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[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: (Un) Lucky June\n\nGenre: asian-american\n\nWord Count: 2988\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about someone who’s desperately trying to change their luck." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "“June Li wait!” She is shouting through the crowd. “JUNE LI!” \n“No,” I croak. I’m out of breath and desperate to get away. My leg is twisted at the knee, but I’m still trying to run. I knew jumping off the roof was going to hurt. But I had no other choice. Seriously. My luck has been so shitty lately! \nI push my hair out of my eyes to see where I’m going. \nThere--\nThe lights twinkling over the Zhu Jiang River, the Dragon Boat Festival is about to start. If I can make it there before they light the floating Dragon, maybe I can lose her. I mean, it’s not like I meant to burn down her stupid kitchen. \nShe knew I was bad luck! \nBut did she help me? \nI wouldn’t call what she did help. \nSo whose fault is this really?\n“There she is!” She screams. A whistle blows. I look over my shoulder just in time to see the Renmin Jingcha. An entire patrol unit in their crisp blue uniforms, just like police back home. Oh crap. Did she call the People’s Police? This is bad. Like a yellow jacket in the outhouse bad. That’s what my Dad would say if he was here. He always has a real Texan way of saying things. \nIt’s not that much further.\nBut, my knee is throbbing! \nI’ve got to put ice on it and find my robotics team. They are going to kill me if I’m late! \nMaybe I should have listened to Carmen.\nOr Peter. \nUgh… \n*\n“June, are you sure this is a good idea? I get it, your Mom lived here as a kid so you think that gives you this big connection to the city. But, like, you grew up in Texas! Your dad is white!” Carmen pulls on my arm trying to stop me from leaving our hotel room.\n“Yeah, girl, do you even speak Chinese?” Peter looks up from his phone. \n“Peter, we’ve gone over this. Chinese people speak Mandarin. Not Chinese. And I know enough.” Why are my friends so dumb? “I’ll be fine! I’ll meet up with you guys later at the competition. It doesn’t start until dusk anyway, right after they light the Dragon to start the Dragon Boat Festival. I just have this one thing I need to do in the city.” \n“Then I’m coming with you,” Carmen says, grabbing her backpack. \n“Wait, if you both go, how will we get Big Bertha there?” Peter whines. \n“I thought we weren’t going to call her Big Bertha anymore? It’s so trashy!” Carmen snaps.\n“Trashy?” Peter gasps dramatically. “Carmen, you bitch. Awe… Don’t you listen to her Bertha honey,” Peter runs over to put his hands on Bertha’s ears. Or where ears would be, I suppose, if Bertha were an animal or a person, not a big round black robot.\n“Stop coddling her!” Carmen rushes over to slap Peter away. \nI use their moment of stupidity to slip out the door. \nI have a mission and I’m not going to let Carmen or Peter stop me. \nHa! Look at me now! \nTwisted leg. Being chased by the People’s Police and the threat of being locked in a Chinese jail for arson (that wasn’t even my fault)! My day couldn’t possibly get any worse. Except-- my phone is going mad in my pocket. I manage to dig it out while I’m limping along. It’s 7:15 p.m. Big Bertha is supposed to go on stage in fifteen minutes! Oh my god! If I don’t get there soon, I’ll never live this down. This moment is huge for us. Probably the biggest moment of all of our lives and I just screwed it up. \n“JUNE LI!!” \nYikes! \nI’ve got to ditch these cops and my Aunt Suyin. I hear her scream my name again over the crowd. “JUNE LI! You in biiiiiig trouble!” Yeah, okay, it was her kitchen I sort of set on fire. \nSeriously, stop judging me. \nIt was an accident! \nI mean, come on. Obviously I went to her house to get help. Not to burn it down. \n*\n“How you find me June Smith?” \nAunt Suyin is at her front door staring at me. \n“Nǐ hǎo āyí Suyin Li.” I bow. “My name isn’t June Smith. It’s June Li Smith, I’m still family.” I say, emphasizing the Li, with a big ‘ol American grin on my face. Then I hold out a present I bought for her at the Dallas airport gift shop. \n“What’s this?” She asks.\n“A genuine Everything is Bigger in Texas apron. Mom always says you’re a hot mess, so I assumed--” \n“You have terrible accent,” she says before shutting the door in my face. \n“Wait!” \n“GO away June Li. You not welcome. You have bad luck just like Dongmei,” she yells through the slats of the door. \n“Mom goes by an American name, Doris,” I shout back. \nWrong answer. \nShe swings the door wide open. \n“Doris? Dongmei is stupid girl. Unlucky. You unlucky just like her June Li.” Her face is pursed up like she’s going to spit on me. And maybe she will. Mom says Aunt Suyin is feisty.\n“Wait!” I put my hands up to shield my face from any incoming spray. “Mom told me you did something to make her bad luck go away. I’m not really sure what. She’s sort of vague about it. Anyway, I’m trying to get into college and I need all the luck I can get Aunt Suyin. See, I’m taking this thing called the SAT’s next week, and I-- uh, I’m smart, like really smart, I build robots that could rival NASA, but I am terrible at tests. I have the worst luck. Please, I need your help! Just tell me what you did for Mom and I’ll leave,” I slowly put my hands down and take a deep breath. \nIt’s a long shot. \nBut what do I have to lose? \nAll I need is the thing--\nMaybe it’s a charm?\nOr a special tea? \nAll I know is that Mom said when she was a kid, she had horrible, terrible, bad luck. The kind that made people cross the street when she came walking. Dogs barked at her. Babies cried around her. \nBut now-- Mom is like this perfect American dream. \nHer and Dad are totally in love. \nShe has hundreds of friends. \nAnd everyone says how beautiful and lucky she is! \nBut she used to be just like me. It’s always broken mirrors and black cats. I’m never going to get into college with the scores I keep getting. I just need whatever Chinese magic Aunt Suyin did for my Mom and then I’ll be out of her hair. \n“PLEASE!” \n“You so pathetic June Li. Get inside before I change my mind,” Aunt Suyin opens the door. \n“Thank you!” I hug my old crabby Aunt. \n“Don’t touch me! Take off shoes,” Aunt Suyin barks.\nI smile and obey.\nAfter ushering me through her very clean, not messy-at-all, house and setting me down at a table with a cup of hot tea, Aunt Suyin seems to settle down and accepts my presence. Yes, she’s muttering something so fast that I can’t understand, a prayer maybe? Something to ward off a curse? As long as it will help me on my SAT’s I don’t care. \n“So, do you live here alone?” I sip the tea, trying to breathe in the steam, in case it’s the thing to cure my bad luck. \n“Dongmei really say she lucky now?” Aunt Suyin looks suspicious. \n“Yes!” \n“You lie. Why you really here?” She looks at me with one eye. \nI squint and look back at her with one eye. \nI was raised by a Chinese woman. I know these games. \nAunt Suyin finally breaks and lets her face relax. \n“I’m here with my robotics team. We won the Nationals with Big Bertha. She’s our Robot,” I clarify after she looks confused. “We were invited to participate in the World Robotics Tournament which is being held at the Dragon Boat Festival tonight. It’s a huuuuuge honor-- It’s being live streamed on YouTube and--,” and then I just blab on and on and on about my life. \nAbout my parents.\nMy friends.\nMy school. \nLiterally everything. And you know what? Aunt Suyin, a seriously cranky old Chinese woman, actually listens! And she laughs and she smiles and she seems to be enjoying herself. \n“Aunt Suyin, can you tell me now, what did you do for my Mom? I have to know.” I can’t wait any longer. I check my phone. It’s getting late. \nCarmen and Peter will be waiting for me. \nAunt Suyin gets up and walks to the kitchen and signals me to follow her. \nThis is it! \nShe’s going to give me the secret!\nBut, when we enter the kitchen, I know something is very wrong. Her face is back to the scowl she had when I first arrived. And there’s something else. \nA man. A very large man. Right in the middle of the kitchen. \n“Uh, I’m sorry, I… I should go. Thank you for letting me spend some time with you,” I bow quickly and turn to go. But, Aunt Suyin is fast! She puts her hand on my shoulder and spins me around. \n“June Li, don’t be rude. This is my son, Qianlong Li. He your cousin. Here to help me-- We going to remove your bad luck. You say you want to be like Dongmei. Let me show you what we do,” her voice is sharp and sounds angry at me. Aunt Suyin is totally creeping me out! \n“No, I’m okay, thanks anyway!” I smile and nod. My heart is pumping so hard in my chest, I’m pretty sure it’s going to burst out and land on the floor. What are they planning on doing to me? There’s pots bubbling over, bottles and baskets all over. There are weird looking plants hanging everywhere. And oh, my god-- a row of dead chickens hanging. \nDeep breath. \nI’ve heard Mom’s stories. \nI get it. This is an authentic Chinese kitchen. \nDon’t freak out. \n“Qianlong hold her. I do Zhēn cì and fix you,” Aunt Suyin holds up a handful of needles. Oh no, no, no… um, what the hell is Zhēn cì? I’m wracking my brain. Has Mom ever said anything about needles before? Not that I can remember. Breathe. \n“Nope. I’m good. No, no needles will be necessary. I’m just going to go. Thank you,” I slowly back up. But, then I don’t know what happens! Qianlong reaches for me and there’s just so much stuff hanging all over and I freak out! “AGH!!” I scream and fling my arms around and knock a bunch the baskets down. They temporarily block me from my cousin. He grunts and lunges at me. \n“June Li! Hold still!” Aunt Suyin screams at me.\n“NO,” I charge forward and all hell breaks loose. It’s like bad-luck-girl freaking out meets crazy Chinese relatives and the place erupts in total chaos. We are all screaming and stuff is flying around and I guess I knock over something that is flammable and then the stove is on fire. \n“Fire, fire, FIRE!” I wave and point and Aunt Suyin is screaming at Qianlong and he shouts something nasty at me. Now that’s a Mandarin phrase I know and won’t repeat. I grab the first bottle with liquid I see and throw at the fire. That was the wrong thing to do. I’m such an idiot. \nThe flames burst into a wild inferno. \n“OUT!” Aunt Suyin pushes me out of the room and towards the front door of the house. \n“But, but, wait! The fire, we have to put it out, I’m so sorry Aunt Suyin!” I don’t know what to do or say. Then I hear a sound I’ve heard plenty of times before in our robotics shop. The sound of a fire extinguisher. \nQianlong. He’s putting out the blaze.\n“You BAAAAD LUCK June Li! You set my house on fire!” Aunt Suyin is screaming at me.\n“I’ve got to go Aunt Suyin, I’m late! I’m sorry! I thought you were going to kill me,” I yell over my shoulder and jump off the porch and out into the street. \n“Kill you? Stupid, stupid girl! Zhēn cì is ac-you-punch-her-- it's what I do for Dongmei.” Aunt Suyin is running behind me and yelling. \nAc-you-punch-her?\nOhhhhh… Acupuncture. Traditional Chinese medicine using thin needles to treat pressure points and cure illnesses. That’s what she was going to do. She was going to use acupuncture to cure my bad luck! Palm to face moment. \nBut now, I can’t stop. \nI have to go! It’s getting dark. \nCarmen and Peter are probably freaking out! \nThere is a fence in front of me, but I know the Dragon Boat Festival is that general direction. If I can get up and over the fence and make it to the festival, I’ll come back tomorrow and pay Aunt Suyin for the damages. I mean, I’m not a complete asshole! \n“I’ll come back tomorrow,” I shout. \n“JUNE LI!” \nGod she’s relentless! \nI get over the fence and on the other side a crowd has started forming. They are heading to the Dragon Boat Festival from the looks of it. Everyone is laughing and talking and stopping at food carts. There are children running and screaming and everyone is dancing in the streets. It’s one big festival everywhere! I’m so confused now. I don’t know if this road is heading towards Zhu Jiang River. \n“I can’t see.” I exclaim. I jump up to try and see over the crowd. I’m so frustrated. I can’t see anything. Maybe if I was up higher, like up on the roof of a building, I could see where the river is and the stage for our robotics competition. \n“Bāng wǒ pá shàngqù,” I say to the first guy I see. \n“What? Sorry, I don’t speak Chinese,” he says and smiles. A drunk teenage tourist. \n“You mean Mandarin. I need to get up on the roof of this building, can you boost me up?” I say with an attitude. I mean seriously, look at him. He’s at least half-Chinese. What’s wrong with my generation? \n“Cool. American Chinese girl,” he slurs. “I’m an American Chinese boy.” \nI roll my eyes. “Just boost me please, I’m in a hurry to get to the Dragon Boat Festival. My robotics team is competing and I’m lost. I need to see where to go,” I say, not that I need to explain to him. \n“JUNE LI!” \nOh shit. Aunt Suyin is back. \n“Whoa, robotics? That is so rad. I’m here with my parents. They don’t know I’m out drinking, don’t tell them okay?” He says and puts his hands out for me to climb up. I put my foot in his hands and he gives me the boost I need to reach up and pull myself up to the top of the roof. \n“Thank you!” I shout and wave. \n“No-- thank you, robot girl!” He shouts back and waves. \nIdiot. \nI climb further up on the roof and over to the next building. There! I can see the flags and boats and the huge Dragon they are going to light up to signal the start of the Dragon Boat Festival. Carmen and Peter and Big Bertha have got to be there by now. \nOkay-- time to jump. \nHa! Look at me now! \nTwisted leg. Being chased by the People’s Police. The threat of being locked in a Chinese jail for arson (that wasn’t even my fault)! It’s 7:15 p.m. Big Bertha is going on stage in fifteen minutes! If I don’t get there soon, I’ll never live this down. \n“JUNE LI! You in biiiiiig trouble!” \nSo I do the only thing I can do. \nBecause my Mom and Dad made me promise one thing before we left on our trip. “June Li Smith, make us proud.” And running away from my Aunt Suyin after burning her kitchen down would not make my parents proud. So I turn around. I put my hands up in the air like they do in the movies and lace them behind my head. \n“I give up. I’m sorry Aunt Suyin! It was an accident. I’m bad luck,” I shout and get down on my knees. I watch as my Aunt gets closer. But then I close my eyes. I don’t want to watch the People’s Police butt-stroke me in the head with their guns. I’m shaking. I can’t believe it came to this. I don’t deserve to score high on my SAT’s. And I sure as hell don’t deserve to participate with my robotics team tonight. \n“Get up!” Aunt Suyin is pulling on me. “Why you on your knees? Why you run so fast from me? You stupid girl?” \nI open my eyes. The Renmin Jingcha is running past us, blowing whistles and shouting at someone. “But-- I thought-- the Police?” I stammer. \n“You forget shoes. You feet gonna be in biiiiiig trouble running barefoot. Here--” Aunt Suyin shoves my shoes at me, then pokes me in the temple with a needle before I can scream or jerk away. “Now you fixed. Like I fix Dongmei. Go. Win contest stupid girl. Don’t come back.” \n“You’re such a liar June Li!” Carmen shakes her head. \n“Oh my god, look, there is a needle mark,” Peter is examining my temple. \n“Come on! We are up,” I point to the stage. The sign is flashing our robot's name and the crowd is screaming wildly.\n“Big Bertha!” \n“I hate you Peter,” Carmen shoves him. He laughs and eats it up. Pumping his fist and runs on stage. I don’t know if my luck is going to change when I get home. But for now, it’s time to kick some robot ass." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: In Flight\n\nGenre: asian-american\n\nWord Count: 1080\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story involving a character who cannot return home." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Hanbei knew the story Jingwei, the fierce bird who flew through the skies above the Chinese oceans. She often wished she had met the beautiful princess who was transformed into the mighty-winged bird who protected her people from the crashing waves and the powerful seas surrounding her homeland. Hanbei regularly looked up into an unfamiliar sky filled with New York skyscrapers, and she wondered if Jingwei knew that she now lived near the Atlantic Ocean and in new country where her family needed the protection of the bright, majestic bird.\nDragons moved to the new country years before Hanbei was born, and often it slept quietly until poked to awake and stir the words and actions of those who spit fire and clawed into the air. Because of this, Hanbei’s mother forced her to stay indoors until the dangerous creatures slept again, leaving the city in peace. Deep in her bones, Hanbei, like so many new immigrants, yearned for the open spaces of city parks where trees shaded the pathways and where children safely ran until their legs grew tired.\n Her parents did their best to help her feel that she could live beyond the thin walls of her apartment by setting up ‘play dates’ with classmates on the computer. Hanbei took virtual violin lessons and played small pieces with those from the other apartments who sometimes leapt to their balconies to share their musical abilities with the city. Still, Hanbei wished she had wings like Jingwei. She wanted to fly far from the invisible danger that lurked like an approaching storm just outside of her front door. \nHanbei’s parents knew their daughter’s legs were itching to move and her arms aching to fly. Once, on a shopping trip, Hanbei’s father looked frantically up and down the aisles for his daughter’s favorite spaghetti sauce; this was her favorite American food. Surprisingly, during his search, he discovered the very small display of various games in the back corner of the store. Immediately, a pair of red handles and a bright yellow jump rope caught his eyes; he could not stop smiling when he put this great find in his grocery basket. As soon as he was home, he and Hanbei ran down the steps to the small patch of dirt and grass that everyone at the apartments called ‘the garden’. They immediately began to practice jumping in sync while Hanbei’s mom videoed the perfect moment Hanbei’s feet jumped together in rhythm with her father’s, and they flew from the ground and left the earth for a moment.\nStill, in between laughter and happiness, there was always something hiding behind her parents’ smiles. Hanbei heard them whispering in Chinese, and sometimes in English, about how dangerous this new world was for them. She knew her parents cried behind the bedroom door, and when her dad stepped out on the balcony or sat alone in the apartment ‘garden’ with his tea, she knew things weighed heavily on his mind.\nHanbei felt the most fearful when her mother’s glasses fell off the bathroom counter. Purchased in China just months ago before they crossed oceans, the glasses were frequently taken on and off during moments when her mom felt a headache coming on. Eventually, the screw holding one of the lenses in place fell out and was nowhere to be found. Hanbei and her parents quickly crawled on the floor looking for the one piece that would hold the lens in place. Quite unexpectantly, her mom, not being able to see clearly, accidentally crushed part of the frame of her glasses with her knee when she thought she caught sight of a silver speck and reached out to grab hold of it in the blurry world in which she now found herself. At the sound of the plastic frame cracking on the tile floor, Hanbei’s mother drew her hands over her eyes and began to cry, softly at first, and then uncontrollably. The three of them huddled on their knees in the bathroom and secretly wished they could all magically be transported back to their homeland.\nThe crying passed when Hanbei’s dad taped the frame of her mother’s glasses so that the lens could stay in place. But at breakfast, the lenses from the broken frame popped out and landed in her mom’s cereal. Everyone laughed at how silly it was to see the lens floating in milk. Both Hanbei and her dad made funny faces and pretended their ears or noses fell into their cereal bowls, and they would wait patiently for Hanbei’s mom to smile as they each fished through their own bowls in search for what they had lost.\nDuring one of those times at breakfast, Hanbei looked longingly at her parents who began to question the strange glaring of their daughter’s eyes. Was she was feeling all right? Did she have a fever? Hanbei assured them that she was fine as her parents felt her forehead and held her cheeks in their hands. Hanbei understood why her parents built the safety nest of the apartment; she knew they loved her more than she would ever understand. But she felt something move within her and she needed them to let her go. She did not excuse herself from the table. She did not ask for permission. \nHanbei’s mother quickly jumped for her daughter who was now already down the hallway and near her bedroom. Hanbei’s father jumped up too; he reached out for his wife who wanted to run for their daughter now shut up in her bedroom, door locked. He held her as she cried into his shoulder. Into the curve of his neck, she pleaded for him to let them return to China where it was safer for them all. Quietly in Chinese, he desperately tried to calm her. Didn’t she know she needed to accept their new country, its dragons and monsters lurking? Every country did have them, regardless of whether they seemed more familiar to her in their home country than they were here. Hanbei listened to her parents from the other side of her bedroom door; she wanted to strike out of the apartment, but she could not leave her parents standing alone. She quietly opened her bedroom door and moved down the hallway. Once within reach, she threw her arms around her parents, and from just outside her window, the wings and the cooing of city pigeons could be heard as they swept between the buildings." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Our Country\n\nGenre: asian-american\n\nWord Count: 1326\n\nPrompt:\n\nStart your story with an unexpected knock on a window." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "In 1952..\nI was sitting at the dinner table eating my steaming plate of kimbap with my Appa when there was a sudden knock on the window. My Appa looked across my shoulder trying to see who was there. I followed his dark brown eyes as he said,“Get the door please A-Yeong.”c\nAs I walked to the window, I leaned over seeing two small girls. I motioned to them that we had no food to give them, thinking they were beggars. My Appa came to me after a long time. Looking at the two girls he seemed shocked and hastily got his shoes. After he hastily slipped them on without tying them, he went out into the cold and approached the two girls. He was speaking to them, but I couldn't make out the words. I stopped watching them and decided to go back to the table to finish my kimbap. Right as I finished, my father came in with the two girls.\n“These two lovely girls, J-eun and Jihye, will be staying with us for a while,” my Appa said in a smile I haven’t seen since eomma. “They will be sleeping in our guest room.”\n“Is that Kimbap?” Ji-eun said in Korean to me. “C-could I have some for me and my sister?”\n“Uh sure,” I say smiling.\nI give them some kimbap from Appa's plate. They devoured the kimbap in a matter of seconds. I could tell these kids had been on a hard trip. \n“Lead them to their room A-Yeong,” said Appa as he put his glasses down and started to cook Tteokguk.\n“This way Ji-eun and Ji-hye!” I said, still smiling.\nI take them to their guest room and give them all the clothes and resources they need for sleeping.\n“I’ll go prepare a hot bath for you guys now, you guys stink!” I say with a laugh, but to my surprise they do not laugh instead they look down with sad faces. “U-uh, I'll just get that ready, heh..” \nAfter preparing the hot bath for the girls I tell the 2 Ji’s to go take a bath. I decided to get a cup of red tea because I was thirsty. My Appa was in the kitchen and when he saw me he motioned me to come sit down with him. He put down his knife and came over. He had a serious face, so I thought he was mad.\n“A-Yeong, you know how we escaped the Korean war?” my Appa starts off.\nOh, I definitely remember the Korean war. It was a fierce battle between the rivals, North Korea and South Korea. I lost my Umma to that. My Appa has never been the same since Umma died. \n“Well A-Yeong, Ji-eun and Ji-hye have also escaped from the Korean war, but with the price of losing their parents,” my Appa sorrowfully said. “Speaking of which, Ji-eun and Ji-hye will also go to school with you. I hope you will help them since they don’t know English that well.”\n“Don’t worry Appa, I'll make sure they don’t get bullied.” \nI went back to the bathroom after drinking some lemon water. The Ji’s are playing with the bubbles and laughing. I have never heard such pretty laughs before. \n“Hurry up!” I say in Korean, “My Appa is making Tteokguk.”\nThey look over at me and smile.\n“Unnie!!” they say in a laugh.\nI smile, and go to our room to get ready for sleep. I can hear the Ji’s go to eat Tteokguk. I go to the bathroom and clean up all the bubbles and brush my teeth. I also prepare toothbrushes for Ji-eun and Ji-hye. I fall asleep in my cold and soft bed and wake up the next morning to feet shuffling in the room. \n“Unnie!! Wake up,” I hear Ji-hye say. \n“I’m awake.” I tell them laughing.\nI open my eyes and see that Ji-hye and her sister have already gotten ready for school. I put on my slippers and change. I brush my teeth and Ji-eun and I go to school. Apparently Ji-hye is too young to attend school, so she’s going to help Appa with work. As we arrive at school many people stare at me and Ji-eun. \n“BESTIEEE!!” I hear a familiar voice and I turn my head as Ji-eun also looks at me. It's Chun-Ja!! \n“Over here!” I replied to her.\nShe comes over and looks at Ji-eun. Her eyes are sparkling, and she turns me over to talk to me.\n“Who is she?” She says in an energetic voice.\n“She's someone who escaped the Korean war,” I reply, trying to match her energetic voice.\nWe went back to Ji-eun, and I introduced them to each other. Suddenly, the bell rings and we all get sent to class. Thankfully, Ji-eun, Chun-Ja, and I are all in the same class. While the teacher was teaching us about ratios, I didn’t notice Ji-eun getting hit by a paper ball. Then suddenly, Ji-eun runs out of the classroom. I couldn’t tell, but I think she was crying. I asked the teacher if I could be excused with a worried face. I bite my nails as I go out to find Ji-eun. I get worried about what will happen if she gets lost and never finds her way back. I searched the school for what seemed like forever, but then I heard a soft crying voice that sounded like Ji-eun. I quickly run to the sound and around the corner there's Ji-eun crying. I sat down next to her asking what was wrong. \n“R-read the note…” Ji-eun said to me.\nI opened the paper ball and I read a few sentences to myself. As I read I almost punched the wall. Who do these people think they are?!? Whoever wrote this told Ji-eun to go back to her country where she can starve herself rather than eat HIS food in America. Of course I knew who it was, but I took the paper and put it in my pocket. \n“If it makes you feel better I can tell you about the first time I came to America and how I had a hard time with bullies too.” I say trying to lighten up the mood. \n“O-ok,” she said in sniffles.\nI told her about how I got a similar note, but then I found Chun-Ja who is now my best friend. I tell her about how I will stick with her just like how Chun-Ja stuck with me through hard times. After the story I tell her, she gets up and I walk her back to class. Unfortunately, the teacher yelled at us for skipping class, but we were saved as the bell rang symbolizing it was time for lunch. We all ran to lunch and got our food. Chun-Ja was at the library for extra help so it was just me and Ji-eun. Suddenly, Michael comes up to our table. \n“HAHA if it isn’t the two Korean idiots.” He says. \n“We are not idiots..” Ji-eun said back looking down at her soup.\n“Are you talking back to me? Koreans are supposed to fight in war, not be here in America and stir up trouble,” he said back.\n“Well guess what, it's none of your business you disgrace of America.” I snap back winking at JI-eun.\n“W-well, I'm gonna go eat my soup rather than waste time with you and your Korean friend!” He says back leaving.\n“Hey, thanks for sticking up for me.” Ji-eun said to me in Korean. \n“It’s nothing, remember? We are gonna stick together till the end.” I say punching the air.\nAnd that's how it started. With a knock on the window, I met a new friend. Someone who I could look up to or protect. Now we are 18 in college learning how to be doctors. Of course Ji-hye also grew up, she's in high school now, and she's doing well in school." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: A window salvaged.\n\nGenre: asian-american\n\nWord Count: 1194\n\nPrompt:\n\nStart your story with a character looking out of a window in the middle of the night." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "“Art should always be placed at eye level,” she said, straightening the piece she had decided upon.\n “But wouldn’t eye level be different for everyone?” my six-foot-four frame said to her five-foot-three figure.\n “Don’t overthink it,” she responded.\n I thought about that while looking at the handmade, salvaged window with ornate shutters my mother snagged from the old city of Peshawar. She hung it above the archway between the kitchen and the living room, well above anyone’s eye level. She and I happened to be in Pakistan for a family wedding when she acquired it. We had been staying at my aunt’s house in Peshawar for the event. \n I had taken a liking to one of the many servants even though overt fraternizing with the staff was not particularly approved of. I wanted to him to see what we had just acquired. He took a washcloth and wiped my brow, unbuttoned my shirt and offered me a bottle of cold water. As he wiped the sweat from my face and neck, he gestured to the window and the shutters enclosing it and mentioned that it was from his ancestral home. I laughed thinking he was just bullshitting me. The gravity of his expression made me think twice. He went up to it, first making sure that no one would see him touching it, and pointed out the silver filagree work. “My great-grandfather did that. You can’t find such craftsmanship around anymore. I used to open the shutters every morning but then I’d get yelled at because it allowed the dust in from the streets below.”\n “Hence the shutters,” I said, not sure if I was backtracking, flirting or trying to be funny. He didn’t respond to my comment. Perhaps he didn’t understand. His knowledge of Urdu was basic, of English non-existent. We got by through my rudimentary knowledge of Pashto, facial expressions, and emphatic gestures.\n His long fingers traced the details of the filigree as though he remembered the creation of something he could not have possibly been alive for. A pang of guilt surged though me. Taking antiquities outside the country of origin is frowned upon even when perfectly legal. For him, this was his history. For my mother, it was just a piece of art that would be put up in our home in Chicago. \n Perhaps it was his insouciance that drew me to him. He was tall, good-looking, and had a runway model’s build. But he wasn’t stunning by any means. At least not until you got to watch him from afar when he thought no one was looking. Even when reprimanded, he took it in stride and the half smile on his face never faded. \n I didn’t have much experience with Pakistan during the summer but the heat and humidity alone would make you think you were swimming from one room to the next. Adding weddings to the mix kicks the game up to a whole different level. Weddings in Pakistan tend to be weeks long and mostly a feminine affair — with all the jewelry and tailors fussing with final fittings and the makeup. For the men, it’s only about a shower, shave, and putting on freshly starched clothing. In those down times, my eyes would follow him around. On one of the first events of the wedding, I made sure to make my hair immovable and impenetrable from the humidity, which usually hits its peak nearing sundown. Though not my product of choice, I had brought along the strongest ultra-hold hair spray to make sure my hair was in place for the evenings’ events. \n He had never encountered such a product.\n “Touch it,” I told him mixed intentions..\n His eyes grew wide with wonder. “That’s not hair! It’s plastic!” \n As an American, I was aware that there were rules as to how the household of an estate interacts with its staff but I did not know the particularities. And given that I was not only in the household category but a guest of the household at the same time, the intricacies were more delicate than usual. At one point, I had entered the kitchen (wrong move #1) and proceeded to boil two cups of water to make tea (wrong move #2). One for myself and for one him (wrong move #3). After preparing it and adding the appropriate sugar and cream, I took it out to the servants’ quarters (wrong move #4). He seemed surprised by my offer but by no means taken aback. His lackadaisical approach to life permeated his every movement. As we sat there drinking the tea on his cot, he told me about his family, his sister who was also to be married, and what he would like his future to hold. \n The rest of the days went by in a blur. Too many people, too many informal gatherings, too many formal dinners. The only times we got to talk were on the nights he would help me undress after a long evening of festivities. The hum of the air conditioner in the room played its part in hiding the secrecy of our conversations. The days of my departure were fast approaching and as is often the case with visits to Pakistan, one leaves with more than one arrives with. As he was helping me pack, the shuttered window stood in the background. What had once been a great find now seemed to cast shadows well beyond its shutters. I never shied away from making eye contact with him but the window in the corner cast a shadow of guilt over me that made me only concern myself with the task of packing at hand. \n My eyes wouldn’t meet his. Perhaps he sensed my unease or perhaps he was confused by our lack of touch. “Sir, I’m glad you’re taking my window with you.”\n “I’ve told you not to call me that and it’s not ‘my window,’ apparently it’s yours and I didn’t buy it, my mother did.”\n “I’m still glad it’s going with you to America. All the beauty of old Peshawar is being destroyed by Westernization, unethical commerce, and greed. This window would have ended up in a landfill had your mother not bought it. At least now I know that a piece of me will be well taken care of.” He shrugged while readjusting the placement of the luggage. “Perhaps it’ll make you think of me.” This time his eyes would not meet mine. \n An entire part of me sank but an unknown hand of mine took him by the should said, “I don’t need a fucking window to remember you by.” \n “Sir, um, sorry, I don’t know how to address you. I know I don’t know you well and perhaps it’s not my place to say, but since I met you I’ve seen a sadness behind your eyes. And if you see me laughing and carefree with you, it’s because the sadness goes aways many time when we speak. We won’t be able to speak after tomorrow. But if the sadness returns to your eyes, just look up at the window and know that I’m within and behind the shutters.”" } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Mouse!\n\nGenre: bedtime\n\nWord Count: 1184\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story that formally utilizes a mathematical sequence; e.g., the Fibonacci sequence could determine the number of words in each paragraph, or start with a number and work backwards. Make sure the formula is made clear, either within the story, or before or after it." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "(This uses a triangular sequence to determine the number of words per line, and per paragraph https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triangular_number. A couple of the longer lines seem to wrap as well - not clear how to resolve that with this editor.)\n\n\n\n\nMouse!\n\n\n\n\nIn\nmy house.\n\n\n\n\nI\nknow not\nwhence it came.\n\n\n\n\nEyes\nbeady eyes\nglare at me\nand whiskers chuff away.\n\n\n\n\n“Shoo!”\nI shout\nand heavily stomp.\n“Get you gone now,\nbeast, and forever hie away.”\n\n\n\n\n“No,”\nit squeaks;\nits nose twitches,\n“It cannot be done,\nI’m so sorry to say.”\nAnd I’m perplexed and ever vexed.\n\n\n\n\n“What?”\nI wonder.\n“How dare you?\nWhat insolence is this?”\nSuch a cheeky little mouse\ndefying me in my own house,\nI simply cannot stomach this at all.\n\n\n\n\n“Cheese,\nplease sir,\nI beg you,”\nsays the fluffy runt.\n“I am poor and famished,\nand you have so much bounty.\nJust a little nibble, tittle, and jot,\na slice of yellow heaven, a pungent triangle.”\n\n\n\n\nCheese,\nof course\nit’s always cheese.\nI feel pity swell.\nI cut a cheddar chunk,\nan orange sliver, crumbly and sharp,\nand hand it to the starving rodent.\n“There there, of course, a triangle is fair.\nAnd now you’ve had your fill my friend, adieu.”\n\n\n\n\n“Thanks,”\nit says,\nand then: “But.”\nBut? Is there more?\n“What of my wife, sir?\nShe’s dwindling fast, the poor lass,\nand dearly needs a bite as well.”\nA hungry wife? Well that’s certainly no good.\nI grab my knife and measure the cheddar anew.\n“Camembert, sir, if you please. Her tastes are quite refined.”\n\n\n\n\nAgain\nI slice,\nand give away.\n“Is that all then?”\nThe mouse pockets the cheese\nand squeaks, “I’ve two children also.”\nI sigh and raise my knife again.\n“Gouda for my girl Eileen, her favourite kind,\nand brie, my boy Maurice – he can’t do without.”\nI cut again and once more, my cupboard running bare,\nmy plans for French soup abandoned, and my toast left unadorned.\n\n\n\n\n“More,”\nhe squeaks.\n“I’ve cousins some,\narriving from all over,\nand aunts and uncles too.\nA mouse-ish wedding we will have\nso cut and cut more triangles, sir,\nof edam, feta, parmesan, and gruyere and blue,\nand for the kids, a queso sauce, and cream–”\nI scream! My shaking hand cramps from the endless cutting.\n“How many more?” I fretfully ask. “How many kin have you?”\n“Oh more, sir, a great deal so, from countries far and wide.”\n\n\n\n\nSqueaks\nand chitters\nfill the air,\na thousand tiny feet.\nAround me are a legion,\na million mice carpet my home\nand drape the walls with beady eyes\nand swishing cobra tails. They sniff and whisker\nand debate which cheeses are best, and argue ceaselessly.\nThen I hear my guest, “Keep cutting sir! More cheese!\nWe need halloumi by the load and much Havarti and Swiss.\nCottage by the bucket, and Muenster by the barrel. And above all\nwe need the cheese – that glorious, sumptuous, blissful cheese – that everyone calls cake.”\n\n\n\n\nSweat\ndrips into\nmy sorry eyes,\nI hack my knife\nso hard the counter splits.\nThe mice, they cheer and jeer\nand hurry me along. Each new cheese\nI cut into a slice and then again\ndiagonally; two perfect triangles filling the mice with glee.\n“More!” they shout, their squeak a roar, a deafening tide\nof joy. “More, sir, don’t lag behind! We hunger ever so!”\nThey pass me a new, bigger knife, and tip my fridge over,\nand produce a better cutting board – big, industrial and made of stainless steel\n– and shout “Our appetite keeps growing! Just cut and cut again, another cheesy triangle!”\n\n\n\n\nAnother\ncheesy triangle!?\nWhat to do?\nMy arm goes numb\nand my back aches so.\nI cannot keep this pace up,\nbut my guests do goad me on.\nI fear what happens when I run out\nthe last of all my cheese. Will that sate\nthe little beasts? Or will their hunger just keep growing?\nEach time I blink there’s even more mice by the dozen.\nThey walk on stilts and fill the air, hanging from tiny ropes,\na million million eyes on me. They bet each time another triangle’s cut\nto see who gets the prize; and those who don’t just roar their ire:\n“Cut faster, man, and harder! More triangles for us today! You’ve done okay so far.”\n\n\n\n\n“Mouse!”\nI cry.\n“How much more?”\n“More and ever more,”\nhe says, and they cheer.\n“I’ve given you an inch already–”\n“–and we’ll have a mile. You see,\nwe like your home and we’d simply hate\nif we had to chew the walls. You agree?”\nI don’t want them in my walls, yes, I concur\nthat cheese is the better of the two. “And,” he says,\n“a small known fact: that mice, though small, are fond of meat.”\nOf meat? I wonder what they mean. What next? A slice of ham?\nOr chicken drumstick, turkey leg, bacon rasher, sausage, steak or big tin of spam?\nMy fridge is nearly empty as it is, and held little more than my cheese.\nI may have a can or two of sardines in the basement, or tuna and beans.\n\n\n\n\nSilence,\nI note\nall around me.\nNot a single squeak,\npeep, chirp, snuffle, or twitch.\nAll ten billion eyes on me.\n“Meat,” says the mouse, “my good sir.”\nAnd all their mouths drip with fresh saliva.\n“No hard feelings, sir, but we’ll have our fill.\nKeep the triangles of cheese coming, and cut them well,\nor we’ll gnaw the cutter who’s surpassed his purpose. It’s recycling.”\nMy throat’s gone dry, I swallow hard, and get back to slicing.\nI feel their eyes crawl on my skin and hear their slobber drip.\nHow did I get into this mess? How did the day turn so awry?\nThe sun was nice this morning and I never feared that today I would die.\nI ponder all the plans left unfulfilled, as I cut another triangle and toss it to\nthe mass of mice. Another dozen slices of smooth mozzarella, another score or two of crumbly asiago –\n\n\n\n\nOut.\nOf cheese.\nI swallow hard.\nThe tense mice shift,\nmy fridge a barren void.\n“Thank you, sir,” says the mouse.\n“You’ve done quite well, but that’s all.\nWe’d love more cheese, but now we’ll feast–”\n“Wait!” I cry, interrupting the beast. “A moment please.”\n“Well?” he arches an irritated eyebrow. “What is it then?\nHurry now, for our stomachs rumble so, and our young hunger.”\nThink fast! I think I’ve done my good deed for the day\nand don’t relish ending up a mousy meal. But what can I do?\nThere’s a billion billion of them, stacked so tight they run floor to ceiling.\nIf only I had more cheese for just another triangle or two. But that’s it!\n“Mouse!” I say. “There is more cheese!” He frowns and scans the fridge, empty and lifeless.\n“Not here, but at the store! I’ll grab my wallet and drive down, and return with more!”\nThe mice agree, and I flee across the sea. And the house, I put up for sale, as-is." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Silence\n\nGenre: bedtime\n\nWord Count: 1431\n\nPrompt:\n\nStart your story with someone looking at a breathtaking view and getting emotional." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "There is a peace at sunrise that surpasses all understanding. It's a renewal. A feeling that anything is possible. I’d like to say I drag myself from the comfort of my bed every day to enjoy sunrise’s splendor, but you wouldn’t believe me and I would be lying. What is true is I was there that day and so was she. \n\nThere is a connection between sunrisers just because they are sunrisers. It’s a shared, yet unspoken, appreciation for things quiet and beautiful. That might explain why I was immediately drawn to her, but I know it wasn’t just because of the earliness of the morning. Delilah, you see, would have attracted me no matter the time of day. \n\nThe first time I saw her I was sitting there, at my favorite secret spot, overlooking Lake Quinault. It’s a hidden gem in Washington State owned by the Quinault Indian Nation and, before that day, if I had my way, no one would ever sit and admire its beauty other than me.\n\nThe lake, a destination point for fishermen, swimmers, and sightseers, is nature at its most spectacular. It is located deep in the Olympic National forest. It isn’t easy to find, even if you’re looking for it. Once discovered, even the most magnanimous outdoorsmen will keep the secret to themselves. In an era where, too often, free time is wasted in front of a flat screen TV, Lake Quinault is a reminder of the reasons for taking vacations and the sunrise over the lake is God's definition of must-see. \n\nThat particular trip occurred in early summer. I remember it vividly because I had to be in place just after 5:00 a.m. to catch the sun as it appeared over the mountain. Summer is the best time to watch the sunrise because no one in their right mind would be up early enough, nor would be hardy enough to make the journey to my secret spot. No one except me, and Delilah.\n\n“Is this seat taken?”\n\nNot many people can remember the first words spoken by or to the love of their life, but I absolutely can. That morning, as I turned to see from where the unexpected voice was coming, the first light of dawn revealed the most beautiful girl I had ever seen. Not all men might have thought so. Delilah wore no makeup, a pair of ripped jeans, and a faded brown hoodie. Her hair, perfectly auburn, looked as if it hadn’t been touched since she rolled out of bed that morning. It was obvious she had made no effort to look beautiful and yet she had an inner spark that couldn't be hidden. Not by tattered jeans or a faded hoodie. Something changed that first moment I saw her, I changed. I had spent years guarding my secret spot, and now, surprisingly, unexpectedly, delightfully, I wanted nothing more than to share my sunrise with her.\n\nI, unfortunately, was not born a poet and as such the most romantic thing I could think of in response to her inquiry was: “It’s a free country.” With that, she invaded my secret spot, both next to the lake and in my heart. \n\nThe silence that followed was both loud and revealing. Delilah wasn’t there for small talk; she was there to admire the beauty of sunrise. We sat in silence and watched as the sun peeked over the horizon, covering the two of us in its warming light. She and I carried on a conversation without words. She told me, silently, that she understood the importance of the moment, and I responded in kind that this moment was made all the more special because she was there to share it. \n\nPerfection is a goal impossible to realize in this mortal realm, but that morning came as close as is humanly possible. So many thoughts ran through my mind as the sun revealed itself completely. Then just as quickly and quietly as she had come, Delilah rose to her feet, wiped some residual dirt from the seat of her ripped jeans, and headed down the trail and out of my sight. \n\nEight words verbalized, an infinite number of potential events contemplated. Thirty minutes had passed, a lifetime had been imagined. I was sure I would never see her again, and the thought made me overwhelmingly sad.\n\nThe next five years came and went, five long years since that day at the lake. There were first dates, first kisses, and the words “I love you” exchanged, yet every time fate or intention would reach down and sabotage promise. I became determined to find peace in my solitude.\n\nThere was always a reason or an excuse for my ending every potential relationship, but at its core was a shared sunrise and a conversation that didn’t happen. \n\nI went to our spot from time to time, to see the sunrise, not for her. At least, that’s what I told myself. I had given up without realizing I was hoping. Hoping to see her again. Hoping to feel what I felt that day. Hoping she would be there. And then it happened. It was once again summer, it was sunrise, but this time she was there.\n\n“Is this seat taken?”\n\n“It’s a free country.”\n\nThe same eight words.\n\nAt the time, I didn’t know that she, too, had often made the trip back to our secret spot.\n\nSeeing her again, I knew I wouldn’t let the opportunity slip from my grasp, not a second time. When the sun had completed its part in our play, Delilah rose to her feet and wiped the dirt from her jeans exactly as she had done five years earlier. This time, however, I stood up as well. \n\n“My name is Peter. I don’t like coffee, but I’d really like to have a cup with you.” \n\n“My name is Delilah,” she responded, matter-of-factly, “and I would be glad to share a cup of Joe.”\n\nShe called it Joe? It’s funny the things that confirm that a love is real. I couldn’t tell her that day, for fear of losing her, but at that moment, I was sure. I had said “I love you” to others before, but it was obvious to me that I had lied. For in that moment, I was finally sure what love felt like.\n\nLifetimes are only lifetimes when viewed in reverse. A cup of coffee became a dinner date. A dinner date became a commitment. A commitment became a proposal, and a proposal became forever. There were kids and dogs and vacations, but more than anything, there were trips to Lake Quinault. Always at sunrise. Always just the two of us. Never any words spoken.\n\nYou never know the last time is the last time until it’s too late. The final trip we took to Lake Quinault was like all the rest. It took a little longer for tired, old bones to make the trek, but we found our spot, sat together, and conversed in silence. The sun, unaffected by time, rose as perfectly as always, but Delilah rose only with my help. \n\n“Would you like to share a cup of Joe?”\n\nShe knew I did. She knew sitting next to her pretending to like coffee was my greatest pleasure. She also knew she would never come back to see another sunrise even though I was too stubborn to admit it to myself. \n\nThat day in the café, we told stories of family and friends, living and lost, as we sipped on what had eventually become my favorite beverage. We made a mental scorecard of our life and realized we had won. \n\nTwo days later I lost her. Just like that first day at the lake, I watched her as she left me alone, this time without even the hope of returning. The sadness I felt from years back flooded over me like a tidal wave. \n\nI’ll save a seat for you. Those were her last words to me. True to myself, I replied: “It’s a free country.” Then, she was gone. \n\nOne day, hopefully soon, I will watch the sunrise with my Delilah again only from a far better secret place. Until then, I only go to our special spot at night. \n\nI’m never alone when I go there. I make my way to our clearing and sit down just as I did all those years ago. As the moon reflects off the lake, I feel her comforting hand reach down for me, and in the silence only we understand, I hear her very clearly." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Home of the Brave\n\nGenre: bedtime\n\nWord Count: 1279\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about a casual act of bravery." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "A mom’s job is never truly finished—Elise knew this instinctively when her son was born. For at least the hundredth time, she sat next to his bed in that chair mending his quilt. There was no way of knowing, the day she bought it at a flea market, that it would become her son’s most valued possession. \n\nTo call it a quilt stretched the definition as it was nothing more than a thousand pieces of oddly shaped swatches stitched together, layer after layer, until the whole of it was thick enough to hold in the warmth of a small boy's body as he drifted off to sleep. The person who pieced together this labor of love must have spent countless hours shaping the useless remnants into a usable blanket. Elise felt it was her duty to repair the inevitable rips as an homage to the unknown creator and as a manifestation of her adoration for the little boy who cherished it.\n\n“I love how cool it feels when I first get into bed,” her little man observed the first night he wrapped himself in the old quilt. “But before long, it warms up, and I’m snug as a bug in a rug. Where did you get it?” \n\nThe question was one whose answer was too mundane to inflict on a wide eyed little boy, so Elise stretched the truth just a little. “It was brought over on the Mayflower by the Pilgrims,” she answered to her son's delight. “It’s made from pieces of fabric from all over Europe and is the first blanket used by the first Americans.”\n\nIt was just a little white lie, but it was also the beginning of a cherished tradition. As stitches unraveled and as tears ripped the quilt and the little boy's heart, Elise sat by his bed and mended the heirloom. Then she would continue the \"true\" story of how the quilt had found its way to her son. \n\n“During the Revolutionary War, your quilt was captured by General Cornwallis and used to keep his legs warm on the cold winter nights.” Elise said, weaving a story as intricate as the blanket itself. “It wasn’t until the surrender at Yorktown that it was returned.”\n\n“Yorktown?”\n\n“Yes, Yorktown,'' she said smiling, “George Washington took it from Cornwallis and used it during his eight years as president.”\n\n“You mean my blanket has been to the White House?” \n\n“Of course it has,” Elise answered with a wink. “But not because of George Washington, silly. John Adams was the first president to live in the White House.”\n\n“Who then, Mom? ``The little boy asked., “Who took my blanket to the White House?”\n\n“That’s a story for later,” Elise replied, kissing her son on his forehead. “Now you get some sleep, and I’ll continue the story next time.”\n\nElise, unfortunately, had far too many opportunities to continue the blanket’s tale as her son was given to debilitating headaches. At first, the doctors thought he was prone to systemic migraines, but the truth was much worse. Many nights, too many, the little boy would curl up in pain, his teeth clenched in a faux smile. The headaches were excruciating, only soothed by a cold wash cloth, his mother’s gentle voice, and the telling of the quilt’s tale as he drifted off to sleep. \n\nThere were also many a night where Elise would sit with her son as he slept, meticulously piecing back together the tears that threatened the blanket entirely, wishing there was a way she could also mend her son. The room would be completely quiet save for the sound of Elise’s song. It was something she had done since she was his age. Inadvertently yet intentionally she would let the air slip through her lips, creating a tune just for him that would live for that moment, replaced the next time by one equally beautiful and equally unique.\n\n“As it turns out, the first time the quilt made it to the White House was just after Abraham Lincoln was elected president,” Elise said the next night, continuing the story from where they’d left off. The pain had become more frequent and more intense, requiring more chapters more often. The story's continuation, however, had the desired results, a distraction and a smile.\n\n“Abraham Lincoln, he used my quilt, too?” her son asked, too young to doubt his mother. \n\n“Of course he did,” Elise responded, tickling her son just to hear him laugh. “It’s a little known fact, but Mount Rushmore was actually created to show all of the presidents who used your blanket.” \n\nElise always had a basin of cold water by her side whenever she sat with her son. Very early on she learned that the coolness of the cloth would help quiet the pain in his head. It was her greatest joy to moisten the cloth keeping it cold throughout her story. The little boy’s head still throbbed, but while his mom was telling the story she would gently wipe his forehead with the cold cloth, and it was almost as if he forgot the pain for a time. If all went well, he would fall asleep listening to the tale of his blanket, as sleep was becoming his only relief from the pain.\n\n“Did you know your blanket went to the moon?” Elise asked one day when her son seemed particularly down. “Neil Armstrong may have been the first man to set foot on the moon, but he laid out your quilt so he and Buzz Aldrin could have a picnic.” \n\nThe idea of two astronauts having a picnic on the moon resulted in spontaneous laughter for both mother and son. \n\n“Is Buzz Lightyear named after Buzz Aldrin?” he asked his mom, as both continued to laugh.\n\n“As a matter of fact he was,” Elise replied with a smile. “If you must know, Buzz Aldrin presented your quilt to Buzz Lightyear as a gift which means your blanket has been…”\n\n“To infinity and beyond!” \n\n“Exactly,” Elise confirmed as she refreshed his cloth and placed it back on his head.\n\nDay after day she would take her boy to doctors and then specialists and eventually to the hospital. Then, night after night, she would sit by his bed and tell the story of the quilt. Elise did everything she could to stretch out the story, and as each new adventure was passed from mother to son so too was hope, in the only way she knew how. \n\nThe night that she finished the story was, in so many ways, just like most of the other nights. Elise was home in her favorite chair next to her son’s bed. Her breathing was labored and her voice unsteady. “And then I stopped by a flea market on my way home from the store and there it was, your beautiful, wonderful blanket. I knew you must have it, so I scooped it up, paid the nice woman, and brought it home to you.”\n\nTears filled Elise’s eyes as she sewed the last stitch on the old quilt. Holding it up, she remembered the first time her son covered himself with the blanket. I love how cool it feels when I first get into bed.\n\n“It’s finally fixed. It’s perfect.” Elise said out loud, tears continuing to flow. “I love how cool it feels, too.” \n\nSummoning every bit of her strength, she lay the beloved blanket on the empty bed in front of her. \n\nBeing a mom is a job that is never truly finished, at least she had hoped so. With nothing else left to do for her son, she sat back in the chair and silently sobbed." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: A grateful knock.\n\nGenre: asian-american\n\nWord Count: 1427\n\nPrompt:\n\nStart your story with an unexpected knock on a window." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Everything was silent, no movement nothing, until there was a knock! The woman's eyebrows raised, her heartbeats increased and her eyebrows showed an evident change in their alignment. Her gaze shifted towards the door and she was left with an extreme disbelief! Her hands shivered as her fingers slowly rearranged her hair and tried to tuck it behind her ears. She rose slowly. Why has he come now? I won't leave him! I will make sure he pays for what he's done! I will make sure......her words resonated through the beautifully kept ancient walls of the corridor of the house.\n\"Mom, I want to enter that house! I want to see what's inside, just look at this door, it looks so well carved, I want a door with this design, mom please....\"\nThe girl's mother had managed to silent the curiosity of this little 5 year old baby and convinced her to go back to their house which was just a stone's throw away from this haunted one. The Smiths had recently moved into this house, which no one seemed to have bought because of the regularly flowing mythical stories about it. Some villagers said a man had died a few years back and his spirit walked around guarding the house, some said they used to hear faint voices of a woman from within the house enough to scare anyone out of their wits, while most of the other villagers never cared.\nThe mother and daughter moved back into their house about 2 days earlier, while the father was yet on his ship working as a crew member. This left the mother and daughter to settle into their house themselves. The mother worked hard for the first two days to make the house liveable and although her effort was whole hearted, her capacity was pretty limited looking at the huge three storeyed size of the house. But the energy that that little 5 year old\nembodied was almost double of what her mom had. It seemed like her curiosity hadn't allowed her to shut her eyes off from the house neighboring her own. She woke up in the night and went to the kitchen to cure her thirst. Her anxiety got the better of her. She walked towards her focused house. She didn't fear anything at all. Infact, she walked to the house and felt that she had accomplished something big. Her heart rose with happiness which reflected a slight smile on her face. The beautiful wooden design on the door intrigued her but as she slowly disentangled the spider webs feeling how smooth they were, she finally knocked the door. She kept admiring the design on the door and didn't really consider fear or regret at all. After all how much would the complexity of the emotions matter in the mindset of a 5 year old? Surprisingly, the door opened! Her little feet walked with awe taking in with her breath every little detail on the architecture of the inner walls of the corridor. A light breeze circulated in the house as she heard a cracking noise and turned towards a rocking chair that began rocking. She rushed towards it and stopped it from moving. She didn't assume anything. A plate fell off the table and she heard a thud on the floor. Her eyes saw no one. Her little voice shouted, stop it \"You're scaring me! I am just here to see how beautiful this house looks. If you don't want it, I'm leaving.\"\nA beautiful woman dressed in a pink saree appeared in front of her eyes standing tall at a distance of 4 feet away. Her eyes big and scary. Her posture like a warrior, all set to kill. Her hair long and straight almost touching the lower curve of her body, flying in the darkness.\n\"Wowwww! You are so beautiful! Your eyes are so nicely done! I love your sareee, could you please get one for me? I promise never to tell my mom that I asked you for it! Pretty please.......\"\n\"No! How come you're not scared.....?\", said the voice in a shrill tone!\n\"You're rude!\", the kid made a stubborn face with her nose and lips turned up this time.\n\"Leave this house!\" demanded the woman.\n\"But you're so beautiful! How can I ever feel bad? My mom says beautiful people can never be bad! So I don't think you're bad! But please can you now tell me where you got that outfit from?\" the girl's voice gave hints of hope.\n\"Uhhhh....no! Why don't you get scared of me? I mean...till now I've had everyone get scared of me! And....here you are, a little girl who infact likes me! \" the voice had changed its tone.\n\"Yes, I like you. You allowed me to enter! So thanks for that. But can I play in your house for a bit? My mom doesn't know I'm here, please can I see your house before my mom realizes I'm not there? Please please pl....?\"\n\"Okay.\"\n\"Thanks! I knew you're an angel! Now let me see where I can start fro......\"\nThe woman's heart melted looking at this kid. Love had changed her mind. She had been rude, mean and all full of revenge because that's what her heart had housed ever since her husband had abandoned her. Her heart had overcome the fence that limited its freedom.\n\"Auntyyyyyyyy, can you please help me here? \" She immediately diverted her thoughts and went to help the little girl.\nShe played with her, showed her around the entire house until the kid sat down on a couch and told her the she's tired.\n\"Aunty, you're my best friend now! Actually, after Kim....Kim bought me a lollipop before I left for for here Uhhh.\" She observed the woman's smile and eyes and before they would drop she said, \" Uhh okay, let's change the order for now! You're first!\" The girl gestured her to come closer. She went closer. \" You're my best friend, I won't tell Kim. You love me so much!\"\nThe girl kissed her on her cheek and told her that she would like to sleep in her lap. She kept the girl's head in her lap and carressed it with a kind of love she never felt before. Was it ever possible for the woman to give up her frustrated, fearful, scary and obnoxious side for a baby with whom she had bonded so delicately?\nShe carefully held the little girl in her arms and walked towards the neighboring house tiptoed. There was no voice of anybody at that unearthly hour, she unlocked the house of the house, walked in with the kid and slowly placed her on the couch. She tore a part of her saree and covered the kid's body. The girl slept very peacefully.\n-----------\n\"Wakey-wakeyyy, little baby. Guess what I made for you today? It's your favorite, Cupcake with coffee and some jam, just what you love. Now get up fast, we also have to go to the market today, return back quickly and call dad. He is supposed to inform us of his plans of return. What happened? Why did you sleep here?\"\nThe girl sat up in wonder.\n\"Mom, I met an aunty yesterday uhh.....last night, she is my best friend! I went to that house!\"\n\"what???? Who is that aunty? Okay tell me the story later, first freshen up and have your breakfast.\" The mother dismissed it pretty soon.\n\" The walls of that house are so beautiful, the swing so comfortable and more than anything her outfit. Her smile was so wide and happy, mummy I thought I was in a very happy place.!\" her face emanated divine happiness and love.\nThe mother smiled. \"You might have seen a dream! I'm sure\"\n\" NO, mom, I really saw her. Wait, I saw her cover me with her cloth which was the same as her saree!\"\n\"ok, can you show that to me?\"\nShe rushed to the couch, there was nothing there!\nShe searched for it everywhere. Now she herself was left awestrucken. Had she really dreamed? She wondered in shock as she sat on a chair against the table, grabbing a cupcake. A whiff of air went by displacing the pink cloth that had flown away and was tucked under a stool that her mom had kept on the side of the hallway after cleaning the house. She saw that and smiled. Her best friend had waved a hello to her that beautiful morning!" } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: The Raven at the Window\n\nGenre: bedtime\n\nWord Count: 2320\n\nPrompt:\n\nCraft a story where a character finds themselves swept away by the wind, either physically or metaphorically." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "One thing I was very wary about was the temperamental moods of Nature. Before leaving the nest for the first time, my mum had instructed me on flying head on into a steady stream of wind, one flick of a wing against it and I would be tumbled beak over toes.\n“Better to use the gales to your advantage to conserve energy. A slight breeze will allow the airfoil of your wings to allow you to soar. Back drafts allow you to hover in place.”\nI had been excited to try. To make her proud and master the art of soaring and hovering and attacking those pesky starlings that so annoyed us. I had been restless and overly eager to soar like my siblings and now I pay for foolishness with every rising sun.\nOur nest was in the crook of branches in a tall sugar pine tree. From it we could see the entire human village that stretched from the shore of the sea to the forest before the gently rolling green foothills of the Cascade Mountains.\nThe purple sky to the west was darkening like a festering bruise, the slate blue cloud cover thickening. Good. It would be a very dark night. I trembled with impatience and the yearn to feel safe again.\nDown below, windows brightened as lamps were lit. The intoxicating smells of meats and fish broiling and stewing that wafted upwards made my beak water. Human food was so much tastier than forest offerings and carrion. The homes to the eastern side of town were bigger and brighter, with large yards groomed neat and tidy with flowering shrubbery, gazebos, and big tasseled umbrellas. The east side refuse bins were brimming with tasty scraps.\nThe homes surrounding my tree were much smaller, with dirt yards planted with vegetable gardens and refuse bins devoid of anything remotely edible.\nAt last, the ebony night had descended around me like the blackness of my mum’s wings- a distant memory now, but a soothing one- my happy place. I leapt from the branch and listed to the left as usual, correcting my handicap with my extra strong right wing.\n*\nAs the girl sat by her window, she looked at her drawing for a few seconds, then added more black. ‘There,’ she thought, ‘he’s much more evil now.’\nShe growled in her throat like an irritated Tom cat when she heard footsteps approaching her door. She swiftly put her drawing in the drawer under the desk and picked up her pink pastel crayon to color in some petals on a page with roses in a sunlit garden complete with yellow butterflies.\n“Grrrr,” she said softly as the door opened. She always came in without knocking.\n“Matilda dear,” her mother said with a nervous twitch at the corners of her mouth, “look who’s come to visit.”\nMatty did not look up. She knew who the visitor was, and she hated him.\n“Hello Matilda,” the priest’s holier-than-thou voice grated on her nerves. It took all her willpower not to bunch her shoulders. “Can you look at me child?”\n‘No. Go away.’\n“She’s been like this for three days now,” her mother said.\nFather Fairweather said, “That’s a very pretty picture, Matilda, you’re a very good little artist.”\nShe willed herself not to flinch. ‘I knew you’d like it. And I HATE when you call me that.’\n“Matilda, dear, can’t you look up? Father Fairweather has complimented you…” her mother’s shadow fell over her as she leaned over to look at the colorful garden. Then she reached out tentatively and took her daughter’s hand and turned it towards her.\nMatty felt her mother’s chagrin, thick and wonderfully prickly; she pictured her mother’s face just then, lips a tight line and eyes blazing under an angry furrowed brow. Matty’s small white hand was coated in black charcoal.\nFather Fairweather said, “I’ve brought you a gift, Matilda.”\nCuriosity prevented her from growling again.\nThe tall grey man in black placed a brand-new package of pastels on the desk. Matty couldn’t wait to open the package and inhale the waxy, oily smell deeply. The smell was a lot like the kerosene in her lamp. She remained frozen. She always tested herself this way- to see how long she could appear comatose for- she was getting very good at it.\nFather Fairweather turned to leave; his shadow slumped.\n‘I’ve won.’\nJust before turning to leave as well, her mother snatched up the pastels and opened the small flat box. She closed it and put it back down, then followed the priest out the door. After their footsteps had receded down the stairs, Matty silently got up and went to the top of the stairs where she could hear them talking quietly in the living room. After all the years spent in her shell, she’d developed the hearing of a cat.\n“Well, at least she’s not hurting herself anymore,” the priest said. “She seems calm, and the drawings have improved. No more spooky ones?”\n“No,” her mother lied.\n “No more screaming at midnight?”\n“No.”\n“Well now. We could wait a little longer, perhaps she’ll continue on this positive path.”\n“I suppose. But…but…can’t we try the ritual again?”\n‘No! I’ll run away before that again.’\n“Oh, now Mary…”\nSilence for a minute. Then the priest said, “well…let me confer with Cardinal Iscariot. I’ll be making the monthly passage to Astoria to present our tithe. He’s discovered possible possession in two recent additions to the orphanage there.”\n‘No no no no no…’\nMatty stepped on the floorboards nearest the hallway wall where they creaked hardly at all. In her room, she closed the door, wishing it had a lock. She sat down at her desk and smiled as she picked up the box of pastels and opened the lid. The black one was missing.\nShe wasn’t surprised but she did feel a loathing curl inside her chest like the larvae of a scream ready to burst forth.\n‘Nevermind,’ she thought, ‘I prefer my charcoals anyways.’\nShe brushed the garden to the floor and took the dark one from the drawer.\nThe figure was crooked like an old oak tree, with tattered black rags draped on its limbs. The head was half the size of it, with a gaping maw full of square white teeth. It had holes for eyes under a shadowy hood. They were terrible eyes she knew, she seen them, yellow like candle wax and hypnotic like a cobra’s eyes.\nHer room was small: a bed with a wooden chest before it, a desk by the window, and an armoire. At the base of the armoire, she’d pried a loose board up and inside the small rectangular space, she stashed the things her mother would not understand and take from her. She pulled out a pastel crayon box and opened it. Inside were an assortment of charcoal sticks she’d made herself, in varying thicknesses and lengths. She chose a thin one, four inches long and put the rest back.\nAt her desk, she finished drawing the creature’s bony slender hands, the fingers long as brand-new pencils. She shaded them in grey tones by mixing amounts of charcoal with a stub of white pastel. She drew from memory she once thought fictional but now believed to be real.\nFrom downstairs, the sound of a broken bottle. ‘Good. Sleep well bitch mother.’\nAt last, she looked up from her latest drawing of Bernard, son of a Wendigo and a Canadian native witch named Koko. So Bernard had said.\nShe sat back sleepily and content. It seemed the more she illustrated Bernard, the less he appeared in her dreams…as if he were content to be pictured, immortalized…even admired. She could believe that one such as he were that big-headed to think that.\nShe felt the night pressing at the window. She loved the dark. It calmed her like her charcoal pencils did, and the kerosene scent of her pastels. She felt a draft from the small crack in the sill and turned towards the pane. Her smile flashed away from her face like a bonfire ember in a gust. Her eyes grew round and filled half her face. She stifled a scream, lest her mother fear her possessed again (she’d forgotten she was passed out cold.)\nAt the window was a raven peering in at her, its onyx eyes searching hers.\n\nI had frightened the girl.\nI’d come to this house on many nights after learning to fly, in my frustratingly lopsided way. The outside bins were rich with delectable human food scraps. Sometimes chicken legs with only a small bite taken, sometimes sliced beets with melted goat cheese, sometimes lamb bones, the fat untouched.\nOn this night, I know not why, I was beckoned to the window on the top floor overlooking the yard. I was drawn to it. Perhaps when I flew, sideways at first until corrected, and alit upon a branch close to it, I’d seen a small pale face staring out into the night. She was smiling. I could see she loved the night as much as I.\nRavens are not creatures of the night by trade. They roost at night like most birds do. I was not like most ravens…ever since that fateful day of my first flight from my nest. I thought I was as strong as my siblings and as strong as my mum wished me to be. But…when I leapt from the nest the first time, my right wing obeyed, my left was …not so much. The breeze that should have caught my airfoil instead tumbled me beak to toes and I fell.\nOn the ground I cried for my mum, but she shook her head, ashamed, and turned her back to me. I knew what happened to runts and the infirmed amongst our kind. My uncle had been born with a club foot. He could fly but was ever pursued by his own kin until at last they’d attacked enmasse and pecked out his eyes, and shat on his back, leaving him to die alone and blind and dirty.\nI was not about to suffer his fate. I hid myself in the daylight. In the night, I became part of it. Perhaps because of my handicap, my night vision grew.\nAs I looked into the window, I could see the girl was terrified. ‘What? Of me?’ I didn’t understand but I felt bad. She was also a creature of the night, I could see it in her expression as she looked out and up into the skies.\nI crouched in supplication and tried to look into her eyes so I could read her and perhaps she could read me.\n\nMatty suppressed the screaming she felt like that snake was now eager to be free. ‘No!’ she thought. The Cardinal Iscariot would tie her down again and the torture would be worse than before.\nBernard was big and huge and wanting her to come with him.\n‘A raven! At my window!’ She’d seen it peering at her, cocking its head to try and catch her eye. ‘Bernard! In raven form! It has to be…’\nMatty knew most birds roost at night. It was as odd to see a bird at night as it was to see a raccoon in the daylight. ‘Bernard that evil demon…in bird form,’ she thought again and shivered. Maybe she should let the Cardinal torture her to death. Life was just so…\n‘Tap tap.’ It was back but she wouldn’t let it in.\nFrom the time she was an infant, she hated to be touched. The touch of a hand brought shards of electric pain to her new pink skin. She’d hoped it would fade but it did not. To be enveloped into arms was to be thrown into the sky as a sacrifice, lightning bolts searing and sizzling until she felt too exhausted to speak or move. Eventually, people stopped touching her. If she ignored them, they turned away and she was at peace.\nOne day her mother had brought the priest. He’d tied her down and said a bunch of bullshit words and Bernard had come to her rescue, whispering to her, “just lie still. Smile. No more screaming. Just worship me and someday I’ll come and take you from all this pain.”\nShe had done as he said, and she dreamt of him. And drew pictures of him in homage. It had been enough until now. Here he was in raven form. ‘What did he want?’\n\nShe came back to the window as I tapped again. She breathed heavily and looked into my eyes, looking for something, searching…\nShe opened the window, and I crouched low to make myself smaller, meeker. I looked up at her, feigning weakness and not sure why I was here or why so drawn to her.\nShe said, “Bernard, it’s okay. I’m ready to go. Take me away.”\nI thought, ‘Bernard?’ and hopped into her room.\nI understood then that she feared something I was not. I made my decision. If she were to wring my neck, so be it. But I truly believed I’d at last found a kindred spirit. I hopped to her desk and crouched low, turning my head away because she seemed afraid to look into my eyes.\nI closed my eyes. I prepared for execution, or eye-gouging as my siblings had tried so long ago.\nI felt a gentle touch on my feathers. The ones one my neck and I cooed like a dove and bowed even lower, purring like a kitten. It was heaven to feel love through a hand, a touch I’d never felt before.\n**\nThe huge black bird in Matty’s hands curled up and nestled close to her.\n“Oh, my goodness,” she said quietly, “you’re not evil at all. You’ve been sent to me to protect me from Bernard.”" } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Sayonara Sensei of Sin\n\nGenre: asian-american\n\nWord Count: 1811\n\nPrompt:\n\nSet your story within a window of opportunity, when a character finally has the chance to do something." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Inspired by The Joy Luck Club – \"Sayonara Sensei of Sin\" – 1/15/14; Mrs. Dowling's Creative Writing I class, 10th grade.\n Juxtaposed by Sampson was a doll, a ningyō, to be exact. The woman’s face, pale with the brush of a white powder, seemed to smile at him. Her fan, placed delicately in her arm — flagrant with bold reds and bright yellows — appeared imperial and majestic. Ever so slightly, the eyes blinked once, then twice, and finally she battered her eyes in succession. The doll mocked him, buffeting Sampson with its blinking! His eyes grew cross.\n “Get out of my sight!” he yelled, throwing the authentic Japanese doll across the living room. The doll broke in two the second it connected with the wall. Bright yellows and bold reds lost their significance; the kimono lied disgraced on the living room floor. Brought forth by his action, hidden within the doll’s sleeves: a broken arm, and several cracks in other such places.\n Sampson smirked; he hated that doll, especially today—especially when the impossible happened; when all his fellow classmates, friends and peers—people who he trusted, laughed and poked fun at him. And for what—his status, his grades? No, those things were perfectly fine. He was perfect. \n Sampson got up at four in the morning and studied for two hours before walking to school an hour later. Sampson obtained straight A’s from kindergarten to seventh grade, his current grade, and if one includes pre-K (but, technically, his grade then was an “E” for excellent; there were no “A’s” given out), that too. Sampson made his own lunch and never missed a day of school. Sampson sat with the popular kids and even had a nickname: Sam. Sampson invited friends over to his elephant of a house during his birthdays, giving $100.00 as party favors. Sampson was Sampson. Simply put: No one else compared...\n It was his Japanese side! That took away all his amazing qualities. In history class, earlier that day, Sam and his peers started learning about World War II and Pearl Harbor, which you can probably guess was a pretty touchy subject. Touchy, actually, would be a misnomer; it was more like gruesome. It was as if the atmosphere had suddenly changed in an instant; all eyes turned toward him, and all mouths seemed to say: “Loser!”; “Way to destroy America!”; and “Go back to Japan!” It was a nightmare.\n Yet Sam pleaded with his fellow peers, attempting to disregard their beliefs: “No! I'm not like that! Those people aren't related to me! I'm perfect!” \n All to no avail. And of course, the teacher was hardly any help in the whole debacle: Mr. Reed dozed on his desk, creating a small puddle with his drool. Thus the boy was humiliated beyond belief, and now he sat—ruminating in the living room—deciding his next move.\n “Ugh!” said Sam. “I can't believe my so-called friends said that about me.” Sam crossed his arms, shaking his head. “I mean, it's not like it's my fault; they can't blame me for something I never did, can they? No. I'm not to blame. It's the Japanese who did it. They're the ones. I'm not—”\n “Oh quit your complaining,” hollered Samantha, Sam's older sister, who walked into the living room bringing a bowl of rice and some nori, seaweed. “Who are you even talking to?”\n “Myself.”\n “Well, it seems as though you need a little help. Maybe I can offer some assistance?”\n “You?” questioned Sam. “How are you going to help me?”\n “You'd be surprised. I have some pretty good ideas every once in a while.” Samantha took a bite of some rice with the nori using a pair of chopsticks.\n “Is this one of those times?”\n “Could be.”\n “Well is it, or isn't it?”\n “Yes, it is.” Samantha placed the chopsticks extravagantly on the table. “Basically, I think we should go to Japan.” \n “Wow.”\n “I know right? Such a good idea!”\n “No, I meant 'wow' as in that's absurd.”\n “It would be cool. We'd go on an adventure, discovering your—you know—your problem with our homeland.”\n “It's not my homeland! And I don't want to go! You can't coerce me into going.”\n “Come on! We only went once when we were younger. Besides,” she coaxed, “don't you need to go to a foreign place for your History project?”\n “Yeah, but it's okay if we go anywhere outside the city, like another city. So Mr. Reed won't care if I just do a city like Arlington or Fairfax.”\n “But, if you go somewhere else, farther away, it would be really cool; you might get a little recognition.” She winked. “And maybe even a better grade.”\n At this, Sam's tentative outlook disappeared. “Fine. But how will we get enough money to go?”\n “Oh, pish posh!” snorted Samantha. “I saved up some money, and you have your allowance, and um...well—” \n Sam replied, “Exactly. We can't go!”\n “We can ask our relatives in Japan to lend us some money for us to go visit them, and we can persuade mom and dad. It's winter break. We have plenty of time.”\n “But it's mom and dad; they'll never agree.”\n Their parents were ecstatic to pay for them. A little time off from one's children for any parent is time well spent. And as for the doll which snapped in two, well Sam had to do a little extra work to make up for that. Hence the children, for Samantha was only in ninth grade, gathered the capital to embark on their journey to Japan. Money flew in from their Japanese relatives to their home in Alexandria, Virginia. Also, since their family enjoyed the riches of an upper class family, the money was paid in full, facilitating their riding in the first-class section of the plane.\n As they rode in the airplane, an attendant had come over with some delicacies. “Hello,” she said, “may I interest you two with some seafood, or some of our specialty meats?” Samantha peered up, and unplugged her earphones. \n “What was that?”\n “May I interest you in some fine delicacies?” repeated the attendant, handing Sam and Samantha a menu each.\n “What is there to eat?\"\n “Well if you look down there you'll see that there's a variety of seafood dishes, specialty meats, and other foods as well.\"\n “Hmm,” mused Samantha, “we'll take the seafood—”\n“Seafood?” intervened Sam. “No thanks. I think I'll go with the meat—maybe some venison?”\n “Sure, that'll be ready in--\" \n Samantha cut in, “Wait, hold on a second.” She turned toward Sam. “What do you have against seafood?”\n “Nothing. I just don't like it.”\n “You don't just not like seafood all of a sudden. You used to have some before all the time.”\n “Well that was before; now I don't like it.”\n The attendant backed up a few steps.\n “It's because you don't want to be a part of your Japanese side, isn't it?” chided Samantha.\n “No! It's not that.”\n Samantha smirked.\n “Why are you even making such a big deal about this?” asked Sam.\n “Because that's the whole reason we're going to Japan; to make you realize something in that 'smart' head of yours; to see something you've been missing all these years. And no one can show it to you; you have to feel it in yourself—in every fiber of your being.”\n “I thought I was going to Japan to write a report for my History project?”\n “Well that too, but I'm your older sister. I have to help you in other areas of life, too.”\n A moment of silence propagated.\n The attendant warily took a few steps forward. “So...” she interjected, “seafood, is it?”\n Sam inhaled deeply, then exhaled promptly. “Sure. Seafood it is.”\n Samantha grinned, pride glowing her demeanor. \n “For seafood we have the teriyaki salmon with rice and shiitake mushrooms; the seafood stew, which contains lobster, scallops, potatoes, carrots, broth, and shrimp; the sushi platter; and the classical gourmet Chinese dumplings, which contains bok choy, shrimp, and eggplant.” \n Samantha said, “I'll have the sushi platter.”\n “And I will have,” replied Sam, “the dumplings—”\n “But you're Japanese!” reasoned Samantha.\n “Oh brother...”\n “I'm your sister!”\n “It's only food. Don't make such a big deal about it. I know I'm Japanese, it's just I like Chinese food, too. What's wrong with that?”\n Samantha smiled. \n “What? What's so funny?” asked Sam.\n “You said it.”\n “Said what?”\n “You said: 'I know I'm Japanese.'”\n “Oh...” Sam grinned. “I guess I did.”\n Samantha and Sam rode in that first-class plane, for about thirteen hours, give or take. The two of them arrived at the Fukushima Airport in the city of Sokukagawa, in the Fukushima Prefecture of Japan, where they were greeted by their relatives.