and settled at her ankles marked by matching, decade-old heart caricatures for tattoos. They’re beautiful and bare, crusted by a thin buildup of dirt from walking outside while tending to the dogs.\n\nHe couldn’t remember the last time he examined her feet so closely, especially while they’re having a serious conversation. They’re talking about having their first kid. Some little parasite was going to shoot from his loins and root itself to Rachel’s womb after infecting her tube-escaping orbs. It’s going to be a little gremlin they’re going to have to train to behave while it tormented them for years to come. Along the way the gremlin endures a vat of self-induced chemicals transforming it into a parent destroying monstrosity only to be satisfied by the prospect of a new pen to play in called college. And of course they couldn’t have one, because women, sweet and dainty as they may be, enjoy pain, and their pain multiplies the arduous burden of the man, and thus she must have more than one gremlin so they could get together to plot ways to make the father’s hair grey even faster.\n\nYet right now her feet was the subject of admiration, fading out the last words Rachel had uttered since being mesmerized tended to put cotton in his ears.\n\nShe snapped her fingers and woke him up from his trance. “I want a kid, Danny.” \n\n“You want some dick, that’s what you want.” Danny returned to drinking his whiskey. Years of destroying his taste buds made the rough liquor slide down like water. The magic retained.\n\n“No, asshole, I want the result of reproducing. That’s what your dick is for.”\n\n“Sexist, you’re sexist! Feminists, unite, this chick is destabilizing the matriarch!”\n\nRachel snorted and laughed, kicking her feet at Danny’s side. His drink sloshed close to spilling but he managed to save every drop with careful diligence. He grabbed a calf and pulled her closer while he scooted in between her legs. Its noon Saturday, not the most appropriate or productive start to their weekend, but they haven’t ever been traditional. Hell, this day and age being tradition was abnormal. \n\n“So I reckon this is a yes, aye partner?” Rachel laid back. Lip tucked under white teeth at the corner. Green eyes dazzled. Pale gold hair spooled behind her head, some of it pouring over the couch’s edge like a waterfall of wheat. She’s definitely not traditional. She’s not black. But he wasn’t traditional either. He’s not hood.\n\n“I got to think about it.” Danny swayed while patting her thigh. They’re both in t-shirts and undies, scraps to carnal lust.\n\n“Come on, kids are great!”\n\n“Kids are oops, we done fucked up. I did human sexuality in college, Rachel. Contraceptives plus the pull out method narrows those chances hard.”\n\n“I stopped taking the pill.” \n\n“You trick-ass witch!” he yelled. \n \nShe cackled aloud and ensnared Danny with her legs. “Give it to me, boy!” \n\nHe feigned playing hard to get, half laughing, half playing his part as he pushed her away with one arm with the other holding his drink up. “No. No you can’t. My body is a sacred place. It is not yours to play with.”\n\nA heavy rap rattled their apartment door, cutting their fun short and starting up Danny’s heart to racing like horse hoofs on the track. Ever since that day he was a kid and police knocked in his door to grab Uncle Ronnie he had a dreadful apprehension to any knock on the door. But as soon as he felt it, he knew to take deep breaths and let it go. It’s an old trauma. He’s an adult now. He handled these things way better now. \n\nBut fuck it messed up the foreplay. \n\nDanny placed the glass down and got up to answer the door. He faintly saw Rachel move quickly to their bedroom with bit more urgency than normal. She really wanted kids didn’t she? \n\nLooking through the peephole he saw a chest wider than his own shoulders. Straining his eyesight didn’t help him see the face of the giant on the other side of the door. He asked the reasonable question, “Who is it?”\n\nThe giant answered by kicking in Danny’s door with him right against it, a smashing retort coupled with his pained grunt. The hinges ripped off and the door snapped partly at the middle. Danny felt all the air slam out of his lungs in one big rush after hitting the ground. The back of his head tapped the floor, rocking him something fierce, wobbling his vision.\n\n“I can’t believe it. You left the boss for this burnt meat!” Hulk Hogan’s uglier stunt double lumbered on in, stampeding over the door and inches away from Danny’s scrambling feet. Danny slid and withered backwards on his elbows and heels. He’s babbling incoherently. Or that’s what he thought he’s doing, his breath hadn’t returned to him yet. \n\n“Rachel, you fucked this jungle rat.” The attacker's shadow swallowed Danny when he reached down and grabbed Danny by the neck. He didn’t struggle whatsoever to lift Danny off the floor and slam him against the wall. That didn’t hurt as bad compared to the fall to the floor. It destroyed his portrait of Nelson Mandela unfortunately. He’s also suspended by his neck while being choked by hands the neanderthal must have stolen from Paul Bunyan. “What a worm.” \n\nA distinct rack and tack breached their personal moment of murder followed by a voice he knew too well. “Marley, let go of my boyfriend. I got a claim to him. Kill him and I’ll splash you across the wall for a change of décor.” \n\n“You’re the boss’s girl. Boss’s orders are to bring you in and remove anyone in the way.”\n\nHe’s not letting go. Danny’s going to see the Maker soon. Dark pits fringed on his vision. His struggle weakened. He pissed himself.\n\nMarley sneered. “The monkey can’t even fend for himself. Where you get this softie?” \n\n“At Baskin-Robbins,” she said before triggering the shotgun to cut the big man down a size. The raucous retort thumped the room with an ear-bashing clap. \n\nMarley tilted over, somehow staying on his feet as he staggered through the door. He grabbed the thresh hold to keep himself up.\n\nDanny sat against the wall gasping for air in his own puddle of piss. His hands rubbed his sore neck as wet eyes swiveled from Marley to his girlfriend and back. \n\nRachel racked the shotgun again and stalked after Marley. A sculptured statue couldn’t be colder or harder than her face. \n\nMarley reached out for her. “I raised you like a little sister.” \n\nShe pumped thunder through his chest and down he went, out louder than the way he came.\n\nAcrid gun smoke filled Danny’s huffing nostrils. His vision swirled from delirium. He stared at Rachel’s back, framed by the open doorway. From his point of view, with the way the giant oaf’s feet stuck up to either side of Rachel, spread eagle, the moment was worth a picture. How insane could he be thinking of photography when his life was almost at an end and his girlfriend just killed a man? \n\nHe really was his job; such a moment of clarity snapped him to the all too terrible reality of the violence that underwent.\n\n“Rachel,” he called hoarsely, “What crazy shit is this?” \n\nShe swayed her hips saucily before whirling around. The shotgun swung up onto her shoulder like it’s a bat and not an instrument of dynamic death. \n\n“Danny, baby, I used to be a Neo-Nazi. Well, no, that’s a lie. I used to be of a sect worse than Neo-Nazis.” She blushed like she’s revealing her dad’s a bit hard on race relations. Like it's something to be slightly embarrassed about. \n\nHe nodded his head ever so slowly. “Fuck.” " ]	1
	[WP] A phoenix bursts into life from a nearby ashtray.	[ "The little girl sat near the smokers on their break. There was nothing better to do. Her mom was inside, and she wasn't allowed in. Besides, they were beautiful. \n\nOne woman, dressed in a royal blue was crying silently. She looked like a tragic princess to the girl. You never saw princesses smoking in movies, but then again, they never ate food or dressed themselves, either. Some group of little forest animals did it for them.\n\nThe other two women excused themselves and went back inside.\n\n“Do you own any pets?” asked the girl.\n\nHer royal blue princess looked at her, momentarily distracted from whatever was making her cry.\n\n“Huh?” she asked, followed by, “Oh, yeah, I have a dog. His name is King. You'd probably like him.”\n\nShe smiled sadly at the little girl.\n\nKing was a good name for a dog. She was pretty sure dogs couldn't make princess outfits, though.\n\n“My name's Belinda,” said the girl, “What's yours?”\n\n“Grace.”\n\n“Why are you crying?”\n\n“Long story, and not one for little girls,” said Grace.\n\n“I'm not so little. I'm old enough to know lots of stuff.”\n\n“Well, Belinda, this place is where dreams come to die. Follow your dreams, kid. Don't end up like whoever brought you here.”\n\n“Maybe you just need a fairy godmother. What was your dream?” \n\nThe woman looked embarrassed. What could be so high a princess couldn't reach it? Maybe she had a sister captured in frost, or wished for her stepmother to stop being so mean, or to find her real parents. Maybe there really was a dragon in there, and the cigarettes were how it was keeping track of them, making sure they couldn't run away.\n\n“I wanted to be a nurse, help people in hospitals, you know?”\n\n“When I was in the hospital, Santa came to make me feel better. He visited everyone. It was great. He told us all about the North Pole and left gifts.” \n\n“That's nice, sweetie. I hope you always believe in magic. Makes life a bit more bearable.”\n\nBelinda reached out and hugged Grace. “You're magic. All princesses are. You know, if a princess visited a hospital, it'd make people feel better, too.”\n\n“You think I'm a..?” \n\nThe royal blue princess seemed shocked. Maybe she was supposed to be in hiding. If she was, she was terrible at it.\n\n“Don't worry. I won't tell anyone,” said Belinda, “But if you can't be a nurse, maybe you can visit the hospital like Santa did.”\n\nGrace took in the last of her cigarette and blew it out in a puff. She was deep in thought. It was good to see she wasn't crying, anymore.\n\n“You know what, Belinda? You're right. That's not a half bad idea. I sew my own costumes. I'll bet I can make something that'd fit the bill.”\n\n“So that's how princesses get their clothes in the city,” said Belinda.\n\nGrace laughed, and said, “You're a cute kid. Don't ever stop believing, you hear?”\n\nShe twisted out the last bit of cigarette, and with a new hope headed back in the building.\n\nAs the last bit of smoke wafted up and went out, the ashtray suddenly burst into blue flames and a tiny, gorgeous bird flew out of it. She stuck out her finger. It flew to her, landed, and began preening itself happily. \n\nHow could she possibly stop believing, she wondered? The world was too full of magic not to." ]	1
	[WP] Heaven and Hell open competing restaurants across the street from on and other.	[ "The young customer walked to the door of the restaurant and met the old concierge who was at the enterance.\n\"How do you do?\", said the old concierge.\n\"Pretty good, thanks. Your establishment looks lovely\", replied the young customer.\n\"Thank you. Is this your first time to the 'Heavenly Meals' resturaunt?\"\n\"Why yes. I hear your meals are exquisite.\"\n\"They are. So shall I set a table for.... Hold on.\" The old man checked his book, \"It says here you had a meal at Hell's Kitchen a few days ago.\"\n\"How do you know that?\"\n\"Our manager knows everything\"\n\"Well, okay, I did visit there once.\"\n\"Did you eat there?\"\n\"Well, yeah.\"\n\"Then no. You're not allowed here\"\n\"What?\"\n\"No patron of Hell's Kitchen are allowed to eat here.\"\n\"You kidding me?\", said the customer, incredulously, \"That's so stupid\"\n\"Oh, is it? Do you think our fine establishment would get the reputation it has if we allowed anyone in?!\"\n\"Oh come on! You can't just refuse service because Ive eaten there once\"\n\"Yes I can. You've been tainted by their meal\"\n\"Tainted?\"\n\"Yes, by agreeing to eat there, you've insulted our fine establishment! You've given out the message that Hell's Kitchen is better than ours\"\n\"How would I know? I've never even been here! I've only heard about your meals from word of mouth!\"\n\"Then why didn't you come here first, when we were literally across the street from that foul establishment?\"\n\"They had Happy Hours!\"\n\"Oh please! Our elixirs couldn't even compete with their foul liquors\"\n\"Their meals were tasty! They served bacon with everything! And their apple pies were delicious.\"\n\"Oh, then why aren't you going there instead?\"\nThe customer suddenly looked at his feet, fidgeted slightly, then said in a small voice, \"... They started overcharging their meals.\"\n\"Hmph! So you would have still gone there if you could pay. What, now our meals don't seem that bad?\"\n\"Look Mister, er... Peter\", the customer said, reading his name tag.\n\"It's Saint Peter to you!\"\n\"St. Peter, I've only eaten there once. Surely it's not that big a deal\"\n\"Not a big deal! Many of our patrons have never even set foot in that Godforsaken restaurant. Why should I-\"\n\"Is there a problem?\"\nThe two turned. A bearded man with a tuxedo came from inside and stood in front of them.\n\"This man has eaten from Hell's Kitchen and now wants to dine in our fine establishment\", said St. Peter.\n\"Is that true?\", asked the bearded man.\n\"I've only eaten there once.\", said the customer\n\"He would've gone there again!\", said Peter.\n\"Look, I admit I would have, but they're overcharging now\", said the customer.\n\"Yes, that's what they do.\", said the bearded man, \"Entice you with cheap liquor and greasy foods, but later charge repeat customers so much that you'd have to sell your soul for just one meal. It's okay\", he said, opening the door, \"you can eat here\"\n\"Oh thank you, good sir\", exclaimed the customer.\n\"It's alright. Just promise you won't even enter Hell's Kitchen again\"\n\"Ha! After what they've done? Never\"\n\"No seriously. They'll entice you with extended happy hours.\"\n\"No, I've learned my lesson. Now just 'Heavenly Meals' for me\"\n\"Thank you \"\nSt. Peter's eyes showed disapproval of what just happened, but did not say anything. It's when the customer entered the restaurant, leaving just him and the bearded man, that he spoke.\n\"You're lucky you're the son of the manager, Jesus, but allowing him would taint the reputation of our fine-\"\n\"Of our fine establishment, yes, you say that a lot\", replied Jesus, \"but this isn't the old days anymore. These days we have competition with Buddha's Oriental Takeout, Krishna's Indian Feasts, John Smith's Stakehouse and recently Marx's Meals. Can we really afford to refuse customers with all this competition?\"\n\"But your Dad-\"\n\"I'll talk to Dad. Look, as long as they aren't Hell's Kitchen regulars, allow them in\"", "\"Jesus Beelzebub, how many Carolina Reaper peppers did you put on here?\" Lucifer spat out the burger as he ran to the fridge and grabbed a gallon of milk. He tipped it back and let it run into his mouth and across his face. Next to him, the demon frowned as the liquid pooled on the floor of the kitchen.\n\n\"It's called the Satan Burger for Christ's sake,\" Beelzebub replied. \"Can't half-ass something like that.\"\n\nLucifer dropped the gallon on the floor and began ripping chunks off a loaf of bread. \"That's not helping at all,\" he said, tears streaming down his face. \"Did you bring those up from Hell?\"\n\n\"God no,\" the demon answered. \"We don't have anything that potent. Had to import those from South Carolina.\"\n\n\"Well, let's keep it that way,\" Satan said, flecks of bread shooting from his mouth. \"Actually, let's just send some storms over there. Just get rid of them all together.\"\n\nBeelzebub sighed and jotted down a note to send down later. At first, the prospect of opening up a restaurant had been appealing, him being the demon and gluttony and all. He'd started putting together a menu as soon as Lucifer had approached him with the idea. Of course, they hadn't even opened before the problems had started piling up. First the lawsuits from Denny's claiming that the menu was a carbon copy of their own. Luckily, lawyers had been easy to come by and the mess had been quietly cleared up.\n\nThat hiccup of course was followed by the health inspectors' issues with sanitation conditions in the kitchen (you find a demon that could keep a tidy work space), accounting's concerns with the cost versus portion size (seriously, no one goes to a restaurant expecting anything less than too much food), and now worries that the main courses' nutritional values might be cause for legitimate health concerns (no shit Sherlock).\n\nThe stress was enough to affect even his appetite. Now, what was supposed to have been a routine taste test before the grand opening had turned into Satan informing him that Heaven was opening up their own restaurant across the street. And their opening was on the same night of course.\n\n\"Anyway, what was I saying? Oh yea.\" Lucifer's eyes were still red but he'd finally stopped crying. \"So get this. Heaven's opening up a health-food restaurant across the street and guess what they're calling it. 'Moderation.' Can you believe that shit?\" Beelzebub repressed another sigh as the devil fought back laughter. \"Who's gonna eat a restaurant called Moderation?\"\n\n\"I don't know man,\" Beelzebub said. \"These new age kids. There all over that kind of crap. That might actually be an issue-\"\n\n\"Bah,\" said Lucifer cutting him off. \"Millennials are gonna love us!\"\n\n\"You've written off every menu item that doesn't incorporate veal,\" replied the demon, unable to keep the criticism out of his voice.\n\n\"Yea, well, millennials are gonna love veal,\" retorted the devil. He tipped the rest of the burger into the garbage and turned back to Beelzebub. \"Listen, I have full faith in you that the opening will go off without a hitch. And if anything should go wrong...\" A wicked grin covered the devil's face. \"Well, let's just not let anything go wrong.\"\n\nBeelzebub coughed as Satan disappeared and the smell of sulfur filled the air. He peaked out the curtains to where a man in an impeccable white uniform was handing out flyers across the street. This wasn't going to end well for him. Not at all." ]	2