\n Emiko, their aunt, cried out, “Sakura!” (Samantha's Japanese name), and “Sauske!” (Sam's Japanese name). Aunts and uncles, grandmothers and grandfathers, cousins and in-laws—familial fruition—poured their sweetness out to embrace the two children. \n Samantha rushed to greet her family, whereas Sam remained stationary, kicking at the ground, his eyes downcast.\n “What are you doing!” shouted Emiko. “Hayaku! Quickly! Come over here!” She gestured Sam to come over with a swing of her arm.\n His eyes looked up, and he witnessed a picturesque scene of his family all smiling and laughing; joy and jubilation jeering through each and every one of them. Teasing and taunting they were not. Sam chuckled, what had he been thinking? His family was a part of him; his heritage was a piece of his identity; his tradition was a macrocosm of of his existence. \n A tear materialized on the brim of his eye and cascaded across his cheek. “Ojisan-tach, uncles; obasan-tach, aunts; ojiisan-tach, grandpas, obaasan-tach, grandmas; itoko-tach, cousins—minna, everyone.” Sam dashed to greet his family, with tears still falling down his face. “I'm sorry!” he cried, as he embraced them all. “I'm sorry...”\n “What are you saying?” asked Tomo-chan, Sam's seven-year-old cousin. “Why are you apologizing?”\n “I blamed my heritage for something that I was ashamed about. I should have stood my ground when all my peers struck my Japanese-side. I should have rebutted them when they attacked my country. I should have done something.”\n “It's okay,” soothed Tomiyo, his grandma. “There are many things that are shameful in this country's history—in every country's history. We must all repent and ask for forgiveness from those our ancestors have hurt. But you—you are the hope that can transform the past, and make a new beginning—a blossoming into a beautiful person, just like your sister's name: Sakura, cherry blossom. You are the hope.”\n Wiping his tears away, Sam faced his family, and he saw himself in each of them; he saw courage, love, hope, bravery, pride—admirable attributes and qualities in them. Arrogance as an aptitude, avarice as a trait, condemnatory as a quality, a sense of extreme independence — these were not in them, and now these were not in him." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Dispatched\n\nGenre: bedtime\n\nWord Count: 1049\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story that includes someone saying, “You can’t run forever.”" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "“9-1-1. What is your emergency?” \nCasey moved to the edge of her chair, fully aware that all eyes in the Dispatch Center were on her. She struggled to focus on her first call, her mind ruminating on the “we-need-to-talk” text she sent Michael that morning. Her boyfriend had grown distant since starting classes at the community college. \n“9-1-1. What is your emergency?” she repeated more loudly.\nClick.\nCasey tapped her console, disconnecting the line before immediately calling the number back. She had been trained to expect numerous hang-ups during her shift, yet protocol required her to determine if first responders were needed or not before she could disregard the call. \nThe phone rang several times. \n“Hello?” the voice of a teenage girl answered, clearly flustered.\n“This is 9-1-1. We received a call from this number. Do you have an emergency?”\nNervous laughter. “Oh, god! I was just playing with my phone. Then it dialed 9-1-1 by itself. I don’t know what happened. It’s possessed or something—”\nA teacher in the background loudly reprimanded her for using an unauthorized device during class. \n“Okay, I’ll mark this down as accidental,” Casey said, tapping in a brief comment about the errant call into her console. “Just so you know, if you press the slide button key five times, it automatically dials 9-1-1.”\n“I didn’t know that,” the girl whined. “I didn’t mean to. Are the police coming? Am I in trouble?”\n“No, you are not in trouble. But next time, stay on the phone and tell the dispatcher what happened. That way, we don’t have to bother you at school.”\n“Okay.” The caller had clearly lost interest in Casey.\n“You could disable the Emergency SOS feature on your phone. It’s under settings.”\n“Fine,” the girl said, annoyance in her voice. “I’ll do that. Thanks. I gotta go now.”\n“Have a good day.”\nCasey clicked off, looking around the Dispatch Center for approval from her peers, but no one seemed to notice her deft handling of her first solo call. \n🜋 🜋 🜋\n“9-1-1. What is your emergency?” \nAn older woman sobbed over the line. “My Jeffrey is m-missing!”\n“Your husband is missing?”\n“My husband? My husband’s dead. It’s Jeffrey! My sweet boy…” \n“When did you last see your son?”\n“My son? My son is at college. He’s a business major.”\n“Ma’am, this line is for emergencies only.” Casey had been warned about kooks. “The non-emergency number is—”\n“This is an emergency. Someone’s stolen my dog!” The woman’s words turned into a tsunami of tears.\nCasey froze, not knowing what to do, unnerved by the woman.\nThe shift supervisor, Bernice, picked up Casey’s call to intervene. “It’s all right, ma’am. When did you last see your dog Jeffrey?” \nAs Bernice extracted the necessary information, Casey’s face reddened. Sitting back in defeat, she stared blankly at her monitors.\n“That’s another thing you have to learn,” Bernice said, after ending the call. “Pets are more important to people than people.”\nCasey bit her thumbnail. “Why’s that?” \n“Because people are disappointing. Your line’s ringing.” \n🜋 🜋 🜋\n“9-1-1. What is your emergency?”\n“It’s running!”\nCasey’s pulse quickened at the young boy's voice until she heard other children snickering in the background. Another voice harshly commanded the others to shut up. \n“What's running?” she replied, a smile curling the corners of her mouth. \n“I said—your refrigerator is running,” repeated the voice. \n“You said it wrong!” interrupted another voice. “Ask if the refrigerator is running.”\n“Are you running with a refrigerator?” the young boy tried again. “You can’t run forever!”\n“You dumbass,” his partner muttered.\n“Boys,” Casey said. “You shouldn’t prank 9-1-1. If you report a false emergency, you could be found guilty of a misdemeanor.”\n“Miss who?”\n“The punishment for pranking 9-1-1 could be up to one year in jail and/or a $1000 fine.”\nThe young boy whispered to his friends. “We’re going to jail.” Then she heard them whimpering. \n“You are not going to jail. Just stay off the emergency lines, all right?”\n“Are the police coming?\n“No,” Casey reassured him. “We’ll let this one slide today.”\n“Okay,” the young boy replied. “Do you have Prince Albert in a can?”\nCasey hung up, deciding if she did marry Michael, they would have to think long and hard about having children. \n🜋 🜋 🜋\n“9-1-1. What is your emergency?”\n“My friend’s trippin’ balls!” \nTechno music blared so loudly that Casey ripped off her headset to lower the volume. She quickly adjusted them. “Could you repeat that? You injured your testicles?”\n“No! My friend and I were partying in his mom’s basement. One of his girlfriends showed up, scrolled through his phone, and freaked out. She took his fucking dog!”\n“Were there any weapons involved?”\n“No, only a bong.”\n“What type of drugs has your friend ingested?”\n“All of them.”\nBernice intercepted Casey’s call for the second time. “Sir, what is your current location?”\n“Um. Four Oh Seven Maple Street. It's the house with a ton of dog shit in the front yard.”\nCasey's eyes widened when Bernice repeated the address aloud. She looked nauseated and bent over her trashcan to retch.\nBernice muted her line before leaning over to Casey. “You okay?”\nCasey swallowed hard as her eyes watered. She managed to nod.\n“Good. Your line’s ringing. Pick it up.”\n🜋 🜋 🜋\n“9-1-1. What is your emergency?” \n“Not in my car, Jeffrey! Oh, you little shit!” Sharp yapping drowned out a young woman’s shrill voice. “My boyfriend’s dog nipped me. It's actually his mother's dog, but I think I’m bleeding!”\nCasey shouted into her mic. “What is your location?” \n“Never mind,\" the woman continued. \"The skin isn’t broken. I’ll just wait for Michael.”\nThe line went dead. \nBernice ate a doughnut as Casey clicked on the two-way radio.\n“We’ve got a 10-16 at Four Oh Seven Maple Street. A female suspect is in unlawful possession of the homeowner’s dog. The homeowner’s son is in the basement, tripping balls. His name is Michael.”\nTossing the radio aside, Casey sat back in her chair and crossed her legs.\nBernice passed her the box of doughnuts, and they both chewed thoughtfully.\n“Love triangle?” Bernice finally inquired, an eyebrow raised. \nDonning her headset, Casey grinned. “Not anymore.” \n“You know,” Bernice remarked. “I think you’re getting the hang of this job.”" } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Shucked\n\nGenre: bedtime\n\nWord Count: 1323\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story from a ghost’s point of view." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Finally I was dead. This was the moment I had waited for my entire life. To be clear, I did nothing to hurry its arrival, nothing egregious anyway, despite the fact that my husk of clay wasn’t always what I’d call \"amenable\" to keeping itself alive. Nonetheless, I really did do my best as long as it was my duty. I fed it, exercised it, gave it multi-vitamins when I remembered and generally deferred from the things it craved that would clog its arteries, fog its brain and otherwise break down its fragile fickleness. But all along I knew time was on my side. It was just a matter of biding ‘til I got shucked out of that coil of nonsense.\n\nI remember the first time I realized my ultimate destiny was ghostliness. The old bag of bones was still pretty short back then, couldn’t even see up over the kitchen counter. I’d come around the corner with a full head of steam chasing after the dog and lost track of the forehead portion of things. As all of you with foreheads already know, the moment you lose track of it, it slams itself into something.\n\nThe countertop overhang was a willing hard spot and next thing I knew my mortal responsibility was flat on its back, forehead throbbing, eyes leaking, a permanent monument to clumsiness gashed right above the left eye. I was in there with all the pain and the crying. All I’d wanted to do was to catch up to the dog and feel its soft fur, but now I had to deal with fussing and sorting out limbs and being mad. At first, I was thinking about vengeance on the countertop, but there wasn’t any way to make it hurt like the forehead was doing. Then it came to me. The pain wasn’t really to do with the countertop; it didn’t have any feelings to give or take. The forehead was the real culprit. It’d done the slamming and now it was giving out all the hurting as well.\n\nThat’s when I knew. A ghost could’ve just passed right through all that sharp granite. A ghost wouldn’t have throbbing and that kind of foolishness. So that’s when I started looking ahead. I’d be stuck with clumsiness for a while, but someday I’d get shucked of it and all the pain that came along.\n\nFew years later the limbs got longer and even more awkward and now they did themselves the disservice of lifting the eyes up high enough to see into the bathroom mirror. I tried all sorts of ways to cover up that scar over the left eye, but I couldn’t get those clumsy hands to adjust the hair in any kind of way that looked natural. And the scar was just the beginning of the problems. The nose wasn’t anything I thought should be let out into public, the skin was its own little village of outraged inflammation and I’d heard someone laughing about big ears and was fairly certain it was in reference to the ones attached either side of the head I was in charge of. Going down from there it was just a rash of worries—was this part too big or that part too small—all this led to messing around with every kind of clothes, trying to cover things that wouldn’t hold up to being seen while making it seem like what was underneath might be worth looking at.\n\nI hated winding up courage to stand my flesh and blood in front of mirrors and every time I did, I looked forward to being a ghost. Ghosts don’t have unsightly reflections, or any reflections at all. Ghosts are just there, being themselves without worrying about seeing or being seeing. Ghosts don’t have to be in shape, ‘cause ghosts don’t have any shape at all, not unless they want to now and again. \n\nThe worst part about being stuck inside a body was, of course, being left behind. First, it was my dog, the same fluffy one I used to chase around the house. One day he got slow, then he wouldn’t run at all, then he would just lay there and snap at me when all I wanted to do was feel his soft fur. He finally went where I couldn’t follow, free to run around again while I was stuck inside of an earthbound ball of self-consciousness with no best friend to make me feel good when everything else was bad.\n\nAfter he went, others followed. I did eventually figure out how to get those ungainly limbs to walk straight and managed to look other bodies in the eye, even though I knew all the things that were wrong with mine. There was even a time when I thought I found someone who liked those things that were wrong about me. The hands I had fitted nicely into the hands he had and we got to staying together and I just about got around to thinking it was nice—spirits and bodies bound as one—and I got to thinking that maybe I didn’t ever want to be a ghost, not if being alive could be like this.\n\n But the truth is bodies always betray you. \n\nHe got slow before he should have, before I did. I had to help him with his body then. Lift his limbs in and outta bed. Get clothes covering him. Get food into his mouth when finally he couldn’t do it himself. Then, before he left, he snapped at me, just like that old dog and that hurt worse than any forehead banging ever could, even though I knew he didn’t mean it, even though I had a good idea he mighta been a ghost already when he did it, only his flesh and bones didn’t know it yet.\n\nI was done with bodies after that, though I still kept mine up. I made it stand and walk just so far everyday. I made it eat greens and drink clear water. But I was wary of it, I never trusted it and I got to hankering for my destiny as a ghost again. If I was a ghost, I’d be the one going places. If I was a ghost, I’d be the one shucking out and leaving folks behind. \n\nThe day I died was a bright and sunny day. I thought that was fitting, because I sprung right out of all that dust and ashes just like an honest to goodness daisy and it was everything I hoped it would be. Right away I zipped clean around the earth, all that mud and water spinning past and not one stitch of pain or one ounce of worry dragging me down. You’d think I was plumb lacking sense the way I dove deep down into the oceans, then came twirling up outta the waves squealing for it was so much joy before skimming the top of the coldest mountain and even sitting on the tip of the crescent moon only because it was so easy.\n\nYou bet I found that fluffy dog wagging his tail to see me and after that, found the one who I knew had always liked me, though I still made him say \"I'm sorry\" both for snapping, even though I knew he didn't mean it, and for leaving me alone.\n\nThe funny thing is after all that, after our hellos and after all our plans for eternity were put right in place, our favorite thing to do on evenings was to settle down next to each other and watch the bodies down below go about their business. It's not that we ever wanted to go through all that again, but once you've done it and once you are on the other side, it's easy to see how it makes a good story, and it gets you rooting for everybody else who hasn’t got shucked yet." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Havoc mind\n\nGenre: asian-american\n\nWord Count: 1065\n\nPrompt:\n\nStart your story with a character looking out of a window in the middle of the night." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "I sat up and stared aimlessly at the empty space sadly ,the quiet house reminded me of the once filled Happy home . But just like that it all disappeared leaving me alone in the sad castle.\nThey say \"Happiness is spending everyday with the people you love\".It was just like yesterday I could still hear mom's voice calling me for breakfast,Dad talking happily to his client on phone although his tone was serious but he had smile spread on his lip,Guess they were both talking about money. My brother Dieyi telling mum about his upcoming basketball game that week.\nIt all disappeared within a twinkle of an eye, dad been sent to jail for selling drugs, mum still laying unconscious in coma , She slumped from shock , the shocking news of dad been jailed was too much for her health condition.\n My brother suddenly left a month ago with his few of his belongings leaving me alone here confused and lost. I could remember the day before his sudden disappearance without a trace, was the day ,Doctor Zi called the both of us about how our mother's health was detorating and could be dangerous, if she didn't get surgery on time.\nThe whole world suddenly became dark and cloudy,as we were both confused and no one and nowhere to go. That night my brother was on call with an unknown person, before I could even hear what they were talking about,he ended the call. He realized a deep sigh and tired shoulder dropped,I know he is also fustrated with the whole events,this cruel world filled with heartless people,those cruel relatives who would turn up on our doorstep and request for money and help from our parent,all turned us down now that we are in need.Guess that what people are,right .\nThat night Dieyi called me to his room and told me\" that a friend is doing part-time job and he said he would introduce him to his boss,so I can earn money for mum's surgery. Don't worry little sis everything will be back to normal,I assure you\",he finished saying and patted my head. \nSince that night have not see his trace or heard from him.Things have become unbearable and my strength are failing each day ,my confused self prays and hope things would be better and go back to how it used to be. The havoc mind.\nRecalling the good old days,I never imagined things could turn out this way. I miss that nice woman with the nicest smile in the world,my mum's best spot is kitchen. My dad has always been a workaholic,who works day and night just to provide us with all we want. Little did we know dad was doing dirty deal selling drugs below for You Mafia gang ,the most notorious and evil gang in Asia. But why would Dad do something like that, I have always being proud of him. Before he was arrested mum already had suspicion on Dad's late night work , strange calls and messages,when confronted about it he would denied it and say he knows nothing about it. The whole mess and confused situation was started after his arrest,I don't know how to forgive him.\nTwo weeks ago, I received call from hospital that someone paid for my mum's surgery,that was the happiest thing that have happened to me in months now. I could not express my joy and gratitude enough,\"Everything is finally going back to normal\",I cried out in joy. \" If only brother could be here now with us\",I thought sadly as I alarted from the taxi and rushed to the hospital. \nAfter Doctor Zi discussed with me about my mum's surgery that will be done the next day, I matched happily to the receptionist to ask about the savior but to my amazment,she said the man don't wish to disclose his identity,he just did for charity and don't expect anything else.\nThis made me so happy and on top of the world,but there was still some shade of sadness.\n\" How would have been if my brother Dieyi was here,I tried calling him but no avail he wasn't even picking up. Where could he be and how is he doing\" this were thought that race through my mind as sat down on my bed staring aimlessly at the window. The day dark sky is covered with dark mist,my heart is covered by it right now and I can't think straight,a mind in havoc.\nMany times I just wish this is just a dream,I continue to stare at the dark night with a puzzled mind, praying silently for my brother to come. I finally laid back on bed and tossed up and down on my bed, before finally falling to sleep.\nThe next morning,a delivery guy showed up at my door with lot of home appliance and electronics.\n\"Wrong place\",I said not interested as I try to close back my door.\n\" Good morning,are you Miss Yu Lan,am asked to send this to you from JK agency\" he stated\n\"Sound more and more confused is JK agency not the ones that sponsoring Ariel Kpop idiols,then why are they sending things to my door\",just before I could be brainstorming for possible answer.\nA call came in ,\" Are you Miss Yu, Dieyi's younger sister\" the voice asked.\n\"Yes,do you know my brother, please where is he\",I questioned non-stop.\n\" I am Dieyi's manager, of course he is doing fine,but presently he signed contract with our company to train as an idiol and in return we settle his finacial needs, like we payed your mom's surgery .There rules that our trainees abide to and that is not leaving the Star house without a proper leave. So he won't be able see you for now. You can talk to him on phone,am going to send you his new contact,so you could talk to him\",he finished saying and ended the call.\nI don't know what to say or do,all I know is my heart is racing with joy. \" Things are finally going back to normal and Happiness\",I screamed for joy,am the most happiest person on Earth to here the joyful news,I am so so happy and proud of him. I can't wait to hear from me, looking forward in great anticipation to his call.Now I have a brother who is going to be an idiol." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Melting Ice\n\nGenre: asian-american\n\nWord Count: 2973\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story about strangers becoming friends, or friends becoming strangers." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Hanson was afflicted by a mischievous little thief. Not a normal thief—the situation might’ve almost been better if that had been the case, because then Hanson could’ve called the police and been done with it, but no: this thief didn’t break in and steal his laptop or kitchen knives or whatever thieves were supposed to steal, they took the icicles from his roof. How was Hanson supposed to call the police and, without coming across as a madman, tell them that a tiny person who regularly wore tight pants with rainbow belts was stealing his ice?\nHanson blamed his house.\n5482 East St. W. was an old building, sans gutters; Hanson had bought the place like that. Once purchased, he’d seen no need to call someone to install gutters, since whoever came would no doubt stomp all over and spy on his property in the process. \nIt wasn’t an issue in the summer: he quite liked the sound of rain dripping past his windows and roaring off the high ridges and valleys when it poured. It was winter when problems started amassing: the roof was shot and he’d been putting off getting it replaced to avoid talking to the roofing people, but he’d have to schedule to get it done this coming summer because nooks and crannies in the overhanging shingles urged a curtain of ice to develop that made looking out the bay window like peering out of the maw of some sharp-toothed beast.\nAt least, until three weeks ago on Tuesday. Hanson worked from home, wrapped in no less than fifty blankets—since it was cheaper to keep the thermostat down in the winter—and sitting at the bay window, because that let him watch the street from between the bars of his prison without anyone coming up to him. At 1:30, he’d regrettably left his nest to heat up leftover takeout Chinese in the kitchen while shivering. He’d been carrying the plate and a pair of chopsticks back to the bay window when he’d seen a small stranger in their mid-twenties walking up his driveway, their long black hair tied up in a bun, hands shoved into the pockets of a thick, oversized black coat with silver zippers that glinted blindingly in the light like the ice on his roof. Hanson had immediately glanced to the road, expecting a FedEx or UPS truck even though he hadn’t ordered anything off the Internet recently.\nThe road had been empty.\nThe stranger had turned off onto the front path and Hanson, standing in the doorway of his living room, had a moment to think, Oh no, someone’s about to try and sell me stuff, have they seen me yet or can I still run and hide and pretend I’m not home? before they were up the steps, their dark eyes on the corner of Hanson’s roof. They’d leaned over the side railing, one pale hand slipping out of their pocket to fix around the biggest icicle at the corner of the roof, hanging a foot and a half long at least. A tug pulled it free with a quiet crack.\nThe stranger’s pleased smile as they regarded their trophy had been blinding.\nThen they’d turned around, icicle in hand, and moseyed away—down the path and driveway—turning right once they got to the road and strolling off.\nHanson had only been able to stare. He knew he didn’t know that person, because he didn’t know anyone in this neighborhood; he avoided people like the plague, only going out when absolutely necessary.\nWhy were they taking his stuff?\nThe stranger had come back the next day while Hanson had been in the bathroom. When he came out, still drying his hands on his pants, he’d seen the little thief making their way back down the drive, another icicle in hand as they left. Their hair was up again and they wore the same jacket, but instead of jeans, they had on tight black pants, cuffed at the bottom to show bare, skinny ankles over low-cut lime green socks that were hiding in their gray Vans, accentuating how very improperly dressed for winter they were.\nHanson had looked at the icicles in front of his window.\nAnother tooth had been missing from the monster’s mouth.\nHe’d sputtered inelegantly, dashing across the living room, fully intending to muscle open the frozen window and yell after the stranger. The window, however, had been frozen shut, ice cementing it closed, and by the time Hanson had the idea to pound on the glass, the stranger had disappeared.\nThievery! Hanson had thought furiously.\nThe stranger knew about Hanson, too, and didn’t even pretend that they didn’t see him sitting there: the third time they’d come up—the third time Hanson saw it, because he’d been out of state for a few days at a family gathering his mother had forced him to attend—Hanson had the flu. He’d taken too much Nyquil because he hated being sick, and he’d fallen down the rabbit hole of YouTube, somehow ending up watching videos by an Australian cheesemaker, lulled into drowsiness by the drip of water running down the ridges of thick icicles and falling from their points to plink against the ground.\nWhen he’d heard the gentle crack of ice snapping, he’d looked up sleepily, and the stranger—there in all their impish, honey-eyed glory, one arm outstretched to grab their prize—had winked at him before leaving, juggling the burning cold icicle between their bare hands.\nHanson had blinked after them blearily. He’d thought it’d been a fever dream for a few days, until he got better and it happened again.\nHanson refused to think of it as cute or charming, even though his heart started racing every time the stranger came up and took too long to calm down after they left. No—he was going to figure this stranger out, methodically and impassively, so he could make them fuck off.\nHe worked out that they took walks every day, always passing his house at around 1:30, only coming up when an icicle grew longer than a foot. They simply waved, unperturbed, when Hanson pounded on the window to dissuade them, which he couldn’t even do all that often because the stranger had an uncanny knack for sauntering up while he was distracted doing something else—cleaning the cupboards, or taking toasted peanuts out of the oven to make apam balik, or swearing at his can opener when it refused to open a can of Thai Kitchen coconut milk for curry while his potatoes burned on the stove.\nDay by day, his dam of icicles got more and more lopsided, and Hanson got more and more frustrated that the little thief was still at large, not bothering anyone else with their tight clothes and glittering, friendly smile that Hanson was starting to not-entirely-hate.\nOn Friday it was warm, forty degrees at least, and icicles broke and fell, shattering against the ground. Though Hanson spent his entire afternoon staring outside in anticipation of seeing the stranger instead of working, they didn’t walk by as usual.\nHanson tried to tell himself that the disappointed beat in his chest was actually happiness, from peace and quiet at last. He didn’t—wouldn’t—miss a tiny criminal.\nHe still went to bed that night worrying if they were okay.\nSaturday morning’s sun illuminated a frozen wasteland, the temperature dipping below zero with the fickle weather, misery finally forcing Hanson to turn on the heater, the devil on his shoulder goading him to set it all the way up to seventy degrees, whispering in his ear that he deserved it. Outside, a solid sheet of ice had half-slid down his roof in the middle of the night to hang in front of his window, long icicles like claws at the edge. Hanson spent his morning anxious that it would pull his whole roof off with the weight, wondering if he should go out with a shovel and finally knock it all down.\nGoogle told him to leave it, unless he wanted to tear the shingles off his roof.\nAt lunch time, he was waffling between his kitchen and living room as he waited for his oven to preheat, his coat on as the house warmed up, when he saw chunky tan combat boots coming up the drive. Hanson nearly leapt out of his socks.\n Little Thiefy Thief McThieferson was here! Hanson nearly tripped over a chair as he lunged for his shoes, throwing open the side door of his house with a burst of adrenaline.\nThe stranger had reached the juncture between the driveway and the front path, their head turning at the racket, and Hanson took advantage of this to stick out a finger and screech, “You!”\nThe little thief stopped. They blinked once, twice, and then splayed a hand on their chest, blocking out the bold yellow letters of their Sean Cody tank top, an innocent smile spreading across their face. “Me?”\nHanson made it all the way over, chest-to-chest with the stranger—or, chest-to-face, because they really were very short—before the energy fizzled out of his blood, leaving him abandoned and balking: what was he doing? He didn’t know how to talk to people!\n“Hi,” the thief said pleasantly.\nIt took Hanson a moment to get his brain working. He meant to say, Stop stealing my stuff! but his mouth had other ideas and he ended up saying instead, so plaintively he was disgusted with himself, “Where were you yesterday?”\nThe stranger’s expression melted into genuine surprise. “Yesterday?” They blinked. “I had a doctor’s appointment. Where were you yesterday?”\n“I was here!” Hanson said, his heart beating too fast. “You—and—and nobody was here….” Glancing around, he shut his mouth with a click of his teeth, mortified, thinking furiously about what he was trying to say, the stranger waiting patiently. Once he had it, he stuck out his finger again, glaring. “Stop stealing my stuff!”\nHe must’ve said it too loudly, as he was sometimes wont to do, because the little thief’s eyes widened and they leaned back slightly, making Hanson flush with humiliation and want to apologize. Before he could, they looked up the path with surprise, giving Hanson a good eyeful of the sharp cut of their jaw and the straight line of their nose before they looked back at him. \n“Your stuff?”\n“My—my icicles,” he spluttered. “Who says you get to just walk, walk up here and take stuff? This is my property, I don’t know you!”\n“Oh, well, hello.” The stranger stuck out their hand, leaving Hanson to stare at it once he could tear his eyes away from their dazzling smile. “I’m Fish. I live three blocks down. You know the house with the giant pride flag out in front?”\nHanson didn’t know how he could not know that house; he’d nearly crashed his car coming back from getting groceries when he’d first seen it a couple weeks ago, unable to stop staring.\n“That’s me, you should come visit some time. All the neighbors came to say ‘Hi’ when I moved in a couple weeks ago, except for you.”\n“That house wasn’t even for sale.”\n“Well, no. It’s my parents’. But my dad’s an architect and he built this gigantic new place in Minnetonka, so they gave this one to me. Anyway, what’s your name?” Their hand was still out, unwavering, and after a moment Hanson was forced to take it out of politeness. Fish shook it up and down too vigorously for an early Saturday afternoon.\n“Hanson.”\n“Hi, Hanson. How are you doing today?”\n“Not great!” he snapped. “A little jerk keeps coming up my drive and stealing my icicles!”\nFish giggled at this and Hanson’s hackles raised, sure he was getting laughed at.\n“Did you want them?” they asked, leaning forward slightly, eyebrows raising in interest, their alarmingly cold hand still wrapped around Hanson’s. “I didn’t know. I was using them as a skeleton to building a palisade in front of my house so I can wreck the next-door neighbors’ kids when we have snowball fights. They were just sitting there so tempting, and you looked so lonely in the window.”\nHanson sputtered indignantly, trying to extricate his hand from Fish’s sturdy grip. He could feel his pulse pounding under his skin, terrified that he was going to screw this conversation up like he always did, and for some reason, he very much didn’t want that to happen. “I’m not lonely!”\n“No?” they had the gall to ask. “The neighbors say you stay inside all the time and barely come out, and I thought to myself, Oh, Fish, you’ve got to help that poor man. So here I am!” They let go to spread their arms wide as if to hug the world before stuffing their hands into their coat pockets, hiding a shiver as a cold breeze blew past.\n“I don’t—I don’t need help. And, and why is your name Fish? That’s not a proper name.”\n“Well, it’s mine. Why’s your name Hanson?”\n“Because nobody here can pronounce Huiqing,” he snapped.\nFish’s eyes widened imperceptibly right before they laughed, their breath coming out in puffs of white, teeth flashing in the sun, their cheeks bunching up and making their eyes squint thin with amusement.\n“Well, Huiqing,” they said, shifting their weight back and then forward again. “I like ‘Fish.’ And it’s yú in Mandarin, which sounds like ‘you’ in English, which I think is hilarious. Like that bit in Rush Hour 3 where Jackie Chan and Chris Tucker go to the kung fu studio. Have you seen?”\n“No.”\n“Oh,” Fish sighed sympathetically, reaching out to wrap a hand around his arm as Hanson stared incredulously. Their short, neat fingernails were painted a glittery lilac purple that caught the light and shone with white, almost yellow, highlights as they moved. “I’m so sorry. You have no idea what you’re missing. You need to watch it. I bet I can bootleg it for you; it’s not on U.S. Netflix, but I’m a master at bootlegging. Do you have a pen? I can give you my phone number to send it to you.”\n“You…” Hanson sputtered, “you can’t just… you can’t just give out your phone number like that, someone’s going to steal your identity!”\nFish cocked their head. “Whatever on Earth would they use it for?”\n“I don’t know, stealing your money or getting a job in your name or something—”\n“Do you need money?” Fish asked. They let go of him to bury their hands back in their pockets, tucking their elbows very neatly against their thin sides as the wind blew open their unzipped coat. Hanson could see small goosebumps popping up on their long neck. “I can give you twenty bucks. If you want more, though, you’re going to need to unlock the next level of friendship.”\n“We’re—we’re not friends—”\n“It’s too late,” Fish said, that pretty smile slipping back on their face—not pitying like how Hanson’s family looked at him, nor distrustful like how people in stores looked at him; just happy and open and free—and they quickly captured one of Hanson’s hands before he could shy away and patted it gently. “Introverts get adopted by extroverts, that’s how it works. Here.” They unfurled his fingers and clicked open a pen they must’ve found in their pocket, writing big looping numbers across Hanson’s palm. “That’s my phone number. Text me if you want, or you can even call if you’re feeling brave. I’ll send you the link to watch Rush Hour online. You’ll like it. It’s an action comedy, and it has Jackie Chan in it. Who doesn’t like Jackie Chan? Or if you have shitty Wi-Fi, you can come over and we can watch it at my house. I can nick the DVD from Dad’s place, I bet.”\nFish graciously gave back Hanson’s hand, burying their fists once more into their pockets and hunching their shoulders against another gust of wind.\nHanson looked at the blue ink on his palm, his stomach fluttering strangely. “And what, if I watch it, you’ll stop stealing my icicles?”\n“Do you want me to?”\n“I came out here to tell you to stop. Google says you’re going to wreck my roof.”\n“Oh, well that’s not good,” Fish said, shifting their weight again and pulling their jacket closed against the cold. “I guess I have to stop, then, or you’ll sue me for property damage.”\n“No, I—” started Hanson, before he realized he had no idea where he was going with that and forced his mouth shut even though Fish was regarding him curiously now, head tilted. This person was supposed to be annoying, not likeable and attractive and so easily delighted by Hanson, despite how obviously gauche he was.\n“Well,” said Fish, smiling, taking a step back. “I’ll accept this wonderful interaction today in place of an icicle and I’m going to take my leave because, to put it succinctly, I’m fucking freezing.”\n“Maybe if you wore proper clothes you wouldn’t be,” Hanson pointed out.\nThey laughed. “Oh, darling. Huiqing. There is no such thing as ‘proper’ in this world, don’t you know that?” \n“Wait,” Hanson blurted—spurred by an unfamiliar spark of bravery in his veins—before they could drift away, like a dream right after he woke up. “Um. If you’re super cold, you can, you can come inside. I put on the heat and was going to make cookies.” He felt stupid immediately after suggesting it, but Fish’s face lit up with a grin wider than the Cheshire Cat’s.\n“Oh,” they said, coming back up the drive and wrapping their hand around Hanson’s elbow like a genteel aristocrat, their face tilted up and pleased, the expression somehow warming Hanson more than his coat did. “Alright. I like the sound of that. Lead the way, good sir.”" } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Vanessa Drake Is my sister\n\nGenre: asian-american\n\nWord Count: 1134\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story about strangers becoming friends, or friends becoming strangers." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "I truly believe that the greatest gift a friend can give… is their friendship. The story of how Vanessa and I crossed the line from Strangers to Friends is one that has changed both of our lives for the better. Over the past few months, I’ve asked friends to share one of their own “Stranger to Friend” stories with me so that I could post it on my site as a “Feature Friend Story”. To my surprise, on my 33rd Birthday, Vanessa sent me a story; the story of US. Below is her version… an incredible story of overcoming self doubt to accomplishing a great feat. Thank You, Vanessa! Our friendship is one that I’ll always and forever cherish; this story means the world to me 🙂\nThe start of the MS Challenge Walk\n…..I am a little ashamed of how long it has taken me to get this story locked into the Strangers To Friends site but from the other stories I have read on the site, I find that I am not the only one that believes things happen when they need to, timing is everything….\nThis is the story of how Carlyn Shaw went from being a stranger, just a voice on the other end of the line, to my inspiring friend. In the fall of 2008, I was looking to leave my current job as an RN in a doctors office to explore something more lucerative, as well as challenging. So I started investigating the world of travel nursing.Â By some amazing stroke of luck, or divine intervention, I was connected to Carlyn as my recruiter.\nAt this time, I was working on all areas of my life……in the process of becoming a stronger, more confident person, and learning more about who I was.Â I was in need of something drastic to stir things up a bit but, simply said, I was terrified of the prospect of traveling to a far away place, by myself, not knowing a single soul. However, because of how amazing, supportive, and overwhelmingly convincing Carlyn can be, she wouldn’t take no for an answer and soon I found myself driving from North Carolina to the big ol’ state of Texas.\nAs it turned out, Carlyn and I would only be in the recruiter/recruitee relationship for a very short time.Â Her path was leading her other places as well.Â Reluctantly, I found another recruiter and ended up coming back to North Carolina, working for a few months, unhappily, only to find myself in the job I am in today. And this is where I was meant to be. I wouldn’t know it until months later, but going to Texas was one of the best things that could have happened to me. That person that I was trying to find, trying to become, started taking shape while I was there.Â And if it wasn’t for Carlyn convincing me to go, that above everything else, it would all be okay, I might not be where I am today. Again, timing is everything.\nFor the next 2 years, Carlyn and I stayed in touch throughÂ email, facebook,Â and a periodic phone call, becoming friends….I had a sideline view of all the things she was experiencing and doing in her life and it made me want to experience new things as well. Did I mention she was inspiring? One of those was the MS Challenge Walk…..50 miles over three days in San Diego.\nSO…..NEVER having been to San Diego, or California for that matter, NEVER having raised money for a cause, NEVER having walked 50 miles, and NEVER having met the one and only Carlyn in person……I signed up for the walk, raised money (with Carlyns help of course), and ventured off to the west coast (I was traveling the country alone, again,…..but this time with a heck of a lot more confidence)!!!!\nonloy 10 miles left!\nI was nervous (but excited) to meet Carlyn face-to-face for the first time. But, as soon as she pulled up to the curb at the airport, it was like we hadÂ done it a million times before. This “my friends” is the power of the human connection that she talks about.Â You take two people who live on opposite sides of the USA and wha-lah, STRANGERS TO FRIENDS!!! (As you can imagine, I had an amazing time in San Diego. A trip that will stay with me forever.)\nNow as fate would have it, Carlyn has moved to my neck of the woods,Â to Wilmington, NC.Â Who would have thought??Â So now, I hope to be able repay her in some way for all that she has helped me accomplish. I am proud to be part of a friendship that is a by-product of her passion, her mission to connect us. She continues to inspire me and I hope to learn and meet more through her example.\nNow as fate would have it, Carlyn has moved to my neck of the woods,Â to Wilmington, NC.Â Who would have thought??Â So now, I hope to be able repay her in some way for all that she has helped me accomplish. I am proud to be part of a friendship that is a by-product of her passion, her mission to connect us. She continues to inspire me and I hope to learn and meet more through her example.\nNow as fate would have it, Carlyn has moved to my neck of the woods,Â to Wilmington, NC.Â Who would have thought??Â So now, I hope to be able repay her in some way for all that she has helped me accomplish. I am proud to be part of a friendship that is a by-product of her passion, her mission to connect us. She continues to inspire me and I hope to learn and meet more through her example.\nNow as fate would have it, Carlyn has moved to my neck of the woods,Â to Wilmington, NC.Â Who would have thought??Â So now, I hope to be able repay her in some way for all that she has helped me accomplish. I am proud to be part of a friendship that is a by-product of her passion, her mission to connect us. She continues to inspire me and I hope to learn and meet more through her example.\nNow as fate would have it, Carlyn has moved to my neck of the woods,Â to Wilmington, NC.Â Who would have thought??Â So now, I hope to be able repay her in some way for all that she has helped me accomplish. I am proud to be part of a friendship that is a by-product of her passion, her mission to connect us. She continues to inspire me and I hope to learn and meet more through her example." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: home of the brave\n\nGenre: asian-american\n\nWord Count: 2054\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about a character who has to rely on the hospitality of strangers." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "//tw: racism\n\n\n\nThere are only three words running through my head as I shuffle toward my bathroom: hair, teeth, face.\n\nMy feet are bare as I flit down the hallway, barely making contact with the dirty carpet. Recently, this house has felt stifling, faintly reminiscent of a loudly distant aunt who demands a hug and holds on for far too long. When I look up at the dingy walls, the cloudy windows, I feel my lungs squeezing. Or maybe that’s the constant knot of anxiety in my stomach, tied tightly enough that it sits there like a rock all day, every day.\n\nThe mirror is crooked when I walk in, which is a faint interruption of the chant pervading my thoughts. It’s just straight enough to fit in with the rest of the fixtures, but just tilted enough to grate on my nerves, and I nearly reach out to fix it before I catch a glance of my reflection and the knot pulls itself tighter. Something I can’t quite name jolts through my body like lightning. I have to turn away. Hair, teeth, face. Simple enough.\n\nThe comb goes first. I reach for the handle and grip it tightly, watching my knuckles go snowy white.\n\nIt’s light, like everything else here, ready to be blown away by the faintest brush of wind. I run it from the crown of my head to my shoulders, tracing the ebony waterfall of my hair. The bottom strands are hopelessly tangled from a restless night spent among nubbly blankets. I tug again and again, ignoring the bolts of pain that shoot through my scalp, until the black falls loosely once more.\n\nMom used to do my hair. The thought is unwelcome, breaking down the door of my brain and announcing itself through a bullhorn. I remember perching on the bed in my childhood room, half the height I stand today, the walls painted bright lavender and the bed overcrowded with stuffed animals. Her fingers dancing through my hair, crafting it into a carefully done braid, the pieces sliding over and under each other until all that’s left is a raven-colored tapestry.\n\nEven if I let my vision fade out of focus, these walls are still beige. Even if I stood here for hours, willing my hands to work right, my braid would still be as messy as my churning conscience right now.\n\nI toy briefly with styling my hair, but my arms begin to ache, so I drop them and let my hair tumble freely around my shoulders instead. It’s oil-black and uncompromising, doesn’t go YA-protagonist-golden when I step into the sun or fall in effortless waves around my shoulders. Nothing but dark. I shouldn’t be as resentful as I am of that.\n\nThe mirror is crooked and I can’t bring myself to look at it. I run my fingers through my hair one more time, working out the last few clumps, then rest the comb back on the sink again.\n\nHair, teeth, face. One down, two to go.\n\nThe toothbrush is small and bristly, its handle the color of scarlet Chinatown lanterns in the afternoon. I fumble with the toothpaste tube for a moment. It’s almost empty, I realize. Maybe I need to go on a grocery run later. The thought fills me with an irrational amount of anxiety, and my head snaps over my shoulder to check the area behind me on a nervous reflex. Worries squirm around my head like mealworms, small and invasive and absolutely nauseating. They make me feel dirty.\n\nI shove the toothbrush into my mouth and scrub furiously, tasting the mint toothpaste seeping into every pore of my mouth. It has a bite to it, cool and striking against my taste buds.\n\nThere’s a certain rhythm to brushing, I think absentmindedly as I pull the brush back and forth against my teeth. Graceful, like a violinist, coaxing a melody from their movements. I imagine myself in a commercial for a moment, flashing a diamond-bright grin to the wall because the mirror would return it, and that scares me. Maybe I’d look like the models I see on TV then. Unafraid of their own appearance, unconditionally confident in themselves. And not like this. Not like me.\n\nThere’s room for a million words inside my mouth. They boil and swirl during the day, brim near the edges, threaten to flood my tongue until there’s nothing left but passionate waves. Sometimes I feel like I’m so overstuffed with them I might explode, like a limp teddy bear about ten years past its expiration date, sagging on an overgrown child’s pillow, fluff leaking out of its ears. I want to shout and my mouth is stitched shut and I cannot look at myself in this crooked, terrible mirror.\n\nI wonder when I got so troubled, when the vortex in my mouth first became too violent to drain out. Maybe when it felt like the world had stopped listening.\n\nThis is my morning routine, armoring myself in beauty and cleanliness. This is some strange form of torture that pulls at my edges, unravelling me. I close my eyes, draw in a breath, and try to knit this stuffed self together.\n\nHair, teeth, face.\n\nI reach for the tap and let the water run. It babbles against the sides of the sink in a chattering melody. Its icy chill frosts over my skin, and I pull my hand away on instinct.\n\nIt takes a few minutes for the water to heat up; I poke it gingerly, waiting for the bite of the cold to morph into a comforting warm. When it does, I let it pool in my palms and feel the heat radiate up my wrists, into my shoulders. It reminds me a little bit of tree roots, twining through my body just beneath my skin, clawing through the soil like some primeval taloned creature.\n\nI splash the water on my face, sensing rather than seeing the moisture trail downward, returning to its home in the stained porcelain sink. It runs over the canyons and valleys of my features, carves rivers into my skin.\n\nIf my face was a landscape, it would be central California. During summertime, to be exact. Those dusty plains, rolling on and on. It’s pretty, in an objective sense: the fields are endless, and a nostalgic sort of dusty. But there’s nothing specific there to admire. Just things in the process of growing, vague and mundane, leaves curling upward toward the uncaring sun.\n\nThe fact that I’m comparing myself to a farm might say something about me.\n\nI want to stay in the comforting blackness of my closed eyes, but I can only avoid the real world for so long. When the water has run out, my eyes flutter open.\n\nThe bathroom is faded and the sink is moon-white and the mirror is still tilted on the wall, a child’s tooth, a lightning strike. My gaze is yanked to the girl in the middle, the center of the whirlpool - unnoticeable until you step in, unremarkable until you drown.\n\nShe’s small and wiry, built like a willow tree, and she holds her shoulders like she’s trying to fit into some invisible superhero cape. Her hair falls just past her shoulders in a plain black sheaf, and her eyes are brown. She’s-\n\nLike, I don’t understand how people can eat that-\n\nclearly young, lit from the inside with a nervous flame-\n\nWhere are you from? I mean, you don’t look American-\n\nfalling apart alone in this bathroom, her own pieces slipping out from between her fingers-\n\nThanks for bringing Covid, you-\n\nA scream slips from my mouth, but not before I can muffle it with my hands, and now the girl in the mirror just looks scared.\n\nMy heart is racing for no reason at all. My fingers shake as I lift them away from my face, slowly, because I can’t trust myself not to cry out again.\n\nWhat was once a carefully-dammed lake of memories is beginning to strain at its banks. The girl in kindergarten, who said my chǎofàn smelled bad in such an innocent voice that I stopped eating it in public all together. The math teacher in high school, who told me I wasn’t as good at algebra as he assumed I’d be.\n\nAnd just last week, the teenagers on skateboards who spat at my family for bringing the virus and followed us across the parking lot, their footsteps as loud as the heartbeat thudding against the walls of my chest, shouting at me to do one thing: run. Run. Run.\n\nThey don’t know that my Mandarin is so broken my relatives barely understand me. They don’t know that, when I look at my family’s Chinese food and art and bright written words, I’m overwhelmed with nothing but confusion. I don’t know this person, who loves her culture and the country it came from. I celebrate the Fourth of July and I eat pizza every week and I work hard, too hard, just to make people treat me like an equal.\n\nI’ve spent so long carefully sinking this mask into my skin, to shield the parts of me I don’t want this country to see, that I can’t tell where the real me begins.\n\nHair, teeth, face. Bits and pieces of a porcelain doll. I put all my energy into dressing up, trying to be beautiful, trying to make this world love me, but I feel the same inside.\n\nI look at the girl in the mirror and I feel hatred. I look at the girl in the mirror and feel indifference. She is Chinese and she feels American and she wants her pieces to fit together.\n\nMy face is still wet, drops of water clinging to my nose and jawbone. I reach for a towel and pull it slowly over my face, letting it soak up all the moisture.\n\nWhen I was a child, I daydreamed about waking up in the morning, opening my eyes, and discovering that they’d become blue. It didn’t make scientific sense, nor did my parents approve - I just wanted to be pretty, the western way. My eyes would be the color of the sky and they’d be stunning; they’d make people stop in their tracks on the street as I glided by and they’d say, who’s that girl? She’s gorgeous.\n\nI let the towel drop and stare into the mirror. My eyes are as dark as the barrel of a gun.\n\nA few days ago, after the run-in with the teenagers, my family sat me down at the kitchen table and told me I had to be special. You have to do better than all of them, they said, so they’ll accept you. That’s the best way to be safe for people like us.\n\nI shouldn’t have to, I said. I thought of my grades then, my perfect score on my English essay, my A+ in Spanish class. Even if I'm perfect, how am I supposed to escape others’ perception of me?\n\nBàba laid an arm around my shoulders, and Māmā’s voice was unusually gentle. I know it’s hard, she said. But you’re a brave girl. You can survive.\n\nNow, I brace my hands on either side of the sink and meet my own gaze in the crooked mirror. This time, I don't bother fixing it. I wonder if this country will ever really be my home, or if I will forever be an outsider, her safety assured by nothing more than the hospitality of America’s true residents, wandering, searching for some semblance of surety.\n\n“People are only brave when they have no other option,” I whisper to the empty room.\n\nAnd I want to have other options. I want to be happy, and peaceful, and walk my town’s streets without having to glance over my shoulder whenever I hear footsteps. I want to try only as much as I feel like it because I wouldn’t have anything to prove. I want to know myself, really know myself, to look at myself in the mirror without flinching, and I-\n\nI don’t want to be brave.\n\nBefore I leave the house to venture into the city that is not mine, I rummage through my cabinets and find a dusty can of pepper spray." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: The Lady of the Last Star\n\nGenre: bedtime\n\nWord Count: 2939\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story in which a character navigates using the stars." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "It was considered a fact, that there are more stars in the universe, than human souls that ever lived in it. This statement is no longer true. Most of them died, or rather, were killed, leaving entire galaxies in darkness. But some said, „some” meaning the very last of humanity before even they met their end, that some stars still spark like diamonds in dessert sands. Across uninhabited planets and carcases of nebuli, their light guides a certain, troubled soul. And the darkness, right on its tail.\n Through the cosmic void, she was dashing hastely, the nimble comet that she was. Dodging her way out of an asteroid field, she was the only source of light there. Her name was Kori. And she was running away. From something that wanted to snuff that light out.\n The girl held on to her glider, aiming its beak between gaps, barely tight enough to squeeze through.\n The darkness that pursued her didn’t bother with avoiding obstacles. It would burst and consume them in its endless form. Grasping with its glassy claws and jaws that ate black holes.\n Kori threw her hand out, gattering stardust, charging her exo-suit and glider, stretching her fuel thinner and thinner. She was going faster, emitting ice clouds from the glider’s engine. She needed a boost. Altough, the source of that boost was nowhere to be found.\n She was slowly running out of light. The girl felt as her suit stretched and deformed from the pressure of the beasts’ breath.\n Beep. Close, but not close enough. Asleep, turned off, hidden.\n Whichever way she tried to ride in, the creature flowed in that direction like a raging canal of water. Pushing amidst the field, Kori grabbed a Luxdux from her belt.\n Beep, beep. The stardust flowed through her gauntlets into her fingers, charging the machine and emitting great whiteness that bounced all over the asteroid field.\n Beepbeepbeep!\n There it was. A fallen star. Awakened! But...\n She didn’t get to blink, before the light got smothered by the colossal jaws of the beast.\n Right in the glistening body of the creature, formed by husks of planets, glued together by darkness, she was drowning. Grasping against matter that was both liquid and form, digested cosmos that was swallowing her.\n She couldn’t breathe, didn’t know if she was even capable of, like in a dream. With the last of her senses intact, she found the star, cold and asleep. So, the girl made a decision. She pumped the star with fuel to its limits, feeling its shake tear the ebony skin of the creature. She put it in a pocket inside her chest. A flash appeared, her glider jumped into gear and with enough power, she punched through the belly of beast.\n She was gone. Gone, but not safe. Not for long.\n Drifting amongst dead celestial bodies, wondering how she herself was even alive. Laying down on her glider.\n Awaken.\n Her back jumped from the metal board, just as her hands jumped across her exo-suit. Like a skeleton outside of her flesh, it cracked in a couple of spots. Her mask, googles, gauntlets, valves and small pipes running with gas and helium. The girls’ heart pumped with euphoria. For a second, she was glad to be alive in this cosmos. Then realisation struck her.\n She was still alone.\n Wait, she murmered in her head. The reason why she found that star in the first place. Kori grabbed two things from her back. A canister, filled up to half with stardust and a small, metal block, shaped like an hourglass. Grains of dust were slowly pouring off of it.\n She wondered. Whether preserve the spare stardust or use it to boot up the machine. After rolling her eyes, she exhaled deeply and turned on her gauntlets.\n Such a small thing. It better be worth it.\n The block of metal turned on. With a simple, holographic face sticking out of the miniscule screen.\n The stardust in the canister depleted immensely, and she still needed to load up her glider. After detaching the run-down star from her chest, she connected it to the container to atleast make up for the loss in fuel.\n The small machine bopped its head intensely, barely hovering over the board in any form of balance.\n „INTERSTELLAR ROBOTIC INFORMATICAL SYSTEM activated” the robot spoke as smoothly as the nano-metal he was made of.\n It spoke. And she heard it. How? They were in the void. No way for them to understand each other, nor for her to gasp with shock.\n Kori widened her mouth as the robot saw only her mask that looked like a jellyfish. Words wanted to escape from her mouth but… she seemed to be unable to even squeal.\n „Please, accept my apology, as I automatically connected myself to your communication device, as well as your neural scan”. His voice was gentle and eloquent, yet still boyish, like a well-mannered child.\n „Uuhuh”, she mindlessly spilled, not able to accept a different voice in her head.\n „If you prefer, I can communicate with you through your neural scan, without the need for vocal cords”.\n „I-uh… I remember how to… How to speak!” she outraged, almost pushing the bot off the glider.\n „I beg your pardon then, miss Kori” he bowed, putting his right hand behind his back and the left one to the side, fingers curled with just the pointing finger upwards.\n „How do you know my name?!” her gauntlet started sparkling, as her fingers formed a glowing fist.\n „Your name is in my programming” he turned his bubbly head, unaware of the girls’ gesture. „Also, I am connected to your mind”.\n „Right. I’m not really… cool with that.” she shrank in posture.\n „Fair enough” she immediately heard him again through the comm in her mask.\n „I guess, it’s only fair for me to know… your name as well, don’t ya think?”\n „Again, fair enough” the robot nodded.\n „What’s your name then?”\n „INTERSTELLAR ROBOTI-\n „I ain’t rememberin’ all that, you small moon” Kori snapped her fingers against his head. „How about… IRIS?”\n „I… like it. If you want to call me that, then so be it” IRIS accepted his name with grace.\n „Great! Now, IRIS. Find me a star” the girl grabbed him by his hands and turned him around to face the void.\n „I was just looking at one, madam” his head turned back to her and his body right after it.\n „I mean a real star\" she laughed. \"You know, the one to use for space travel.”\n The thought occured to her. She laughed. It came so naturally to her, she didn’t even notice. She laughed again, giggling like a child, trying to squeeze words through her teeth.\n IRIS smiled, once more not understanding the girls’ behaviour.\n „I know what a star is”.\n „Congratulations, small moon. Now find one. There aren’t all that many left out there and you were made to sniff’em out like a Sirius”.\n „Why?” IRIS shrugged.\n „What why?” Kori did the same gesture.\n „Why are you looking for a star?”\n „I… have a mission. That’s all I know. Don’t really care ‘bout it, but.. someone’s gotta do it.” she swept her legs along the board and left them dangling.\n „Restarting the universe”. His holographic eyes widened.\n „Yup.”\n „You don’t seem happy about it”.\n „Why would I?” She turned her head away from his destructively child-like stare.\n „The universe is a beauuuutiful thing” IRIS spinned around in awe.\n „Was. Maybe. For a bit. Don’t really know”.\n „It still is”.\n „Listen, I don’t know what kinda world you remember but this ain’t it no more. It’s just a big corpse with a parasite in it” she hugged herself.\n „Orsus” IRIS stated. „That’s how my creators named him”. He added after noticing the girls’ confused stare.\n „Your masters… Can you lead me to them?”\n „Gladly!” IRIS jumped, lifting himself off of the glider. Fortunately, Kori catched him and put him back on the board. „Thank you kindly” he bowed again.\n „Lead the way then, little moon” she loaded the glider with some dust. Still enough for a jump or two.\n „Can’t wait to see humans again!” IRIS tried to jump, but immediately pulled himself back to Kori’s arm. Instead of flying away, he set up the coordinates for his creators’ location, as well as for a star in the same area.\n Kori remained silent with the void. She bumped the leftover star in order to power up her board, took a quick glance at her helper. Fully aware of the stardust inside of him gradually fading.\n „Keep your eyes open, IRIS, you’re gonna love that sight!” she attached the bot to her belt.\n „But I don’t need to bl-\n As a whistle across a forest, as white paint splashed with onto a black canvas. Like dipping your head in perfectly cold water. And right when you lift it up from the depths, you’re somewhere completely else.\n „Where are we?” Kori gasped in wild confussion. But also with… enamourment.\n This area of space had light. Different from stars. Deeply blue, with a bit of green. Waves upon waves of light, devouring each other.\n „We’re at the…” IRIS already prepared himself to be interrupted again.\n She leaned further, almost on the verge of the board. But that sight was worth it. „This is the edge of the universe!”\n A veil of purple nebuli, one of the eyes of the cosmos, tearing itself apart and regrowing, feeding the waves. And yet, no new stars were being born. In this place, the infite became finite.\n „Still no new stars at this eye” she sighed. „But the one we’re looking for should be close enough”.\n „From my scans, the star you mentioned should be… there” he pointed to a drifting wreck at the end of existence, holding itself together by its metal veins.\n Getting aboard the shuttle wasn’t a problem. It still had a functioning entrance. The metal door shivered, letting them inside Moses, as it was written on the scraped walls. The darkness seemed almost bright to the one outside. The only glow went off from Kori’s exo-suit. No other sound reached their ears except the howl of the glider, on which Kori was still riding.\n „Why won’t you step off from the machine? IRIS asked, tiptoing next to her.\n „My legs are tired” she growled.\n „From what?”\n „From not using them”.\n IRIS went silent and stopped in his steps.\n Kori sighed and turned around.\n „Let me help you” his arm was reaching her from the ground, just below her knee.\n She gave him a cold stare, but then… quickly changed it. Not for something much different, no. She lowered herself and grabbed him carefully, putting him on the board. Then, she put one foot on the ground, pushing herself with it further and further.\n „What’s the last thing you remember from your times?” the girl asked the robot.\n „Humanity conquering the stars. Enslaving them, until they started running out of them. Discovery after a discovery, not a single rock in the cosmos left unturned. That’s why I was created. To find the unfindable. And so, here I am, walking across the halls that birthed me, instead of venturing beyond the edge of the universe, like a proper machine should. Ironic, isn’t it?”\n „Mhm” she nodded, confused but weirdly enchanted by his words. „Poetic”.\n „In a different life, I would be a poet. Describe every, beautiful sight that the universe holds” he smiled. „What about you?”\n „I remember… this uniform. This mask. My mission. Not much beyond that.” she answered, losing her tempo for a step.\n „Did you ever take it off? If I may ask…” he forgot himself a little.\n „I don’t think so, no. I can barely remember my face. Not too keen on seeing it again”.\n They stopped in front of a ripped open door. Burned metal and flesh, smells so pungent that even a robot could feel their bloody aroma. IRIS’s radar started beeping, the stars’ signature should’ve been here. But the only things they found were a broken cage and a group of skeletons, laying on the floor. The cadavers, long dead, crystalized in their form, almost chrome. The last sign of their existence being dried up bloodstains.\n Kori jumped off from her glider to look upon the chamber in which the star should be held. She tried lifting the shards from the ground, putting them back, but to no avail. She punched the cell with all her might, not feeling a scratch.\n She heard a buzzing noise and so she found the source of it. A holo-reader, still working. With one, last message from beyond their cold graves. Kori had no mercy for the „play” button, but fortunately, she didn’t destroy the apparatus. A tall and skinny silhouette appeared in front of her, wearing long, brown hair and a metal, left arm.\n „I record this, truly hoping that this will not be our end. Nor yours” the figure stated grimly. „My name is Adam Henry DuBois.” he bowed, putting his right hand behind his back and the left one to the side, fingers curled with just the pointing finger upwards. „I am a scientist. And truth be told, an optimist. Enough to hope that our actions may finally bring something good to the world. I don’t have much time. You must find IRIS, and with him – the Forge. Beware of the Primordium – the beast that took away Earth’s light. Stay strong, Kori. And...”\n The message ended.\n Kori stood there, staring into the wall. It didn’t seem real. Nothing did. Just a mess without a solution. Her knees were crumbling, hands shaking, almost losing the grip within her gauntlets. For the first time, she felt the weight of her suit. The burden of it.\n „They’re beautiful” IRIS’s voice finally broke her, as he climbed on a desktop, near one of the chrome skeletons.\n „Beautiful? How can you say something like that now?” she felt the need to cry, but not a single drop on her cheek.\n „Even in death, they found something to strive towards. We are alive. What will we do now?”\n „Pff, yeah, you alive”. She leaned on the table heavily.\n „I beg your pardon?” his head raised as if he was raising an eyebrow.\n „Nothing. Just tired.” She waved him off.\n „Then why are you doing it?”\n „Because someone has to”. Kori scratched the table harshly.\n „That is not a logical argument. What reason do you have for it?”\n„None!” she snapped at him. „There is no reason! And if there’s no reason for it, then there’s no reason for me to even be alive! What other choice do I have? I don’t care what the world will look like if I succeed. I don’t care if I'll succeed. As long as I have something to do. Nothing more to it.” Her voice broke.\nKori lost IRIS from her seight. But then, she felt his small arms around her leg.\n „You seemed like you needed a hug” he said calmly.\n „Let’s…find this forge” she smiled.\n Already outside of the spaceship, prepared for another jump, they noticed clear, dark signs across their field of view. The darkness was coming back.\n „One more jump, IRIS, get ready.”\n „Rea-\n Fwoosh!\n They reached their final destination. The Starforge. Older than the universe itself – Methuselah.\nPrimordium got to them faster than Kori expected, they had to hurry.\n The greatest of the stars was not asleep, but dead. And it needed to be brought back to life. So it could bring the universe back.\n Flying through the ribcage of the celestial body, they found its core. The anvil that needed power. Kori ran to the stone-like battery, in need of filling up.\n „Kori” IRIS whispered, hearing a thunderous crack. The planet being slowly devoured.\n The girl loaded the canister with stardust to the battery. All that she gathered. Not even half of what was required.\n „Damnit!” she shouted, breaking the stars and adding them to the source.\n Ground beneath them started shaking. She knew there was no running away from it. She took the engine from her glider, also sucking the stardust out of it.\n Kori screamed. Only IRIS could hear her. And it was enough.\n The bot stumbled near and put his hand onto the battery. Slowly giving away the dust that fueled him.\n „IRIS, stop!” she tried to rip him from it, but he wouldn’t budge.\n „It’s okay” he said, as the last grains of dust left his body.\n Kori held onto him, pressing him to her chest.\n „Be with me until every star goes dark” IRIS said to her ear. „And so, when the universe ends up black and hollow… I will still atleast hear your voice… And feel your hand in mine.”\n His metal body clang near the core. An empty husk of a friend.\n Orsus had her. Shattering down walls around them, it cornered her like a wolf trapping a sheep. The crystal teeth being the last light that she was meant to see. She stood up proudly before it. She was no sheep. But a phoenix.\n Kori found her purpose. Putting all her strength, she loaded the battery to the maximum. Her suit started breaking, while the shadow, for the first time, cowered in fear. Now, she was her true self. A living star.\n Methuselah was born anew. The light that emanated from Kori destroyed Orsus. The battery overloaded, two stars mended into one and finally… they burned all that was left of the previous universe.\n On that day, a new star was born. And many more after it." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: His Amber Eyes\n\nGenre: asian-american\n\nWord Count: 1157\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about someone welcoming a stranger into their home." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "There was blood stained on his shirt.\nIt was raining on this night in modern era Japan. This man’s hair was wet and hung a bit across his forehead. His beard and shirt glistened with rain water as he looked down at the man on the other side of the doorway. A croaked voice escaped his chapped lips. \n“Can I come in?” \nNick normally doesn’t open the door to strangers who are injured and look like they could run the Yakuza all by themselves. And yet here he was, standing in the rain, leaning against his door frame, with his hand gingerly pressed against the gash on his chest. \n“Yeah.” \nNick helped the man inside, wrapping the man’s arm over his shoulder. Guiding him to his couch, Nick felt this stranger’s weight pushing him down a bit. Sitting him down, Nick carefully unbuttoned the stranger’s shirt to clean his wound. The gash was deep, running from under his left clavicle and stopping under his right pectoral. Nick didn’t want to admit it to himself, but this man was surprisingly toned. There was a large tattoo of many roses across his right shoulder that reached to the middle of his bicep. The stranger noticed his stare and examined this man who generously let him into his home. \nNick was small and thin, with wider hips and thighs that were shown prominently by his silk nightgown and sheen night robe. His hair was short, but fluffy, with his bangs resting over his forehead and curling in tufts in all directions. His icy blue eyes trailed down this stranger’s tattoo in awe. Nick’s eyes finally met with the stranger in front of him. This man had lovely amber eyes, and they enticed Nick for a short while.\n“I’ll get you patched up.” \nThe man nodded and Nick walked to get his first aid kit. \nNick’s house was spacious, with wood flooring, dark apple wood furniture in a few places and a black contemporary couch. There was a small, decently sized TV in the living room that this stranger was in. Nick came back from excursion with a medical kit in his hand. He sat down next to him and opened the kit. Looking at the stranger in front of him, he handed him a pillow.\n“You can grip this if you want. This is going to hurt a bit.”\nNick sprayed some antiperspirant on the wound to clean it. The man hissed through his teeth and gripped the pillow that Nick gave him. Sweat beaded on his forehead a little bit as Nick cleaned the wound with gauze and antiperspirant. Nick looked up at the stranger as he cleaned the wound.\n“So what’s your name?” \nThe man looked down at Nick with his Amber eyes. \n“Cliff Alchemy. And you?”\n“Nick Akagi.”\nIt didn’t take long before nick was able to bandage Cliff’s wound. Cliff carefully sat up in his spot as Nick shifted in his spot next to him.\n“Can I get you anything to drink, Cliff?” \nCliff looked over at Nick and smiled a bit.\n“Some water would be fine.”\nNick smiled sweetly at Cliff before getting up to grab some water. Cliff watched him leave and found blush creeping up his cheeks. Realizing this, he shook his head a bit to prevent his cheeks from getting any redder than they probably already were. Nick came back with a glass of water for Cliff, taking his place back on the couch beside him. Cliff gently took the cup from Nick and drank the water from it, giving Nick time to stare at Cliff’s hands that were holding the cup. They were scarred a bit, and he had a tattoo of a spider on the back of his thumb. Cliff took notice of this and glanced at Nick.\n“You see something you like?”\nNick became flustered at first and gripped the couch. Not wanting to lose his cool, Nick decided to play coy with Cliff. He put on a smirk and looked up at him with his hands pressed against the couch. Cliff could see his eyes a bit from underneath his bangs. \n“Oh, it’s just your tattoo, that’s all.”\nCliff rolled his eyes and smiled playfully at Nick and laughed. Nick looked surprised at this. This wasn’t exactly a reaction he was used to.\n“I’m sure it’s just the tattoo.”\nNick looked at the bandaged wound that he helped heal. It was a bit bloodied now from the wound seeping through a bit. Nick bit his lip and cringed a little as he gripped his nightgown. Cliff noticed this and looked at Nick in question and with a newfound concern.\n“I never asked this when you first came in, but...how did you get that wound?”\nCliff rested his elbow on the arm of the couch and his cheek on his knuckles.\n“Someone was trying to kill me.”\nNick’s eyes widened a bit at this statement that Cliff made. He scooted a bit closer to him, his hands on Cliff’s right arm. \n“Who?”\nCliff looked away from him and at the floor. Nick tilted his head a bit to try and look at him from where he was sitting. Cliff’s eyebrows furrowed as he spoke.\n“I can’t tell you. They’d go after you too.”\nNick got up from where he was sitting and paced his floor a bit. His tendency to overthink things got to him as scenarios began to play over and over again in his head. Nick had just met this guy only to learn that he could possibly be killed for whatever it was that he did. \n“Maybe you could stay here with me. Whoever is after you won’t know where you are and you could hide in the shadows for a bit. They don’t know that you’re here, right?” \nCliff carefully got up from Nick’s couch, his jeans now crumpled a bit from air drying. He looked down at Nick with his hands jammed in his pockets. \n“It won’t matter. They’ll find me no matter what, and they’ll kill you too.” \nNick growled a bit and grabbed Cliff’s hand, yanking him down to his level. Cliff, a 6’3 man, had to break his back a fair bit to match up to Nick’s height of 5’6. \n“Well it matters to me!”\nCliff’s eyebrows furrowed as he scowled at Nick. He gripped his shoulders and began to shout at him. \n“Why? You just met me! Have you lost your damn mind?”\n“Maybe I have! But all I know is that I’m not backing down from what I say.”\nCliff looked at Nick with a bit of a surprised expression. Nick was frowning as well, but Cliff found Nick’s face to still be pretty even though he was angry. Cliff sighed and loosened his grip.\n“You really aren’t backing down, are you?”\nNick shook his head no as Cliff chuckled a bit.\n“Then I guess I can’t say no.”" } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Milkha, Milkha\n\nGenre: asian-american\n\nWord Count: 1796\n\nPrompt:\n\nStart your story in an empty guest room." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "There had been no one in our guest room for a while now. It was looking sterile and uninviting. I went and changed the bed linen. I looked in the washroom and toilet to make sure they are clean. Changed the towels and the toiletries and walked back to the bedroom. It looked and smelt aseptic, devoid of any character, I thought.\nOther tasks beckoned me, so I left the room to attend to work in the kitchen.\n I am Tara, a homemaker. My work is, I always feel, never done. There is this thing to do in the kitchen or that thing to store in the larder. I must remember to order this from the grocers, That from the butchers, and so on. The work goes on and on. Never-ending. Not that I am complaining. I am happy and content with what I am doing.\n We have no regular work hours, trade unions, no salaries or perks to speak of. In fact, we are the most hardworking people, I feel. But enough of this for the present.\n As I sat enjoying my cup of coffee, most work done, I started musing about that empty guest room. To make ends meet, my husband Ken and I take in paying guests and they live in that spare bedroom we have.\n We conveniently placed this room away from our main living area. It has a separate door leading outside. As I do most of the cooking for our family anyway, it is only a little more than I have to cook for a stranger.\n The guests have to eat whatever is provided for them. This is made clear to them at the beginning. Most of them oblige. They all feel home-cooked food is good for them. If at all they feel like going out for eating, we instruct them to let us know so the food won't need to be prepared for them.\n \"Tara, Tara,\" my husband was calling. Getting up from my cozy nook, I spoke up, \"Yes darling, what is it?\"\n \"Just got a call, dear. It seems there is someone wanting to come and stay with us for a few months. Shall I say yes?\" He was all ready to leave for his work.\n \"Make sure and list out all our conditions. I feel we need to send them ahead to enquirers like this. Get his or her email. I will send an email to them.\"\n \"Done. Tara. Now I am off to work.\"\n Hurrying to the door, I kissed Ken goodbye. \"Bye, Darling, May God go with you.\"\n Ken and I are a God-fearing couple. Both of our parents brought us up in the fear of the Lord. We had prayed for a long time fervently before we got married. We got confirmation from God before we decided to marry each other. We believed that the Lord Jesus Christ was the Saviour of the world and yearned to share this truth with others.\n Being active in the local church, we helped the Pastor and the committee in as many ways as we could. Married for over three years, we had no children yet and were presently praying about that issue.\n Our faith was such that we spent time praying both individually and as a couple every day. The Lord had been kind to us and we were managing to live within our means, contentedly.\n Milkha, the prospective paying guest came to see us the next day. He looked like a typical Indian. He was sporting a white turban and a thick vermillion line on his forehead. The moment he came in, our room was smelling of garlic and onions. I was finding it difficult to breathe!\n Ken started asking him questions. Milkha had a typical Indian accent. He just had a passable knowledge of English.\n \"We are a law-abiding and quiet couple and expect the same from you. I trust all your papers are in order. We don't want the police or detectives to come into our house.\"\n \"Sirji, I too come from good family in my India. I do not break any law in India or here. Believe me Sirji.\"\n \"What is your business here in this town, and how long are you planning to stay with us?\"\n \"I am, what you say, learning English at the Town Hall. I complete in three-four months and then leave. Am trained plumber but not knowing English, not able to get job.\"\n \"Which part of India do you come from?\"\n \"I come from the North, Punjab, Sirji. Do you know it?\"\n \"We have heard of Punjab. I hope you are not into terrorism? We heard a lot about terrorism in Punjab.\"\n \"Me? No Sirji. Am not terrorist. My father is a Police Constable who fights them. We are real Indians. Proud to be so, you can enquire Sirji, if you don't believe me. I have papers.\"\n Doubtful whether this stranger, Milkha, could stay with us at all, I asked him gently, \"Will you be able to eat the food that we prepare and eat?\"\n \"Er. Sisterji! Me, Punjabi and me eat more Rotis and vegetables. Can I make Rotis for myself?\"\n Ken and I exchanged glances. We had a small kitchenette attached to the guest room, but no one so far has used it to cook meals for themselves. \"It would be a little easier for me, perhaps. “But what about the costing?\" I thought.\n I ventured, \"You would have to get your own pots and pans and do your cleaning yourself. Is it okay?\"\n Ken said, \"And we are going to charge the same amount, as I told you earlier.\"\n I thought that would deter Milkha. But I was wrong. He seemed to be eager to agree.\n \"Yeah, Sirji. Yes. I will be coming.\"\n So Milkha Singh became the stranger in our guest bedroom. We were soon assaulted by pungent odours and smoke. He was a novice cook and burnt up his Rotis many times. But he survived somehow. And we too developed an acquired taste for the smells and sounds from Milkha's room.\n This stranger we took in was very eager to know what was happening. He eavesdropped on us as we sang a hymn in our Family evening prayer. One evening he approached me. He seemed to be less in awe of me. He calls me, Sisterji!\n \"Sisterji!\" He started, \"Why do both Sirji and you sing songs in the evening? Is it a form of Bhajan?\"\n \"We praise and worship the Lord God with our songs and prayers every evening, Milkha.\"\n \"I understand Bhajans. Our family also does it. But which god or goddess do you worship?\"\n Praying silently to God, a short and swift prayer, a Nehemiah prayer, I turned to Milkha, \"Our God is The Creator of all the heavens and the earth. We call Him Yahweh.\"\n \"But I hear about Jesus? Who is he then? A little god?\"\n I took a deep breath and started, \"It is like this Milkha. God created the entire universe by the word of his mouth, in the beginning. He also made man and woman, Adam and Eve from the dust of the earth, with his hands. He breathed into them and made them live. That was how our first parents were created. We are all the descendants of this first couple.\" I paused.\n \"Is it so? Then what happened, Sisterji?\"\n \"God put the first couple in a beautiful garden, Eden, which he created. He asked them to look after it. He only told them not to eat the fruit of one tree. All the other fruits they could eat.\"\n \"Okay. Did they obey God?\"\n \"They did, for a while. Then Satan, the devil came in the form of a wily serpent and tempted them. He told them lies that they will become like gods if they eat the fruit of that tree. They were deceived and ate of that fruit.\"\n Milkha was excited. His eyes were twinkling as he asked, \"Did they become little gods then?\"\n \"On the contrary, they lost their innocence and glory and became shameful of their bodies. They quickly grabbed some fig leaves to sew clothes for themselves. But God called them to account for their sin and sent them out of the Garden. He made some leather dresses for them before He sent them away.\"\n \"But why did He send them away? Was He angry?\"\n \"No Milkha. God loved his creatures, men. But because He is a holy God, sin, and sinful people cannot stand in His presence. That’s why He had to send them away. Later on, He sent his own Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, who was God himself, in the form of a newborn baby to a little town called Bethlehem.\"\n \"Yes, I heard about Bethlehem, the Christmas Story.\"\n \"It happened really Milkha. Maybe 2000 years ago. Jesus grew up, as a true man and God. He preached peace, harmony and did many miracles, healing many people. He even made dead people rise. But the religious leaders were jealous of him and arrested him. They tortured him and then crucified him on the cross where he died. All his disciples and friends were very sad.\"\n \"I know. It happened on Good Friday!\" cried Milkha.\n \"But that is not the end of the story Milkha! On the third day, the Lord Jesus Christ rose up by himself from the dead. He came out of his grave and appeared to his disciples and others. Some of his disciples went running to the grave to find it empty!\"\n \"I did hear something like this too Sisterji. But how can it be true? And how does it affect you and me today, so many years later?\"\n \"Good questions. Let me try to answer. Jesus, because he was the Son of God, was the only sinless man on earth. By his death, he paid the penalty of all our sin on the cross. Because of that, if and when we repent from our sins and turn to Him, ask Him to enter into our hearts, He will enter and cleanse us from all our sins. We will become forgiven sinners and free from the punishment of sin! I wish you also, Milkha will become like us, a forgiven sinner!\"\n \"Sisterji, thank you for your invitation. Let me think about this. Please give me a simple write-up, a part of your Bible so that I can do some meditation and come to a decision.\"\n Silently I offered a prayer of thanksgiving to God. I unearthed a Hindi translation of the New Testament which an Indian student paying guest had left with me, and gave it to Milkha. And I am continuing to pray for his salvation. Can you join me too?" } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Allondial and Remu (remastered)\n\nGenre: bedtime\n\nWord Count: 2117\n\nPrompt:\n\nImagine an origin myth that somebody might use to explain an eclipse, or some other celestial event." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "To hear the stories told by old women over the fire, one would believe the world to be inhabited by ghouls and hobgoblins. This is not true. The world is full of magic for sure, but the magic has been here longer than the old women, longer than humankind and longer indeed than memory can express.\nIn the beginning of time, Allondial was born. Her first breath was a gasp that awakened humankind from the eternal sleep of non-existence. Her smile was gentle as she gazed upon all creation as it woke, and humankind smiled back. Enthralled and enchanted by her beauty, humanity sought ways to draw closer to her, to find comfort in her bosom. For she was the first light, a magical, shimmering luminosity that whispered of possibilities and caressed the soul.\nIn the shadows cast by her gentle light, poets and artist and musicians were born, their inspiration drawn from the heart of the one who called them into being. She smiled upon them, her gentle radiance guiding their endeavours, and as they shaped their art, the heart of Allondial sang with joy.\nYet, the gaze of Allondial was fickle, her attention fluttering towards distant realms and unexplored horizons. As her face turned away, darkness draped the world, and humanity, left alone, wailed in despair. Shadows deepened, and a profound sorrow, accompanied by weeping and wailing, swept across the land.\nAmidst this enveloping darkness, a man named Remu arose, a soul aflame with defiance against the darkness. In his desperation, he cried out to Allondial, hurling rocks into the abyss, pleading for the return of her radiant light.\n“Allondial!” he beseeched. “Turn your face to us once more. Bless us with your light, for without your face, we are nothing.”\nIn the silent darkness, Remu’s voice echoed unheard. Frustration gripped him, and in his anguish, he cast a stone, inadvertently igniting a spark that flickered and vanished, gone before he could even know its name. Undeterred, he continued, desperate to capture this new light, to hold that brightness and study its beauty. It was so incredibly different from anything he had ever known. On and on, casting stone after stone, until one spark, landing on dry grass, birthed a tiny blaze, growing in size and brightness and warmth until a small flame fluttered about Remu’s feet. He laughed and searched for a way to harness this light, to control it and keep it close to him. Grasping a branch from a nearby tree, Remu thrust its leaves into the blaze. The new light consumed the offering ravinously, growing ever brighter.\n“I will call you ‘fire’, and you shall be with me always,” Remu announced with pride.\nRemu took this new fire back to his people, igniting their curiosity once more with the bright flame. Its warmth lured them from the shadows to bask in the glow and dance by the wavering light. Soon Allondial was merely a memory, and humankind ceased to pine for her gentle face. The heat of the flame ignited a new passion, fueled by wanting and a desire to harness the flame for himself, to bend its light to his own need.\nYet, as the flames multiplied, so did the flames of greed within their hearts. Where once humankind had created harmony, enjoying the fruits of the soul that flourished in the light of Allondial’s gaze, now nothing but envy grew. Each person could measure the brilliance of their own light and compare it with the blaze of another. Want grew within the soul, obliterating need, leaving no room for the beauty of hope. Each person fed their flame, hoping to enlarge it, to brighten their own world and prove their personal superiority.\nAs the competition grew, so too did the flames, until it was impossible to contain them. The fire, an impish, impudent and impulsive beast, escaped its confines to run rampant. It danced with delight, devouring all in its wake, knowing neither friend nor foe.\nAnd soon humankind learned a new word—fear. The shouts and screams echoed throughout the land, as fire consumed them without discrimination. What was once a source of joy, igniting hope, became a merciless destroyer.\nRemu, witnessing the devastation wrought by his own creation, wept for the ruins of his home. Accusations were hurled at him by his own people, fingers pointed in harsh judgment.\n“You caused this!” they cried. “You brought this beast to our door, and it has feasted upon our lives. Now it has ruined us!”\nRemu, burdened by the weight of guilt, could not deny the truth. His actions had birthed a destructive force that now consumed the very essence of their existence.\nDrawn to the light, Allondial returned to witness her progeny engulfed by the flames of chaos.\n“Remu!” she cried. “What have you done?” The sound of her voice drew all things to a halt. Every voice was muted, every flame frozen in its place. In the brightness of the fire, Allondial’s face waned, and the radiance was leeched from her skin. Deathly shadows deepened her eyes and carved the groove of her mouth. Her sinister appearance shook Remu to his core, and he threw himself before her in fear.\n“Forgive me!” Remu begged.\n“You have defiled the land. For that you must die!”\nAllondial raised her hand and grasped a flaming branch and thrust it into Remu’s chest. His life blood welled up and flooded the land with its crimson tide as it doused the flames. Slowly, Remu sank into the ground as darkness once more covered the land.\nIn the silence that followed, Allondial searched for her people, her face once again shimmering with light, but everywhere she looked, she found them sleeping, their bodies overcome with exhaustion. There was no one to admire her, no poet to write and ode to her beauty, no artist to paint her radiant face. No matter what she tried, no one would awaken, and she stood in solitude for an eternity.\nFinally, unable to bear the loneliness any longer, Allondial reached into the ground to find Remu, and pulled him from his death.\n“Why are they sleeping?” she asked.\nRemu glanced about him. “They are tired.”\n“Why?”\n“They had to work hard to survive the fire.”\n“When will they wake?”\n“I do not know. When it is time to work again, I suppose.”\nAllondial thought about that for a long moment. “They work when your fire is burning, but sleep when my shadow covers them.”\nRemu agreed that it did seem to be so.\n“Then you will need your flame once more.” She took a branch, and with her gentle light, set a small spark to burn. She handed the flaming branch to Remu. “Take care that you do not set the world on fire his time.”\nRemu took the branch and bowed to his lady Allondial. “Will I see you again?”\n“I will not be gone for long. We will meet again.”\nAnd so Remu set forth with his branch ablaze, awakening humanity and encouraging them rise and work.\nWhen the day was done and the flames began to escape their confines and set the land ablaze, Allondial returned and once again thrust the burning branch deep into Remu’s chest, quenching the flames. She then wandered the land, calling to lovers and poets, and awakening creativity.\nAnd thus, it is the pattern for all eternity, Allondial and Remu follow one another, meeting only at dusk, to quench the flames of day and again at dawn to light the new day.\n*\n“Now, my sweet child, that’s enough for one night. Go to sleep. Allondial is coming, and you don’t want her to catch you trying to burn all the branches. You know what happened to Remu when he wanted more?”\n“But mumma, it’s just a story!”\n“Is it?”\n“Yes, mumma, but there is more? Isn’t there?”\n“Child, you must go sleep.”\n“Tell me more…”\n\nAs Allondial roamed the heavens on her celestial journey, she kept a close eye upon Remu. He was a man given to vanity and self-importance, as most men are.\n“I am Remu!” he cried one day. “I am he who brings life and laughter. I am he who brightens your day with light and gives you the gift of prosperity.”\nFrom her position high above all, in the darkness of night, where poets dream and people find rest, Allondial heard the boasting. In the silence of the heavens, she crept closer, all the better to hear Remu make his preposterous claims.\n“I am Remu, come worship my flame. Give me the first fruits of your harvest. Send me your first-born daughters. Your bounty is rightfully mine and I claim it, for without me, you wither and die.”\nAllondial ignored the posturing and posing, and turned away in disgust. She continued her own journey casting her light on lovers and poets alike.\nIn the harsh light of day, a daughter was chosen, a sacrifice to appease the mighty Remu. Selected, because she did not sleep—a child who will not sleep, must belong to Remu. The mother cried and dressed her child in the finest garments, weaving a crown of wheat and fruits for her hair. The father stood tall and proud, knowing that his sleepless daughter would bring great honour to his family.\nBut the daughter, Summa, was not proud. She was afraid and unwilling. Frightened, she fled into the night, her long dark hair streaming behind her. The people cursed as she ran, grasping at her clothes and hair, trying to prevent her escape.\n“Allondial!” cried Summa. “Save me, I beseech you. Do not allow them to sacrifice me to sate Remu’s hunger.”\nIn her distant place, Allondial heard the cry, the single voice appealing to her in the darkness of despair.\n“Child,” she said. “Why are you so distraught?”\n“I am to be a sacrifice to Remu’s lust for more. Save me, please. You are the only one who can.”\n“If I save you, I will need your unwavering devotion from this day forth.”\n“My lady,” Summa said as she bowed low. “I am yours, whether you save me or not.”\nImpressed by the girl’s faith and dedication, Allondial ascended to the heavens where Remu hung, boasting of his power, light and warmth.\n“My people, where is your sacrifice?” he demanded, his hand holding the burning branch aloft shaking with rage.\nAllondial gasped, outraged and offended. These people were her people, she gave them light and life, yet here was Remu claiming them as his own.\n“She has gone, fled we know not where,” cried the father, as the people bowed and averted their faces away from the radiance of Remu’s anger.\n“Find her. I demand you bring her to me at once.”\n“Remu,” Allondial called, her voice as soft as the night, yet louder than thunder. “Remu, you forget yourself.”\n“I forget nothing. I am Remu, I am he who brings light.”\n“I am Allondial. She who brings darkness.”\n“Light dispels darkness. My power is greater than yours, my lady.”\nAllondial glared at him across the heavens and silently, without once taking her eyes off him, she came closer.\n“You do not frighten me, my lady. I am Remu, I am light.”\nAllondial said nothing, yet crept closer still.\n“There is naught you can do. I am stronger than you in the day.”\nStill Allondial spoke not a word, and came closer, her eyes not blinking against the brightness of Remu’s flaming branch. Once she was so close that she could see the hint of fear in his eyes, feel the tremor of trepidation in his limbs, she grasped the burning branch from his hand, and thrust it into his stomach, twisting it just so for maximum pain. Remu’sblood burst forth, a halo of gold igniting the heavens in a painful light. The people averted their eyes, lest they go blind from the radiance.\n“You will never be stronger than me!” Allondial hissed, her eyes glowing fierce and white in the sudden darkness. For four minutes she held him there, impaled upon his own branch. For four minutes, she gloated as the light of life withered in his eyes. Then, when she had made her point, she withdrew the burning branch. “Remember your place, Remu. Remember you exist, because I will it so.”\nWith those parting words, she turned and left him hanging in the sky, shaken and humbled.\n***\n“Child, I am serious. It is time for sleeping. It will soon be morning, and you do not want Remu to think that he can claim you for a sacrifice.”\n“Allondial will save me.”\n“Only if you sleep, child. Now, goodnight.”" } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: \"A New Start\"\n\nGenre: asian-american\n\nWord Count: 1252\n\nPrompt:\n\nStart your story with the arrival of a strange visitor in a small town." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Splish...splash. The rain was pouring down and it was freezing outside. The Tang family was shivering under a cave. That was the only place they could find shelter at. They had a thin blanket that wrapped around them.\n\" M-mom,\" said Jade. She was 11 and the only child. \" I-it's really c-cold,\" she said shivering her teeth chatting. She was wearing short sleeves and some pink shorts. They had just escaped Mr. Smith who treated them badly. They were also poor and had no where else to go.\n\" I know honey,\" her mom said sympatheticly. \" Once the rain is over, we'll find somewhere else to go.\"\n\" Yes,\" aggred her dad. \" I'll find a job and then we can get an apartment.\"\nThe rain kept pouring but slowly it decreased. When it turned night, the Tang family fell asleep huddled all together. When it turned morning, the sun wwas shining bright and damp puddles filled the ground.\nJade woke up to the freshness and brightness of the sun. She rubbed her eyes and then looked around. Outside the cave was a lot of green but in the distance, she could make out some house.\n\" Mom! Dad! Wake up!\" Jade cried. She shook them till they opened their eyes.\n\" What, honey?\" asked her dad. He stood up stretching.\n\" Look! There's a town over there!\" said Jade. She pointed into the far distance for her parents to see.\nThey sighed with relief and happiness. They got their bag which only had some food and scraps and then headed over to the town.\nThey walked around admiring the town. Everyone seemed happy. They were even selling food for free! Jade looked at the food stand, suprised to see someone take a bag of chips and then just open it and eat it. Shouldn't they wash their hands first?\nAs she walked, she just kept staring at that man. His hands were dirty and he just ate it without washing it. As she looked back infront of her, she realized her parents weren't in sight! She looked around until she got bumped hard on the head. She fell back clutching her head and then opened her eyes. She saw a boy just around her age with blond hair and blue eyes. He was also cluthing his head on the ground.\n\" I'm so sorry! Are you okay?\" Jade said rushing to help him. She pulled him up to the ground and saw a slight bruise on his head. He looked at her.\n\" Oh hey! Are you new around here?\" he asked smiling.\n\" Um yeah. My parents are looking for a job here,\" she say to him.\n\" Nice. What's your name? Mine's Andrew,\" he ssaid casually.\n\" Uh my name's Jade,\" said Jade.\n\" How would you like to come over?\" he asked.\n\" um,\" Jade hesitated. \" sure...\"\nShe followed him to this big house with beautiful flowers up front. He went in and she followed along.\nWhen she stepped inside she instantly started to take off her shoes. She always did that at home, or her mother would give her a big lecture about making the house dirty.\n\" What are you doing?\" asked Andrew eyeing my shoes.\n\" Taking off my shoes in the house so they won't get dirty?\" Jade questions making an isn't-it-obvious face.\n\" It's fine. My mom will clean the floors,\" Andrew said reassuringly.\nWeird, thought Jade. Hah! If I ever did that, I would be so asking to get killed.\n\" Hello!\" said this nice young woman who I guessed to be Andrew's mom. We had arrived in the kitchen where she put two bowls of rice and meat on the table. Jade took a long sniff, delighted by the smell.\n\" Mom! I don't like rice. Can you just get us pizza instead?\" compained Andrew.\nJade's eyes went big. Andrew had just complained about dinner. She waited for him to get yelled at like she would've. But nothing happened. His mom just got him pizza on a plate without a word.\n\" You should stop complaining, you know,\" says Jade ssitting down on a chair. \" If I ever did that...well I would probably be in big trouble, get a lecture, and be told how grateful I should be for everything...even though I am,\" she says quickly.\n\" Whatever,\" Andrew replies. He takes his plate off the table and starts to walk away.\n\" Hey! Where are you going?\" Jade questions. She had started eating her food at the table sitting staright as Andrew's mom passed her a water bottle.\n\" Um upstairs? Wanna play some video games?\" questions Andrew.\n\" Sure...\" said Jade slowly. She was feeling really confused right now. How in the possible world was he not getting in trouble?\nUpstairs, she asked him why he was eating upstairs before taking a big sip of water.\n\" I do that all the time. It's not a big deal,\" he said casually not looking up from the screen.\nJade choked on her water.\n\" You cough get to cough eat upstairs?!\" Jade finished exasperated.\n\" You're weird, you know,\" said Andrew eyeing her. Then he went back to his game.\nAs Jade ate, Andrew played video games on his bed taking bites of pizza every now and then.\nWhen Jade finished eating, she went to the bathroom to wash her hands. When she returned, she saw Andrew's mom walk out the room with the two dishes in her hands. Jade swept in, astonished.\n\" You don't have to do your dishes?!\" She nearly screamed.\n\" Of course not,\" he replied back to her. Her head was filled with so many questions and wonders so she flopped on his bed next to him.\n\" Gosh. Your family is SO weird,\" she said. He didn't answer, too focused on his game. When Jade layed down on her stomach, she saw that Andrew's back was really badly bended. He was in a half sitting up-laying down position.\n\" Sit straight. You're going to kill your back like that,\" said Jade groggily.\n\" What?\" questioned Andrew still not looking at her.\n\" If you bend your back, it's gonna stay like that forever. It's not gonna look good in the future,\" I lectured.\n\" Hm. Never heard anyone say that,\" he said.\nJade was going to remind him not to watch so much T.V but gave up. This town...was weird, she thought. She went downstairs and then suddenly heard the doorbell ring. Andrew's mom answered it. Jade stood slightly behind her to see who it was.\n\" sniff H-have you s-seen m-my daugh-\" started the lady. It was Jade's mom!\n\" MOM!\" cried Jade in delight. She ran up to her and hugged her hard.\n\" JADE,\" cried her mom. After they let go, her mom started a lecture.\n\" Where were you? You shouldn't have ran away. And why did you go into a stranger's house?!\"\nBefore Jade could answer her, she saw her dad running up to her.\n\" DAD!\" cried Jade. She hugged him.\n\" Oh sweetie,\" said her dad relaxing. \" Don't EVER go away again...\"\n\" Also I have some GREAT news!\" he said.\n\" What is it?\" Jade asked eagerly.\n\" I GOT A JOB!\" screamed her dad.\n\" YAY!\" said Jade in delight. Things were turning just right for her. Oh how she wished this would happen for the rest of her life." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: The train to Hudson\n\nGenre: asian-american\n\nWord Count: 1423\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about someone making a seemingly inconsequential decision, which goes on to have important consequences." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "It is a queer, sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenberg’s, and I don't know what I am doing in New York. Waiting for the train, I suppose. I always wait for trains like that, in a way most; people wait for death, not knowing when it will come. In the distance, the dazzling unfamiliar skyline and the vivid display of delicacies on hotel memos makes my stomach rumble. I love New York, even though it isn't mine. But every now and then, at the resounding aura of the metropolitan twilight I feel a haunting sense of loneliness stirring inside , finding itself in the faces of the shadows I pass through—poor young clerks who loiter in front of windows waiting until it is time for them to take off their suits of pride and slide into semi cubicle domes with shattering lights and discos, women in their tight, breath choking red dresses pretending to master the art of walking in heels that etch through their skin, a painter deriving his impression of a newly married couple, as they stand by the light poles, dreaming of a future together. Young students hurrying to catch trains, the Times Square glowing with the success stories of people who don’t feel very successful, paparazzi, media, some celebrity trying to hide from the roaring crowds, the smell of delicious food in every corner, some lost soul wanting to be discovered, tired clerks, curious housewives, tattoo clubs bristling with new comers, the sky rising to the churning fumes and mysterious blue. And here I stand , a young clergyman, caught between the rush of the day and the nightlife, pretending to remain sane. Again at eight o’clock, when the dark lanes of the Forties ware five deep with throbbing taxicabs, bound for the movies, I feel it all sinking in my heart. Forms leaning together in the taxis as they wait, and voices sing, and there is laughter from unheard jokes, and lighted cigarettes outlining unintelligible gestures inside. Imagining that I, too, am hurrying toward this reality and sharing in their intimate excitement, I wish them well. But I prefer not to stay.\n12:20 pm. My eyes are almost caught in a web of sleep, when a voice diverging through the powerful heavy metal in my earphones wakes me up. It is an old voice that knows itself.\n‘They said the trains are running an hour late, son.”\n“Sorry?” I say, without looking up from my phone.\n“They said the trains all around the city are running an hour late. You had your earphones on. Maybe you couldn’t hear the announcement.”\n“I heard it. But I am in no particular hurry to leave the station anymore. So it doesn’t matter.”\n“Where are you going?”\nShe flops down next to me, putting her heavy bag between her legs. An old woman, in her late sixties. I try not to notice her face, but it is rather strange, covered in a thin piece of black veil.\n“I don’t know”, I say, after considering this new acquaintance for a few moments.\n“Is it really far?”\n“What?”\n“’I don’t know.’”\n“Oh”, I laugh, letting the weight of the world fall down from my shoulders. On familiar occasions, I wouldn’t have done that. I am, by all means, a good natured, reserved man, with a fair disinterest in the ways of people. But something about this lady, maybe the way she looks down without ever taking off her veil to look at me, or the way she speaks, without a sense of care and need, reminds me of my mother. I go on, speaking further, while she listens, almost as intently as a child would.\n“I am headed for Hudson, my hometown.” \n“Oh that’s brilliant”, she remarks, dabbing her nose with a embroidery napkin. I lean a little forward to see if I can make out anything about her face, but it’s all hidden, like a precious treasure. She sees me trying to make the effort and shits uncomfortably on her chair, I stop, remembering the law.\n“Well it turns out that I am headed for Hudson too. My daughter just got married and had a baby.”\n“Oh that’s lovely. You must be a very proud grandmother.”\n“Well, I am lucky by far, son . I have had a chance to be a part of this beautiful world. In these rare moments that I am alone, far away from home, I pray , dance, analyze and see that life as both good and bad, beautiful and ugly. I understand that I have to dwell on the good and beautiful in order to keep my imagination, sensitivity, and gratitude intact. I know it will not be easy to maintain this perspective, even as an old woman, I know I keep flying out of car windows wanting to be somewhere else, wanting to be understood,. But in the end, no matter where the train takes me, I will be happy knowing that I strode along for a while.”\nI watch her, quietly, slip away from the world, her words twisting and turning around the corners of her mouth. And for the first time in my life, I curse the train for being an hour late.\n“Anyways”, she laughs, getting up. “I should go. You look tired. Take a breath.”\n“No, I’ll..i’ll come with you.”\nWe walk across platforms, side by side, maintaining the infinite space between us. Over the great bridge, the sunlight girders through the platform casement windows making a constant flicker upon the moving cars, with the city rising up across the river in white heaps and sugar lumps all built with a wish out of non-olfactory money. The smell of warm, croissant fills the sultry Monday air as people amble across the white washed compartments, stuffing in and out of the expensive, grandiose stores, refusing to hold each other’s glance even for a few minutes. I think about past factories, boxes of metal with people inside, souls being ripped apart. I think about the tube posters and maps on my hostel walls, my box of trophies, that feeling of sucking up to nothing and being alive, running through the never ending fresh meadows, planting those impossible dreams that grew on the walls of my small Hudson house , dreams that I wanted to follow to their fullest potential but never quite had the courage to do so. Countless pages of ink and comic strips tossed away into trash cans, countless hours of waiting to be found and acknowledged for what I really am. Putting my worth in stranger’s hand, playing the victim, hiding myself from my own eyes. Running, running, always running from someone or something . What am I even doing? Who am I living up to be?\nI stop walking. She doesn’t.\n“I think we should eat something. Allow me to pay.”\n“Oh no son, that wont be needed. You eat, I pay.”\n“No please”, I insist. “Let me. You remind me so much of my own mother as it is.”\nWe order pancakes at the bakery and she has a mouthful. I smile at how delighted she sounds.\n“Are you ill?’ I ask for the first time. She looks up from her plate and takes off her veil. White blotches of skin stand on a shade of sun burnt yellow.\n“Oh, I am sorry..”\n“It’s alright. Its been quite some time. On most days, I wear the veil life has offered me. But on other days, I let it fall, revealing the blotch. In the end, entire life becomes an act of letting go. I know I am different. I know I have this disease. But it’s a part of me. You better make the most of it though, life. There is no time to regret. While you are young, pack your bags, see as much of the world as you can and strive to dance in your own light. You are going to be alright, trust me my darling, you are going to be alright.”\nI look up, at the dorm, pasted on a plate of frozen blue, thinking about home. A song plays along in the room upstairs. It’s a song from the old days.\n‘I see a world in grain of sand\nI see heaven in a wild flower\nI hold an infinity in the palm of your hand\nAnd eternity in an hour ‘\n And for the first time in my life I feel nothing, but an infinite sense of being and comfort.\n-Hritoja" } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: My Beth\n\nGenre: asian-american\n\nWord Count: 2957\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about someone finally making their own choices." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "The rain pours down tender on the roof, the darkness embraced filling the wide inner most four corners of the room, the silence that kills the soul and the spirit of the girl lying on the dirty and messy bed with uncomfortable position, eyes were wide open looking up the ceiling, while arms spread occupying the whole space the bed. Looking to nowhere and wondering why she felt differently. At the door, there was a man standing stiff and tall. His face mocked the dark into the stunning and the brightest light behind him, walking towards her. He tried to stab her by the sharp edge of the knife. While the girl was lying on the cold and lonesome bed where she cannot move, cannot speak, and only she cab do was closing her eyes… and hear screaming. \n In the small village of Hum, there livrd the family of Berlin. The family are known as a devoted Christian and known in the place. The family has five children and a mother, since the head of the family run of and leave them miserably, then he was not recognized as part of the family. Georgia, she is the mother of five children. She is determined and empowered woman in the place as she raise her children alone without the support of her husband. She is striving and working hard looking for a job that will make an amount of money to feed and support her children. As the years passed, her children got bigger and start making their own dreams for their selves. \nThere was an old woman who continually scolded her family member for not doing things quicker, her name was Georgia, a mother and the breadwinner of the family since her husband Fredrick left and lived together with his mistress. Georgia strives harder to earn money to give and feed for her family. She oath a good life of her husband until they split up and got divorced, Fredrick destroy everything they've promised awe for the family. Without, 9lx\nGeorgia raised 5 children Mary, Mercy, Arnold, Christophe, and the youngest child Beth. Mary the eldest daughter is a well groomed, beautiful, and consistent daughter. The second daughter, Mercy, is an introvert and literally never wants to talk to other people, especially if she doesn't want to. Third child is Arnold, he is a brave, strong, self-determined brother to his siblings, but he is frightened when his mother got angry. Christophe is a family oriented son of Georgia. He wants to be a better sibling that never wants to make any mess around the family. The last and the youngest daughter is Beth, her name is quite interesting that her mother gave her the name after Georgia was left by her husband, it means beneath. At times Fredrick left Georgia, she was in grief and weeping day and night, her mother felt beneath the ground with darkness and hopeless days. Beth is the most unfortunate daughter of Georgia for she was not able to experience and feel the presence of her father and the life of wealth and of comfort. She was the only clumsy and careless child of Georgia; she is too shy, and ashamed of her body appearance. Growing with her sisters and brothers are no longer comfortable, she felt bad by the reason her mother was gave her birth. Everyone in the family thinks that she is the black sheep that cause bad spirit roaming in the family, but her mother thought nothing bad for her. Georgia is loving, caring, and erotic mother of her children. She only thinks about the good future and betterment of her children. Everyone got prepared to be ready to attend the Sabbath, but Beth. The whole family gather at the living area where her family was waiting for her. Arnold already set the cab for everyone. Mary wears gold and shiny dress for the Sabbath, Mercy wears the same color as Mary but it is not shiny, yet she wears it simpler than Mary, Arnold, and Christophe wears appealing and more decent cloth for the Sabbath, however, Beth wears a union dress that looks dumped and old purple dress. Everyone looked at her and felt embarrassed for her dress; she looked messy and indecent. The dress Beth wears is the unused and leftover dress of Mary.\n \"Look at you! You look like a street girl that no one cares\" Mary asked Beth with sarcasm. \n \"I'm sorry I haven't ironed it because...\" Beth stopped responding when she looked at her mother. \nHer mother widened her eyes and showed disagreement. Beth has nothing to do, but to keep silent and shut her mouth until the Sabbath finally ends on that day. On the way the family laugh altogether by the joke and riddle Arnold expressed. \n\"HAHAHA\" Mary laughed covering her mouth with a clean handkerchief then her eyes turned to Beth.\n\"Beth? How about Ironing your dress it looks like you're a servant\" then she laughed out loud and her brother Arnold seconded her mean joke.\n \"Well! Yes she really looks like a long lost girl roaming on the street hasn’t you showered yet? Because it smells\" Arnold drastically laughs at Beth.\nWhile Beth silently sits at the back of the cab, she respects her sister and brother, she patiently stoops and looks directly at her dirty old shoes with a sad smile on her face. \"Well, someday I would like having nothing, I just want to be nothing like you all supposedly trying to tell me.\" Beth talks in the middle of the road while staring at the blue skies with the flock of birds freely flying continuously spreading its wings on the air. Everyone in the cab looks at her and stops laughing. Georgia answered \"what happened to you Beth? Are you dreaming?\" then everyone laughs. Mercy looks at her with a smirk and asks her \"are you dreaming? Your dream is nothing to us, don't you dream and aim more?\" \n\"She has nothing to dream for, we all knew that she cannot be like us.” Mary reminds everyone how Beth means less for them.\nChristophe triggered facing Mary and asked “How about you? Don’t you try to earn money instead of making yourself pretty and good looking?”\nChristophe warned everyone “Beth is too young for all of her dreams, she cannot be like what you uttered and concluded if you cannot try to show to her how to do about it. Watch your words.”\n Finally, they arrived at home and got out from the cab and lent the fare. Mary got her eyes on Beth, then pulls Mercy’s arms heading inside the house. Christophe walks slowly and stands near Beth and holds her hands and says.\n“Beth, I know Mary cannot be good to you and to everyone, since we are going to Spain I would like to ask you a favor, please always look after our mother. Arnold and I will be gone farther, yet we’ll support you and shoulder our finances to pay for our debts. We’ll be right back after a year then will reunite again.” He gently speaks and tells Beth his favor with pleasing and sincere eyes, while holding the little innocent palms of Beth.\n“Yup! Little clumsy we’ll be gone all you have to do is to keep yourself neat, safe, and don’t forget the chores. Mercy cannot do what you do because she just joined classes, while Mary do not mind her. Just don’t ever listen to her unwanted rants” Arnold advising with a humors laugh at last “HAHAHAHAHA”\nArnold and Christophe get their things and place it on the car, they both waving offers their cap to infer they will be going.\nMary, Mercy, Beth, and their mother Georgia waved back.\nGeorgia turns back the assigns everything to her daughter from the ranch of the animal, washing, clothes, and looking for a fire wood will be assigned to Beth while Mary and Mercy have nothing to do since they already have their part of the house.\nOne day, Beth woke up late and the animals animals were not being took care of since she was the one who assigned for those. Her mother prepared meals for the day before going to work in town looking for money. She gone to the kitchen and surprised by the messy and untidy kitchen. She thought about doing that later and wants some meals to eat, yet nothing have left. Mary and Mercy eat all of her meals that should be her breakfast, lunch and snacks for the day. Both siblings left her nothing but the chores on the house. She cannot imagine how both of them do the same thing to her. Beth had nothing to eat, yet manages to clean the entire house, do the laundry, feeds the animals, and cook for her sisters. She respects and decides to understand her sisters to the limit that she already do the household chores. The sun’s rays kiss the mountains and the sky starts to embrace the darkness on the other side of the highest. At night Georgia arrived home, she was happy to see that the house shines brightly of its cleanest parts. Georgia feels tired and commands Beth to do everything she wants to because she is tired of working to earn money. However, her two sisters are up staring, they do hair curling, upon Georgia entering the room inviting them to eat while Beth Busy cooks and does the dinner.\n Day by day she feels weak, one cloudy afternoon of 5:39 o’clock in the afternoon she thinks everything miserable happened to her since she was the only girl who can do the chores, she never felt the love for her family even her mother that feels so cold. She thinks about dreaming about being a cook and a musician in her town. She smirks while doing the dishes and soaks her hands on the sink while looking up into the skies that passed by the clean glass of the window she was cleaning a while ago. Suddenly her eyes wide open and wash her hands and immediately run outside while observing how heavy the rain will be poured. Mary and Mercy in the room continuously doing makeup on their pretty face for Mary awaits her courtier as she looks into the window and sees Beth running outside without shoes.\n“Oh!” she called the attention of Mercy “Where do you think she’ll go?” she asks Mercy.\n“Well, I think she’s going to get the animals, because there is a big and massive storm approaching in our town.” She answered Mary while reading an article in the newspaper.\n“oh, how about my dress? Did she iron those?” she asks angrily and screams.\n“She already knew that it is the most important day of my life” she can’t even wait for her and iron the dress. Unfortunately she burned her dress. She cried and lost her temper and slammed the door. Mercy got shocked, but she can do nothing about it. She just stays in her room and continues doing her stuff.\n Beth felt problematic after she counted the animals on the ranch there was one cow missing, so she ran to look for it. She is now heading into the dark forest that her mother kept telling her not to gone there, but she had nothing to do but to look for the missing cow. If not she’ll be sorry for the anger, wrath, and beaten she will get from her mother. She’s gone too far but found nothing, she only saw the darkness of the forest but suddenly she heard a noise and think it could be the cow she was looking for, but she was wrong. It is a wild rat. She holds her breath and released it again because she felt frightened and scared. She stepped a slime decayed wood and fell down on the river bank and hit her head into the big stone that blocked her from continuously rolling down. She tried to open her yes and shout for help. Her strengths cannot do about it and slowly closing her eyes. \n A girl happily running on the green grass with her hair smoothly touches the wind in a long beautiful white dress. Her beautiful and amusing smiles attracts the heart of faithful man, a giggle and a laugh that seems so familiar, the arms that tied her so tight, the beautiful and joyous eyes of a girl turns into hopeless and worry eyes that anger see from her inner soul.\n Beth tried to grasp her breathe but she cannot, she tried to move her arms and legs but it couldn’t she tried to open her eyes, but only she see in darkness in seemingly unfaithful and hopeless dark room. She tried to shout but she cannot. She cannot feel cold and warm, but her heart the beats so fast. A minute ago she heard footsteps on the wooden floor heading towards her. She turns he eyes on the door until the door slowly opens. She see the tall and dark man approaching towards her. Only see thinks about her dreams came true. The man stops and stand still beside the dirty and messy bed.\n“How’s your feeling?” the man with a deep and cold voice asked her.\n Beth closes her eyes and prays, after asking Beth’s situation a moment later she can finally move her hands and legs and tries to escape from the house. She finally saw her cow die on the ground with its fresh blood continuously spreading towards the river, she saw a dead man, and a child with a sliced tummy. She turns her head at the back. \n“oh! Is your head still hurts?” the man asks.\nShe feels nothing but frightening and worrying about what she do. She then say\n“I felt nothing” she answered the man with a cold voice. She steps slowly away from the man, but the man walks towards her so she run until she sees a brightness and freedom from the man, yet when she reaches the light she sees the man look at her. The man stare her with his dreadful smile, then goes back to the forest. Beth saw her mother who keeps on calling her name, she hugged her mother, but she cannot hug her. She can see her mother, but only her mother cannot see her. She cried out loud and saw her sisters happily on the window letting their mother to look after her since she wasn't home last night. Beth headed towards the forest and looks for the man and asks him.\n“Why?!” she asks the man with anger and worrisome teary eyes.\n“What?! You are here in the other dimension. If you want to be alive just keep your mouth shut. I am not the only one here looking for a dead body. You supposedly dead, but I am mistaken my race should be the one living here not unless I’ll kill you because in the first place you should not be here You should be in the living dimension living person must not be here, if they knew you were here they’ll kill you, so it’ll be better killing you right then.” The man tenderly tells her the truth. \n“No! I am not dead, why am I here? I may not be here it is not because of you! .” Beth thinks nothing but an answer.\n Beth thinks about the man told here, while the man walking towards the sharpest axe. She runs the fastest she can but the man has extraordinary powers and he appears in front of Beth and stub her in her heart. Beth feels nothing. She pushed the man away from her, the man stood up and held the arm of Beth while Beth tried to escape from the man. Beth reached the river and cross it. Beth feels her breast of pain and getting unconscious with her body in the river and slowly drowning In the raging flow of the water. The man cannot go to the water, so he let Beth drown and decided to stop chasing her. The unconscious Beth came out from the forest and the authorities looking for Beth finally saw her and sent her to hospital upon the stub in her heart and wounded head. Her mother feels sorry and her sisters realize their mistake upon letting Beth do everything and not following her to the forest they decide to change their lives.\n Beth is still confined in the Hospital and her mother, sisters, and brothers feel sorry and promise to be a good siblings and mother to her. Beth smiles at them and tells them her dreams to be a cook and a great musician in their town then her brothers, sisters, and mother decided to send her to school. Beth feels bliss and glad to be home and her brothers return to Spain and promised to send her to school. They are all happy that Beth is back. Mary and Mercy became a good, hardworking, and obeying daughters in the family. Years later Beth became a cook and the musician not just in their town, but in Spain living together with her brothers.\n Beth found herself successful as well as Mary who was married to the most handsome and wealthy man in the village. Mercy felt gracefully with her baby and her family. Her mother Georgia felt blessed and happy that her daughters and sons were already successful in life while living harmoniously with Beth and they all lived happily in their life with the reconciliation and regrets that makes them bind together in peace. The end." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: New Lil Dojo\n\nGenre: asian-american\n\nWord Count: 1499\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about a reluctant party-goer who ends up being the star of the show." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Party at 6. It was the only whisper at college today. Most of the girls ran off in the mid-noon break calling ceasefire on lectures as they were going to be late for dresser appointments. I was counting till the clock hit two. It was another kind of mission today. The batch party was organized at 6 today and Lil Dojo was going to sing tonight! \nAs the clock ticked 2, we flew off like free bees, walking ecstatically towards the gate and off. I had to get home with Treen and then eat, wash off, prep and be off to our appointments as soon as possible. We were supposed to be at their before the guests as the organizers. \nTreen was my best friend, but she has never been the party goer herself. She would always make an excuse to be away on her own. And on the night of any party would not forget to express her regret of not coming. Leslie, I’m really sorry for not coming. Hope you are having fun right now. \nYes woman I am, you outta have come rather regretting it all night. \nThat was her. She would later look at all the photos and weep in crying over the lost adventure. \nBut today was different. She couldn’t escape her responsibility. She was the head organizer of the dinner tonight. \n‘I would like to appoint Treena Bikers as the head organizer of dinner’ I had said at the organizers meeting and every one approved neglecting her no I can’t drama. \nThey knew her knocking potential so well not to agree with her. Bring on any conversation, she was the expert at advice but never the participant.\nSo as we curled our hairs and ran on with the makeup segment at the dressers, suddenly Treen was all hysterical about the event. What if the good ain’t tasty? What if it isn’t enough? What if this ends with some disaster diarrhea? \nWoaaah! woaah! woaah! Treen! Treen! stop it! stop it for gods sake! Everything and everyone will be fine. We have done our best and so will have a good time and that’s it. Don’t stress over it. Babes, we’ll be fine, okay.\nWe waited for Mic to come pick us. And the by 5:30 we were off to the venue. The traffic was building up and the darkness slowly creeping into the so-called evening that’s was gonna be marvelous I thought. \nWe rummaged all our setups and rechecked all final arrangements. The team was all packed with excitement for the night to dawn. \nBy 6 slowly the crowds started flowing in. The tables were being filled. I was by or watching Treena ensuring that she was okay. The music was slowly rising and the drinks and snacks were passed around. Everything was perfectly happening as planned. Mic and the gang was already on with the keg stall and their part was smoothly flowing in their restricted area. \nI walked up and down making pleasantries and keeping the gangs engaged. \nThe segments were to begin as planned. \nI saw Treen talking around and felt relieved. \nAs we watched the games started at around 7: 30. We had ballon pinch , dancing mania, paper king and queen, dartboard and a many engagement along with the photo booth editions. The food was okay and everyone was enjoying. So yeah Treens killed it. \nThe microphone screeched and that was the que for our guest surprise artist Lil Rap Dojo. A roar of excitement beamed the hall and we all started dancing and singing along. \nSuddenly some other voice stirred and here it comes with a featuring rap along with Lil Dojo. Wow! an amazing voice and a perfect vocalist. Everyone was surprised! This was new and not a plan.\nEveryone was roaring with excitement and their flashlights up in for a miniature star world and it was blinding. The lighting was flashing up and down with the disco lights playing the multiverse of ecstasy. I couldn’t see the new one on the small stage. \nI held Treens hand tighter and continued in the cheering squad. I turned around and screamed wow that’s a fantastic guy! Who is that? We’ve never heard! \nWow I was surprised at that turn. That wasn’t Treen I was holding the hands with. \nPamela from next class stood laughing and smiling at the same rate in the kicking up feeling. I shook off the hand casually and continued in the same but now fake smile too. I walked off the dance floor where everyone was now gathered. I cruised my eyes around to see. But the flock in uproar and the dimmed lights made a shadowy outlook on everyone. I drank a glass of water and walked towards the crowd. Maybe she might be lost in there as well. \nThe singing was now back to a feminine voice, that I closed the floor again to see what was happening. \nIt was then that I saw the new one on stage. \nCaped in a hood, twas a girl with a lengthy gown \nWho was that on the floor? \nEveryone around me was live streaming the event on all socials.\nWho was it? \nI was still looking for Treen around the dancing. \nDangling the mike as a professional singer, waving her hair in the dazzle with the kicking beats, in full upbeat and enjoying on stage\nThe voice suddenly blasted and called a round of applause for someone. I couldn’t hear as the echo beats rang in my ears. \nLeslie! Leslie! Leslie! The crowd had started an uproar. What? Why? They were shouting my name. I was just looking at the stage, when someone pushed my forwards in the crowd, and they started pushing and making way for me to the center stage. \nI was shocked and then there I was atop of it in no time.\nA hand slipped in mine and raised it in the air. \nAnd I felt the familiarity, that I swung to her. There she was rap singing alongside Lil Dojo.\nMy best friend.\nI lowered her hood. And the crowd went awoahhhhh.\nTreena! Treena! Treena! \nI was shocked and stood stupefied for a few minutes as she continued her way. There she was, exposing herself as the one I’ve only seen at home. \nOh yeahh! I cheered. \nCome on Treens! \nThis was her true self. But also the hidden one.\nThis is amazing. I cheered on in the uproar and hugged her before getting off the stage. \nI waved in the crowd with my phone high in the air, watching the sudden goosebumps rise and fall.\nThat’s my best friend I shouted in the air.\nThat is my best friend everyone! She is a star! She is a star! \nTreens came down and we all started dancing our heads off. We hugged and screamed in the excitement. This was the first time she was all so free and open. I am so happy the food is going great! And moreover I’ve got a friend who is a star! I shouted in her ear. She hugged and we danced the best day ever. Our DJ played the best in town for the couple of hours until the nightly restriction time.\nWhen the slow dancing started and we were literally out of breath and exhausted closing midnight. The party was at the end and we had the planned event ending. \nThe couple of speeches and Treens new skills were highly appreciated and loved. The entire evening was a success! \nSo, then we stayed. \nAs the crowds dispersed. We balanced all and waited for the cleanup. \nAfter an hour of tipping and tossing, we finally sat down.\nWow! What a night! The star of the night! Treena Wilkens. Wow! What a wonderful sight and surprise! \nShe blushed. And she was Treen back again.\nI didn’t know what happened to me. I was just dancing looking for you. And then Lil Dojo started and that took me somewhere else. I just saw the extra mic and went for it. I love the guy. \nThe excitement was so much I didn’t know what else than sing along on the mic. And who knows else, I just swapped on the gown hood and climbed the stage. I loved when he hugged and welcomed me and my singing. Leslie I just loved the night. It was a long time dream come true.\nOh yeah! Look at the video’s going viral! I said pointing at the phone on the socials. \nYou are a celebrity! As for her I was excited with it as well.\nShe looked up, ‘you were surprised eh?’ And laughed\nI held her hand. I am so proud of you Treen! Love you best friend! \nTears of joy and we hugged. \nThank you for the best party ever Leslie! \nNow the newest celebrity in town was my best friend and here is me, so damn excited about it! \nOur New Lil Dojo nailed it!" } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Stranger Danger\n\nGenre: bedtime\n\nWord Count: 1018\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about two characters who meet and/or fall in love in a museum." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "“Howdy, little pardner, are you lost?”\nThe man’s voice comes out of nowhere in the buzz of the crowd. It scares me.\nHis big face comes too close. Scruffy gray beard. Squinty eyes. A yellow-teeth smile. Something brown is stuck between two of them near the corner of his mouth. His breath stinks. Like a skunk that’s been dead for a long time. But not as bad as when Dad ran over one. The smell stayed with us until the tires finally scraped it all off onto the road.\nMy own eyes get squinty as I search for Dad. He was just here. We were standing at the Pony Express statue, and he was reading one of the signs next to it, and I walked along the rope fence, waiting for him to finish reading. Again.\nI… walked away…\nDad said to never walk away. But if I did, find a policeman and tell him—or her—I was lost.\nA tap on my shoulder. “Let’s get unlost.” The squinty-eyed, yellow-toothed man wears an ugly jacket. It’s that yucky color of spicy mustard, the kind I tell Mom not to put on my ham sandwich. He reaches for my hand. Lots of black under his fingernails.\nStranger danger!\nRun! Find a policeman.\nI don’t see a blue uniform.\nI don’t see Dad. He had on a red shirt with gray squiggles. He’d laughed and said I’d be able to see him easily if we got separated.\nBut I don’t see him.\nIs Squinty Eyes still there?\nOh, no. He’s getting closer. Following me. His eyes even squinty-er. But no smile.\nHide.\nI twist to the right, almost crashing into a lady with two girls a little older than me.\n“Watch where you’re going, kid,” says the bigger one.\nI spin around and speed up, almost tripping over my own boots, and my cowboy hat falls off. No time to pick it up.\nLook back. Squinty-Eyes isn’t behind me. Is he going to “head me off at the pass” like they say in cowboy movies? What would the Lone Ranger do?\nI slow down. I search:\nSquinty Eyes? Can’t see him.\nDad? Can’t see him.\nPoliceman? Can’t see one.\nHiding place?\nYes!\nA covered wagon. The long side of it is next to the wall. I slip in between. But can people see my boots even if I stand behind the wheel?\nThere’s a hole in the cloth cover. Maybe I can squeeze through it. I’m small. And nobody will see my feet if I’m inside the wagon.\nI wiggle through. It only rips a little bit. I stay low. The whole wagon is empty. Hiding behind a barrel would’ve been even safer. I crawl to the opening in the back and raise up very, very slowly. I keep my head by the cloth part and peek out from the edge. I can see a lot of people, but they can’t see me. I hope.\nI look for Dad’s red shirt. Lots of blues and blacks and whites and—red!\nNo, that man’s too fat to be Dad.\nAll those blue shirts and not one of them a policeman.\n Uh-oh—the yucky mustard jacket. And he’s holding my hat.\nI duck down. Keep walking, mister. Don’t look in the wagon. Don’t look. Don't look.\nI count to one hundred. At least, I think I do. I might have forgotten my seventies. Anyway, I count as far as I can think to count.\nI dare a quick peek, then back down. No mustard jacket. I slide to the other side and peek out again.\nHe’s there! But I only see his back. He’s talking to somebody in front of him. The other person steps to the side. A short lady with glasses and she’s wearing a police uniform.\nWhat if Squinty Eyes is pretending to be my dad? And he’s telling the police lady that I’m his kid? Then, he'll kidnap me, and I'll never find Dad. I'll never see Mom again.\nBut if I jump out now and tell her that guy's not my dad, will she believe me?\nMove back to the side. Make sure she can’t see me. Got to think\nOkay. I’ll go over there. Tell her the truth. If she tries to make me go with Squinty Eyes, I will run away. And I will scream, “Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!” And I won’t stop until the whole cowboy museum is looking at me. And maybe then Dad will find me.\nDeep breath. Look outside. The ugly mustard jacket and the blue police uniform are walking away.\nGo.\nI jump out of the covered wagon. A family walking toward it stops in surprise.\n“Can I get in there, too?” the boy asks his dad.\nI don’t wait to hear the answer. I run.\nFollow the mustard jacket. Look for a red shirt. Is the police lady still with Squinty Eyes?\nYes.\nI race up to the blue uniform. I tug on it. “I lost my dad. Can you help me?”\nThe lady smiles. Squinty Eyes waves my hat high above his head. He looks too happy. Don’t trust him.\nThe police lady asks. “ What’s your name?”\n“Jaxon Sanders.”\n“We’re very glad we found you, Jaxon.”\n“That man is not my dad.” I give Squinty Eyes a mean look, as mean as the Rifleman when he’s protecting his boy.\n“Of course, he’s not.”\nShe believes me! Will she arrest him?\nSquinty Eyes doesn’t look scared of her. He just keeps waving the cowboy hat high above his head.\n“And that’s my hat,” I tell the police lady.\nSquinty Eyes hands it back to me.\nThe police lady smiles at him. “This is Cowboy Dan. He used to be a real cowboy. Now, he works at the museum, and he’s been helping your dad look for you.”\nA real cowboy? Wow.\nAnd I’d run away. From a good guy. Stupid, stupid, stupid.\nSquinty Eyes—I mean, Cowboy Dan—holds out his hand to shake. I grip his hand like Dad taught me. A man’s handshake.\nA red shirt hurries toward me through the crowd." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: SOME LOVE STORIES LIVE FOR EVER\n\nGenre: asian-american\n\nWord Count: 1013\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story that begins in the light and ends in darkness, or the other way around." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "A girl looked at a boy during prizes distribution cermony.\nThe boy was awarded Best Student of The year. the girl was surprised and She came and congratulated him.Boy was of sixteen andd the girl was 24.\nAFTER a week new session of college started.in the mean while a girl enter the class and started lecture.this was the girl who met a boy at prizes distribution cermony .The girl name was saira and the boy was sitting infront of him. the boy name was sanan. \n now sanan was a student and saira was a teacher. the student was very hardworking boy and the girl was awesome teacher.Soon student decleared miss saira his favorite teacher.HE admire everyone about saira atitude and hard working skills..\n now the time came when saira called sanan and asked him whether he has a girl freind ? Sanan replied no . sanan understood the teacher loved me \nsoon they start freindship. this was the time when the teacher student relationship was changed to freinds relation .\nin college both loved each other and gave gifts to each other . A good relationshipp was going on between this couple . tehy always loved and pray for each other success .\nall students understood about this couple and now sanan was called saira sanan in class.\nafter college time they talked each other through mobile phones and both slept late at night. SANAN also continued his hardwork in studies and got success one after another.saira infront of teacher staff admire about his syudent and often she said student should be like sanan\nsanan was completely fall in love with her miss.\nafter one year saira sister got job in the same college . she hated sanan \nsanan did not know why sana hate me. THE REASON OF HATENESS WAS THE GIFTS GIVEN BY SANAN TO SAIRA sana saw all those gifts on which sanan name was mentioned. soon sana burned the fire between sanan and saira . saira without clearification about the story told by sana she begun and hate sanan\nsanan again and again asked her to clear her points but she did not belive\nsoon again they became happy from each other but now no lift was given by saira to sanan \n sanan was very upset that why she did not talk to me with a polite manner . saira was engaged with his cousin for marry .when sanan came to know about her engagement he cried and said why my dear you are going for away fom me and then said luck matters \nafter that sanan lift college to forget his love but still he said some love stories live forever \nafter one year she married to her cousin but she still had love with sanan and became ill.\nwhen sanan came to know about her marriage and then about her illness he prayed to ALLAH GET WILL SOON SAIRA \nboth were spending their lives in the love with eac other therefor some love stories live forever\n\nafter six year sanan became a doctor he was well professional doctor\nshe always thought about saira and he thought where would be saira and how she would be living because in the six years time they did not talk nor seen each other\nsaira after six years became the mother of 3 children and one of her son name was sanan. she always thought about sanan and said to herself if sanan were my husband if sanan were my lover if i marry with sanan and refused to my cousin for marry saira life was full of difficult circumstances as she became the depression patient \nsanan was also spending a tough life and all times saira remained in his thoughts he always said to himself if saira was my wife i would proved husband and wife relationship\nwhere saira was living by chance sanan job was shifted there.\nwhen sanan was going to hospital she saw a girl and some doubts came to his mind the girl was looking like saira. but he did not belive he thought that it was a dream \na next day saira saw sanan and she completly understood that he was sanan she went to home. sanan and saira homes were oposite to each other .sanan saw saira from belcony and now understood that it was his first love. \nthey both once again met each other and appointed a day for trip \nsaira husband did not know about saira activities saira was always unhappy at home .she and her husband did not live a good life.\nsoon saira and sanan went for trip . there they both discuss about the past but sanan was very angry with saira . sanan asked saira why she love me? if you were not ready for marriage then why you love me? saira replied that she still love with him.and i married with my cousin by fixing the engagement by my mother.i repent on my marry upto now i have three son but living in hell\nthey did dinner and came back to home. now there love was continued and they met each other everyday and told past stories to each other \na day was come when saira husband understood about sanan and his activities\nhe made a plan he said to saira that today he would go to his freind party \nsaira called sanan and said to him that today we would go for a dinner to resturant and there saira husband reported to police they bought were caught at resturant and sanan went to jail after court trial it was decided that sanan destroy five live saira and her husaband and her three sons so sanan would live the rest of life in jail. sanan did not object on court case and accepted the court decision \nnow he is living in jail and said to himself some love stories live forever\n\n\nthere saira also thought about sanan love and said to her self some love stories live for ever a journy started in light ended with darkness" } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Kissing Frogs\n\nGenre: bedtime\n\nWord Count: 2768\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about a backstabbing (literal or metaphorical) gone wrong." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Warning: Olde Timey fairy tale\nOnce upon a time in a land full of magic and mischief…\nA skinny peasant boy pitched up the grassy bank of a sunlit pond, a large green bullfrog’s legs dangled from his hands like overcooked asparagus spears. “Here m’lady! Here’s the finest one yet.”\nPrincess Rose rolled her pretty brown eyes. Seth said that every time he caught another one. The frog squirmed, it was slimy, and she nearly dropped it as she took it from the lad. “Ugh.”\nSeth looked up expectantly. Rose raised the frog to eye level. It blinked its large shiny gold and black speckled eyes as it looked into hers. She saw intelligence there and felt that familiar spark of hope she got in her chest…every time.\nShe closed her eyes and kissed the frog on its cool wet lips.\nNothing.\nRose took a ribbon from her pocket and a silver penny. She gave Seth the penny and he ran around the bank of the pond and out of sight. She heard him splashing into the water as she tied the ribbon around the frog’s back foot then let him go hopping off down the grassy slope. ‘Kersplosh.’\nFootfalls crunched through the leaves in the woods behind her. She turned quickly, blushing fiercely, as her older sister came to join her, satin skirts held up in both hands. Her mint green slippers matched her dress though the dampness of the grass was darkening them. Rose herself was barefoot.\nPrincess Violet said, “you kissing frogs again sister?” She was four years older but acted ten. Her high and mighty air was maddening.\nRose would show her someday. She’d show them all. She remained silent as Violet scanned the far shore where at least a dozen frogs sat on lily pads. Each one had a colorful ribbon tied around its foot- yellow, pink, sky blue…another three swam by, each trailing a ribbon in the water like colorful waving tails- red, lilac, pale teal.\nViolet said, “Oh my. You have been busy.” The nose that had been pointed haughtily upwards now turned downwards as she looked at Rose’s feet, disgust curling her pouty lips. “Look at yourself. You look like a peasant.”\nRose’s bright auburn hair had come loose from its tortoiseshell combs and gently wafted around her face in the breeze. The hem of her peach-colored dress was grass stained and wet and splotched with mud.\nViolet said, “Mummy will be ever so inflamed.”\n“Mummy can kiss God’s foot for all I care.”\nViolet gasped and placed a hand to lips. “Vulgar too.”\n“What do you want?”\n“Posey’s recital. She shan’t start without you.”\n“Oh. I’d forgotten---”\n“And you can not attend looking like …that.”\nRose hated when her snobby sister was right. “Oh bollocks,” she muttered under her breath.\n“Come along.” Violet’s nose rose in the air again as she twirled gracefully and headed up the path through the forest. Rose picked up her skirts and followed. If she sat at the back and left the hall early, she might evade punishment. Seth splashed through the shallows with a frog in his small hands. His grin fell as he realized he was alone.\nHe thought he was alone. But as he dropped the frog into the pond, turned, and headed up the path, a face, shrouded in the folds of a shadowy hooded cloak, peeked from behind a thick pine trunk. Only a pair of lips, sea-conch-pink and sensual, was revealed over a pale chin, they curled into a smile.\nLater that evening…\nThe old woman brought in a tray laden with silver covered dishes that warmly reflected the yellowy candlelight in Princess Rose’s bedchamber. The woman groaned softly as she bent to lay the tray on the vanity. She was stooped and boney and as wrinkled as a week-old pudding skin. She wore a simple dress and kirtle, both of ebony wool. A high collar of storm-cloud grey lace was fastened by a pewter frog at the hollow of her wattled throat. Only her mesmerizing eyes were what made her presence so commanding, they were deep sapphire blue, unusual for these parts where most were brown.\n“Thank you, Auntie. You’re so kind towards me.”\n“Nonsense child. A little mud and grass are no reason to go hungry.”\nRose put down the heavy tome she’d been reading and sat before her mirror.\n“Look at your hair.” The old woman giggled as she plucked a yellow leaf from it.\n“Whoops.”\nAunt Germaine picked up an ornate silver hairbrush and stood behind the girl, giving her satiny dark hair long strokes from crown to wavy ends where red highlights gleamed. “Down at the pond again I suppose?”\n“Oh Auntie. Is it really true? I mean…really?” She picked up a cheese biscuit and nibbled at it like a mouse.\n“Have I ever lied to you, child?”\n“No! You’re the only one who’s been true to me. Who doesn’t treat me like a fragile thing on a shelf.”\nGermaine nodded slowly.\n“I’m so happy you came to live with us. After father’s death I despaired so. All mother cares about is selling us off to the highest bidder. The lady lessons are so boring and mindless. You’ve taught me so much…of value.”\n“Well now. Those other lessons that your sisters---”\n“Pish posh on embroidery. On afternoon tea. On…on…all that frivolous stuff.” Her dainty hands fluttered like frustrated white doves. “Your books are so much more, well, spellbinding. And the lessons so much more practical.”\n“That’s a good way of putting it. Just keep it between us as you promised. You’ll find your prince. He will be spellbound to you when you set him free.”\nEarly the next morning…\nRose took off her baby blue satin slippers and gasped as the chill of the grass dew bit into her soles like her damn sewing needle pierced a hem. Seth was waiting as promised, his pale face brightened when he saw her. Thanks to her, he was able to help feed and clothe his ailing mother and himself. Though only eight, he believed the princess’s quest was futile. He kept his opinion wisely to his self.\nHe rolled up his pants to the knees and ‘sploshed’ eagerly into the shallow pond. Ten minutes later, Rose was puckering her lips, closing her eyes, and kissing the fat green frog.\nNothing.\nShe sighed and let it go, ivory ribbon trailing in its wake. Within minutes Seth was back. He held out an extra warty specimen.\n“Really Seth? That’s a toad.”\n“Toad? Frog? Same thing practically. Besides, where has kissing all those frogs gotten you?”\nRose sighed and had to agree. “If I get lips warts, I’ll tan your hide.” She sighed again, kissed the toad and…\nNothing.\n“You sure this is the right pond?”\n“Yesss.” She’d answered this query multiple times. “That’s the lightening tree over there.” Rose pointed to the old oak split down the middle. “That’s the sundial rock.” She pointed to a large flat whitish rock at the eastern edge of the pond. It had a raised cleft shape wedging out from its center. “And that’s the leaning lady.” She pointed to the western most edge where a mossy old log leaned out over the water, uncannily resembling a woman with arms outstretched. The tree had given her nightmares as a child; by the waning light of dusk and deepening shadows, the face on it seemed to be screaming in agony. She shuddered.\n“I still think that tree is as scary as your creepy old aunt.”\n“Dash it Seth, watch your tongue.” Truth be told, the lad was right, her aunt was a tad bit creepy. But also the only one who treated her with respect and brought her fascinating books and taught her about nature and the powerful forces in it.\nAfter her father had died in battle, his sister had come to help their mother care for the girls. Their mother’s skills in embroidery and tea ceremonies and walking with a book on her head were quite useless when it came to raising children. The family fortune was dwindling, and the servants had all been let go. Mother insisted on the lessons she had endured growing up, lest they grow up fine and proper and whisked into a marriage of the ‘seen and not heard’ variety.\nRose longed for her prince to take her away. He’d be tall and dashing, intelligent- a reader and poet like her. They’d philosophize together and share thoughts about everything from the nature of war to the cultivation of fungi. She’d been promised all this by her Auntie Germaine. All she had to do was find the frog- or toad- that was the prince that had been turned into it by an evil witch...kiss it, and he would be hers.\nThe young boy said sadly, “We’re running out of frogs.”\n“And I’m running out of pennies. And clothes.” Rose had been selling her dresses and fancy footwear at the market in town. There were quite a few peasants now wearing comfy shoes and fine silks and satins. A donkey named Bruute now wore a peacock feathered headpiece.\nIt seemed every frog and the few toads there were, were wearing bits of ribbon.\nAll except one. It sat directly across the pond and seemed to be staring at Princess Rose. It looked like all the others but just then, the clouds parted, and a ray of sunlight burst through the tree canopy like the burst of flame from a cannon’s mouth. It struck the frog’s back, and he glowed golden as he basked. Rose sucked in her breath and Seth was dumbfounded, his jaw hanging agape as if catching flies himself.\nThe sky darkened suddenly, and a roll of thunder distantly bellowed as if the hills beyond the castle had raised their voice in protest. The frog leapt into the pond. ‘Kersploosh’. No ribbon tail a-trailing.\n“Oh, cur-sed God’s blood! Seriously!?” Rose clenched her fists and Seth took a step towards the pond. Rose said, “Leave him. We’ll find him tomorrow, he’s the last one left.”\nThe rain came in a sudden deluge, as if buckets had been tossed down over them from clouds like castle walls. “Tomorrow!” cried Rose as she fled up the path. Seth followed in her wake. Out of the woods, he turned and headed towards town as the princess ran to the castle. She cared not that she’d be again sent to bed without supper, for soiling her garments once more, for her disobedient behavior and wild ways. And supposed foolishness.\nThe figured that spied them from behind the widest tree was like a specter in the untimely deluge. All was silver, all was grey. The world had turned black and white. Its hood was pulled low over its head and its body was hunched over against the rain, nearly bent in half; the stealthy figure was not much larger than Seth. As it followed the princess’s path, it appeared to disappear, as if melting into the silvery curtains.\n“Come in,” said Rose as the knock sounded on her door.\nAunt Germaine came in with the tray. Something about the old woman was …different. Still somewhat creepy…’but spryer? Sunnier?’ She’d never thought of her aunt as sunny. Princess Rose cursed her own poetic mind. ‘Nevermind. I am famished.’ She’d retrieved an appetite this afternoon. Along with the confirmation that her aunt’s legend was true. She knew the boy thought her foolish and only complied with her because of the coinage. But the look she saw in his young face today was one of belief at last.\nThough a few years younger than her, Seth had been loyal these past few months and pretty much her closest friend.\n“Thank you, Auntie. I’m sorry to be so bothersome.”\n“Tsk tsk. Look at these tangles.” The old woman gestured, and Rose sat. “Sent to bed without supper again. My word.” But she was smiling a little as she went to work untangling Rose’s tresses. She picked up the comb this time.\nRose’s knees pistonned up and down under the vanity table. She looked up and into the mirror at her aunt and caught her eye. “I’ve found him.”\nGermaine halted for a second, nodded, then continued combing out the tangles. “Go on. Do tell.”\n“Ow!….well…there’s only one frog left. Thank goodness I’ve no warts on my lips. Seth will catch him tomorrow. He looked at me! Oh Auntie! It’s him I just know it is!”\nRose turned on her velvet tufted seat and giddily said, “I will kiss my prince tomorrow!” She folded her hands under her chin and sighed like only a teenager in love can do.\nGermaine remained silent, turned the girl back around, and continued with the comb. “Well, we must have you pretty and princessey…am I right?”\n“Oh yes Auntie, you’re right about everything. Oh, how I love you.”\nRose chomped like a knave on her biscuit and slurped the gravy eagerly from her stew as her aunt brushed out her hair. In the mirror, Germaine’s eyes turned into black holes like coal and when she smiled, her teeth appeared long and pointy.\nThe next morning…\nRose raced down towards the pond. Seth was at the top of the path with his hands upturned to ward her off, to halt her.\nRose said, “Seth! We have to get that frog! He’s the one! My prince!”\n“No Rose. It’s too late---”\n“What are you talking about?!” She grabbed his arm and raced down the hill, tugging him along. Her slippered feet skittering on loose pebbles and sliding in the grass. She stopped at the exit of the path at the edge of the clearing surrounding the pond, nearly stumbling as she went, her skirts swirling about her legs as if arms of pale cream silk were holding her back. “Wha---?”\nAt the pond’s edge, Princess Posey held the golden frog up to her lips.\n“Noooo!” screamed Rose as her sister kissed the frog.\nSeth took off running, the bag of coins jangling like cutlery at his hip.\nThe air swirled into whorls of blue and white mist around Princess Posey and the frog. Thickening, sparks like stars flew outward…in the center of the swirling mass, a shape was forming. The shape of a man.\n“No.” Rose wept as she watched. Angry and betrayed, she fell to her knees as the prince solidified.\nHe was tall and handsome. Cleft chin on a strong jaw under prominent cheekbones. He had sapphire blue eyes, filled with intelligent light. He was dressed in velvet and leather. Rose could smell his manly musk from where she had sunk to her knees.\nHe took Rose’s younger sister into his arms. They looked into each other’s eyes for a few moments, moments when Rose felt her bones turning to sawdust and her heart to stone. Her life was over. All that frog kissing just to end up like her cuckolded sister, Violet.\nFrom behind her, the witch cackled gleefully. Her aunt, resplendent in black robes now adorned with scarlet sashes blowing in the wind at her back, stood straight and tall…unbent.\nThe witch raised her arms, and the prince came to her and embraced her, kissing her cheeks. He said, “Oh Mother, I knew you could do it. I am finally free.”\nPrincess Posey started screaming.\nRose stared in disbelief as her younger sister’s hair, the same dark auburn as her own, turned grey. Posey stumbled to the edge of the pond on wooden legs as if pulled by invisible strings. She withered and as she did so, folding over bones under wrinkling skin. Her skin turned to grey bark. Small branches sprouted from her slender, trunk-like body. Green, with leaves sprouting. A minute later, yellowing, the leaves dropping. At the water’s edge, she put out an arm to prevent herself from going under as she toppled. A final scream formed the hollow in the face of the tree. Then she was silent as the girl-shaped tree stilled. Moss continued to feather out along her northern side. The branches creaked as they found their place. Then all was still.\n“Th-that was meant to be me!” Rose screamed at the witch and her son.\nAunt Germaine said, “any princess would do. I’d thought it would be you, foolish girl, but no. And now you live.”\nSmall yellow leaves floated on the surface of the pond around the new fallen tree. The prince took his mother’s hand as they turned and headed away. “Oh mother, how young and beautiful you are.”" } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: The Day I was Human\n\nGenre: asian-american\n\nWord Count: 1703\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about a character who meticulously catalogs everything in their life, until something disrupts their system." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "\"Gangu Ram, are you there?\", I cried. This just doesn't work. Gangu Ram is always late. He never comes to the school early .Sometimes I feel so exasperated with him that I feel I would give him a sound thrashing.\" I would like to break his neck\", I thought. I repeatedly told him yesterday not to be so late, but who listens to whom. Especially today is a very important day. The school inspector is coming to inspect the school. Our school, the P. G Memorial is reputed to have the best library in Kolkata, with its air conditioned rooms, comfortable benches and the most important of all, its books and how they are arranged. There is almost every book there is in the world in this library. They are all neatly and meticulously arranged. Dare not think that Gangu Ram had done all this, to be absolutely honest and humble, all of this credit goes to me. Gangu Ram is only my library assistant.\nLeave all that. Yesterday, there was a food fest in our school. It was a great success. Many people visited it, but the main attraction was -----don't think its food, its the popular school library. My God, what a mess! And that's what I heard from Gangu Ram, and I am seeing it now. I did not come to school yesterday, I had a sudden bout of fever. Today, I was much better, so I decided to come. I should not have come. It is better to face embarrassment in front of the Principal, instead of the school inspector. The whole library is really a mess. I had catalogued the books so carefully day before yesterday, now I saw the shelves were a delicious mixture of Ruskin Bond, Agatha Christie , Thomas Hardy, Charlotte Bronte, Emily Bronte and Jane Austen.\nI am a very meticulous person and I can argue about that in front of everybody. I am, in fact, too meticulous. I have a typed schedule, and I follow it strictly everyday. I value the importance of time and I hate it when something disrupts my schedule. As I am hating Gangu Ram now. He was supposed to come to school at 7:20, and its already 8:00. When will he ever learn? I got absolutely disturbed today. I got up late, brushed my teeth late, had my breakfast late and even reached school late. This was absolutely horrible. I glanced at my watch. 8:10. In about 10 minutes I have my coffee time. Then after 30 minutes the school will start and the inspector will come. Absolutely disgraceful for us to let him see the school library in such a state. But what can I do? Let’s see what happens. First let Gangu Ram come. He’s already an hour late.\n“Sir, the principal is calling you sir”, one of the staff members told me.\n“Wait. I am going”; I said. I desperately looked at my watch. Already 8:20, my coffee time. These people do not understand the value of time at all.\nI went and knocked at the Principal’s door. A slight “Come in”, permitted me entrance. I entered and wished him good morning.\nHe eyed me for a while, then he started talking:\n“Mr. Malhotra, you are very early today.”\n“I could not understand what you are saying sir. I think I came half an hour late. “\n“Not at all, young man. See the time there on the clock.”\nI saw the time and was bewildered. Only 7:20! My watch, my watch id one hour fast! Oh no, and all the fury for nothing. I will hug Gangu Ram once he comes. We still have lots of time to arrange the books.\n“I called you on important notice. The inspector will be coming on 7:50 today instead of 8:50”, the principal, Mr Mani stated.\nFor a moment I did not get the meaning. Then, as I was able to grasp the value, I exclaimed,\n“Oh no, why so early sir?”\n“ Don’t you know that the school inspector is a very queer man. He wants to come unnoticed by the students, so that he can witness the actual happenings of the class, not some play acted on a stage. So, Mr Malhotra, is the library all right?”\nI was boiling with rage now. Indeed the school inspector was queer indeed. I muttered a statement about the library being all right, and requested to be dismissed. The school inspector dismissed me and Ifled back to the library. No time to have coffee now. Oh God help me.\nReaching the library, I saw Gangu Ram arranging the books feverishly. Seeing me, he let out a great sigh of relief. “Sir, I can’t do this alone. Please help me. I know that the school inspector is coming one hour earlier than expected.”\nI looked at him blankly, as if not understanding the words he said. It is not possible to arrange all these books in such a short time. I have to think of something. Something……………..\n“Gangu Ram, just take all those books back to the school bookstore and ask Mr. Dali there to keep them there for today. And bring all the old and new books present in the bookstore. Either very old or recently new. We have to impress the school inspector. Go fast.”\nGangu Ram obeyed and I sat down. The school bell rang. It was 7:30 and the students have started entering the school. I took the pile of old and new books that Gangu Ram had brought. All were novels. Good. I separated them and arranged them in the respective bookshelves. I did not care for the category and which author wrote which book. Then I took out a deodorant which I had in my pocket. I sprayed it all around the library. Gangu Ram was surprised at first. But then he exclaimed:\n“Best smell in the world!”\nReaders, don’t think this is some ordinary deodorant. It is special and is made by my son, who is a scientist. If you want to know the type of perfume, you won’t get it anywhere in the world. It is made from pages of old books and new books and the rest is secret. But remember, that this smell is the world famous smell of old books and new books! And a library is not a library if it does not smell of books.\nThe telephone rang. I picked it up.\n“Sir, a person is waiting at the door. He says that he wants to see the books. Principal sir is with him. They are asking you if you are ready to show them the library.”\n“Ask them to come in.”\nThey knocked at the door. I opened the door and then….\nAnd then I woke up.\nReaders, don’t think this as a dream. It is reality. Actually I woke up from my state of fear.\nThe school inspector entered. He took a deep breath and then began his inspection . He looked there sniffed here and looked at the pile of books disapprovingly. My heart was beating fast. Finally he turned to me and said :\n“The inspector will like this library immensely, I am sure. I just came here to see that everything was set or not. He will be coming around 8:50.”\nI was shocked. All this fuss for nothing, nothing. I had planned so much. Oh no.