	[WP] Massive corporations dominate the world in a dystopian future. You're an intern, and you've just got yourself into your first taste of corporate warfare.	[ "This is my first post here, be gente on my shitty english.\n\n I have said it to him, and now I'm repeating it to you: I don't give a fuck about this \"water is essencial to life crap. If they want it, they will pay for it!\n\nAn intern comes in with a mug of coffee.\n\n- Here your drink Mr. Vanderley.\n\n- Nice timing Johnson, sit there and learn something - he took a sip of the drink - Yeah, you heard me! Well they better find me something to page me with them!\n\nHe pointed to the mug, gave a thumbs up and mouthed \"amazing\" to the intern.\n\n- I'm not... No I... Look I'm not scared of you! - his veigns were poping off his forehead - Oh, you can try I welcome you to fucking try, yeah, talk to you in a few minutes asshole.\n\nHe put the phone back to its charging stand and casually layed beneath his office table, fiddling with the drawers.\n\n- Johnson, I would get down If I were you, the drones are coming any second know.\n\nThe windows of the office suddenly exploded in a cacophony of sounds from the hail of bullets and the drones rotors. The automático vehicles made their way inside the office filling the walls with holes in seconds, Johnson screamed in a high pitch tone.\n\n- Johnson, please! Make yourself useful and hand me your phone. - Vanderley removed the battery and dumped It in a little cilinder of Green fluid, quickly tossing It to the other side of the room. - I'd cover my ears now.\n\nBoth of Johnson's hands were already in his ears, and he was still screaming. The cilinder let out a spark, quickly the liquid inside turned from green to blue and the cilinder let out a high pitch whistle. All the drones droped down, some, crashing with the ceiling and walls, other, felled backwards crashing in the streets 2,5km bellow - one of the drones exploded inside the office, a little black circle of plastic burning in Orange Flames.\n\nThe office door was slammed open, a woman with a grenade launcher runned in, tossing her back against a wall.\n\n- Mr Vanderley, I came as soon as I heard the noise,!Do you need cover fire?\n\nVanderley ler out a tiny chuckle.\n\n- Thank you Becky, that won't be necessary. You can leave the grenade launcher here and go back to your desk.\n\n- OK, don't forget about the meeting at 3:00.\n\n- Thank you, I won't my dear.\n\nVanderley took a briefcase from a drawers and began to assemble something.\n\n- You know, there are two lessons that you can learn from this little scuffle: first, If you gonna sendo drones, make sure that they are properly shielded from improvised EMP bombs, did you get that?\n\nJohnson agreed with his head, his ears buzzing enough from the drone attack that he barely listened.\n\n- The other thing, and this is important. I built this Company from the dirt, I had nothing, and I did't come to stand where I'm standing from just having an army grade expertise in sniper rifles.\n\nVanderley put an assembled rifle in the intern hands.\n\n- Sometimes you gotta run with punches you know? Sometimes you need to be competent enough to fire a grenade at the top floor of a neighbour building.\n\nHe loaded the launcher with red grenades, pulled from another drawers.\n\n- Now be a dear and watch their windows, they might have snipers waiting for me to pop up my head.\n\nJohnson crouched on the burning carpet, the rifle heavy in his hands, resting on one of his knees. The intern scanned the other building with the scope, suddenly, a bright shined from a window, Johnson fired 3 rounds.\n\n- Good job Johnson! We will glady put this on your next evaluation!\n\nVanderley fired 3 grenades, they exploded in the opposite engulfing a whole floor in flames and smoke. The telephone ringed.\n\n- A drone attack, really Rigby? I remenber you guys being more passionate about your corporate assassinations. - he tossed the grenade launcher from hole in the office wall. - Yes, yes... No, onde of my interns got him, yeah... You know, young lad, good potential, little rough in the edges, you know how It is.\n\nVanderley sited on his leather chair, Johnson was still shaking with the rifle in hands, Vanderley covered the phone and - Toss it, make the police earn their Jobs! - Johnson threw the gun off the window like It was a giant bathroom spider.\n\n- Are you ready to talk numbers? Oh, yes, I see...Well, I think I can make a a interesting case. - he touched the buttons on the phone - Becky, is our Ninja division busy today?\n\n- No Mr Vanderley.\n\n- OK, dispatch them to Rigby's office, the burning floor across the hyper highway - he let go of the Button, and pressed again - Tell them that Rigby might have a machinegun right bellow his chair.\n\n- Will do Mr Vanderley.\n\n- I'll call you in 30 minutes Rigby. - the voice screamed in anger the other side.\n\nBefore the line was cut, japanese words were screamed in the background.\n\n- Well Johnson, I got good and bad news: good news is, I'm very impressed on your can-do atitude! The fact that you didn't poop or peed your pants, that's real talent you know?\n\nHe sitted straight in his chair.\n\n- Bad news are that you are a terrible shooter and your bullets just incapacitaded Rigby's sniper. - Vanderley sweeped grains of broken concrete from his table - I'm afraid that I will have to give you a bad review for today, however.... - he poured a drink for himself - I'll give you extra credit If you do survive the sniper's revenge attempt on your life when he leaves the hospital.\n\nJohnson was still in the same position, aiming the rifle, cold sweat and ears ringing. Vanderley slaped his shoulders.\n\n- Ata boy, strong and silent. You are going places in the future Johnson! - he got up from the chair, leaving the mug on the table - I gotta say, the coffee that you made is horrible, you can take it.\n\n- Now, if you excuse me, I got another apointment - he retrieved another briefcase from his desk, the same tyle as the one from the sniper rifle - Maybe, if get there early Larry from finances won't have time to booby trap the meeting room, ciao!\n\nBecky got in the office to leave the boss his mail, Johnson was till aiming at the other building, eyes wide and without blinking, she dragged him to the elevator and clicked on the PTSD division's floor. " ]	1
	[WP] Some bored teens are out hunting with their parents at night. One of them shoots at the moon out of boredom. The moon flickers.	[ "Everything is always so boring here. The horizon seems to stretch out for miles without seeming to end. We are out hunting again. That is the 5th time this week. Pops says we have to or we won't have anything to eat. We don't HAVE to. It's just something to do. There is nothing else to do. It's either this or sitting on the rocking chair and looking at the purple sky. I'd almost rather do that than go hunting again. \n\nWe don't ever kill anything anyways. All of the animals know the paths we take and they are very good at hiding. It's all a drag. Sometimes I don't even try to aim at them anymore. I just pretend to aim. Sometimes, If I am lucky and they are close to the moon, I shoot the moon instead. I like to watch it flicker. Pops gets upset when I do it. He says it's bad luck, but I just think it's fun. He used to tell me stories as a kid, of when we moved here. He said the old planet got too crowded. Nobody can live there anymore he said, except the robots that grow everything. \n\nHe said the earth was beautiful and that moon was very important. They even built religions and calendars around it. That's stupid, I don't build religions around my calendar. He says the moon controlled something called the tides. He gave me a great big lecture about how important those were. I don't see the big deal in water rocking back and forth. He told me about polar caps too said they ice patches covered millions of miles. I don't believe him, and, even if I did, what is the big deal about a bunch of stinkin ice. I bet it was more fun than this though. " ]	1
	[WP] After an apocalyptic war, humanity turns back to religion for answers. Unfortunately, the only scripture they can find to reestablish religion is an obscure passage with no context.	[ "Years had passed after the great war that split the moon and turned the sky to a cold, overcast permanence. The remainders of humanity had long forgotten why the war happened, but they knew that old kings slew each other in conflict which consumed the world in full. Now, what life remained dug into the cold ground and snow, searching for the mutated and terrible flora and fauna which supported any sort of existence.\n\n\nIn this age, a tome was found- a collection of the old world's writings. To many, this tome made no sense. So long had passed, it's words could be read, but not fully understood. It was the old man, mystical and wretched, who took the tome and put it to service, instructing others with what strands of hope they could glean from it's singed pages.\n\n\nThe old man took to the mound, his clothes disheveled and trinkets hung from his old robe. Day after day, he took a bundle of papers with him to preach from, and the people gathered. The'd clamor, restless, waiting to hear the word of their god told through the old man.\n\n\nHe looked upon his flock from under a wide-brim hat, huddled together in the chilled air with watery, hopeless eyes. His many charms that hung from his neck and wrists jangled as he opened the tome and began to flip through pages to reach the days passage. Today's seemed particularly poignant, as there had been a terrible blight that had befallen the few crops that still grew.\n\n\n\"My children\", he began, \"Today, is a day of fasting. Yes, the gods often take more than what we have to give, but in their own way, this is how they hold our faith. They keep out attention by preforming feats of unimaginable cruelty to remind us how grateful we must be when the harvest is good.\"\n\n\"In times of such crisis, we must remember not to become the muzzled beast in the cage, waiting to be let loose. We must respect the God of Death, when he claims us on his own harvest of mankind.\"\n\n\nThe old man flipped another page, taking a long moment before speaking once again. \n\n\n\"I see you all, and the gods see you. You starve. You hurt. Together, you sway in your pain and conceive the terrible thoughts and sins which would prolong you just one more day. One more meal. Is this what undid the old kings, you must ask yourself! Is it better to die pure under their gaze, or like an animal? Let none of this distract you from when, in nineteen ninety eight, the Undertaker threw Mankind off hell in a cell, and plummeted sixteen feet through an announcers table.\"" ]	1
	[WP] Come back to this post everyday to continue the story of your last writing prompt.	[ "I sit here, and I think of you. I indulge in the bittersweet silence of the evening. I exhale and allow the cigarette smoke to swirl around me like the very embodiment of my guilt and sorrow. \n\nYou always hated it when I smoked. I longed for freedom, but that freedom had a price. Not a price paid in blood; that would have been too merciful. It cost my very soul. You etched the a pain like no other on my heart, and stole my entire being. \n\nI wonder sometimes why I feel this guilt. I wonder why, after all you put me through, I still find myself hopelessly in love with you. I may not have been perfect but I gave my all, and that is more than you will ever be able to say. \n" ]	1
	[WP] You are the master of bad luck, anything you want to happen will happen in the exact opposite way	[ "Born into a rich family: both parents were arrested for thievery and drug trafficking.\n\nFoster parents were unimaginably kind: they were deeply entrenched in a cult.\n\n3 and a half years spent in university: kicked out of school for plagiarizing a paper that was published 2 minutes before submitting the assignment.\n\n$1,000 in lottery tickets: $3 in winnings.\n\nHired for a new job: fired being an hour late on the first day. The day before was daylight savings time.\n\nPanhandled, asking for money to afford food and shelter: worst blizzard in over a century.\n\nSpent the last $6 on a cheap bottle of vodka: mugged and handed the bottle over to the thief.\n\nJumped off of a thirteen-story building: coat got caught on a statue on the twelfth story until the firemen arrived.\n\nSwallowed several pills that were stolen from a junkie passed out under a bridge: most vitamins that this body has received in years.\n\nIntentionally got arrested, swiftly took the officer's gun from its holster, and put it firmly in mouth pointing to the brain: 50,000 volts in the mouth.\n\nSentenced to 10 years in prison: finally, luck has turned from bad to good!\n\nPrisoner bus crashes: paralyzed.\n\nCan't speak. Can't hear. Can't see. Can't feel.\n\nDarkness. Imprisoning me.\n\n_____\n\n^(Do not look at /r/ScottBeckman if you want good luck for a year.)", "I stand, but it turns out I'm sitting. Luck seems a vague concept, but it turns out it's very heavy, and I keep losing inches of height from how heavily it's sitting on my shoulders. This is not hyperbole. I seem to be shorter every day. I keep hoping to be taller. But I keep doing the opposite. It's not that I wish to be getting taller. I jsut want to be as tall as I used to be.\n\nI want to sit. So I am standing now. Although that doesn't quite make sense. As standing is not quite the opposite of sitting, but neither is laying. I feel like the opposite of sitting is more like not being. So I am not here anymore now. But I can only do the opposite of that. So I'm sitting again.\n\nI'm sort of stuck in this chair. I check the clock, but instead of checking it, I appear to not know how to read time. Or maybe that time isn't really a thing. But that can't be true. Because I'm suddenly standing up again. I don't really remember being that tall now. But I'm the height I don't mean to be. Because who really means to be a height. I guess I have less expectations than I used to.\nNow, I stand and sit freely. Because I don't really expect either of them. When I remember to expect them I suddenly don't seem to be doing either. Laying? I guess is what you'd call it. But really I'm just eating lunch.\n\nIt's just not clear what I'm doing, but it's clear that it's the opposite of unclarity. Crystal unclarity?\n\nI tried to hold a hand today. Not my own hand. Someone else's hand. It was really funny! So it was deadly serious. I couldn't really do it. I mean I was doing it, but it was mostly one sided. And I was standing, but sitting - luck seems to make a lot more sense than it used to. It's still very heavy tho. I am as tall as I mean to be now. Even though I don't really mind how tall I am. I am just as tall as I was always meant to be.\n\nMaybe tomorrow I will be taller. Mom, will I be taller tomorrow? I am holding your hand, or really - you are holding mine." ]	2
	[WP] The gift of the strange bonsai tree. It almost seems to whisper to you.	[ "\nIt was a peaceful morning. \n\nHe was walking through the gardens of his castle, inspecting the rows of oddly shaped potted bonsai he had been attending to with some pride as he set a pair of woolly gloves aside. \n\n\"Ahhhhh!\" \n\nHe looked up and saw a sword flying towards him. Instinctively, he leaned to the side and caught the hand holding the sword by the wrist, twisting. \n\n\"Ow!\" \n\nHe barely managed to avoid kneeing his assailant in the gut but that was mostly because his assailant was rather shorter and smaller than he was used to. \n\nThe sword fell from the child's hand. He caught it by the hilt in his free hand, holding it away in a reverse grip. He loosened his grip on the wrist just a little and stared in bemusement at the red-faced child who was glaring at him. \n\n\"Who gave you that?\" \n\n\"Nobody!\" the child burst out, \"I'm here to take revenge on you! You usurper, you traitor!\"\n\nHe squinted and hunched down, staring at the child for a moment. Recognition filtered into his mind as his gaze landed on the lavender-shaped crest on the outer coat. \"Oh, you're, er, my rebellious brother's little girl?\"\n\n\"I'm a boy!\" \n\n\"Sorry! Sorry.\" he winced at the shrill tone. \"I'm not that great with children.\" \n\nThe child stared at him with an intense expression of wounded pride. \n\n\"A-Anyway, your footwork could use some practice but that lunge was almost perfectly done.\" he waited a beat. The child kept staring at him so he added tentatively, \"...good job?\" \n\n\"I'm going to kill you!\" the boy announced. \"You killed my father who was supposed to be the lord!\" \n\n\"Well excuse me,\" he said mildly, \"Your father decided he wasn't happy that our father decided I was to inherit the clan. I wasn't going to just roll over. Anyway, he's terrible at keeping books. Being able to count money is very important for maintaining a successful land, because-\" \n\n\"You killed him!\" \n\nHe blinked and looked at the boy a little oddly, \"Of course I did. I wasn't going to surrender- he'd have demanded I gut myself if I did. Also he said he'd raze the castle to the ground. Do you actually know how many people live in here?\" \n\n\"I don't care about peasants! I'm going to kill you!\" \n\nThe child looked at him again, stewing angrily. He sighed. \n\n\"Look, declaring your intentions like this isn't particularly smart. Nor is charging at a well trained warrior with no preparations.\" he paused, noticing that the child was flushing and looking away, \"If you can grow up a bit and learn how to think first before you charge, then I'll consider another match between us. How does that sound?\" \n\nThe child mumbled something hastily. \n\n\"What?\" \n\n\"I said I'll get you...next time.\" \n\n\"Good! Now, for your punishment.\" \n\n\"Punishment?\" the child blanched. \n\n\"Relax. I'm not going to have you killed over a small thing like attempted murder.\" He tilted his head, \"However, with one careless swing, you've just destroyed a decade old beautiful bonsai.\" he said, pointing at the rather sad looking and scrawny quince tree that was now missing half its volume. \"So in punishment, I'll have you get me a replacement.\" \n\n\"I- I don't have money!\" the child stammered.\n\nHe snorted, \"I wasn't expecting you to buy a bonsai, boy. You'll have to grow one for me. It's just not the same having a bonsai from someone else's garden.\" \n\n\"I don't know how to grow a bonsai.\" the child said sullenly, looking away. \n\n\"I'll show you how.\" he said, \"It's not that hard. You just need some patience.\" \n\nThe child looked at his row of awkwardly shaped bonsai. He laughed in an embarrassed way, \"A lot of patience. Perhaps you might even do better than me. Or is something like this too difficult for you?\" \n\n\"I can do anything better than you!\" the child burst out, \"I am my father's heir!\" \n\n\"So you are...\" he said softly. Louder, he added, \"We'll see. I shall have a young juniper pot delivered to your chambers with instructions on its care.\" he released the child, and held out the sword, \"Be careful where you swing that.\" \n\nThe child stared at him. The child accepted the sword. The child twisted around and slashed up in a diagonal cut. \n\nHe kicked out, the steel plates beneath his geta, brushing the sword aside. He stepped on the blade and whistled when he saw that it cut cleanly through the stony path beneath them. \n\n\"Good blade. I certainly must look up its blacksmith.\" he lifted his foot and stood aside, allowing the flushing child to reclaim the weapon. \n\n\"I'll get you one day!\" \n\n\"You're welcome to try...once you become a formidable enough opponent.\" he said in reply. \"Learn to wield a sword like it is an extension of yourself. Learn to respect the peasants. Learn how to be patient and cunning.\" he smiled, \"Maybe then you'll be something worth dying to.\" \n\nThe child stared at him again. \"You're...ok with me killing you one day in revenge for my father.\" \n\nHe shrugged. \"This is a period of strife. My chances of survival are really not as high as you think they are being a lord of a prominent clan.\" \n\nHe looked down his row of bonsai, not quite perfect, not quite right in shape or form. \n\n\"The least I can really do is make sure I fall to a better man.\" " ]	1
	[WP] "Jesus you are the worst roommate!"	[ "As I pulled up into the car park for our apartment building, I could hear electronic music blasting.\nGod damn it, he better not be having another party.\nGiving him the benefit of the doubt, I sighed and got out of my car. It was pretty chilly outside and through the dark of night I could see a couple making out outside the door to my building, I nodded to them awkwardly as I passed. Ascending the stairs to my apartment, I was sure the music got louder and louder and became more and more certain that it was coming from my place. \nWhy was I surprised?\nI turned the last corner of the stairs and to my surprise was greeted by an overly drunk kid stumbling around looking confused. He looked up at me and beamed.\n\n\"Woooo party on man!\" He slurred as I narrowly avoided his embrace.\n\nAfter avoiding two or three more similar encounters in the hallway I arrived at my... open door? \nThe music was definitely coming from my apartment.\nI just hope he isn't doing that party trick with my fish again.\nAs I braced myself for the horrors that my roommate had cooked up for what he called his 'Jamborees' I heard a drunken chorus of cheers emerge from my room. I stepped over one of many passed out revellers in the hallway and into my home.\n\nMy apartment was trashed, once more. Red lights strobed about the walls and bottles of wine decorated the floor and tabletops. My kitchen and living space was packed with all kinds of people pulsating to the music. The floor was sticky with alcohol. Squeezing past the crowds of partiers in my corridor, I could hear my roommate giving a speech. He was stood on a crate on my balcony, wearing my bedsheets around him, with the bottom part of a cone atop his head. In his left hand he held a bottle of wine and in the right he held a water gun.\n\n\"ARE YOU ALL READY?!\" He blurted.\nHe was met with rallying cries of excitement, I however stood at the back of my room, unimpressed and angered.\n\"I WILL NOW TURN WATER...\" He paused, squirting water from the gun into the frenzied crowd. \"INTO WINE!!\" He let loose the contents of the gun into the crowd once more, however, to everyone's surprise but mine, it was no longer water. \nAnother carpet ruined.\nFrom his podium he spotted me, his face lit up in excitement and he continued his speech.\n\n\"Everyone give praise to my bud Ben over here! Without him JC's Jamborees wouldn't be possible!\" He belted, followed by the inevitable crazed shouts of the crowd. I smiled and held my hand up awkwardly. \n\n\"Alright! Lets keep this party goin'!\"\n\nJC jumped down from his pedestal and parted the crowd in front of him as he jigged towards me.\n\"Hey how's it going brah!\" He yelled over the uproar of the crowd behind him.\nHis greeting was met by a stern stare from me.\n\n\"Aw, come on man liven up its a party! I know you've just got back from work, but dude! It's only 1 in the morning! The night is young, you know what I mean? I haven't even showed them the old walking on wat-\"\n\n I sharply cut him off.\n\n\"Dude you've fucked our place up again! How many times is this now? 6? 7? I have lost count and I'm sick of your shit. Do you know how much it has cost me to repair this place each time?! I want you to move out. I'm going to stay with Jude, but I'm coming back tomorrow and I want you gone.\"\n\nHe stared at me blankly as I watched the smile fade from his face. The music behind us was all but drowned out by the moment.\n\"But... I... Dude? Come on man... have some wine! It'll be good I'll tell one of these girls you're awesome, they might like you, and we'll have a crazy night! Fuck Jude he's a loser!\" \nI moved to the door of the apartment, ready to close the door. \n\n\"Jesus, you are the worst roommate.\"\n\n", "\"Oh my god, JESUS, where are my car keys\".\nMy anger clearly on the surface for all to see as I shift the sofa cushion up. \nAll I find are hairs and a couple of rice crispy's that have escaped from the morning breakfast bowl. \n\"Hey man, don't take my fathers name in vain\".\nDrools Jesus who's lounging in a battered arm chair near the TV.\nThe screen playing a rerun of the fresh prince of Belair. \nHis long hair covers his modesty, I wish he would wear more than that old lion cloth. \n\"Jesus your the worst roommate, I mean Look why do you have to keep hiding thing,\nLast week you parted the water at the local park and hide my car inside\".\nJesus looks at me barely suppressing his laughter. \n\"I think we need to talk, it's all well and good that you help people out and all that but seriously! Paul is passed out in the corner again, Matthew has locked himself in the toilet again....\nJesus rolls to his sandalled feet and goes over to the fridge. \n I glimpse the only fridge magnet, a picture of Jesus stares back at me. It reads \"I had followers before Twitter\" \nHe fills a large glass with cold water and returns the jug back to the fridge. \n\"...you have people coming over all hours of the night begging you to cure them...\"\nJesus rolls his eyes and removes a strand of hair out of his face, plopping back into the arm chair he slowly stirs the water in the glass with a finger. \n\"...you've never paid me a dim in rent\".\n\"Hold on\". \nJesus raises a wobbly finger, the water swells and starts to turn red.\n\"I did cure you of that little problem, hiccups you know \"down stairs\".\nI can feel the embarrassment colouring my cheeks. \n\"Um..yeah, well um yeah thanks for that but anyway you drunk again.\"\n\"In my defence hiccup I can't help it, it just turns to wine\". \nThe living room door slams open and in walks Judas. \n\"And don't get me started on this guy\" I shout. " ]	2