\n“Oh sir, I did not understand that you were his assistant. Come and sit here, sir. What else do you want to see? I can show you everything.”\n“Don’t need to worry so much, Mr. Malhotra. I don’t know why people are so scared of school inspectors. I have seen all that I wanted. The books are not arranged properly, but the wonderful smell! I know the reason that why the books are not arranged. I am the school inspector.”\nTerrible, I thought. This is absurd.\n“I am queer, am I not?”, he smiled.\nI drooped down and nodded my head. I was delirious and I understood that fever was coming back to me. Too much shock in one day.\nI will resign, I thought.\n“Thank you Mr. Malhotra. I need to inspect the other parts of the school too.”, he went off with the principal. My printed schedule fell down from my pocket.\n“Gangu Ram, please take me to the school medcare room. I feel sick”,I said.\nGangu Ram looked crestfallen. He took me to the medcare room, where I was given a dose for medicine and asked to lie down for sometime. I was truly tired from everyday’s monotonous schedule. I need a break, I thought.\nFunny are the things that happen when people expect too much from you but you fail.\nThe inspector reported that the school library was good, but the books were not arranged properly, so that is an issue which needs to be corrected. Otherwise, everything is good.\nThis was the first time that our school faced criticism regarding the school library. First I thought that I had failed as a librarian, but I violently rejected the idea. After all, mistakes do occur to all human beings. Actually everybody had expected that I would be able to arrange the books in whatever time I was given. When I failed to do it, their trust broke.\nThe school library did not lose its priority at all, the priority which was lost was mine. Although I kept on arranging the books in a meticulous manner, I still sometimes faced criticism.\nReaders, many of you may be thinking that I am giving a humorous account of a day in my life where my precious schedule got disrupted. Not only the school inspector part, on reaching home I was unable to do anything in due time. I was too upset.\nI understood that everyone wants to treat me like a superhuman and I too treat everyone the same, Gangu Ram, for instance. This has to stop. I took Sunday as the day for enjoyment, no longer for working.\nI have to follow the schedule, but I also need to find time for myself too, or everything will get disrupted, just like today." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Your book is overdue.\n\nGenre: asian-american\n\nWord Count: 1443\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about someone going to extreme lengths to return an overdue library book." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "The mail did not surprise me. It is overdue. I know it. But the book is excellent and rare. I lack the heart to let it out of my hands. Having felt the dark fresh air breathed out by the little book with its strange figures how could anyone return it.\nAnd yet I have to return the book of mystery. It had to be read by others. That will create a following for the ideas hidden in its depths, carefully concealed by the droll wording and the macabre drawings. It is hand written.\nI took one last look at the blank dull grey cover. I imagined forms crawling beneath the cover. They were not droll. The insane man on the left with hands chopped off just below the shoulder and trying to eat with his his friend the horny worm told me: Don’t. I suppose he means do nothing about the book. Keep it with you. His eyes, turned away from me, were blazing in a mad and incompetent rage. The worm had a noiseless laugh on its lips and told me: Do not keep the book with you.\nStrange. Because the cover is and I am\ncertain about this, the cover is a blank crazy grey with no drawings.\nBut I must return the little book. It is not meant to be read by one person alone. The unknown author had gone to great lengths to produce the gem, the gory chapters called for a wide audience.\nI tucked the book into my jute carry bag and started out on the mission. Once you set out you have to complete your mission. The mission to return a book written in a language I can decipher embellished with drawings that seem to have a mysterious life. Drawings of an unimaginable life.\nI closed and locked my room. As I started to walk a weak sound from the room caught my ears. The door is open with the panes still moving. I am sure I locked it but now I have to lock it again. But again a creaking and again the open door. After one more attempt at preserving my castle I walked away, the door flapping like giant wings behind my back.\nLet it be. What cannot be done is best ignored, right. Agreed?\nA hand in my pocket and I knew I will have to walk the miles to the library. The small sanctuary of books. And creatures like me.\nToday I am rather lucky. No vehicle knocked me down. Yet. No truck tried to run over me. No, I am not clumsy. On the road I am the most careful person you can imagine. There were noiseless movements of vehicles on the road. I must have been listening to those strange hissings which must be the reason I missed the loose stone resting right in front of me until my foot went two ways and I sat down on the dry road. The youth on the bike nearly skidded onto my back, himself falling down in the attempt to save me.\nI did not wait to listen to all the marvellous swear words that poured out of his moustached mouth. Where are are you off to kid. Where ever you want to go to, hurry. You don’t have much time left, said the book. I kept my silence intact.\nThe boy raced past me, his finger raised in insult just before the truck coming the wrong way crushed his hairy skull with a crack like a tiny shot. I am in a hurry. And I warned you kid. Don’t blame me for your brain whitening the tar.\nThe guy who finally pitied me enough to give me a lift only wanted me to play with him while he drove and kindly told me to drink it all up. Tastes like raw egg. But the guy dropped me off near the supermarket and the library is just a stone throw from there as the road fled the other way. Don’t blame the supermarket; it is a store pretending to be a supermarket. It stood there in shame over its name. This book will help you too, friend, to rise above your station and hold your head up before Walmart.\nThe fog landed suddenly and heavily. It covered my eyes with a blackish white foam smelling of ozone. A rain cloud on the road. I saw the silent golden serrations inside the dark matter and the pictures in my book wobbling around me. There, in the distance was insane armless man eater. I heard the sound of cloven feet jumping over me in glee. I saw the feet and a horn and the taste of raw egg bothered me not.\nI followed the darkness, tripping over a dead cat the size of a dog and another one of the same size stalking me.\nThe cloud vanished abruptly and I realised I had passed the library.\nTurn around. Walk back. The serpent does not mean to bite you. It is just an adornment.\nThe gate of the library gaped like a wound dressed with iron. It is a little fortress. I walked in. The burly Security ty was outside looking at the sad sky watching the clouds on the earth. Ignorance is life. The poster told me to enter carrying nothing more dangerous than books. I did not even have books. Only one tiny handwritten one pulsing with a tension that trembled my fingers like a snake under the bedspread.\nThe reception counter is empty, bereft of humankind and inanimate stuff as well. Not a soul anywhere. How do I return the book. Maybe a peek behind the counter is all right. The slender and elderly librarian lay on the carpet, utterly dead. Her eyes were open and they blamed me. Hey, I did not do a thing. Ok. Don’t look at me like I am\na murdering monster. I am not.\nI don’t have the strength to drive that paper knife into your aged skull. I just want to return a book you had summoned me to return to you.\nI looked around. There is no one in the library except me with the laughing book and death. But it is so peaceful here today. What happened to all the kids who are always trying to study. Have I not warned you that you should not have studied so much.\nThe book is heavy in my hands. I have to return it soon before it starts talking. No miss. I am not the joking kind.\nAnd she stood up, very dead with the knife deep in her head. But now she looked me. What do you want, she hissed. I want to return this book madam. Like you told me to. I have your letter and pardon me I did not answer your phone calls. The coal red eyes beamed at me like a happy child. Ah, I told you not to touch that book. It is bad news for you. And good for me. Did you read it? You poor boy. Now you are finished. Do you believe? What? She was furious and her spindly legs quivered behind the desk.\nA grumpy hand fell on my shoulder. It was the security man, looking even burlier. Do you believe?\nWhat are you talking about. What should I believe. Clouds on the road or the silent thunder. Or the armless guy trying to eat me up. I am not a snack. The silence in the empty library became terrible. Let go, I told the burly man and he broke into pieces and lay on the floor like a worthless ceramic. I will clear that up after I return the book. And that is a job for her, your supervisor.\nBut I cannot do that. Said the lanky lady with the knife in her forehead And a trickle of blood dripping onto her hawky nose. I heard her voice although her mouth was closed.\nYou should have returned the book on time instead of pickling it. Now I have to punish you. Should I pull off your arms or pluck your stupid eyes. That will teach you to be prompt. I am sure you did not even read the book, you fag of humanity, miserable creature. You have no idea who wrote that book. Not a soul has taken it in hundred years. I got it from a man who did not die of the flu in Spain. It is my book and only the worthy may read it.\nI only want to return it ma’am.\nCertainly dear. Said the librarian, smiling gorgeously." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Trauma Bonds\n\nGenre: asian-american\n\nWord Count: 2754\n\nPrompt:\n\nSet your story in a library, after hours." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "“Hey...Hey!”\nI woke up abruptly, drool on my sleeve, my glasses halfway down my face. Completely forgetting that I had been in the library, I panicked. I jumped up, looking around wildly.\n“Oh sorry,” a high-pitched voice said behind me. I jerked my head around to face her. A small Asian woman in a white button-up top waved at me sheepishly. I adjusted my glasses just in time to make out ‘library assistant’ on her shirt. “I’m just about to lock up. I didn’t want you to get trapped in here.” She jingled the keys she held. I rubbed my eyes, mascara smudging onto my hands.\n“No, thank you for waking me up. I definitely didn’t mean to fall asleep. Sorry for the trouble,” I said, mentally trying to shake off the grogginess. The library was completely dark outside of the lamp that lit my desk. She waved her hand. \n“Seriously, it happens all the time. I honestly thought about letting you just sleep.” I smiled, shrugging.\n“I mean, I need the sleep but probably not in an awkward face-on-desk position,” I said. She laughed a little.\n“Can’t be good for your back.”\n“Or my face either,” I laughed, pointing to my cheek. She laughed harder at that. “Let me pack up my things really quick.” I looked at the mess of a desk with all of my stuff strewn about. Slightly embarrassed, I started shoving things into my backpack.\n“No need to rush,” the woman said, leaning against the desk next to me. “What were you working on?” I tried to make it look like I didn’t normally just shove things in my backpack. \n“It’s a pretty big research paper. I’m a psych major,” I explained. She nodded.\n“Everyone’s a psych major,” she said grumpily. I wanted to protest but couldn’t find the will. “I’m majoring in library science.” She gestured dramatically towards her shirt. I laughed. “What’s the topic?” she asked.\n“Trauma bonds.” She furrowed her eyebrows.\n“Let me guess. Is that like...when traumatized people bond with other traumatized people or something?” My head tilted side to side.\n“Yes and no. It’s a little confusing, honestly. On one hand it’s another way of saying Stockholm Syndrome and on the other, when people share a traumatic experience. They often can get through it easier together. It’s called unit cohesion. Usually it’s like people in the military, first responders...” I let my voice trail off. She considered that for a moment. I went for my pencil case. \n“I think I may--”\n“Damn it!” My plastic pencil case fell, opening as it fell, spilling out all over the floor. I got down on the floor and started picking up everything. The woman knelt on the floor beside me and started collecting the various items. “Sorry, thanks for helping. You were going to say?”\n“I think I may have a trauma bond,” she explained. I nodded, pulling a pencil out from under my chair. \n“Lots of people do,\" I began. I chewed my lip. The shadows we casted overlapped as we reached. \"Actually, I do, too,” I added quietly.\n“Is it weird if I ask you who yours is with?” she asked, hesitantly. I inhaled slowly.\n“Not really. It’s with my mom.” She was silent for a moment, fiddling the pencil she was holding.\n“Like...the Stockholm Syndrome one?” she asked. I laughed humorlessly. My heartbeat began to rise.\n“Yes. Like the Stockholm Syndrome one,\" I replied, my palms getting clammy. I thought about saying more but I held my tongue, my heartbeat slowing. We went back to picking up the contents of my pencil case. “What about you?” I asked, inspecting an eraser. She stopped to look over at me. It almost looked like she was inspecting me. I made a face.\n“I guess I asked you, first,” she started. She paused for a long moment, staring at the pencil sharpener she was holding. “When I was about 7. I saw someone get hurt.” She put the pencil sharpener into the pencil case. She suddenly sat up straight, shaking her head. “That’s a lie” she started again. “I saw someone die. I-I saw them get shot.” Time stood still, her words hanging in the air. I swallowed, wondering if I should ask her more. The bookcase glared at me then and I listened instead. “It’s weird, I know everything about that day,\" the woman began. She looked far away, as if she wasn't really beside me. \" I remember how old I was. What day it was. What time it was. What I was wearing…” her voice trailed off. I nodded, fixated by her voice. The light from the desk sort of lit her face like a spotlight would on a stage. “I don’t think I’ve ever told anyone about this,” she said, mostly to herself. My knees rubbed on the carpet as I involuntarily moved closer.\n“I’ve never told anyone I have Stockholm Syndrome,” I said, encouraging her. I gestured at the darkened shelves and empty desks around us. “There’s no one else here. Just us girls.” She flashed her teeth, the light catching them in a bizarre way.\n“I guess that’s true.”\n“It’s also sometimes easier to open up to a stranger. Or a group of strangers. That’s one of the reasons why group therapy can actually be really helpful. Sharing trauma can also be healing,” I added. After I finished speaking, I realized how I sounded. Well, I guess I’m headed into this field, anyway. She made a sound of agreement as soon as I began to think I may have said too much. I turned back to the floor, pretending to look for more runaway items.\n“I was with my sister,” she began, shifting so she was sitting crosslegged. She stopped pretending to look for more items and looked distantly again to the darkness. I shifted, as well, mirroring her position. “My sister and I are 7 years apart so she was fourteen when the shooting happened. She and I had been shopping in the city and weren’t even in a sketchy area or anything. I needed a dress for my voice recital and she said she would go with me because our mom couldn’t. Anyway, we were walking down the sidewalk and we heard some shouting. Up ahead, we saw these five men outside of a bar just yelling. My sister just sort of pulled me closer and we just kept our heads down. You know, you just keep on walking in those situations. We weren’t the only ones out, either. There must have been at least a dozen people walking by. Suddenly, out of nowhere, I think I hear fireworks. I remember thinking how weird that was. It’s like 2pm, why would you set off fireworks? And before I can even think for another second, my sister pulls me behind this car and tells me to crouch on the ground beside her. She’s like holding me and praying and I’m still not really sure what’s happening. And then the smell hit me. All I could smell was this smell...this metallic, smokey sort of smell.” The woman paused, looking over to me, as if to check if I was still there before continuing. She licked her lips, nervously. Her eyes moved to the floor, tracing the carpet pattern with her finger. The shadows on her chest accentuated the speeding of her breath. I held mine in anticipation, my shadow stilling.\n“What I didn’t realize right away was that the metallic smell wasn’t just from the gun. It was pooling around our feet. My sister kept telling me to look at her and not at the ground but it only took half a second for my eyes to follow the blood and for me to realize that only a car separated us from the body of a victim in a homicide. A lot of people don’t really know this but shootings don’t really last longer than a minute or two. It takes just that amount of time to change everything for someone forever. We were still huddled and hiding when the police arrived shortly after. They kept asking us questions and who we were and neither of us could really say anything other than that we were there and we were helpless. Do you know what it’s like to be completely helpless?” Her eyes searched mine.\nYes.\n I shook my head no. She studied me for a moment before returning to tracing the carpet. I looked away quickly, a lump forming in the throat.\n“Well, anyway, when my mom arrived, she was just hysterical. The police spent more time calming her down than tending to us. But it was actually okay. I think my sister and I just needed that time to sort of just process what had happened. But we were both okay. We both survived. And I will never forget that.” \nThe library was truly silent then, even the books at the mercy of her words. The atmosphere was contemplative, even inspiring. I took a moment to make sure I had put everything back into the pencil case. The extended silence began to weigh on me. \n“What’s your name?” I asked suddenly. Our eyes met sharply. She softened greatly, a teasing look forming on her face.\n“You’re breaking the code.”\n“What?”\n \"If I know your name, we’re not strangers,” she said. I faked a laugh, the lump making it too obvious.\n“You got me,” I lied. I nervously opened and closed the pencil case. Click-click. Click-click. She seemed to notice, unable to hide her disappointment. It felt like an arrow to me.\n“You don’t have to share if you don’t want to, I just--”\n“No, no, it’s okay,” I said. My chest began to feel heavy. I shifted uncomfortably. I kept thinking over and over how to start and the woman just...waited. After a very long time I finally asked, “Is it okay if I sort of tell you a story instead?” She looked confused but nodded anyway. I let out half a breath. “I don’t know if I’ll be able to face you either,” I added, swallowing hard. The shame began to taint my face. She shrugged, somewhat concerned.\n“Doesn’t bother me,\" she said quietly. I took a deep breath, feeling a little silly as I scooted on my butt to face away from her. The sound of my heart filled my ears. The shadows on the wall and in the book shelves turned nefarious and taunting. I closed my eyes and began. \n“Once upon a time, there was a young girl. She lived in a small house in the countryside. She lived alone with a giant troll. In the mornings, the girl would have to be very careful, making sure she didn’t wake the troll and make her and the troll breakfast. If she was too loud, the troll would...well, anyway, she would make breakfast each morning. If she was lucky, she would be able to get through the whole process without the troll waking up and could go to school with her friends without having to see the troll at all.” I paused for a moment, feeling ridiculous. I allowed myself a peek over my shoulder to see that the woman was still there, looking right at me. She moved one of her hands in a circular motion. I turned back around, compelled to continue.\n“Most days, the troll woke up while the girl was cooking breakfast. The troll’s behavior was unpredictable, really. Sometimes it would be angry and violent. Other times, it would cry like a child and ask for a blanket, helpless…” I swallowed, taking a moment to breathe. “But mostly, the troll was apathetic and dismissive. The troll would complain about the breakfast, say mean things to the girl, and even make fun of her. The girl had so many things she wanted to say back to the troll but the reality remained that she was just a little girl and the troll was a troll. She dreamed of running away, living in the forest, living in the swamp, anywhere but with the troll. But there were those times, ever so rare, but they existed, where the troll was grateful. The troll would hold the girl. The troll would go shopping with the girl. The troll would say that it loved the girl and give her a kiss on the forehead. And the girl couldn’t help but stay for those moments. It made the girl love the troll and made her resent anyone who said anything to criticize the troll. And on the bad days when the troll would get so mad, it would drunkenly beat her up or burn her with a cigarette or lock her in the closet for days at a time, the girl made excuses for the troll. Even idolized the troll. Forever trapped in her own cage of misery.” After I finished, I didn’t move for a long time. Neither did the woman. Or the shadows or the books, for that matter. Everything was still, unsure whether or not there was still air to breathe.\n“My name is Beth,” the woman said after a long moment. I turned around slowly to face her. The light from the lamp caught a small sparkle in the corner of one of her eyes. She wiped it with the side of her knuckle. I avoided my gaze and retrieved the restored pencil case, setting it on my lap. \n“Sarah,” I replied, letting my eyes peek at her. We sat there, the vulnerability of everything feeling a bit silly now. Having bared one’s soul to a ‘Beth’ seemed far more intimate than some library assistant. But my chest was no longer heavy. My heartbeat was no longer afraid. The air was somehow breathable now. Quite so…The entire library seemed to breathe with us. I knew that I should be feeling scared or upset but I felt something else.\nBeth stood up and offered me a hand. I took it, standing beside her by the desk. Neither of us said anything for a moment. There was something strange that I couldn’t put my finger on. This feeling of sudden openness. Of comfort. Of connectedness. Like a door suddenly blew open, letting in a beam of sunlight, basking us both instead of the lamp.\n“We--”\n“Uh--”\nWe both laughed then. Perhaps it was simply to relieve the incredibly tension or perhaps just recognizing the ridiculousness of what had just transpired. Maybe the lateness of the night had finally caught up with us. Maybe it was that I was so grateful to have shared something truly real with someone else.\n\"We should go,\" Beth managed. I grabbed my backpack and slung it over my shoulder, grabbing my phone and starting the flashlight. I turned off the desk lamp and we started towards the staircase. Beth yelped suddenly.\n\"Are you okay?\" I asked. She bend down and picked something up under her foot.\n\"What the hell...\" It was one of my erasers that had wandered away. \"It looks like--\"\n\"A foot? I got it from my podiatrist,\" I explained. Beth started cracking up. \"What? It's just--\" Then the laughter infected me.\nAnd then laughter was unstoppable. It even followed us as we made our way downstairs to the front exit. The shadows bounced and danced with our giggles as we used our phone’s flashlights to help us find our way. Neither of us could even get a word in. Beth kept looking at the eraser and losing it over and over, restarting the inappropriate and infectious laughter. This giddiness grew between us, something rooted deeply in the nostalgia of slumber parties. By the time we made it outside, we were wiping our eyes, finally able to take a breath. The night air was warm and full of the smell of wet grass. Is it really that late? The smell reminded me of summer and that intangible feeling of endless possibility. Almost like magic. My heart ached a little then, realizing this was goodbye. I shivered suddenly. \n“Hey, I hope this isn’t weird,” Beth started, handing over the eraser. I couldn’t see her face but I could tell she was uncomfortable. “Do you want to hang out again? I don’t have a whole lot of friends around here.” My heart skipped a beat. The slumber party nostalgia welled up in me again, nearly sparkling. My face sported a stubborn grin, unapologetic and full of relief.\n“Yeah. That sounds great.”" } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: The Raven at the Window\n\nGenre: bedtime\n\nWord Count: 2320\n\nPrompt:\n\nCraft a story where a character finds themselves swept away by the wind, either physically or metaphorically." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "One thing I was very wary about was the temperamental moods of Nature. Before leaving the nest for the first time, my mum had instructed me on flying head on into a steady stream of wind, one flick of a wing against it and I would be tumbled beak over toes.\n“Better to use the gales to your advantage to conserve energy. A slight breeze will allow the airfoil of your wings to allow you to soar. Back drafts allow you to hover in place.”\nI had been excited to try. To make her proud and master the art of soaring and hovering and attacking those pesky starlings that so annoyed us. I had been restless and overly eager to soar like my siblings and now I pay for foolishness with every rising sun.\nOur nest was in the crook of branches in a tall sugar pine tree. From it we could see the entire human village that stretched from the shore of the sea to the forest before the gently rolling green foothills of the Cascade Mountains.\nThe purple sky to the west was darkening like a festering bruise, the slate blue cloud cover thickening. Good. It would be a very dark night. I trembled with impatience and the yearn to feel safe again.\nDown below, windows brightened as lamps were lit. The intoxicating smells of meats and fish broiling and stewing that wafted upwards made my beak water. Human food was so much tastier than forest offerings and carrion. The homes to the eastern side of town were bigger and brighter, with large yards groomed neat and tidy with flowering shrubbery, gazebos, and big tasseled umbrellas. The east side refuse bins were brimming with tasty scraps.\nThe homes surrounding my tree were much smaller, with dirt yards planted with vegetable gardens and refuse bins devoid of anything remotely edible.\nAt last, the ebony night had descended around me like the blackness of my mum’s wings- a distant memory now, but a soothing one- my happy place. I leapt from the branch and listed to the left as usual, correcting my handicap with my extra strong right wing.\n*\nAs the girl sat by her window, she looked at her drawing for a few seconds, then added more black. ‘There,’ she thought, ‘he’s much more evil now.’\nShe growled in her throat like an irritated Tom cat when she heard footsteps approaching her door. She swiftly put her drawing in the drawer under the desk and picked up her pink pastel crayon to color in some petals on a page with roses in a sunlit garden complete with yellow butterflies.\n“Grrrr,” she said softly as the door opened. She always came in without knocking.\n“Matilda dear,” her mother said with a nervous twitch at the corners of her mouth, “look who’s come to visit.”\nMatty did not look up. She knew who the visitor was, and she hated him.\n“Hello Matilda,” the priest’s holier-than-thou voice grated on her nerves. It took all her willpower not to bunch her shoulders. “Can you look at me child?”\n‘No. Go away.’\n“She’s been like this for three days now,” her mother said.\nFather Fairweather said, “That’s a very pretty picture, Matilda, you’re a very good little artist.”\nShe willed herself not to flinch. ‘I knew you’d like it. And I HATE when you call me that.’\n“Matilda, dear, can’t you look up? Father Fairweather has complimented you…” her mother’s shadow fell over her as she leaned over to look at the colorful garden. Then she reached out tentatively and took her daughter’s hand and turned it towards her.\nMatty felt her mother’s chagrin, thick and wonderfully prickly; she pictured her mother’s face just then, lips a tight line and eyes blazing under an angry furrowed brow. Matty’s small white hand was coated in black charcoal.\nFather Fairweather said, “I’ve brought you a gift, Matilda.”\nCuriosity prevented her from growling again.\nThe tall grey man in black placed a brand-new package of pastels on the desk. Matty couldn’t wait to open the package and inhale the waxy, oily smell deeply. The smell was a lot like the kerosene in her lamp. She remained frozen. She always tested herself this way- to see how long she could appear comatose for- she was getting very good at it.\nFather Fairweather turned to leave; his shadow slumped.\n‘I’ve won.’\nJust before turning to leave as well, her mother snatched up the pastels and opened the small flat box. She closed it and put it back down, then followed the priest out the door. After their footsteps had receded down the stairs, Matty silently got up and went to the top of the stairs where she could hear them talking quietly in the living room. After all the years spent in her shell, she’d developed the hearing of a cat.\n“Well, at least she’s not hurting herself anymore,” the priest said. “She seems calm, and the drawings have improved. No more spooky ones?”\n“No,” her mother lied.\n “No more screaming at midnight?”\n“No.”\n“Well now. We could wait a little longer, perhaps she’ll continue on this positive path.”\n“I suppose. But…but…can’t we try the ritual again?”\n‘No! I’ll run away before that again.’\n“Oh, now Mary…”\nSilence for a minute. Then the priest said, “well…let me confer with Cardinal Iscariot. I’ll be making the monthly passage to Astoria to present our tithe. He’s discovered possible possession in two recent additions to the orphanage there.”\n‘No no no no no…’\nMatty stepped on the floorboards nearest the hallway wall where they creaked hardly at all. In her room, she closed the door, wishing it had a lock. She sat down at her desk and smiled as she picked up the box of pastels and opened the lid. The black one was missing.\nShe wasn’t surprised but she did feel a loathing curl inside her chest like the larvae of a scream ready to burst forth.\n‘Nevermind,’ she thought, ‘I prefer my charcoals anyways.’\nShe brushed the garden to the floor and took the dark one from the drawer.\nThe figure was crooked like an old oak tree, with tattered black rags draped on its limbs. The head was half the size of it, with a gaping maw full of square white teeth. It had holes for eyes under a shadowy hood. They were terrible eyes she knew, she seen them, yellow like candle wax and hypnotic like a cobra’s eyes.\nHer room was small: a bed with a wooden chest before it, a desk by the window, and an armoire. At the base of the armoire, she’d pried a loose board up and inside the small rectangular space, she stashed the things her mother would not understand and take from her. She pulled out a pastel crayon box and opened it. Inside were an assortment of charcoal sticks she’d made herself, in varying thicknesses and lengths. She chose a thin one, four inches long and put the rest back.\nAt her desk, she finished drawing the creature’s bony slender hands, the fingers long as brand-new pencils. She shaded them in grey tones by mixing amounts of charcoal with a stub of white pastel. She drew from memory she once thought fictional but now believed to be real.\nFrom downstairs, the sound of a broken bottle. ‘Good. Sleep well bitch mother.’\nAt last, she looked up from her latest drawing of Bernard, son of a Wendigo and a Canadian native witch named Koko. So Bernard had said.\nShe sat back sleepily and content. It seemed the more she illustrated Bernard, the less he appeared in her dreams…as if he were content to be pictured, immortalized…even admired. She could believe that one such as he were that big-headed to think that.\nShe felt the night pressing at the window. She loved the dark. It calmed her like her charcoal pencils did, and the kerosene scent of her pastels. She felt a draft from the small crack in the sill and turned towards the pane. Her smile flashed away from her face like a bonfire ember in a gust. Her eyes grew round and filled half her face. She stifled a scream, lest her mother fear her possessed again (she’d forgotten she was passed out cold.)\nAt the window was a raven peering in at her, its onyx eyes searching hers.\n\nI had frightened the girl.\nI’d come to this house on many nights after learning to fly, in my frustratingly lopsided way. The outside bins were rich with delectable human food scraps. Sometimes chicken legs with only a small bite taken, sometimes sliced beets with melted goat cheese, sometimes lamb bones, the fat untouched.\nOn this night, I know not why, I was beckoned to the window on the top floor overlooking the yard. I was drawn to it. Perhaps when I flew, sideways at first until corrected, and alit upon a branch close to it, I’d seen a small pale face staring out into the night. She was smiling. I could see she loved the night as much as I.\nRavens are not creatures of the night by trade. They roost at night like most birds do. I was not like most ravens…ever since that fateful day of my first flight from my nest. I thought I was as strong as my siblings and as strong as my mum wished me to be. But…when I leapt from the nest the first time, my right wing obeyed, my left was …not so much. The breeze that should have caught my airfoil instead tumbled me beak to toes and I fell.\nOn the ground I cried for my mum, but she shook her head, ashamed, and turned her back to me. I knew what happened to runts and the infirmed amongst our kind. My uncle had been born with a club foot. He could fly but was ever pursued by his own kin until at last they’d attacked enmasse and pecked out his eyes, and shat on his back, leaving him to die alone and blind and dirty.\nI was not about to suffer his fate. I hid myself in the daylight. In the night, I became part of it. Perhaps because of my handicap, my night vision grew.\nAs I looked into the window, I could see the girl was terrified. ‘What? Of me?’ I didn’t understand but I felt bad. She was also a creature of the night, I could see it in her expression as she looked out and up into the skies.\nI crouched in supplication and tried to look into her eyes so I could read her and perhaps she could read me.\n\nMatty suppressed the screaming she felt like that snake was now eager to be free. ‘No!’ she thought. The Cardinal Iscariot would tie her down again and the torture would be worse than before.\nBernard was big and huge and wanting her to come with him.\n‘A raven! At my window!’ She’d seen it peering at her, cocking its head to try and catch her eye. ‘Bernard! In raven form! It has to be…’\nMatty knew most birds roost at night. It was as odd to see a bird at night as it was to see a raccoon in the daylight. ‘Bernard that evil demon…in bird form,’ she thought again and shivered. Maybe she should let the Cardinal torture her to death. Life was just so…\n‘Tap tap.’ It was back but she wouldn’t let it in.\nFrom the time she was an infant, she hated to be touched. The touch of a hand brought shards of electric pain to her new pink skin. She’d hoped it would fade but it did not. To be enveloped into arms was to be thrown into the sky as a sacrifice, lightning bolts searing and sizzling until she felt too exhausted to speak or move. Eventually, people stopped touching her. If she ignored them, they turned away and she was at peace.\nOne day her mother had brought the priest. He’d tied her down and said a bunch of bullshit words and Bernard had come to her rescue, whispering to her, “just lie still. Smile. No more screaming. Just worship me and someday I’ll come and take you from all this pain.”\nShe had done as he said, and she dreamt of him. And drew pictures of him in homage. It had been enough until now. Here he was in raven form. ‘What did he want?’\n\nShe came back to the window as I tapped again. She breathed heavily and looked into my eyes, looking for something, searching…\nShe opened the window, and I crouched low to make myself smaller, meeker. I looked up at her, feigning weakness and not sure why I was here or why so drawn to her.\nShe said, “Bernard, it’s okay. I’m ready to go. Take me away.”\nI thought, ‘Bernard?’ and hopped into her room.\nI understood then that she feared something I was not. I made my decision. If she were to wring my neck, so be it. But I truly believed I’d at last found a kindred spirit. I hopped to her desk and crouched low, turning my head away because she seemed afraid to look into my eyes.\nI closed my eyes. I prepared for execution, or eye-gouging as my siblings had tried so long ago.\nI felt a gentle touch on my feathers. The ones one my neck and I cooed like a dove and bowed even lower, purring like a kitten. It was heaven to feel love through a hand, a touch I’d never felt before.\n**\nThe huge black bird in Matty’s hands curled up and nestled close to her.\n“Oh, my goodness,” she said quietly, “you’re not evil at all. You’ve been sent to me to protect me from Bernard.”" } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: They Hoped\n\nGenre: asian-american\n\nWord Count: 1861\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about a character stumbling upon a library book that changes the course of their life, for better or worse." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "At precisely 4:15 pm on a school day afternoon while waiting for someone to pick them up, two students had the same thought: What am I gonna have for dinner? Considering this is a rather generic question that most people ask themselves at some point during the day, this would not be so notable. But, taking into account that neither of them knew the other, and they were in a very similar occasion one would think that is quite special. \nOne of the previously mentioned students had the tendency to think about things like Will I even make it home tonight? Or What if the power is off meaning I can't cook? Ironically enough this was one day in which thoughts of the same kin did not appear in her mind. Most likely her mind didn’t have as much time to wander or worry. Tonight was special, she was seeing her dad. \nIt wasn’t like she hadn’t seen him in years or anything but it had been a few weeks and she needed a break from the familiarity of her house and mother. Even the drive there could be considered therapeutic, all by herself in her own world as the real one passes her by. \nSometimes her parents fought which led a month or more without seeing her dad. Most of the time she didn’t mind it except for when her mother would complain to her, but it was different this time. Everything at home and at school had become much too overwhelming for her to bear emotionally and physically. She loved learning new things but despised school because of the terrible teachers and students. A lot of them lacked perspective due to their affluence. She wasn’t friends with anyone and never did the things she wanted to make sure there were never any run-ins with teachers. All she really wanted was to lay down and release all of the stress and anxiety she feels during most days. Sleep was the only thing that made her feel okay. And she had become accustomed to the idea of sleeping away her problems. But she couldn’t do that without being called lazy or useless in her house so she kept going and every step she took made her feel more and more like she was decaying slowly from the inside out. Everything made her tired even when she had a good night's rest, though those were few and far between. \nOn the other side of the school was a boy who had only thought about dinner because he was hungry. He never thought about things very deeply and thought there was nothing wrong with that, though he hadn’t explored the concept of philosophical thought very much. It wasn’t that he didn’t know how to think deeply of things he just believed he knew how he felt and there wasn’t much to do with that. Things were as simple as being hungry and wondering what’s for dinner. There was no reason for him to suspect he wouldn’t make it to dinner. No worry in his mind, or no worries that he would allow to surface. \nIn his subconscious mind there were myriad things going on. All of which have to do with his mother. Will she be home tonight? If she isn't, where will she be? With someone who isn’t my dad? But he would never let these things resurface because the one time he did the only place he was that week was his bed. He could not afford to do this again because getting behind in all of his classes wasn’t a good idea. Not if he wanted to start a better life than his mothers, and “That starts with a good college,” according to his father. \nSo for now he would bide time little by little. But while waiting for his older brother to pick him up, his thoughts diverged from food to a girl. A girl tripped over his legs, that in all fairness were sprawled across the ground, and fell half on the concrete and half on his lap. She put her hand on his leg to push herself upward. When she realized this was what she was doing, she moved startlingly quickly to avoid touching him any more. All the while mumbling a multitude of cuss words. \n“You good?” he asked\n“No, I’m great, thanks for asking,” \nAfter she had gotten on her feet and was stable enough to keep walking in no particular direction, she thought of how awkward she must have looked to him. Then she realized that she was still standing right in front of him. \n“Are you sure, ‘cause you’re making this weird face,” \n“No, really I’m doing great,” she stated\n“Now that I think about it, I know you from somewhere right?”\n“I wouldn’t say you know me if you can’t remember me,” \n“I guess you have a point,” he said quizzically.\nEthan Zhang, a name that Kyoko Nakahashi knew belonged to the boy sitting in front of her had forgotten someone he must’ve seen at least an hour ago. Not that it surprised her, a lot of people do forget that she is in their class. Usually it isn’t someone she has multiple classes with, to be completely honest she wasn’t especially surprised. He always seemed to be distracted throughout the day.\n“I’m Kyoko, i’m in all of your AP classes,” and she smiled. \n“Oh I’m sorry, it must have slipped my mind,” this was followed by seconds of silence,” What are you doing here?” \n“Waiting, or maybe hoping for someone to pick me up,” \nAfter that there wasn’t much else to say, so he sat back down in silence and she joined him. He thought that she talked to him without any expectations. All there was, had been simple albeit boring conversation. She wasn’t even offended when he had forgotten her. All she did was say her name and smile. And something about that stood out because there weren’t a lot of people in his life that didn’t expect something from him, no matter how little.\nKyoko pondered for a moment about what she could say to further the conversation. Although she realized that sitting in silence was a perk of being one of the last students to go home, she wanted to talk more to him. Maybe because she believed that there was a person right next to her worth talking to. \n“What’s your favorite class?” she inquired, her speech slurring together which took Ethan a moment to decipher the question. \n“Umm… I think English maybe. What about you?” \n“Honestly I’m not sure, at this point going to school is a chore,” \nEthan was surprised by this comment, not because he didn’t agree but because she didn’t seem like the type to think that. He expected her to be a regular smart kid. One that didn’t mind the racist comments or just genuinely liked being around school kids. She realized he was thinking and decided to take them into a different direction. \n“What’s your favorite book?” \n“To be honest I don’t read all that much, I just like English cause’ It’s easy,” he shrugged\n“Well then, do you mind if I make a recommendation?” \nBooks were a passion of Kyoko’s. She didn’t like annotating and dissecting, not when it was for a grade. But books helped her escape to a different world, one that could be filled with evil or filled with good. It didn’t matter which, she just wanted to leave where she was even for a short period of time. \n“No, I wouldn’t mind,” he replied\n“1Q84-” she opened her bag and pulled a large book out,”-by Haruki Murakami,” \nThen she spotted her dad’s gas guzzling truck. \n“I have to go but I think you might like it, you just seem that way,” \nKyoko handed him the book and hopped into her car with Ethan left confused and in deep anticipation. \nLater that night he decided to get a jump on reading. He was never a fan of books in general. Though he was a good reader, as he teachers would often say. He also had quite the fast pace. So by the time he was ready to sleep he had made it to the middle of the book. Everything had hooked him immediately. The description and vividness of the scenes and life of the people the book followed made him develop a very deep fondness for the characters. He needed to talk to someone about it. \nThe next day happened to be a Saturday and since he had no idea who she was until yesterday he had to wait for Monday to come. But that seemed unacceptable because he couldn’t stop reading and he NEEDED to be with someone that understood. \nFortunately, with almost one fourth left he realized a sticker on the back of the book. If found please return to 9139 Morrissey Avenue. He recognised the place, an old library he passed everyday on his way to school. \nWhen he arrived he saw that the place looked quite run down. But the lights were on and people were moving in and out. He was almost scared to go in. What if she wasn’t even there? Why did I even come? Im so stupid. But he forced himself to go inside. The place was unusually busy. He always thought it was closed when he would drive past. But it was completely different now. Even though the place was rusty it was lively and it seemed warm. \nIn the very front he realized a cafe had been started. Or at least a tea shop everyone who was sitting had a book they read. Everything seemed in place and so was everyone. An old lady had spotted him looking like a lost deer. She beckoned him over to the register she manned. \n“You seem to be looking for something?” She asked, he could tell it was a question because she had paused for an answer. \n“Yes, do you know where this book came from,” he held it up for her to see.\n“Well most obviously our shop. But let me guess Kyoko gave it to you,” \nThis sparked an interest in Ethan’s eyes that the grandmother keenly noticed. \n“Of course she did!” she exclaimed,”KYOKO!!” \nA voice from the back faintly answered, and she emerged. As soon as she saw Ethan she leaned over the desert filled glass counter and asked about how he liked the book. They sat down at a table and talked for hours about everything that happened. He believed afterwards that was the happiest he had been in years. Even though Kyoko’s father couldn’t spend the weekend with her anymore and Ethan’s mom may have been doing something immoral. They had the best day of their lives together. They had bonded over one day. \nBoth of them read the same book, and it made both extremely happy the other had the same excitement over it. They hoped to stay friends. They hoped the other wouldn’t leave. They hoped they’d see the other on Monday. And that night they both went to sleep. And they hoped." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Ballad of the Anti-Hero and her Girlfriend\n\nGenre: asian-american\n\nWord Count: 1092\n\nPrompt:\n\nStart your story with someone sitting on a crowded train and end it with them looking out over beautiful natural scenery." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "“God we’re packed like sardines…” Eriko muttered.\n The train was packed to the brim with people trying to get out of the city. It wasn’t like most times where they were just trying to get away from a giant superhero fight. No, today was just… nice. It was in the 70s and the clouds were few but fluffy. If a supervillain decided to launch whatever evil plan they had must’ve stopped because today was just that nice.\n Although, that meant everyone was dying to get out of the city. Meaning everyone who didn’t own a car (aka: more people than Eriko realized) were heading down to the beach. Beach bags and little kids were everywhere, and it was hot in the tiny train car.\n “Hey, it’ll be fine,” a voice came from above her.\n Eriko looked up and smiled. Raquel, her anti-hero girlfriend, was gripping the top rail of the train car with her one hand. “You look pretty from down here,” she joked.\n “Wrong, I look pretty from every angle!” Raquel joked back.\n “Yeah…” Her eyes ran up and down her girlfriends’ body. “Every angle.”\n It took a moment but was it oh so worth it to see her girlfriends’ eyes go wide and an embarrassed grin appear. “Babe,” she whispered.\n “Your hand in my hair…” she whispered back.\n “Babe!”\n “When you beg for more-”\n “Eriko, oh my god!”\n “Yeah, you would say that word for word.”\n Raquel looked away from her and tried to hide her face in her other hand. Her other hand- hell her other arm that’s been gone for years. At the realization Eriko softened and reached up to touch her girlfriends’ shoulder.\n “When was the last time we were on a train together?” She asked, “Like this?”\n Raquel had that look on her face she gets when she tries to solve a math problem. “Not since… I think college?”\n “High school,” she corrected.\n “No way, really? It hasn’t been that long!”\n “But it has!” Last time we were on a train you were talking me to visit your supportive grandmother two states away, Eriko mentally recounted, you wanted to tell her about us. You wanted her to be the first one to know because she’d accept you no matter what. And that was before-\n Eriko looked away from her beloved and down at the floor, hearing a can of whatever rolling around underneath her seat. And… you lost your arm. Freak accident. Why didn’t I believe you? That’s why we broke up. Because I thought you lost your arm on purpose when you said that you would stop. I didn’t believe you… what does that say about me.\n And we broke up. We tried making it work, I didn’t mind, you were beautiful no matter what. But… you did keep your decapitated arm, summon a demon, make a deal with a demon to gain superpowers. Like- who does that? Only you would do that! That’s such a you thing to do though… your dream, as stupid as it is, was right there. You stopped believing in that dream for me. For… me. And I broke up with you for following it. Guess I didn’t want to get kidnapped all the time like the love interests in comic books.\n It was weird, being single again. I didn’t have to worry about your feelings or what you wanted to do. I still cared though. I still listened to the radio and podcasts at work about this new hero with a metal arm and rams’ horns. I still shivered when I saw your fights on TV. It was funny, watching news reports going on and I see you shouting or getting shouted at by The Longhorn Rancher and Matthew Derringer.\n Looking back, I never dated anyone else. It didn’t feel right, like no one was worthy of my time. They all asked stupid questions, questions that you already knew the answer to. I remember when we first met in high school, the first thing you said to me was, “Would you rather be a shark or a worm?” I knew you were weird, maybe I was too. Maybe I was scared I would just scare away any potential girlfriends with my weirdness.\n Then you called me. Which was weird because you hadn’t called me in years. I was at work, I should have been focusing on that. I was doing so good during that time when I was alone. But you called. You asked if I wanted to grab lunch. You were there in that diner and I came, and you hugged me. You smelled like car oil and lunchmeat. God you were so weird.\n Who the hell is touching me?\n Eriko was about to slap whoever put an arm around her shoulder, but it was just Raquel sitting in a seat next to her. She looked around, the train car was empty and there was no trace that any other people were there. Raquel ran her hand up and down her loves arm. “You alright? You zoned out for a while.”\n “How long? Where did everyone go?”\n “Like… two hours? We passed the beach a while ago,” she answered.\n Two hours? “Sorry,” she breathed.\n “It’s fine, we weren’t going there anyway. What’s on your mind?”\n “Just recounting our epic love story,” she overexaggerated.\n \"Ah yes, the ballad of the anti-hero and her girlfriend,\" Raquel let out a chuckle and stared out the window on the other side of the car. Trees going past so quickly that they were just colors and vague shapes. “I would rather be a worm,” she said suddenly, “most people would leave me alone and I only came out on rainy days.”\n “But you might get eaten by birds,” Eriko reasoned.\n “Pretty birds?”\n “Doesn’t matter, you’ll be dead. I’d rather be a shark.”\n “With those teeth? Oh yeah. You’re already a shark- ow.”\n Eriko removed her elbow from her girlfriends’ ribs and placed her hands in her lap. Then leaned into Raquel’s side as the train turned and revealed a beautiful sight. A waterfall off in the distance, going off a rocky cliff. A river running under the track and a herd of deer were grazing in the nearby grass. Hawks flying high above, only to swoop down before catching the draft from the waterfall and flying back high.\n It’s been so long since I’ve seen this place… “Do you think your family remembers me?”\n Raquel smiled. “How could they forget? You’re the woman who took their daughters’ heart.”\n “And her ch-”\n “Ack- No!”" } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Twister\n\nGenre: bedtime\n\nWord Count: 1306\n\nPrompt:\n\nCraft a story where a character finds themselves swept away by the wind, either physically or metaphorically." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "In a little farmhouse in Kansas, a young girl named Ella lived with her loving parents. Ella was unlike any other girl; she had an insatiable desire for movement and energy. Every day, after completing her chores, she would run into the vast fields, her arms flung wide as she spun in circles, her laughter carried by the wind.\nOne afternoon, as the winds picked up and the clouds darkened, Ella felt an irresistible urge to spin. The air was electric, the looming storm an irresistible invitation. She ran outside into the open field, the wind tugging at her clothes and whipping her hair around her face. As she spun, she started to sing, an old melody her mother used to hum, her voice rising and falling with the gusts of wind, harmonizing with the whistling breeze. She twirled, her laughter echoing across the plains as she declared to the open sky, \"Wind, take me where you will!\"\nThe pace of her spinning increased, her feet barely touching the ground. As she spun faster and faster, the world around her began to blur, the colors of the prairie merging into a dizzying kaleidoscope. The wind responded to her call, swirling around her in a frenzied dance. Loose dirt and small pebbles started to spin around her, drawn into her whirlwind dance. The tall prairie grass bowed and rustled as if in awe of the spectacle.\nSuddenly, a strange sensation overcame her. It was as if an unseen force was pulling her from within, a swirling vortex that seemed to be in sync with her spinning. She was spinning so fast that she felt herself lifted off the ground. With a rush of exhilaration, she realized she was no longer just spinning; she was becoming the spin, the dance itself. A deafening roar filled her ears, and just as the realization hit her, Ella was no longer a young girl dancing in the field but had transformed into a whirling tornado, a magnificent force of nature.\nBack at the farm, Ella's parents watched in horror as a tornado formed in the distance. It emerged from the very fields where their daughter loved to play, the same fields where they had last seen her spinning in delight, twirling with the wind. Their hearts filled with dread, they rushed into their storm cellar, praying for Ella's safety and for the storm to pass. The howling wind and the deafening roar of the tornado were the only response to their whispered prayers. They clung to each other, the darkness of the storm cellar mirroring the fear that gripped their hearts.\nOnce the chaos subsided, they emerged from their safe haven. The sight that met their eyes was one of utter destruction. Their home, the life they had built, lay in ruins. The farmhouse was barely standing, the roof torn away, and the windows shattered. The fields were unrecognizable, the once green expanse now a barren wasteland. The barn where they stored their harvest and tools was nowhere to be seen, the strong wooden structure reduced to splinters scattered across the land.\nIn the midst of the devastation, they searched for Ella. They called out her name, their voices echoing in the eerie silence that followed the storm. Yet, there was no response, no sight of their cheerful girl with her infectious laughter and love for spinning. Despair washed over them like a wave. Their hearts ached as they imagined the worst, their cries of despair swallowed by the vast emptiness of the plains. The place that once echoed with Ella's laughter and songs was now a silent testament to her absence. The joy of life on the plains had been replaced by a profound loss, a void that was as vast and deep as the plains themselves.\nDays turned into weeks, Ella's parents were heartbroken. They missed their vibrant daughter, her laughter, and her twirling dances. The empty fields echoed their loss. They held onto hope that their little girl was still alive somewhere, waiting to be found.\nAs Ella twirled and spun, transformed into a magnificent tornado, a sense of exhilaration filled her. The world around her was a blur of colors and sounds. The wind, so often her playful companion, was now a part of her. It carried her across the plains with a freedom she had never known. The destruction she left in her path was unseen, lost in the wild dance of wind and earth. She was a whirlwind of energy and power, a force of nature uncaring and unaware of the devastation in her wake.\nHowever, as time passed, Ella began to notice changes. The once familiar landscapes she passed over were now unrecognizable, altered by her turbulent passage. The lush green fields were now barren, the once sturdy homesteads reduced to rubble. As she swept past her own home, she was struck by a profound sense of loss. The farmhouse, the symbol of her carefree childhood, was barely standing, the roof torn away and windows shattered.\nThe sight of her home, so devastated, was a jarring wake-up call. The reality of the damage she was causing began to seep in, replacing the exhilaration with a growing sense of guilt. She realized that her joyous dance with the wind had unintended consequences. She was not just a carefree spirit dancing with the wind; she was a tornado, a bringer of destruction.\nOverwhelmed, Ella attempted to control her path, to limit the destruction she was causing. It was a struggle, a battle against the very force that gave her this incredible power. Each time she passed over a field or a house, she tried to lessen her impact, to spare them from her destructive dance. Gradually, she began to gain some control, to dance with the wind without causing harm. It was a difficult journey, one fraught with guilt and regret. But Ella was determined, for she was not just a tornado, she was a girl who loved the wind, and she would not let this change define her.\nOne day, Ella found herself hovering near her old home. She saw her parents, their faces aged and lined with worry and sorrow. She yearned to comfort them, to tell them she was okay. Gathering all her will, she fought against the swirling energy within her, trying to regain her human form. The tornado dwindled, the wind and debris settling, and in the midst of it, a figure emerged. Ella stood there, at her parents' doorstep, her clothes tattered, her face streaked with dust but unmistakably their daughter.\nElla's parents, who were sitting on the porch, looked up at the sudden calm. Their eyes widened as they saw a figure emerge from the settling dust. They squinted, trying to make out who it was. As the figure came closer, they realized who it was. Their Ella, who they had feared lost forever, stood before them. The sight of her brought a flood of emotions - relief, joy, shock. They stood up, their bodies trembling, their eyes filled with disbelief and tears.\n\"Ella?\" her mother whispered, her voice quivering. Ella nodded, a tear escaping her own eye. The next moment was a blur as her parents rushed forward, enveloping her in a tight hug. They wept, their tears of joy mingling with the dust on Ella's face. The reunion was filled with laughter and tears, relief and disbelief. They listened as Ella explained her strange journey, her transformation, and her new-found abilities. They held onto her, their touch a reassurance that she was real, that their little girl had come back to them. It was a moment of pure joy, a moment that echoed with Ella's laughter, a sound they had longed to hear. A sound that once again filled their home, bringing life back to the plains." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Today is Not Meant to be Pretty\n\nGenre: asian-american\n\nWord Count: 1152\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story that weaves together multiple lives through their connection to a particular tree." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Today is not meant to be pretty. \nToday is the day for a fight. \nToday also has no time for late-comers. Kiyoko makes this clear with her eyes like iridescent beetle wings and wild hand gestures. I navigate the tree she’s perched in like my childhood years on the monkey bars. When I finally bend my ragdoll-limbs into an acrobatic criss-cross-applesauce, she lectures me about native Arizona trees. I’m not listening. I’m surveying the beautiful sunrise projected like a utopian film over the Golden Canyon Golf Course bunkers. They’re sugar-soft and raked clean. But everyone knows this is not a utopia. The sight is interrupted by flashlights glaring on phones and cardboard signs and the escalating chants of the neighbors. \nKiyoko fiddles with her bullhorn. “How do I turn this on?” she mumbles, and eventually hands it over to Jamie’s patient, wide-open palms. \nI see-saw on the branch, not dangerously enough to tumble down but enough to wake myself up from a stuck-in-animation night. Kiyoko is on high-alert, eyes scanning down effortlessly like she’s got nocturnal vision, ready like an owl for anything that comes skittering her way. She smells sweet like butterscotch but holds herself like she can easily employ a sword without a shield. She and I are friends only because of the trees. We’re so different but I set my alarm for 5:30 am to be here. If we were the rainbow spectrum, she would be the striking red at the frontline of the march. She’s the hero. She wears her cape because she’s in it for everyone else. She doesn’t care about me, or Jamie. I’m a tipsy violet. I’m in it because I need to be a part of something bigger. I’m in it because I want to be the hero. I’m in it because in some way, it affects me. \nKiyoko planned this weeks in advance. She sent out lengthy emails and even made me distribute neon orange fliers to the neighbors. Most of them had already caught wind of the revolution, so I folded the papers into a fisherman’s pyramid hat and handed those out instead. By the looks of it, people had read the fliers. They come prepared with axes and sunglasses in case the Arizona heat sets in. \nThe bullhorn is fixed. Jaime clicks a few switches and scrubs sweat off his forehead. He is a kid with rectangle glasses and a fair share of black-and-white zebra stripes to fit into the crowd. He and Kiyoko are best friends, if that’s even possible for someone as distant and focused as her. \nHe tosses her the bullhorn. She clears her throat like she’s breathing desert sand and begins. “Good morning residents of Golden Canyon!” Only a bit of the chatter wilts away. People still giddy with adrenaline in the back still sing “Stop Asian hate!” like an anthem for a country they’ve yet to discover. Although she’s on the same side as them, Kiyoko becomes mildly irritated and finally unravels like a bee about to dive its stinger into an unsuspecting victim. “Good morning residents of Golden Canyon!” she repeats, louder, “Thank you for joining us today. As you all know, we have worked tirelessly to elect a mayor to address the segregation in our hometown. But this mayor has done nothing since moving into City Hall! Now we’re going to take matters into our own hands!” \nThe protesters respond with a sizzle of cheer. Kiyoko does not smile. She continues to speak but my eyelids begin to droop and my legs are shaking like dandelion fluff scattered in the grass. I remind myself why I’m here: the trees. The looming Arizona sycamores that sway in the wind and litter our streets with leaves that hitchhike on the bottom of our shoes. If there’s anything I know it’s that I hate the way they change colors as easily as fireworks burst and disappear. If there’s anything I don’t know, it’s how Kiyoko plans to cut them down. \nGolden Canyon Golf Course just recently allowed women and people of other races and ethnicities to join the club. Because it used to only be white male Christians hitting double bogeys and blaming it on the wind or the toughness of the grass that day. \nImagine this: an Asian community sharing a fence with a racist golf course. The owners of the club complained overtime, diligently throwing around baseless complaints as if they were making up for slacking off at their normal day jobs. They wrote letters to the ex-mayor that they were losing members because the view from the golf course was horrifically ruined by the sight of citizens dragging their heels and watching pollution drift like waves on the other side of the fence. The mayor, an impartial guy who had lived in our town his entire life, did not play golf himself but eventually gave in because all the town was known for was its pristine, well-maintained golf course like the suites of the men who played it. \nNow imagine this: the mayor, instead of helping clean up our community’s streets, made the town more segregated by having billowing Arizona sycamores planted on the golf course-side of the fence. Hallelujah, the golf course had its members back. But our community no longer got a view of the golf course. In fact, the sycamores completely blocked out the sun. \nKiyoko does not call any tree-removal services. She takes matters into her own hands. In the end, those hard-hearted golfers are too blind to see that even when they mistreat us, we are metal and they’re only wood. Kiyoko holds the bullhorn. She is talking about the trees and the rude pigs at the golf course. The protesters are silent—or rather silenced by the power in her words, by the destruction they’re about to cause. It’s a calm feeling, a nervous feeling. Like the smoke detector alarm inside their heads has quieted and the world stands still. I’m everywhere but my mind, outside my body, watching myself next to Kiyoko, her lips moving but only speech bubbles coming from them. \nAnd then suddenly I’m back. She is swinging on a branch with the bullhorn handle in her mouth. She lands. Jamie follows and I do too. My feet ache when they hit the ground. The sun has risen and demands a standing ovation. \nKiyoko stands in front of the crowd. She offers her bullhorn to a middle-aged woman who stands protectively in front of a little boy. In return, the woman hands over a silver axe she’d been storing in a canvas bag hooked around her shoulder. \nA few protesters voice their concerns for the children who like to play in these trees and name them silly things. We ignore them. Kiyoko takes a few steps forward. \nToday is not meant to be pretty. \nToday is the day for a fight. \nAnd metal splinters into wood." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: The Hiking Trail\n\nGenre: bedtime\n\nWord Count: 2112\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story where your character is travelling a road that has no end." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "The first thing I remember about the hiking path is a caterpillar. I was six, and till then, caterpillars were hungry blobs in picture books. The translucent emerald worm inched across a branch at my eye level. \n“It’s like a gummy worm!” I said with bug-wide eyes.\n“Why don’t you eat it?” My dad suggested.\nI giggled, “No, that’s silly!”\n“Come on, I bet it tastes like candy!”\nI clutched at my dress, still giggling but growing more uncertain. “No, it doesn’t.”\nMy mom handed me a leaf. “Maybe it’s hungry,” she said.\nI put the leaf in front of the caterpillar because, from my experience, caterpillars were indeed hungry. Instead of eating a hole through, as expected, the tiny alien creature climbed on. Holding my breath, I cradled the leaf and its precious rider in my hands.\nMy mom walked ahead, then turned back to where my dad and I stared transfixed at the bumbling bug.\n“Come on,” she said, and we obeyed.\nOur hike slowed, for the caterpillar captured all my attention, leaving none for the roots and rocks at my feet. My dad hovered behind me, gently guiding me through the meager obstacles. Eventually, the caterpillar left the leaf, and its multitude of legs tickled my skin. \n“His name is Binky!” I decided.\nWhen it was time to turn around, my parents made me leave Binky behind. “This is where he lives,” they told me, “You don’t want to take him away from his home.”\nI cried and cried the whole way back, for I had held a treasure, a living jewel, and I loved him. My lament echoed through the trees. “Binkaaayyyy! Binkaaaaaaaayyyyy!”\nThe trailhead of the hiking path emerged from a fragrant forest of pine and cottonwood. Roots pushed through the uneven surface, alternately helping and hindering my childhood footwork. I’d hop from root to root and see how far I could go without touching dirt. We walked that hiking trail countless times, but each hike was unique. Sometimes, we passed meadows or rocky crags. We crossed streams and ate lunches next to lakes, but never the same ones twice. We’d emerge unexpectedly onto vistas overlooking a hillside and sit to contemplate and shout at the echoing mimics across the valley. We’d sing hiking songs to occupy my active mind and dutifully take down and pass around every single one of the ninety-nine bottles of root beer on the wall. \nThe hiking path revealed so many extraordinary discoveries. Peeling back the bark of dead trees, I found intricate wooden reliefs carved by worms, who preferred to hide rather than flaunt their profound artistry. My parents taught me that secret stars nestled in the knobs of the finger-thin sticks scattered on the ground. I cracked the sticks open like party poppers and coated the forest floor with stardust. I noticed the tiny invisible worlds in the veins of the leaves and the furrows of the dirt, where tiny people went about their tiny lives. \nSometimes, we walked only as long as it took to find a pleasant place to eat lunch. Other times, we trekked hours and hours from dawn to dusk until I thought my ankles would snap. Yet, whenever we decided to turn around, we reached the car in half an hour.\nMy parents’ friends sometimes hiked the trail by our sides. One, named Curtis, taught me a rude gesture, and my mom laughed. “You can make that gesture, but only at Curtis,” she said.\n“There’s a trail with three identical lakes at the top of a waterfall,” Curtis told me. “I also went on a trail once dotted in red glass. They say it’s the tears of the people who used to live there.”\n“Why don’t we go on those trails?” I asked my parents.\nThey shrugged, and my dad said, “Been there, done that.”\n“We’ll take you there,” my mom promised.\nThey took me to lots of trails. I saw baby salamanders with pink frills and white skin. I swam in the streams of fairy villages. I learned that every trail was special.\n“People make trails to places worth going,” Curtis explained.\nOnly as I got older did our hiking trail puzzle me. Other trails had fixed mileage and expected landmarks, but ours lacked these traits.\n“Where does the path go?” I asked one day as we wandered its aimless route.\nMy parents both laughed. My mom answered, “Why? Are you trying to get somewhere?”\n“What’s the point if there’s no end?” I asked.\nAgain, my parents laughed. “Why would you want it to end?” My father asked.\n“But how do we know when to turn around?”\n“When we don’t feel like hiking anymore.” My mother responded.\nDespite the lure of promised sights, my parents always preferred our hiking trail. If not for my wanderlust, they’d never cease walking its endless length. They were always glad to accommodate my requests for other trails, except for a few they avoided.\n“Why can’t we go see the mountain goats in the fog?” I whined.\n“The path is too difficult,” my mom explained, “It’s not fun.”\nI became a teen, and I tired of the hiking trail of my childhood. Paths of endless possibility filled the world. Ours could no longer satisfy, for though it always differed, it was also always the same– the same pine scent, the same clear water, the same ever-green coating the hillsides.\n“Lets go hiking!” my dad said one day.\n“Do I have to hike with you?” I asked.\nMy parents looked at each other, and my mom admitted, “No.”\n“You go on, then.”\nWhile my parents continued their silly hike to nowhere, I sought a worthy destination. I wanted to go places! I couldn’t waste my time on a trail that led to nothing. I searched instead for trails worth treading. I found renowned hikes that boasted the widest waterfall, the highest mountain, and treacherous climbs that few mastered. Too difficult for my parents, maybe, but not for me. I’d collect trails like trophies on a shelf. Confident that I could master the world’s wonders with the strength of my will, I set off on my solo journey.\nI walked across great arches of land that reached like ribs across a pottery landscape. I found impressive trees, canyons, and rivers and traversed the widest, the deepest, the tallest, the longest, and the steepest of every natural feature. My fortitude served me well, for instead of tranquility, these new roads offered only obstacles. I scraped my knees and palms on cheese grater rocks and sprained my ankles on river beds with slippery fish skin. I stumbled and fell in every color of dirt, but each trial I overcame boosted my pride. I grew stronger and smarter, honed to perfection by merciless paths that grew more treacherous every day. If it were easy, I told myself, everyone would travel these roads. If I could only endure, it would be worth the journey for the glorious ends they promised! I saw treasures and marvels, caves of gargantuan crystals, the bowels of mountains where the heat of dragons rose from the depths. I soldiered on. My trophy shelf grew. My muscles bulged and my wits sharpened until I became the quintessential mountaineer.\n“You actually swam the lakes of goo?” my friends jealously exclaimed.\n“And climbed the trees that reach the clouds!” I boasted.\nEach trail I overcame granted me new bragging rights but wore my spirit. Despite my strength, every new challenge, forced me to confront my weakness. Like battling a hydra, each one I vanquished left only more daunting and difficult hikes in its wake. Eventually, I dreaded the imminence of each new battle, with fresh aches and harrowing heights. Hovering over pits of lava with only a rope between you and certain death is a tolerable danger in small doses, but the Crawl of Hellish Infinity hiking trail, a path that claims dozens of hikers each year, requires a master of fear above and beyond the call of passion. I faced many such hikes–my mortal foes. Still, I forced myself forward. When I grew frightened and trembled, I reminded myself that I couldn’t turn around before I reached the end without admitting defeat. So, I endured my joyless trek toward lofty goals. I ran myself ragged, plodded, and crawled until I returned home each day exhausted and empty.\n“How was your hike?” my mom would ask.\nI’d only groan.\n“Come with us tomorrow,” my dad would say, “Just this once. It’s fun!”\nI’d shake my head, “I can’t. I need to reach the end.”\nOnly a few years passed before my collection of trails was the envy of all I knew. A lifetime of trial lay behind me, and no joy before me. I stood at the trailhead of my latest nemesis, the Trail of a Thousand Spikes, and could not push one foot in front of the other. What’s one more hike? I asked myself. Am I so weak and afraid I can’t brave a thousand spikes? Apparently so, for all my muscles and all my tears would not cause either foot to step on that path.\nI’d gone as far as I could go, I realized. This was the end. The finality terrified me, an abyss of conclusion threatening to consume and stagnate. How could that be it? Did I somehow miss the part where these paths were worth treading? When did hiking become such a nightmare? There was still so much out there. How could I have reached the end already?\nI don’t know how long I stood, unable to move forward, too ashamed to turn back. My mother and father found me and took me home. \nGently, they reminded me of another hiking path, one without an end.\nIn the days that followed, I found myself floating like a ghost down our hiking path, head hung, deaf and blind and numb. My parents talked. They pointed at the trees, at the streams, the mushrooms growing on dead logs. I observed but did not see. Normal trees. Normal streams. Normal mushrooms. I’d seen the best the world had to offer. What was the point?\nAt night, I lay awake as my mind carved its way along rote, painful paths. My heart raced too fast for sleep to catch up. \nThen, one night, I took a deep breath and climbed out of bed. I put on my hiking shoes and drove to the trailhead in the starlight.\nI walked.\nAnd walked.\nWhat did I hope to find? This path defied prediction. It went on and on without purpose, endless, unremarkable, and easy. So easy. How lucky my younger self had been to tread a trail so effortlessly. How little I’d known of the depth and torture of the world’s tribulations. \nI walked till morning and then kept walking.\nA secret in the woods nagged me, something I’d once known and now forgot. Gradually, as I searched for the source of my frustration, my blindness and deafness lifted. I missed the smell of pine and the sound of water babbling over brooks. I relished the lack of pain or strain in my gait. I hadn’t enjoyed a hike this much in years.\nThen, a branch came upon my path. I reached to brush it aside when my breath caught. A brilliant translucent green caterpillar walked across my sight.\nThe wind blew. I took a deep breath, and my eyes filled with tears. I blinked and looked up at the ancient majestic pines. I placed a palm on the bark of a tree and remembered the worm’s hidden reliefs, the constellations of invisible stars—all the tiny miracles of this normal forest.\nI coaxed the caterpillar to my finger, then slowly knelt and cried.\nI hiked the trail of my childhood for all the years after. My parents, weathered by time, joined me for as long as they could. I found my true love on the endless path. Children came, eager adventurers born into a world of endless possibilities. We carried them upon our shoulders.\nNow, in the twilight of my days, I still return to the endless trail. My steps are slow, my breaths labored, but I press on, for life hardened me for these moments. My grandchildren skip ahead in gleeful abandon. They ask me where the path leads, their eyes alight with curiosity.\nI whisper, \"Nowhere.\"\n“But where are we going?” they insist.\nI know my wisdom falls on ears as deaf as mine had been at their age, but I try anyway and say with a smile. “You don’t have to go somewhere. It’s enough to be where you are.”" } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Confidence\n\nGenre: asian-american\n\nWord Count: 2006\n\nPrompt:\n\nStart your story with someone sitting on a crowded train and end it with them looking out over beautiful natural scenery." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Confidence ~ \nBy: Mahita Ghattu \nI’d always wished someone believed in me. It was always my friends or my family making fun of me. Sometimes I feel like I’m lonely. I just wish that someone would support me. \n“Sorry coming through,” A boy said, pushing me to the side. I got shoved into another person, and they got shoved, and then another, and another. This was the most crowded train in all of America. We all fell neatly like dominos. And this happened again and again till everyone was off the train. I walked out of the train sighing. My parents were sitting on a bench, smiling and talking to someone. \n“Oh, there Ava is,” I heard my mom say. I backed away. She ran over and pulled me to the bench. \n“Ava! Don’t be disrespectful. Anyways this is your cousin,” My mom said in front of him. I sighed. My.. cousin? For years, I have had SO many cousins come over, and they all bullied me when my mom wasn’t around. Or they were all nagging at me, and some were SO annoying I get frustrated even TALKING about them. \n“Hi. My name is Noah,” The boy said, adjusting his glasses and smiling.\n“It’s nice to meet you, Ava,” Noah said holding his hand out. \n“Hi Noah,” I said, fake smiling. I shook his hand. \n“Noah will be living in our house for the next month,” My mom said innocently while smiling. I opened my mouth, then quickly shut it again. My mom rolled her eyes. \n“Noah’s parents just left. You have to be nice to Noah, okay Ava?” My mom asked like I was going to try hard to get him out. After my mom and dad make a decision, that’s it. I tried to change it once, but it came back to bite me. I learn from my mistakes. \nNoah stared at me, just looking at my blue eyes and brown hair. Like he was seeing if I was “worthy”. \n“Hey, Ava, Noah is nice. He reads a lot of books and gets good grades on everything. Unlike SOMEONE,” my mom said, looking at me. \n“Who?” Noah asked. My mom stopped for a moment. She wasn’t going to say me right? \n“A lot of people. Noah.” My mom said, nervously laughing. \n“Let’s get home. Ava. Ava,” My mom, Emma said. She shook me. I nodded my head. \n“Ava?” Noah said. \n“Yeah?” I responded. \n“Why are you always so sad? I want to cheer you up, but I don’t know-how. Plus, you never have a smile on your face. It’s just so rare, ” Noah said. \n“Nothing. You always get good grades. I don’t. You are always reading books. I’m not. Instead, I’m throwing rocks at my neighbor’s window and getting my mom in trouble.” I said. Noah gasped.\n“You’re kidding,” Noah said. I shook my head right to left. \n“Well… I mean grades can get better. You still have time Ava. Comparing won’t do anything. It’ll just make you have less self-respect. And books, they’re boring. And well….” Noah said. Then he got closer and whispered… \n“No one knows this, but I never read nonfiction books. They’re all just comics,” Noah said. I smiled. \n“I don’t know if I believe you,” I said. Then he responded \n“Well, you should,” He smiled.\n“Noah, how are you so positive all the time?” I asked him. \n“I guess I’m just an optimist” He responded.\n“But you’re not perfect. Yet you always act like everyone likes you or something.” I asked him. He sighed and put his hand on his head. \n“Ava, you might not understand this, but you need to have confidence! It’s the key to everything. You just need to believe you can do it and have confidence. And no one’s perfect. Not even the know-it-all kid who gets straight A’s.” Noah said. \n“There might be,” I said. \n“No Ava. No one’s perfect. Everyone has a flaw and a strength. Maybe my flaw is, I’m not actually who I seem to be. I’m not as smart. I don’t read nonfiction. But my strength? I’m positive. I’m an optimist. Your flaw? You’re a pessimist. But you can change that. You just need to have self-confidence.” Noah said. I smiled. \n“I will,” I said. He smiled back at me. \n“Now go to sleep. It’s already late” Noah said looking at the clock which stated “2:00”. I had no one speak to me so positively. It was always “get better” or “you’re bad and horrible”. NO ONE ever told me “Have self-confidence” and it felt good. Maybe Noah was the cousin I was looking for and liked. It took years, but it was Noah. I closed my eyes and eased myself into sleep. Confidence. I thought to myself. \nThe next thing I know, it’s time for spring break. I’m outside, and I don’t know what to do other than walking. Every step feels like I’m adding a ton on my back. But I keep walking. A step at a time. Anyways. I hear Noah catching up to me in quick steps. \n“Ava! You run so fast!” Noah said, panting. I laughed. \n“Noah I’ve been walking,” I said. \n“Then you walk super fast!” Noah said, starting to breathe. \n“You overreact, too much,” I said. \n“It’s a compliment Ava,” Noah said. I stopped and rolled my eyes. \n“I don’t need it. I’m not good at walking. I get tired every 30 minutes” I said, starting to walk again. \n“Ava you have to take compliments,” Noah said. “Advice for the future”\n“Okay maybe not. We’re different people, I don’t need your advice.” I said to Noah. \n“Maybe you do. Just keep it in mind” Noah said, running ahead of me. He was never tired. He was just lying. Just to “compliment me”. I don’t understand him. And I probably never will. But I know, I don’t need compliments. Because I don’t have that many talents in the first place. \nNoah and I were camping in the woods. My mom went out to go find some twigs for the fire. I thought about what Noah said, and I felt like he was right. But...maybe he wasn’t. \n“Ava, you need confidence so you can get something you want and like. For whatever it is. You can’t just NOT have self-confidence.” Noah said. I rolled my eyes. I don’t have to listen to him. I lay down. Noah wasn’t supporting me, he was forcing me into something I didn’t want to do. My mom came back with the twigs. \n“Hey. What did you guys talk about” My mom said, dumping the twigs onto the fire. The fire got bigger. I felt sparks fall onto my hands. Then the fire got smaller and smaller. \n“Life,” I said before Noah could say anything. He gave me a stern look. I shook my head. \n“Oh nice,” My mom said, pulling out the bread. Then she took out the sticks and marshmallows. She put her hands on her hips and stood proudly. \n“When it gets later at night, We’re going to roast the marshmallows. I think it’s going to rain, so I have to find my backpack and find the waterproof match sticks and a few extra twigs for the night. Have we got blankets, Noah?” My mom asked. \n“Yes,” Noah said pulling them out and putting them back in. They were buff blankets. \n“Cool. We’re going to go HIKING tomorrow!! How excited are you guys!!” My mom said. \n“Very,” I said sarcastically. I wasn’t in the mood for this unnecessary stuff. I rolled my eyes.