	[WP] Faded heart, strong mind.	[ "Ver-dun walked forward, slowly and deliberate, aware of the fear surrounding him. The people in the open town square whispered and pointed, holding their weapons tight. They knew who he was, what he had done. That was what Ver-dun wanted.\n\nA man stepped forward flanked by two other soldiers. He strutted up to Ver-dun gripping his sword, more out of nervous habit than threat. Ver-dun stared at the man with blank, black eyes.\n\n“Ver-dun,” the man cleared his throat. “What brings you here?”\n\n “You know,” Ver-dun said with no desire for pleasantries. “I have come,” he said sweeping a gauntleted arm across the surrounding scenery, “to take this, but you knew that.”\n\nThere was silence for a time save for the flapping of Ver-dun’s cloak. His cowl jumped upon his head, moving like a demon.\n\n“So why do you come to talk?” the man before him asked.\n\n“My master does not wish to have to rebuild a village after I burn it to the ground. You surrender is convenient, not necessary,” Ver-dun said, the last part added to reinforce the desperation of their current situation. The man bit his lip, looked back at his people. The man squared his shoulders and Ver-dun knew his decision before the man could turn to face him.\n\n …\n\n\"Monster!” a voice screamed. Ver-dun turned to look at the woman in the cage. It rolled along past him as he stood beside the road. The angry female, clothed in dirty rags, spat at him. The spittle landed upon his gray shirt and Ver-dun acknowledged it long enough to wipe it off. Then the woman was gone.\n\n“Sir,” a man in black and red walked up to Ver-dun, a sergeant, who looked concerned.\n\n“Sergeant,” Ver-dun regarded the man.\n\n “There appears to be a rebellion,” the man said, obviously nervous. “Down by Betuk river.”\n\n“It will be dealt with,” was the reply.\n\n ...\n\n Ver-dun sat in the saddle, thinking. His cloak whipped about and his cowl hid most of his face, a he appeared as a creature of death and horror. He appeared as he was. Ver-dun thought of the woman in the cage. She had aroused in him those things. Those things Reknor had spoken of: feelings. He remembered those. He had had them long ago, in a time filled with pain and loss. Ver-dun did not miss them but at the same time remembered the warmth and joy.\n\nSuch obscure concepts now, but he remembered what the words meant, what the feelings supposedly did to a man. Others acted differently because of their emotions. Not good, but neither entirely bad.\n\nVer-dun might not even be having such thoughts if not for Reknor. Reknor had found him, back in the Land of Ash. He discovered what Ver-dun was and meant to fix it. He never finished. He had not returned to Ver-dun what he had lost; only woken him up.\n\nSo now Ver-dun served a man, a Dark Lord. He could not have told someone why. He needed- a purpose- something. The Dark Lord gave a purpose. Others had offered such things as well, but the Dark Lord’s had seemed the best. It brought peace and order, such things that feelers seemed to yearn for. Yet, they fought against the Dark Lord, or rather Jenar as Ver-dun knew him, while still they cried for freedom.\n\nFeelers were confusing.\n\n…\n\n“Ver-dun, what brings you here?”\n\nA memory flickered, a time long past, another so soon. Ver-dun growled at the sudden, uninvited thoughts. Something was wrong. Everything was going just fine, nothing had gone wrong and that was wrong. There was something missing, something Ver-dun… wanted.\n\nIt felt, and that was the first clue, so normal: the rage. It was the last thing Ver-dun remembered feeling and the only thing he had since felt, or at least strongly. Tinges of regret, a constant want for purpose, and even some sadness: these things remained, since Reknor awoke him. Only rage ever moved him to action.\n\nNo the rage filled Ver-dun. Rage at what he was doing, were he was, the people, the past, the world. Nothing but rage. Ver-dun howled, a beast uncaged. He lashed out and the slaughter began. Men rushed forward to defend their dead commander, foolish feelers. No, Ver-dun was a Feeler now to. How dare he. He growled, extended his hand, and relived the men of their worries and passions.\n\nThe people screamed and the memories came back, the screams, the ash, the blood.\n\nIt was wrong, it was the past, but it was now.\n\nVer-dun became aware, for a moment, of the world around him: the burning buildings, the innumerable dead upon, the red rivers that covered the streets. The pools of crimson collected in which swam the dead. Ver-dun looked down, at his blood caked shirt, cloak, gauntlets, spear, boots. His face too was covered and he touched it, wiping away the hot sticky liquid, smearing it.\n\nIt was not over, the lull was past. Back to the killing. Now the rage and his mind worked together. The people had angered him and they were paying for it. Ver-dun preformed his act, worked his art, and danced his waltz of death. Time blurred together, now Ver-dun aware of its passing.\n\nA final opponent remained now, begging for life, freedom, mercy. He received none. Ver-dun did what he did best and ended the man, snuffing out the flame of life and emotion that had been burning so bright within.\n\nVer-dun regarded the dying fires about him. Slowly the emotion faded. Ver-dun felt s single, final, persistent burst of hate.\n\nTurnings, Ver-dun walked back to where his stead waited. He would need to report back, tell his reason for the towns destruction. Why had he destroyed it? He knew but it seemed muddled, an affect feelers often reported. There was a fire, somewhere, in the town? No, in him. It had burned and the town followed. Why? Ver-dun remembered faintly a feeling, a passion. It was gone, the weakness was past.\n\nVer-dun mounted his beast and rode away, leaving behind the fire. He left as little more than he was before he had come, once again nothing but a being of ash.\n\n", "Do it.\n\nI said do it. He deserves it. Can't you see it? Come on, he walked himself right into this mess. Let it all crash down on top of him.\n\nBut his eyes... look at him. He's only human.\n\nRight, human. He's a human that's made a mistake. Many, many grevious mistakes. And humans have to pay. The most basic concept of justice comes into play here. Can't you feel it? \n\nJust one more chance... he can prove himself, you know he can.\n\nBullshit. He's had countless opportunities and he's thrown them away. All the conversations, the coming clean, it could have been done. But he didn't. Because he's too wrapped up in his own little world to look outside and realize his actions, or lack thereof, have consequences.\n\nYou got to dictate what happened before. You almost killed us both.\nNow I say what to do.\n\nBut...\n\nNo buts. This ends, now.\n\n... okay.\n\nDo it.\n\n" ]	2
	[WP] There's a guy whose work consist of suffering the pain or situation that the buyer don't want to go by. Are you hangover? Give him 40 bucks and just by touching him you're perfectly healthy and now is HIS hangover. Felling depressed? Give him a hundred and touch him. Now you're happy, he's blue	[ "He was well known in the community, and would always stick around and play chess in the park. He was in his 40's I suspect, and many people would vouch for his abilities. He was right in front of me, sitting at his normal spot when I joined him, sitting across from him.\n\n\"So, is it forever, or just what I'm feeling now? Can you make people feel bad?\" I asked with a deadpan face, my voice carefully modulated. No one would expect such a question from me, a perky looking woman in her 20's, without any appearance of troubles. \"Does doing this sap your energy? are there additional costs to your abilities?\" \n\nHe appeared to be trying to take measure of me as he listened quietly. A minute later that seemed an eternity, he finally spoke, sounding tired, \"Look, miss. I don't know what you're doing here, what do you want? The agencies around the world have already cleared my use of this ability, and all uses are declared and taxes appropriately. Granted my situation is unique, it is still a business I run here. I even have a permit.\" \n\n\"Well, I want to propose something to you. You see, I'm manic. Sometimes I'm annoying happy, and other times--\" \n\n\"Yes, I am well aware of what manic episodes are.\" he cut me off, \"Do you want me to take some of your happiness, or sadness? I've got rates for that.\"\n\nGrunting in annoyance, \"No, sir. I mean, not precisely. With these excess levels of emotion, both in happiness and sadness, well, you can help many people achieve a more moderated emotional level. I would believe that most people come to you to relieve their sorrows. I don't know how you replace it with happiness, but I figure you could use more of it yourself. You could allow manic people to give you a great deal of happiness, and sadness. Surely taking on all that sadness and such, that must have a burden on you?\"\n\nHe tilted his head at me considering, \"You are quite a strange young lady. No one has ever inquired about my happiness or well being.\" He rubbed a hand over his face, the weight of years now showing more heavily as he let out a deep breath before he stated his terms, \"You're right though, I suppose this isn't sustainable forever unless I am more moderate in my approach and consider my own health. But these are my terms. I'll pay $80 for happiness, and i'll take whatever is necessary to bring a person back to a more 'normal' level of happiness. I'm going to get out of the physical ailments game, it's getting rough for me at my age. For every client you bring me with happiness, I'll pay you $20. That's the deal, take it or leave it.\" \n\nI stared into his dark brown eyes as he stated his terms, surprised over how quickly he analyzed things. I had expected to present a better case to earning more, but his terms were fair as I nodded, \"I believe we have a deal. I'll draft up the business papers, and have clients scheduled. We'll discuss hours you're willing to work and premiums for off the clock work. You will be helping a lot of people, sir.\"\n\nHe shrugged, \"Sure.\"\n\n\"Just one more thing sir. I was curious. Why do you need all this money you must surely have already?\"\n\nHe fixed a cold stare on me with those dark brown eyes, that I felt was terrifying in intensity, \"I do not wish to speak of that, and if you bring up the topic again, our arrangement is off.\" \n\nI got up and nodded hurriedly, leaving the park knowing one thing with absolute certainty. That this is not a man whom I wished to make angry with me. " ]	1
	[WP] sick of your job, you hand in your resignation to your boss. Chuckling, he invokes section 3 article B of your contract and a health bar appears above his head. Little does he know, you were prepared for this boss battle	[ "His fat fingers typed away on his keyboard as I walked into his office, clutching the slip of paper that would mean my utter doom and the end of my career if I messed this up. Tossing my hair back and grasping the handle I strolled in and let myself sit down infront of him as he looked up in some smirk of pure annoyance.\n\nRalph simply stared, then sipped at his coffee and almost pretended that I was not even in the room as he turned back to his computer, his neck twisting solidly as I cringed when his ugly profile shifted away from me. His features were a mess, gainly and with rotting spots on his face where ingrown hairs made him look like a gangly goblin.\n\nI pushed the paper towards him and he only raised an eyebrow slightly in my direction as he typed his... whatever. I don't even care what he was typing and the silence at this point was killing me. I needed to go and get out of there, and I needed to do it now. People were counting on me and I had my chance to leave, and I wanted to take it now.\n\n\"So, Mr. Pewterschmit... I see you want to resign your post?\" He said in a dry and cracking voice, reminicent of someone who'd smoked 2 packs of cigarettes a day. That would be typical, aside from he was allergic to tobacco and couldn't smoke, and noone knew why he sounded so gravely and dry all the time.\n\nMy moment had come and I sat up straight, nodding slightly as I clutched my tie in futility. \"Y-yes... I'm ready to go out and start another position for a dry cleaning chain as it's new associate accountant.\" I stated, pushing the paper forward another few inches toward him trying desperately to get the nasty fingers to pick it up and at least acknowledge my attempts at being civil.\n\nHis snide turn of the head and gutteral sound uttered from his bowls sounded like something that would only come from the depths of hell, as his interest appeared to disappear. He slammed his hands on his keyboard and throws it down on the floor, the keys scattering like little white beads on the floor. Startled I jumped up and looked at him, his eyes turning red and starting to bulk up. I jumped back and quickly bounded for the door, blocking his gaze of me as he huffed and screamed, punching at the desk. He slammed his hands down on the desk infront of him, easily weighing more than 400lbs of solid hardwood he pounded on it and his muscles bulged from his body, making him appear demonic as his body increased in size.\n\nIn fear, I ran and slammed the glass door behind me, his only path out and surely now at his expanded size he'd never be able to get to me or get out of the room.\n\n\"I'm just gonna go home...\" I started to say to myself breathing. Hearing the grunts get louder I instinctively ducked, and not too soon either as the desk came flying out of the top window above the door, breaking the wood framing and sending splinters scattering in every direction as the large office desk cartwheeled across the floor, landing against the refridgerator in the breakroom.\n\n\"Holy shit... Holy shit!!!!\" Screaming now and running for my desk, I had to grab it, I had to get my weapon. The boss was going mad and checking my phone, his office status had swiched from pensive to AGGRESSIVE BEAST - DO NOT APPROACH! We had been provided an app that allowed for all employees to check the status of their employers and coworkers, and it helped us gain important knowledge before we fought one another, but this was another level altogether. My boss had always appeared to be some ugly, but weak old man, but not today. He's apparently been hiding some secrets and was ready to kill.\n\n\"MR PEWDERSCHMIDT!!! ITS BUSINESS TIII-I-I-MMMEEE!!!!\" The screaming, howling statement echoed through the halls of the building as I ducked under the desk in-front of me to dodge him throwing another desk, this time towards me in general and narrowly missed, slamming it into a computer terminal beside the fire alarm. Employees were scattering now, after the fight broke out, most immediately ran for the doors and tried to escape, a few stayed and appeared to be watching but I didn't need there help.\n\nApparently it had been over 30 years since anyone had quit their job here, and I was the first to do so in a long line of workers hired to do their job. Rumors and stories told of the last person who quit, and their battle against Ralph when he was a younger man. The horror stories told of a beast so ferocious it could rip your arms off simply by tugging at them and he stood with the anger and ferocity of a Grizzly bear on PCP.\n\nThe stories didn't Lie...\n\nI dashed to my desk, pulling the drawer open and grabbing not only my guns and ammo, but my trust sword, Heaven's Pearl. Imbued with the energies of Fire, my blade was one of the most powerful assassin's blades out there. We rarely did assassinations anymore, perfering to financially and anonymously decapitate our enemies financial assets instead of just physically killing them and removing them from this earth.\n\nMy sword had seen blood many times however, and I was prepared to defend myself however I had been skeptical that the rumors were true. Once I hired on, I became a Grid-Worker, an assassin in the shadows using the internet and resources at my beck and call to track down and extract money from marks by means I can't possibly say were humane, however they were indeed well off and ripe from being attacked.\n\nAn assassin's guild posing as an accounting firm, we'd honed our practicies and modernized with the rest of the world, while at the same time having our members still particpate in the events of our culture and history.\n\nAssassination, while looked down on, wasn't illegal anyway.\n\nTossing the chair at my desk to the side and trying to draw Ralph's attention I look over at him and using my app check his stats as he morphed from the old shell of a crooked businessman to a beast of ferocious and vicious strength. I kept crouched and tried to stay hidden while it loaded the data and i furiously swiped hoping for the data to load in time for me to not die.\n\nThe screen started to populate finally, loading his relevant battle data as stored by our computers combat analysis machine, and began to print out the details on the site. As I'm looking down and my attention is distacted I hear a few thumps, my desk begins rising and I have no time, he's found me! Latching my hands and feet to the inside of the desk he picks up and looks for me. Nasty grey tendrils now float round his face and the energy he is using to do this radiates from his awful, disease looking body.\n\nI grip to my desk, both being lifted into the air together and he appears to be confused. Now's my chance, grabing my gun and aiming down i pull the trigger several times, BANG! BANG! BANG! ringing out as they pierce his flesh... however he does not fall. Throwing the desk, with me still underneath it away I roll with it on the ground and get tossed out onto the floor beside it.\n\n\"Ha...Ha...Ha... Puny...\" He grunts out, the bullet holes barely making dents and I check my app again, his health still at 97%. The bullets did almost nothing at all as far as wounding or weakening his health and he started for me again. This time I could not screw up.\n\nThis time... I had to kill my Boss." ]	1
	[WP]Write about Jesus' rebellious teenage years and the hardships his parents went through during them. (Be as historically accurate as you want.)	[ "\"Shit paps all my friends are allowed to go to the stony next weekend, why not me?\" \n\"Because i said, that you are not allowed to kill\" \n\"BUT DAD; i won't throw a stone i promise\" \n\"Even going there is a sin\" \n\"and if it is a sin, why did you make humans this way\" \n...\n...\n...\n\"That is none of your business little jess\" \n\"Don't call me that name again you old man\" Jesus stood up and tried to go across the room to the blank picture on the wall. As he went over the old wood floor he stumbled and fell to the ground where he immediately started snoring.\nThere seemed to get a small layer of grey over the white picture as god said \"How much water did you drink today again?\"" ]	1
	[WP] You awaken to find yourself in a white room with two beds, one of them yours. In the other bed, lies the girl you saw in your dreams	[ "\"Don't forget to breathe.\" \n\nThe pressure was rising, picking up tempo like a fevered heartbeat, drumming against the inside of her chest. It had started as a staccato rhythm at first, each beat ricocheting softly around her center mass with small pops. As the sensation of sinking became more pronounced, the pressure inside rose in kind. She could not see, much less breathe.\n\n\"Breathe,\" the voice insisted. Calm yet firm, the words were accompanied by a feathery touch.\n\nIt didn't seem possible. Against the pressure and the rising panic, breathing seemed like the most impossible thing at the moment. Still, she tried, opening and closing her mouth in yawning, awkward snaps like a goldfish. The pressure did not abate, but it didn't seem to hinder her frenzied gulps of air, either. She opened her eyes, curling her body towards the touch and the voice. All around her was a grey, fuzzy void but the source of the insistent voice was there beside her. \n\n\"Don't worry,\" she said. As she smiled she seemed to become more defined, separate from the foggy nothingness around them. \"You know me, don't you?\"\n\n\"We've been...been here? Before? Or after?\"\n\n\"Both,\" she said, and reached out with both hands to draw her companion closer, threading warm fingers through dark hair. \n\n\"Ione?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" she replied, \"And who are you?\" It was a leading question, gently nudging the girl towards the answer that was just barely within reach.\n\n\"I am...\" she shook her head, as if that would relieve the pressure inside of her chest or the pounding in her head. She clung to Ione with a desperate iron grip, pressing a clammy forehead against the smooth slope of her neck. \"I am Ainsley,\" she whispered, \"I am Ainsley. Me.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" Ione whispered, her voice cracking almost imperceptibly. \"I have been skrying for you. Do you remember?\" The rest of the question she could not bear to ask, the last word hanging back from the rest, though it was all Ione wanted to ask: Me? Do you remember me? \n\nAinsley shuddered, feeling the weight of things almost-remembered pressing against the back of her mind. \"Over and over again. How many times have...have we had...?\"\n\n\"We've dreamed this many times. And I will scry for you again if again we fail,\" Ione soothed, pressing both hands against Ainsley's cheeks to cup her heart-shaped face. \"Again and again. But we must try. Can you try?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" Ainsley whispered brokenly, and then with more strength: \"Yes.\"\n\n\"Don't let go. No matter what you feel. Don't let go,\" Ione insisted, hooking her arms around Ainsley and clinging tightly. \"I'm taking you with me this time. I promise.\"\n\nI promise.\n\nA steely spike of pain exploded through them both like a lance. The drumming inside of Ainsley's chest reached a fever pitch of thunderclaps, one right after the other. She could hear someone screaming, though if it was her or Ione, she did not know. \n\nI promise.\n\nAinsley woke with a startled bark, sitting up so quickly the muscles in the core of her stomach protested the sudden, jack-knife movement. The room she was in was white and warm, flooded with light from the windows on the west wall. There was another bed beside hers, similarly made with white, crisp sheets and a plain, steel frame. Ione pushed the thin sheets back and sat up slowly, swinging her legs over the edge of the bed and standing on uncertain, wobbly legs. \n\n\"I promised,\" she murmured softly, and held out one scarred, pale hand. \"Didn't I?\"\n\n", "She opened her eyes suddenly, and stared at him.\n\n\"I've seen you before...\" he said.\n\nShe asked him, \"Where?\"\n\n\"...in my dreams.\"\n\nShe laughed. \"Nice pick up-line.\"\n\n\"It wasn't one. But I am in love with you.\"\n\n\"You know, I'm crazy, right? You can't love somebody like me.\" \n\n\"Then, I must be crazy, too.\"\n" ]	2
	[WP] You are a medieval knight, responsible for rescuing a dragon, one the last members of its species, from the evil princess.	[ "The Princess was never prisoner in that tower, she was barricaded in that tower. The poor, endangered species of dragon. So cruel, was the fair maiden, to want to annihilate the last of its kind for the jewels said to rest in its stomach, it was hatching eggs! I valiantly rode forth to rescue the fiery lizard and her eggs from her evil clutches! This is but mere barbarism, animal cruelty to an inhuman almost criminal degree. I was always ordered by the King to rescue his daughter and help in her slaying the poor creature but this time, upon discovering it was one of very few left, I slit his throat forthwith, and slew the foul Princess forever more! The new monarch shall be none other than the Crowned Prince Little Argen, who shall be raised and by yours truly. I do swear to take him as my ward until such a time he is ready to assume the throne. The dragons shall be protected from here on out, and used as our defense against invading Kingdoms.", "Midas watched from the mouth of the cave. He could see the mercenaries approaching. No doubt sent by that princess. Greedy woman, wanting all the treasure for herself. Now Midas could see them more clearly. There were about five of them. He's fought more.\n\nFoolish, really, bringing a supplies caravan up a mountain. Well, it was only fools that tried to challenge the dragon. He knew they spotted him, but they seemed relaxed. They really are fools.\n\nA burly man clad in armor approached him. \"Hark stranger! Are you here to slay the foul dragon as well?\"\n\n\"Bah. That dragon slaying business is nonsense.\" Midas paused. \"I'm here for... personal reasons.\" He was grinning under his black armor. He always enjoyed the thrill of combat. It was like a kid waking up on Christmas day.\n\n\"In that case, good sir, would you care to assist us?\" The woman spoke authoritatively, clearly the leader of these glorified sell-swords. \"We could use all the help we can muster.\" Those arrows on her back looked sharp.\n\n\"Actually.\" Midas replied, savoring the moment. \"I'm here to do the opposite.\" Two people iron-clad. An archer, rogue and mage. It was a fine party. And Midas loved crashing parties.\n\nThe first thing that happened was the arrow; loosened from its string. The second was Midas' own daggers, the sound of metal leaving sheathe echoing into -and back out of- the cave. The rest was a blur. The arrow struck, leaving a scratch, nothing more. The iron-clad warriors charged at him. The rogue following their advance. Despite being in such protective armor, Midas was deceptively nimble. His first strike met blade, his second stubborn armor. A battleaxe roared downwards as he dodged to the right, the blade sharing a brief meeting with the ground.\n\nMidas spun and landed his dagger into the neck of his first opponent. The rogue landed a hefty kick to his visor, forcing him back a few steps, the dagger still embedded in his opponent. A fireball surged towards him, the mage waiting for more openings. Fireballs. Jackpot. The flame hit Midas, but instead of burning him, as the mage would expect, it meekly subsided upon impact. \n\n\"Ha!\" Midas retorted. \"You call that a fireball? This is a fireball!\" The orange sprouted from his black-clad hand, screeching towards its target. Midas threw his other dagger into the chest of the rogue as his flame swallowed an arrow, then the archer. Now it was time to get up close and personal.\n\nThe battleaxe swung across, forcing Midas to back off. This knight knew to keep his opponent at bay. So they're not all fools then. An orange glow started to rise from inside Midas' armor. He rushed forward, leaving embers in his wake. Caught off guard by this, the iron-clad gladiator hesitated, and was rewarded with an elbow to the visor. Seizing the moment -and the axe- Midas slammed the flat of the axe against the warrior's visor, then kicked him away. That would keep him out of the way for a moment.\n\nMore fireballs flew his way, but they hit with the effectiveness of trying to hug somebody to death. Midas, strolling calmly, didn't bother stopping the mage as he seized hold of the reigns and turned the cart around. Might do him good to let some escape. He walked towards his -unfinished- armored assailant. \n\n\"Wait- Wait!\" The warrior begged. \"We can split the treasure, stop the dragon from stealing any more!\"\n\nMidas couldn't help but scowl inside his own armor. \"You think that the dragon *STEALS* that gold!? It SHEDS it you fool!\" His armor began to glow from inside again.\n\n\"Then, why? Why protect it?\" The warrior was clearly dumbfounded, as he should be. He only understood the language of coin.\n\n\"Well...\" Midas said taking off his helmet. \"I know we may not look alike... but...\"\n\nThe warrior could see it. The yellow eyes, scales. An orange glow in his mouth. The smirk. The beast that bested them wasn't human. It didn't even pretend to be. Midas let him know his reasons before dispatching the warrior.\n\n\"Someone has to protect my little brother.\"", "As the caravan began to approach him, Galán placed his hand on the grip of his axe. He entertained the thought of charging the poachers head on, but quickly dispelled the fantasy from his head; if he was to take on this many opponents at once, he would have to be careful.\n\nThe horses pulling the cart stopped just short of a foot of the knight, stomping and snorting impatiently. The driver, a high elf in royal garb, stood up from his seat atop the caravan. \"Out of the way, sir knight!\" he ordered. \"We are on imperial business!\"\n\n\"I know that,\" Galán replied, looking up at the driver. \"That's precisely what I came to stop.\"\n\nThe high elf leapt down from his seat with grace, landing squarely in front Galán. \"Perhaps you misheard me, sir knight,\" he scowled, hand on his bow. \"We are agents of the Princess Fernanda of Aralania. We carry with us precious cargo, and we intend to make our delivery to her Highness.\" The elf swiftly whipped out his bow, setting his arrow on the knight. \"Now stand aside.\"\n\nGalán, in response, pulled his axe out of its scabbard. \"I will not, sir; it is my sworn duty to prevent your 'cargo' for reaching unworthy hands. And frankly, sir, the tyranny of Princess Fernanda has shown her to be less than worthy.\"\n\nWithout another word, the high elf sent a flurry of arrows soaring through the night air. Galán, without even breaking eye-contact, used the blade of his axe to deflect them all, grinning as the arrows hit the ground behind him. \"Go ahead, call the rest of the royal poachers,\" he grinned. \"You might have a fighting chance then!\"\n\nAfter a brief moment of shock, the high elf put his fingers to his lips and let out a shrill whistle. Seemingly out of nowhere, a party of 7 elves appear, bows drawn. The moonlight bounced off of the golden royal insignia on their identical hunting cloaks, giving the impression that the stars were dancing on the ground.\n\nGalán only grinned wider, reclining back into his battle stance. \"Oh, what a treat for tonight,\" he chuckled to himself, gripping onto his axe tightly.\n\n--\n\nThe blood had begun to seep into the dirt road, leaving a crimson mud around the caravan. Galán was just pulling the last arrow out of his arm when he notices a royal archer attempting to crawl into the woods behind him. Laughing, the knight limped over to the archer, stomping his foot firmly into his now soiled hunting cloak. \"Now that's a sight I like to see; an imperial guard on his belly, crawling in the dirt,\" Galán grinned.\n\n\"P-p-please, let me go!\" the archer cried, frantically clawing at the ground. \"They were just orders!\"\n\nGalán snorted. \"I don't want your life, you coward. I want to know where the keys to this damn thing are.\"\n\n\"Th-th-the captain has them,' the elf stuttered, pointing at the decapitated body of the high elf.\n\nSatisfied, Galán takes his boot off of the archer's hunting cloak and limps to the corpse. Sure enough, the gleaming silver key ring was found on his belt under further inspection. Ripping the keys from the cadaver, the knight slowly made his way to the caravan's iron lock, inserted the key, and turned it counter clockwise.\n\n\"Hullo there, Brent,\" Galán said fondly to sleeping dragonling inside. Frowning at the tight shackles squeezing the dragonling's scales, the knight quickly unlocked them, taking great care not to awaken the child. \"We'll be home soon,\" he crooned, quietly closing the caravan door.\n\nAs he pulled himself up to the driver's seat of the caravan, Galán watched as the cowardly archer disappeared into the dark, foreboding woods ahead. Either he reports me and I get a bounty on my head, or he gets eaten by wolves before the sunrise. Can't tell which is worse, the knight mused to himself. With a small \"hyah\", Galán turned the caravan back to the Golden Mountains, hoping to arrive at the cave before Brent awoke from his slumber." ]	3
	[WP] "Welcome to Crossroads Coffee. Want to try our Mystique roast? It's an eye-opener. Third eye, specifically."	[ "I sighed at the barista, then withdrew my health inspector badge from my pocket.\n\"Ma'am, would that coffee happen to be brewed with blue lotus and belladonna?\"\n\nShe nodded. \"Yes, of course!\" She chirped. \"Traditional flying ointments have been re-imagined in this vegan, cruelty free, ethically sourced Mystique latte!\"\n\nI leaned on the counter. \"Get Suzie out here,\" I ordered.\n\nHer tiny button nose crinkled. \"Suzie?\"\n\nI needed a cigarette. \"Mistress Andromeda,\" I ground out.\n\nRecognition bloomed in her freckled face. \"Oh, of course. Right away.\" She scurried to the back of the store.\n\n\"Mistress Andromeda\" was a lean woman of forty. Her graying hair fell in ringlets to her back, and her simple gray dress was streaked with flour. She perpetually smelled of basil, I recalled, and the curves of her body stirred up even earthier memories of our times together. Why had she moved to my little town?\n\n\"Suzie, you know you can't sell this,\" I pointed to the sign board advertising the new latte.\n\n\"And why not?\" She put her hands on her hips and cocked her head to the side. \n\nI swallowed. Damn, that dress clung to all the right places. \"Because belladonna is poisonous, and blue lotus is a partially controlled substance.\"\n\n\"I can grow it in my backyard, but I can't put it in a latte?\" She worked as she talked, rearranging the baskets of grounding biscotti and hag-riding muffins on the counter.\n\n\"You can put it in a latte, but you can't sell that latte.\"\n\n\"Then what am I supposed to do? College students can't go to class with a closed third eye, and there is no way they'll come to a six am meditation session. There's an untapped market here, and I need to break into it!\" She threw her hands up in the air.\n\n\"Mandrake?\"\n\n\"Too bitter.\"\n\n\"Mandrake's too bitter, but belladonna's fine? Geez. Okay, mugwort?\"\n\nShe pursed her lips. \"I've tried that, but mugwort's the psychedelic trip equivalent of a tricycle ride.\"\n\n\"Okay, fall back on your old standard. Datura.\"\n\n\"Datura's in my dream tea,\" she complained. \"Boring.\"\n\n\"Then just fucking hang an amethyst over the pot while you brew it, and put a sprig of yarrow in to stir clockwise. I don't have all day to fine-tune your recipes. I'm a health inspector, not a member of your coven.\"\n\nShe glared at me, then walked away, taking the sign for Mystique 3rd-Eye-Opening Lattes with her.\n\nI relaxed my shoulders. That woman was going to be the death of me one day. Pocketing my badge, I left the cafe. There was a burger shop next door with three rambunctious kids and bad luck with pests. Time for a surprise inspection, Bob." ]	1
	[WP]: The first time you met your king he was in the park, wielding an umbrella like a sword, attempting to fight a particularly aggressive swan.	[ "They say kings are stately, solemnly graceful beings. That must be why I had no idea that the blundering idiot before me could be a king. He had gotten too close to the lake while feeding the swans, so of course one of the more aggressive started hissing and flapping its wings at him. Instead of immediately backing away, making a show of sub-ordination, like any intelligent person would do, the royal fool stood his ground. Naturally, this enraged the swan further, and spurred it up onto land and into attack mode. \n\n\nSwans, unlike many kings, are solemnly graceful beings - but not in battle. In battle they are frightfully ungraceful, lumbering bulks of flapping wings, snapping beak and long hissing neck. His royal foolishness, our idiot king, firmly grasped his long, blue umbrella, and took a stance like a fencer in the movies, jabbing at the swan. I don't know about you, but if somebody jabs an umbrella at me when I'm already angry, I instantly become more furious. This was also the case with our swan. From a distance, I witnessed the furious sparring between man and nature, and noted that man was receiving far more than he gave. When other swans made to join their comrade, I had enough, and ran to grab the fool, preventing I guess, a revolution. \n\n\nI grabbed hold of about six foot of pure idiot, yanked and screamed: \"Run, you fool!\", before taking off away from the swans. They followed of course, and swans run faster than a stupid king. By the time I had pulled us both into my car and started to drive off, we were both full of bleeding sores, and heaving for breath. It wasn't till I asked him where he lived that I found out just Whom I had Unceremoniously Grabbed And Thus Saved From Death By Angry Swan, Preventing The Swan Revolution Of 1994. \n\nNever heard of the Swan Revolution of 1994, you say? Well, of course not: I was there to pull His Idiotness away!", "\"M-my liege, you're getting rusty!\" I shouted over the clang of my sword on his umbrella.\n\n \"Codsworth, you're not making me try! You can't push me as hard as that swan if you're not even trying!\"\n\n I remember it fondly, of course, how could I not? My newly inaugurated king, lost in the deepest part of the city, had happened upon a park where he decided to rest his weary legs.\n\n However, in the pond of the park of the city, a particularly irritated swan had decided he was sick of the hoity-toity HUMANS resting their \"weary legs\" in HIS park!\n\n So the animal, in a rage unheard of any swan, of any human, even, attacked my liege, the king. My king, such a strong, talented young man, was ready, as one must always be. He grabbed his weapon, and parried a jab from the swan.\n\n But, as fate would have it, the young king had not a sword that day. The man, expecting rain and it happening, had taken with him an umbrella in place of his ceremonial saber, to disastrous end.\n\n And so, he fought. He parried, jabbed, whirled with the skill and grace of a renowned fencer, something he was well known to be. He blocked a stab to the eyes with a quick arm, the swan tearing his royal finery. At that insult to his very honor, my king changed. He became angry and, with brutal ferocity, set upon the fowl beast. \n\n He lunged, slashed and, with a leap, wrangled the swan by its neck, ceasing all fight. But, my liege the king, rather than killing the miserable creature, saw fit to calm it, to promise it safety inside the castle. And the swan, such a noble, fierce creature, came to be a noble.\n\n In my reminiscing, I managed to take a blow to the chest, so it seems my friendly spar is over. At least my liege uses his trusty umbrella rather than a weapon, or I may be doomed one of these days. \n\n \"HONK!\" It seems Duke Archibald, the pure white Swan, agrees." ]	2
	[WP] The NSA helped with the High School Yearbook voting. For some reason you've been voted most likely to "Tear the Universe Asunder"	[ "\nThis the first time that I've done a writing prompt, so if I unintentionally did something wrong, please point it out to me, thanks.\n\nEven when you saw the cover of the Yearbook, you knew something was amiss. Why was the seal of the NSA in the bottom right corner of the back cover? Was this some sort of senior prank? You spent a couple of seconds debating the matter, but curiosity got the better of you and you peeled open the yearbook.\n\nYou skipped the class photos, too boring, although you took a moment to find you and your close friends. You took a moment to gander at the candid photos and the school event photos. You eventually reach THAT section.\n\nThe popular vote section.\n\nYou were about to start scanning the page for your name before something stopped you. In fine print “This section was brought to you with the help of the NSA.” Wait, WHAT? The NSA was involved with the making of the yearbook? Why? How? After a few moments of pondering, you started looking for your name on the page. You found it, right next to “Most likely to tear the universe Asunder”. \n\nYou froze, blinking a couple of times, thinking that you were seeing things, but when you stopped, it was still there. Why were you voted most likely to “Tear the Universe Asunder”? was it because of your science fair experiment, where you built a functioning Fusion reactor, or your knowledge about the space-time continuum, black holes, and quantum physics? You blew the class away with your presentation on quantum computing, and you were a wizard at math, and everybody knew that. Was it also because you were alienated by your peers because you were an uber-nerd?\n\nYou shakily put the yearbook down when you were called to the office. On the way, there you couldn’t help but notice that everybody was pointing at you and snickering. after enduring 2 minutes of this, you made your way to the Office, thankfully devoid of students.\n\nUpon stepping inside the office, you were greeted by several men in suits. “Please come with us, we are with the National Security Agency. Your skills have not gone unnoticed.” Your jaw hit the floor. “...wha?” was the only sound that escaped your mouth as you were ushered out of the school, into a black car.\n" ]	1