\n“Great Ava,” my mom said. She wasn’t looking at me, so she probably didn’t notice. \n“Let me get a few more twigs,” my mom said, running off. When she left, I sighed and faced Noah. \n“Look Noah, you can’t make me do anything I don’t want to. I know you’re trying but I suggest you stop. Because I’m not going to budge. I don’t care about this Positivity and self-confidence thing. I don’t need it. And I probably won’t even think about it later! So stop trying to force me” I said, finally letting it out. Noah sighed. \n“I’m not forcing you! If you have confidence, your whole life will be better. You should know that! But you don’t seem to care. If you take ONE moment to realize how much confidence can help you with, you would know, you should have confidence. You have to believe that you can do it, and just like that, you have a higher chance. You’ll have so much of a better life then” Noah said. \n“I’m not listening to you,” I said, making a “hmph” at the end. \nI mean… yeah. Honestly, it’s true. Believing is right. But I’ll think about it later. I grabbed a marshmallow and gobbled it up. Then I turned away from Noah.\nEndless moments of thinking. About if anything I did in my life was right. Was it all a mistake? Repeating the same words in my head. Is this right. Or is this wrong. Is this something that I shouldn’t worry about, or is this something I could look back to in the future and say “I wonder why I didn’t jump at the opportunity!” I never know! I just don’t KNOW. I’m not that person who knows whether what they do is right or wrong. I’ll NEVER know unless it makes an impact in my life. It makes me feel more frustrated than when a different cousin comes over. It makes me feel like I’ll never get the answer, and that it’s endless torture. The world will always be the same, It’ll always be hard. Sometimes I wish there were exceptions, but that wouldn’t be possible. Life is like a strict teacher. Till now, I’ve had everything bottled up, and for the first time, I feel like I should try to be confident! But what will it bring? More sadness? Just a moment of noticing that I shouldn’t have done it would take my whole spirit down. But… being confident is right. You have to believe. I just don’t know what to believe. Everyone had that one moment, where they know they did a mistake, but they think and still, believe they didn’t. But.. this time I feel both! I’ve never felt this twisted, confused, and mindless my whole life. I tell myself it is for a good cause, but what is it helping? All this thinking makes me tired day and night, and all I can think about is what am I DOING? This is all Noah’s fault. Is it right, or wrong?! But the truth is that I don’t know. Whether I was right. I know I have to believe other people more, but he’s also saying I have to believe in myself. I hate how I’m always twisted up. I never know what’s right, and what’s wrong. I go step by step, but I’m never able to figure out anything. I try and believe others, but their advice is usually a lie. It never helps. It always sinks me deeper into my hole. I’ll never be able to get out of my “hole” if I keep taking advice… but this. This seems so different. It’s like it’s true. And I want to believe it. But I don’t know if it’s right. I can’t take my mind off of it! All I can think about is “WHAT AM I GOING TO DO!” and is it right or wrong? This is just like a complicated, horrible, tiring, annoying, frustrating, game of twister. \nI looked at the setting sun. We were up high on the mountain. And my mom was trying to take pictures of the sunset a few miles away from us, and it was just to brag to her annoying friend group. Noah walked over to me. \n“Are you sure… have you changed your mind? About any of it?” Noah said. \n“About what? All I know is, I have to be confident,” I said and smiled." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Turning Tables\n\nGenre: bedtime\n\nWord Count: 1835\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story where a regular household item becomes sentient." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "“Thank you for your help today, Mick”, said Rachael, handing the shopkeeper a £50 note, “and keep the change.” She beamed back at the winking man, who was already stuffing the money into the pocket of his overalls. Mick’s Furniture and Fixtures only ever took cash. How much of that was about appearing as reliably old-fashioned as the goods that the family business sold, and how much was it about a lack of paper trail, Rachael had wondered but never asked. She had found the perfect bedside table for the guest bedroom she had been renovating (even if she’d had to plead to split it from a nest of them). That was all that mattered.\nBack at home, she carried the table through to the bedroom, which still had that fresh paint tang in the air. The idea was that Rachael was going to be an accommodation host. She had tentatively told her friends and therapist, and they all seemed to be in agreement it would be a wonderful idea. Would get her meeting new people. Possibly make some lifelong friends. And it would help towards the running costs of her home. Her husband, Stephen, used to cover the bulk of that. Until he was knocked off his bike by a scaffolder’s van and one of the poles had flown off like a javelin, piercing him right through his stomach. The doctors had reassured Rachael it would have been an instant death. Still, it kept her awake at night. Was it really that sudden? And he’d been on his bike on his way to meet her at their favourite picnic spot, the one where he had proposed. The one she had wanted to revisit to celebrate their anniversary. The same friends and therapist had reassured her that it hadn’t been her fault. But what if it was?\nAt night, the doubts always found a way of creeping back in.\nThe alarm on her phone in her jeans pocket made Rachael almost hit the ceiling. She looked at the reminder.\n“Pill o’clock,” she said grimly. Her GP had prescribed her some drug that was new to the market. It was supposed to calm her. The lows would still come, he had warned, but the medication would help her to still function. She had thought bitterly how the system seemed rigged to make patients become good little workers again. Prone to panic attacks? Sure. But contributing to the economy? Wonderful! Looks like we’ve found a cure, folks.\nStill, Rachael was willing to give anything a shot. Something that may not stop the nightmares, but make them less vivid. Blur her edges. Quieten her nerves.\nShe went to the bathroom cabinet and looked at the toothpaste flecks left on the mirror by Stephen. It made her face look diseased. She used to give him no end of grief for his messy habits, but she couldn’t bring herself to scrub the house of every last trace of him just yet. She was counting on her first guest booking once the spare room was ship-shape to spur her on to do a big clean. It’s not like she had many people round, even though they tried. She couldn’t bear the thought of someone else unwittingly occupying his chair, or drinking from one of his mugs.\nShe reached for the little plastic jar of her latest lifeguards. Bright pink pills. They looked ludicrous to her. The cult of Barbie-fication gone too far. She popped a couple, as the label instructed, and bade goodnight to her speckled reflection.\nIt’s the little things you miss. A guaranteed “good morning, honey,” a “goodnight, my love.” Someone else interested in how well her day went, how well she slept.\nThat night Rachael most certainly did not sleep well.\nA strange cry snapped her eyelids open. She blinked blearily at the clock. 03:30. She knew she hadn’t woken herself up (the pills were supposed to stop the nightmares that were spun from neverending overthinking sessions – in that respect, they had done their job). So what had?\nShe heard it again.\n“Where are you? I’m lost. Where am I?”\nMaybe she had left the TV or radio on. She always put at least one on when she got home. She loved the background noise, the quiet distraction. A little company.\nRachael swung her legs out of bed, feet fumbling for her slippers. She tip-toed down the hallway.\nRasping sobs were emanating from behind the door of the guest bedroom. Rachael just stood there for a moment, as if pinned to the ground. She forced herself, ever so slowly, as though it might bite, to put her hand on the black handle. The sobs grew louder. She couldn’t stand it any longer. She flung the handle down and threw open the door.\nJust an empty room, with a hint of throat-tickling drying paint.\n“Going mad,” Rachael muttered. “I’m actually going mad.”\n*\nLater that morning, the nerve-rattling noises felt like they had happened long ago, to someone else. Rachael went about her day, popped another couple of pills, filled another couple of bags with Stephen’s clothes, ready to take to a charity shop.\nIn the evening she made herself a simple dinner of ramen noodles. The memory of Stephen getting back from a week away with work and finding ramen packaging filling the bins and calling her “my little student-y Potty Noodle” made her reach for a couple more pills. The doc had said she could take them “as needed”, but she doubted he fully understood her needs. How do you explain the heartbreak conjured by a memory echo of “Potty Noodle” to a professional without sounding, well, potty? But she had done some independent research that had confirmed she was in the recommended limits quantity-wise of the medication. Pushing it. But still safe.\n01:58 this time. When the screeching started.\n“Where am I? Take me back!”\nRachael woke with her heart trying to pound its way out of her chest. She grabbed the nearest weapon – a hairdryer. At least it’s kind of gun-shaped, she thought, suppressing a maniacal titter.\nThis time she didn’t creep, she ran. Flung open the door, again. Whatever it was that was crying out for its family abruptly stopped.\nThe shadowy lumps of the furniture to Rachael looked like children who had been playing a game of Grandmother’s Footsteps. Like if she had opened the door a second earlier, she might have caught one of them creeping.\nShe went back to her room and picked up a framed photo of her and Stephen on a trip to Niagara Falls. She walked back to the guestroom and placed it on the bedside table.\n“We’re your family now,” she told the little table. Its surface seemed to ripple as she put the picture on it, but she told herself over her slice of toast later on that morning that it had probably been a trick of the moonlight, pouring in through the blinds she hadn't shut properly. She made a mental note to add blackout curtains to her do to list. Guests liked to get a good sleep.\nAnd for that matter, so did she, Rachael thought when woken up by a splintering yell at 01:05.\n“How did I get here?” the voice cracked and wavered. “Where are my family? Take me back to them – please!”\nRachael switched her bedside lamp on. Lay there for a moment, holding her breath. Waiting for more. She wondered what would happen if she just stayed in bed.\nThe voice creaked and cried itself to sleep, so it seemed.\nThe next day, during a quiet moment at work, Rachael looked online for further information on the pills she had been taking.\nShe found a forum offering plenty of user reviews. As Rachael expected, ‘auditory hallucinations’ featured pretty heavily.\n“It’s the pills. Gotta be the pills.”\nDiana from accounts cleared her throat and peered at her from her desk opposite Rachael’s.\nInside thoughts, Rachael reminded herself. Of course it wasn't the silly little table. It's the pills. She put the pills to the back of her mind for a while and finished tweaking the blog post she had been tasked to add to the company’s website.\n04:35. Rachael had hoped that now she knew the cause of the warped wails her brain would allow her to make it through the night. As she listened to the snaps and scrapes on her newly varnished guest bedroom floor alongside the yowls, she silently thanked Stephen for never lumbering her with kids. To think: young mothers had to put up with years of this kind of behaviour.\n“Take me back,” the knotted voice pleaded.\n“FINE!” Rachael hollered. “WE’LL GO TOMORROW. JUST SHUT UP ALREADY.”\nThe house fell back into silence. And Rachael did the breathing exercises she had been taught to release inner tension, and fell back to sleep.\n\nRachael shoved the talkative table into the boot of the car. She looked at it, lying there like an innocent babe, and half-primed herself for the legs to start kicking when she lowered the lid. Maybe it was the pills. Maybe it was this collection of sticks she had grown to loathe. She’d soon find out for sure.\nShe drove to the town, parking a little way down from Mick’s Furniture and Fixtures. She took the table out of the boot, wincing in case there came any protests at her handling. and marched it to the shop.\n'Closed Wednesdays', read the hand-written note on the door. Of fucking course. That was the problem with small town businesses; they ran to their own schedules. Mick was probably off down the bookies spending her fifty quid.\nRachael walked round to the back door of the shop. She tore off a page from the notebook in her handbag, and fixed it to the table using a couple of rocks. She rushed back to her car and began the drive to work, feeling like she’d abandoned a child on a doorstep. At least it was the back door, where Mick would stand to puff his liquorice roll-ups, rather than the front, where any passer-by might make off with it.\n**\nAfter a week of sleeping soundly through the night, Rachael returned to Mick’s. Mick wasn’t about – there was just some fresh-faced apprentice pottering in the background instead of doing the hard sell. That suited Rachael fine, she just wanted to check on something. She picked her way across rolled up rugs, through a maze of mirrors, past a row of glazed creepy cat ornaments, until she found what she was looking for.\nThe talkative little table had been reunited with its nest. It was tucked safely under the wings of ma and pa now. Rachael crouched down. The polished wood looked blank and unknowing. Content. Quiet.\n“Goodbye,” Rachael whispered to it, running a thumb along its edge.\nRachael stood up straight again, thinking she heard a creak. Probably just my knees, she figured." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Live Oak\n\nGenre: asian-american\n\nWord Count: 1492\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story that weaves together multiple lives through their connection to a particular tree." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Lyra was destined to become an aerial artist. After all, her name was Lyra like a lyra hoop artist. She imagined herself working as a professional circus acrobat after the first time her mother took her to the local fair. There before her wondrous 8-year-old eyes, she saw a magical dancer spinning round and round on one of those lyra hoops, her body spinning infinite circles 20 plus feet in the air.\nNow twenty years of age, Lyra stared up at the live oak tree that stood in front of her parents' beachside chalet. This was her vacation throughout her childhood in the niche part of Jekyll Island, Georgia. She was home for college and she would not return. Her parents passed away within two years of each other. The last five years were particularly difficult for Lyra. She dissolved her life savings from babysitting gigs, summer lifeguarding jobs, and Christmas gift money to help her ailing folks. Cancer. Both of them, chain smokers for over forty years. The beach house was meant for her parents’ retirement. Lyra was putting it on the market for the invaluable real estate value, apparently, developers were putting up a casino and she’d received an offer, she couldn’t refuse. \nIn her hands, she held the rigging for her own lyra hoop, a rope securely tied to the metal frame, and several carabiners. The rope swung nimbly over a thick medium branch. The tree was large and its branches reached outwardly like arms waiting for a hug on every level of its trunk. She guided the hoop up just high enough for her to practice her trapeze art without touching the ground.\nIt would never have suited her to move down to Jekyll. Everyone was old or blonde. She hated sticking out in the crowd, and down below the Bible belt, she always stuck out like an exotic bird. Her almond eyes, jet-black hair, and high cheekbones were beautiful to behold but different. Different isn’t always good, especially when people like the chalet’s caretaker boasted about how before they had sold the house to the Ling’s, the house, tree, and all were relics of their ancestors.\n“My ancestors were part of the group from France that discovered this island, and this is peninsula is where they took up roots,” Monsieur Bain explained.\nHe always found a way to insert his rightful ownership into the conversation every time she came to visit. Their house was what used to be the main house three acres west. They had subdivided the plat long ago to earn extra income. A piece was sold in the ’80s and in early 2000, her parents acquired the last plot.\nMonsieur Bain did not look like a Frenchman or even a descendant. His looks were average and akin to most middle-aged, tired, southerner that Lyra had crossed path within her life. He insisted on the title, “Monsieur,” for the sake of tourism rather than authenticity. At home, alone with his wife, he was simply Tom, and the neighborhood vendors, local fishermen all knew him as Mr. Bain.\nLyra was deeply focused on a new maneuver she wanted to hit. She lost her scholarship due to all her recent time planning funerals. She didn’t plan on returning to school. She was chasing Cirque du Soleil and one particularly handsome casting director across the country, perhaps into Canada. She’d secured an audition before, but the heavy hitters in the running left her out in the cold. That was two years ago. Now, it was time for another chance. She just had to get stronger.\nShe was intensely winding her legs and twisting her body through and outside of the hoop. It wasn’t until she pulled herself up in a front support position that she noticed someone up the hill eyeballing her. Lyra squinted her eyes and as they came into focus on the familiar figure, she breathed a sigh of relief.\nShe cast backward and landed on her feet like a cat on the ground next to one of the old tree’s outgrown roots.\nWaving, she called out, “Monsieur Bain, what a pleasant surprise!”\nSauntering after Lyra’s recognition, Monsieur Bain called back.\n“I didn’t want to disturb you,” he breathed as he approached the promising young acrobat. The hills on that property seemed to grown gigantically every passing year.\nMonsieur Bain cast his gaze down when he reached the girl.\n“I’m so sorry to hear about your parents.”\nTom had liked the Lings. They were respectful people, kept to themselves, never held parties. He couldn’t have asked for better seasonal nearby residents. When they were alive, he hadn’t thought to invite them to dinner, and he’d only wandered over when he saw Lyra practicing her art on the tree because he realized how young she was to lose both her parents.\nLyra nodded. She didn’t want another long conversation about how it all happened and what she went through making arrangements, selling their main home. Most of all, she didn’t feel like telling strangers how she was making out. She really wasn’t. Her parents splurged a couple years before they got sick and bought a tiny Airstream. It was an opportunity to make sure they all stayed close when Lyra went away for school. That way on summer vacations, they would all go on a new adventure cross-country together. That never happened. The summer after that, Lyra was offered a great opportunity to dance in a real show off-Broadway. The summer after that, they took that cross-country vacation without her. The summer after that, her father was dead already. Then the Airstream sat in the driveway until Lyra’s mother followed suit.\nAfter their Maine house was under contract, Lyra packed some of her favorite clothes from high school, family photos, and her dad’s guitar. He’d always wanted to play, but work and struggling to “make it” kept him from it. She hadn’t done better. It was collecting dust on a guitar stand in the camper.\nAfter some pleasantries, Tom posed the question that weighed on his mind.\n“Can we talk about the house?”\nLyra’s head shot up.\n“What of it?” She asked, her tone getting defensive.\n“We were thinking, maybe instead of selling it, you could do vacation rentals,” Tom spoke quickly before Lyra could respond. “I think it’ll give you just the right amount of income while you get back on your feet…Those big wigs are trying to buy us all out, well, we’d like to keep this little piece of heaven…underdeveloped, if you know what I mean.”\nLyra shook her head vehemently.\n“No, no, you can’t talk me out. I need the money for travel…”\n“Pops!” A little boy called out in the distance.\nA tiny frame of six-year-old stood at the top of the hill. He waved his diminutive, little arm in the air. The motion cut like a cartoon moving in front of the scenic Jekyll backdrop with the Atlantic ocean swarming up the rest of the picture. The little boy ran down the hill easily and when he reached Lyra and Tom, he grabbed his grandfather’s hand.\n“Granny, wants you to invite the girl to dinner!” He exclaimed with glee.\nMonsieur Bain grinned at Lyra.\n“Well, how about it? You up for joining us and we can talk over details?” He smiled, rather shyly and a little bit hopeful.\nLyra contemplated. She knew that her parents always meant for her to come to visit them their in-between gigs or school. Their retirement was around the corner before the storm came in. They had pictured her inheriting the place and taking her kids to vacation on family trips, once she had a family of her own. It didn’t seem feasible anymore.\n“This is Alfie, my grandson,” Tom introduced. He pointed at the little boy whose face suddenly lit up.\n“Oh!” Alfie let out. “That’s a cool idea.”\nLyra nodded again.\n“Yes, that’s why I’ve always liked this tree.”\nMonsieur Bain smiled.\n“When I was a little boy, I used to climb like a monkey on that tree,” Tom said, getting lost in reconnaissance. “I used to jump from limb to limb.”\nLyra smiled.\n“I was never encouraged to do that,” she admitted. “I guess it’s different for girls, but when I started doing this,” she gestured towards the hoop. “I began to enjoy trees more, especially this one.”\nAlfie broke from Tom and scurried up the first branch of the tree.\n“Alfie!” Tom protested. “That’s not our property.”\nLyra let them know it was fine for Alfie to climb. But Alfie was on the other side of the hoop and was only focused on reaching the next branch.\nThe adults meditated while watching Alfie practice his Tarzan skills.\n“Okay,” Lyra said. “Let’s eat. I’m just going to talk, I won’t promise anything, but I’m starving and I didn’t fix dinner.”\nTom smiled.\n“All, I can ask for is an open ear. Let’s go.”" } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Things May Change\n\nGenre: asian-american\n\nWord Count: 2938\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story that spans a month during which everything changes." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "It was May when I met Tara. It makes sense that it was May. I feel like May was always the month of change—especially here in New Jersey. It’s when green finally starts growing on the trees and life returns to the world after a bitter winter and spring. I liked going on walks in the forest back then. I’m glad I enjoyed the simple pleasures in life like golden sunlight twinkling through the canopy of leaves, back when I had the chance. That way I don’t have as many regrets as the others who are left. \nI was taking a walk in the woods that day, in the beginning of May, wearing a gigantic sweatshirt and shorts to enjoy the sun while still shielding myself from the breeze. I liked jumping between the rocks in the mountainous area, with streams forming miniature waterfalls running beside me. It was while I was jumping from rock to rock that I began to feel eyes trained on me. I froze still as possible in case it was some hostile animal. The only sound I heard was the stream and some splashing. I paused. That splashing sound wasn’t normal. \nSlowly, I turned my head toward the sound of splashing. There was a person sitting with their feet in the water, with dark skin, long unruly dark hair falling around their body, and the most piercing green and blue eyes I’d ever seen. Despite being fully naked, I couldn’t tell what gender the person was. Their feet were kicking the water of the stream around while staring at me, a look of curious wonder on their face. I’d like to say I acted coolly in the situation. I didn’t. \nI made a horrible noise that could barely be called a scream and fell backward behind the rock I previously stood on. The person tilted their head to the side in confusion, wide eyes still gazing at me. \n“Who- who are you?” I stammered.\n“So you speak english.” It seemed as though their accent shifted with each word. “I am Tara.” \n“Why are you in my woods, Tara?” \n“Do these woods belong to you?” My question suddenly felt stupid. They weren’t my woods necessarily. I was just the only person who would consistently walk there, despite it being so beautiful. I turned bright red, my butt still planted on the dirt after my fall. \n“Uh, I guess not.” \n“That’s good. To answer your question, I’m surveying nature.”\n“Naked?” \nTara looked down at themself. “Is it strange to be naked?” \n“I mean, yeah.” Tara just blinked at me. I scrambled up and took off my sweatshirt to hand to them. They took it and looked at me questioningly. “See that hole, right there? You put that one over your head. And these long parts? Your arms go through there.” Hesitantly, they followed my directions. “Oh, by the way, my name’s Penelope An. Are you, uh, from around here?” I stuck my hands in my short pockets and shifted back and forth on my feet. \n“No, I’m from there.” They pointed at the water in the stream. I remember being so confused. At that time, I thought Tara had some kind of amnesia. I guess the whole time they were giving me hints to who they really were. I just ignored them. \n“Why don’t you come home with me Tara. We’ll get you cleaned up and fed.” \nTara smiled at me—this big, beautiful, disarming smile. “Is your home in the water too?” \nI just laughed it off. I thought they were joking. \n “So, it’s not much,” I was breathing hard from the climb up the mountain to my house. Opening the door, I apologized, “it’s also really messy, I’m sorry. I live alone so I haven’t cleaned in forever.” I attempted to tidy up as I guided Tara through the place.\n“And here’s the bathroom,” I motioned while opening the door, “you can shower here and I’ll give you some of my clothes to change into.” \nTara just stood there looking at me, their head tilted to the side a bit. I slipped past them and moved toward the shower. \n“Here, you can start it like this,” turning the knob, a trickle of water began to come out of the faucet. Tara’s eyes went wide. They moved to inspect the shower. Because they were shorter than me, they had to jump on me a bit to get a closer look. “And you can adjust the temperature like this. Sorry, the water pressure isn’t great here.” \n“Where does the water come from?” \nI wondered how Tara had gone this long without ever seeing a shower before. They seemed to be in their late teens or early twenties. \n“Oh, uh, I think there’s a well below.” I pointed downward and Tara’s eyes followed mine. \n“Do you want more water?”\n“What? I mean I guess” \nTara screwed their eyes shut and balled their fists. Their long hair began to float around them, like they were underwater. I could have sworn they turned transparent. \nSuddenly there was a sputtering noise and water began to shoot out of the shower head with at least five times more pressure than it had before. \n“How’d you do that?”\nTara looked at me with their same big, confused eyes. “I just did it.” \nI nodded. Even then I knew I had picked up someone who would change my life. \n“Okay so in order to shower, you take off your clothes, stand under the water, rub this soap on you—all over your body—and then wash it all off with the water.”\n“Alright.” And Tara immediately began taking their clothes off. \nI shut my eyes and turned away. “Wait! Wait until I’m out of here.” I paused for a moment, still facing the other way. “If you don’t mind me asking, what gender are you anyway?” \nTara laughed. It was such a funny laugh, with tiny gasps for air and snorts and everything. “Spirits of the Earth don’t have a gender, silly. Once you humans stepped away from nature, you really lost so much knowledge, didn’t you?” \nHow do you even respond to someone saying something like that? Even now, I don’t know what I should have said. I guess I was starting to believe Tara in some way. Things around them were just a little too mysterious. \n“Oh. cool.” \nThat was probably the only stupid response possible. \nI walked out of the bathroom, grabbed some clothes for Tara, and put them outside the shower. Tara seemed to be doing alright, given that it was their first time in a shower. Then, I made some dinner for the two of us. I supposed that I had to make something more than the ramen I’d been eating for the past few weeks. \nThen it dawned on me. Tara probably had no memory of eating food, from what I’d seen. They deserved something special for their first meal. After they stepped out of the bathroom, their wet hair soaking through the sweatshirt I gave them, I proposed our meal. \n“Do you want to go out for food today? There’s the shittiest New Jersey diner down the street from here.” \n“I know I’m new to a lot of your human stuff, but from my knowledge of your language, ‘shitty’ means bad.” \n“You’re not wrong,” I nodded, maintaining the sage expression I often used when I’d explain this to out of staters, “but in New Jersey the bigger the dump of a diner, the better the food is.” \n“Oh. Then I’d like to try it.” \nWe went to the diner, and it was just as incredible as I’d imagined. I got “two eggs and bread,” which would sound unimpressive to people who didn’t know diners. For only three dollars a person could get eggs done any style they wanted, with two slices of bread, a plate full of potatoes, and some bacon on the side. It was a genuine treasure. After I suggested it, Tara ordered waffles with strawberries on top—I just thought they’d like strawberries—and disco fries on the side. Their face lit up when they tasted the food for the first time. With a mouth stuffed full of scrambled eggs I asked, “It’s good right?” Although, it probably sounded more like “Iff gooh rahh?” \nTara’s hauntingly beautiful eyes smiled back in response. Tara couldn’t even manage more than a “mff” in response because their mouth was so stuffed with food. \nOur lives went on like that for about three weeks. Tara stayed at my place. I took them outside to discover our world. I got to see everything through their eyes, as though I was looking at it for the first time right alongside them. \nOne day, I took Tara to New York City. They were so shocked to see the sheer number of humans in one place. Not only that, but Tara loved how many experiences were possible in just one city. We walked around Chelsea Market for a while and went in and out of all of the little shops. Tara saw an incredibly small bamboo plant for sale in one store for only twenty-five cents. When I saw the look on their face, I just had to buy it for them (plus it was a great way to get rid of loose change). We got rolled ice cream at Ten Below and walked around Chinatown for a while. Chinatown was always my favorite place to visit with my family when I was little. I recounted memories of the New Year parade, seeing dragons dance across the road as confetti filled the air, getting ice cream from the little shops lining the street. I told Tara I’d take them to next years’ New Year parade. I remember Tara looked sad after that. And I remember the words “I don’t know if there’ll be a next one,” leaving Tara’s mouth. But immediately after saying that, Tara had smiled at me with a big smile that scrunched up their whole face, and I completely forgot about their eerie words. \nTara would do things like that often—just say haunting things out of nowhere. Another night I took them to a food truck festival, and as we sat on a picnic blanket watching the fireworks Tara said something so quietly I wasn’t sure I heard them correctly. “Your world is so beautiful. I’m going to cry when it ends.” I wanted to ask them about it, but something stopped me. I think it’s because I was so happy then. Spending every day with Tara, showing them the little joys of this world and seeing those wonders through fresh eyes—I was more in love with life than I’d ever been before. Some part of me knew that if I asked them about it, those peaceful times would come to an end.\nIn the background of those blissful three weeks, the world around us was falling apart. Natural disasters seemed to be ravaging every corner of the globe. Tsunamis, tornados, earthquakes, and pretty much anything you can imagine was tearing the world apart. Any time stories of the natural disasters came on the news, Tara would grow quiet and distant. They would look outside the window with such a melancholy gaze that it made my heart ache. \nAt the end of the three weeks, I decided to ask Tara about it. \nWe were sitting in the diner again. The old man at the cash register was listening to the radio. I heard a muffled voice come from it, “Volcanoes have been erupting along every tectonic boundary. Mass evacuations have been ordered, but no one really knows where it is safe anymore.” Tara was staring down at the table, playing with their fork to avoid looking at me. \n“Tara, what’s wrong?”\n“They are my siblings.” \nI was not expecting that answer. \n“What?”\n“My siblings are all doing their jobs. The jobs we were meant to do.”\nI paused, trying to gather all of the information together in a way that made sense. “You and your siblings were sent to… blow up the world?” \nThey laughed, but it wasn’t like their usual bubbly laugh. This laugh felt as though ice pierced it. “No.” They were silent for a moment. It looked like Tara was trying to figure out what they could say to me. “Nature spirits were sent around the globe to return it.” \n“What do you mean, ‘return it’?” \nThey were quiet again. Tara still hadn’t looked me in the eyes. “You’re aware of the fact that the planet has been dying for a while now, right?” \n“Yes.” \nThey took a deep breath. “We spirits have lived here for a long time—some of us for thousands of years. I’m young by comparison. My stream only existed for a few hundred. But an order was sent to all of us. We were to sacrifice ourselves by putting the energy of our lives into creating natural disasters. It takes a lot of spiritual energy to create enough natural disasters to bring about the end of an era. And with our deaths new spirits would be born into a new, healthy world. When you found me, I had taken human form to enjoy my stream and this world one last time.” \n “So if I hadn’t found you right then and there, what would have happened?” \n“Everything here,” Tara motioned around, “would be underwater already.” \nI remember tears stinging my eyes. I remember being mad at myself. I remember scolding myself because I had known something was off about Tara. But I wasn’t even slightly mad at Tara. The only thing I could think of was the fear that they would leave me. That they would sacrifice themself to bring about a new world. \n“You’re not gonna do that though, right?”\nTara was silent. \n“You’re not gonna sacrifice yourself, right?” \nTears began falling down their face. \n“You’re not gonna leave me, right?” \nI was sobbing out those last few words. I reached across the table and grabbed their hands. \n“Please. You can stay with me. You don’t have to end the world. We can live together in the new world. I don’t care if everyone else is gone.” \nFinally Tara opened up their mouth to speak through their tears, “Spirits were not meant to stay in human form for this long. I am already growing weak. I was hoping not to tell you but today’s my last day-”\n“Then just go back to being a stream. I’ll come visit you every day. And every once in a while, you can take this form and we can be together.” \n“Silly humans,” Tara said sadly, “you don’t know anything about spirits, do you?” \nI was a mess of sloppy tears. “No. No, you’re right. I don’t know anything. I don’t understand why you have to do this.” \nThey leaned across the table and placed a soft kiss on my forehead. “We at least have today. Please don’t let this last day be a sad one.” \nAnd so on our last day together we ate a massive shitty diner meal and went back to my house to look at the stars from the roof. I showed Tara all of the constellations and told them the stories humans assigned each one. Tara wondered aloud if the stars have spirits on them, like them and their siblings. Somewhere along the way, I drifted off to sleep, despite wanting to spend every minute that I could with Tara. I swear, I remember hearing their voice say the words in my dream, “Thank you, Penelope An.” \nThe next morning, I woke up inside my house. I heard the heaviest rain I’d ever heard in my life outside, banging on the siding like hundreds of thousands of tiny hammers. The power was out. \nBy the end of that May, only a week after Tara left, my part of the world was no longer recognizable. Tara was right when they said that all of it would be underwater. The only thing that survived the rain, the hurricanes, the flooding, and freak tsunamis was my house. All of the news sites that flew by to cover the story of the ‘one house left after the storms’ said it was because I lived on top of a mountain. But I knew better. My beloved Tara had spared my house. \nThe spirits around the world caused similar natural disasters. In places with water spirits like Tara, there were hurricanes, floods, blizzards, tsunamis, snow avalanches, and more. Other parts of the world got hit by wind spirits. They were taken out by dust storms, tornados, and cyclones. Some places got land spirits and their end came with earthquakes and landslides. Still others got fire spirits. Volcanoes, wildfires, and lightning raged through those areas. There were many human survivors, people who managed to get lucky like me. But there were still more who didn’t survive the disasters. The Earth had truly reclaimed itself. \nNow I still remain at the top of my mountain. Instead of going for walks in the woods, I paddle a canoe over the ocean that surrounds my home. I suppose I should probably stop calling it a house on a mountain and call it a house on an island instead. It’s eerie, looking down from my canoe to see the trees I once walked through, submerged deep below me. \nEvery day I take care of Tara's small sprig of bamboo and go out onto the ocean, to get supplies, to see the world, and to search for the new water spirit that resides near my home." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Confusion ....\n\nGenre: asian-american\n\nWord Count: 1021\n\nPrompt:\n\nStart your story with an ending and work backward toward the beginning." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "\"Please don't go!\" I cried and said but he was already ready to go further. I could feel my heart beat raising with each step he was taking away from me , why does he has that effect on me when we clearly mentioned that we are just friends and that is going to stay forever. Truth hurts and it is true that I have feelings for him, I always had that's why I took initiatives for our friendship and tried to escalate it but it didn't worked out that well. I just didn't knew how to handle this because I have already lost my bff few months ago because of my stupidity and now losing him as well was just too much for me to handle but I had no choice.\nAron and I were parting ways because he had to go in Europe to continue his further studies of literature and I was stuck here without him, ten thousand thoughts were running in my mind the day he told me that he wanted to talk about something important, I knew this news will crush my heart but I had to know it anyways. \"Ri, I'm moving to Europe for 4 years to complete my graduation\" and my 1st reaction was \"what?!\" But that's what I told him, inside my mind I was thinking how will I survive without seeing his sunshine smile everyday. But the situation wasn't in my controll he had to go and I have to let him go.\nI know the story is ordinary but it's mine, that's what makes it special for me !\nAron and I went to the same college and it was him who had a crush on me 1st and then slowly being with him, spending time with him drew me closer towards him as well. Maisy (my bff) and I decided to go in a party and unfortunately Aron was also present there I didn't knew about it. Unfortunately, I got wasted and guess who saved me up! Aron, even when I was puking back and forth he stood there for me rubbed my back and gave me some water to drink, washed my face and I was feeling quite better. Then he carried me in his strong arms and that's when I completely lost control his intoxicating smell drew me closer to him and all I wanted to do was rip his clothes of and just feel him more, I wanted direct contact of our bodies and drinks gave me more strength, so I finally gathered some courage and kissed him, it was magical. No! no !no ! It wasn't the 1st time but we didn't did it often too it was just our complicated bond. Our tongues came in contact and he wanted to dominate but as I was high I wanted to rule here, so we both were trying to find dominance and that's where I heard an \"Ahem !\" Shit, it was Maisy, Maisy had a huge crush on Aron and I knew the drama is going to begin now.\nMaisy found Aron cute the day he entered in our school she used to drool over his social media even though she had a boyfriend ughhh anyways so she was the one because of whom Aron and I became friends. While playing one of the tricks on him where I was supposed to walk with her and she was going to crash his way but the opposite happened , I ended up crashing with him , she was a little mad but she understood it wasn't my fault. So after crashing with him he said me sorry and I saw his plump rosy lips moving Oh My God! he was cute he offered me his hand but I didn't took it! anyways I got up and walked away. Our first kiss happened when we were hanging out in my room yes that's when we became friends and we were teamed up to be partners and we decided to do it (the project) in my place. I played some soft music because that's my taste and it helped me alot with ideas and I cleaned my messy room but one tiny pin was still lying there and I didn't saw so when he reached outside of my gate my mom welcomed him and told him my room is upwards, as soon as I walked to open the door the pin pricked me and I opened the door quickly and started jumping on one leg and that's when he caught me around his arms and we both ended up falling upon each other during this process. His cologne was irresistible and I wanted to move away as soon as possible or else I knew I would have ended up doing some regretful sin but he didn't let me go and placed his rosy lips on mine. It was magical, we just couldn't take the tension anymore and did the deed but deep down I knew I was catching feelings for him but still wanted to be just friends.\n2 years back in my neighborhood a family was going to shift and they had two kids Aron and Alina, she was an infant, active sex life hahaha, I was so excited to meet all of them and the next day when their car pulled out of my home and when I opened the door there were 2 people one of them was younger near to my age with a cute face dressed in a casual way fair skin tone and rosy lips and the other was older with some white hair here and there although I won't deny he was handsome as well, he was dressed in a casual way as well with a small beard and a few tattoos scattered here and there. They both looked similar so I guessed they were both related a father and son I guess! While I was observing them, one of them gave his hand forward and said , \"Hi , I'm Aron Johnson.\" That's where all of this mess began from..." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: The Toad and The Princess\n\nGenre: asian-american\n\nWord Count: 2966\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about a prince or princess who is asked to give up something valuable as part of a deal to escape the world they come from." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "The haze of sunrise barely broke through the dark shadow surrounding Mari’s high school. Like ants to a nest, students trudged through the cold fog of an autumn dawn. Mari Ho trudged just a little slower than the rest. She knew once the fluorescent lights of the building hit her face, she’d have to hide it all. She’d have to hide the redness on her cheeks and around her eyes from crying on the drive to school. She’d have to hide the bags under her eyes from not getting enough sleep. She’d have to hide her anger at her parents—at her world. \nThat particular morning had been rough. After a long evening of work, she stayed up late writing essays, reading textbooks, studying for quizzes, and struggling through calculus homework. Then she woke up late. Mari’s mom screamed at her all morning for not getting up in time to make breakfast and lunches for the whole family. \nEvery morning it was something, though. Even if Mari thought she had taken care of everything, there was still room for critique. There was still room for her mom to remind her that she never even wanted her in the first place. \nMari paused in front of the glass doors and metal detectors leading into the school. She took a deep breath and plastered a smile onto her face. She had read somewhere that if you carry a fake smile long enough, sooner or later it becomes a real one. Either way, her smile was real enough for the people in the school. As she walked through, a few people stopped to say hi. Mari would ask them about their days, their activities, about their mental health. No one thought to ask Mari how she was doing, though. \nThe bells signaling homeroom began to ring out. Mari picked up her pace to get there in time. The biology teacher snapped at her to slow down. Finally, she arrived at her homeroom, slightly out of breath. \n“You’re late Miss Ho,” Mr. Espinoza, one of the algebra teachers, retorted without even looking up from his computer. The blue glow under his face lit it up in such a sinister manner. \nMari’s fellow students snickered at how Mr. Espinoza said Mari’s name. She heard whispers of “he called her a hoe,” and other variations. She wanted nothing more to shut all of them up, but she took another deep breath. \n“I’m sorry Mr. Espinoza. I made it just after the bell, though.” \n“Do not talk back to me, Miss Ho. I hope you’re ready to spend lunch in detention.” The students were laughing harder now. The beginnings of tears stung Mari’s eyes. They all sounded like a bunch of hyenas. \nMari just nodded and took her seat. \nSuddenly, the morning announcements rang out over the loudspeaker. The principal read out some quote about positivity, followed by the pledge, and finally came the announcements for Homecoming court. Names blended together to Mari, who was staring down at her desk, trying to maintain a happy face. \nMari was broken out of her stupor by cheering from the others in the class. A couple hands materialized and patted her on the back. She looked around, trying to piece together what was going on. \nOne person, his name was Neil, smiled at her, “Congrats Mari!” \nStupidly, Mari responded “For what?” \nEveryone laughed again. “On being one of the homecoming princesses!” \nDuring the walk to her calculus class people kept stopping her to tell her that they voted for her, that they hoped she’d be nominated, that they couldn’t believe she was one of the princesses. Mari, being Mari, kept her happy face plastered on and wondered if this was what princesses in fairy tales felt like. Having to put on a serene face for one’s subjects while you’re crumbling apart. Mari marveled at the fact that not one of them actually cared about her. Sure, they might have voted for her, but she was sure that if she let down her facade, they’d drop her within the blink of an eye. \nShe made it through the throngs of congratulatory students to her calculus class, sitting in her seat near the front of the room. Ms. Walker stood up to begin passing out the quizzes. Mari wasn’t ready for the quiz. She knew it fully well. There was so little time for her to study and the stress of taking care of her family on top of the events of that morning compounded on top of each other. It all began to overwhelm Mari. Her parents using her like some kind of unwanted servant, Mr. Espinoza assuming the worst of her, the quiz she was sure to fail, everyone’s fake smiles. It was too much. \n“Ms. Walker can I go get some water?” \nMs. Walker breathed in as if getting ready to tell her the classic teacher line: You should’ve gone during homeroom. Something in Mari’s face gave her pause. Could everyone see her falling apart? \n“Okay, Mari, do what you need.” Ms. Walker nodded and then went back to handing out quizzes. \nMari stumbled out of the class and to the water fountain down the hall. She stood silently over the fountain, letting her tears fall into it. \nBefore she realized what was going on, the fountain began to rumble. Water shot three feet high out of the faucet, throwing Mari back. The water from the fountain sparkled and gave off blue light as it cast itself in the shape of a beautiful woman. Her hair flowed like a river behind her and her dress pooled around her like a glimmering pond. Suddenly the being smiled and stretched a hand down toward Mari. \n“Hello Princess, what is it you seek?” \nMari could barely manage any words. “Who are you?” She whispered. \n“I am the Fairy of the Fountain.” If a person’s voice could sound like a babbling brook, hers did. “All fountains are my domain,” she began explaining, “I couldn’t ignore the tears of a princess falling in my domain.” \nMari opened her mouth to say she wasn’t a princess, but then she realized. Homecoming. She was a Homecoming princess.\n“So, I can wish for something?” \nThe Fairy of the Fountain made a face. “Do I look like a genie to you?” She composed herself a bit. “I mean, wishes aren’t exactly my thing. I will hear your problem and offer you a gift in return. You get to choose whether or not you’ll accept my gift.” \n“Oh. Sorry. It’s not one problem so much as it’s just my whole life. My parents never even wanted me. My ‘friends’ like me for something I’m not. I’m constantly working for little to no return. I just really want to escape this life.” \n“Escape? Oh that’s something I can do. But I must warn you, magic comes at a price.” \n“What do you mean?”\nThe Fairy of the Fountain looked down at her with translucent, shimmering eyes. “Here is my gift to you. You have a good soul and deserve a chance at a better life. I can transport you into another world, one where life is simpler and you can be happy. The only price is that you will not be a human in this world. You will remain a toad until-” \n“I’ll do it.” \n“I have not even finished.” \n“I mean I’ll let you finish but this sounds like a great deal so far. I get out of this world and I don’t have to deal with the problems of being a human? Sign me up.” \nThe fairy sighed. “Alright then. You shall live in the world of your dreams as a toad until you receive the kiss of royalty, after which you will return to your human form.” \n“Why is it always a kiss?”\n“Do you want to go to your dream world or not?” \nMari looked at the bleak halls of her school and thought of the bleak life that awaited her. \n“Yes. I accept your gift.”\nThe blue glow intensified around the Fairy of the Fountain, until it was almost blinding. Her musical voice reverberated, “Mari Ho, I give you the gift of your dream world.” The air around Mari vibrated with a strange energy. The light engulfed her and suddenly it felt like she was falling. Just as quickly, Mari felt a hard stop. \nMari looked around her. Everything seemed so tall— even the blades of grass came up higher than her head. Before her lay a vast (probably not that vast to humans) glittering pond covered in lily pads. Trees, impossibly massive, stretched on above Mari, sheltering the pond from the outside world. \nShe smiled, if toads could even smile. For the first time, she felt truly at peace. There were no expectations, no jobs, no need to pretend. She was a toad, and toad problems are a lot more manageable than human problems. Sure, Mari had to eat some insects, but she’d always wanted to try chocolate covered bugs anyway, as she’d heard they were great sources of protein. To her toad mouth, they tasted delicious. The hopping took some adjusting. Just the smallest contraction in her muscles sent her shooting forward and upward to heights (proportional to her) that she’d never manage as a human. \nAnd so, Mari lived on for the next five years as a toad, and she loved every second of it. \nIt was after those five years that suddenly a girl appeared in the forest. She was stumbling. The girl clearly couldn’t see very well—Mari supposed it was due to the tears coming down her face—because her light brown hair was full of twigs and leaves, her hands were covered in scrapes, and her dress was full of rips. Finally, the girl collapsed by the pond, staring into the water at her own face. Mari wondered why humans seemed to like looking at their faces while crying. Maybe it made them feel less alone in their sadness. \nKnowing that no one deserved to be alone with their sorrow, Mari hopped over toward the girl and stared at her. The girl didn’t notice. \nMari thought about it for a moment. Plenty of toads just stare at humans. She needed to do something different. So she put as much strength as she could into a single hop and leapt toward the girl’s head, caught one of the twigs from her hair in her mouth, and then landed to the side. The girl looked up for a moment in shock, then shook her head as if shaking off the notion that the toad before her could’ve done that on purpose. \nMari did it again, this time pulling a leaf from her hair, and again with another twig. The girl looked up and stopped crying for a moment in surprise. \n“Are you cleaning my hair?” The girl asked in amazement. Mari had to catch her breath at the sight of the girl’s eyes trained on her. Even through the tears and redness, the girl’s eyes were the most shocking golden color Mari had ever seen. Mari tilted her head to the side, hoping the girl would understand her inquisitive look. \n“Oh, you’re wondering what I’m doing here, aren’t you?” The girl reached up to wipe the tears off of her face. “If I’m being honest, I don’t even know where here is. I just started running and didn’t stop. I knew no one would find me in this forest.” \nMari blinked at the girl. \n“You’re probably wondering why I ran here in the first place. Promise me you won’t laugh?”\nMari blinked again. \n“My parents decided to marry me off. I know I have a duty to my people and all, and I’m already 22, but I always wanted to marry for love, you know? I don’t even know how to tell my parents that I,” she paused, her voice growing shakier as tears threatened to resurface. Mari hopped onto the girl’s knee, hoping it would make her feel less alone. The girl’s tears started to pour out again, “I don’t know how to tell them that I don’t even feel attracted to men.” She buried her face in her hands as tears shook her body. \nMari nuzzled the girl’s leg. \nThe girl gave Mari a small smile through her tears, “You’re a good listener, Toad.” \nThe girl continued to return to Mari’s pond. She referred to Mari as ‘Toad,” and would often talk to Mari, about her problems, about her joys, and about life. Sometimes she would bring sweets to Mari. Sometimes the girl would swim in the pond, and her hair would turn into a lovely halo when it touched the water. Other times, the girl would bring a book to read to Mari. \nAnd with every day that Mari sat with the girl, Mari grew to love the girl more and more. She spent her nights awake with excitement at the thought of seeing the girl again by the pond. One day, after about a month’s worth of visits, the girl finally introduced herself to Mari. \n“Oh yeah, you don’t know my name, do you Toad?” She smiled up at the slivers of sunlight peeking through the canopy of trees, “I’m Juliette Shortwall. I’m a princess, but that probably means nothing to you. To you I’m just another human.” Juliette lay down, resting her head on her hands. “I like that. Just being another human to you.” She paused again, then turned to look at Mari. “I wish I knew your name, Toad. I feel bad that I refer to you only as Toad.” Mari tried to get her body to shrug. She was just happy she finally had a name for her princess. Juliette. Of course, a girl like her deserved a beautiful name like Juliette. \nThe two of them continued to live on together in peace like that—Juliette would visit every couple of days and Mari would always be there waiting for her. Mari knew that her time with Juliette was limited, though. Juliette was supposed to marry some prince from another kingdom. Mari would get angry at the thought of it—at the thought that someone one day would take Juliette away from her. \n That day came within the year. Juliette had come to the pond, out of breath. “I had to get away, Toad. He’s horrible.” Juliette was laughing, though. \nJuliette’s laugh grew more and more bright. “You wouldn’t believe it, he acted as though I was just a piece of furniture he was getting out of this deal with our kingdom.” Juliette picked up Mari and looked into her eyes, “But I’ve decided. I’m not going to marry him. No one knows about this pond. I can hide here with you forever. This forest has plenty I can survive on. It’ll be just the two of us!” \n“The two of who?” A strange voice came from behind Juliette. She paled. \n“How did you find me?” Juliette turned to face the man. \n“Don’t worry, no one followed me. I’m the only one who knows you’re here.” Mari wasn’t sure, but something about the way he said those words was threatening. “What did you expect me to do? My betrothed was leaving in the middle of the festivities. I had to follow you.” \nHe was walking forward toward Juliette the whole time. With each step he took forward, Juliette moved further back. Her back was against a tree and there was nowhere further for her to retreat. He forcefully grabbed her hair. “Now, what’s all this about avoiding our marriage?” \nMari fumed at the sight of him touching Juliette’s hair like that. She leapt forward onto his face, sending him stumbling backward. He yanked Mari off of his face and threw her against a stone, knocking the breath out of her. Mari was sure she heard several bones in her snap. She collapsed on the ground, unable to move. \nJuliette’s eyes went wide. With space to move, she grabbed a nearby tree branch and struck the prince in the head, knocking him out. As soon as she was sure she was safe, she rushed to Mari’s side. \n“Little Toad, are you okay?” She cradled Mari in her hands. Tears began to rush down her cheeks. All Mari could think was how sad it was, that the last thing she’d ever see was her princess crying. “You saved me, Toad. Thank you.” Juliette hugged Mari’s small form to her chest as sobs began to move through her. “Thank you. Thank you.” She kept just repeating those words. And then she lifted Mari up to her face, and planted a kiss on her cheek. \nSuddenly, the blue light of the Fairy of the Fountain surrounded Mari. Some invisible force lifted her body into the air as the magic swirled around her. Juliette looked on in wonder as suddenly the form of her small toad friend transformed before her eyes into a human girl with black hair falling down her back and dark brown eyes smiling at her. \nMari, on the other hand, was mortified. She was fully naked in front of Juliette. Still, she couldn’t help but smile. Mari was human and she could finally hug Juliette, and talk to Juliette, and tell Juliette she loved her. Mari reached down to grab the coat off of the prince lying on the ground, put it on, and then turned back to face Juliette. \n“Toad, is that you?” Juliette ventured. Suddenly her face turned bright red, “Or, I guess, you probably don’t want to be called Toad anymore do you?” \nMari laughed and wrapped her arms around Juliette in the tightest, most love-filled hug she could manage. “My name’s Mari, but you can call me whatever you want.”" } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Lola-Beans Magic Potions\n\nGenre: bedtime\n\nWord Count: 1498\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story about an artist whose work has magical properties." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Lola-Bean was all packed with new summer clothes in her Ballerina Backpack. She was going on a magical vacation to Florida, to the beach with Gramma. She had packed two new floral bathing suits Mommy had bought at the store and her pair of water shoes to walk the beach. This was her first time traveling on a plane with Gramma and she was very excited to share this adventure.\nGramma had told her of the wonders she would find on the beach. Strange creatures with names like starfish, something called a jelly fish and crazy enough, a sea creature that was named after a horse! How odd she thought to herself, a sea creature named after something that shined bright in the sky at night, another named after the fruity spread Mommy put on her peanut butter and jelly sandwich at lunchtime and something named after an animal with a long tail and flowing mane with four legs that walked the earth! Gramma told her if she was very lucky, she could possibly find all three. They had to get up very early in the morning to explore and look for them, being careful not to disturb these creatures if they were on the sand but to place them back in the ocean if the tide brought them in to shore. Gramma explained that the tide was the way the ocean kept time. The ocean water rose and ebbed according to the sun, the moon and how our earth moved. The tides would create currents which would rise and fall, flowing towards the shore and away from the ocean. These currents created by the tides, would push and pull, forcing the sea creatures to be deposited onto the sand if they got caught in the tides. This was all according to someone called Mother Nature. Lola-Bean was hoping to find some of these creatures and use her magical potions to help them get back into the ocean if they needed help. She was sure Mother Nature was a nice person and wouldn't mind if she helped the sea creatures.\nLola-Bean was so excited thinking about her vacation with Gramma that she almost forgot to pack her newest magic potions. You see, Lola-Bean considered herself a fairy who made all her magic potions using tiny bottles, flowers and colored glitter with beautiful ribbons Gramma had given her. She worked very hard on her potions and was very careful she made only the brightest potions that would help people. Lola-Bean worked on these potions that very afternoon so she would be confident she would be able to help anyone she met along the way that needed help. Maybe, she thought as she skipped up the stairs to her room, they would also work on the sea creatures they would find on the beach that needed help. Wouldn't that be amazing Lola-Bean thought to herself as she ran back to her fairy tent and gathered up her small precious bottles. Lola-Bean was known in her neighborhood for her special potions and loved to help people by casting helping magic spells. If your head hurt, she would use her yellow potion to cure it, if your tummy ached, the purple potion worked every time, but her most special potion was the perfect pink potion. This was her happy potion. Lola-Bean had used some pink flower pedals from Mommy's roses, and some bright pink glitter from her magic kit to create the perfect pink happy potion. Gathering her bottles she placed them carefully in her potion bag and hurried out the door. Gramma was waiting downstairs with a big smile, and Lola-Bean, determined, with her wild curly blonde hair and bright brown eyes had a plan in mind, a plan that included her latest bottle, her perfect pink happy potion.\nMom along with Violet, Lola-Beans younger sister drove Gramma and Lola-Bean to the airport. After many hugs and kisses they waved goodbye shouting have a fun vacation and they both entered the waiting area to board the plane for Florida. Lola-Bean then told Gramma about her plan to use the perfect pink happy potion. Lola-Bean was so excited to be going to the beach she wanted everyone else to be happy too. Gramma laughed and said there was probably someone very special that needed the perfect pink happy potion today and all we had to do was look around to see who might need help.\nAs they headed the waiting area for the plane Gramma noticed a woman at the counter with a worried look on her face. Gramma pointed her out to Lola-Bean remarking the woman was a flight attendant and looked like she could use your help today. She looks very sad to me. What do you think Lola-Bean, do you think you could help her today? Lola-Bean with a smile on her face, walked up to the worry looking flight attendant at the counter and asked what her name was and if she was indeed in need of a happy potion this very minute? The lady replied her name was Donna. With a sad look on her face Donna explained she was trying to get all the passengers on the plane in time to leave and it was difficult to find seats for everyone. All the passengers were excited to go to Florida she said, and she wanted to make sure she helped them get there safely and on time, since that is what flight attendants do. Donna sadly said yes, I could surely use some happy magic today! Gramma informed Donna that Lola-Bean was a special fairy and made different potions to help people, and that Lola-Bean had a very special perfect pink happy potion that would work! Lola-Bean happily took out her pink happy potion, asking Donna to close her eyes and proceeded to sprinkle some drops near the flight attendant. Magically, Donna's eyes lit up and a bright smile spread across her face. Donna instantly became so happy, and it showed by the big smile now spread across her face. Donna was so grateful she gave Lola-Bean some cookies and pretzels to eat on the plane. That magic perfect pink happy potion worked every time Lola-Bean thought as she boarded the plane. She couldn't wait to get to Florida and see if there were any sea creatures that might need her help also!\nThe next morning after they had breakfast of pancakes at the gazebo near the water, Lola-Bean and Gramma headed for the beach area. Wearing her new pink and purple bathing suit Lola-Bean strapped on her water shoes and headed purposely toward the sand. In one hand she carried her perfect pink happy potion and for emergencies. Gramma had also given her a special shell gathering bag that morning and Lola-Bean was anxious to fill it with interesting seashells and Lola-Bean carried that in the other hand. As they both walked nearer to the shoreline, Gramma narrowed her eyes noticing something odd, shaped like a star floating near the edge of the water. Bending down they both examined the sea creature. Gramma asked Lola-Bean if she knew what it was? No, exclaimed Lola-Bean, I've never seen anything quite like it! Gramma proclaimed that today was Lola-Beans lucky day because they just found a starfish!\nGramma explained that starfish floated in the water and moved in the water by hundreds of tube feet on their arms and bodies and that they couldn't swim. Mother Nature and the current must have pushed the sea creature almost out of the water. Gramma told her that they weren't really a fish, that they were also called sea stars. Starfish usually had 5 arms and that they could live up to 35 years in the right conditions. Gramma said they couldn't pick it up because the sea creature wouldn't be able to breathe out of the water. Starfish had tiny eyes on the top of each of their arms but couldn't see very well.\nLooking at the five eyes the creature had, Lola-Bean instantly thought that the starfish looked five times as sad and desperately needed help. Lola-Bean knew she would be the one to do it. Telling Gramma to stand back, Lola-Bean opened her bottle of perfect pink happy potion and sprinkled some above the starfish while it floated on Grammas hand in the water. All five of the starfish's arms started to wiggle at once in delight and both of them thought the starfish looked instantly happier. Lola-Bean couldn't have been happier if she had used her perfect pink happy potion on herself.\nAs Gramma gently released the starfish it seemed as though as it floated away it waved goodbye, happy to be free back in the warm waters of the ocean. Lola-Bean and Gramma waved back, smiling at a job well done, turned back to the beach to find the next adventure to use the perfect pink happy potion again. It was certainly Lola-Beans lucky day." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: The Spring Awakening\n\nGenre: asian-american\n\nWord Count: 2017\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about a character coming out of a long hibernation (either literal or metaphorical)." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "The clap of thunder was still ringing in Rick's ears as Jim walked away. The conversation had started out simply enough. They had been arguing - it felt like they'd been arguing a lot lately - about what had happened that day. Or rather, what hadn't happened. They were supposed to have gone out with a group of friends on a socially distanced hike. Take some time away, out in nature. Out of nowhere, the morning of, Jim had decided that he wasn't in the mood for a walk.\n\"What's been going on with you lately? You were just complaining about how we never get to hang out with friends since the pandemic, and now you don't even want to go out?\" Rick asked.\n\"I don't know why you're getting on my case about this all of a sudden. If I don't want to go, I don't want to go,\" Jim had said, a little testily.\n\"Well, that's fine, but we promised we'd go. I just confirmed with Donna last night after checking in with you like six times yesterday.\"\n\"Well, I just changed my mind; it happens sometimes! Why are you getting on my case?\"\n\"Well, why are you even yelling at me? I'm just trying to figure out what's been going on with you. You're more moody than anything lately, and I just don't get why. Is it your job? Are you stressed out about work?\"\n\"Well yeah, it's my job. Why do you always bring up my job? I fucking hate it, but one of us has work if we're going to keep all this going; all the hikes, the mimosas, the wine,\" Jim said, his arms flying about in aggravation.\n\"It's just one hike, and you know I'm trying to find a job! I just finished up my masters, and I've been looking, you know that. And you know I feel like shit relying on you for money and stuff, but-\"\n\"No, forget it, that's not even the problem. I'm not mad about that. I'm just frustrated, you know, and we haven't had sex in months, I'm just-\"\n\"Well fuck Jim! I'm sorry! You know the anti-depressants kill my sex drive-\"\n\"Jesus Rick, I'm sorry, it's not even about that either I'm just-\"\n\"You're just what, Jim? Fucking say it! We're supposed to be talking about some of this shit in therapy, but I just feel like we aren't really getting anywhere. We never really talk about anything real, you know. Every time I bring up some \"controversial\" topic, you shut it down with a joke; or you brush it off like it's not a \"real issue.\" Damnit, Jim, I told you just last week that I was nervous about my parents because they live so close to Chinatown in Boston. I try to talk to you about how I'm feeling, and when I tell you about the uptick in crimes since the pandemic, it's like you aren't really taking me seriously. You always say some crap like, 'oh well, I don't see why this has got to be a political thing, as long as we keep it out of politics, it can be fine, it's not worth arguing about,' but these are my fucking feelings, Jim. But look at you. You can't even articulate what's bothering you, so how the hell are we even supposed to have a legitimate conversation about anything if you don't even know who you are?\"\n\"Well, that's not fair.\"\n\"Well, neither is throwing my unemployment in my face. Like I'm stressed enough, I don't need your judgment too. But that's not even the point,\" Rick said, rubbing his forehead exasperated, \"what's going on with you, Jim. You need to talk to me or talk to someone, but something's been off with us for months, and I don't get what it is.\"\n\"I'm just sick of sharing you with everyone else!\" Rick looked at Jim, stunned.\n\"What are you talking about?\"\n\"You're fucking out there dating like ten other people-\"\n\"I only have two other partners; you know that,\" Rick interrupted.\n\"Well, you don't seem to have any time or energy for me. It's like you're always out with someone else, you're always on your phone with your friends or one of your new partners, and when I try to talk to you, you're always in a funk. If you're so fucking depressed, how the hell is it that you're able to find so much time for everyone else but me?\" A raindrop hit Rick smack on the cheek, making him flinch.\n\"So is it the polyamory? We've talked about this so many times before; we tried inviting someone into the mix, but, surprise, surprise, we fought that weekend too. I told you, you could see other people, that we could have an open relationship-\"\n\"I am seeing someone,\" the words tumbled out of Jim's mouth, and he looked like he wanted to take them back immediately.\n\"Well, okay, how's that? Do you feel guilty? Is that what this is about?\"\n\"Well, it's been fine, but he's not into polyamory either,\" Jim said, more sure of himself.\n\"Well...does he know that you have a boyfriend?\" Rick asked, slightly irritated.\n\"Well, no, I never mentioned it,\" Jim replied, matter-a-factly.\n\"Okay, so how long have you been speaking?\" Rick asked, trying to keep the edge out of his voice and wondering what Jim had meant by \"either.\"\n\"Well, it's been three months now.\"\n\"What the actual fuck, Jim. How can you be talking to someone for three months, who doesn't want a poly relationship, and they don't know that you're already in a relationship. On top of that, that's not fair to me that you've been speaking with someone for three fucking months, and you didn't think it might be important to mention it to me. I tell you all the time when I'm speaking with someone new, what the hell? Are you just friends? Am I just overreacting here, Jim? I don't understand what's going on,\" Rick said, not able to contain his frustration any longer.\n\"Well, no, we've slept together.\"\n\"How many times?\" Rick said, steely.\n\"I don't know, a few.\"\n\"Like how many fucking times Jim.\"\n\"I don't know. I don't fucking keep count.\"\n\"How the hell not, or are you just having that much sex?\"\n\"Well, we certainly aren't,\" Jim said. Rick turned away and walked a few paces back towards their front door to steel himself.\n\"So were you ever planning on telling me that you've been having sex with some strange man and then coming back home to me like nothing's different other than your fucking terrible attitude, or were you just planning on keeping this little affair going?\"\n\"Well, I didn't see how it was any different than what you do with your polyamory,\" Jim said, shrugging.\n\"The difference is that I fucking communicate with you, Jim. I fucking tell you if I'm going out with someone new, if I'm talking with someone new, I fucking check in with you to ask you if you're okay with this or if we need to change something. I tell you if I'm sleeping with someone new, for fucks sake.\"\n\"Yeah, well, I hate that you are fucking dating two other people. I don't want to know anything about it. And then you're having great sex with someone else? We've been dating for three fucking years, and we haven't had sex for two of them. What the hell, Rick? That's not healthy.\"\n\"It's not fucking healthy that you're dating someone on the side and not telling me about it. That's not polyamory; that's fucking cheating, Jim. The fact that you've been hiding this from me makes it cheating. We fucking see a couple's therapist. How the hell has it never occurred to you to bring up the fact that you're seeing someone else in one of our sessions. You were the fucking one who even brought up that we don't talk about anything real in sessions anymore, how you didn't feel like we were getting anywhere, and then you go and keep this big secret from me. Do you even want to be with me anymore?\"\n\"Well, we don't fucking have sex, we apparently can't communicate since we've been in fucking therapy for two years and we're still not having sex, we're both angry all the fucking time, all we do is argue, so I don't fucking know. I'm tired. I'm fucking tired of fighting for someone who doesn't even seem to want to be with me.\"\n\"What are you saying, Jim?\"\n\"I'm saying we should just stop lying to ourselves when we tell everyone that we're dating. Let's just be honest here; we haven't been dating for years. This isn't a relationship Rick, not if you can't even bear it when I want to be intimate with you, but you don't seem to have a problem with anyone else. God, I finally see what Sky has been saying for months. That's his name, Skylar. The one I've been seeing, he's a sex therapist. He actually convinced me to start seeing someone on my own a few weeks ago. I need physical touch in a relationship, that's just how I feel validated, and when you pull away from me, it feels like you're rejecting me. It feels like you've been rejecting me for two years now, and then when you told me that you'd started sleeping with your other partners, it just felt like something is wrong with me, but it's not me. It's us; we're not good for each other. You've been trying to people-please me for two years to fix this, but we can't fix this; you have to stop trying to fix us; weekends together for \"us time\" just isn't enough for me anymore. I know what I want. I wanted you. Just you, but it doesn't mean anything if I'm not feeling emotionally validated in this. \n\"You say you're putting me first, but it doesn't feel like that. Come on, Ricky, be honest. You're not in love with me; you've afraid of being alone, and you've been trying to lose yourself in this relationship. Face it; it's never been about us. You tried the 'sexy thing' for a year, trying to be the perfect boyfriend to validate you. We only do \"us\" time because you're too wrapped up trying to be the perfect person to a bunch of strangers that you don't even have time to be present for those who are closest to you, let alone yourself. You spread yourself too damn thin that you never have enough time for me. It shouldn't be this hard. I don't need to be a priority or anything, but we should spend time together because we both want to, not because of a fucking calendar reminder. Can you honestly tell me that you have space to love me when you don't even know how to love yourself? Like, what do you even want here? It feels like we're just together because you're afraid of being alone.\" Jim walked past a stunned Rick to opened the front door. He went into the mudroom and grabbed an umbrella.\n\"I'm going out. I don't know when I'll be back. To answer your question, I think I'm saying that I'm done. We're through. Don't wait up.\" Jim opened his umbrella and walked towards his car parked a ways back in the condominium parking lot. Rick watched him go. The rain was pounding heavily on the awning above his head. Rick crouched to the ground, sitting in the open doorway to their apartment as the tears came running down his face as fast as the rain had started falling.\n\"Of fucking course, he starts to go to therapy when someone else fucking tells him to,\" Rick whispered to himself. Rick sat there, crying. The weight he'd been carrying trying to \"fix\" him and Jim shifted to the lump in his throat and the heavy, crinkly feeling he felt in his chest that started to open up as he sobbed." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: The Girl and the Empty Moon\n\nGenre: bedtime\n\nWord Count: 1686\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story where the laws of time and space begin to dissolve." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "There was once a Girl who loved the Sun with all her heart. And she loved the Moon with all her soul. She loved the Skies with their twin faces, whom in the background watched over all.\nThe Sun shone her rays when she was happy and warmed the Girl, the Moon, and the Skies. But when she was sad or angry, she withdrew her warmth and all felt it’s loss.\nThe Moon could coax the Sun out of her wrath with his charm and light. His laughter was contagious; his need for adoration so great that he produced a magnetic pull. The Sun, Girl, and Skies were waves drawn to the Moon.\nThe Girl lost herself to the Sun’s warmth, the Moons pull, and the Skies’ embrace. For their love and power felt greater than she, or so she thought. The Girl was content to be just the girl. She was content to praise the Sun, attend and worship the Moon, and be humbled by the Skies.\nThen one day something new began to grow! Little pops of color began to spread through the Girl’s world. They were small and fragile and absolutely stunning. The Girl could not believe her heart could be so full by the New.\nThe Sun was at first cautious and unsure, not knowing whether to shine or hide. The Skies watched with a wary eye but their embrace remained open as always. \nHowever, the Moon, forever mischievous, confided in the ever-attending Girl that the creation of the New was his. He rejoiced in the New’s beauty and named them Flowers. \nEventually seeing that the Moon was joyous and accepting, the Sun came to welcome the Flowers. Their color brought her joy. She was generous with her warmth and continually shined. Upon seeing the Moon’s draw to the Flowers, the Skies became less wary and watched the Flowers with an appreciative eye. The Moon was proud of himself and congratulated himself on the creation. And so, the Girl’s world was full of harmony which filled her heart with even more love.\nThe Girl continued to praise the Sun, worship the Moon, and be humbled by the Skies. But now the Flowers gave her something else to do for they were fragile and needed tending. The Girl felt a kinship to the Flowers’ small delicacy for she was small and delicate too in comparison to the Sun, Moon, and Skies. She admired the Flowers’ resilience to grow in the big world.\nSo, the Girl made sure the Sun stayed happy so the Flowers could bask in the Sun’s warmth. She made sure the Moon was attended so he would continue to create the Flowers. She made sure the Skies were content so they would embrace all.\nHowever, the Moon began to feel less worshipped for the Girl was busy nurturing the Flowers and spent less time with the Moon. He felt less of the Sun’s attention for she needed no coaxing to shine knowing her warmth helped the Flowers thrive. The Moon felt annoyed for the Skies shed tears of joy watching the Flowers grow. The tears nurished the Flowers but left the Moon cold and damp. The Moon felt ignored by the Flowers too. He wanted them to worship as the Girl did. He wanted their attention and adoration in honor of their creation. \nWhat the Moon did not know was that because the Flowers were created from his light, they recognized what was behind the charm, the contagious laughter, the shine. Emptiness. They did not feel his magnetic pull unlike the Girl, Sun, and Skies. The Flowers were immune to the magnetism and were able to stand on their own with support from the Girl.\nThe Moon’s emptiness grew. It grew and grew more. It grew until it was the only thing he felt. He became desperate for the Girl’s worshipping. Desperate for the Sun’s attention. Desperate to feel the Skies’ dry embrace. He finally realized he would never receive the Flowers’ adoration, so he ignored them and set out to regain what he felt he lost by their creation. \nThe Moon’s emptiness became tangible. Instead of creating more beautiful Flowers, his creations became prickly and prolific smothering everything they touched. The girl realized the New-New creation wasn’t something delicate or resilient or full of life. It was the Moon’s emptiness incarnate. She pulled the prickly things desperate to save her beloved Flowers and her world of harmony. She loved the Moon despite his emptiness. She loved the Flowers. She loved the Sun. She loved the Skies. But all were in danger of the emptiness.\nAs the Girl worked, the Moon worked too. He began to feed the Sun, Skies and even the Girl stories of the Flowers’ haughtiness to the prickly things. He said the flowers thought themselves superior to not only the New-New but also to the Sun, Skies, and Girl. The Girl knew this not to be true. She knew the Flowers were fighting for survival from the Moon’s emptiness, not declaring themselves better than all. The Girl tried to convince the Sun and Skies that the Moon was truly empty and the emptiness was destroying the world but the Moon’s pool on the Sun and Skies was too strong. \nThe Sun shouted, “Girl you must worship the moon! What will happen to the moon if he is not adored? Flowers, you must acknowledge the pull of the Moon for he is your creator!” \nThe Skies softly pleaded, “Girl, the Moon is wanting of your attending. If you do not attend him, this life will end. Why can you not think of the us, the Skies, or of the Sun? The Flowers will learn to live with the prickly things.”\nThe Girl was too stunned to sing the Sun’s praises for she could not believe the Sun could not see the Moon’s emptiness taking over the land. The bright colored flowers no longer had the same effect on the Sun, so she withdrew her rays. The Sun hoped the New and the New-New would cease without her warmth and she could return to the world of Girl, Skies, and Moon.