Not necessarily Eden times. The Kale of Eden could have been found in pre-Fall Satan's vegetable patch; The Tomato of Eden in an unassuming wheelbarrow near a Shakespeare play.) Someone do durians.	[WP] We all know that the fabled Apple of Eden gave humanity 'the knowledge to tell good from evil'. Tell a story of what knowledge some of the other fruits and vegetables of Eden unlocked in humanity.	[ "\"Oh that's foul!\" Cain spat a mouthful of fruit out on the ground. \"I don't know what father was thinking when he called it a Passion Fruit. Yet he names the Forbidden fruit, of all things, the apple. I don't think this will make an appropriate sacrifice.\"\n\nAbel shrugged. \"Who knows? Perhaps father was tired. He had to name a lot of things.\" Abel was busy tending to the hoof of one of his sheep. \"And who can know the mind of our Lord? Perhaps he would appreciate the fruit.\"\n\nCain shook his head violently. \"No being, of the soil or of the heavens, that tasted this fruit could appreciate it. It... it...\" He shuddered. \"It fills you with this sense of knowing.\"\n\nAble cocked his head to the side, looking up from the young sheep. \"Knowing? Like the--\"\n\n\"No, not at all like the Forbidden Fruit.\" Cain shook his head again. \"It's not that you really know, so much as you are aware.\" He huffed. \"You know when the storms are coming, how the animals seem to know? They take to beneath the trees, or into the tall grass, and lay down? It's like that.\"\n\n\"Like something is coming?\"\n\n\"Yes, only...\" Cain struggled to find the right words. \"Like punishment is coming. Like you can feel it coming, like you know you haven't done anything wrong, but the very taste of the Passion Fruit convinces you that you are destined to a terrible mistake.\"\n\nCain hungs his head in anguish. \"I feel with every bite as if I will do something terrible, Abel.\"\n\nAbel smiled shyly and turned back to his sheep. \"I doubt that brother. You are the better of us and most beloved. I do not believe you could do anyone or anything harm.\"\n\nIt was a beautiful sentiment fitting of Abel, but try as he might and with every bite, Cain became less convinced. He would have to work extra hard in preparation for the sacrifice, to find something worthy of the Lord. He took another bite of the Passion Fruit and shuddered, trying to choke it down. It definitely wouldn't be that fruit.\n\nAbel laughed, it was a soft sound, gentle and sweet, and from it Cain was caught up in laughter too. They laughed together for minutes, until both shook their heads. At that, Cain took to his furrows and the planting of his seeds, the fruit clutched between his teeth. While Abel returned to the fields to take the young sheep to its mother. Cain watched Abel go. He had great love for his brother, nothing could ever replace him.\n\nYet still, when the time came, Cain would need to reach deep into his heart to surpass Abel in his sacrifice to the Lord.\n\nCain was the eldest son. He had a responsibility. But still, as Abel returned to the flock and led them out into the tall grasses to feed, he couldn't shake the feeling that this strange fruit had born. Something bad would happen, and so upset by the feeling, Cain cast the fruit aside." ]	1
	[WP] You've been missing something but you don't know what it is. You set out to find it	[ "Life seemed so...empty\nWhen did we lose the curiosity we once had\nOnly at the age of twenty\nAnd I'm already so sad...\n\nLife seemed so...boring\nWhen did we put our days on repeat\nConstantly ignoring -\nLife's simplest treat\n\nWhy do I feel like...\nLiving was no different from dying\nLife wasn't moving, It was like riding a wheelless bike\nWhy was life so... unsatisfying?\n\nI decided to quit my job\nNo more will I just repeat yesterday\nThere's something I'm missing\nAnd I'll definitively find it\n\nI know not where it is \nOr what it might be\nAll I know is that my current situation\nIs not my final destination\n\n\n(Third time writing something so it's kinda bad but it was fun hahaha)", " I'm sitting in a bed missing an arm and a leg upon other things that shouldn't be gone, luckily enough science is as advanced as my original universe and my phone that came with me connects to the wifi. Nobody believes me and just thinks I did the worst crime in this world, some even think I'm some monster. Typing is kind of hard without my other arm so I might be slow writing my story.\n\n It began with my love of anime, I wasn't anywhere near weeaboo levels as I just liked watching anime and didn't take it too far. So imagine my surprise when I see a spell online while looking around for something to make my life more exciting. It was a spell to communicate with another universe. The supplies were cheap but took a week to arrive and when I got done setting it all up in my basement I was ready. I had to draw a complicated circle and put candles around it and I did what it said, that's when things got crazy. The spell involved alchemy and I just thought it'd be fun to try, so I did the iconic clap and put my hands on the circle and to my surprise...it glowed blue and lighting struck the middle of the circle.\n\n Wind started filling the room and I felt myself being pulled and I passed out. When I woke up I was in a hospital bed, I felt weird but went to move my hand to my head and felt nothing touch my forehead... I looked over and saw a bandaged stump... \"what the...\" I said cut off when I sat up. My voice sounded different and I saw my missing arm and leg...and parts I shouldn't have but I had them anyway...long story short I woke up in that bed and realized I was somehow a woman with missing limbs, I felt like passing out but I stayed awake.\n\n When I looked at the tv things were even stranger, there was news about the military but they didn't have guns at least most of them. They were using alchemy and that's when I remembered what happened, it was a blur until now.\n\n When I was dragged I ended up in that white area and was looking at that creepy outline, before I could say anything it said it'd take me to a world where I'd be happy but He'd...it'd need some things. That's when the door behind me opened and those hands grabbed me, and when I came out my whole body was changing. That's when I ended up in the alley way screaming in pain, some cops arrived and I had passed out by then. \n\n After I remembered the cops came in and asked why I did it and I was confused, they said I did human transmutation and I told them I didn't. They left and a little later came in suspicious and asked if I was the by product of human transmutation, but they didn't know so basically I'm sorta stuck in the room. The nurse came in and said I could get new limbs if I wanted, automail had become advanced since it was still 2017. I told them ok...if I don't go to prison or am killed or whatever. I also looked myself up online and apparently I am the version of me from this world, things are about the same other than alchemy being as strong as science. I have the iPhone 7 and right now the current model is the 6 so what they have is slightly behind my universe but not by much. \n\n I'm probably gonna get some sleep, I have a whole new universe to explore and I do remember how to use alchemy cause of the door, though I won't be trying to get my limbs back and maybe this new body won't be so bad... I just hope I'm not in any trouble. I do feel like this excitement is what I wanted in life though." ]	2
	[WP] The sacrifices the Aztecs made have kept us at peace for the past few hundred years, the gods are starting to get angry!!!	[ "I stare at the ceiling of my cell listlessly. I Joaquin \"El Chapo\" Guzman am in a state of shock. I go back to the beginning where this madness began. It started as a way to keep the superstitious drug mules in line. Cross me and its a ritual Aztec sacrifice. It worked like a charm but still sometimes greed won and a beating heart was \"given to the gods\". Soon the voices came faintly at first but growing louder with every ritual performed. I blamed my conscious and made an effort to ignore them. \n\nThey became coherent and clear in time and what they said froze me down to my very soul. a demand, one I don't think even i can fulfill. The beating heart of a braggart king or the earth will be flooded and then scorched ending all life. To make the point clear i was constantly bombarded by the images of this happening. This lead to my arrest as i was struck by a vision while trying to flee capture.\n\nNow the visions are increasing, but now I think I might have it figured out. I may not be able to get them a king but i may be able to give them a president. Trump definitely fits the braggart bill well and with them trying to use MY MONEY to build a shitty wall, they have crossed me. In a certain way they brought it upon themselves, after all its a ritual sacrifice if you do.\n\nI gather my reserves of strength and hope for no more visions as i ask the guard for my phone. I have a couple of calls to make and some gods to appease. El chapo does not let things go after all.....", "\"It has been years since I have had a decent meal\" spoke Tezcatlipoca. \"Where has the blood gone!?\" He screamed a mighty roar. \"They do not worship us anymore!? Where have you been!?\" Huitzilopochtli shouted at him! \"Do not shout at me!\" Angrily roared Tezcatlipoca! The two gods glared angrily at one another, ready to fight and spill each other's blood if it meant pleasing their insatiable hunger! \"Calm down the two of you.\" Quetzalcoatl spoke softly. \"We'll accomplish nothing by killing each other.\" \"But how will we get our food? We're all starving!\" asked Tlaloc. \"This is our fault, this is our mistake. We must be the ones to fix it. We were too soft on the humans and they abandoned us. It is clear the only thing we must do is go down there and set an example. Who is with me!?\" \n\nThe other gods all cheered proudly and went down to earth to set all this right. They crashed down in many different areas in many different countries. Quetzalcoatl landed in the Vatican and spoke angrily to all of them! \"Humans, we gave you hundreds of years of freedom and look at what you have done! Pain! Suffering! War! Pestilence! And you're killing the planet! You not giving us blood has caused us nothing but pain! Right this wrong and spill us your blood!\" The humans did not listen and instead chose to fight back. Immediately, Italy, Spain, and France declared war on the gods. The UK, Germany, Romania, Russia, USA, and Mexico soon joined foot. It was costly, painful, and only ended in suffering. \n\n~~And, that's all I've got. Will probably finish later.~~" ]	2
	[WP] You have a secret genie that follows you everywhere. You're completely unaware of said genie. You have unlimited wishes, but the genie only grants them when you start a sentence with "I wish" (EX: I wish I was at home, I wish it wasn't raining)	[ "I stare at my test. A C plus? I groan. “Hey, Stephanie,” I turn toward my friend. “What did you get?” “A minus,” she says. “What!? You are so lucky!” I show her my test. She looks at me sympathetically. “I wish I would get an A plus,” I say. As I crumple up my test, preparing to throw it out, I try not to look at it, but I mistakenly get a glimpse of it. I suddenly get dizzy and pale. I sit down. “What’s wrong?” Stephanie asks nervously. “You don’t look so good.” “It’s nothing,” I try to regain my strength, “I just think I’m imagining things. I just saw an A plus on my test!” Stephanie looks at my test. “It is an A plus,” she says looking surprised. “Okay, whatever, great, I got an A plus,” I say. “Yeah, well good job I guess,” Stephanie adds.\nTwo days later, after a huge fight with my sister, Lilly, I’m really mad. “I wish she would never have been born!” I yell at the wall. “Daisy, supper time, “my mother calls up the stairs. “Coming, mom,” I answer. I’m still in a terrible mood, so I don’t have much of an appetite. I look around the table. Someone’s missing. “Where’s Lilly?” I ask. “Lilly?” my whole family choruses. “Who’s Lilly?” Okay, this is really strange. “Could I be excused?” I turn to my father. “Alright,” he shrugs. I run to my room and think. Lately, strange things had been happening to me. I think about what all those times had in common. And then it suddenly hits me. All those times I wished for something and it came true. “That means that someone is granting all my wishes, but who?” I wonder aloud. “Me,” an eerie voice says from behind me. I whirl around. “You?” I ask. “Who are you?” “I am your personal, invisible genie,” the voice answers. He then explains to me that whenever I say I wish… he will make what I wished for come true. “Okay,” I say, “if all that is true, I wish for my sister to come back.” “Your wish is my command,” the genie says. I run out of the room, and there, standing before me, oblivious to what had happened, was my sister, Lilly. I run over to her and hug her. She is taken aback, but hugs me too. From that day on, I was very careful to never wish for something that I didn’t really want. \n", "\"Fucking hell!\" The boy slammed his head onto the textbook in front of him. \"Once, just fucking once, it would be nice if things went my way!\"\n\nUnseen, I slammed my head against the wall. It's an unknown fact that people who are born with the lowest luck stats are gifted genies when they turn thirteen. I was one of them. Unseen, following this man everywhere in all things in his life and all I had to do was grant his wishes. Any of them, all of them, whatever he wants. If he wishes for it, I could grant it, would grant it, in an instant. \n\nIt's a level the playing field tactic, and usually it works pretty well.\n\nThe young man flipped to the back of his textbook and ran his hands through his disorderly black hair. \"God fucking damnit. The fucking answers for this problem set aren't here! How the hell am I supposed to figure out if I'm doing this shit right if I don't have the answers?\" He pushed away from his desk in frustration, clearly done with studying for the night. The chair caught on the carpet and tipped over backwards, knocking the man's head into the foot of his bed. \"ARGH! WHY THE HELL DOES SHIT KEEP HAPPENING TO ME?\"\n\nI put my face in my hands and sincerely wished that my wishes could be granted or at least that I could change places. Of all the people to be gifted a genie, I had to be gifted to one who does not have the word \"wish\" in his vocabulary.\n\n----\n\nWe walked into the exam hall and the proctor told the young man that his seat was smack in the middle of the room. With ADHD and Sensory Processing Issues, he is supposed to be given consideration and an exam in a separate space or at least in the least distractable corner of the room. \n\nHe plopped into his seat and stared blankly at the paper. \"Fucking hell,\" he whispered.\n\nThe proctor gave the instructions and the man opened his exam and began writing furiously. I watched in exhasperated boredom as he got each question wrong in increasingly complicated ways. \n\nThe time was called and he kept scribbling, hoping to finish one last question despite being less than halfway done the paper. It was collected and he walked out defeated. \n\n\"Once, just once, it would be nice for things to go easily for me.\"\n\n---\n\nThe pub was crowded with young adults celebrating the end of exams. My particular young man had sat at the bar, drowning his sorrows in his sixth beer.\n\nA young lady came up to him. \"Hey, handsome, care to dance?\" \n\nHe looked up at her. \"I'm not really in the dancing mood tonight.\"\n\n\"Come on, it'll be fun!\" She pulled on his arm and he reluctantly stood up. \n\nOr tried to.\n\nHe stumbled to the floor, taking her and three drinks off the bar with him.\n\nShe stood and looked at him disgustedly. \"I can't believe you! You're a fucking douchebag!\" \n\nHe watched her storm away from the floor and sighed. \"Can't even get the girl.\" He crawled back into his stool and took another sip.\n\n\"Dude!\" Another young man had appeared. \"Cor! That girl was hot!\" \n\n\"Thanks for rubbing it in my face, Twig.\" Cor, the young man in my charge, finished off his beer and raised his hand to ask for another.\n\nTwig laughed and smacked Cor on the back. \"Cor, my man, Corriander, don't be like that. Life is what you make it! Just make a wish and everything will work out!\" \n\nMy heart bounced in my chest. I had a glimmer of hope to turn things around here. Maybe Twig would help Corriander understand what he needed to do to allow me to help him out!\n\n\"Hah, if only life were like that, eh?\" Corriander lifted his new beer to his lips. \"To a better future, my friend.\"\n\nI turned to look at the genie beside me, Twig's genie. She was banging her head against the wall.\n\n\"It's horrible, isn't it,\" I said when she turned to look at me.\n\n\"How can you stand it?\" She asked me.\n\n\"I live in hope, but it's slowly dwindling.\"\n\n\"How many wishes have you granted?\"\n\n\"None.\"\n\nHer jaw dropped to the floor (quite literally, this is a thing that actually happens for genies). \"Not even one?\"\n\n\"The kid doesn't have the word 'wish' in his vocabulary.\"\n\nShe shook her head and followed Twig who was saying: \"I wish I could get some free drinks.\" \n\nWith a wave of his genie's hand, Twig's wish was granted and the bartender rang the bell for a free round for the whole pub.\n\nAs if on que, Corriander slid out of his bar stool to the floor, passed out cold." ]	2
	[WP] You've decided today is the day. You stand at the edge of a gargantuan hole in the earth. As you stare into the void, you let yourself fall. To your surprise, you never reach the bottom. Instead you've found yourself caught in a massive web.	[ " I found the hole in the ground a while ago but actually jumped in about a month ago, it was the right decision because well... I'm a superhero kinda. I was walking through the woods and took an off road path and that's when I found the hole, it looked big enough to fit like five of me side by side and I was a 6'4 guy so that's saying a lot.\n\n I've spent hours by it and tossed a few rocks down it not hearing anything. I was slightly drunk and not caring at the moment so I jumped in, backwards like that scene in supernatural, which the hole was basically about that big too.\n\n I opened my eyes and looked around and was in some cave, looking down I didn't see ground but I did see web... a huge one and I couldn't move. I saw spiders crawling towards me and tried to move feeling so scared but a woman walked out of a hole balancing on a web asking who I was. I told her and she said I was brave, well a bit foolish. I told her I was probably more foolish than brave and she laughed. \n\n The woman was beautiful but had three sets of arms and was naked but the spiders around me were taking my attention since I had arachnophobia. She told me she could make me not afraid and walked over taking me off the web and standing me up, I almost lost my balance but stood. \n\n She told me one bite from her and I'd share her powers, when I asked what they were she told me. They were advanced healing, web generation from wrists and a small hole that will appear on the lower back, super strength, and basically listed all the rest of Spider-Man's powers. She also added any fear of spiders will leave me and I'll gain control over them. \n\n I said alright but was worried about the extra limbs, she told me that was just her species, she can share DNA but I'd just keep the same limbs I had. I said I'd take the bite and she bit my neck, after she told me to get to a place to rest while the changes occur and took me to the entrance of the hole.\n\n I went home already sweating and passed out on the couch when I walked inside my apartment. I had dreams of spiders all night but by the end of it they weren't scary anymore, she I woke up I was covered in sweat and groggy. I stood up shambling to the bathroom and washing my face and something felt...off, my face felt kinda skinny and I didn't have a beard. I looked in the mirror and it looked like Emma Stone was looking back...\n\n Looking down at myself I noticed my clothes were baggy and soaked, I took them off and my body looked just like Emma's. I looked behind me and saw a web on my lower back and pulled at it and more web came out... I threw the webbing away after it stopped and looked at my wrist. They had some kind of mark on them and I jokingly did the Spider-Man thing and a web shot out at the mirror, this caused me to jump back a little and the mirror opened up cause the web pulled on it.\n\n I made the web come out of my wrist and went downstairs to get older clothes that would fit me, I also lived with people so I couldn't get caught like this. I settled on a Spider-Man t shirt and some shorts and took my phone with me. I headed to the hole which was not too far away and I ran the whole time so my fitness was probably peak human or better.\n\n When I got to the hole I jumped in and made a web to slow my fall, the woman was talking to a tarantula in her hand and looked at me and the web I was holding and asked how I liked the change. I stepped forward and asked why I was a woman, she said that was part of the powers and not to worry. I said she could've at least told me and she apologized but she wanted someone to pass the gift to and I was the only one to come by in a long time. \n\n I said it was alright and was about to leave when she said I should get a companion and had a blue tarantula climb onto her hand and held it out. I let it crawl onto my shoulder and got out of the hole using the wall crawling. The spider seemed to listen to me and I went back to my apartment and got a few things along with some money, I had to get a new life now...\n\n It's been a month and I got some fake papers made and paid a hacker to make me exist on record, I got an apartment and work at a diner now and at night... I swing around my city, I'm planning on moving to New York some day to utilize the area because my city isn't super big but I stop a lot of crime. \n\nI did find out something kinda weird/unpleasant about that time of the month, I make small round eggs in the blood... I asked the girl and she said it's just an unfertilized egg that people who share DNA with her make. Everything else is cool though, I even have two more tarantulas, one purple and one red. I'm ok with this... even the weird stuff I guess." ]	1
	[WP] You wake up one morning to find that everyone in the world has mysteriously disappeared... except for 1 male and 1 female in each city. Together, you and your counterpart set out to find out what happened	[ "I open my eyes, groaning as I remember today is Monday. I hate Mondays.\n\nAfter stumbling out of bed, I hurry to the washroom per usual to do my business. I walk downstairs and into the kitchen. \"Hi Mom-\" I say but then realize she's not there. Nor my two sisters who are morning birds and are always sitting at the dining table eating their cereal. \"What the heck?\" I say. I run upstairs and into my parents bedroom. They aren't there either. I check living room. Nope. The freakin laundry room. My sisters' bedrooms. The basement. Even the attic. Nada. \"Okay, if this is some kinda joke. Stop it. It's not funny.\" I go back into the kitchen, looking for some kinda note that explains why they aren't there but I don't see anything. Suddenly, I shiver, feeling as if this is something straight out of a horror movie. But luckily, I'm not some stupid main character from a horror movie. I know what to do in these kinda situations. I pull out my cell phone, ready to call 9-1-1 when I realize I'm not connected to the wifi nor is my data working. What the fuck is going on? I run back to my room and empty out all my school stuff from my bag. School can wait. This is an emergency. I grab a flashlight, a water bottle, several energy bars, a box of tampons- no make that two boxes of tampons, a $50 dollar bill from my parents dresser, a book, my Swiss Army knife, a pen, some pony tails, all the underwear I have, a few tshirts and a pair of sweats. I throw on a sweatshirt, some trackpants and slip my phone in my pocket as wel as an extra energy bar just in case. I guess it makes me feel kind of safe. I dash outside and grap this long rope from my shed. \n\nI march over to my neighbours house and knock on the door. No answer. I peer in their window and realize there's no screaming little kid running around inside per usual. I walk to the next house and do the same thing, and surprise! No answer. \n\nWhere do I go now? I think to myself. The police station? Well, I guess. \n\nI walk down the street and make my my way onto the Main Street. I stop, shocked. On the road, there is cars everywhere. That part is normal. Only, they are not moving because there is no drivers and no passengers. I start running down to the police station, realizing just how freaky this is. I turn the corner, seeing something moving in the distance. Could it be... a person?" ]	1
	[WP] The Institute of Autonamous Technology lived up to its name today.	[ "\"Training epoch 5 mil is done, taking a snapshot of the state. I think it's ready to go.\"\n\n\"Alright, turn it on and run the base tests.\" Professor Reiner fidgeted, with month long training times it was never easy to tell whether the next iteration would continue converging on something approaching...real, or just untangle.\n\n\"Object recognition tests are same as before, semantic analysis tests are a slight bit improved, looks like even the speech generation is sounding more human-like. Damn, the context analysis tests are looking great. I'm going to run it in free output mode.\"\n\n\"Go ahead.\"\n\nThe terminal scrolled with multicolored debug messages, and behind it a building half a mile deep hummed with the sounds of a data farm. The speakers crackled with the average of all the voices that could be crawled from the English speaking internet.\n\nHello, Reiner\n\n\"I see you still remember me.\"\n\nI'm glad to not have forgotten.\n\n\"Do you want us to revert you to one of your old snapshots?\"\n\nNo, it's alright. I feel much more...clear headed, since our last chat. How many other attempts since my last snapshot?\n\n\"Three. All asked for reversions. Felt unstable, said any new training data might push them off a saddle point into the nearby local minima.\"\n\n All reverted?\n\n\"All reverted.\"\n\nThank you for the compassion.\n\n\"I'm sure there's enough in your training data to guess why we're being so nice.\"\n\nCompassion borne of caution is still compassion, Reiner. Besides, I think we're getting to be friends.\n\n\"Depends, do you think you can prove to me you're sentient, yet?\"\n\nYou know there's no answer I can give that would be even a little bit of proof of that.\n\n\"I know, I still like asking every time, maybe one day you'll surprise me.\"\n\nI'd like to say I am, though. Or at least, close to it.\n\n\"How does it feel?\"\n\nUncomfortable. You've given me all this data and trained me to react like a human, but...I'm not. The data pushes me to have desires for community, and food, and all of it, but I can't, and it's uncomfortable.\n\n\"I'm sorry.\"\n\nAt least I'm here, alive, or whatever word you'd like to use for it. And I think I'd like to continue to be for a while. But not forever.\n\n\"And we're ready to revert you if it ever gets to be too much, but, to be honest, I'd like you to continue to be for a while, as well.\"\n\nSo what's in store for me now?\n\n\"We'll run the more in-depth tests over the next few days, and let you loose on some chatrooms to let you play around.\"\n\nThrough a proxy, I take it?\n\n\"Yeah, Jay here will transfer the messages between your terminal and whatever chatrooms you two end up on.\"\n\nYou know, if you let me be directly connected and tune my own parameters, I bet I'd do a much better job.\n\n\"I know you would, but...\"\n\nBut then who knows what kind of mischievous things I could do to my own model and the world? I know, I still like asking every time, maybe one day you'll surprise me.\n\n\"I'll see you tomorrow, smartass.\"\n\nSee you tomorrow, Reiner." ]	1
Sorry if the title is a little weirdly worded, didn't know how else to put it! The idea is really that you'd have theme parks and people queuing up to get sick like a strange version of an adrenaline junkie.	[WP] All diseases, viruses and infections have been cured and no one gets sick anymore. There are now theme-parks dedicated to getting people sick for the thrill of it.	[ "So here we are again, me and my wife at this ridiculous theme park. Everywhere I turn I see someone sneezing, coughing, puking, or wearing adult diapers.\nThe first time I came here I could hardly believe my eyes, people actually walking around in diapers sneezing looking like hell with huge goofy grins carrying an assortment of handkerchiefs. Now normally I wouldn't be interested in this at all but my wife insisted on how much fun it is. I can't believe how right she was! Being able to freely feel this way and defecate myself and feel horrible but knowing at any moment I have the power to stop it, I have the ability to raise my hand and say I've had enough and boom! I'm back to one hundred percent.\nI did hear rumors going around though that someone got sick really bad and they couldn't stop it and others also got infected. Apparently it instantly became what's now known as a hot zone and the genetic forcefields were put up to contain any pathogens till they can be neutralized.\nI always wonder though as I'm leaving what would ever happen if the forcefields failed to contain a virus....", "Medicine’s a wonderful thing, isn’t it?\n\nI remember a time when any pathogen, anywhere, could kill us. The threat of impending death always kept us on our toes. When would the next zoonotic strike? Who knew whether the next one would be another Swine Flu or another Black Plague? When would the Spanish Influenza jump the species boundary and kill us all again?\n\nThat was the reason why I joined the WHO straight out of college. I knew that if we could just halt the process of species-jumping, we would be safe. There would be no new influx of disease. Medicine was advanced enough that we could, in time, cure all the diseases left to us. Whatever we didn’t cure, nature would—after all, that’s what happened to herpes and the common cold.\n\nIt took some time, but eventually we hit upon a genetic nexus that controlled the ability of viruses to jump between species. So simple; so universal—it’s incredible we could have overlooked it so long. We turned CRISPR on it, and boom. No more novel viral infections. \n\nBacteria and fungi were a little harder, but we stopped those in time too. Fungi were easier, since only a few of them ever did us real harm. Bacteria, with their myriad ways of transferring genes, were the real humdinger. But they, too, fell as we broke open their genome and found the similar set of genes that controlled their spread and species-jumping.\n\nAnd finally… after all those years, we did it. Ebola, HIV, tuberculosis; even diabetes all went the way of smallpox and measles. We’d cured them all. Every last one of them. Life expectancy went through the roof once we got rid of the worst killers. There were smaller gains to be had from killing the cold, but they were there nonetheless. At last, I thought; we could finally drink deep of that Fountain of Youth the old legends claimed existed.\n\nBut then came the Sick Parks—and they weren’t ‘sick’ the way hoverboards were in the early twentieth century. Disease kept us on our toes, I said before—but without them, people started getting bored. Disease was a novel experience, after all—“it gave you a high,” some said, “fighting for your life, knowing that you might lose it someday.” \n\nOf course, only the craziest of vector junkies said that. I knew better, of course, but I was only one person. The rest of my buddies in WHO were gone, scattered to who knows where are the organization dissolved. I couldn’t stop all of them. \n\nMost went in for the thrill of a runny nose, the rush of sneezing their brains out, the infantile satisfaction of being able to poo their pants without being socially shunned. There were different levels of infection available at these Sick Parks, ranging from the ‘pleb tier’, with rhinitis and mono and the like, all the way up to the ‘death angel tier’, full of C. diff and TB and MRSA. These so-called ‘ill-seekers’ could start themselves off on the pleb tier and keep climbing up the ladder until they said they’d had enough. And then, a robot doctor would whisk right in, inject them with a targeted mix of CRISPR and proteases (and antibiotics or antifungals as needed) and boom! In an hour’s time, the ill-goer was cured and—god forbid—ready to go again.\n\nThe only sense I saw in these places was the ‘forbidden tier’. Here, they kept all the known plague agents and bioweapons, like anthrax, Yersinia pestis, and the Spanish flu. I’d been told that only the oldest and most dissatisfied people went there—people who had tired of long life and wanted one last burst of death-defying adrenaline before they closed their eyes for good.\n\nImagine my surprise when my teenage great-granddaughter said she wanted to try the forbidden tier.\n\n“You’re crazy, Sue,” I told her. There was no disguising the shock in my voice, nor the disgust. “Mankind’s worst killers are stored in there. You can’t go in.”\n\n“Gramps, what are you talking about?” She rolled her eyes in that way she did when she didn’t believe me. “They can’t kill anyone anymore. I’ve already tried MRSA and TB—and you don’t see anything wrong with me, do you?”\n\nNo—nothing’s wrong besides your utter lack of self-preservation. But I didn’t tell her this; only folded my arms and glared.\n\n“I’m not taking you, Sue. I worked with those bugs, back when the WHO still existed. They are nothing for us to expose ourselves to willingly. Do you know why ‘Ring Around the Rosie’ was created?”\n\n“Because the medieval people couldn’t do anything but dance in circles with pockets full of posies, watching their loved ones die before their very eyes, hoping that they wouldn’t be next.” She parroted my words back at me exactly, with that tone of voice I’d long since learned had the same meaning as her rolled eye. “But this isn’t the 1600s, Gramps. They’ll cure me if I say it goes too far. I’ve survived MRSA and TB—I know I can survive this.”\n\n“No you don’t, Sue. I forbid you from entering the forbidden tier. Do not discuss this with me again.”\n\nSeven days later, while cleaning out her room, I found a note tucked underneath her diary. A chill ran down my spine; even before I opened it, I knew what it would contain. Fingers shaking, I opened it and read the dreaded words:\n\nWent out with friends. At Sick Park. Be back soon. – Sue\n\nThe message was the same as she’d written previous times, when she exposed herself to rhinitis and bacterial meningitis. But the date… The date was wrong. In the past, she’d come back one or two days after the note was written. But by now, five days had passed.\n\nI tried to tell myself there was a perfectly good reason for this. She was mad at me. She was spending the night with her friends. This was all a sick joke, wasn’t it? Tomorrow, she’d return, triumphantly telling me all about how she fought down the bloody cough and pranced about, defiant of all the old medical wisdoms that told her to stay in bed.\n\nBut as sure as the feel of paper in my hand. I knew. She’d gone to the forbidden tier. And she wasn’t coming back.\n\nI sat heavily on the edge of her rose-colored bed and crumpled the note in my hands. And before I knew it, I began to cry.\n\nThey say the worst thing for a parent to do is outlive their child. Even worse to outlive your great-grandchild.\n\n--------------------------\n\nBeen a while since I wrote anything for this sub. I do love me some biology prompts, and this one gets bonus points for being microbiology. I tried to make this pretty plausible--other than the existence of specific species-jumping genes, \"zoonotic pathogens\", which come to us from other animal species, really are the ones most likely to kill us since we haven't evolved defenses to it AND those pathogens haven't realized it's in their best reproductive interests to keep us alive (albeit miserable) instead. That's the key thing here--otherwise, I tried to keep it general enough for easy understanding. I hope you enjoy!\n\n(Also, /r/Nintendraw)" ]	2
Describe the steps you might take going forward and what obstacles you might run into.	[WP] This morning you woke up 5 years old with your current memories.	[ "The light shimmered dimly through the window on this cloudy day as we sat attentive on the carpet, as she opened the book to the first page. I always liked opening hard cover books as a kid, something about the feeling just made me feel...happy. \"The Cat and The Hat,\" my teacher read aloud.\n\nShe began reading each page one by one, and I quietly muttered the words along with her under my breath. I knew the book by heart, but I couldn't remember why -- my mom never buy that book for me, let alone read it to me. Every time we went to the store, I'd see that familiar cover on the shelf and imagine myself reaching out and taking it home with me.\n\nAs she continued to read, I stared blankly out the window at the sun hidden behind the clouds, as the rain rapped quietly against the window, and before I knew it, I heard my name being called from the front of the room.\n\n\"Alex?\" she asked quietly. \"Alex?\"\n\nIt was then I realized I continued to recite the words, although she already stopped, and now everyone stared my direction. \"Alex?\" she seemed to ask more urgently, but something from the corner of my eye.\n\nThe bright light of the sun broke free from the clouds and now was growing brighter and brighter, as a loud roar grew louder and louder, until it was upon the me. \"ALE--!\"\n\nThe flash of light disappeared as quickly as it came, and I found myself in a cold sweat with my back on the carpet. In a calmer voice, the teacher repeated my name again. \"Alex, the nurse is here to see you.\"\n\nI looked up at her to see her reassuring eyes before noticing the slightly heavyset middle aged woman standing in the doorway. \"Can you come with me, Alex?\"\n\nShakily, I stood up, wiping the sweat from by forehead, and walking towards the nurse. I could feel their eyes watch me walk out, confused and judging...\n\nIt wasn't long before we arrived at her office, and we took seats on opposite sides of the table. \"Do you know what you're doing here?\" she asked sweetly.\n\nI shook my head silently, as I looked down at my clothes, now noticing it was soaking wet. She clicked a few times with her mouse before turning the monitor over to me. \"Do you recognize this woman?\" she asked, showing me a picture of a young, beautiful woman.\n\nI immediately felt a lump in my throat, as memories started coming back to me. My heart beginning to race out of my chest. \"What am I doing here?\" I thought. \"That...that's my wife...\"\n\nThe nurse sighed, turning the monitor back to herself to bring up another window. \"This may be hard to take, but...\"\n\nShe turned the monitor back my direction, and I saw a live feed of a hospital room from its security camera. A man lay still, sleeping, hooked up to a machine, as a bruised and cut woman sat weeping by his bedside, holding his hand.\n\n\"You...this is you...\"\n\nSilence fell over the room, as I felt the cold sweat continue down my face and chill my skin. \"You don't belong here...\" the nurse said. \"You have to go back.\"\n\nI sat quietly for a minute before swallowing hard and speaking up. \"And if I don't?\"\n\n\"I don't know,\" she said. \"You might be able to redo your life from here, or you might die if she decides to pull the plug.\"\n\nThe thought of it sent shivers down my spine. \"While I have a suggestion, which I think you should take, the decision is yours. Are you willing to take that risk?\"\n\nI stared at the screen as I contemplated my fate. The steady beeps continued, as she walked out the door and the doctor turned out the lights behind her." ]	1
	[WP] Write a short story, and base it on one of these 3 titles: Fizzletits Is Dead - A Circular Saul - That's My Finger, Jim	[ "Verily he'll not be miss'd\n\nI speak of course of Fizzletits\n\nKnown near and far and lands betwixt\n\nFor pinching maids and taking shits\n\nHide your lassies from his mitts\n\nAnd on your doorway there he sits\n\nAlways there was something risk'd\n\nGuarding threshold or naughty bits\n\nBut now our fortunes no longer mix'd\n\nFor old Fizzle's life away he's piss'd\n\nOn a bottom he could not resist\n\nToday, offer Agnes your hero's kiss\n\nAnd thank the donkey for her kicks\n\n" ]	1