\nThe Skies were wrong about the Flowers. The Flowers could not live with the empty prickly things and they were afraid the Sun would forever withhold her warmth. The Girl tried with all her might to protect them but the Flowers knew something needed to change in order for their survival. So, they shed their petals and let their seeds drift in the wind to transform into their own creation. The Girl drifted with them, available to nurture if needed. \nNo matter where the Flowers drifted or how they transformed, the Moon always found them again and again. In turns the Moon shouted the Flowers’ malicious indifference at the Sun and Skies, then begged the Flowers for attention. He even tried to entice the Flowers with moon dust. The Flowers were not fooled and relied on their own resilience and the Girl’s nurturing. But it was not enough and the Flowers began to wither, suffocated by the empty New-New.\nFinally, the Girl could not take the heart ache any longer. She wanted the Sun to shine, she wanted the Moon to have at least some of his emptiness filled, she wanted the Skies to once again embrace all, and she wanted the Flowers to flourish without the threat of the prickly things. So, she called on the Skies. She asked the Skies to take the Sun and Moon forever in their embrace high into the world where the Sun could shine always and the Moon could not create. The Girl knew she may not be able to feel the all-encompassing warmth of the Sun as she once did. She would never be able to worship the Moon again. And the embrace of the Skies would be more like a light caress rather than an inundation of feeling. She endured for she found her own resilience. \nSeeing that the world no longer held the harmony it once did, the Skies agreed with the Girl. In their embrace they convinced the Sun and Moon that high in the world was best for the three to be. First the Sun was distraught as she did not want to be away from the Girl but, in the end, the Moon’s pool was too great and the Sun agreed to go. The Moon was, by this time, too empty to argue. So, the three traveled high into the world.\nWith the Moon so high in the world, he could no longer create the prickly things. They withered and died without the Moon’s emptiness to feed them.\nBut oh, how the Flowers flourished! They no longer needed a creator for they already had transformed into their own being. They also no longer needed nourishment from the Girl and realized the Girl also needed to transform into her own being. This was something the Flowers knew the Girl needed to do on her own. The strong, resilient, and beautiful Flowers told the Girl goodbye and wished the Girl happiness. \nSo, the Girl left to find a new land in the world. As she traveled, she felt the light warmth of the sun, the gentle caress of the skies, and when she glanced at the moon high in the world, she hoped he found a way to fill his emptiness and be worthy of worship. But never by her. When the girl was no longer a girl but a lady, she grew tired of traveling. She came upon a land with a smiling Sea. The water called to her, so she told him her story. When she cried, his salty warm breeze mingled with her tears until they felt as one. His gentle waves helped her keep her bearings whenever she felt lost or alone. She told the smiling Sea of the Flowers and he encouraged her, with his help, to create her own. Within this new content, harmonious place the Lady and the Sea began to cultivate a garden with love in their hearts." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: The Spring Power\n\nGenre: asian-american\n\nWord Count: 1162\n\nPrompt:\n\nSet your story at a park during a spring festival." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "I smile when I look around me. The place is filled with bright flowers and children running around. They are enjoying themselves, as they should. They just finished their exams. I look over at my 5-year-old cousin, who’s trying to play with 12-year-olds. She’s copying everything they are doing, which makes me giggle. The place is decorated with lanterns. It feels good to be back in China. It’s a new year, finally. I’ve been waiting for this terrible year to get over. “Jenny!” Someone calls as I turn around. “Jennifer Wang, where have you been?” My mother shouts, running to me. I flinch at the name because I’m used to people calling me Jenny, not my real name Jennifer. She sure must be mad at me then. Then it hit me. “Oh my god, mom, I was supposed to help grandma in hanging the lanterns!” I say. She raises one eyebrow and walks away when someone calls her. I walk slowly to my grandmom’s shop, afraid I would get scolded. “You American brat! I needed your help. The show is starting soon.” My grandmom says when I come to her. “Yeah, sorry grandma, I was looking at Mei play-” I stop talking. Mei. Oh no I left her alone! I start running back to the park she was playing in, ignoring my grandmother’s constant calls. Thankfully, when I reach she’s still playing with those kids. I pick Mei up and she instantly starts crying. She kicks her legs and says she wants to play more, though it looked like the kids were relieved I took her. I don’t know Chinese that well since I was born and raised in America. Some of my relatives only speak Chinese, so it is hard for me. Anyway, spring starts today! Spring is my favourite season because I love flowers. \nHere is the moment I’ve been waiting for! The fireworks. The whole day was filled with numerous events and parades, and it has already become night. I run to my parents and look up, ready to cover my ears. Then, suddenly we hear a loud beep. All I can hear is mutters around me. I close my eyes as the mutters get louder. What’s happening? \nThe mutters become silent all of a sudden, so I open my eyes to look around. There’s no one. Is this a dream? It feels like one. I start running on the streets, shouting for my family every two seconds. Great, I didn’t bring my phone too. I slap myself as tears threaten to fall. Get yourself together, Jenny. You’re a 19-year-old, not a 3-year-old. Just take a deep breath in and it’ll be all fine. I breathe in and look around me only to find no one else. Where is everyone? I try shutting my eyes again. Murmurs were heard. Wait, what? Do I have some sort of ability or something? I open my eyes and close them again. No sound heard. Oh my god, this is fun! But I better stop, what if I make people actually disappear. I close and open my eyes one last time and turn to my family. “Where were you guys?” I ask my mother. She looked at me weirdly before saying, “What do you mean where were we? We were right here. You were zoning out.” She replies. \n“Wait, so you mean I was here only the whole time?” I ask, clarifying. She nods. Strange, but fun. “Jenny jiejie!” I hear someone say. Jiejie is older sister in Chinese. I’m not really used to that name, because everyone calls me Jenny back in the US. I see little Mei running to me. \n“Where were you, jiejie?” She asks, pouting. I furrow my eyebrows. “I couldn’t see anyone for one second, and then I could see them again.” She says. I’m surprised she knows so much English for a four-year-old, but even more surprised hearing what she said. She couldn’t see anyone too? Did anything happen in the park? But we’re right in front of the park. I carry her and walk to the park. But obviously, I don’t know what I’m going to do. I look around and seeing nothing extraordinary, I turn back. I close my eyes once more and open them. Everyone’s still there. I try once more but nothing happens. I tap Mei, gesturing her to close her eyes too. When we both close them together, I can’t hear anyone. Oh, so we both should close our eyes. I wanna know who did this. Who gave us this strange ability? We hung out near the park for some more time before going back home. Turns out the fireworks had happened but I was ‘zoning out'. Aww, I missed my favourite part of the day. The day after tomorrow I have to leave for the US again. \nI walk downstairs the next morning, yawning with every two steps. “Good morning!” My father says, flipping a page of the newspaper. I hum in response. Then I remember. The ability, or whatever it’s called. I close my eyes, smiling to myself. Nothing happens. Maybe I can only do this with Mei. I run to her. “Mei, you want to try that thing we did with each other yesterday?” I whisper to her. She widens her eyes and nods. I give out my hand and walk outside with her, leaving others confused. “Okay, ready?” I ask. She nods once more. We both shut our eyes. Nothing happens. We still hear the voices of people on the streets. We both open at the same time, Mei looking just as confused as I am. “What happened to our superpower?” Mei asks, looking at me. It’s cute how she calls it a superpower. \n“I don’t know,” I answer truthfully. “Let’s try once again?” I ask her. She gives a thumbs-up sign and we do it again. Nothing. Then we open our eyes and see a red piece of cloth flying in front of us. Mei runs after it, forcing me to follow her. The cloth lands on the slide in the park, where Mei was playing yesterday. I pick it up, realizing there’s something written on it. \nIt’s written in Chinese, but I can read and understand the language fully. \n‘May you shout, cry or sing, the ability will only return in the festival of spring.’ I read out loud. Mei looks down, fidgeting with her fingers. I tap her back and she looks at me. “It’s okay, we don’t need this silly power. We can make people disappear by shouting.” I say and wink at her. She giggles and we walk back home, hand in hand. When my family asks where we had gone, I say it’s our secret and smile at Mei. She names the power 'the spring power'. They once again look at us weirdly but we don’t care. We’re laughing our heads off. But I secretly wish for New year to come again." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: The enchanted typewriter\n\nGenre: bedtime\n\nWord Count: 1041\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story where a regular household item becomes sentient." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "In a rather small and unusual town,there was a typewriter quite different from most but known by many, it was known by the people as the 'Enchanted Typewriter'. Rumours spread that this typewriter wasn't a normal type of typewriter at all, it looked normal and sounded normal but to the people it could weave stories into the night skys . It wasn't in need of paper, but was able to merge it's creations into reality itself. This Typewriter was old,an old relic as some have described, with a shiny body and sharp white keys with a gloss painted over the top reflecting beautifully under the sun. The Typewriter sat in a small quaint room,inside the little antique shop,perched on a wooden desk in the corner of the room.\nOne day a small,gentle boy names Sam, with soft brown hair and rosey red cheeks, with eyes as blue as the sea,visited the peculiar antique shop eyeing down all of the treasures and strange objects. Sam showed little interest to anything else in the shop other then the Typewriter, who the owner claimed he felt a strong connection to. Sam was dressed in a light blue button up shirt and jeans, he would spend most evenings after a long day of school browsing through the shelf, dreaming of stories he could create and friends he could make through his wonderful character ideas.One crisp evening as the sun was setting and the sky was caked in beautiful reds and oranges, Sam's little fingers danced across the typewriters keys, moving gently and swiftly whiles barely making a sound. Suddenly, all grew quite, the last but of light from the sky had faded and a beautiful shimmering light appeared from all angles of thr typewriter. The Typewriter had begun to write on its own, not just on paper no doubt but also into the air, weaving a tale of magic and wonder.\nWhen the last words the Typewriter wrote had formed into the air, the soft shimmering glow had faded and the Typewriter fell silent. The room was now left against the battle in the warmth of the setting sun. However, Sam and the few other customers inside the shop who witnessed the marvelous event,knew that something truly magical had occured.\nDays had passed, the people of this small unusual town had began to notice small, enchanting changes. Flowers now bloomed more vividly then before, the river filled with pure, clear water and the air hummed with a gentle magic. It was almost as if the story woven by the Typewriter had seeped into the very fabric of the town.The town was beautiful, everybody was in love with it. The streets where busy and there was wonderful music playing everywhere,it was such an amazing sight.The magical typewriter became a legend to all, a symbol of the towns unique charm and the magic that lived among its people,in the soft crisp air. Sam,with his newfound friend, the Typewriter, continued to craft amazingly beautiful stories that brought a touch of enchantment to the world around them.\nChapter 1\nDiary of the enchanted Typewriter: Entry one-The calm before the storm\nDear diary,Today I woke in a cozy room inside a small antique shop, the kind that whispers tales through its treasures. Ones from years ago, others from even longer into the past.Im an old typewriter myself, still looking brand new with a ravens black coat of paint and a fine gloss to finish,gleaming in the morning light that peaks in through the small window in the corner of the room for a few hours a day.The small shops with its ancient wooden beams and dust ridden shelves, seemed like such s calm and relaxing resting place for such a relic as myself.\nA small little boy came in Today, they called him Sam. He's got a head full of hair and sharp blue eyes full of curiosity. When he looked at me I noticed a spark of interest in his eyes as if he could see the stories I've witnessed. I must admit I have seen many in my time, but there is something about Sam that makes me think he's not just any old visited. He's special.\nThis evening,under the warm of the setting sun, Sam sat before me. His fingers danced gracefully upon my keys and I calming jolt of electricity. The room filled with a shimmering light, and I began to write,not on paper,but in the air. It was almost as if I was weaving a magical spell, a magical tale that seemed to come alive before my very typewriter eyes.The fine people of this town are talking about the changed that they have see! The flowers are now brighter and smell beautifully, the river now clearer and filled with water, and there is a gentle hum of magic in the crisp air. It's almost as if the story that I wove has seeped into the very essence of this unusual town. I wonder if they realize that it was just a typewriter, an old relic like myself, that brought about such enchantment.\nPeople say that I'm a legend now, the enchanted typewriter, who would have known? I've become more then a Typewriter to them but a symbol, a symbol of this towns unique charm and it's unique magic? Sam continued to create his stories and each one formed as a thread in the tapestry of this small towns History. I'm merely just a Typewriter, but perhaps in this world of ours, even the simplest of objects and tools can hold great power and become something so wonderful, you become cherished for the rest of the time you are with them. As I sit here pondering my thoughts in the small, safe room of the antique shop, I wonder my role in this world. I am just a Typewriter but I have seen the joy that I can bring and the magic that I can weave. although it is a heavy burden to bear, I still embrace it. For in the end of ones story it's not about the tool or the objects,it's about the magic and how one chooses to embrace it themselves. I will continue to Type and the magic will flow through it." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Blindfold of flowers (and thorns)\n\nGenre: asian-american\n\nWord Count: 1664\n\nPrompt:\n\nSet your story at a park during a spring festival." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "It's been about a month. We've been married for a month and ..... she still hates me. She's amazing. She's intelligent, talented, gorgeous, and perfect! But ..... she hates me. She absolutely hates me. We've known each other for at least four or five months now and she still doesn't even want to talk to me. We even sleep in the same bed but she won't even acknowledge my presence. \n\nShe agreed to come with me to the annual Spring Festival that the city I was raised in has every year. It's huge, and it's the perfect time to tell her how I feel about her and ask her to give me a chance.\n\nWe were walking down a path of Cherry Blossoms. I noticed how there were many other couples and little families walking down the path too. The difference between them and us was that they looked happy. Everyone was holding hands and laughing while Melissa and I just quietly walked next to each other. We weren't even close enough to hold hands like a normal couple.\n\nI looked at the different booths that I saw behind the Cherry Blossoms. I felt a tap on my shoulder and I stopped walking - turned to my right and looked at Melissa. She had stopped too. \n\n\"How much longer are we gonna be walking? I'm bored.\" Melissa said. I was hoping that she would enjoy the view but, apparently not. I smiled gently and answered her question in a soft, quiet voice.\n\n\"Let's walk a little longer. Maybe you'll see something that catches your eye.\" She rolled her eyes but continued to walk. \n\nAn older ajeossi stopped me and started to speak in a very comical way.\n*Ajeossi - Older man (Korean term)\n\n\"Dangsin-ui soul meiteuga jinjeong nugu-injibogo sipseubnikka? eojjeomyeon dangsin-ui milaeleulbogo sipseubnikka?\"\n(Would you like to see who your soulmate truly is? Maybe, would you like to see your future?)\n\n\"Gwaenchanh-ayo, gamsahabnida!\" I bowed and thanked him but he persisted.\n(We're fine, thank you!)\n\n\"Ap-eulo eotteon il-i issneunji algo sipji anh-eusibnikka?\"\n(Are you sure you don't want to know what lies ahead?)\n\n\"What's he saying, Namjun?\" Melissa asked. \n\n\"He's a fortune-teller and he just wants to tell our fortune. It's fine, I'll tell him we already have plans.\"\n\n\"Wait. I've always wanted to have my fortune told. I want to hear this guy! Let's just go to his booth for a second!\" Melissa said. I could see how excited she was. She was never like this around me. Seeing her smile made me smile. \n\n\"Okay then. eolmaibnikka?\" I asked. \n(How much is it?)\n\nThe old man smiled and spoke. \n\n\"Bieo issneun.\" He said as he walked towards a small booth that was just past one line of cherry blossoms.\n(Free)\n\nWe entered the booth and sat down in the two chairs that were provided. The old man sat on the other side of a table and turned to face a painting easel. He started to draw on it - occasionally glancing up at me. When he was done with the first one, he set it aside and started on a second one, taking a moment more as he would glance up at Melissa. \n\n\"Mwohaneungeoya?\" I asked.\n(What are you doing?)\n\n\"Milaeleul chajgo gyesibnikka.\" The old man answered as he slightly frowned at the paintings.\n(Looking into your future.)\n\nHe looked at the paintings for a few minutes more with a saddened look before holding up the first picture. It was the one that he had drawn for me. In the picture, I saw myself with a girl. The girl was laying on her stomach on a bed with white sheets on it. I laid next to her with an arm around her holding a sunflower in front of her face so you couldn't quite see who she was. It didn't look like melissa though. The girl's hair was a milk-chocolate brown and slightly curly but Melissa's hair was jet black and straight as a board. I had my face so close to her that my nose was slightly in her hair. It was a very seductive-looking picture. I didn't quite understand it and the fortune-teller didn't seem too ecstatic about it either. \n\n\"Mwoya?\" I asked the man. \n(What is it?)\n\n\"Dangsingwa dangsin-ui milaeui anae.\"\n(You and your future wife)\n\n\"Naneun imi gyeolhonhaessseubnida.\" I stated as I put my hand on Melissa's shoulder only for her to shrug it off. \n(I'm already married.)\n\n\"Maj-ji anhneun yeoja\"\n(Not to the right woman.)\n\nI gently shook my head. The old man handed Melissa her paper and shooed us out. Melissa looked at the paper and then quickly closed the paper. \n\n\"What is your picture showing?\" I asked\n\n\"You don't need to know.\" She said. She quickly pointed towards a booth full of cotton candy. \"Let's get some treats!\" She changed the subject and ran towards the booth. I watched her run and stared. She couldn't even show me something as simple as a stupid, fake fortune-tellers painting. I'm hurt.\n\n. . .\nWe had walked around for a few more hours and looked at booths until late at night. We headed home and both of us took a shower before heading to bed.\n\nI woke up a while later and found that it was still dark besides the lamp's light on Melissa's bedside table. I propped my body up on my elbow and looked at the clock on her table. It was three in the morning and I could hear rain pouring outside the hotel room. I sighed and started to lay back down but stopped when a rolled-up paper on the bedside table caught my eye. It was the painting that the fortune-teller had given to Melissa. My curiosity got the best of me and I slipped out of the silky sheets into a pair of slippers.\n\nI walked around the bed and quietly picked up the rolled-up paper. I walked to the bathroom, closed the door, turned on the light, and then locked the door. I sat on the toilet and started to unroll the paper.\n\n\"What the hell is this?\" I whispered after staring at the painting for a moment.\n\nIt was me, kneeling in front of a grave in a graveyard. I had on a black suit and I was facing towards myself. As if begging myself to take me out of the painting. I was blindfolded by a wreath of beautiful flowers and you could see tears streaming down my face. Not just tears. Blood. I shook my head and then went back to look around the painting. The tombstone had words on it. I squinted my eyes and brought the paper closer to read the words. \"Save me.\" The tombstone also had a name under the words but they were much too small for me to read. How had the artist managed to draw this and what did it even mean?\n\nI jumped at a knock on the door.\n\n\"Junie? Are you in there?\" Melissa asked quietly.\n\n\"Uh, yeah.\" I stood up and flushed the toilet before rolling up the painting and placing it on the counter. I washed my hands and opened the door stepping out.\n\n\"What are you doing up so late?\" Melissa asked as she stepped into the bathroom and turned around.\n\n\"Couldn't sleep. I'm pretty tired now though. I'm gonna head to bed.\"\n\n\"Okay.\"\n\nAnd that was it. She never said anything else even when she came out of the bathroom with her painting. Maybe she was just too tired to realize that she hadn't placed it there before she'd fallen asleep. For whatever reason it was, I was glad. But .... was I?\n\nSomething in my stomach says that something's wrong. Should I even be worried? What for? I'm safe, right? I'm not going to get hurt, right?\n\n. . .\nJust a week after that amazing festival, I was burying my wife. Why? I wonder that too. The doctors couldn't pinpoint a cause of death. She just .... died. No warning at all. I kneeled at the fresh gravestone. I looked at the name on the stone as I quietly let tears cascade down my cheeks and past my nose. Melissa Jane Kim. I heard a voice come from my left and turned only to have hands come from behind my and cover my eyes. It was a familiar scent. Flowers. It smelled like roses. I pulled the hands off of my face and turned around to see a girl about my age. She was wearing a very revealing outfit and she smiled as she leaned down towards me and squeezed her breasts together.\n\n\"You look sad? Maybe I can cheer you up? There's a hotel just down the street.\" The girl said. I quietly looked at her before sighing. Why not? I'm a grown man. I don't have a wife anymore. Who cares if I have a little fun. I'm not even president yet. At least, not officially. I need to give our last president time to move out of the white house.\n\nI stood up and followed the girl. If only I'd known before what I knew now. I even had a warning. The painting. The tombstone said save me. If I had just tried harder to read the name then I would have realized that it was Melissa. I could've saved her but I was too ignorant. I was wearing the same suit from the picture. The same tears running down my face. What about the flowers that blindfolded me, you ask? The girl. The flowers that blinded me were roses. When that girl covered my eyes I could smell roses. The blindfold of roses was her hands. The blood? That was for all of the pain that she was about to inflict on my already broken body and mind. If only I had looked a little closer at the painting and seen the nasty thorns on the blindfold of roses." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: ENCHANTED PARK\n\nGenre: asian-american\n\nWord Count: 1179\n\nPrompt:\n\nSet your story at a park during a spring festival." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "It was time of the Spring Festival. The park named Flowerland had flowers in abundance. The beauty of the flowers and their smell captivated people. Before it was opened to the public the Fairy Godmother announced “I’m making this Flowerland into an Enchanted one where people who come alive can repent.”\nThe first to answer came up and said “I’m Lady Constance Chatterley. All must’ve heard of me.”\nThe second who came said “I’m Mellors who was the game keeper in the Chatterley estate. I was told I had also to repent.”\nConnie said “The flowers are welcoming. The place is alive. Birds are pecking at each other for a love bond. I want to get rid of my sins here.”\nMellors is in his woodland retreat not far away. He says “I don’t see why I’ve to repent. I’ve done no wrong. Let us see. Anyway I’m here.”\nCONNIE SAYS:\nIn this enchanted garden I have a quiet life away from all temptation. I see Nature which causes the male and the female to be drawn together. I close my eyes and pray for redemption from sin. I open my eyes to the sight of mounds of flowers all around. Without my knowledge my mind travels to the time when I had decorated the bare middle form of Mellors with wild flowers. It still stimulates me though I have resolved to abstain.\nI see ducks in the water chasing each other actively. I see birds fall to the ground while seeking each other. I ask myself “Why are you here to repent? You only obeyed the body’s urge. You had only sought what Lord Chatterley couldn’t give you. You’re a normal woman and the urge to seek a man is most ordinary. Why should you repent? You’ve come to this enchanted Flowerland to do something contrary to your nature!” I see Mellors in the distance. I’m sure he is suffering as much as me. I say to myself “You shouldn’t meet or talk to him” as you’re in repentance.”\nI watch the flowers blooming. They suffer no limitation. They grow wild. The bee does its job and I see the floral propagation. This sometimes creates a negative feeling in me. I’ve done nothing unnatural and still I’ve come to repent! I try to sleep but I can’t. I toss, I turn. Something is holding me down. Still I close my eyes. I dream and something else appears that I dare not name!\nI get up and walk among the plants. I talk to the flowers as it isn’t sinful. Lucky flowers! They have no complaint. The bees and butterflies are plentiful and doing what was ordained. I ask myself “Why did God fit me with an apparatus that literally shouts and invites the ministrations of the male if He didn’t want them to be used as prescribed?” And now to repent! The body needs rapture caused by male hands. Something weeps within me causing me to lose myself to temptation. I try to control myself but it doesn’t work.\nMELLORS SAYS:\nI am not one with much learning. I’ve only been trained to handle animals – either tame them or get rid of them. Sitting in this enchanted Flowerland makes me restless. I’m surrounded by plants and stupid flowers but without Connie I feel alone, abandoned. What good are these stupid flowers? You smell them and throw them away. I grind them under foot. What do I do here? What the hell is repentance? Did I do any wrong? The woman comes up to me and says do something I dare not name. I obey. I get so close to her that I slip into using dialect with a titled lady. It shows my power? The educated lady doesn’t mind. If I keep doing nothing except repenting I feel I’ll go mad. May be I should turn my gun on myself. That would be my only way out.\nCONNIE SAYS:\nI know I’ve been given a second chance in life to repent in this enchanted garden. Fairy Godmother is testing what would happen if we, who are called sinners, are given a second chance. We’ve been created with a purpose in life - to increase and multiply. Certain rewards have been created in the process to see the duty isn’t neglected. I wish to say that even if I’m given many chances I’ll repeat what I’ve done. I won’t neglect poor Mellors. My Mellors who speaks to me in sweet dialect that stimulates me!\nMELLORS SAYS:\nI am sick of being alone here in the what garden? I’ve to learn new words! They say Enchanted garden. What am I doing here? I’m supposed to be repenting. What about? For the good times I had with Connie? Did I go after her, the high class lady? No! She came to me driven by instinct. I did what was dictated by instinct. Did I do wrong? Yes say those who are religious. Those fellows terrorize me and threaten me with punishment even in an after world. Should I be scared? Will I get a punishment greater than what I’m suffering here without Connie? The beautiful lady who I’m sure knows by instinct what I’m also suffering from. Will my penitence prevent me from enjoying myself with Connie? Where is my gun? I’ve it loaded. I know what I’m going to do to myself. Do you doubt it?\nCONNIE SAYS:\nI am suffering here in this garden. What is called Enchanted garden. What is enchantment with myriad plants and a million flowers? What good are those without the Mellors touch. In repentance I should neglect Mellors but I need him. My body needs his touch. His whatever you call it but something I dare not name! My body cries for him. I know I am here to repent but I cannot. I know I’ll be punished for not repenting but I’m being punished by separation from Mellors. I know I’ll be forgiven for seeking Mellors. As the poet* has said “Indeed, indeed Repentance, oft before/I swore – but was I sober when I swore?/And then and then came Spring and Rose-in-hand/ My threadbare penitence apieces tore.” I am planning to do the same thing! To hell with incarceration in Flowerland and enchantment amidst flowers! I long for something I dare not name! I can see Mellors. I’m approaching him. He is now an arms distance away. I have reached him!\nMELLORS SAYS:\nI have checked the gun and the shots, but wait I can hear Connie’s voice! I hear her saying “I’m coming to you.” I put the gun away. I am thrilled. She has come close and she is saying “Let me hear your dialect. I’m with you to do something I dare not name.”\nThe Fairy Godmother blushes but tells herself “There is no use in getting humans into enchanted places to rue for the past. The past will be repeated! That wisdom has dawned on me. I lift the enchantment here!”\nEND\n* The RUBAIYAT OF OMAR KHAYYAM" } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Jakob and Leena\n\nGenre: bedtime\n\nWord Count: 1874\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about a successful marriage proposal, or one that goes horribly wrong." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "“Jakob?”\n\n“Yes, Leena.”\n\n“Did you get the newspaper? It should be here by now.”\n\n“Not today, my love. You were so tired.”\n\n“I’m never too tired to read to you.”\n\nIn sixty years, Jakob had never won an argument with his wife, and he was sure he wasn’t going to win this one either. He went to the front door, opened it, and picked up the daily newspaper from the mat.\n\nA generation prior, Jakob’s and Leena’s parents came from Uglich, a rural Russian town. Their families had lived three streets apart, yet were strangers until the day Jakob first met Leena at a movie house in Brooklyn.\n\nJakob, sixteen at the time, spoke with a thick Russian accent. He had been in America for a little over a year and had no time for school, as he was the primary breadwinner for his family. Leena, on the other hand, had spent all of her fifteen years in America and spoke perfect New York City English, a fact made evident when Jakob tried to park in front of the theater where Leena worked taking tickets.\n\n“What’s the big idear? You can’t pahk ya cah here.”\n\nJakob was instantly taken by the pretty young girl who put r’s where they didn’t belong and removed them from where they did.\n\n“I am Jakob.” He smiled. “I not be here long.”\n\n“You mean you won’t be here long.”\n\n“Yes, that’s what I said.”\n\n“No, you said—nevermind. Just move your cah.”\n\nJakob did nothing of the kind. In truth, dropping off the daily paper to the newsstand should not have taken more than a minute, but on that day, he dillied and dallied as long as he could, all the while smiling at Leena.\n\n“You’ll be here tomorrow, yes?” Jakob asked as he walked back to the delivery truck.\n\n“Tomorrow is Monday. I’ll be in school,” Leena answered with a huff. She was annoyed by the handsome young delivery driver. Yet something about his smile made it harder by the second to stay so. “I only work on weekends.”\n\n“Then Jakob will see you Saturday.” With a tip of his cap, he was gone.\n\nWhen Saturday arrived, Leena wasn’t sure what she was hoping for. She was intrigued by the boy who smiled, and she was more attracted to his broken English than she would have expected. He was rough around the edges and not the kind who normally turned her head. \n\nSo why had she thought about him nonstop for a week?\n\nJakob handed the daydreaming teen a newspaper. “This is for you.”\n\n“What? Why are you giving me this?” \n\n“Because paper has all the news of the world—anything you want to know is in there.”\n\n“Thank you, Jakob,” Leena responded with an unexpected smile.\n\n“You very welcome. Miss...” Jakob leaned forward, hoping the pause would have the desired effect.\n\n“Leena. My name is Leena.”\n\n“You very welcome, Miss Leena. I see you tomorrow.”\n\nAnd thus began a tradition. Every Saturday and Sunday, Jakob would bring Leena the newspaper and they would talk. Very early on, they discovered the coincidence of their families’ hometown. Leena loved it when Jakob told her stories of Uglich with its cobblestoned streets and brightly colored buildings. Leena, in turn, would read Jakob stories from the paper. In the beginning, she did this because he hadn’t yet learned to read English. Over time, though, she grew to love reading to Jakob, and he loved the sound of her voice.\n\nOne day, Jakob broke the routine and asked Leena a question.\n\n“Leena, what can I do for you?”\n\n“What do you mean, Jakob? Yah don’t have to do anything for me. I enjoy your company.”\n\n“You don’t understand, Miss Leena. Your reading brings me joy. I want to bring you joy.”\n\nJakob didn’t know that reading meant as much to her as it did to him, and she looked forward to their daily conversations. Without giving it much thought, however, she answered him.\n\n“Yah see that old lady over there?”\n\n“The one with the packages?”\n\n“Yeah. She’s struggling. Go help her.”\n\n“As you wish.” In no time Jakob was carrying the elderly woman’s bundles, a kind deed he would often repeat.\n\nFrom that day, when Leena would read to Jakob, he would help one of their neighbors. Sometimes he would fetch their groceries while other times he’d walk their dogs. He became proficient with small household repairs, replacing lightbulbs and faulty wiring. Before long, the young couple became a fixture in Flatbush. Neighbors gossiped about the girl who read and the boy who helped.\n\nLove at first sight—true love at first sight—is a phenomenon that takes years to reveal itself. For Jakob, it took four. “I am to marry you, one day,” he told Leena a few weeks after they met. Jakob had not spoken idly but it took four years for him to find the courage to ask for her hand.\n\nA gentleman to his core, Jakob first asked permission to marry Leena from her father. After this permission was secured, he set his plan in motion. On a beautiful Sunday, the couple sat on a sun-drenched bench in the middle of Central Park. Jakob handed Leena an envelope and asked her if she would read the letter inside. Tears streamed down her cheeks as she read the words, written by his hand in English.\n\nLeena, you are the love of my life. You give meaning to my soul. You are the only irreplaceable thing. Will you please be my wife?\n\nAll Leena could do through her tears was nod.\n\n“Jakob finally makes you speechless,” he said as the two laughed and shared a kiss.\n\nFour days later, Leena had a surprise of her own. On their bench, she opened the paper to the wedding announcements and pointed to a picture. “Look at this,” she said, smiling from ear to ear.\n\n“It is us,” Jakob shouted. “We are in the paper!”\n\n“Mr. and Mrs. Irving Copin have the pleasure of…” Leena started to read before Jakob interrupted his bride-to-be. Turning to strangers passing by, he announced to the world, “Everyone! You know it’s true. I am marrying Leena. It says so in the paper!” \n\nJakob ran to the flower vendor on the corner to buy a spray of flowers. \n\nHe turned back to Leena, who gave her fiancée a wink and pointed to Susan, a little girl walking with her mother. Susan’s father, a soldier, had been a fixture in the park before joining the army and heading to Europe to fight. The news of his death had left a hole in the heart of the neighborhood and his daughter. Leena cried happy tears when Jakob handed the girl her tulips and lilies. The smile on the little girls face was brighter than the sun that shone down on the young couple.\n\nIt was Jakob’s greatest gift to Leena by far.\n\n🜋 🜋 🜋\n\nBy the time he and Leena were married, Jakob had long since stopped delivering papers. He now owned and ran a small newsstand while Leena taught English at the local high school. The young couple moved into a modest apartment, not far from the movie theater where they first met.\n\nEach day was busier than the last, but every night, Leena would read the newspaper to Jakob. When she was done, he would do an odd job or perform a small favor for a neighbor or a random stranger.\n\nOn warm summer nights when the sun stayed up until past nine, the two would sit together on the same bench in Prospect Park. Leena would read the paper while Jakob, always the gentleman, would tip his cap to the ladies as they passed by and stand to shake the men’s hands. \n\nWhen the weather was cold, Jakob and Leena sat inside on their favorite chairs for the nightly reading. \n\nAs the years passed, so did history. Leena read to Jakob about Hitler invading Poland and Truman dropping the bomb on Hiroshima. She read to him when the war ended and the day President Kennedy was shot. It was during these readings he learned of Apollo 1’s unspeakable tragedy and Apollo 11’s historic victory. Even after Jakob learned to read himself, he never read the newspaper. That was Leena’s job and her greatest joy. \n\n🜋 🜋 🜋\n\nSixty years can feel like forever, but for Jakob and Leena it passed in the blink of an eye. They spent every day together and yet it still was never enough. The last night that Leena read to Jakob, she only completed a single news article before exhaustion overtook her.\n\n“Would it be alright if I went to bed early tonight,” Leena asked, smiling at her husband.\n\n“As you wish.” Jakob responded, helping her from her chair and walking with her into the bedroom.\n\nThe next morning Leena was gone.\n\nThere would be no great memorial or public service. It had never been Leena’s way. Instead, as a lasting tribute to his beautiful bride, Jakob placed an obituary in the same newspaper Leena had read to him all these years. He wasn’t a man given to soaring rhetoric, so the announcement of his wife’s death was understandably short. Jakob had to trust that his words would be printed accurately as Leena wasn’t there to read it to him, and his eyesight was failing.\n\nThe following day at four o’clock, Jakob, out of habit, moved to his favorite chair next to Leena’s, which sat empty. With no paper to read and no company to entertain, his only companions were silence and bittersweet memories, until there came a knock at the door.\n\nJakob, slightly unnerved by the unexpected interruption, slowly rose to his feet, walked across the room, and opened the door to find a face he knew well.\n\n“Hi Jakob,” Susan said. “Do you remember the flowers you gave me when I was little?”\n\n“Of course I remember, but don’t forget it was Leena’s idea,” he said with a small chuckle.\n\n\"On my darkest day, you brought me sunshine. I've never forgotten that.\"\n\n“It was my pleasure,\" Jakob said, smiling at the pleasant memory. \"What can I do for you today?”\n\n“You can let me read to you.”\n\n“Why would you want to read to me?” Jakob asked, perplexed.\n\n“Because I was chosen to go first.”\n\n“First?”\n\n“Yes. Look out into the hallway.”\n\nSusan stepped aside, allowing Jakob to look down the corridor. As far as the eye could see, there was a line of friends and neighbors, each one with a newspaper under their arm.\n\n“I know you feel alone, but no one is alone who is loved. None of us can replace Leena, but we can repay your kindness by standing in for her. Today is my day.”\n\n“Come in, Susan.” Jakob said, wiping tears from his eyes, “Come in and sit.”\n\nAfter Jakob found his way back to his favorite chair, Susan sat down, opened the paper, and began to read from the obituaries:\n\nTo Leena, \nYour voice was the story of our lives. I await the day when you will read to me again. \nLove, Jakob\n“Now that we have that out of the way—let’s turn to page one.”" } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: 5 years\n\nGenre: asian-american\n\nWord Count: 1686\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a fairy tale about someone who can communicate with woodland creatures." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "levtashion\n “Katie, come to the office you are getting signed out.” That was the last thing I heard before my life had changed forever! I waited in the car while my mom was screaming on the phone about a lake house in some kinda woods, I think. It was winter and 10 degrees so I hoped we weren't going there. Finally, my mom got in the car and she didn't say anything. I asked her where we were going and she said” don't worry about it”. At this point I was a little bit scared, like is my mom a criminal or something. An hour went by and we were in the woods where I have never been and there was a house. One house In the middle of the woods is strange. Is this what my mom was talking about on the phone?\n The next thing I know my mom is getting out of the car while telling me to stay here and to stay put. 10 minutes pass and my mom is still in the house. I was on my phone texting my friend Lucy. I tell her everything. Then finally my mom comes out of the house and says. To unpack my stuff, and that my room is upstairs to the left. I was confused because I didn't pack anything, but then my mom added “ go look in the trunk.” So then I knew she had packed some of my things. About 3 hours later my mom had me come to the living room. When I got there she had this worried look on her face. I thought it was something about my dad, he went missing 6 years ago. Then she said something WAY different. I was shocked about what she said and I was also confused. My mom had told me I was going to have powers! She said that on my 11th birthday which was on march 9th. Of course, I didn't believe her. I was in shock. So later that night I was in my room thinking about what my mom had said. I remember I was thinking about how my birthday was in 2 days and maybe I could have powers, but then I was like there's no way I could have powers. So the next day I avoided my mom until dinner. I asked her a bunch of questions like “mom were you telling the truth yesterday.” then she said she was “100% telling the truth”. \n At dinner my mom talked to me about being homeschooled and how she is going to sell our house. Those 2 things made me very mad because I would never see my house again, but then she said we would go get our stuff tomorrow. I was so mad at her because she took everything from me. The next day was my birthday, I was going to see if what my mom had said was true. For breakfast my mom had made me french toast! She told me to go outside and play so I did but I was bummed out because Lucy didn't come to my birthday. About 2 hours of me playing outside, my mom came out and told me to follow her so I did. She took me to this lake and told me my power was levtashion. I was shocked at what she said because she had a serious face. An hour later I started to feel kinda sick. I told my mom and she said “the time has finally come”. She also said the feeling sick was a symptom of getting your powers. 20 minutes later I was puking in the toilet and then I yelled at my mom to get out of the bathroom and she wouldn't so I yelled again and then something went up in the air… (shampoo bottle). My mom told me to keep yelling at her so I did and basically everything went up in the air! My mom was so exceeded,it was dinner time so I got up to go eat dinner and all the things fell on the floor. We had some burgers and fries. 4 months go by and i have my powers undercut on and then one night my mom said she had saved our house and that we were moving back in so then 2 days later we started to get packing and then she told me that all girls that are 11 have powers and if they tell any boy they will die.\n 2 weeks later we were all moved in and I was hanging out with lucy, her power was Elvis's belly and we played hide and seek a lot. When I and Lucy got older (22) we were still friends and we hung out a lot. We worked in the same job we had an apartment. My mom and I went speaking because she tried to take my power and my dad was found and I was so happy and everything was so great to untell lucy created souside!\nsgould i do more btw dont mind the restt\njhvgjchjbkjkjkjkrb levtashion\n “Katie, come to the office you are getting signed out.” That was the last thing I heard before my life had changed forever! I waited in the car while my mom was screaming on the phone about a lake house in some kinda woods, I think. It was winter and 10 degrees so I hoped we weren't going there. Finally, my mom got in the car and she didn't say anything. I asked her where we were going and she said” don't worry about it”. At this point I was a little bit scared, like is my mom a criminal or something. An hour went by and we were in the woods where I have never been and there was a house. One house In the middle of the woods is strange. Is this what my mom was talking about on the phone?\n The next thing I know my mom is getting out of the car while telling me to stay here and to stay put. 10 minutes pass and my mom is still in the house. I was on my phone texting my friend Lucy. I tell her everything. Then finally my mom comes out of the house and says. To unpack my stuff, and that my room is upstairs to the left. I was confused because I didn't pack anything, but then my mom added “ go look in the trunk.” So then I knew she had packed some of my things. About 3 hours later my mom had me come to the living room. When I got there she had this worried look on her face. I thought it was something about my dad, he went missing 6 years ago. Then she said something WAY different. I was shocked about what she said and I was also confused. My mom had told me I was going to have powers! She said that on my 11th birthday which was on march 9th. Of course, I didn't believe her. I was in shock. So later that night I was in my room thinking about what my mom had said. I remember I was thinking about how my birthday was in 2 days and maybe I could have powers, but then I was like there's no way I could have powers. So the next day I avoided my mom until dinner. I asked her a bunch of questions like “mom were you telling the truth yesterday.” then she said she was “100% telling the truth”. \n At dinner my mom talked to me about being homeschooled and how she is going to sell our house. Those 2 things made me very mad because I would never see my house again, but then she said we would go get our stuff tomorrow. I was so mad at her because she took everything from me. The next day was my birthday, I was going to see if what my mom had said was true. For breakfast my mom had made me french toast! She told me to go outside and play so I did but I was bummed out because Lucy didn't come to my birthday. About 2 hours of me playing outside, my mom came out and told me to follow her so I did. She took me to this lake and told me my power was levtashion. I was shocked at what she said because she had a serious face. An hour later I started to feel kinda sick. I told my mom and she said “the time has finally come”. She also said the feeling sick was a symptom of getting your powers. 20 minutes later I was puking in the toilet and then I yelled at my mom to get out of the bathroom and she wouldn't so I yelled again and then something went up in the air… (shampoo bottle). My mom told me to keep yelling at her so I did and basically everything went up in the air! My mom was so exceeded,it was dinner time so I got up to go eat dinner and all the things fell on the floor. We had some burgers and fries. 4 months go by and i have my powers undercltron and then one night my mom said she had saved our house and that we were moving back in so then 2 days later we started to get packing and then she told me that all girls that are 11 have powers and if they tell any boy they will die.\n 2 weeks later we were all moved in and i was hanging out with lucy, her power was elvis belly and we played hide and seek a lot. When me and Lucy got older (22) we were still friends and we hung out a lot. We worked in the same job we had an apartment. My mom and I went speaking because she tried to take my power and my dad was found and I was so happy.\nt" } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Murder\n\nGenre: asian-american\n\nWord Count: 1190\n\nPrompt:\n\nSet your story at a park during a spring festival." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Murder\n He was hunched over in a corner of the house not knowing what to do. \"Sometimes a murder may happen tomorrow by slapping my cheek today. He will be killed and he will be the killer.\" Shravan said subjectively. He must find some way. He thought for a while and told his wife.\n'I have found a solution. You can stop crying and the children will come after the game. She will be upset if she sees you crying.'\n With that, he stepped out of the collapsed building. He walked forward through the middle of the ground, which was covered with forest. His whole wheat field\nHe looked up. Gold-plated ears were to be seen everywhere at this time. But last week the locusts had made a journey to the western horizon Exhausted, they all rested in his wheat field for a while. By then, the wheat field had become non-wheat field. Last year there was a flood. Even then he did not get anything. That too from Raman Srinivasa, the most ruthless usurper in Vidurapuram. Forty-eight hours have passed since the date of repayment of the loan.\n Only twenty-four hours in front of him nowThat's what this walk of his is for. He climbed into the sugarcane field from where the forest was covered. They were all young twigs. There was no one there except him. His walk went into a furnace. He realized that there was a corpse buried there yesterday. There was some red clay lying there that did not touch the ground. He moved towards it. 'Yes, it was hidden yesterday,' he whispered to himself.\nHe took a long stick and began to dig. He was disturbed when he removed half an inch of soil.\n The first thing he blocked in his arms was the corpse's faceAt that moment, the man was frightened, but with all his might, he pulled the corpse out of the pit. He decided to wash and clean the whole body. The corpse was still lying dead. Without opening the eyes, without moving the legs, without raising the arms......\nHe filled the grave with a few stones and sticks instead of the corpse. Then the pit was covered with mud. He had already confirmed that it was. If he is a man, his corpse will be used.\n He put the corpse on his shoulder and walked forward. By then his legs were paralyzed. It started beating slowly. He put the corpse somewhere in the sugarcane field and then slowly walked home. All the children are gone. There is sadness all over their faces. He told everyone things and dressed them up .The children and his wife started crying. He comforted everyone and went out into the darkness. He had so much petrol and a match in his hand.\nThe foxes were howling, the buffaloes were wandering through the forest, and someone had gone hunting with the hounds. The road in front of him was stretched out. Such a journey was unusual for him. What comes to mind is another night trip along the same route ten or twenty years ago. The journey to bring back the girl he loved. Ramu and Satikan were with him then but not today. By the time the last flood engulfed them, they had turned into corpses. He fell in love with Gauri and married her. Though not wealthy, her housewife had three meals a day, and although she was not a princess, she had a dress that did not fit snugly, and a house that was not glorious but had no blood.\nBy the time his thoughts went wild, he had reached his wheat field. After putting petrol and a matchbox somewhere, he returned to the sugarcane field. The corpse was waiting for him among the sugarcane herdWithout opening your eyes, without moving your legs, without raising your arms .......\n He carried the corpse on his shoulders and walked forward. It was to a stream that most had never visited. It was flowing without making much noise. Shravan felt that the moon and the stars were enjoying their own beauty in that stream.\n Shravan lowered the corpse into the stream. It began to rub against the dirt that clung to its body. On the face, legs, hands .......\nThe place where the wheat field overlooks was chosen to do exactly that. There is no other way to kill the dead. There is no other way for himHe has heard from somewhere before that if a farmer commits suicide, his family will get Rs 1 lakh in compensation from the government. When people see it tomorrow it needs some sign to make sure it is itself.\nFor that, he put the iron bracelet on his right hand in the right hand of the corpse.\n It was as if the petrolman had stolen the corpse .Better a poor horse than no horse at all.\n He took a match and threw it into the coffin. Suddenly the corpse began to burn. He used to pour petrol on the face of the corpse from time to timeWhen he was sure the body was ashes, he walked back. He had arranged the bottle and matchbox he had brought with him so that no one would suspect him from a short distance away. He did not forget to make marks on the way to the corpse from where they were both.\nThe rooster crowed, the sky turned blue, the sun rose in the sky. People gathered in Shravan's wheat field. The police came. The locals believed that Shravan had committed suicideThey were constantly crying and screaming. Only until the collector arrives. The collector comforted them and paid them fifty thousand rupees in compensation.\nShe woke up in the middle of the night to a knock on the door. His beloved in front when opened. She was waiting for him too. Something was rolling in their eyes.\n 'Did the locals believe I was dead? '\n Shravan asked his wife.\n 'Um, believe me'\n'How much compensation did you get? \"Fifty thousand but......\"\n 'What ... what! '\n'Raman the boss came and took it but he beat us and went away for a long time'\n Shravan's eyes filled and his legs became tired.\n 'Children .......'\n There was something stuck in his throat. He lay down. His stomach was full without eating or drinking anything. Gauri came close to him. He wanted her to do something but he dared not do anything. He closed his eyes and lay down. He woke up late at night .He slowly lifted his face and kissed one of his mistress' foreheads and then walked out.\n The whole country was asleep. Only the moon in the sky was looking at him. He walked a little and came in front of a tree….\n She stood up. The whole delusion of not being able to see Shravan up close then hit her face. A cloud was waiting to clear. She walked slowly out of the house. Her heart began to beat tenfold faster. She ran and overtook the onlookers and came to the front. Then her eyes were more open than Shravan's." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: A Race for the Ages\n\nGenre: bedtime\n\nWord Count: 1614\n\nPrompt:\n\nMake a race an important element of your story." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "The Hare pushed his way through the crowd, glad-handing the gentlemen, signing autographs, and availing himself of his handsomeness for selfies with the ladies; reassuring all and sundry with an excess of caffeinated wakefulness that this time he would prevail in the race. He punched the air theatrically, and the crowd cheered with effervescent joy, confident in a crushing victory for the famed speedster, not to mention – for a few – a modest return on their wagers with the bookmaker. The Hare was the crowd favorite.\nAs for the Tortoise, recently arrived from Ecuador, he waited patiently on the starting line, flexing his muscles, testing his spiked claws in the dirt, attracting little attention from the disdainful crowd, for whom he was an aberration, an absurdity, an asterisk in the annals of athletic history. Beneath his shell, the Tortoise seethed with resentment. He would show them. \nOne sly old fox quietly placed a bet with the bookmaker, and the payout odds for the Tortoise’ unlikely victory dropped precipitously, and as the new odds were chalked up, a tremor of excitement ran through a good part of the crowd. Someone must know something. The change in sentiment spurred a small riot as would-be punters placed their bets, down to the wire. You could smell the fear and greed. \nThe race official unfurled his white flag and called the two runners to their marks, which hushed the crowd and prompted the Tortoise and the Hare into their final preparations and rituals. The Hare flexed and stretched, each languid pose drawing Oohs and Aahs from the ladies, notwithstanding the slight paunch that good-living had deposited about his mid-section. The Tortoise, on the other hand, seemed to have entered a place of Zen-like stillness, of the kind that athletes like Michael Jordan, or Michael Phelps might recognize, but which – for the rest of us mortals – is understood simply as The Zone, unknowable in its essence, known in a swish-shot, a cracking half-volley, or an Olympic record.\nThe Hare leaned towards the Tortoise, “in case you’re wondering, there’s not a hope in hell that I will get caught napping this time. I’ve drank enough coffee to sink a cruise ship”. It was both a confidence shared, and a threat delivered.\nThe Tortoise crouched low on the ground, tendons and muscles rippling beneath a taut tan hide, and whispered to the Hare, “Prepare to eat my dust you muddle-headed buck-tooth ass!”.\nThe Hare, a child of Catholic parents, was shocked by the uncalled-for invective. Deep concern, a flicker of doubt and fear, was expressed in the flaring of his nostrils, and a flattening of his long ears. The Tortoise had struck where it hurt most, at his self-confidence, at his mental acuity. It was a matter of great sensitivity since madness was said to run in his family and he secretly worried that he possessed a second-rate mind. \nSilence in that moment before the race, when hopes and dreams carry the heart aloft.\nThe Colonel whipped the flag down, the crowd erupted, the forest itself shook with excitement, hats and babies were thrown in the air, jars of beer were drained, teens moshed, pickpockets pocket-picked, improper embraces and kisses were exchanged in the darker recesses of the merriment. \nThe Tortoise accelerated off his mark, throwing up a cloud of dust as his legs urgently scrambled for purchase, and his bullet-shaped body gathered momentum, and soon he was gone from the starting line, proceeding at an astonishing pace for a Holocene reptile.\nSilence again. The hopes and dreams were as bubbles about to burst. \n\nWhen the dust cleared, when sense, perception and cognition had been reunited, when disbelief had been exiled, the Hare was stock-still frozen, poised like a Victorian fool at the starting line, which elicited a murmur of concern among the ladies, derision from the men. The bookmaker, fearing a lop-sided payout, bellowed “GET FUCKING MOVING YOU HAIRBRAIN!” from his elevated position atop a wooden ladder, so loud and so shocking when expressed with Scottish conviction, that the Hare, already discombobulated by the Tortoise’s snide remark, leapt vertically into the air, pirouetted in an involuntary spastic manner, then hit the ground running with a demonic energy that propelled him at great speed into the crowd, where he bounced around like a pin-ball before being directed by a burly steward in the direction of the race course, whereupon he bounded off in pursuit of the Tortoise, a half-seen spectral blur accompanied by the rush of the wind.\nAnd in no time at all, he caught sight of his foe on the looping course. “That was a very unpleasant thing you said to me”, complained the Hare slowing to a pace that matched that of the Tortoise, “said in a very unpleasant way. It was unsportsmanlike”.\n“It is true”, the Tortoise replied, irritably, “You are a scatterbrain, and slightly mad, to boot. It is a well-known thing, widely reported and commented upon”.\n“It may be an oft-said thing, but it is an expression of opinion not of fact, and therefore not in the category of knowledge. You owe me an apology!”, said the Hare, risking escalation, fisticuffs or even a duel, “and besides, you plod like a dull, mean-spirited, lugubrious dolt in your silly shell. For three millennia I have lived in the shadow of your victory, and it irks me terribly that you go about living large, swanning around, acting like you are the bees-knees, while I live in that shadow and am the butt of all jokes”.\nIt was the Tortoise’ turn to take offence. “How dare you! You know nothing of what it is to be an asterisk, to stand atop the podium but receive no recognition for all work, the talent, the sacrifices made, not to mention the mental anguish of being forced into a role that is not of your choice”.\n“How so?” said the Hare, curious.\n“I never chose to be in this stupid race. The role was thrust upon me by that idiot Aesop, just to prove a point that – frankly and generally speaking - is a recipe for failure, an artful appeasement, an opiate for the ignorant masses. In my experience, you actually can fool most of the people most of the time, and slow and steady seldom wins the race”. The Tortoise turned to the Hare and looked him in his red-rimmed eyes, “can you not see how unfair it is that I am pitched against a Division I athlete, and tied for eternity to a proverb with which I have profound issues?”\nThe Hare fell silent as he contemplated this outburst of grievances, then unveiled those of his own.\n“You do realize that there are two losers in this tangled-up situation, right?” said the Hare, appealing with outstretched paws for sympathy, “In the constant re-telling of the story of this race, I am forever hauled across the coals of humiliation, pierced through with a reputation for stupidity, tarred with the brush of hubris. I am, like you, trapped in this race, in the story of this race, but on the other side of the proverb”. \nThe Tortoise was moved to tears. In the Hare he’d found a kindred spirit. “There you have it!” he exclaimed, “we are trapped in the story of the race. The race, the race, always the race, ahead of us, behind us. I am but a bean on a board, calculating and recalculating distance, time, fractions, fractals, percentages, binomials, and mean-deviations Halfway done, three-quarters done, seven-eighths, and so on and so forth”.\n“Like Zeno’s arrow”, said the Hare, “we will never reach the finish line”.\n“That thought is constantly on my mind”, said the Tortoise, “that I will be forever trapped in this race by ethics and mathematics”.\nThey stopped in the forest, suddenly weary and lacking the will to go on. They sat and contemplated their conjoined fates.\n“Perhaps we can change the narrative?”, suggested The Hare, “For instance, why do we race in the first place? Sport is not in our nature, nor is there any obvious symbiotic or parasitic benefit to us from the competition into which we have been thrust. We are randomly selected, placed in an invented setting by a deranged mind for the amusement of a callous crowd.”\n“Like Christians thrown to the lions”, said the Tortoise.\n“Like beef and lamb in a Doner kebab”, said the Hare, overcome by exhaustion and complexity.\n“You should rest”, suggested the Tortoise to his new friend, “the stress is taking its toll”. \n“Indeed, that and the after-effects of several cups of coffee”, said the Hare, wearily. He sighed and slumped upon a nearby moss-covered rock.\n“Rest up a while”, suggested the Tortoise, sitting down nearby on a patch of warm grass. \nThe Hare yawned, the Tortoise yawned in cross-species contagious sympathy, which caused his hooded eyes to droop, and within seconds the two adversaries were united in afternoon slumber, their race run.\nThe Tortoise opened one eye, scarcely more than a slit. The Hare was lying on the rock on his back, snoring, his back feet were twitching, as if running a race in his dreams. \nThe Tortoise slunk away, and proceeded onward in a self-loathing, reptilian kind of way. The crowd cheered and jeered in equal measure when he slid across the finish line. \n“Slow and steady wins the race’, proclaimed the race official with unassumed authenticity.\n“Victory, snatched from the jaws of defeat”, thought the Tortoise as he was raised shoulder high by the crowd, conveyed to the podium, installed thereon, and promptly presented with a silver cup and a one-thousand-dollar check, “and to the winner the spoils”." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Snow Flower and the Secret Fan\n\nGenre: asian-american\n\nWord Count: 1877\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story where flowers play a central role." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Love is one of many themes in Snow Flower and the Secret Fan. ... Lily and Snow Flower became friends very quickly. ... She could not up straight or function properly knowing Snow Flower may no longer lover her. ... Also, when Snow Flower was dying, the sworn sisters told Lily that Snow Flower had never loved them, ... And once again, Lily was there for Snow Flower.A tale partly about life, partly about revolution and about hope is something kind a general and shallowly standard story to think of it in first. But as the story figuratively moves and builds up, the idea gradually wipe outs. The story that is lovable to children actually grants the older ones the concern to think of the story’s objectives, as well as the perception how well the story can be continued.\nAs the story fills up more in a caterpillar state, I can say that the cycle purports to be in a cycle of a caterpillar not as usual the cycle of a butterfly.\nBecause as Stripe was born, his aim was only to grow bigger, but as soon as he wonders that there must be more to life, then he seeks for more satisfactions and purpose in life, being in a caterpillar form where he had really no idea of becoming a beautiful butterfly someday. Just like in our childhood, we are very innocent what can life offer to us.\nWhat the world had already showered upon us, thinking only about happiness and all the good forms in life we can do.\nDays go by and by and time passes, we grow older and older and we have a particular goal in life: to gain success, to reach the top. We dream to be someone someday. Just like Stripe, looking around, getting his curiosity work, he found the pile of caterpillars. Even though nobody knows what exactly is up there, it must be faith that made him join to that challenging and unsure undertaking.\nLearning to compete with others as Stripe climbs up the top is also truly the nature of humans to satisfy ourselves. We ought to do it and sometimes in bad ways. But consequences are there, we learn from it. And eventually, we could not notice but there was always something on us that has changed.\nAlong the way up the pile, Stripe meets a caterpillar that has the big doubt of what could possibly be out there. He felt awful to her not knowingly why. And it was possibly love, love that is unexplainable even in the story. The same in the real world they say. That love will find its way to you, in the most unexpected time and place, where everything seems to be a destiny.\nAnother story:\n Once, in the early spring, two seeds were dropped not far from a river. One grew into a daisy, with soft white petals and a sunny yellow middle. The other grew into a rose, sweet and graceful, with petals the color of a summer sunset. They grew together, and were the best of friends.\n One summer day, the rose said to the daisy, \"I would like to see the world. I want to travel to faraway places, and see what it's like where other flowers grow.\"\n \"Why would you want to do that?\" the Daisy asked. \"I like it right here by our river. It's beautiful and peaceful, just the right place for two flowers.\" \"I suppose you're right\", the rose sighed. \"Besides, I couldn't leave you.\" And the two friends promised that they would never leave their place on the river bank.\n But the very next day, a child was walking down to the river, and spied the rose's pink petals. \"Oh, what a lovely flower\", she said. \"I'll take it home and give it to mother.\" And she walked over and plucked the rose right out of the ground.\n The daisy watched as her friend was taken away, unable to do anything to help. And she wept. Very few have ever heard a flower cry, and those who have say that there is no sound in the world more sad.\n The child brought the flower home, where it was loud and busy and not at all fit for a little rose. The mother put the rose in a vase, and after a few days, that pretty little rose wilted, as flowers who have been taken from the ground do.\n The daisy knew it was impossible that her friend would ever come back, but that didn't stop her from hoping. And there she sat, waiting and weeping all through summer, and right on into the fall. And that little flower waited right up until winter, when, exausted and cold, she curled up and wilted. The daisy and the rose were reunited at last.\n And so, I beg you, if you see two flowers growing sweetly together, do not pick one and put it in a vase on your table, but leave it there. Because, even for flowers, life is better when you have someone by your side. \nRose ::\nI was a bud yesterday. Today the bright sunshine helped me blossom into a flower. Finally blooming into a Rose, I looked at my surroundings. It’s full of beautiful flowers, who just became my friends instantly.\nI do not know how I look because my possession doesn’t consist of a mirror. My friends quote ‘You are the most beautiful here’.\nSome friends said that they were jealous of me because the humans love me more for my beauty and fragrance. They love me even if they have to fight with a few thorns. They love me even after my death. My mother was taken care preciously because they anticipated my birth.\nA sunflower said to me, “I always turn towards the Sun, but people always turn towards you”. I smiled. I am happy and now I wanted to feel the love of a person.\nMy mother fed me some water through the stem and said, “Even the people passing by always took a glance at you and said you are very beautiful. I felt so proud to give birth to you that I am always happy”.\nI smiled at her, “Mother, I want to meet humans faster now. I want to see how they love me. When will I go to them?”\nShe smiled weakly and replied, “Soon honey, soon. When you go to them, you will be separated from me. Are you ready to leave me already?” she asked.\n“I don’t know mother. I just wanted to meet humans. I am sorry,” I pleaded so she would understand my dream and not to be upset because of that. We noticed a man coming towards the garden with a scissor in his hand and mom looked at me as if she was about to cry.\n“Honey, hurry up and take some starch as much as you can so that you can feed on it and stay alive longer,” she said forcing the starch towards me through the stem, “if they place you in water, remember to drink sufficient water. If you stop drinking water, it will be your last breath. Promise me to live as long as you can, okay?”\n“I promise mother.”\nShe smiled sadly and said, “This is the fate of plants and trees. We always see the death of our children in front of our eyes. This is a curse bestowed upon us for an unknown reason.”\nI was caressed by the man who came here with the scissors. Within few seconds, I was cut from my mother. As I was moving farther from my mother, I know I should cry but I was happy to meet people who will love me. I was placed among few other roses who were beautiful.\nAfter a while, I am separated from the roses and a person started arranging me between few different types of green leaves and tiny flowers. He made me look even more beautiful by tying a ribbon around me which tickled me since the grass touched my sensitive spots.\nI am handed to a man who smelled me nervously and then smiled satisfactorily. That single smile made me think ‘I am happy to be born into this world’ because I just made someone happy. The feeling in heart is indescribable but I am too happy to want to think about the words to describe my feelings.\nHe brought me to a place which is decorated too beautiful to imagine. There are lights all over the place giving a different kind of shine to the area which could never be given by the great Sun.\nHe looked at me and said, “I am counting on you to pass my feelings to her. Please make her fall in love with me.”\nI don’t know what he meant but I want to try my best if it was something I could help him with. Though I want to give him a reply, I know that he cannot understand my language, so I let it go.\nAfter a while a girl came here with a smile which widened at the sight of the decorations the man did for her. He was too nervous yet brought himself to smile for her.\nI did not understand most of their conversation because he held me behind him, so she could not see me. Finally, he took me out and handed me to her, so she could hold on to me and said, “I love you”.\nHer smile disappeared as it was replaced by a hint of disappointment. She shook her head too slowly as if she was trying to move a wooden head which has no life in it. She slowly brought herself to speak, “I am sorry. Please don’t spoil our friendship with this. I am really sorry.”\nLooks like she was confused to express her rejection with words since it was a shock for her. So, she left without any further words. I felt sorry for her. But I felt sorry for him too. I saw how nervous he was from the time he brought me.\nHe even asked me to help but I don’t know what to do. If I know, I would have helped him for sure. After all, he was the man for whose love I was born into this world. I want to make him happy. I want to make him smile. I want to make him feel content. But how?\nSuddenly I couldn’t see anything as everything started to be blurry in front of me. I am being crumpled with his hand as the grass surrounding me started to cover my eyes.\nI was thrown by him to the ground as all my petals started separating from me. He stomped on me with so much force as I felt my last breath leaving from my body and my soul leaving from the world.\nLooks like I am dead, but all I want to know is the reason why he hated me while all I did was love him unconditionally.\nI am not dead when I am cut from my mother. I am dead when a human rejected and threw me." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Daichi’s city\n\nGenre: asian-american\n\nWord Count: 1014\n\nPrompt:\n\nStart your story with the line, “That’s the thing about this city…”" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "That's the thing about this city, cool things can happen. Daichi Sakamoto was walking with his friend Kaito Ishikawa and Daichi’s dog, Miku. a brown and white Borzoi. It was raining slightly so the ground was wet. Daichi and his companion were walking on the nature trail as they normally go but something new happened. Miku started chasing something. She pulled Daichi behind her while Kaito followed. Daichi dug his heels into the ground. Kaito was trying to get in front of Miku and grab her but slipped in the mud. Hee was trampled over by both the dog and his friend that was pulled behind. She kept running. The only clue to what she was chasing was paw prints appearing in the mud. The ground started feeling more solid. Daichi felt his heart tremble as he heard a loud sound from a whistle. He looked ahead to see the train tracks. He forced himself up, reached forward to grab the dog’s collar, and pulled her head to the right, changing her direction and focus long enough for the train to start blasting by. The dog stood, looking intently at the other side of the tracks and Daichi saw it, in between the cracks of the train compartments. It was Nekomata, a two-tailed demon cat. It had a smile that was so wide that not even a snake could match the tag on the demon cat and looked weird. Its mouth was full of sharp teeth and as it bent its head to the side, Miku started barking and snarling. Daichi placed his hand on her head watching the cat burn into the air and disappear. Kaito was up on his feet trying to see what the dog and his friend were staring at but he couldn’t see anything. \n“What is it?” he asked. Daichi looked at him and shrugged, stood up, and wiped himself off.\n “I don't know but let’s go get something to eat” Kaito tried asking again but Daichi was already leaving. They were walking back to the city, They found a restaurant that served food from multiple cultures. His name is Victor. Miku was greeted by Victor and he allowed her inside because there weren’t many customers.\n“Daichi... Your clothes are a mess” Kaito was eyeing Daichi’s shirt\n Daichi raised a brow “so are your clothes…”\n Kaito sighed “you’re wearing a white shirt so it's more noticeable.” Daichi looked down at his shirt and saw that Kaito was right, he did look filthy “if we go to my place, I’ll change.”Kaito agreed because he liked going through Daichi’s stuff. Kaito waited by the door when he finished his food and Daichi went to pay the check. Victor stopped him.\n “No, no! I got to see a dog. Half off” Daichi paid but was very confused.\n“Don't get used to it. I only like your dog.” \nDaichi narrowed his eyes as he hooked up Miku to her leash and left.\n“He likes my dog more than me…” Kaito snorted “are you jealous of your dog?” Daichi just kept walking in silence.\nWhen the boys got to Daichi’s place, Daichi opened the front door for Kaito and Miku. He went up to his room to get changed, leaving Kaito alone. Kaito made himself at home by going through a family photo album and the fridge. When Daichi came back down, he saw his friend on his couch with the album, holding a blue ice pop. Daichi took the album and put it back. \n“We have to meet Souma remember?” \nKaito whined, “we don't have to be there until later...” \nDaichi shook his head as he filled the dog bowls on the floor. Kaito got up as the doorbell rang. When Kaito opened it, he saw Souma. Kaito turned and yelled at Daichi \n“Does this mean we can stay for now?!” Souma frowned. “Hi to you, I guess. “ and walked in. \nDaichi grabbed at the bandage on Souma’s face“What happened to your face?” “My mom’s Terrier bit me.” \nMiku poked Souma in the hand with her nose and Souma kneeled to pet her “I'm glad you don't bite '' Daichi lifted Souma by the chin ruling off the bandage. He started to clean the wound “Ow, sometimes I hate you.” Souma whined as Daichi put a new bandage on his face “the longer it takes for you to heal you become more susceptible to demon possession” Souma groaned “Why am I friends with you?! You believe the weirdest crap!” Daichi rolled his eyes “At least I'm not part of a cult.” Souma mumbled something among the lines of ‘if you were, you would lead it’. \nWhen they finally left Daichi’s After ten minutes of Kaito complaining. They were going to a party in their local park. When they arrived there were so many flags for multiple countries, genders, and sexualities. there were food stands with a lot of different foods. There was a person selling pride flags of all kinds. Souma was told by Daichi to get something to eat, he couldn't decide on what to get. Kaito made a comment under his breath about Souma being the third wheel Daichi snorted “how the hell is he the third wheel?” Kaito blushed “well… I wanted you to myself.” Daichi smirked, “well, we can ditch him if you want.” Kaito smiled “Really?!” Daichi quickly said no and kissed Kaito when his ‘friend’ pouted.\nWhen Souma returned he had his arms full “HELP ME!” Kaito and Daichi helped him carry the food he bought to a table outside of a restaurant nearby. They all sat down and sorted out who got what so when they did they began eating and talking about normal things, Daichi’s mom showed up joining them. When the sky was black with those familiar white specs, people started blasting their country's national anthem and popular songs. Even their country's leader showed up riding the national horse. \nBut the best part for Daichi was looking up into the sky and seeing the flag of his country in the form of fireworks." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: The Strange Encounter\n\nGenre: bedtime\n\nWord Count: 1297\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story that includes someone saying, “You can’t run forever.”" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "It was a miracle that I even made it out alive. I have been coming into these woods since I was a kid and my father was strong enough to put me on his shoulders. As a young woman in today’s society a girl always has to be prepared for literally anything, even if it sounds crazy.The forest was over 500,000 acres and crossed in between two states, North Carolina and Virginia, you could hike, hunt, camp, and then some all in one area with the most natural beautiful tall white waterfalls. One year ago my dad and I had our last hike together. He is still alive and kicking, but can’t get around like he used to in his younger years. There was a special spot 5 miles off the trail where we would sit by the river and I would catch him up on my life. Each time I visited and was headed out, I stopped by and just the same I would talk as if he was sitting with me, listening and responding in his usual way; “ya know, baby girl” he would say when he had the best advice a father could give his youngest. “You can do anything in this world you put your mind to and be successful, you just have to try and see what happens.” My father was like that for the most part and that’s what I would try and do, well did after college. I left my home town and even eloped with the guy I thought would be my ever after. When I came back home with my tail between my legs I felt a slight shame to let my parents know what I had been through with their 4 decade year marriage, not including the time they spent dating. So, I was a little distant with my folks, shame will certainly do that to anyone, I guess. \nSee I am sort of a fit individual and go to the gym at least three times a week but I certainly wasn’t prepared for today’s adventure in the Red Blood Forest and with a name like that how can you not be intrigued to walk the grounds. I was one of the many who liked the country living and intended on it being that way until my demise. So, I would fight for my place here, by any means necessary. As soon as I sat down at the usual spot I heard a voice yelling from across the river, “Hi there, could you use some company?!” I wasn’t shocked by seeing another person but had this gut feeling that something was not right with this guy. He wore a flannel button down shirt covered with a fishing vest, jeans, and hiking boots. The strange part was the tone and pitch of his voice, it gave me chills and before I could give my response he yelled to me again; “stay right there, I’ll be right over.”\nRight over, as if the river wasn’t deep, very rapid, and ran for miles, so the only way to get to my side was to go back to the trail and hike down. \nAs soon as he left my view I stood up and began walking back to the main trail. And that’s when I heard a Whoosh sound and felt some of the ground shake. I became still for a moment and the woods got silent, the silence that happens when danger is near. No birds chirping, squirrels running through the leaves, the wind and river became still. 50 yards from where I stood, that strange man was crothing where I was sitting. He began to stand erect when I noticed that he was definitely taller than when he was standing across the river. He looked to have been at least near 7 feet tall. “Hi friend, where are you going?”\nI couldn’t comprehend what my eyes were seeing, how could he be this close this fast. I said nothing again and that’s when knew I was in danger \nI took off as fast as I could and dared not to look back. Although track or any form of running was not my strongest attribute growing up I was not letting this guy get close to me. I just kept telling myself, five miles, only five miles and you’ll be home free. The main trail usually keeps some traffic this time of the day with people leaving; only campers and crazy people are here after dark. I kept running and running until I started feeling that cramp in my side. It’s always on the right side and always when I decide to skip a week in the gym and slack off my routine. I wasn’t sure how far I had gotten whenI decided to stop running and just speed walk until the cramp went away. And that’s when I heard the voice again, “you can’t run forever, what prize will I have once I get to you I wonder.” Now there’s a prize for catching me, like who is this maniac. I began to pick up speed again and another Whoosh! I fell to the ground. This time he was standing above me grinning, exposing a serious amount of teeth and the smell was rancid; even dead rats didn’t smell this bad. \n“Got you was the first thing he said to me” just like a child when you’re playing the game IT. Still at a loss for words I just looked up and attempted to scoot back so I could stand. While leaning back on my hands and keeping eye contact, he pushed me back down with one hand on my right shoulder and with the other hand he pierced a nail into my other shoulder until it bled. I had never felt that type of pain in my life, I let out the loudest cry. He started mocking me and it almost sounded like I heard my own voice coming from this stranger. He stood back up and said, “let’s do this again, you run and I’ll catch you. I’ll count to ten, GO!” So, I did just that except, I didn’t stop this time. I could only assume he was running behind me but I knew I had to be getting close to the main trail. Only after a few minutes the silence of the forest ended like a snap of a finger, I could hear all of the sounds of nature again. I let my guard down and felt a sense of safety. Glancing back for a few seconds I saw a thin bright white light from the ground go into the sky. I still didn’t stop running. \nEventually I started hearing laughter, the good kind, when friends are having a good time and had that “We did it” type of accomplishment. When I showed my face, I could only assume what they were thinking seeing someone sprint from the wounds and out of breath. I doubled over and fell to the ground when I finally got to my car. I checked my phone after hearing all of the dings! Since there is no cell service in most national parks. I had 12 missed calls and 20 text messages. I forgot I had promised my dad I would let him know I arrived safely and again when I was leaving. He knew the woods more than me and knew how much time it should take on the trails, even with the pit stop to our spot. The messages didn’t sound of concern for me in the forest but more of fear for self, I called him back and he answered on the first ring. Saying at the same time, “you’ll never guess what happened to me today!”" } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Turtle Soup\n\nGenre: bedtime\n\nWord Count: 1096\n\nPrompt:\n\nMake a race an important element of your story." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "There once was a turtle whose name was Marcel Monroe. He had lived a modest life, all while carrying his house on his back.\nOne morning, a boy discovered his shell and peeked inside. Marcel invited him in for a cup of hot cocoa.\n“Will you tell me a story, Marcel?” asked the boy.\n“Once,” he began, “I was in a race.”\n“But I thought turtles were slow.”\nMarcel puffed thoughtfully on his pipe, before he replied. “If you measure a race by the time it takes to get from one point to another then yes – indeed – we are slow.”\nThe boy’s brow furrowed in confusion.\n“I shall tell you a story, boy,” said Marcel with a smile, and the boy settled in, cradling the cup with his hands.\n-\nMarcel lived in a land of salt and rock, for a time. One morning, he stumbled upon a man and two horses. He was waving his arms, and stamping his feet, and shouting “You must! You must!”\nBut the silver horse – so grey as to blend into the rock, invisible if not for the whites of her eyes peeled back in fear – was shaking her head and backing away.\n“What is wrong?” Marcel asked the horse.\n“She won’t race!” shouted the man. “But she must, or I shall lose my home!”\nMarcel nodded patiently at the man but waited for the horse to answer him.\n“I’ve hurt my foot on the rock and the salt has seeped in,” the horse said. “I cannot race, or I shall break my leg and die.”\n“You must! You must race!” the man yelled. He kicked out at the horse in anger, but Marcel stepped in the way and the man’s toe caught his shell. He fell to the ground with a howl, cradling his foot.\n“I will help you,” Marcel said to the man. “Let this horse go, and I will race for you.”\nThe man began to cry and beat his fists against the rock.\n“Do not fear. If I lose, you may share my home with me.”\nThe man sniffed, and nodded, and rose shamefully to his feet. “So be it.”\nA red stallion was pawing impatiently at the ground, his nostrils flared as if he might breathe fire.\n“You must race this stallion, and win,” the man said.\nMarcel nodded, and the man began to count out loud.\n“Three, two, one, GO!”\nThe stallion took off, a plume of smoke and dust in his wake. When the air cleared, Marcel had barely begun down the path after him, and the man dropped to his knees and wept.\nBut Marcel ignored him and plodded on. Fifty paces, then one hundred, then one thousand… At dawn, Marcel finally approached the finish line where the stallion was waiting, the man trailing behind him in despair.\n“Why did you bother?” lamented the man. “It was lost before it even began.”\nMarcel looked at the man, and then at the stallion, and said “I see no loss.”\n“I crossed the finish line hours and hours ago,” the stallion huffed.\n“I crossed the finish line, too,” Marcel said. “But I also spared the mare's life, helped a man, and gave you the opportunity to do what you were born to do.”\nThe stallion smiled and chuckled to himself. “You’re a clever old turtle, but I’m afraid I must still take my winnings.”\n“Then I have also gained the pleasure of a new companion and friend,” Marcel said as he smiled at the man. “I shall make you soup, and hot tea, so you may rest a while and settle into your new home with me.”\nThe stallion frowned, for soup and hot tea sounded nice after such a long night of waiting.\n“I wonder if you might be willing to find our friend, the grey mare, and invite her as well? I have plenty of soup to share. You are all most welcome.”\nThe stallion agreed, pleased to have been invited, and took off in search of the mare.\nHours later, Marcel and the man had grown tired of waiting for the stallion to return and had filled their bellies with soup and tea before falling asleep. They woke to a knock on the door, afternoon sunlight streaming through the windows, and when Marcel opened the door it was a bird.\n“I have a very important message, but I am tired and have flown all morning,” said the bird.\n“Please sit, let me help,” offered the man, who brought the bird a bowl of soup while Marcel watched.\nThe weary bird rested his wings, accepting the bowl from the man with deep gratitude. When the bird was done, he turned to the man and said “The stallion will not be returning. Your house is yours.”\n“But why?” the man gasped.\nThe bird stretched its wings. “Upon fetching the grey mare, the stallion found himself contemplating his nature. He said to tell you that while he was born to win, he was not born to take.”\n“But where will he live?” asked the man.\n“The grey mare has offered for him to stay in her home,” said the bird with a knowing smile. “I do believe that arrangement shall work out well for all.”\nThe man jumped up and down, clicking his heels together and whooping with joy.\n“Well then,” said Marcel, “I must be on my way.”\nThe man thanked him with tears in his eyes, dropped to his knees, and with one hand on his heart pledged his home to be free and open to anyone in need of shelter, care, or good soup.\n“Just not turtle soup,” Marcel said with a wink. The sounds of the man’s laughter and the bird’s chirpy chuckle rang all around him.\n-\nMarcel looked at the boy with a smile on his lips.\n“There are many ways in which we may measure a race. Judge not by who arrives when, but by the change they influence along the way.”\n“But the world doesn’t see it that way,” the boy cried. “There must always be a winner and a loser.”\n“You still think of a race as movement from here to there. But there is only One race, and it cannot be measured in distance or time.”\nThe boy sat quietly, contemplating the nature of turtles and men, as he finished his cocoa in silence. When he was done, he looked at Marcel and smiled.\n“Turtles aren’t slow at all, are they?” the boy whispered.\n“No,” Marcel whispered back, “we’re not.”" } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Can't have Nothin in Ho Chi Minh\n\nGenre: asian-american\n\nWord Count: 1121\n\nPrompt:\n\nSet your story in a major city that your character has a love-hate relationship with." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Jack just loved waking up to the smell of an overheating machine gun in the morning. He did a ninja getup and totally wasn’t assisted by any cables or pulleys that you totally can’t see. He was already in his commando outfit and smoking a big ol cigar to keep the runtime down. \n“Hey Jack, we’re out of toilet paper,” Copernicus shouted from the bathroom with the door somewhat cracked. “Can you get me some?”\n“Sure thing,” Jack said as he picked up another roll of shredded Chinese flags and handed it to Copernicus through the door. Upon leaving his barrack, Jack was handed his huge assault rifle with his signature neverending magazine. “Thanks, Sarge,” he said. “What we got today?”\n“The Siberian 12th Infantry unit is attacking to cover for the Chinese 8th and 77th who are in DC trying to steal the Big Capitalism,” Sergeant Eyepatch With An Equally Dope Pegleg said.\nJack gasped “Not the Big Capitalism!”\n“Yesss, the Big Capitalism,” Sergeant Eyepatch With An Equally Dope Pegleg shook his head in despair. “They should be getting aid from Cambodian mercenaries, though. I’m sending you to DC with the rest of the 69th Red Commando Battalion to stop them. We will make sure you are fitted with the most aesthetically pleasing and rad gear we can possibly think of. We’ll have an opportunity to test the NoLookShot m8725, a device that allows you to shoot anybody anywhere without even looking, maximizing your awesomeness.”\n“Can do, Sarge,” Jack said.\nSuddenly, a Russian infantryman fell through the roof for some dang reason, and there needed to be action so Jack shot him until he was a pile of shredded cheese. “And remind me, Sarge, what’s going on here?”\nSergeant Eyepatch With An Equally Dope Pegleg cleared his throat. “On November 11th, 1985, a military coalition crossed the Bering Strait, composed of armies from the Soviet Union, China, North Japan, North Korea, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, Poland, Finland, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, East Germany, South-North Germany, Czechoslovakia, Romania, Albania, and Cuba. they took over Canada and renamed it to the People’s Maple Republic, and Washington and Oregon seceded and was annexed by the PMR because they were already moving towards Communism anyway. We are currently fighting the Russian front in North Dakota.”\n“Thanks Sarge.”\nFires of Insurgence\n“515,” the worker read off.\n“Yeah, and the one after that, too,” Yosiiv said.\nShe paused. “...516?” she said with a confused expression still on her face.\n“Yuh,” Yosiiv nodded. He handed the worker his coin and she dinged it against a black tablet and then hit it a second time, and then she gave it back to him. She gave him two paper bags and Yossiv cranked the window back up and as the carriage pulled away he turned to Qatliin and set both the bags down.\n“Why’d you do that?” she scolded. “We only had one bag.”\n“Yeah but now we have two bags with twice the amount of food and their order sequence is now messed up for at least the next twenty minutes.”\nQat stared blankly. “Why though?”\n“Because it’s fun...and morality is irrelevant when it’s with something so mundane as buying junk food,” Yosiiv shrugged.\nQat smiled.\nHaldir, their driver, turned the sound up to the music as they pulled away from the eatery, and Yosiiv decided to glance into the other bag. “There’s a lot of stuff here. I think I just wasted my money on some big family’s order.”\nThey both looked back to see the next carriage in line was some huge vehicle that sort of reassembled one of those kidnapper vans Qat remembered from back home, that was full of little people. \n“Dang, I bet they immigrated just so they could have kids...but we’ve only been on this island for three years...how do you have eight kids in three years?” Yosiiv smiled, and he and Qat started laughing.\nThey came to an intersection, and neither Qat nor Yosiiv was paying attention at the time, both laughing and enjoying themselves. They heard the super loud sound of a revving carriage, and no one thought anything of it, still not paying attention. Then bright headlamps shone in through the side windows and the sound of the carriage got frighteningly near.\nQat and Yosiiv didn’t even have time to glance over before the other carriage made impact, shattering the windows and flipping the entire vehicle, which continued to roll until it finally ended up upside down.\nQat was hanging by the seat belt around her waist, and she unclipped it, falling down and scrambling to get upright. She glanced over at Yosiiv who wasn’t moving. His arm was bent and bruised and he had blood coming out of the side of his brow and left ear. He had been on the side closest to the impact.\nHaldir and their bodyguard, Tchus, weren’t moving either.\nQat grabbed Yosiiv under his arms and pulled him free of the seat belt and took him out of the carriage, having to kick the door to get it unlatched. She was in a hurry to get out and stay out because she smelled smoke, but she still had to get the driver and their bodyguard out before the machine combusted.\nWhen she started to try and pull Tchus’ door open, she noticed people getting out of the vehicle that hit them. The only three that came out had done so from the backseat, and it seemed the people in front weren’t moving, period. They all had tan skin and black hair, so they were Angraquian, and with their maroonish eyes and the unpleasant way they gargled their A’s when they spoke to each other, she confirmed they were Kahlhelmi Angraquian.\nBut really, the only reason she’d paused was because all three of them were holding weapons. They all made eye contact with her and started trudging right at her. Her first instinct was to try and get the door open and use Tchus’ flash rifle, but when the door wouldn’t budge, she remembered her second option. She stepped out in between the carriage and the three men, and pulled out her hairpin and whispered her trigger tord, and the pin reacted, expanding into a curved-edge half sword.\nShe started to wish she’d gone for a projectile weapon. The men were using flash rifles as well, and she only had one way to deal with those kinds of weapons, and she wouldn’t be able to fight back.\nBystanders that had gathered to observe the accident screamed and ran, though two people went to try and retrieve the Haldir and Tchus who were still stuck inside the carriage, and to get Yosiiv away from the scene." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: City Living\n\nGenre: asian-american\n\nWord Count: 1101\n\nPrompt:\n\nSet your story in a major city that your character has a love-hate relationship with." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "March 14th, 2020.\nThat was the date that he had written down. He had repeated that date over 100,000 times. It was the date that marked the beginning of the end. 2021 was that year the whole insanity of it all was too much for Michael Seong. He thought 2016 was the roughest year in the 21st century, but 2020? It was a great contender for the bullshit that occurred in his life. At least, all of the life that occurred in his room. When the pandemic had occurred, his first instinct was to haul ass and not get the Coronavirus within the perimeters of his Orange County, California condo. After the whole affair with the infamous bug infestation, the last thing he wanted was Carson, his landlord, to give another warning about being evicted. So Michael decided to move to San Diego, California, instead, with the three months worth of rent money in his bank account.\nDespite the fact that he knew he wasn’t one of the likely ones to contract COVID-19, Michael did everything within his power to disinfect the entire condo. Although he wasn’t a neurotic person by nature, this pandemic had allowed him to become completely paranoid 24/7. Therefore, he decided to barricade himself in his room. It was surprisingly easy. It wasn’t as if he was Lee from the video game The Walking Dead. If Lee could survive kicking zombie butt every day, excluding his fateful death, he definitely could survive a pandemic. His mother and father were always huge fans of survivor stories; there was a whole plethora of them out there.\n This was the moment. Michael Seong was able to confide in himself the regards of being able to rest and take breaks. He had every right to do so. The pandemic could not have made it any clearer in San Diego, California. He would do whatever it took to leave this blasted state forever. While California was a sense of paradise for the naïve fools, he saw it for what it really was: a manufactured, over-the-top, pretentious, shallow wasteland. One grim date that he recalled after March 14th was July 15th. Ideally, a couple of weeks after the Fourth of July, which was obviously America’s birthday, would be a joy ride for anyone. The day had started ordinary. All Michael wanted was a simple Frappuccino with whipped cream on top. That didn’t prepare him for the blonde woman next to him. Today, she would be known as a Karen.\nAt first, he thought the term had sounded obnoxious. Who thought it was a clever idea to even use a person’s first name to describe their entire personality? Whoever it was, they really had the common sense of making it a popular trend at its bane known as social media. At this point in his 40s, he didn’t see the point in making accounts where strangers would make assumptions about his life based on artificial posts. Technology was already ripping people off, so why give them the satisfaction? It wasn’t enough that the woman had to have every topping in her mocha latte, but also “a little bit of caramel just to add that funk.” What did that even mean? Do people even listen to their selves anymore?\nBesides, he had other concerns to deal with. Before Michael divorced his wife, Tammy, there was a time in his life when he actually enjoyed San Diego. Contrary to popular belief, the city had a lot of neighborhoods. To him, La Jolla would always be one of his favorites. The laid back atmosphere was the perfect antidote to his harsh, stern personality. The public school atmosphere was no supportive environment to his impeding atmosphere. To everyone’s astonishment, the divorce had nothing to do with Michael and Tammy resenting each other. There was no more effort being put after being married to each other for twelve years. He had felt that he had put up this façade of being the perfect husband given the fact that he knew Tam-Tam, the affectionate nickname that he had given her, had been so fractured. Tammy was the complete opposite of that.\nShe was vibrant, alive, and never had a self-conscious bone throughout her entire body…unless you count the time that she joked about Wendy’s giving her the Turbulent Tammy swirl after she had a huge bowl of cookies and cream ice cream.\n“This is exactly why flabby bellies will never go out of style!”\nThe lingering, long, languid feeling of regret didn’t help anything in his personal affairs. He was on No Man’s Land, a hermit without a home, a crab without a shell to crawl into; he was what the Spaniards would call the male version of him as La Llorona. Even though he was now in a men’s support group, it was still very challenging him to be vulnerable to others. He especially feared being vulnerable to himself, for he feared that the man he saw in his own reflection wouldn’t be a person he liked at all. Perhaps there was a reason that he was in the Sunshine State. It was the only element left that garnered any hope left.\nBut what could he do? Back then, he had overheard a conversation from one of his Korean aunts about his five year old cousin’s shoes getting spat on at her private school. While Michael knew that kids could be cruel, he had wish that day that beating up children was considered legal. Then he got more angry at himself because he not only had undocumented family members, but also had been arrested already for a misdemeanor back in 2013 for attempted assault after his ex-girlfriend, Mia had been harassed by a belligerent drunk.\nAfter all that has happened, with the wounds of past and present to behold, he still found things to love about the city: the Sunshine, Mia attempting to reach out to him at 4:00 Pacific Standard Time, in order to let know that there were no hard feelings left after that fateful night, and the love that his family would always maintain for him.\nPerhaps San Diego wasn’t such a bad place to move to after all.\nThroughout that whole time, he had been in a long line. Thankfully, he was able to collect his thoughts and order what he wanted: a simple Caramel drink, specifically, a Caramel Ribbon Crunch Frappuccino. He sat down near a window, gazing outside of the arid land of overly expensive cars, frantic people, and the congested air of San Diego, resting into its sordid affair of magnificent wonders." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Dispatched\n\nGenre: bedtime\n\nWord Count: 1049\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story that includes someone saying, “You can’t run forever.”" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "“9-1-1. What is your emergency?” \nCasey moved to the edge of her chair, fully aware that all eyes in the Dispatch Center were on her. She struggled to focus on her first call, her mind ruminating on the “we-need-to-talk” text she sent Michael that morning. Her boyfriend had grown distant since starting classes at the community college. \n“9-1-1. What is your emergency?” she repeated more loudly.\nClick.\nCasey tapped her console, disconnecting the line before immediately calling the number back. She had been trained to expect numerous hang-ups during her shift, yet protocol required her to determine if first responders were needed or not before she could disregard the call. \nThe phone rang several times. \n“Hello?” the voice of a teenage girl answered, clearly flustered.\n“This is 9-1-1. We received a call from this number. Do you have an emergency?”\nNervous laughter. “Oh, god! I was just playing with my phone. Then it dialed 9-1-1 by itself. I don’t know what happened. It’s possessed or something—”\nA teacher in the background loudly reprimanded her for using an unauthorized device during class. \n“Okay, I’ll mark this down as accidental,” Casey said, tapping in a brief comment about the errant call into her console. “Just so you know, if you press the slide button key five times, it automatically dials 9-1-1.”\n“I didn’t know that,” the girl whined. “I didn’t mean to. Are the police coming? Am I in trouble?”\n“No, you are not in trouble. But next time, stay on the phone and tell the dispatcher what happened. That way, we don’t have to bother you at school.”\n“Okay.” The caller had clearly lost interest in Casey.\n“You could disable the Emergency SOS feature on your phone. It’s under settings.”\n“Fine,” the girl said, annoyance in her voice. “I’ll do that. Thanks. I gotta go now.”\n“Have a good day.”\nCasey clicked off, looking around the Dispatch Center for approval from her peers, but no one seemed to notice her deft handling of her first solo call. \n🜋 🜋 🜋\n“9-1-1. What is your emergency?” \nAn older woman sobbed over the line. “My Jeffrey is m-missing!”\n“Your husband is missing?”\n“My husband? My husband’s dead. It’s Jeffrey! My sweet boy…” \n“When did you last see your son?”\n“My son? My son is at college. He’s a business major.”\n“Ma’am, this line is for emergencies only.” Casey had been warned about kooks. “The non-emergency number is—”\n“This is an emergency. Someone’s stolen my dog!” The woman’s words turned into a tsunami of tears.\nCasey froze, not knowing what to do, unnerved by the woman.\nThe shift supervisor, Bernice, picked up Casey’s call to intervene. “It’s all right, ma’am. When did you last see your dog Jeffrey?” \nAs Bernice extracted the necessary information, Casey’s face reddened. Sitting back in defeat, she stared blankly at her monitors.\n“That’s another thing you have to learn,” Bernice said, after ending the call. “Pets are more important to people than people.”\nCasey bit her thumbnail. “Why’s that?” \n“Because people are disappointing. Your line’s ringing.” \n🜋 🜋 🜋\n“9-1-1. What is your emergency?”\n“It’s running!”\nCasey’s pulse quickened at the young boy's voice until she heard other children snickering in the background. Another voice harshly commanded the others to shut up. \n“What's running?” she replied, a smile curling the corners of her mouth. \n“I said—your refrigerator is running,” repeated the voice. \n“You said it wrong!” interrupted another voice. “Ask if the refrigerator is running.”\n“Are you running with a refrigerator?” the young boy tried again. “You can’t run forever!”\n“You dumbass,” his partner muttered.\n“Boys,” Casey said. “You shouldn’t prank 9-1-1. If you report a false emergency, you could be found guilty of a misdemeanor.”\n“Miss who?”\n“The punishment for pranking 9-1-1 could be up to one year in jail and/or a $1000 fine.”\nThe young boy whispered to his friends. “We’re going to jail.” Then she heard them whimpering. \n“You are not going to jail. Just stay off the emergency lines, all right?”\n“Are the police coming?\n“No,” Casey reassured him. “We’ll let this one slide today.”\n“Okay,” the young boy replied. “Do you have Prince Albert in a can?”\nCasey hung up, deciding if she did marry Michael, they would have to think long and hard about having children. \n🜋 🜋 🜋\n“9-1-1. What is your emergency?”\n“My friend’s trippin’ balls!” \nTechno music blared so loudly that Casey ripped off her headset to lower the volume. She quickly adjusted them. “Could you repeat that? You injured your testicles?”\n“No! My friend and I were partying in his mom’s basement. One of his girlfriends showed up, scrolled through his phone, and freaked out. She took his fucking dog!”\n“Were there any weapons involved?”\n“No, only a bong.”\n“What type of drugs has your friend ingested?”\n“All of them.”\nBernice intercepted Casey’s call for the second time. “Sir, what is your current location?”\n“Um. Four Oh Seven Maple Street. It's the house with a ton of dog shit in the front yard.”\nCasey's eyes widened when Bernice repeated the address aloud. She looked nauseated and bent over her trashcan to retch.\nBernice muted her line before leaning over to Casey. “You okay?”\nCasey swallowed hard as her eyes watered. She managed to nod.\n“Good. Your line’s ringing. Pick it up.”\n🜋 🜋 🜋\n“9-1-1. What is your emergency?” \n“Not in my car, Jeffrey! Oh, you little shit!” Sharp yapping drowned out a young woman’s shrill voice. “My boyfriend’s dog nipped me. It's actually his mother's dog, but I think I’m bleeding!”\nCasey shouted into her mic. “What is your location?” \n“Never mind,\" the woman continued. \"The skin isn’t broken. I’ll just wait for Michael.”\nThe line went dead. \nBernice ate a doughnut as Casey clicked on the two-way radio.\n“We’ve got a 10-16 at Four Oh Seven Maple Street. A female suspect is in unlawful possession of the homeowner’s dog. The homeowner’s son is in the basement, tripping balls. His name is Michael.”\nTossing the radio aside, Casey sat back in her chair and crossed her legs.\nBernice passed her the box of doughnuts, and they both chewed thoughtfully.\n“Love triangle?” Bernice finally inquired, an eyebrow raised. \nDonning her headset, Casey grinned. “Not anymore.” \n“You know,” Bernice remarked. “I think you’re getting the hang of this job.”" } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: With Her\n\nGenre: asian-american\n\nWord Count: 2907\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story that spans exactly a year and takes place in a single room." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "spring\n\nThe year starts in February. Their year, to be exact.\n\nBecause it’s Spring Festival, the day when they make food together and pop firecrackers together and tell old myths that spin long into the night. Because she spends the day with her children and feels their smiles light her up brighter than the sun.\n\nBecause today isn’t just another day, but a celebration of it. Because the world keeps spinning, and time moves on, and she was born to love this deeply. To walk hand in hand with life, her life, these lives beside her. Forever. Always.\n\nsummer\n\nHe knows this room like the back of his hand.\n\nThe peeling paint that papers the walls, colored in a dull off-white that started out as sunshine yellow, fifteen years ago. The wobbly wooden table standing on three legs that creaks in protest as he sets down the wok. And, of course, the three bowls he begins to fill, china shining red and green and blue in the buzzing yellow light.\n\nHe puts a place mat in front of each of the three chairs, humming quietly to himself. His hands seem to guide themselves across the bowls and mats and chopsticks, doing the job without any hesitation. It’s a privilege he wishes the rest of him has.\n\nThe aroma of the fried rice twines through the air. He sniffs deeply, and despite how much he wants to love it, his first thought is, It’s missing something. He racks his brain for the forgotten ingredient as he portions the rice into the bowls. It slips through the cracks, impossibly elusive.\n\nHe knows this house, this room, this home. The way the walls press in on him like they’re inhaling, and the way he loves it anyway. Where he grew up on a diet of listening to two different languages and upside-down signs during the spring, annual blessings of health from far-off relatives. Over sputtering phone calls, they promised his mother that luck would arrive soon, year after year.\n\nHe feels the memory tug his mouth into a smile.\n\nThe place mats are smoothed out, the chopsticks aligned. He sits down in his chair and starts eating, trusting his family to come on their own time, just like they always have.\n\nHis sister enters the room, worry clouding her face, her dark hair pulled up in a messy bun. When she sits down and puts a clump of rice in her mouth, her expression shifts from weariness to surprise to carefully-constructed mediocrity.\n\nHe tips his head at her, and she offers an approving nod. For his distant sister, that’s the best he’ll get today.\n\nThe table is silent save for the soft chirping of the crickets outside as the evening begins, until even their song fades too. He picks at his food, hearing the quiet settle slowly. Like a magnet, he feels his gaze drawn to the empty third chair, wondering what his mother will think, if she’ll grin at him and ruffle his hair or get teary-eyed over his skills, how she will love him today, how she will fill him up.\n\nWhen nobody sits down to complete their family, he feels nothing but an ache, blooming like a flower inside his rib cage.\n\nSomewhere, in the recesses of his head, the loss had managed to slip his mind. Maybe it’s the haze drifting over his thoughts like low-hanging fog, leaving him blurry at the edges. Whatever it is, the pain twists itself from a presence to a punch, straight in the chest. His heart seems to pause for a moment, his lungs drawing to a still.\n\nHis mother isn’t here anymore to tell him what ingredient is missing, to guide his hands over the fire and the wok and show him how. Without her, he doesn’t think he’ll ever know how.\n\nThe untouched bowl, the cheerful place mat. They tug at his edges until he thinks he’s going to unravel like string. Like the opposite of a masterpiece, a half-finished tapestry on the other side of time.\n\nHe stands up. His sister’s eyes never leave her own bowl.\n\nSlowly, he puts the rice into the fridge, hides the utensils away in the cabinet. He scrubs his mother’s spot clean like she never existed at all.\n\nThe disappearance somehow hurts even more than the reminder.\n\nfall\n\nWhen the leaves change color and the green withers away from the trees, he goes back to eleventh grade.\n\nHis sister, too, goes back to her life. He watches her return to her job, befriend her coworkers, rebuild the personality she had before. Without his mother, all his other relatives half a world away, and his father having simply left them before he was even born, she’s the only one he has left.\n\nEveryone adores her. Her boss promotes her twice in a row. His neighbors invite her to dinner every other day. Meanwhile, he’s failing English and almost punched his classmate just yesterday. She is frustratingly perfect and he is not, will never be, no matter how hard he tries.\n\nSo now he’s sitting at the dinner table with his chin in his hands, alone again, unable to look away from the chair that still stands across from him. He can’t shake the feeling that there should be someone there, maybe berating him for his bad behavior, or having one of those classic soul-searching conversations in a mixture of Mandarin and English, a colorful twist of sounds. Melancholy coils deep in his stomach, bitter sugar that fills his mouth with rotten sweetness.\n\nHe’s lived here his whole life, and this room feels new anyway. He doesn’t recognize that painting on the wall, the colors smudging as he squints. He can’t remember which one is the creaky floorboard. His eyes are constantly snagging on the empty chair, a black hole, inescapable. \n\nNausea roils inside him like a storm at sea.\n\nHe wants her to come back. He needs her to come back. He needs her stern voice and her hand on his shoulder, her gentle words and her not-so-gentle shoves in the right direction. There is no compass hanging on his chest, only the weight of this emptiness.\n\nFootsteps pull him back to the present. He lifts his head to see his sister with two bowls of microwave ramen steaming in her hands. They smell spicy, stinging his throat.\n\nHe takes one of the bowls from her and hopes his brittle smile is grateful enough.\n\nWhen she’s halfway out the door, something seems to strike her. She turns back to him, her face unreadable, eyes trained steadily on him. She’s always been withdrawn, but especially so since their family fractured into three separate shards. The only person who could coax her out of her shell is gone.\n\nIf he focuses on bits and pieces of her at a time, he recognizes her. Those impossibly dark eyes, that unyielding posture, the slight frown on her face that’s always either amused or annoyed.\n\nThen he takes her in as a whole, and he wonders if this person was ever his sister at all.\n\nThis dining table used to be her sanctuary: now, her own bedroom has replaced it. Every month or so, when they eat at this off-kilter surface together, his ears buzz with silence.\n\nIt feels like he’s lost two family members instead of one.\n\nSit with me, he almost says. Please, talk to me. Be with me.\n\nThe words get stuck, just like they always do. This time, he feels tears spring to life too, ready to fall.\n\nHe turns to the wall and wipes them away, a hot flush of embarrassment rising and warring with the loneliness, the longing. When he looks back, she’s already gone.\n\nwinter\n\nThe snowflakes drift past the window in a way nobody could ever call graceful. He stares out at the clumps of white, watching them tumble and somersault to the ground like excited children. He can’t find any beauty in their motions.\n\nOn the eve of his sixth birthday, he couldn’t sleep. He’d gotten up in the middle of the night and saw his mother disappearing through the door to the attic, a black-and-white painting of a single crane tucked under her arm like something illegal. Quickly, he’d dove back into his bed and held very still. He never saw that frame again.\n\nIt's been exactly a decade since then. Happy birthday to me, he thinks dully. Briefly, he thinks about getting a candle to blow on, then decides against it. He already has too many wishes that will never come true.\n\nAround the dinner table, more paintings like that one have been appearing, day by day. A bird here, some bamboo shoots there, a dragon coiling across paper above his head. The gray billows and swoops across the paper in delicate clouds.\n\nIf there’s one thing the past few months have taught him, it’s that being okay is an art form. It’s a masterpiece hanging in a museum that he tilts his head at, one way and the other, trying to figure out why people call it beautiful. Because all he sees is amorphous blobs, shapeless strokes, brushes of paint on a canvas that mean nothing to him.\n\nThe new additions to the room have a curious effect on his emotions. They’re a reminder of the good times, and a reminder that those times are gone. A remnant of the person who loved him, of the person that will never love again. He’s walking a tightrope far above the ground, where every step is more unsteady and the path ahead is nearly invisible. Alone, with no hand to hold.\n\nThe door opens, and his sister enters the room. This time, she’s holding rice noodles, and they smell exquisite.\n\nThey sit down in sync. She offers a bowl and a pair of chopsticks to him, and he begins eating greedily. It’s about five minutes later when he realizes his sister’s bowl lies untouched on the table. She’s nowhere to be found.\n\nGone again, he thinks, but when she returns, it’s not empty-handed. She grips a dusty frame tightly, like it might break if she doesn’t hold it together. As she reaches toward the last available wall hook, he stands and walks closer, making out the shape of a crane taking flight.\n\nAnd all of a sudden, he’s sobbing.\n\nIt doesn’t usually come on this fast, he thinks dimly. But his vision is already blurry with moisture, he feels himself getting hot, and dizziness fills his brain like an expanding balloon. This is one of those things he can’t control. The tears keep flowing, and he tries to wipe his face dry. It doesn’t work. He feels so fragile without her.\n\nWithout her. Without her. It thunders through his head, again and again, until he feels like he might fly apart because of it. His chest heaves shallowly and his heart beats like a trapped bird’s wings. This life is not the same. This life will never be the same. \n\nThen someone’s arms encircle him, pulling him in, and they collapse to the floor together.\n\nHis sister is easily a half-foot taller than him. She holds him tighter as his tears stain her shirt and simply stays there, for minutes, for eternities. She is warm and steady. He curls into her comforting weight like a young child.\n\n“Tell me about her,” he says quietly. “Please.”\n\nSo she does. She talks, her voice music he hasn’t heard in ages.\n\nAbout their mother’s dream of becoming an artist, and how dark ink stained her fingers whenever his sister came home from elementary school. Before he’d been born, a new drawing adorned in black and white appeared in the house almost every day. She hung Chang’e in her bedroom and phoenixes in the kitchen, dragons in the dining room and birds soaring south by the windows. She never used colors. She liked finding the beauty in simplicity.\n\nAbout the galleries and collections that’d rejected her artwork, over and over. People wouldn’t understand her subjects or her style, they’d explained, which meant that she was too Chinese for them, and that they didn’t even bother to consider anyone with skin like hers. He feels anger flush in his cheeks at that.\n\nAbout her passion waning, little by little, after her husband left two weeks before her son was born (me, he thinks with a jolt) and her free time was halved. She slid the ink bottles into the backs of the cabinets and stored her paintings in the attic, welcoming her children’s light-haired, bright-eyed friends from school with a clean slate.\n\nAbout her unabashed passion for Chinese New Year and the dozen vibrant dishes she whipped up every year. He’s never been able to cook quite like her.\n\nAbout her lovely ink wash paintings, gathering dust away from the world.\n\nAbout the way she’d lingered at the door of her children’s rooms one night, her son already asleep, her daughter just barely awake enough to register her words. Good night. I’ll see you in the morning.\n\nThe next day, the sun rose and so did her daughter. She found her mother alone in bed, the life stolen from her body by the virus they didn’t know she had.\n\nWhen she finally falls silent and takes a deep breath, her hands clutching at the rug, he sees vulnerability etched into every line of her face. \"You know, I don't think I'm ready to put this up yet,\" she says, gesturing to the crane painting. For the first time, he notices the dark bags adorning the crevices beneath her eyes.\n\n“I don’t want to forget her,” he whispers.\n\n“We don’t have to,” she promises, her tone wavering. “We just have to move on.”\n\nThe only smile he can summon is small, but it’s better than it used to be. Words spill from his mouth, unbidden, certain. “Will you teach me to speak Mandarin?”\n\nShe looks taken aback, and then she laughs, short and breathless. It’s nothing like how full it used to sound, twining with his mother’s voice and rising to the roof. Maybe they’ll never get those days back.\n\nMaybe it’s okay to laugh anyway.\n\n“Yeah,” she says. “I’ll try my best.”\n\nspring, again\n\nShe raises her eyebrow at him as he enters the room, struggling under the weight of three different plates. “How are the dumplings?”\n\n“Soggy,” he admits. “I left them for too long.”\n\n“They don’t look that bad.” She steals one from his plate and takes a bite. “Never mind, they’re horrible.”\n\nHe glares, and she grins back.\n\nThey've hung up the crane painting together, right next to the window. It’s been a few weeks since he found himself able to look at it without feeling grief tug at his insides. A few days since he asked her if they could display it in the room.\n\nA few hours since they put up sign after sign and turned them all upside down, signifying fortune’s imminent arrival. A few minutes since they finished cooking a half-dozen dishes in celebration of the New Year.\n\nFor the first time in forever, he finds himself happy again.\n\nHe tastes the fried rice as his sister inhales her own food. A cacophony of taste explodes on his tongue. It’s far better than it was last year, but he still catches himself thinking that something’s different. It’s not quite the way Ma used to make it.\n\n“Really?” his sister asks, and he realizes too late that he said the last sentence out loud. “I think it’s pretty good, if you ask me.”\n\n“It’s still missing something,” he says. It comes out almost like a plea.\n\n“You think so?” She must see panic on his face, because she quickly switches into a reassuring tone. “It’s okay, we’ll figure it out together soon.”\n\nTogether. Soon. He feels the words burst happily like firecrackers in his chest. They’re a promise of the days ahead, of what’s to come. Because he’s not alone, and he never will be.\n\n“Xīn nián kuài lè,” he says haltingly in Mandarin.\n\nIt’s riddled with hesitations and far from perfect, and yet she understands. “Happy New Year,” she answers.\n\nThey dive into their dinner and exchange conversation: quickly in English, slowly in Mandarin. And it’s a slow realization, but it’s a sure one: he has a glowing future waiting for him, with people he loves and people he will love by his side. For a second, he can see it with freshly hopeful eyes.\n\nThis food will taste like some new authenticity, and this language will roll off his tongue like music. These firecrackers will light up the darkness like red and gold stars. These scars will not heal because of time, but in spite of it.\n\nThe hole in his heart will still be there, but its jagged edges will have smoothed like they are already starting to. He will fill it with love, with hope and joy and laughter, day by day. A part of him is gone, but that’s what life is for: rebuilding from your broken pieces.\n\nAnd each morning when the sun rises, leaving the spice of good fortune on his tongue, he will still be with her. He will have moved on. His memories will shine like the old paintings around this table dusted clean, and he will know how to be okay, one stroke at a time." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Bird flying\n\nGenre: asian-american\n\nWord Count: 2377\n\nPrompt:\n\nStart your story with a character struggling to remember the date, because every day is like the last one." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "There’s no sound on earth quite like a bird flying into a sliding glass door. Unlike the white noise of mass extinctions and vanishing rainforests, the singular thud of delicate avian bones against shatter-resistant Duraplex glass is impossible to ignore.\nIt's the sound of the natural and man-made worlds colliding, like the off-key fervor of a bronze temple gong struck by a fresh-faced initiate.\nBurt Frumbder was savoring the second sip of his first cup of coffee when this one-of-a-kind sound made him jump, spilling this same cup of coffee. He swore and shuffled to the kitchen sink, attempting to pat his grey sweatpants dry with a dirty dishcloth.\nAfter a few unsuccessful attempts to eradicate the stain, Burt noticed with a satisfied pursing of his lips, that the warmth of the spilled coffee almost felt good on his thighs. He shrugged and walked to the living room to investigate what exactly had caused the sudden noise.\nHad a bird flown into the sliding glass door a few days earlier, Burt might have spilled coffee on his laptop or phone as he skimmed through manuscripts and client emails at the kitchen table. But Burt had sent off his last round of edits on Monday and he wasn’t planning to log on for any new assignments or updates until this next week, at the earliest. It was Christmas, after all. He'd even left his phone charging on the bedside table to celebrate the sanctity of the season.\nBurt mentally congratulated himself on his \"work-life balance.\"\nAs far as Burt was concerned, the best week of the year was the four days from December 26th to Dec 30th. It was a dead time of year for work, which meant he could gorge on all the holiday sweets he wanted, binge Netflix for hours, and wear sweatpants all-day without any judgment from the people in his life who had \"real jobs.\" Because they'd all be doing the exact same thing.\nHis (admittedly small) list of clients — mainly vanished in the weeks leading up to and after the holidays only to return like a Mongol horde of motivated go-getters in late January.\nHis inbox would soon be brimming with requests for notes and revisions from hopeful first and second-time novelists looking for miracles instead of copy edits. But he had a few more days until the flood of would-be Hemingways set out to subdue their New Year’s Resolution word counts with painful prose.\nAs he walked into the living room, he could feel his carefree week slipping away.\nBurt glanced at the sliding glass door for signs of damage, not expecting to find any, and was surprised to see a single feather stuck to the glass. It was dusty grey, almost white, and about the size of a pinky fingernail. It fluttered lightly in the morning breeze, somehow cemented on the glass about six inches below eye level. Burt looked down to see the owner of the feather. He shook his head.\nThe fist-sized bird was limp, his twig legs wilted like damp curly fries as he lay next to the faded “e” at the end of the rust-colored “Welcome” mat.\nMost people don’t have welcome mats in their backyard. But most people don't live in “the country” as Burt’s older brother, Chris and his wife Charlene call it. Burt was especially thankful for the doormats at every entrance when his rambunctious nieces and nephew came to visit each summer.\nBurt looked forward to those extended visits; chaotic five or six intervals in July that let him wonder if he’d have been a good dad without having to actually answer the question. Over the years, Burt had trained each youngster to wipe their feet before darting through the sliding glass door in search of a Capri Sun or juice popsicle — usually dripping wet from the pool or caked in mud from the hill at the edge of his property.\nChris and Charlene hadn’t visited since Linda left.\nA flutter of motion at his feet caught Burt’s eye.\nBurt flicked up the lock and slid the door open with that familiar sci-fi movie sound effect — whoosh. The morning chill blew Burt's thinning shaggy brown hair back off his forehead. The bird, a common sparrow or finch, Burt could never tell the difference, was dazed, but obviously still alive. His wings fluttered as the groggy tried to process his current situation.\n(Despite Burt's ornithological shortcomings, he had come to the conclusion that the bird was male, mostly so he could stop referring to it as “it” in his head).\nHaving made this first decision regarding the bird, Burt sprang into action.\nHe dashed back into the kitchen to grab the coffee-stained hand towel. When he returned, the bird had managed to flutter itself all the way over to the \"W,\" but didn't look ready to leave the doormat any time soon. Even this meager pilgrimage had left it exhausted.\nHis cotton ball chest puffed and deflated in spastic panic. Yet the bird was unable to muster the energy to evade what he must have assumed was his imminent death at Burt’s descending hands.\nBurt smothered the bird with the kitchen towel, gently working the delicate bundle around in his hands until he felt the featherweight body settle upright in his palm. One toothpick sharp foot kicked feebly as the bird struggled to readjust itself in his swaddled prison. Burt peeled the fabric back to check on his panicked passenger.\nThe bird was still hyperventilating in a noble attempt to cram in as many last breaths as possible. Millions of years of evolution informed every cell in his tiny bird body that each harried breath would probably be his last. Aside from this existential dread, the bird looked surprisingly unharmed.\n“There, there now, birdie,” Burt cooed. “You’ll be alright. We’ll fix you right up,” he promised and covered his patient back up.\n\"You just need a little jolt to start the day,\" he announced his diagnosis. The bird was in no position to ask for a second opinion as Burt walked into the kitchen to administer avian first aid.\nThis, of course, was not Burt’s first encounter with an injured bird.\n\nBurt's grandmother, Flo, had raised chickens. As kids, Burt and his brother had loved to feed and chase her birds across the yard. Despite the apparent risk that two unruly young boys presented to an animal a tenth their size, chickens are surprisingly capable creatures. They evaded the grasping hands of the Frumbder boys with practiced ease, until one afternoon when Chris caught a chicken daydreaming.\nBurt burst into his grandmother's kitchen with tears plowing crooked rows through the dust and dirt on his young cheeks. He didn't even need to ask for help. He just pointed outside and his grandmother rushed out with the confidence of a woman who had lost a husband in her 20's and then spent every day since then working a 40-acre farm by herself.\nShe assessed the emergency with a measured glance and disappeared back inside. She emerged seconds later with an old army surplus wool blanket and corralled the injured chicken like a toreador before bringing her captive inside. Burt still remembers the bundle of white tail feathers poking out of the blanket like frozen fireworks.\nHis grandmother marched into the kitchen, turned on the big kitchen sink faucet, and dunked the bird (upside down) under the freezing tap water for a few seconds. Once the bird had a chance to shake itself dry, grandma fed it a spoonful of American corn whiskey and set it on the back porch.\nThe only lasting consequence of the incident was a slightly less dreamy chicken.\n\nBurt looked down at the bundle clutched in the kitchen towel. He'd already completed step one of the prescribed regimen. But he was understandably nervous about step two.\nGiving a bird a bath is harder than you think, especially when that bird is the size of a golf ball and you’re clutching it in a coffee-soaked kitchen towel so it doesn't fly around your house. But his grandma had been pretty clear on the necessity of shocking a bird back to health with cold water after a traumatic event.\n\"Birds, like a few young boys I know, need a good shock to the system when they're acting a fool,\" she'd said as she dunked the chicken under the tap. He remembered the wink she'd given him and the hint of a smile in one corner of her mouth that had dried his tears and made everything alright.\nBurt turned on the faucet and loosened his grip on his patient. He checked the temperature with one hand. Ice cold. He unwrapped the bird, clutching it like an arcade claw machine, and dunked him beneath the trickle of tap water. After what can only be described as five seconds of waterboarding, Burt concluded that his patient had been sufficiently shocked and was now safely on the mend.\nHe swaddled him back in the kitchen towel and gently patted him as dry. The bird shook his head to rid himself of a string of water drops. He was ready for the third and final step in the healing process.\nBurt opened the cabinet above the stove and stood on his tiptoes to see inside. “I’ve got just the thing to get a little pep in your step,” Burt whispered to the damp bird.\n“Theeeeeeeere it is,” he crooned and grabbed a bottle near the back. “You're in luck, bird-o, my friend. Straight Kentucky Bourbon,\" Burt read from the label. \"Aged three years. Huh. Good stuff. This will get you back in the game in no time.\"\nBurt wedged the whiskey bottle between his thighs and twisted the sticky cap loose with his free hand. The only problem now was calculating the proper dosage for his tiny patient. A sparrow (or finch, he conceded mentally) is a lot smaller than a chicken, after all.\nBurt opened the silverware drawer, searching for the smallest teaspoon he owned. He found it — a tarnished scalloped-shaped sugar spoon he’d inherited from that same grandmother. He took it as a sign and laid it on the counter.\nBurt poured a dram of whiskey for the bird and took a quick swig of medicine for himself. Bird doctoring was hard work this early in the morning. He put the bottle down with a clang and tipped his patient toward this last life-saving treatment, clutching the towel-wrapped bundle with both hands.\nBurt lowered his face down to watch. Would the bird drink any whiskey? Would it help if he did? How much whiskey did it take to get a finch (or a sparrow) drunk?\"\nThe puffy feathered head of the bird lowered to the brown liquid in the spoon. The toy beak opened and he flicked a few sips into his mouth with a twitch of his head. Then he drank a few more sips.\n“You’re doing it!” Burt whispered. The bird was in fact, \"doing it\" quite well. Burt had to pull the bird away from his medicine after a few more seconds before he overdosed. Burt lifted the bird up to eye level for a final inspection.\n\"Looks like it's working.\"\nThe bird rotated its head, in what Burt could only interpret as a genial drunk's easy agreement.\nBurt was tempted to give the bird another quick dip in the sink to sober him up but settled on a regimen of pacing the length of the kitchen with the bird clutched against his chest. He interrupted his vigil once to self-medicate with a few sips for himself.\nHe'd done it. He'd saved this bird from certain death. He was a hero. Burt had never felt prouder.\nHe rocked the bird gently, lulling it with his whispered plans for the new year.\n\"Maybe I'll finally write a book this year instead of just helping other people write one,\" he announced to the bird. \"I'll start in March, after the New Year's rush.\"\nHe'd block out time in the mornings. He'd set an alarm and get out of bed a little early. He could knock out a few pages before he checked his emails every day. Nothing was going to get in the way of his book, not even that new client on the East Coast he'd just started working with.\n“This is my year, Mr. Bird,” Burt repeated as he paced. He could do anything. His success with his patient was proof of that.\nBurt felt a flutter in his hand. The bird was struggling, trying to flap against a grip that had gradually tightened as he paced.\n“Sorry,” Burt whispered. \"Let's get you back out there.\"\nThe bird chirped impatient agreement.\nBurt walked back to the living room and opened the sliding glass door. The little grey feather was still stuck to the glass. He lowered his patient to the ground, unwrapping the towel like a picnic basket.\nThe bird rolled to the side, righting himself with a quick burst of wing beats. He cocked his head and puffed his feathers against the sudden drop in temperature. The morning air was still brisk, even though the sun was starting to burn through the thin wispy clouds. It was going to be a crisp, clear day.\nBurt crouched on his heels, his arms wrapped around his knees. He watched the bird test his strength with a few exploratory wingbeats. Then, just as suddenly as he appeared, the bird leaped away in a blur of motion. Burt watched as the bird plummeted through two death-defying dips in his flight pattern, like a long lowercase m, and then the bird was gone, vanished around the side of the house.\nBurt picked up the dirty kitchen towel and gave it a shake. He closed the sliding glass door with a whoosh and walked back to the kitchen rubbing his arms to ward off the chill.\nHis coffee had gotten cold, and the kitchen counter smelled like whiskey. He wiped the counter with the towel and popped the coffee mug in the microwave. Burt stared out the kitchen window looking for sparrows. Or maybe finches.\nHe could never tell the difference." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: 1941\n\nGenre: asian-american\n\nWord Count: 1026\n\nPrompt:\n\nStart your story with someone emerging from the sea, and end it with them looking up at the stars." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "It will be December 7th when you hear the news. You’ll have been at the beach with your friends all day; it will be a Sunday, and on weekends, your mother allows you to do close to whatever you want. It will be almost dinnertime, and, realizing this, you’ll scramble out of the water and pull on your clothes without drying yourself, shouting a hurried goodbye to the handful of boys floating in the water, only their heads visible, mostly shining blonde crowns of hair with one ginger and one brunette.\nYou’ll make your way along the narrow San Francisco streets by the light from a few dim streetlamps and burst through your front door a few minutes before six. Expecting your mother to scold you for being home so late, or for dripping seawater onto her clean linoleum floor, she’ll instead nearly faint when she sees you. “You’re safe, you’re safe,” she’ll repeat, and run to lock you in a tight embrace, sopping clothes and all.\n“What’s going on?” you’ll ask her. You’ll realize that your older brother is slouched around the dining room table--your mother despises bad posture--and that your father, your punctual, practical father, is nowhere in sight. You’ll ask where he is.\n“Your father is listening to the radio in his office,” your mother will reply quietly.\n“Why? What happened?” you’ll ask again.\nAfter a pause punctuated only by the drip of water falling from the tips of your fingers to the floor, she’ll tell you, “There’s been a bombing.”\nA bombing? Where? you’ll wonder frenziedly. “Is everyone okay?”\n“It--it happened in Hawaii, honey,” your mother will reply. She’ll sigh and pick at a spot on her apron. Your mother hates fidgeting. “At a place called Pearl Harbor.”\nA puddle will have started to form around your feet carelessly shoved into your worn-out shoes, but still you’ll stay rooted where you are, determined to get the full story. “Did the Germans-?”\n“No, honey,” she’ll whisper, so low you can barely hear. It somehow seems to reach your older brother’s ears, though he’s half a room away at the dining table. It will be scattered with cold, unwanted food, carelessly arranged, no steam rising from the rice or chicken. You’ll wonder how long it’s been there.\n“No,” she’ll say again, and you’ll know what she’s saying mostly by the shape of her lips. Her voice is almost inaudible. “It was the Japanese.”\nYour stomach will lurch, but even then you will not understand the full force of what she’s saying. “Did we--why--I don’t see--”\n“We can talk about it later,” she’ll say, and push you, your clothes still wet, towards the dining room. “Go eat.”\nYou won’t eat. Neither will your brother. You’ll both sit there for a few minutes, then simultaneously go upstairs to your separate rooms. You’ll change into your pajamas and sit on the bed, hardly even thinking, just there, just existing, because you won’t know what else you can do.\nIn the morning--it will be a Monday--you’ll go to school, expecting everyone to be talking. They’ll talk about the bombs, and the planes, and the guns. But instead, they’re not talking, they’re not talking at all; they’re only looking, and they’re looking at you.\nYou’ll be confused. Did you do something? Are there things going on that you don’t know about? Have your friends had some sort of assembly in which they decided they didn’t want to interact with you anymore?\nYou’ll ask Harry about this after gym class. He’ll avoid eye contact while he quietly replies, “Don’t be a fool. Or do you think you can somehow change yourself ‘til your skin’s no longer as yellow as my hair? Or til your hair’s less black than the Jap’s hearts? Or until your eyes are straighter than Miss America’s shining white teeth? What would you do? Can you really blame them?”\nYou’ll stand there in stunned silence until someone calls for you to exit the locker room. You’ll stumble through the rest of the day, thinking that this is a mistake, it’s all a mistake, people are just in shock and tomorrow they’ll go back to normal.\nThey don’t. One by one, stories will leak out of Japanese storeowners’ shop windows being done in; a man who was assaulted while he was just trying to buy matches; and Mrs. Ketter, who was a born American, screamed at from her neighbor’s backyard, the threats not even stopping when she runs inside with her children.\nBut through all the sneers, all the glares and turning of shoulders against you when you approach, there will be one friend who does not betray you. Matthew, who you’ve known ever since fourth grade, will be there always, through the slurs and the curses and the growing incidents of violence, always, Matthew will be by your side.\nIn January, he’ll bring you a button. People have started making buttons now; they say “I’M CHINESE,” in big letters, and the people who wear them can only hope they’ll be believed. Some Japanese wear the buttons, too, and for those of whom it’s beyond their honor to do so, hang signs that tell the world “I’M AN AMERICAN,” or some, “I LOVE MY COUNTRY.”\nMatthew will live several houses away, but still in your neighborhood, so he’ll come under cover of night. You two will meet at the back door. The stars will be out that night, shining brilliantly despite everything that’s happening, and you’ll look up at them before turning to Matthew, wondering how something so beautiful can exist during such a terrible time.\nMatthew will bring you the button, clenched tight in his small, sweaty hand, fingernail marks embedded in the palm of his hot, flushed skin.\n“Here,” he’ll whisper to you. “Take it.” He’ll shove it toward you.\nYou’ll take it between two fingers. It says, of course, in black text against a white background, “I’M CHINESE.” You’ll not bother asking where he got it--you’re not sure you want to know--and after he goes away, you’ll stand outside a moment longer, turning the button over and over in your hand.\nWill you wear it?" } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Mana of the Ancestors\n\nGenre: asian-american\n\nWord Count: 2980\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about someone who books a bargain vacation, only to be told when they arrive that they need to share a hotel suite with a stranger." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Kali fumed, as she tried to connect her phone to the hotel’s guest Wi-Fi and pull up her reservation confirmation. Easter Island had unreliable cell service.\n\n“Miss Mana, we realize you have a reservation but there’s been a mistake. We're terribly sorry, but our hotel is overbooked, so the best we can offer is for you to share a suite with another guest. That guest has already been staying with us for three weeks, and he has graciously agreed to split the cost,” the desk clerk did his best to apologize.\n\n“He?” Kali protested and pulled her deep brown hair away from her face. Her bronze cheeks were flushed with frustration. “You’re forcing me to share a room with a male stranger?”\n\nThe Chilean clerk was clearly becoming flustered, “Dios mio…Miss Mana, we’re not forcing you to do anything...we are offering you another option besides returning down Mount Terevaka to Hanga Roa city in search of a vacancy.”\n\nKali Mana put her credit card on the counter, “Fine. What’s his name?”\n\nThe hotel clerk smiled and attempted to change the subject as he scanned her plastic, “His name is Doctor Nalu Ohana…and I believe he’s Hawaiian, like you.”\n\n“My father was Polynesian…I am from Brooklyn…and so was my mother,” she remarked, annoyed.\n\nThe man tried his best to console her, “Rest assured, Miss Mana, we will do everything humanly possible to make your stay enjoyable. At most, you will only need to share the suite for eight nights, that’s when the good doctor will have to vacate the island. As you know, non-residents can only visit us for at most thirty days…then, if you wish, we will give you the full suite for the price of the standard room you originally booked for the remainder of your stay.”\n\nKali seemed noticeably more relaxed as she put her credit card back into her purse. “That’s good to hear…thank you, although I may be staying longer than my allotted thirty days.”\n\nThe clerk handed her a keycard, “How so?”\n\n“If my emigration papers are approved, I will soon be a citizen of Rapa Nui, and I may need some additional time to find myself a permanent residence.” Kali accepted the key and checked the room number. She preempted any further conversation by saying, “I only have a couple of bags. I can handle them…so I won’t need any assistance. Thank you sir, I’ll be seeing you around the property…likely sticking to the restaurant and pool.”\n\nKali made her way to her room; it was late, nearly midnight. She quietly entered the suite, so as not to disturb its current resident. To her relief, the suite had one shared living space between two private bedrooms, each with their own attached bathroom. Both bedrooms had their own closet, safe, and French doors onto a shared patio deck with an outdoor fireplace. She pulled her two bags into her room and closed the door behind her; the doctor must be sleeping, she thought\n\nShe was tired, so rather than unpack everything, she just put her purse in the safe and quickly changed into a nightgown before checking out the shared outdoor space. She gripped the iron railing while her silky gown and long hair danced with the tropical evening breeze and its cool refreshing fingers tickled the skin under her thin nightdress. Curiously, she tried to peak into the doors to the adjoining suite, but the drapes were drawn; I’ll meet him in the morning, she assumed, and she likewise closed her drapes and collapsed into her luxuriously comfortable bed.\n\nKali slept very late; it was nearly noon, but when she opened her curtains and stepped outside, her roommate’s windows were still covered. She decided to shower and slip into a two-piece bathing suit. Putting on a sheer cover-up, she took her phone and keycard poolside. At the pool bar she purchased a light breakfast of pastries with black coffee and proceeded to spend the afternoon reading downloaded books on her phone while enjoying the sun.\n\nThat first evening, Kali returned to her room and dressed for dinner…and she neither heard nor saw any activity next door. After dinner she enjoyed some wine on the shared veranda…and still there was no sign of the mysterious doctor.\n\nShe followed virtually the same routine for four entire days and nights before working up the courage to check on him. Before heading down to the pool for breakfast in a flowered bikini she actually tried to open the adjoining room, but she found it was locked. She placed her ear to the door and detected what sounded like faint snoring. So, he sleeps during the day but where does he disappear to at night?\n\nKali found the answer to her question just before dinner that night. When she returned to her suite, she saw a handsome, somewhat older gentleman on the veranda. He was definitely Hawaiian, like the desk clerk had mentioned, and was dressed in a casual shirt and canvas cargo pants; atop his curly black hair was a brown leather Australian slouch hat, and he sipped a glass of Chilean red wine.\n\nShe swapped her sheer cover-up for an opaque red one and joined him on the deck via her own patio doors. “Hello…Doctor Ohana I presume?”\n\nHer roommate filled a second glass for her and bid Kali welcome, “Please Miss Mana, call me Nalu. Come…have a seat and join me in a pre-dinner libation.”\n\n“You can call me Kali,” she accepted his invitation by gracefully taking her seat and putting the freshly poured burgundy beverage to her equally wine-red lips. She swallowed the sweet dry wine, and addressed the obvious, “So, Nalu, how come it took four days for us to meet? You’re more reclusive than me.”\n\nThe Hawaiian laughed, “More reclusive than you? What do you mean?”\n\n“Well, I mean, I’ve been here for four days and have done nothing but relax by myself at the pool and eat quiet dinners alone before privately spending some time here on the deck and going to bed.”\n\n“But Kali, that sounds to me like a wonderful way to relax on vacation,” Nalu swigged the wine remaining in his glass and refilled it with what remained in the bottle.\n\n“I’m not a tourist, Nalu.”\n\n“Neither am I,” Nalu approved. “But if you’re not here to visit the moai and engage in the tropical ecology, then why did you come?”\n\nKali twirled her wineglass and watched the legs run down the inside of her glass. “I’m hopefully here to stay. I’m in the process of becoming a citizen.”\n\nNalu raised an eyebrow inquisitively, “Really? What do you intend to do for a living here?”\n\nKali shook her head, “I guess I don’t really need a job…you see, I recently divorced from a, how shall I say, very well-to-do husband. I figured I’d just stay here at this hotel until I found something more secluded.”\n\nNalu laughed again, this time much louder, “Ha! More secluded than an exclusive hotel on a remote island that’s more than two-thousand miles from the continent of South America? What made you choose Rapa Nui over say, Pitcairn or Mangareva islands? Are you hiding from someone?”\n\nThe question seemed to catch Kali by surprise and she almost choked on her drink. She composed herself enough to answer his spur of the moment probe, “I guess you can say I’m trying to get as far away as possible from my ex-husband.” She set her wineglass down on the small table between them and added, “To answer your question on why Easter Island…well last year, I took one of those DNA tests which confirmed my father’s ancestry could be traced to one of about a hundred remaining natives residing on Rapa Nui in the late nineteenth century.”\n\nNow Nalu’s interest was seriously piqued, “You say you’re no tourist, but you can trace your roots to this very island. Do you really have no interest in the moai? These massive statues were erected to represent your deified ancestors and provide the living everything they needed…health, fertility, and fortune. This is why these huge faces along the coast look inland…to watch over and protect the people.”\n\nKali retrieved her glass and took another sip, “You seem to know a lot about the island’s history. Is that why you’re here?”\n\nNalu smiled, “Yes, I’ve been here for nearly the entirety of my allotted thirty days, but have been unable to complete all my objectives. I have doctoral degrees from the University of Hawaii in both Ancient Polynesian Culture and Pacific Islands Studies. You haven’t seen me, because I’ve been doing most of my work at night to avoid the guided tours and tourists, as well as to not intrude on their experience.”\n\n“Just what sort of objectives does a doctor of Polynesian ancients perform at night?” Kali asked directly as the wind blew her rosy cover-up open to reveal her alluring and shapely figure.\n\nKali did her best to collect her wildly flowing dress as Nalu chuckled, “How about I tell you more over dinner, Kali? I have a couple hours before I need to commence my work, so go ahead and refresh yourself, and I’ll meet you in the hotel restaurant.”\n\nShe agreed, and Nalu excused himself to get them a table. Kali arrived wearing a green and white Polynesian palm-print dress with a waist-high slit that exposed the flawlessness of her long slender and richly tanned legs. All she needs is an orchid in her hair and she’d be the aspect of Rapa Nui royalty, he imagined.\n\nOver a four-course meal of fresh seafood, which included crab cake and scallop crudo appetizers, with a main course of baked tuna, and key-lime pie for dessert, the doctor told Kali all about how he’d excavated two huge eyes made of coral with obsidian pupils. He said these ocular objects were originally essential parts of each and every moai, and the two he’d acquired were pristine. He’d found one on the north coast and the other high on Mount Terevaka near several toppled statues. Previously only one eye was ever discovered and it currently resided in one of the island’s museums. He disappointedly explained to her that he’d have to register his discovery with the Consulate before leaving the island. However, rather than bask in his success and simply leave Rapa Nui to write another series of papers or books, Doctor Ohana desperately wanted to do so much more. He explained how the moai statues were assembled from a quarry of volcanic stone to embody important deceased ancestors. Once the eyes were mounted, priests of the Ancestor Cult could commune with the gods through them! The last four nights he had been driving a rented two-door mini-van from the hotel to Ahu Akivi, a location on the slopes of the main volcano, where seven moai stood sentry. Once Nalu had figured out how to properly affix the coral and obsidian ovals on the central statue, he’d performed almost every religious and cultural rite he knew from his years of study in a futile attempt to commune with the spirit of the moai.\n\nWhen he was finished, he ordered cocktails and neither of them spoke. Kali really didn’t know what to say, but she couldn’t deny that his story was intriguing. Sipping her after-dinner drink she finally gave voice to her thoughts, “Everything you described is quite fascinating; after hearing the history, I suppose I’d enjoy visiting some of these moai. Perhaps I’ll schedule a tour with the concierge tomorrow.”\n\nNalu quaffed his drink and set the empty glass on the table. “Tomorrow? How about right now? I could use a hand lifting the two ocular orbs into place. You can experience one last attempt to speak with the gods, before I resign myself to wrapping up my expedition. What do you say?”\n\nKali finished her cocktail and stood up from the table, “The New Yorker in me says that I should checkout of this hotel and return home, but the Polynesian in me says aloha!”\n\nDoctor Ohana clapped his hands, “Excellent! You will not regret your decision. I’ll get my truck.”\n\nTogether they drove the dark and empty road to Ahu Akivi, and when Kali eventually opened the passenger door, the clock on the dashboard read 11:34. She got out and gazed through the darkness at seven great shadows in the tropical moonlight as Nalu opened the van’s back doors to assemble the necessary equipment for his theurgical experiment.\n\nAs he worked, she asked him, “Why do these seven face the sea, when all the others face inland?”\n\n“Because Ahu Akivi is a particularly sacred place…and these seven were setup as an observatory of sorts to commune with the spirit world.”\n\nKali stared without blinking at the moai as Nalu setup several tiki torches to provide light near the base of the centermost statue. As he did this, the moai’s ancient chiseled mouth and protruding nose became less and less like simple slabs of volcanic rock and more and more ominously lifelike in the flickering flames. However, its coal eye sockets remained blackened and dead. The doctor setup a ladder and some sort of pulley system before calling Kali over to help him with the eyes.\n\nThe eyes were lying flat on the floor of the van on top of several blankets with more blankets between them. The white ovals were nearly as tall as a man and the obsidian pupils were as big as garbage can lids. They weren’t particularly heavy but Nalu was happy to have some help. Mounting them in their respective sockets took considerably less time than it previously had taken, and it was not even one o’clock yet. Once they were in place, the doctor disassembled the cables and pulleys, and returned both them and the ladder to the van.\n\nWith its ghastly blanched eyes restored and shimmering in the moon glow and torchlight, the statue became almost alive, and Kali found she was so mesmerized by the affect that she didn’t even notice the obsessed doctor creep up behind her and knock her out cold with a blunt object.\n\nWhen she finally came to, she was lying on her back, naked and lashed to stakes in the earth at her ankles and wrists. Blood had congealed on the side of her face, and she could taste the salt of her own gore at the corner of her mouth. Looking over her was a man in native priestly garb wearing a masked headdress not that dissimilar to the visage of the giant moai that loomed behind him. She knew it was Doctor Ohana, and she cried out in utter terror when she saw he held a long curved and deadly ceremonial dagger; a skull with coral and obsidian eyes adorned the base of its hilt.\n\n“Excellent, you’re awake. Now we can begin the ceremony,” said the voice behind the mask.\n\n“What ceremony? I should’ve listened to my New Yorker side!” She screamed again, “MONSTER!”\n\nHer fear echoed off the volcanic mountainside in vain. Nalu’s familiar laugh was muffled behind his mask, “Ha! Nobody is out here to help you, Kali. The ceremony of the Ancestor Cult will first marry us, and then I will sacrifice my new wife to bring the aspect of the moai to life. Once done, I will be the new high priest of the Ancestor Cult, and I alone will be able to speak to the gods!”\n\n“You’re insane! Besides, I’m already married!” she tried to negotiate.\n\n“You said you were divorced.”\n\n“I LIED!” Kali shouted.\n\n“No matter; I’m sure it will have no bearing on the ceremony,” he shrugged as he knelt down next to her nakedness. She struggled savagely against her bonds while he went through some strange sacramental gyrations that ended with each of them wearing matching shell and shark teeth necklaces. The projections scratched her chest, leaving small rivulets of blood in her cleavage.\n\nKali stopped struggling as she felt the stake at her right hand loosening and saw the doctor of death raise his sacrificial knife to strike her down. “NOW WHAT?!” she hollered.\n\nShe couldn’t have known, but Nalu smiled wickedly behind his mask, “Now what? Now Miss Mana, you will die, and then I will cremate your corpse to merge your mana, or spirit, to the statue itself. It will then resume its sacred duty and act as a protector of the island’s living, while I will be the only high priest on the island that can commune with Makemake, the creator god!”\n\nAs he brought down his knife to slash her tender throat, she pulled with all her might and yanked the fifteen-inch iron stake from the ground. In an instant, it was in her right hand and the majority of its length was completely embedded in the witch doctor’s chest. He rolled to the ground next to her as his lifeblood spewed from his horrific wound.\n\nShe didn’t waste any time, and immediately untied the nylon ropes binding her left wrist and ankles. Once free, she knelt next to the doctor’s dying body and whispered, “I told you I lied. I’m not divorced. My husband is dead in a crawlspace in Brooklyn.” Kali giggled at the irony and added, “Now I’ve killed my second husband too.”\n\nThe spike had pierced Nalu’s lung and he coughed blood when he strained to speak but the only words that came out were, “Crem…cremate me…burn me…and you…you will be Makemake’s…wife.”\n\nFor a brief moment, Kali considered taking Nalu’s advice, but no, two dead husbands was quite enough. She decided to just hike back to the hotel and take up permanent residence in her private suite.\n\nThe wide-eyed statue looked dreadfully forlorn as his potential wife turned her back on him." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Blurry\n\nGenre: bedtime\n\nWord Count: 1059\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story about someone who has been tasked to keep a flame burning, surrounded by total darkness." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "She awoke to silence, complete silence. Usually there was a cry of a baby, a scrape of a kettle, or a stomp of a boot. But today, she awoke to complete silence. Her vision had been getting worse and worse, and even being a child, she knew nothing good would come from her depleting vision. Still, she stayed positive and helpful around the house. She searched the best she could for signs of life, for a sign that she was not alone. Sometimes her parents would stay out searching for food, grazing the fields for materials, but today felt different. She had never awoken alone. She tidied up her corner in the wooden house and stretched out her arms to start walking around. She could make out shapes and colors, the rest of her waking life depended on her other senses. She saw a small flicker of light in the corner and gravitated toward it like a moth to a flame. ‘Mother never leaves candles unattended,’ she thought, and instantly got a bad feeling in the pit of her stomach. She inspected the flame as best she could and after realizing that it was the only source of light and heat, it unintentionally became her best friend. She sat and sat in the dark until she noticed the flame getting lower. The flame was devouring the candle like it was its last meal. ‘Be brave.’ She whispered to herself and ventured to the cabinets by the stove. She placed a glass cup over the candle and sheltered the flame, then made her way to the door. It was pitch-black outside, her only guidance was the small flame under the glass. She knew the neighbor’s hut was just meters away and they recently had a baby, so she thought that they would be willing to help her.\nWhen she reached the hut, she could hear the baby cooing. She carefully used the light to guide her way inside and found a small object shaped like a bean and tiny movements coming from it. She quickly put the candle in between two pieces of wood and reached out for the baby. The baby cooed and curled up in her arms and they both appreciated the warmth of each other. She then tried her hardest to see if anyone else was home, but it was clear that they were alone. Her parents had left her before, the longest time being three days. She had to wash herself, feed herself, and most importantly, protect herself from the animals outside. They left her with candles and matches but this time was different. They left her with a single flame burning, and the neighbor’s newborn baby. She remembered what her father said to her once when he took her hunting, ‘Never underestimate yourself.’ She clung to those words like hot skin on leather. She was familiar with being alone but now she had to think of someone else, and fast. With a quick glance at the shortening candle, she scooped up the baby and started slowly walking around the hut for materials. She found a blanket, a wooden chair, a bowl made of twigs, and a knife. The baby was falling asleep in her arms, and she knew it was now or never to create something that could get them both through the night. She broke down the chair and used one of the wooden pieces as the base of her invention. She then took the bowl apart and carefully laid down the twigs onto the wood base. She gently grabbed the candle and placed it securely within the bed of twigs. The dying light now had life, as long as she could keep adding twigs to the flame. For the first time, she felt comforted. The innocent sleeping baby and the burning flame gave her hope and confidence in herself, until she heard a scraping at the door.\nIt was not a scrape that came from a parent checking on their baby, or a good Samaritan coming to help. It was the scrape of a hungry, restless, beast. Her heart started pounding and her hands went cold. She stretched out one of her hands carefully in every direction looking for the knife. When she felt its handle, she let out a soft sigh, knowing that she at least would not go down without a fight. To the left was the sleeping baby, in her right hand was the dull knife, and right in front of her was the breeze from the bottom of the door. The door shook loudly, like someone trying to break it off the hinges and the baby instantly started crying. Overwhelmed with the sound of the baby’s wails, she could not concentrate on anything else. The door flew open and all she could see was a huge shape that was larger than any animal she had ever seen. She squinted and begged her sight to allow her to see something, but it was just the figure’s shape in the door frame and total darkness. She screamed with all her might and ran toward the beast with the knife in hand. She extended her arms out in every direction, hurling stabs at the beast’s body parts. She was not seeing shapes or objects… she was seeing red. She did not know if it was her mind or the blood from the beast. But one thing she heard brought her right back to her senses. It was her mother calling out, begging her to stop. But she was already in attack mode, and aimed for what she could imagine was the beast’s face. After 13 stabs, she let up and focused on her mother’s sobbing. She had no idea why her mother would not be proud of her defending herself, she knew her father would be proud. But she did not hear her father. That is when it sank in, her parents were always trying to teach her a lesson, teach her to be independent, strong, and unafraid of anything. But they never told her how far they were willing to go to teach her those lessons. With her incoherent mother beside her, and a lifeless body on the floor, she knew who the beast was. She sat down on the hard wooden floor, with a sense of both accomplishment and dread." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: The Winter Flame Brings the King\n\nGenre: bedtime\n\nWord Count: 1261\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story about someone who has been tasked to keep a flame burning, surrounded by total darkness." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Venus stood in front of the Winter Flame in the frozen caves outside of her village. It was pitch black in the caves, the only source of light coming from the dim blue flame. Venus grumbled angrily to herself as she paced back and forth in front of it.\nShe didn’t want to be guarding the Winter Flame, but she had to. It was her turn. She thought the stupid tradition would’ve been over by the time it was her turn, she thought they all would’ve seen how stupid and pointless it was. But here she was.