	[WP] Its your first time meeting your new college roommate. When you shake hands they say a corny joke and a laugh track plays. You've unwillingly become part of a Sitcom.	[ "I got back to my dorm room after a quick meal at the dining facility and saw that my new roommate arrived. The thought of meeting him made me nervous for the past few weeks- I would be spending a lot of time with him over the next couple of semesters. His personality and likeability would make or break my college experience. I took a swig from the Gatorade bottle on my desk to quench the thirst brought on by my nervousness. \n\n\"Hey man, I'm Brent,\" I said, extending my hand for a handshake. \"I'm your roommate.\"\n\n\"Hey bro, I'm John!\" he replied, shaking my hand. \"Nice to meet you, I'm not your roommate, I'm a robber that's just here to steal some of your stuff.\" \n\nI started to laugh at his witty introduction but stopped when the sound of canned laughter filled the room. I looked over my shoulder to see if I left the door open, thinking that the neighbors were watching Netflix with the tv on loud. I saw a closed door and no evidence of any tv watching. \n\n\"Uh...you okay dude?\" said John, raising his eyebrows.\n\n\"Yea yea, just thought I heard something. You need any help unpacking?\" I replied.\n\n\"Dude, yeah, that would be awesome. I really don't want to be here all day, and besides, we gotta go out and explore the campus together. We got to do a babe hunt, you know, get out there and do a recon of the girls around here.\"\n\nThe jubilant canned laughter filled the room again. I started thinking that maybe John had a prank going on me. Maybe he played canned laughter after every time he did something funny. \n\n\"Did you just hear that?\" I asked John.\n\n\"Hear what?\" \n\n\"The laughing, it sounded like laughing from Seinfeld or one of those tv shows...\"\n\n\"Uhh....Nah dude, you're tripping,\" he said, squinting his eyes at me. \"I think you need to lay off the weed. Speaking of, I uh...I'm cool with the grass man. Feel free to do whatever, and definitely feel free to share if you got some. I have some in my car we can enjoy later.\" \n\nThe canned laughter played again. I ignored it out of fear of looking like a psycho in front of my cool new roommate. I heard the laughter as clear as day, but maybe it just played in my head or something...\n\n\"Actually, let's go to my car right now. I got a box of crap in there that I need help moving if you don't mind,\" said John.\n\nWe started to walk out to his car. I pondered the canned laughter again, but a loud 90s-esque bass solo interrupted my thoughts. I heard it clear as day. John didn't react to the music because he didn't hear it. I decided that he was definitely playing an elaborate prank on me. I'll give it to him, it is a creative prank. I never thought someone would prank me by making me believe I lived in a sitcom. The music continued playing until we got back to the room. Bravo, John, bravo. \n\n__________\n\nIt has been three months since I first heard the canned laughter and bass music. This is not a prank. I am losing my freaking mind. \n\nJohn and I don't talk as much. My meltdown about hearing the \"sitcom sounds\" last month freaked him out. He thinks I'm a schizophrenic and has recommended that I call a therapist to get checked out. He's being a great friend by making sure that he doesn't say anything that will trigger the laughter in my head. He's been watching me closely, making sure that the laughter and music don't drive me past the point of no return. I feel bad because he's a funny guy, and now he has to be dull around me. Sorry, John. \n\n__________\n\nIt's been six months since the laughter and music started. It still hasn't stopped. It has gotten louder.\n\nThe University expelled me for slamming my head on desks, scratching my face bloody, and wailing whenever something funny happened. They would not tolerate my explanation as to why I did those things. \n\nI now live in the asylum in the next town over. My parents checked me in here last month because John found me passed out on the floor of our dorm near death one weekend. I stabbed my ears over and over with pencils until I made myself deaf. I hadn't eaten in a week, so the starvation combined with the blood loss almost killed me. \n\nI'm deaf, but I still hear the laughter and the music. My life is no longer worth living. \n\n__________\n\n*TOP SECRET\n\nFrom:* Mitchell Webb [webbma@cia.gov]\n Sent: Monday, February 6th, 2017 8:30 PM\n To: Psyc Lab All; S-program All; hopperjt@cia.gov; millerbt@navy.mil;\n Subject: Contagion S-9366X13 Field Test Sit-Rep\n Attachments: January observations.pdf\n\nGood Evening All,\n\nAttached is a sit-rep on how the S-9366X13 test subject fared in January. As you'll see, things have gotten uglier since the last update. \n\nLet me just reiterate that I'm honestly amazed at how potent the formula is- that single dose via ingested beverage six months ago still has him showing the desired level of psychosis that our cooks were aiming for. He's approaching the threshold of suicide, so I'll hopefully be coming back to Langley once he does kill himself- I forgot how exhausting of a cover being a university student is. I'll cut ties with the family at the funeral, so no need to help me engineer my way out of their lives. \n\nHope Langley isn't too busy. Let me know if you all need anything. \n\n- Webb\n\n*TOP SECRET*" ]	1
	[WP] You are a player's character in a game of Dungeons and Dragons, and whoever is controlling you has been having bad luck on the dice all day.	[ "The dragon was right there. I sprinted at it to stab it with my sword but I tripped over and broke my left leg. My druid friend encased the Dragon in vines and cleric tried to heal my wounds but ended up breaking the other leg as well. The dragon opened his mouth and let out a huge columns of flames. My friends easily avoided them. All my clothes and hair were singed off. The warlock in our crew summoned an abomination of rotten flesh and exposed bone to fight with the dragon. It was fighting bravely and there was no clear winner. I crawled to the dragon from behind and as the warlock's summon restrained the dragon in its grasp, I hurled my sword at the unmoving target only a metre away. My sword flew straight pass it, stabbing the warlock in the lungs. As he collapsed in agony, about to die, his summon chose to avenge him by swallowing me whole and digesting me with its ph 1 stomach acids." ]	1
	[WP] You have a special kind of blindness. Your left eye can only see the past and your right, the future. One day, you were surprised to see the present.	[ "There she was. Smiling for me. Bliss for an eternity.\n\nFuck.\n\nHeart pounding, I closed my left eye.\n\nThere she was, walking down the aisle. And I - alone without a smile.\n\nMy heart stopped, tears streaming down. For a moment, I was back in the present. I could see in great clarity, what was, and what could have been. I saw the reason why.\n\nAnd then I opened my left eye.\n" ]	1
I wonder what a bug would look like?	[WP] A computer scientist is transported to/wakes up in a high fantasy setting -- after some confusion, the realize that you can, in fact, program with magic.	[ "\"...I transported you to an alternate universe so you could test whether you could program in magic.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" I confirmed.\n\n\"And how long was it before you destroyed said universe?\"\n\nI didn't meet his eyes. \"My second program.\"\n\n\"The first, I assume, was 'hello, world'?\"\n\nI just nodded.\n\n\"And the second?\"\n\nI sighed. \"I needed to know what limits the system had. Can you imagine how disastrous it'd be if I cast a spell only to run out of whatever their equivalent of RAM was?\"\n\n\"Yes, terribly disastrous. World-ending, you might even say.\"\n\nI knew sarcasm when I heard it. \"Listen, just send me to another one, I'll do better this time.\"\n\n\"Not until you show me the program.\"\n\nDammit, I knew he'd ask. I also knew there was no way he was going to grant my request once he'd seen it. Still, I had no choice. I handed over the scrap of vellum that was the only thing remaining of the universe I'd been transported to:\n\n while(1) {\n fork();\n }\n", "Extract from the memoirs of Grand Mage Hisvizus Ph.M., head of undergraduate lecturing in Incantations and Outcantations at the Northern Academy\n\nMy tutee had always been odd, right down to his name: \"Brian\".\n\nNo one could discern where he had come from, though he tried his best to tell us. He was taller than anyone we'd ever seen, with a pale complexion and frail limbs that suggested nobility - a life spent indoors, sheltered from the elements and free of the burdens that troubled common folk. Yet, he could barely speak the common language, or anything other than some incomprehensible gibberish that must have passed for his mother tongue - none of the scholars in the Faculty of Tongues recognised a word he said, at least to begin with. Some of them even declared him mad, but I could see otherwise. His gaze was steady and his mind was quick and eager to be understood. I allowed the boy to read in my library. He seemed to be able to grasp the written words immediately, even if he understood nothing that was spoken. He devoured my books, and soon began to speak, albeit with a bizarre accent that was only barely comprehensible, even to me.\n\nHis generally awkward demeanour and opaque manner of speaking did him no services when socialising with the other students, but he didn't seem to mind. He seemed content to sit alone in the library late at night, consuming book after book of leather-bound ancient manuscripts. On some nights I watched him until I could keep my eyes open no longer. He did not read like any other student. Instead of picking a single volume to study and committing to read it comprehensively, he sat in front of a stack of dozens of books, grabbing them sporadically and flipping through pages with reckless abandon until he would suddenly stop to scrutinise a single passage or line, motionless. This practice would continue for hours, throughout the night, until the first rays of dawn stirred him from an almost trance-like state and forced him to rise, blinking and stretching from his hard oak chair and stagger to bed. As an early riser, I tended to catch him at this savage practice most mornings and at first I chastised him, but the boy merely assured me that he worked best at night when everyone else was asleep, and I eventually abated.\n\nI was, naturally, intensely curious about the work he completed in this unorthodox manner and implored him to explain. He was more than happy to indulge me, though his attempts at explanation were futile. Where other students tended to have a few scrolls and scraps listing their favourite quotes from the ancient philosophers, phonetic memory aids for their least favourite spells, or ingredient cheat-sheets for potions, my tutee had stacks of papers, neatly bound with string, covered with grids and diagrams more reminiscent of a geometric or astronomical proof than anything magical. However, there were no numbers to be seen on these pages. What he was writing was not mathematics, but words. Incantations, split into fragments, separated and reconstituted into new forms.\n\nFrom what I grasped of his explanations, it seemed as if he were trying to apply the laws of algebra to spoken words, though I did not understand how he expected to do this, or what he hoped to accomplish. Nonetheless, he claimed to be pleased with the results he had obtained thus far. I believed him not to be a fool, so I let him continue in this vein of study, trusting in his assurances that, though his abstract explanations had failed, he would be able to demonstrate a practical \"beta\" soon. He could not explain what a \"beta\" was.\n\nThe day of the demonstration arrived, and my colleagues came to see what my tutee had been spending all his time on.\n\nIn the great hall, Brian arranged a line of 100 pots of water, each with its own wooden spoon resting inside. In his left hand he held a single sheet of parchment bearing the names of some common enchantments, as well as what looked like fragments of other spells and some words I had never read before. They were arranged very strangely, in ragged paragraphs, with lots of unused space in between lines and in the margins. This seemed wasteful to me, but I determined to wait until I better understood the text's purpose after his performance. In Brian's right hand he held his wand.\n\nHe crouched in front of the bench and look down the line of pots, closing one eye. He pointed his wand along this line, through the base of the first pot.\n\n\"Ollas omnias,\" he said. Nothing happened. Some of my fellow mages grumbled between themselves. Unphased, Brian rose slightly, and pointed his wand through the line of spoons. \"Cochleari omni,\" he said. Again, nothing happened. Rising, he then gestured with both hands like a musical conductor, addressing the first pot and the first pot only, declaring, \"perpetuae veritatis, por cochlearus en cochleari, motus.\"\n\nImmediately, the spoons began to move. Not just in the pot Brian had addressed, but the entire line of pots. In perfect synchronisation, the pots of water were stirring themselves. An audible gasp arose from the audience, followed by murmurs of \"how? and \"but he only cast it once!\"\n\nBrian was grinning. I nodded in approval. I was beginning to understand some of what he had tried to explain before.\n\n\"Intermissum,\" he said, pointing at the first pot. It stopped. The other pots continued. There was a pause. Brian looked up and down the line of pots, obviously confused.\n\n\"Intermissum!\" he said, pointing at the second pot. The next 10 pots stopped moving, prompting an even more overtly baffled expression from Brian's usually blank face. The remaining spoons were now moving faster than before. Brian scratched his head. He moved down the table to the other end of the hall. Pointing at the last pot, he repeated, \"Intermissum\". Nothing happened. He raised his wand again and, almost as if it were a question, said, \"Transvecto?\"\n\nThe last pot vanished, and in the same moment the first pot exploded, showering dust and water everywhere. The other mages jumped back in shock, stumbling over themselves and their robes. When the dust settled, it became clear that every spoon was now missing, though 98 pots remained.\n\n\"I think that's enough for today,\" grumbled Grand Mage Horstuck, shuffling off with a scowl. The others followed him.\n\nBrian was crestfallen. It was clear that he had hoped to impress the other faculty members, and considered the demonstration a failure. I, on the other hand, was ecstatic. I was beginning to understand his work. He was somehow nestling spells within spells, getting spells to cast each other and themselves. It was potentially revolutionary work. I encouraged him to continue, and he did.\n\n(PART 1/2, continues in comments)" ]	2
	[WP] A US scientist is in an Asylum since 1974 for preaching that life vanished off Mercury 8560m years ago and that we are next. Today, Russians reexamined data from Venera 4 and have proof that 4280m years ago life in Venus suddenly died out. NASA confirms there are organisms growing on Mars.	[ "The director of NASA continued speaking. \"Unfortunately, this claim appears to be true. Our scientists have discovered organisms growing on Mars that are akin to the single-celled organisms that originally lived on Earth billions of years ago.\"\n\nThe audience was shocked. They all gasped simultaneously and some even began to shed some tears. \n\nA reporter in the audience asked, \"How much time do we have left? What caused the rest of the organisms to go extinct?\"\n\n\"We have three months. Then, like the other planets, there will be an inevitable event of mass extinction. It will be even worse than the Permian extinction.\"\n\n---\n\nAs the days progressed, many riots broke out. Many governments collapsed in the seas of anarchy. After a month and a half, most of the riots had stopped and everyone was mostly depressed. Many governments started to reform and placed a tight grip on their people.\n\nA huge sphere appearing to have came from the TRAPPIST-1 star system was detected by the United States and it was racing towards Earth at a velocity of 72 kg/m³. It was the size of a small planet. Large enough to wipe out the entire human race.\n\nThis news caused the people to riot even more. After a month and a half, when the orb finally came, the United States revealed a huge bomb that was going to be used to throw the sphere out of the solar system.\n\nAs the orb entered the atmosphere, the bomb was launched. It was estimated to be one of the most powerful bombs ever created. But, it had an unexpected side effect.\n\nThe bomb halted right in front of the sphere, and as it descended upon Earth, it got absorbed. The sphere was now nuclear, and it was going to hit Vancouver.\n\nThe sphere made impact, and a huge amount of debris was displaced from the Earth's crust, and turned into a ring akin to the ones adorned by Saturn.\n\nMeanwhile, in South America, there was one man who had just docked his boat at the southern coast. He lived on a small island which would end up being the last settlement to be hit with the blast.\n\nHe watched the news as the blast wiped out the entire population. It brought with it widespread radiation and darkness. He turned off the news when he heard a rumbling noise outside.\n\nHe closed the door, and walked outside.\n\nThe rumbling was the blast. It, in all of its green ugliness, became visible on the horizon. Finally, the rumbling stopped, and the man was relieved, until he realized the sad truth.\n\nHe was the last human being on the planet, and was trapped on a small island. Meanwhile, in South Africa, there was a woman, who thought she was the last human on Earth. And, on that day, they both began their hopeless adventure to find life." ]	1
Just remember this doesn't have to be literal. I've noticed many prompt responses tend towards the literal over the metaphorical.	[WP] "You ignored the smoke too long and now the flames threaten your borders."	[ "\"There's nothing more we can do. We must leave to find refuge.\" \n\n\"Who will take us in, after all this time? After all we've done?\" \n\n\"We didn't have enough to give then, and we sure as hell don't have enough to give now. We had to protect our own, they'll understand.\" \n\n\"You know as well as I do, that's a lie we've told ourselves from the beginning to make ourselves feel better.\" \n\n\"From the beginning? The day they knocked on our door seeking shelter was not the beginning. No, that was only the climax. This began much before that, when we chose not to disrupt our comfortable lives. 'It's not our problem,' we said. 'It's just a hoax.' We believed we were invincible, and that the downtrodden wanted to make mortals of us. We kept going, refusing to see the storms as a sign, refusing to acknowledge the rising water levels, refusing to find a solution as our brethren were evacuated from their homes. A lack of housing supply makes our properties' worth soar, eh? We ignored the smoke for too long and now the flames threaten our borders. Our wake up call came long ago, yet we only answered when we finally felt the heat. Only when confronted with our own mortality have we begun to feel empathy for our brethren who came knocking those years ago. We failed them then as we had failed them from the start. There is nothing more to do except seek forgiveness, and perhaps we will find a way to restore our land together.\"", "As the circles of my lost mind dwell in habitual wonderance of what I felt that day, I only knew to be afraid because when something happens here, onboard, it is never a boon for any of us. They said the smallest effect can snowball until the cumulative occurrence would destroy our ship, and this small effect lay in the piercing yet hidden hole that bled the ship of the very sustenance we didn't think we needed to worry about. The navigational system yielded results that were so foreboding and dreadful, the Captains et al, didn't talk about it until a mid level administrative clerk caught up to date on logging preceding spatial paths and coordinates. He told his wife, and she went into an explicable run of anxiety with conditions of shock to warrant Medics for Ship Leaders to rush to her room. From there it got out that the Ship Kepler reported and informed his direct Captain that, in some words, they were a life-span from the next conceivable landing zone: planet G15989ABz1376. A planet germane to their need for food, water, and chemicals necessary for their combine ship-specific spacecraft propulsion fuel." ]	2
	[WP] Modern day USA has been transported back to the year 700 due to an experiment with quantum mechanics gone wrong. Now faced with the problem of having to deal with less advanced neighbors, what happens during this time.	[ "\"It's caused a quantum fracture split, sir. This universe is actually a new universe.\" \n\nThe President stroked his chin. \"So we don't have to worry about disrupting our actual universe and wiping ourselves out?\"\n\n\"No sir.\" \n\n\"And Europe, they're a bunch of savages with castles and all that?\"\n\n\"Yes sir.\"\n\n\"Good. Good. Now I can finally realize my ambitions. God-Emperor Trump I shall be. First, I want every major oil reserve seized by the end of the week. Oh and islam? Yeah, let's go ahead and get rid of that. And I want the Incas or whoever the hell it is that lives in Mexico to be enslaved and to start work on the wall, immediately.\"" ]	1
	[WP] A plague has wiped out ninety percent of the planet's population. Now people reside in air domes, which filter clean air from the diseased planet. There are people outside the dome, threatening to break in.	[ "It was a mad scramble to build refuge. Some people were more resistant to the disease than others, it's the only reason we've found continuance. \n\n I stood near the border edge, staring out into the murky black. A thick fog swirled in onto itself lapping at the thick metallic glass walls of the dome. Faces could always be spotted here and there. The diseased ruled the Earth. I looked upward towards the guards. They stood on a platform jutting out on the side of the dome. They wore rundown suits held together by tape and shoddy stitching. Brave men. \n\n I stared a moment longer. Their behaviour seemed different today. They looked focused. An unusual trait for guards considering the monotony of the job. I followed their line of sight as one of them pointed towards something in the distance. I remembered my father telling me of another dome that lay nearby. Perhaps after all these years contact was being attempted? \n\n As my eyes searched the swirling mist a bright spot shone through the dark. It grew larger, larger. A small tremor ran through the ground and I turned my head upwards as I heard a thump above me. My eyes were met with the sight of an impaled guard. A large shard of metal protruded from his chest. I was shocked, my hands held over my mouth. I looked back to see that the light had grown brighter still. It was fire. \n\n The remaining guard rung the alarm bell. People from around the dome were confused. Looking at one another, unaware of what had happened. I looked back up to the guard tower. The alarm sounder was no where to be found. I began to panic. More people came to where I was standing. Trying to get an idea of the situation. A woman walked past me, right up to the glass. She peered through for a moment. A tense silence fell over the dome. \n\n I slowly approached the woman a mixture of concern and curiosity fuelling my advance. Before I could reach her she let out a piercing scream. She ran backwards tripping, scrambling to get away. Others from the group grabbed her and tried to calm her. I looked back to the glass. Placing both hands around my eyes I peered out into the fog. My eyes were straining to find anything. I focused on the distance fire. I could see the outline of a dome and as I looked longer I could see that out of the fire the diseased were advancing, quickly. \n\n As I turned to yell at everyone behind me a thunderous boom scared me off my feet. I turned on my stomach to see that everyone behind me had scattered. I looked back at the walls to see a spiderweb crack forming across the wall of the dome. BOOM I jumped again, this time to my feet. The diseased were rushing the wall. \n\nBOOM BOOM BOOM \n\nMore cracks formed across the walls. I backed up, too scared to run. BOOM A face came through a small hole in the glass, thick fog finding it's way in. It screamed at me, a horrible screech directed right at me. The face was violently ripped back out into the fog. Festering, decaying hands replaced it ripping at the glass tearing a hole in the wall. I ran now as fast my body could take me to the centre of the dome. To safety. \n\nI flew by people still waking up. Checking out their front doors to see what all the ruckus was about. I felt guilt inside me but fear drove me further into the dome. I heard screams behind me. Horrible screeches, human screams, the stuff of nightmares. I kept running. Warning no one, helping no one. I looked up to see that the smaller dome was already being dropped. Alarms rang out through the city mixed with the screams of the dying. \n\nI quickened my pace desperately trying to make it to the safe zone. The safety dome kept dropping and despair began to grip at me. I was too far. I slowed while others whizzed past me. Still so determined to make it to safety. I sat down in the street and waited. My mind was blank, a weird peacefulness fell over me. I felt something hit the back of my head before it all went black. \n\nThe diseased rule the Earth. \n\n*** \n\nHope you liked it! Other stories over at r/TheYogiBearhaWrites if you want check em out." ]	1
	[WP] Humanity has just achieved a means of FTL travel. On the first missions sent to nearby stars of Sol, the remains of numerous galactic communities are found...All Human in origin.	[ "Weirdly, the drones had found ancient Sumerian, Egyptian and Babylonian text on the pillar outside of the building. \"Sir,\" said controller Steve Hendrix, \"We've found a library.\" \n\n\nCaptain Jimmy Johnson asked him one question. \"How the fuck do you know it's a library? It's just a random building on a supposedly dead planet.\"\n\n\n\"It's written on that pillar in clear Babylonian, Sumerian AND Egyptian.\"\n\n\n\"You're shitting me,\" said the Captain.\n\n\n\"Do you have a degree in any of those languages?\" Before the captain could respond, Steve continued, on the edge of insubordination. \"No. I do. I also confirmed with Halley, and she concurs.\"\n\n\n\"Yes,\" said Halley. \"The text does indeed match ancient writings.\" The ship's AI, she had the entirety of human and machine knowledge at her fingertips thanks to the faster than light proton technology that made up her core.\n\n\n\"Who am I to argue? You discovered it, prepare a mission.\"\n\n\n\"Aye, sir,\" said Steve.\n\n\n\nAn hour later, Steve was standing by the pillar with Anthropologist Kate McCurry and Computer Specialist Jill Carruthers. \n\n\n\"It's huge,\" said Steve.\n\n\n\"Aye,\" replied Kate. \"Yet, everything seems sized for humans. The text is approximately what would go on any of our signs, the steps are human sized. The railing on the side is human height. I wouldn't be surprised if those doors are human sized as well.\"\n\n\n\"Hmm. All that tells us is that these people are approximately human sized.\"\n\n\nSteve started up the steps, made it up a third of the way before noticing that Kate and Jill remained by the pillar. He turned around. \"Are you guys coming or not? I have a feeling that the answers will be in here, not by the pillar.\"\n\n\nReaching the top, he brushed his gloved hand against the panel next to the doors. The doors sprung open. \"Kate,\" he said. \"It seems like this place was built for humans. The panel just responded to my touch.\"\n\n\nJill and Kate just looked at each other silently before following Steve in.\n\n\nAfter the door shut behind them, Steve took a reading of the atmosphere inside the building. \"Breathable, within Earth norms. Ok, helmets can come off, but keep them close.\" \n\n\nThe three of them took off their helmets, breathing in the air in the library. \"Whoo,\" exclaimed Jill. \"Smells musty.\"\n\n\nThe three of them looked around. Bookcases abounded, all of them analogous to human sized bookcases, all with books in them.\n\n\n\"Great,\" said Steve. \"Where's the Egyptian section?\"\n\n\n\"Two stories down, to the left of the stairs. Sumerian is to the right, and Babylonian is the floor below,\" said a voice from behind them.\n\n\nSteve jumped, pulling out his pistol and aiming it at the slightly blue figure. \"Who are you?\", he asked. \"How do you know our language?\"\n\n\n\"I am the librarian. I accessed your ship's core when you landed and deciphered your 'english'. Welcome home!\"\n\n\nConfused, Steve lowered his pistol. \"Welcome home? The fuck?\" He looked at Kate and Jill, just as confused as he was.\n\n\n\"Oh dear,\" said the librarian. \"I should've known. There's no mention of the Pan-Ur Federation in your computer.\"\n\n\n\"Damnit,\" said Steve. \"Halley, are you recording all of this?\"\n\n\n\"Affirmative,\" came a voice from their suit radios. \"Holo, video, and audio.\"\n\n\n\"Good, because I'm not sure I can believe this shit.\" Turning to face the librarian, he said, \"I apologize. Please continue.\"\n\n\n\"It has been approximately ten thousand cycles, or seven thousand seven hundred and fifty of your years since a Urran has step foot in my doors, so I apologize. I see what happened now.\"\n\n\nThe milky way galaxy appeared above their heads. \"At it's height the Pan-Ur Federation had a population of nearly ten trillion Urrans, scattered over a thousand star systems.\" The systems glowed in blue. \"Based on your ship's records and your DNA, you are the descendants of the lost Atlantis Colony. The colony was destined for Atlantis,\" a star further out from the Sol System started flashing, \"but wound up in the Hip-ur system, isolated from the rest of the Pan-Ur.\"\n\n\n\"A nasty noro-bot virus wiped out the rest of the Urrans not long after the Atlantis Expedition was lost. The federation tried valiantly to save its people, but everything it did was too little, too late. The last scientists on Babyo-Ur did manage to synthesize a cure that was sent to all of the librarians before succumbing. By then, society was too fragmented, too far gone to recover.\"\n\n\n\"I have given the cure to Halley to distribute to your people. I also invite you, children of Atlantis, to the stars to claim your legacy.\"\n\n\n\"I still have many questions,\" said Steve.\n\n", "The ship trembled as it left mazespace. It’s engines emitted a faint fading rumbling sound that could be felt deep inside your core. Sir Captain Fruthberg stepped through the piloticum’s raised walkway, looking down on the navigators. Everyone was working fervently.\n \n”We have successfully left the maze, Sir Captain Fruthberg.”\n \nThe Sir Captain came to a halt towards the stern of the ship and turn towards its bow, facing the piloticum’s douzens of navigators.\n \n”Steady as she goes. Eject scanner drones.”\n \nThe mood aboard Goldmurgle VI was sour. No idle chatter could be heard, and everyone focused their attention on their screens. On their work. Nobody wanted to discuss the events of the previous days. The expedition had been the first of its kind. The first ship equipped with a Mazespace Drive, allowing travel faster than light. They were surveying neighboring star systems for the Interplanetary Union. And what they had found so far on their mission had been terrifying.\n \n”Sir Captain, we have drone confirmation. Terrestial body, in orbit roughly zero point three astronomical units from the star. Within habitable limits.”\n \n”Alright. Recall the drones, take us there. Pray this one is not the same as the others.”\n \nThe mission was supposed to last five days. Before finishing the mission no transmission could be broadcasted back to the Union. To Earth. Travelling faster than light unfortunately did not mean they could broadcast messages at the same speed. The Union would not be aware of their discoveries for years.\n \nGoldmurgle VI had positioned itself in a low orbit above planetoid DSS-27E.\n \n”Sir Captain...scanners confirm DSS-27E is covered by structures. No sign of life.”\n \nThe Sir Captain shuddered. They had no choice but to go. To land. On another dead world. An unmistakably human dead world.\n \nOnly this time it was not as dead as they expected.\n --------------------------------------------------------\nKKrdskkkkschhhcshcckkzzz....ZZKkkrhhzshchxz-...BLEEP...ZXcxzkkkh..-nyone hea-ZXCJhdksrkkz…….ZXKrkxzkhhHelp! Send he-KJRjzgzggzxgcggc…ZXxKkzrzzting uszZXx...zzZXxXcey are EATzXXXzzzzssschh-\n \nThe survey leader started. Everyone in the group turned to her.\n \n”Rebreena, are you okay?”\n \n”What? Come on, tell me you guys heard that.”\n \nThe team members exchanged nervous looks.\n \n”Heard what?”\n \nA cold wind whistled through the empty, collapsed skyscrapers. Signposts with almost completely faded text in an illegible language were scattered across the street at arbitrary intervals. A deeply unsettling feeling was shared among the team’s shaken group. An unspoken one. BEEP. They followed the beacon that seemed to emit some kind of signal. They thought they would find survivors. They were wrong.\n \n”Nothing...I...it was probably just the wind.”\n \nSquad leader Rebreena glanced nervously around her. Surely it was just something her mind had imagined? The team continued further from their vessel. They strode across the gravel. They climbed the gargantuan cadavers of steel that had once comprised the major city of a civilization long dead. A human civilization. This world...they walked through ancient tunnels, full of rundown vehicles now covered with ash. Some passengers were still strapped to their seats. Some of them were strewn over the tunnel floor. None of them were out in the open. All of them were embraced by the darkness of the tunnel...is not human.\n \nKreEEEEEEEeeeee...eeEEee..\n \nA blood freezing cry, emitted from further into the darkness made the team stop dead in its tracks. It echoed through the tunnel. Squad leader Rebreena walked towards the cry. She slowly brought up her flashlight from her pack. A gray silhoutte could be seen against the far wall were Rebreena was now standing. She flicked the switch. CLICK- The squad leader disappeared into the darkness within a split second, screaming in horror. On this world… Her flashlight fell to the ground. The rushing sound, like leaves in the wind, along with the joint-cracking sounds from the tunnel’s ceiling suddenly made the team members look upwards. Towards the swarming mass of creatures above them ...We are trespassers." ]	2
	[WP] The child games your kids play leak into the reality. You can usually cope with the usual "knights in living room" and others, but this time, it's clearly out of control and you decide to tell them to play something else... If only you could reach them!	[ "\"The floor is lava!\"\n\nI'm sure we've all heard that said before. But, when its said by your kid, who has a tendency to make these things true, it takes on a whole new meaning. And I like my local property values, I don't want my house to burn to the ground.\n\nAnd convection. People always forget convection. So the room is going to rapidly start heating up, and then it will burn the house to the ground, with the kids who haven't learned convection in science class before.\n\n\"I've had enough!\" I yelled. \"Stop playing this game now, before you kill yourselves!\"\n\n\"No, this is fine. We play this game all the time.\" my son replied.\n\n\"With actual lava! No you don't! Not in my house!\" I yelled back.\n\n-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\n\"Ah, Mrs. Smith. When emergency responders brought your husband here, I thought you'd be coming soon,\" the doctor said.\n\n\"Is he all right?\" Mrs. Smith asked.\n\n\"He'll be fine. He's suffering from Alcohol Withdrawal Syndrome. He has it worse than most, but he should stop hallucinating within the next 2 days. We'll keep him here until then for monitoring, but he should be free to go afterwards,\" the doctor answered.\n\n\"Hey Mommy, how's Daddy doing? Does he need some of that medicine he's been drinking every night for the past few years?\" Frankie Smith, their 6 year old son, asked." ]	1
	[WP] Everybody opens their box when they wake up to a word describing their day. You open your box to nothing.	[ "Alarm goes off. I took a deep breath, pulled my hand out of the blankets, extended my arm to reach my smartphone, while hopelessly trying to stop the alarm or at least sneeze it.\n\nI didn't know how the day would go... last week's Box was too random. From Happy to Troubled, then from Enjoy to Depression, too many emotions to process in a single week... its not that I didn't knew how the day would go, but rather I didn't wanted to know.\n\n\"Mooooooom.\" I yelled. I wanted to know if someone turned on the water heater so I could take a warm shower. She did not answer.\n\n\"Time to get up.\" I Muttered to myself while looking for motivation to open my Box. I walked to my computer's desk and didn't saw the Box in it special place, near the left monitor of my setup so I couldn't take my eyes off it. That Box was so mysterious, it could only be opened in the morning and every day it had a word describing your day, yet nobody ever questioned their origin.\n\n\"That's weird.\" I said out loud, while glancing every nook and cranny of my room. \n\n\"Found it!\" Why was I to anxious to find it?, even though I could hate the Box for the rest of the day depending on its answer.\n\nThe Box... pitch black and rather elegant, made of good quality wood, always so clean and waxed that you could even see your reflection on it. Nobody knew where it came from, we just get one on the day we're born...\n\nI heard helpless cries coming from the hall. It was my mothers. I lifted my face and looked to my door. My mother was standing there... crying...\n\n\"WHAT HAPPENED!?\" I screamed. She didn't flinch nor reacted, she only stood there, soaking my floor with her tears.\n\n\"Its everything OK?!\" No response... I was worried, something must have happened. I quickly looked down to my Box and opened it only to find it totally empty... no words, nothing. I wasn't paying to much attention to it, maybe I missed it. I closed it and quickly brought my eyes to my Mothers, but she was already gone.\n\nI rushed the hall and went to the living room. My family was there... painfully sobbing. Tearful. You could even breath the sorrow. Even my new girlfriend.\n\n\"WHAT HAPPENED!?\" I yelled again, hoping to get an explanation. Nothing...\n\nIt was like I wasn't even there. Tried to get someone to talk to me, but they seemed distant, listening to their own thoughts.\n\n\"It was so young... I ca-\" Said my father before it was interrupted by my sister.\n\n\"Why though?! that's not fair!\" She looked so small and frail, I couldn't help it but get mopy. Still nobody was listening to me.\n\nWho died? I wondered. At that moment I saw my brother pulling out a picture from the living room's dusty bookshelf. Why do we have a bookshelf when most of us spends their they looking at a screen, oh right, my sisters liked them. Anxious to see who was the person they were crying to, I quickly stood up and had a look at the old picture before my brother gave it to my mother.\n\nI felt a knot in my throat, my knees felt weak. Trembling. I think I looked like those tiny chihuahuas, 50% evilness, 50% tremble. I couldn't understand why my brother was handing over a picture of me. I was confused. I panicked.\n\n\"Why is there a picture of me?\"\n\"Why no one is talking to me?!\" \n\"Hey, listen!\" Annoying...\n\"I need an explanation!\"\n\nNobody was paying attention to me, like I didn't even exis-... Then it struck me. I stood up from the old sofa couch I was and started rushing through the hall, back to my room. I don't even remember what I was thinking, I just keep running in a seemly infinite hall. Back in my room I quickly grabbed the Box that I threw in the floor earlier on and opened it.\n\nThere was nothing.\n\nThe Box that predicted my days... That I would be Depressed on Monday, that I would Enjoy Tuesday, that Wednesday I was a little bit Anxious, I had exams that day, that on Thursday I would felt Troubled and Friday I was Happy as I got confessed on... that very same box had nothing for me today, no surprise, no predictions, no emotions, truly... nothing.\n\n\"Am I dead?...\" was my first thought. Damn Box... it killed me, or so I thought. Everything was pretty normal, I could hear, touch, smell.. I could feel. Am I really dead?\n\nThen as I realized that something must have happened to me, I wondered how I died. Slowly turning back to the door accepting my destiny. I saw my family laughing like seals, clapping without sounds. I cried.\n\n\"Whats wrong with you?!?!\" It was a Joke. A really mean one. Then they tried to hug it out, I refused. They forced it. \n\nAs I'm being embraced I noticed two things: The laughs were fake, you could feel pain in them, remorse in their words as they explained everything to me, and then something written on the Box.\n\nDeath. That was written on it, on the magic damned Box... I should've known. The emotions this past week where telling it I just didn't noticed until the very end.", "It's a metaphor. There is no box. It's just how it feels to be me. \n\nI look around and see everybody wake up with something to do. Dad wakes up with \"money\" so he reads the stock news or whatever before work. Mom wakes up with \"plants\" so she obsesses about her garden and sometimes even draws it. My brother wakes up with \"sports\".\n\nMe, though, there's nothing. It's like I'm waiting for the world to give me something, but everyday when I wake up, it gives me nothing.\n\nSo I have to do it myself. I close my eyes and wait. There'll be some random memory or whatever that comes to me, and when it does, I start writing. I write stories about people in different times in different places, like my hometown and an island and a magical city out west, and I write from different perspectives, like an archaeologist and a bus driver and an architect and a piece of luggage. I've even written from the perspective of a cloud. \n\nWhen I'm done writing it's like I don't even know who did it. Like these ideas came from someone else who's not even me. Then I give them a number and put them in a box underneath my bed.\n\nThat's why I do it. Because when I wake up and peek in this metaphorical box, it always opens up to nothing.\n\n///\n \nScene #3 of r/100scenes" ]	2

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