\nThe tradition of the winter flame started in Venus’ village long before she was born. Many years before, a prophet had foretold the coming of a great king that would follow the light of the Winter Flame and find the village, bringing peace and prosperity with him. For this reason, the flame had to be kept alive, and it was to never burn out. Every twenty-four hours, a new person from the village would be tasked to guard the flame. It was a random drawing from the list of names kept by the list of elders that determined who it was.\nVenus finally stopped pacing and sat on the hard ground in front of the winter flame. She remembered the day she had to put her name on the list. She had only been seven years old, and she had begged her father not to make her do it. A full twenty-four hours of being paranoid about some dumb flame in a cold cave was not her idea of fun. But her father forced her to, telling Venus that the king would arrive long before her name was ever called. Boy was he wrong. Seven years later, here she was.\nA rustling noise drew Venus out of her thoughts. It sounded as though it came from behind her, but the way the sound was echoing around the blackness meant it really could’ve come from anywhere. When the noise sounded again, Venus froze.\nThe cave became eerily quiet once more.\nIt was so silent that Venus could hear the sound of her ragged breath, she could hear her heart beating wildly, and she could hear her thoughts spinning out of control. What could it be? What could be hiding in the dark? Anything could be hiding in these frozen caves.\nThere it was again. Venus whipped her head around. “What are you? A polar bear? A reindeer? A-a moose? Oh, please don’t be a moose.”\nSuddenly, a gust of wind rushed overhead, and Venus ducked down, screaming.\nThen, silence.\nVenus uncurled herself and started when she saw a snowy owl perched on the pedestal of the Winter Flame, a dead lemming in its beak.\nVenus clutched at her heart and slowed her breathing. “What are you doing in here? Finding a snack?” she asked the owl. “I don’t have any food, but I am hungry. Care to share?”\nThe owl only stared in response, his dull grey eyes boring into her brown ones.\nShe exhaled. “Look, you can stay in here, but you need to get away from the flame. It’s important,” she told him, waving her hand to get him to move.\nBut the owl stayed where he was, turning his head behind him to gaze at the flame, the lemming still dangling from his mouth.\nVenus inched closer to the owl, hoping she could scare it away from the WInter Flame. “Come on, please! There’s plenty of other places to perch in here… I think. You can see better in here than I can.”\nThe owl turned its head back to look at her but did not leave. It did, however, drop the lemming at Venus’ feet and hoot at her.\nVenus cringed and kicked the dead animal away. “Ew ew ew ew ew! Alright, you need to go. Shoo, shoo!” She swatted at the owl to get him to leave.\nBut instead of flying away as she expected, he hopped back into the Winter Flame.\nVenus gasped and watched as the owl screeched and fell to the ground, now engulfed in the light blue flame. Smoke plumed from its body as it writhed on the ground.\nVenus couldn’t do anything, as there was no way for her to extinguish the flame. Smoke filled the cave, way more than there should have been coming from the burning owl. Venus coughed and shielded her face from it, unsure of what to do.\nAbruptly, the screeching stopped, and the smoke began to clear. Venus squeezed her eyes shut and turned away, not wanting to see the mangled and burned body of the poor owl. But suddenly, a voice cut through the quiet of the caves.\n“Hello? Hello, girl? Where am I?”\nIt was a man’s voice, deep and powerful.\nVenus glanced up and her eyes widened as they took in an ethereal man that now stood before her. Light emanated from his body, lighting the entirety of the cave. He had snow white hair and eyes that looked similar to the owl’s, only they were a brighter grey. He was wearing a majestic cape made of silver feathers that glistened in his light. “Girl? Can you not speak? Where am I?”\nAfter her initial shock, Venus finally found her voice. “Y-you’re in the frozen caves outside of my village. But who- what are you?”\nThe man stood tall and placed his hand proudly on his chest. “I am King Adrian Constantine!”\n“You’re him!” Venus realised. “You’re the prophesized King!”\n“Yes, and this is the village I was destined to find,” the King told her.\n“But I don’t understand,” Venus gestured to the pedestal where the flame used to reside. “The flame, it’s gone. I thought you needed it.”\n“Yes, I did. Would you like to hear a story?” the King asked.\nVenus nodded, and the king began to tell his tale.\nHe had ruled over a kingdom in the tropical regions of the world. It was so vast and prosperous, that he had been titled the most successful king of all eternity, But others sought his kingdom, including the evil witch Cassandra. She infiltrated my castle and cursed him in the night, turning him into a snowy owl. She then told the King that the only way to break her curse was to find the legendary Winter Flame, and cast himself into it. The flame would be the only substance powerful enough to melt away the magic.\n“It’s taken me decades to find it, but, well… here we are. Who do I have to thank for guarding this flame for such a long time?” The King asked, moving forward to clutch a stunned Venus’ hands.\n“My name is Venus, your highness,” she replied meekly.\n“Venus, what a beautiful name.” He kissed her knuckles.\nVenus blushed. “Well, it wasn’t just me. All of the people of my village have taken their turn watching the flame.”\n“As much as I appreciate all of your efforts, I’m afraid it has all been in vain.” He released her hands and sighed. “I have been away for so long, I cannot go back to my kingdom now. I don’t even know if it still exists.”\n“Please, don’t worry. Come to my village. You will be welcome there,” Venus assured him.\nThe King smiled and nodded. “Yes, that would be quite nice.”\nVenus held out her hand. “Come.”\nAs the King took it, Venus couldn’t believe how lucky she had been to witness this. Perhaps traditions weren’t so stupid after all." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Perfect\n\nGenre: asian-american\n\nWord Count: 1029\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about two people reconnecting after a rough patch in their relationship." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "The notes were high in the bar. The sound was buzzing in ears as I sipped the cocktail slowly to the rhythm. \nI watched as the waitress danced her own beat as she served the last of the waiting customers. \nIt was a Friday night and business was good. \nI was a usual, and I recognized the new faces opening up here. I was swirling my glass in the final sips, as the door opened with a clatter and he entered. \nMy heart skipped a beat.\nA moment of a lost soul.\nHe walked straight at the bar. The 5ft 10 without a little lack of the perfection, still the same young man in my favorite blue coat.\nI adjusted in my stool thinking he wouldn't notice me. He ordered in the usual. \n‘Hey madam, this ones for you’ said the bartender as he placed the glass of white wine with a wink, infront of me. My favorite and of course, only he knew it.\nI sat in silence for a few moments, before I turned around to catch his deep black eyes gazing into mine.\nI could feel him from the distance, the soft touch of his hand on my cheek, a warm embrace that I longed for. I could see from the corner of my eye, he was gazing right through me. \nI stumbled in my stool trying to get hold of myself. He flipped.\nHe raised his glass and slowly started walking towards me. \nHis clothes appeared more modern, except for my favorite blue coat. A pair of matching leather boots, a vehicle key dangling at his hip - I had no idea what type, a Rolex on his left hand and the glass on the other.\nI was looking at the stage trying my maximum concentration at Ed Sheeran being sung. \nYou were perfect for me \n\n“Hi!” he said \n“Heyy” I acted surprised \n“Nice to see you around. New here?”\nHe laughed. That smooth watery laugh that I was once infatuated with. A thing I loved. \n“Nothings new around you” and he smiled. \nWe continued watching the show, speaking of the odd times and ups and downs of our daily routines. \nBut I kept away from anything intense.\n\n“I got to go, busy weekend. Good night Charly!” I said as I stood at nearly half past nine.\nHe stood, right next to me leaning on me. \n“Will see you around. Take care! Good night Asha!” \n\nThe bar was in full swing on the beautiful Tuesday evening as I sat at the front enjoying the artist on his trumpet. I was having my coffee thick and black. \nA chair pulled next to me, and he sat.\nVery calm and quiet in his posture, his clean shaven face poised in the exact beauty angle. He looked at the stage and then at me.\n“Hey what a coincidence? You also weekdays here as well?” \n“Charly you are really surprising me eh?” \nI couldn’t believe I was saying this.\n“Are you following me?”\nHe looked at me in surprise and chuckled his way into that laugh louder this time. \n“I am settled in close by now, and this is our right place wasn’t it?”\nI was feeling uncomfortable in my seat. \nHe had to go one-day and we were both devastated. We refused to know each other’s burdens as it wasn’t the right time. \nBut now he is back and I feel I am not yet ready.\nWe chatted along commonly and he walked with me a few blocks before we parted to go our ways. It was a good night. \nI felt myself shifting over the week. The meeting was something I tried to forget but it clung on like the mosses spreading its way all along.\nI was lonely. Yes it was a fact. \nBut...\nEvery-time he came closer, I felt he was meant to be mine. That one day he had to go because of my parents. He wasn’t good enough for them. Tough cultural attitudes over which I had no control. \nI had cried my life in a million ways trying to get over him and the depression took me to extremes that they had to call him back to calm me. \nHe said, “ I will come back to you soon, so you will hold on to me till I get back. My strong lil angel!”\nAnd that was when I felt I had to live to be with him. The man I loved a million times to be mine and mine only.\nHe was close always but also far for not knowing anything.\n\nIt was Friday again. Valentines week was upcoming and the bar was romancing in the reddy velvet. Roses and cupcakes on bar benches and lovers in the darkest corners. The slow rhythm of the lovers playing in the background, I was scrolling Instagram. My best friend was off traveling in Sri Lanka and her epic pictures kept me alive and loved. \n“This is one paradise island, you outta come here soon!” she had said last night as she called.\nI could smell a familiar aftershave in the air. The sweet scent I adored, entwining in my brain clouding all my common sense of reflexes. \nHe was standing right next to me, two wine glasses in hand. \nAnd he held out one. \nI took it in my hand.\n“Asha, I never left. I was always there looking out. I have seen you grow all this time, the number of times you smiled and cried all in my counts. It was always you for me but i had evolve. \nOn Sunday’s Valentine would you go out to dinner with me? “\nHe spoke softly in my head. The only handsome man in my dreams. \n“...yes” I said \nHe took my hand and kissed it right away in his soft cherish. \nIt was then we both looked up in surprise at each other. Both our silver couple rings we exchanged five years ago, still sitting on our fingers. \nWe were tear-smiling. \nThe bar was swinging in the perfect chill. \n“But you heard it, darling you look perfect to night” and the rhythm continued." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: The Eternal Light of the Ten Song Lantern\n\nGenre: bedtime\n\nWord Count: 1905\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story set in a world with a dying sun, or where light is a scarce resource." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Darkness lay like a blanket over the peaks and valleys of the Spires of Hildefund. The pale moonlight bounced off the ribbon of the snow-crusted pass, Gelvira’s crunching footprints the only blemish upon the pristine meandering track. It was rare that the Sisterhood of the Ten Song Lantern sent its priestesses above ground. Rarer still was it that they were sent without the accompaniment of a Swordsinger, those brave and noble warriors who were sworn to protect them.\n\nGelvira’s boots were warm, crafted in the way of the People of the Hovihar, with the fur of the mountain goat towards the inside. They were still fairly new, gifted to her only upon her appointment to this particular task. In truth, her entire suit evoked an image of those great Hovihar warriors of old, standing strong against the blizzard. Her deep cowled cloak and thick woolen clothes protected her from both the howling winds and the biting cold.\n\n“It has been almost two centuries since the Hovihar walked these peaks and passes,” She mused, marveling at the fact that all this beauty could go unobserved for so long.\n\nThe Hovihar had once been masters of these mountains just as her own people were masters of the caverns beneath. In days of old, their alliance worked to the benefit of both races but since their demise, the Adosinda had retreated deeper into the mountain. Thus was the reason for her appointment to this most venerated station.\n\nThe summer solstice was a time for great celebration, the giving of thanks, and gathering the light for the Ten Song Lantern. The only light they would have for the coming year. Ten songs would be sung before the sun rose again. She placed her gloved hand gently upon the satchel at her hip. She had gained a muffled response not unlike that of the twinkling bells within the deep caverns of the Adosinda.\n\n“But I am far from the warmth of our caverns,” She reminded herself.\n\nInstinctively she slipped her pointer, middle, and ring fingers through the slit at their bases in the glove, exposing them to the cold. Stepping through the arc of her recurve bow she strung it and knocked an arrow from the quiver upon her back in one fluid motion, as if the maneuver had been executed as simply as walking.\n\nThe bow itself was short, for she herself only stood but seven spans off above ground. Her wide nostrils flared and large dark eyes glinted only for a moment as she turned to face the moon. The woody scent of pine filled her head and she breathed in the aroma, storing it up knowing that she may never be gifted a trip to the Hovihar lands again. She lifted her chin and allowed her lower jaw to open just a fraction before breathing the inaudible “chirp” ricocheting across the landscape. Its returning echoes helped her sense what her eyes could not see.\n\nThe darkness was retreating, and nature was slowly rising to meet it. She received the impressions of many small things, things she would have hunted if she had the leisure, but food was not her mission. They scurried out of their dens and burrows and stood upon the frozen scrub lining the plateaus over which she gazed. She raised her eyes to the sky, tracing an arc from the burgeoning glow in the east to the steadfast darkness in the west.\n\n“No sign of them,” She whispered and received a light twittering reply from the satchel. “So we will wait.”\n\nWith her bow in her lap, she perched, resting on her heels upon an upward jutting stone. The warm glow had overtaken the eastern horizon and she kept her large eyes peeled for any sign of her prey. Once the sun was within sight she would have to work fast. It would only be above the horizon for moments before the world was once again sunk in darkness.\n\nThe Spellsingers had worked all year, breeding and enchanting the Amelina. The tiny serpents were born in the deep dark places within the mountains. They were clever and quick and produced a pheromone that her prey found completely irresistible. They would not last long in this cold. If they were to die in flight, before they served their purpose as bait, she would feed herself to the hungry cold of the mountain rather than face the shame of returning a failure.\n\nShe realized she had been holding her breath. The pressure had been building in her chest for uncounted moments for her eyes watched, growing larger and larger as the curved disk of the sun peaked over the horizon and bathed the entire range in the amber light of dawn.\n\nAs if in answer, there was a thunderous fluttering of wings, and up into the deep blue sky soared those great northern Beltreo hawks. Their wingspans were enormous and their great calls echoed into the sky like the scraping of swords against shields. Bright purples, blues, and greens trimmed the feathers of their great wings and tail feathers as they circled, climbing ever higher into the vaults of the heavens.\n\nWhen it appeared that they had reached the limit of their height their tailfeathers began to glow, collecting the warmth and light of the summer sun. It was that light that would sustain the Ten Song Lantern for another year. They began to glow with such intensity that it appeared multicolored stars were swirling in the sky.\n\nShe couldn’t have watched them for more than a handful of minutes before she noticed the amber light fade. She grabbed the satchel from her hip and kissed it bestowing a silent prayer upon the Spirits to let her hunt be successful. She looked to the west and saw that the bright, blazing rim that was all her people had even known of the sun was now descending beneath the horizon line. The amber light turned to a golden brown before it gradually sunk back to darkness.\n\n“Now!” She whispered excitedly, opening the satchel and holding it up into the sky.\n\nThe Amelina came whizzing and whirring from their warm hiding place. Into the heavens they streaked as the glowing orbs of light, all that was left to be seen of the Beltreo as darkness once again consumed the range, began to descend from their circling dance to the ground below. The serpents’ crystalline scales shimmered like the phantom veil that appeared across the winter sky from time to time. Their keening cries beckoned to the great glowing birds whose lazy descent seemed to stop for a heartbeat, fixing them in the air before they streaked toward the shimmering haze left in the wake of the Amelinas’ flight.\n\nGelvira readied her bow, her hands loosely holding the string, her arrow knocked and readied. The Amelina were doing their job well but she quietly urged them on for the cold would rob them of their speed in short order. As if answering her thought, the gemstone serpent streaked towards her with a Beltreo in tow.\n\nGelvira drew the string to the corner of her mouth and breathed. The serpent was racing towards her, knowing its survival depended on luring its prey back to its keeper. In a last burst of speed, it darted past Gelvira and the hawk followed, leaving her with a perfect shot.\n\nEveryone knew that no arrow could pierce the feathered breast of a Beltreo hawk, those armor-like quills protecting like plate mail against any frontal assault. But, from behind, Gelvira’s arrow parted the backward-facing feathers and struck home. The great bird cried as it fell to the frozen ground.\n\n“That’s one,” She said excitedly to herself. “Two more will complete the task. If I can take all five the Ten Song Lantern will shine brighter than it has in ages.”\n\nThe Amelina quickly retreated into the satchel where it could gather the warmth to be found there. Its shimmering scales conjured the image of a multihued campfire burning deep within. Its brood mates had done their jobs equally well and Gelvira’s arrows felled two more of the great birds with ease.\n\nAs the fourth hawk streaked towards her, its great blue feathers blazing like the fires in the smith’s forges, she heard a cry of despair as the Amelina was overcome. The Beltreo shrieked in agony, its bill breaking across the hardened scales of the gemstone serpent but that did not keep it from swallowing the creature whole. Nursing its wounds, it dove behind the next peak and vanished.\n\n“One left,” She closed her eyes, breathed deeply, and readied herself.\n\nThe lone remaining Amelina was whizzing through the pine trees and in and out of deep canyons with the hawk in tow. Gelvira was astounded that the creature possessed such stamina but it, just like the others, lured the hawk past her and her arrow struck true. The great bird faltered but managed to glide on unsteady wings into the forest beyond the next peak where it disappeared.\n\nWith four of the five gemstone serpents now returned to the satchel, Gelvira covered it and set it back upon her hip. She easily found her prey, for their feathers still glowed as brightly as they had in life. Gently she placed her hand upon each one, thanking them for their sacrifice and anointing each with the holy oils that would see their souls claimed by the Collector of Spirits. Then she gently plucked each glowing feather and carefully placed them in her quiver.\n\n“Looks like we will have to track the last one,” She said to her satchel knowing that she had already recovered all that was required but relishing the idea of returning home with an even greater bounty.\n\nWhile there were no tracks to follow there were not many places the Beltreo could have gone. She traversed the peak around which she had seen it disappear and found its warm purple glow emanating from within the upper branches of an ancient pine tree.\n\nBeing Adosinda, the climb was fairly easy but halfway up the great trunk she began to hear the despairing cries of hatchlings. When her large dark eyes crested the rim of the nest, the mother hawk lay dead, its wing spread protectively over the nest’s skyward facing opening. Gelvira gently moved the wing aside to reveal five small chicks. Barely fledglings, their spiny feathers were just beginning to grow.\n\n“Hello, little ones.” She whispered and their mouths shot open expecting to be fed. Their chirping made her laugh the type of laugh normally reserved for babies, warm and joyful.\n\nShe prepared their mother for the Collector of Spirits, gathered them to her closely, hiding each within the folds of her thick warm cloak, and descended the tree.\n\n“And brought them back to us?” The young girl asked.\n\n“Exactly so,” The Mother of the Ten Song Lantern declared. “And that is how,”\n\n“We filled the rookery?” The young girl interrupted.\n\n“It took quite some time for us to fill the rookery.” She answered. “But those five eyas were the source from which all others sprang.”\n\n“And now we no longer hunt the Beltreo?”\n\n“And now we no longer hunt the Beltreo.”\n\n“And now we always have light! Praise Gelvira.” The little girl said with practiced respect.\n\n“Indeed, little priestess. Praise Gelvira, Eternal Light of the Ten Song Lantern.” Intoned The Blessed Mother." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: The Six Must Decide: Quetzalcoital or Drext?\n\nGenre: bedtime\n\nWord Count: 1063\n\nPrompt:\n\nStart your story with someone uttering a very strange sentence." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "\"Leave me quetzalcoital with your Hemingway-six!\" the bearded lady roared. These were the perfect words with which to begin the meeting, which was why she was the boss.\nHer \"Hemingway-six\" echoed across the labyrinthine cave, fluttered feathered serpent–like across six pairs of ears, and crafted wind jewels across entangled neurons. The effect was neither sensuous nor sensual. It was quetzalcoital, and all six in the cave knew it at once.\nThe bearded lady and her five confrères were the only ones who knew about the cave. It was their overlooked pothole, their ideal New Year's Eve meeting spot. While there were certainly more powerful secret organizations, the six were the most secretive of the secretive.\nThink of the hidden hand that topples governments, then think of the stray word—like eellogofusciouhipoppokunurious—that occasionally causes that hidden hand to hesitate. That was the six. They existed to zhuzh up the world with strange lexicon, an eellogofusciouhipoppokunurious arrangement if there ever was one.\nThey had gathered to concoct a novel word for the new year. Each of the six had to present their candidate while following the ancient rule of six: if the invented word could not stand tall upon the shoulders of five other words, then it had no chance of gaining traction in the wider world.\nThe bearded lady had gone first (counting her hyphenated \"Hemingway-six\" as a single word), so \"quetzalcoital\" was on the table. Now, the flashlight moved widdershins to the next of the six seated in the circle.\nThe sensitive strongman tried to stand, but his knees buckled, so he leaned against a stalagmite instead. He held the flashlight beneath his chin as if he were telling a ghost story, which made his trembling lip all the more visible.\n\"For sale: baby shoes, never worn,\" he finally said. Then, he wept because he hadn't thought of a new word and had instead repeated the six-word story popularly misattributed to Ernest Hemingway. He wept because he'd been too busy this year posing as a strongman to get other self-styled strongmen to speak more lyrically. He wept because he was among friends and could finally drop the macho act.\nNo… he did not weep. He hemingbawled, and thus a potential new word was born. The bearded lady stood to tell the sensitive strongman so, then wrapped him in her arms to quiet his hemingbawling.\nThere had to be a word for this sight, a word to capture the evanescent beauty of a luxuriant feminine beard draped over a bald man's head, thought the other four. Agastopia came close but still fell short. Perhaps next next year.\nThe wiz kid, who always wore 3D glasses as an ironic tribute to a lesser-known Back to the Future villain, was up next.\n\"Lost in text, we are drext,\" he said without hesitation.\nThe other five got the basic meaning behind this one in a jiff. Combine the \"dr\" of drugged, drunk, or even dragged with text, and you had \"drext.\" But why had the wiz kid used \"lost\" instead of a dr word? They pondered the word's merits while the wiz kid remained silent, per the rule of six.\nKnowing the creator's technological bent, drext likely also applied to artificial intelligence as well as humans. Imagine machines caught in endless queries, triggered by keywords, lost behind walls of text that may one day give way to shared sentience.\nOh, we are drext! Short, powerful, possibly antifragile. Yes, the word was definitely up there with quetzalcoital.\nMadam Petfluencer took her turn with the flashlight. She was the power hitter of the six because of her cat Edgar Allan Paw's impressive social media following. Any new word for the year would undoubtedly find its way into an enduring cat meme. However, when it came to coming up with new words, well…\n\"Sneezards shove rods up their noses,\" Madam Petfluencer said.\nYikes, a bit on the nose, the other five thought, then tried to unthink it as they gave \"sneezard\" due consideration. Obviously, a subset of people truly struggled with their sneezing addiction, but was sneezard really the best way to describe them? Plus, many people who were allergic to cats sneezed repeatedly in Madame Petfluencer's presence. Such inherent bias did not always bode well for a word's widespread adoption.\nNo one said it, but everyone knew sneezard was out of the running.\nThe sialoquent stentorian took his turn.\n\"Well…\" he boomed while splattering some nearby stalactites. \"All is well and allisnot.\"\nBlech. And here they had been thinking that sneezard wasn't up to snuff. Someone sneezed as if in reminder, while the stentorian waited, his spiked white hair casting erinaceous shadows as the flashlight flickered. Cramming three common words together and calling it something new was folly. Sure, you could change the pronunciation to spice up the presentation, but that bordered on taradiddle.\nWhile allisnot spoke to discord beneath a utopian façade and had nobler aspirations than sneezard, it was quietly dropped in the deepest depths of the six's Stygian cave. There was a brief ripple of allisnot among the six at having to discard two duds in a row before they moved on to the sixth.\nThe waif stood tall. The others felt as if they were seated at the edge of a runway as she strode to the center of the circle then twirled her designer dress.\n\"Houston, we are go for smoonth,\" she said then curtsied.\nHmm, a word that capitalized on the new space race might take flight. Even though the stentorian harrumphed at first because he felt that the \"smoonth\" of our cratered moon was simply a narrower version of his allisnot, he eventually gave a chef's kiss of approval as he came around to the possibilities. It was fun. It was catchy. You could add o's and emphasis with smooooonth.\nSmoonth overtook hemingbawl, but quetzalcoital and drext kept their lead.\nWould quetzalcoital be drext, or would drext leave all quetzalcoital?\nIt was a dead draw, 3-3, for which word would welcome the new year. Finally, as clocks struck midnight across Earth's surface, the bearded lady turned off the flashlight.\nThe six sat silent in utter darkness because they knew that only when we forget ourselves can we find the language to stand unafraid before one another. They sat and tried to forget all but the one word that would be brought to light." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Too-Cute Mix-Up\n\nGenre: bedtime\n\nWord Count: 1604\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story framed by a single scene: something happens, a flashback or inner monologue intervenes, and then the story ends with the rest of the original scene." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Too-Cute Mix-Up\nChrissy tucked Carlson under a multi-colored quilt before he said his prayers.\n“What story do you want me to read to you? 'Frosty, the Snowman' or 'Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer'.”\n“'Frosty', please.” Sleepy-eyed Carlson responded.\nThe visiting five-year-old was sound asleep before 'Frosty' melted away to return another year. And it was no wonder. Chrissy reflected on what their day had been like.\n*\nHard to believe it was only last evening when the two of them had met at the Harbor House Restaurant. Chrissy, having had an exhausting day handling a classroom full of hyped-up-on-Christmas-cheer fifth-graders reluctantly accompanied her Nana to downtown festivities then to dinner. Carlson had come in with his aging grandfather who recognized Nana from years ago and struck up a conversation about the good old days.\nChrissy knew a bored five-year-old when she saw one so offered to take him for a walk. His grandfather suffered a medical emergency while the two were admiring the Northern Lights. Nana went to the hospital with her old friend but he never recovered. Chrissy was pressed into service as babysitter until the little guy's family could be located.\nChrissy and Carlson spent the morning cleaning up her gingerbread-coated classroom and built a couple of miniature gingerbread houses themselves.\nBefore the two left the school they stopped into the school library to borrow some books then headed to Nana's Victorian home that Chrissy shared to warm up by the fire with some PB&J sandwiches and hot cocoa.\nCarlson reminded Chrissy he really didn't like sleeping in the all-things-Barbie guest room, even if it should only be one more night. Creative thinking brought about a welcome change in his temporary environment.\nChrissy stuffed the marshmallow-y pink bedspread and pillow shams into a plastic storage bag. The kind you vacuum the air out and it magically shrinks down into pancake size. Carlson got such a kick out of that trick she had to do it two more times for him, then he repeated it, too. All nick-knack, patty-wack Barbie decorations or toys went into a tote.\n“Maybe we can take these to the Goodwill store to donate and find some more appropriate things you will like.” The resourceful teacher suggested.\nChrissy found the multi-colored quilt to cover the twin bed and she sewed fabric loops on one end of two dark blue towels, threaded them over a rod and hung them at the window. It didn't erase all the pink but definitely toned it down enough one little boy could be more comfortable sleeping in the space.\n“Hope we can find some outer space things to make it even better.” Carlson mused as they ventured out.\nAt the shop they hit the jack pot with a set of moon and stars sheets, a couple of out-of-this-world posters that would cover more of the pink walls and a rocket ship lamp.\nChrissy browsed through the little boy clothing and found another pair of jeans just his size. And a bonus of snow pants! Maybe he could burn off some of his little boy energy playing in the back yard if he was dressed for it. Then she spied the exact thing that would help. A round flying saucer sled. The backyard had a slight slope for that to work.\nShe had her hand on it when it was suddenly yanked away from her.\n“Hey, what's the big idea? I was putting that in my cart.”\n“No way! That's going home with me!” A rude burly-type man claimed.\n“Russell? Russell Koolridge? I clearly had it in my grasp. We need it, don't we, Carlson?”\n“Chrissy Merriman! I never knew you had a kid!”\n“I am watching him for a friend and we need some entertainment this afternoon. I know of the perfect slope to use this on and we even found snow pants. That belongs to us.” She was infuriated with this insufferable entitled nemesis she knew from the school where they taught.\nWhat made it even worse was he was already a published YA author and constantly teased her about getting her unfinished romance novel out there. The very thing she was planning on working on this two week break before she got babysitting duties unexpectedly thrust her way.\n“Well, what do you know? How do you do, 'Carlson' is it? My name is Russ Koolridge but you can call me 'Mr. Kool' like all the kids at school do. I am a teacher like Miss Chrissy, here, but with the older kids. I teach all the cool classes like math and science stuff. I need this piece of art for a space display this coming semester.”\nBy this time Carlson had the biggest puppy dog eyes to go with his quivering bottom lip but he remembered his manners. “Nice to meet you, Mista Cool. I really, really wanted to sled down a hill with that today. I might not be here tomorrow. Do you really know about space and stuff? We are fixing Miss Chrissy's Barbie room into a space room so I can sleep in it.”\n“Do I know about space? I am the expert on all things orbiting. Ask me anything. Why I even write stories about it. Some of it fantastical. But mostly for kids older than you are now. But someday... Say. I know! Why don't I buy this old saucer and let you borrow it for today or however long you plan on staying with Miss Chrissy. I don't need it yet.”\n“Well, I was planning on purchasing it.”\n“Save your hard earned cash. Allow me. Where is this hill you are going to tackle?”\n“In my backyard.”\n“Oh, that's no more than a little slope. Let me show you where a real hill is. This boy is ready to fly on this thing. Right, Carlson?”\n“You bet!”\n“Well, let's go!” He swung Carlson up on his shoulders before Chrissy could object and headed to the check out. All of her purchases totaled about twelve dollars but he paid in full.\n“Now wait. You don't need to...”\n“Please, it is my pleasure at Christmas. I don't have kids, either.”\nThe lady at the checkout complimented them on what a cute family they were and wished them a Merry Christmas.\n“Oh, but we're...”\n“Delighted you think so, Ma'am. Have a nice one yourself.” And he led them swiftly out the door.\nThe hill he led them to was perfect for sledding. The sun shown perfectly displaying all the diamonds in the snow. And 'Mr. Kool' was perfectly cool nestling Carlson in his crossed legs keeping him safe flying downhill. Chrissy had to admit she had fun watching the two tumble and sprawl. Russell would perch Carlson on his shoulders as they climbed back up the hill each run. Of course, the afternoon wasn't complete until they made snow angels and were completely frozen.\nShe felt kind of obligated to ask him to join them as they warmed their rosy cheeks by the fire back at her place. She fixed them some tea while he asked to see Carlson's room and hung the posters for him.\n“It's looking a lot like NASA in here, Young Man. Someday you may be an astronaut. Let's go thank Miss Chrissy then I have to take off. I had a blast today.”\n”Me, too, Mista Cool. Thank you.”\nAfter Russell excused himself Chrissy and Carlson cooked mac and cheese with little wieners and sat down for supper at the kitchen island just as Nana arrived home. She took the responsibility of explaining that Carlson's grandpa would not be coming back from the hospital.\n“Your Grandpa was not well and the doctors were not able to help him get better. He passed away earlier today. Do you understand?”\n“You mean he got to go live with Jesus? He has wanted to do that for a long time. He told me all about it. How wonderful it will be. I should always be a good little boy so someday I can go live with Jesus, too. I only have to know Jesus took away all my sins. We even sing a song about it with a manager. Like Daddy.\n“'Bless all the dear children in Thy tender care. And take us to heaven to live with Thee there.'”\n“How often did you visit with your Grandpa, Carlson?” Chrissy asked.\n“Mommy took me there a lot when he lived in his big house with Grandma. This was onlyest time I was 'possed to stay all by myself with him for most wonderful time of the year.\n“Mommy is going to miss him even if he is with Jesus. I should probably be with Mommy. She will need me. You have been fun Chrissy but you have Nana again now. When can I go to Mommy?” Carlson knitted his eyebrows together.\n“We are making sure she will be here soon.” Nana assured.\n“We had a full day. I think it is time to get into PJs, brush teeth and try out that new room. I'll read you a story when you are ready.”\nCarlson had a long list of prayers that night. “Please, Jesus, watch over Grandpa who came to live with you and Grandma. And Mommy missing him. Help Daddy become best manager ever so Mommy can smile again, just like Mista Cool made Chrissy smile and not be sad today. And, please, find Mommy and Daddy. They'll be worried 'cause they are lost.”\n*\nAfter she was sure he fell asleep, Chrissy met up with Nana in front of the fire.\n“Any success locating his parents?”" } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Patriotic\n\nGenre: asian-american\n\nWord Count: 1167\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about someone who never planned to make history but is now about to deliver a speech in front of millions." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "The white-faced emerged from the docks of the ever-flowing ocean, anchoring as their boots; wet from the splashing sea beyond the enormous skyline, attracting powered sand on their heels as they made their way towards us. Smiling faces, beautiful, attractive blue hues lighting their restful eyes.\nTheir hushed breathing made my parents edge closer to inspect them further. I remained immobile, clutching my old doll against my chest, backing away until I bumped into my grandpa. His dark brows were furrowed in skepticism, his hands joined behind his back, his dull black eyes met my lively one as he held me near his torso until my parents had information about the new comers\n\nDays drifted, I began to lose fear in the white-faced. They didn’t say very much, keeping to themselves and immediate family members. Using business as a way to communicate with my people, yet only the educated had ideas on what they spoke. Their language varied from ours, but as months passed I began to recognize a few words. \nI hadn’t gone to school, in our country girls cannot be educated. I thought it was unfair, but I continued to beg my grandpa to teach me everything he knew. \nHe did.\n“You will be a good woman one day, Maya,” He said with his doe-like eyes.\nI promised him, saying I’d help my country the best of my ability, because to me that was priority.\n\nYears later,\nI had been very innocent, too naive to connect the dots sooner. The white-faced hadn’t come to India to ‘just trade’ but planned to conquer my country.\nMy people.\nEverything.\nIt started with meddling in our political affairs, sneaking in money to my people who agreed out of greed to get their work done quicker.\nI couldn’t tolerate it, seeing my world being destroyed. Them taking charge, recklessly killing the innocent and appreciating the culprits.\nIt was like they had stabbed behind our backs while we blind folded thoughts of them as allies, as neighbors, as friends and family even when our bloods were different.\nMy country welcomed them with open arms, while they had beheaded and punished many in return.\nEvery day I would take a stroll towards the nearby temple. Seeing widowed women wail, children sitting in gloom, unable to venture outside and play in fright they will be caught. Men in distress over what will happen next.\n I’d had enough.\nI will avenge every tear shed, every blood poured and every life squeezed out.\nI’d promised my grandfather, and I will honor his words. He died for this country, for his people, for his family, for me.\nAnd I won’t let his sacrifice go in vain.\n* * * * * \n\n“My people...” With hands trembled, sweat sliding down my neck from the sun shining from the cloudless sky I stood dumbstruck on the podium amongst millions of people staring with mouths open. I began to lose courage.\nWhat if they laugh?\nWhat if I can’t talk?\nWhat if…\nStop.\nI will do this.\nFor everyone.\nFor grandpa.\nAnd myself.\nFor a second I rethought my action, were they going to listen to a young woman? An uneducated woman? \nNo, I was their only hope. Their only voice in this mission and I cannot back down. \nMy grandfather's words echoing in my mind, I felt a slight breeze and a sudden change in the humid climate. It was as if this was the spotlight, my chance to redeem myself. \nI spoke, never stopping for questions or mockery, never noticing my crowds reaction as my voice carried over the wind. My grandfather’s voice was like honey in my ears, always filling in when I stumbled to get the point across.\n“Don’t let your fears contain you, raise your voice to the challenge.”\nMen mumbled amongst them while women nodded slightly, shielding their eyes from the raging sun.\n“Our country needs us, our future generations need us, and we… we have to save them,” My breath wheezing a little, my legs aching from standing.\n“Please…” I whispered, my eyes downcast as I started to step down the podium.\n“She’s right,” I whipped my head around, seeing a young girl ball her fists in the air, “Who’s with me?”\nA smile creeped up my tear streaked face as my audience clapped, some patting my back for my courage while others shaking my hand in acknowledgement.\nMy plan was in action, I’d revived our spirits back. \n\nThe moon glistened against the serene bay, it’s reflection rippling as I threw a stone playfully. With my hands joined in a prayer pose I flickered my eyes back to the inky sky, the stars illuminating with flashing glows. I could picture my parents looking down at me, my grandpa smiling at me from a better place. \nThey have given their life to protecting our heritage, now it’s my turn.\nAnd I was willing to take the outcome, however so it may turn out.\n\n * * * \nA year later,\nThe white-faced smirked, a pistol in hand, as he cornered me. I gasped, wincing with the pain jabbing my right knee. Blood gushing out, my clothes stained with crimson, my hands weak from an unmatched fight, I struggled to get up as he pushed me down again in an attempt to convince me to give up.\n“I… I will never let you… win,” I rasped out, as my bone crunched underneath his massive, strong foot.\n“You sure?” His voice sounding foreigh, I’d began to understand them more and more as their dominance intensified.\n“My… country is…” I took a stinging breath, “More important.”\n“So you’ll die then?” He mocked, his gun aiming at me.\nI nodded, awaiting to leave for a place I’d be free.\nFrom sickness.\nFrom pain.\nFrom my country and people who depended on me to show them a path.\nI was ready to sacrifice for them.\nFor the place that held me.\nFor the place I grew up.\nFor my mother land.\nThe last thing I saw before closing my eyes permanently was my grandfather, smiling as ever. His arms outstretched, as he enveloped me into a hug.\n\nI looked back at my homeland, seeing people cheer and exchange smiles for their freedom from the British rule. My heart pounded with joy that I’d been part of all this.\nAfter all, my first word I learned in this foreign language was…\nHope.\n\nHi everyone! This is my shortest story yet and also I decided a different approach. Do let me know if u like it! And suggestions are always welcome:)\nSo this story has a interior message which is...\nBe proud of who you are.\nNever, ever give that up.\nWe are all people, no matter color, religion or gender.\nWe need to work together, come as one.\nAnyway thank you all so much(especially my friends/followers) for reading and supporting my stories!!!\nThis story is dedicated to....\nMaya Emerson for always supporting me and being such a sunshine!!!!!\nTY!!!!" } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: The truck that drove away. (Exclusion of Japanese-Americans)\n\nGenre: asian-american\n\nWord Count: 1010\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about a child witnessing a major historical event." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "I've heard so much about the Japanese-Americans being sent to camps surrounded by barbered wire. I asked Ma for the reason, but all she said was \"Because they endanger our country.\" I think Ma is wrong. Mr. Nakamura from the shop down the street could never endanger the country, but what would Ma think if I said my opinion out loud. After all, I am just 10 years old, how could what I have to say possibly matter? Mr.Nakamura is like a second dad to me, but of course, I have a dad of my own so he was second place. He means so much to me I cannot even begin. I worry that he is going to be sent away too. I will fight for him if he does. I will make my voice heard despite being 10. I will. I will not stand by and watch someone who is a role model get punished for his nationality. I will not. He means so much to me, I will volunteer to die in his place., if that is what it takes.\n\" Lucinda, whatever happens, do not go down to Mr.Nakamura's shop today alright?\" Ma says while walking into my room without knocking and setting down a basket of clean laundry. I hate it when Ma does not knock on my door and just rushes in.\n\"Ma, why shouldn't I?\" I ask her, although I already know the answer. Mr.Nakamura is in trouble, and I will do something about it. I am old enough to make my own decisions.\n\"I think you should ask your father. He'll be better at explaining.\" She looks at me with upset eyes and I know that I was right- Mr.Nakamura is going away. Ma opens my closet hoping that it is messy so she could yell at me, but instead, it is all neat and organized. I cleaned it last night.\nInstead of arguing I just nod my head and grab Dorothy, my blue plush elephant Mr.Nakamura got me for my birthday. Dorothy got her name after Mr.Nakamura's cat that died last year because she was old.\n\"I am going for a walk,\" I declare while putting on my shoes.\n\"And which way are you going?\" Ma asks me.\n\"The opposite of Mr.Nakamura's shop, Ma\" I force a smile.\n\"Thats my girl\" she hands me my jacket and I take it.\nWhen I get outside I really do head the opposite way of Mr.Nakamura's shop, but that is only because I know Ma is watching me out the window, so I'll just walk around the block and go to his shop from the other way of the street.\nI pass many empty houses from which Japanese-Americans were removed and taken to camps. I don't think the actions of the government were correct because the people in this town did nothing wrong, they are being judged for their race. I'm French-American and I cannot imagine this ever happening to French types of blood. I would be so scared and my Pa would be left for his life because he is pure American. Ma and I would suffer.\nWhen I get to the shop I exhale a breath of relief because I see Mr.Nakamura talking to someone. I do not know who though because there is a big poster in the window, which is covering their face. I am about to go into the sho when I see the anguish and fear on Mr.Nakamura's face at the same time as someone grabs him by his arms. In about three seconds, two men come out wearing suits that show they are not from this town, basically dragging Mr.Nakamura by his elbows.\n\"Mr.Nakamura, where are they taking you,\" I ask him as I try to get the two men off of him.\n\"Lucinda, stay back, please. It's ok. My life has been so much happier with you in it, but if you fight too hard, you might make the situation worse\"\n\"They're judging you for your race. How could they do that without crying themselves to sleep?\"\n\"Please step back young lady,\" one of the Men says but I just ignore him.\n\"We actually sing ourselves to sleep knowing that we are preventing our country from being in danger. These people are traitors, Young lady\"\n\"Lucinda\", I hear my mother call as tears fall down my cheeks, \"I knew I should have never let you go for your walk\"\n\"Ma, please. No one understands because you're all stupid. I always thought that adults are so much smarter than kids, but now I know I'm wrong. How could you guys be so blind?\"\n\"Lucinda\" Ma gasps.\n\"Ma, what would you do if the same would be happening to French-Americans. You would be sent to camps. \" I tell her.\n\"but French people would never bomb someplace, ever.\" She says.\n\"You don't know that,\" I say in a voice full of pain.\n\"Yes, in fact, I do,\" she says and then practically sweeps me off my feet and starts carrying me home.\n\"Mr.Nakamura, don't leave...\" Were the last words I was able to say to him before he got loaded into a truck and driven away. However, these are also the words I repeat in my nightmares ever since.\nMr. Nakamura has given me a lesson I will never forget. People should be judged by their actions, but often they are judged by their appearance, so don't stand out in any way. Be ordinary instead of extraordinary. During the time Mr.Nakamura was still around, I wanted to go into space, but now my goal is just to stay low so if there is a little girl just like me, she does not get heartbroken when she gets too attached and I get attacked.\nMr.Nakamura never came home. All others came, not him. I waited every single day. 20 years. I even wrote a poem for him. I hope to publish it when the country is great and fair again. It has some points I think they might not like." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Born in the Middle of Nowhere\n\nGenre: asian-american\n\nWord Count: 2678\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about a “found family” who are finally able to get together again after a long time apart." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "My earliest memory is playing with my big brother Ricky in the backyard. I must’ve been around 3 or 4 years old. His laughter was gruff while pushing me higher and higher on the swing. Alas, I couldn't hold on any longer and let go of the chain setting myself in flight. I must've landed what seemed to be a few miles down the road. I was scared, cried, and yelled out for mama. A few feet of air and distance at that age and it’s the end of the world.\n\nRicky was always mean to me. He’d call me nasty racist names and hit me a lot—hard, too. I figured it was because his skin was browner than mine though our main differences were with my almond-shaped eyes. Well, that and we looked nothing alike. Not even with our parents.\n\nWe were both adopted by Jack and Delia Maddox within our first year of life. But I didn’t know for sure until I got older. We didn’t talk much about it. I thought it was rather hypocritical of the racist comments when Ricky himself looked like he must’ve come from somewhere south of the border. I guess it didn't help matters when I would call him Ricardo as a counter tease.\n\nOur parents are white. We also have a little sister, Amelia. She looked a lot like mama with her blonde hair and greenish eyes. She had dad's smirk and dimples. They were nice enough as family; except I could tell there was a bias between Amelia versus us boys.\n\nI guess I was around 5 years old when I started asking about my birth parents. My folks would tell me it didn’t matter, and they had no idea. They’d just repeat that God had a plan to put us into their lives and care and we were all that mattered. But their actions didn’t feel like it.\n\nAmelia got all the attention and Ricky and me, well, we didn’t. Maybe it’s because she was their only girl. Maybe because she was from their gene pool. Who knows? I didn’t dare ask because they got grumpier the more I probed.\n\nOver time, I became more resentful of what I felt was meanness and avoidance. I felt people stare at me and Ricky when in public. I could feel the other kids staring and laughing at us in the mostly white school. Everywhere. We were stared at. I could feel it under my skin.\n\nI hated wondering where in the world someone might look like me because it sure wasn’t under our family’s roof.\n\nAt about 13 years of age or so, I finally had a great outburst where my skin turned beet red and I was screaming and trembling because they kept avoiding my questions about my birth parents and origins. I had enough!\n\nI guess it was a good thing because I feared another whipping. Instead, mama and daddy sent Amelia out to play with her friends and sat with Ricky and me in the living room for a long talk.\n\nJack and Delia told us our story the best they could recollect. It felt genuine.\n\nThey started with Ricky as he was in tears whereas I was settling down from huffing and puffing. Mama embraced him while wiping tears away with a tissue.\n\n“Ricky,” mama started, “when your daddy and I met at Hardin-Simmons back in Abilene, we fell in love quickly. I think it was a combination of his quick wit and handsome looks. It wasn’t long before we knew we’d get married and wanted to start a family. Fast forward a few years, we got married and tried having babies. But God must've had a different plan for us. For a few years, we couldn’t get pregnant as much as we prayed and prayed. The doctor did some testing and said I couldn’t have kids. So, we figured it was God’s way of telling us we needed to adopt children and have a blended family. So, we did. One day, I was talking with my old college roommate—you remember Jan, the lady with the funky horn-rimmed glasses—and she told me one of her family’s housekeeper’s teenage daughters was pregnant, but they were too poor and she was too young to raise a child. I think she was only around 15 at the time. So, after some discussion, your daddy and I approached her. I don’t remember much about her other than she had beautiful long, straight, black hair with beautiful dark brown eyes. Her name was Juanita, but I don’t remember her last name. We came to an agreement. We paid her hospital bills and had a closed adoption. That means they wouldn’t have contact with any of us. Once you were born, you went straight into my arms and that was the last of that. I don't know if that was the right thing to do but we felt at the time it was important for us that you had all our attention and focus. Jan told me a few years ago she heard rumors they moved down to the Valley around McAllen to start their own cleaning business. That’s all I know about your past. I never asked their nationality but always assumed perhaps they were Mexican. And we couldn't be happier that you entered our lives.”\n\nRicky stayed quiet while looking down at his shoes deep into his own thoughts. When asked if he had questions, he slowly nodded no.\n\nMom then turned to me lifting my chin to see her eyes while wiping away my tear streaks. “Michael, your story with us began on a boat. I know y’all studied the Vietnam War in history class. Remember that?” I nodded.\n\n“Well, after that war, there were waves of Vietnamese families trying to escape the communist regime. They wanted a better life, so they came to America. But they were also very poor. Your daddy and I were watching the news and saw a sad story about a group of families who made it all the way across the Pacific Ocean on a fishing vessel. That was in 1978. They were inflicted with sickness and were starving but determined to get here. They were called the Vietnamese boat people or refugees. Your family was part of a convoy of fishing boats and I was told you were born somewhere over the ocean while in transit. Somehow, your family was picked up by people who exploited Vietnamese families who paid them to get started with new lives. Your birth family ended up in Corpus Christi and worked for a shrimp boat operator since your birth father had experience doing that back home. One of the news clips showed your mother holding you in her arms on the boat and she tried to urge the newscaster to take you away. She didn’t speak a lick of English, but she kept trying to give you to him. That absolutely broke our hearts. The newscaster said he was calling CPS while in the broadcast. You know what? You were famous and on TV,” mama explained.\n\nShe continued, “So daddy and I saw your adorable little face and knew what we had to do. After a lot of phone calls, we reached the CPS office who knew about you and after some time, they allowed us to foster you. After a couple of years, that turned into the adoption. We loved you ever since we laid eyes on you. Sadly, I don’t know any more about your family beyond what we saw on TV. CPS wasn’t allowed to share for whatever reason. And it never mattered to us. All we needed to know was that God brought you to be with us.”\n\nI too found myself looking at my feet. I felt dizzy and lost. But I was relieved to know about my origins.\n\nI was a boy with no birth nation.\n\nI was born over the water in the middle of nowhere.\n\nI quickly looked up at my parents and said, “So, you lied to us. You said you couldn’t have your own children. Then explain Amelia! What was God’s plan there? Have her so we can be the red-headed step-children?”\n\nI was distraught, angry, and scared all at once. My mind was numb and my mouth was on fire.\n\n“Michael, we figure it was a miracle and we don’t question God’s plan. We accepted it. We were thrilled to find out I was finally blessed with a pregnancy that resulted in Amelia. It wasn’t planned but it was welcomed. The doctors still don’t know the reason why we were finally able to get pregnant after all the years of trying. But we did. Sometimes, things just happen. And we love her just as much as we love you,” mama said. Daddy nodded in agreement.\n\n“Liars! You treat us differently than you do her. I think it’s because we don’t look like y’all. We don’t come from y’all,” I accused as I cried uncontrollably.\n\n“Son, I can’t tell you enough how much you boys mean to us and you always will. There’s nothing I can say or do that will change your minds. One day, you’ll just have to accept it and move on with your lives. Until then, we will always be here for you,” daddy said, \"Always.\"\n\nThat day passed into months and then into years.\n\nI lived my life with them and ceased talking about the adoption story now that my appetite was whet. I eventually left the Podunk town of Ballinger and my family after high school graduation and joined the Army.\n\nAfter a couple of years moving around in the service, I was stationed at Camp Casey in Dongducheon, South Korea along the DMZ. It was strange being around people that looked like me, except that I had a tan and they were substantially paler than me. They were a very polite but quiet people.\n\nBeing in those surroundings stirred up old feelings again about my origin. But I know my birth family was from Vietnam. I’d spend my spare time at the base library, but they had nothing to help with research, so I just read as much about the Vietnam War from the US perspective as they had—military propaganda is all we were fed.\n\nThere was a soldier in my unit named Dung Nguyen who came from a Vietnamese family. Everyone was given a nickname or referred by a shortened name. Mine was Tex-Mex because I always reminisced about missing the food from back home. But Dung didn’t need a nickname. His name was already cool as it was though I suspect other Vietnamese Americans might not take to the teasing of such a name. Dung embraced it like a champ.\n\nDung and I became fast friends. Yes, a common origin had much to do with it, but he was a cool customer. He was even keeled and took everything in stride with an analytical approach. He accepted me like a brother. I later learned after a few beers that his name Dung meant brave or heroic. The “d” in his name was also pronounced with a “z” as in Dzung instead of the fecal jokes he was bestowed. I liked his explanation a lot better than the Americanized pronunciation.\n\nAt a bar one frigid evening, Dung shared with me he was also a boat refugee and that his family also ended up as shrimpers in nearby Rockport, just a tad south of Corpus Christi. Apparently, there was a significant amount of them settling there and had quite the shrimp fleet. I shared with him the story mama told me. He said he understood his family arrived a year after mine did.\n\nOn a whim, I asked if he heard my story. He nodded yes and said, “Well, I heard a lot of stories like yours. My parents told us that many kids that arrived were given up for adoption because several families had too many kids and couldn’t care for them all being dirt poor. They just wanted their kids to have a better life while they focused on the older ones.”\n\n“Lucky me,” I said sarcastically.\n\n“Hey, yes. Lucky you!” Dung explained, “so many families remained poor and would work on the shrimp boats without a proper education. The racism was tough, and the Vietnamese kids were taunted and bullied all the time. I was one of the lucky ones. My parents ran a store. I helped run it, but they made me finish my education despite it. You were lucky because you had a family that could provide what many couldn’t. Don’t knock it, man. You could’ve ended up in a much worse situation. You were given a second chance at life.”\n\nI liked his perspective. He had an upbeat attitude whereas it was always me against the world. I wanted to be like that.\n\nDung and I became brothers in everyway except DNA, at least from what I knew. Though I care deeply for my own adopted brother Ricky, in the past couple of years, I felt a much deeper connection with Dung. Perhaps it was all we went through and all we had in common.\n\nAfter we finished our four-year stint, I attended Texas Tech thanks to the GI Bill and earned my Ph.D. in History with a focus on Vietnam Studies. I figured if I was going to learn more about myself, why not find a path that aligns.\n\nI met my future bride while working part-time at the Sam Johnson Vietnam Archive on campus. Julie worked there after obtaining her degree in library sciences. She was a beautiful mix with a white father and Japanese mother. More importantly, she got me. She seemed to understand all my quirky nuances. We hit it off right away.\n\nA couple of years later, we married, and I was then offered a teaching position at Saint Martin’s University in Lacey, Washington.\n\nThat meant we’d be near Dung.\n\nHe ended up relocating to Portland, Oregon to work for Nike, just under a two-hour drive away. He always did like his sneakers. That was good enough for me, I accepted the position with Julie’s blessing, of course.\n\nAfter our relocation to Lacey, we spent a lot of time with Dung and his little family, probably monthly. His toddler son Tim looked a lot like him.\n\nBesides being Army brothers, Dung and I had such a strong kinship that I felt like I belonged. There was a familiarity between his family and mine with Julie being half-Asian herself. We shared our Army experience. Our maturing friendship was completely organic. I know race shouldn’t be a thing. After all, we all belong to the human race, right? But when you don’t feel like you belong and never had, you tend to seek out some way of getting a sense of belonging. Or, at least that’s how it was for me.\n\nIt also felt good living in the Great Northwest where Asians weren’t a minority. For the second time in my life, I felt I was where I belonged. Heck, we even elected the first governor in the United States who was of East Asian descent, Gary Locke.\n\nI gave up the notion to search for my birth family while occasionally keeping in touch with my adopted family. Distance made things tough but get togethers were more cherished as a result.\n\nThe way I figure it, my long search had come to an end.\n\nI finally figured out that family is what you make of it. My life-long internal struggle culminated into an embraced acceptance.\n\nPerhaps one day I’ll take one of those DNA spit tests. I’m not sure I want to know answers. Perhaps I will feel more differently in time.\n\nBut for now, I’m happy to go back down to Portland again this weekend. The only searching I need in my life right now is found in my own home and a two-hour drive south of here." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Memories No. 2\n\nGenre: bedtime\n\nWord Count: 1371\n\nPrompt:\n\nStart your story with someone looking out the window and seeing the first snowfall of the season." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Flakes fall like soft summer rain. The gentle folds of snow waltz through the sky before their journey comes to an end. They caress the earth. Safety in numbers. Their existence depends on elements out of their control. The first snowfall of the season. There is such delight in taking a moment to pause and watch the snow. It is moments like these that make me reflect on my life. The good and the bad. The lessons I have learned and the path I am walking. The decisions I have made and the memories of those I have left behind. I lean back in my chair and stair out the window. The purple clouds bank together, like a traffic jam. Slow to move, ominous yet unlike a traffic jam, gloriously pretty. I am protected from the elements. The fire spits as I fold my arms across my woollen chest. Caught by a feeling I drift into contemplation.\nI was twelve years old when I first saw, felt and played in the snow. I was a country boy, born and bred, and it was only because of the hard work of my mother that enabled me to go to my year six camp that enabled me to, forty years later, recall the experience. It was the only excursion I attended at school, but the memories of that day will live with me forever. It was, as could be expected, a cool day. I was rugged up in snow clothes, a beanie and a scarf. I remember staring at the snow, and thinking to myself, “I am so damned cold.” I was excited of course and didn’t know what to expect. I had no one to guide me, no one to turn to to explain this phenomenon. I was simply given two instructions. The first was to get off the bus, and the second was to play. While I was eager to follow the first instruction it took me some time to abide by the second. \nI stood transfixed, cold and startled by the mass of white covering that lay knee deep as far as I could see. I clenched my arms tight to my body and rubbed my gloved hands together to keep warm. I was happy, like a child often is. Yes, I played in the snow with my friends. We indulged in the usual games and built a snowman. I had no idea then that such a name was to become so controversial. I was ignorant of lots of things, and in many regards I wish I still was. I have since learned that knowing things does not make one wise. It just makes life more confusing. I recall the experience with fondness, and after a mere hour we were loaded on the bus and escorted away, just like the tourists we were. It would be twenty-two years before I felt snow again.\nIt was a day much like today. Cold and miserable, depending on perspective, only I wasn’t sitting in my office watching the snowfall from a distance. I was making sure my daughters had their beanies and scarves on. I tied up their boots before we went out to do what I had done years earlier. On that day we woke to snow a foot thick. We lived out of town and the countryside was plastered white. It was such a joyous occasion. We had snowball fights, and built a snowman, with a carrot for a nose, while using my scarf and beanie to finish off the cliched rendition of the snowman. Their laughter still rings in my ears. I can feel the snow on my face, and down my back where my two oldest daughters decided to put snow down my shirt. I chased them in mock surprise. I cherish these moments. I did then, as I do now, but I wonder if I ever appreciated them as much then as I do now. \nThe first snow always makes me happy. It brings back memories that are worth remembering. This year though, the snow means much, much more. Last year was a dry winter. For the first time in twenty years no snow fell. Winters are becoming warmer now, climate change or a natural cycle. I’m not willing to get into an argument about which, but winter on the mountain is not the same without the snow. I waited patiently, and then when the month came that it always snowed, I bided my time impatiently. Perhaps tonight. Maybe tomorrow. I hoped, I wished, and I prayed, but nothing. Now, I don’t expect everyone to understand, but the absence of such an occasion threw me off kilter. Winter did not feel the same. \nThe snow is falling heavier now and though it’s late afternoon I call my daughter, after strict instructions to do so if such an event occurred again. I can hear her partner in the background, shuffling the kids off to get dressed. “We’re going to Grandads.” The kids squeal with delight, because they have never seen snow. They live twenty miles away at the bottom of the range, and will be here soon. The snow is now cascading out of the sky like a waterfall. Layer after layer is folding on the moist earth. I stoke the fire, and add another log. It immediately catches fire. I move from my desk to the lounge, pick up my book and begin to read. After five minutes I stop reading, recall the page number and put the book down. I get dressed in a pair of work pants, thick socks and an old pair of boots. I sport a yard shirt, and my winter coat. I top off the ensemble with a scarf, beanie and my best pair of gloves. Pleased and feeling quite mischievous I brave the elements of the world beyond the door.\nForty minutes later my daughter arrives. They hustle out of the SUV and the kids are dressed as I am. They are happy. Jett scoops up snow in his hands and turns to show his father. His smile is priceless. Sofia is unsure how to respond. Not now, the moment is not right. Some words are exchanged and there is some muttered talk that I can’t make out. They are too far away. I wait, this time patiently, for snow has a way of slowing both myself and time down. They approach after a minute and I hear my daughter say, after she grabs Sofia by the hand, “come on let's go find grandad.” They stepped lightly along the driveway, the snow crunching under their feet. The timing was right, they didn’t expect a thing.\n“Snowball fight.” I lobbed a snowball from behind the fence. The missile hit my son in law in the chest. He let out a hearty laugh, and the fun was on. Such a single act set off a series of events that transpired over the next hour. After the brief, yet joyous exchange of hastily constructed snowballs and a round of laughter we retired to the gentle slope of the back yard and began the inevitable construction of a family of snow people. They stood a little lopsided, and askew. Still they were dressed in our winter gear as we disrobed the outer layer before taking photos and then moving inside to embrace the warmth the small cottage provided. It was the most fun I have had in many years. I learned a lot that day. \nI am always learning. Mostly I learn about myself, and life of course. Time shapes who we are and who we become. Reflection gives our memories meaning. I am not sure I could have experienced today more profoundly than I could have with my own children. Time will convince me that I could have, but I think that reflects the distance between where I was then, and where I am now. Before the memories fade I am committed to making the make of every moment. The only difference between then and now is me. As I age, I have learned to accept that you can’t buy time but you can most certainly appreciate every little bit of it you have left." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: the unguarded moment\n\nGenre: bedtime\n\nWord Count: 2866\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about a character emerging from hibernation, whether literally or metaphorically." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "MOTHBOY\nAri, Odessa, Ukraine\nTime Past\n\n\n\nPapa does not take you to Mama’s funeral / he swears a death like hers cannot be honoured / so, he makes arrangements for father and son / You will live in America, in New York / Papa tells his sister you will stay with her / and his affairs will take as long as they take.\n\nAnd the world turns inside out \\\nas if there’s a you outside and you inside \\ watching.\n\n*\n\nit’s dark when titka comes / willing you to eat, speak / her weight lands beside you on the soft mattress / Papa has not yet come / you’re still in Odessa / strange, she does not touch the boulder between you / see how it pins your arms / pushing you both apart / it’s as if small stones are stuffed in your small mouth / and you long to tell her / but your tongue will not move / you try squeezing fingers beneath the boulder / seeing if she has grip / enough to yank you back / through to the fluid world that flowed from Mama / but her round belly kicks / she wants no part of you / you hear her sigh loudly and the mattress lifts / you will her to be more mama than titka / but she never does leave the door ajar for you\n\n\n\n\ndoes she not know how thick-fast shadow creepers spread / darkening wallpaper / ‘til there is no room left / how you must bunch the edges of the bedsheets / to trust you are still here / a real boy in a bed / how you must not follow where the shadows go /\n\nhave you been there, Mama? / you recall asking once / and her covering your hand and answering / yes, and that’s how I know / For you not to go there\n\nheadlights of passing cars make shadows pounce down hard / like metal on metal / crushing the ones below / but on clear nights, shadows only look tired / as if wrestling too long, they cannot reconcile / Mama taught you that word / Re-con-cil-i-a-tion / how it meant to bring back together, she said / so, she and Papa could never reconcile / but that’s not you and her / who were never apart / you prefer to think in this way of shadows / who only forgot how to be together / then, the darkness parts ways / and loving voices and words trip over themselves / to get into the room / and you’re hearing humming / sinking ever deeper into your mattress / you softer than butter / hmmm, that’s when you hear best / Mama’s voice and Gigi’s, your Papa’s mama/ rushing in to tell you what to remember / and while you go nowhere / you can still be back there\n/with them / wherever there once was…\n\nhmmm, Love, Mama says, one day / while riding a bus from somewhere wet to dry / is a word folk dish out / to measure out their pleasure or displeasure / there is not a thing you can say, think or do / that can make another person feel your love / People will feel what they will feel, she tells you / brushing your fringe from your dark eyes with her thumb / This is not said cruelly but to release you / from having to be the one to make her happy / For the longest time, she warns not to love her / knowing that another soul depends on her / on what she feels, kills her…\n step off the bus, you go see Papa’s mama / Gigi’s peeling potatoes with a sharp knife / over a hot wet pan / you’re telling something to Gigi and Mama / both sets of eyes on you / women are scared of me, you say / they don’t look at me the way they do others / with me, they become stone / they harden / when I move along the street, they flow away / \n nonsense, Gigi tell you / two things scare a woman: grown men, and themselves / but then Mama murmurs / Oh, the Oracle’s here / if women go still around the boy, she says / cupping your face gently / he must pay attention / to what it is they do not wish him to see / \n groaning, Gigi repeats / just two things scare women: grown men and themselves / later, when you’re returning home with Mama / she speaks to the wet streets / and flickering streetlamps / who are the only ones really listening / there’s always good reason / not to want to be seen /\n So, you begin to pay attention to girls / Fridays, you queue with Mama at the butcher’s / watching the butcher hand raw meat to a large girl / who is his new helper / it’s her task to wrap meat / she’s younger than the shoppers who come and go / her face rounder, softer / too soft, many neighbourhood women complain / you think, somehow, they think they are whispering / eye level with her hands / you peer through the clear glass / as long fingers smooth paper, coaxing the meat / deftly folding edges / ‘til each one is a gift / a loud chorus picks up / What’s the holdup? So slow! / What do I pay you for? / The butcher shouts at her / To daydream? / he stands so close she must feel breath on her neck / how strangely the dimpled girl’s fingers now move / all slippery, and uncooperative / you look up at Mama / for her to see the girl’s fingers change substance / more clay than flesh and bone/\n before you can make sense of a thing like this / a vexed voice overhead / Please tell your boy not to dirty the shop glass / You look up and the dimpled girl is scowling / Mama grips your shoulder / and you both drop away…\n\nBLINK and the voices BLACKEN / Strange, the voices and pictures know when to stop / as if rooms could whisper /’ Someone was Coming’ / and, just like that, walls go back to being walls / and you’re crawling on knees / towards the bedroom door / like the baby you were / pressing your cheek against the cool wood, you count /… one… two… and there it is… / a knock at titka’s door / her voice greeting someone / could it be Papa coming for you at night? / an unknown male’s voice answers / the man is sent away, and the front door closes / long past grown-up bedtime / you slip into hallway/ where there’s a band of light at the base of a door / and walls don’t breathe so hard / two shadows at your feet / you hear the name Ava / this is your mother’s name / titka’s saying how Ava had no sov-ren-tee / showed no inner re-strayn-t / how she gave herself away to everyone.\n\n Little fool. She allowed that boy to bare his soul all over his face. No one survives this world with an unguarded face and outstretched arms.\n\n now two voices speaking / the man must not have left / he wants to know how much longer you will be there / she tells him to come again when coast is clear / and still, you remain crouching low to the ground / gripping knees tight so no part can slide away / Are you the coast? \n\n\nmany days and nights pass before Papa comes / time enough to wonder / why’d shadows fight so hard? / Is it because for shadows to claim their place / they must kill or be killed?\n\nYou turn ten. There are no candles.\n\n \n\nDriving away from the old neighbourhood one last time, you ask Papa whether your aunt will come visit you both in America. Papa says Never and tells you how the whole family has disowned her; you included.\nFrom a young age, you have understood your father owns you; that you were only on loan to your mother. It makes sense that your father’s family would own titka too. What surprises you is titka’s new owner. An unmarried woman, she is now owned by her unborn child. You had no idea there were adults who could belong to their children. The possibility terrifies you. Does that mean you did a bad thing? And that you let Mama get swallowed up by the thing no woman wants you to see?\nStaring at your pale reflection in the car window, you will that boy not to cry.\nAs the car beetles along, a lady will occasionally look up from her bags, or her children, and catch you staring. So many women, old, young, not so young; moving fast, slow, but none idling. No, today is market day, and already the vendors are packing away their produce at the end of a long day, and still there is fish to be bought, bread to be buttered, supper to be made.\nBefore, the same women would have looked away but, today, the ones who encounter your gaze stop and stare back, and then, only slowly do they look away, as if seeing you reminds them of something which they had forgotten and they stare down at their own feet, absently, for the answer. Mama’s voice repeats how you must pay attention to what it is women do not want you to see.\nWhat is it? You wonder, tapping your small fist against the handle. Once, you would have walked these same streets together, your hand in Mama’s. Now, the metal handle is all that holds you in place.\n You say none of this to Papa, for Papa is not Mama. With Mama, you could be in her silences; with Papa, you must be the silence. Stuck in traffic, your father’s driver knows to be silent too. It is very important that you all keep quiet as Papa speaks on his cell phone with important clients because to be an important man, it is okay for other people to use your services so long as you have people you can tell what to do. Your father doesn’t tell you this; but you are learning. His brother, the butcher, may be an important man, but your father can be an intimidating one. You once heard someone describe him that way, and without knowing what the word meant, you understood. The butcher counts because people need what he sells. Your father wins because he makes people need him.\nUp ahead, there’s some kind of holdup and dozens of people stall like shop mannequins on the sidewalk. Grimly, the people who keep moving glare back at the ones causing the obstruction. You look across to Papa, who he is back on his phone; then across to the driver, but the driver is craning his neck, figuring out how to go around the hold-up. Curiously, you observe how every person who has stopped is a man.\n “What is it?” Your father demands of his driver. \n “The eclipse, Mr. Tkachenko. They’re waiting for the eclipse.”\nSunlight in your eyes, you mind the shaft of light between the old town hall and its neighbouring red brick building. You can’t be sure what you’re looking out for; only that your answer is not here, in this car, it’s out there, in Odessa, in Mama. Your hand slides along the cool, metal handle of the car, and you wish it was Mama’s hand holding yours. And a possibility emerges, what if Mama was mistaken and women are not hiding from you what they do not want you to see but are scarred of you minding what it is they’re not seeing?\nPressing down on the handle, springing open the car door, it is the most natural thing for you to step out, know the cool air on your arms and face, and run.\n\n\nDarting, racing, zipping in and around the spaces between pedestrians’ bodies, your lungs feel so strong, like your chest could knock buildings out of your way. Surely, everyone else can feel this power in you.\nThe sky never felt so big.\nLowering your gaze from sky to tenement tip, you have some sense of a figure turning each corner ahead of you, running ahead of you. That’s not possible, though.\nYet, with every turn of yours, you get another fleeting glance of the figure high above your bare head, each time, some different body part, a foot, an elbow, long swishing hair. It’s a girl. You swear it. Your mother was once a girl. Might she be guiding you home? Calling you back. Calling you not to forget her. To never forget.\nThe light is changing so fast, like the shadows had escaped titka’s and were burrowing through the city; the world closing in, making the space between your skin and you ache. Hunted, you are both human and animal. You break into a sprint, elongating the distance between you and your pursuers. The pressure feels immense, right behind the eyes, and your legs ache and your throat’s dry. Above everything, a dark crescent in the sky and still the figure trails along the ledge, the soles of her feet the last thing to disappear around the last corner. Until you turn onto yours and Mama’s street and stop.\n Two hundred meters ahead, there’s the front of the apartment building you once both called home, and blocking the entrance is your father. Somehow, he has got ahead of you, anticipating your end point, and, behind you, the heavy pounding footfall of the gaining chauffeur. And there’s you, stalled, stone still, between what once was and what will be. \n\nClose your eyes and hold your breath.\n\nTime is catching up so fast, panting in your ear.\n\nWhen you open your eyes, you can’t even be sure you have, because a muddy darkness has removed everyone and everything.\n\nHas the darkness always been here underneath everything?\n\n What are mere seconds to other onlookers is a life sentence to you.\n\nHow long can a boy hold his breath?\n\nYou hold yours until you feel the heat again on your eyelids and see behind your closed eyes a re-colouring from blues to yellows. Shielding your face from the piercing shaft of light coming between the buildings, you dare look up. With the darkness whitening, the figure way up high on a ledge arrives at a perfect stand-still.\n Biting your lip, pinched to the spot, you take in every detail of her. She has the form of a girl only a few years older than you, and the flesh of a clay figurine - tinged a clayish-green - like some half-formed thing with which the Maker is taking his time.\nYet, watching her leaning into the sun, her face tilted, there is such a firmness in her expression, that when she lowers her gaze, seeing you seeing her, she ceases to be otherworldly, and becomes what she is. A young girl standing perilously high on a ledge. A young girl whose ceramic skin is mottling, in the sun, into flesh tones, like new-formed birthmarks, and she’s gracefully turning her arms over, curiously one way and then another, marvelling at what is happening to her, and looking down once more at you, a mere boy, with such an expression of wonder how she got up there. Not beseeching you to get her down so much as to join her, maybe.\nBreathing her in, all you know, is that there is a you and a her; and that you’ve never felt so much muchness inside of you.\nYou shudder at the gentle brush of something landing on your left shoulder. For a moment, you imagine it is her fingertips and that she, or you, can stretch so far as to touch one another from a great distance.\nRelaxing your gaze, you peer down at your left shoulder, at the fluttering wings of a single moth landed there. You tingle at the sensation, only for an almighty hand to land on your other shoulder and wrench you around. You know what this; understand it even. Your father’s fury.\nWhen you dare look back up at the ledge, one eye swelling shut, the girl has vanished. As Papa marches you to the waiting car, and an awaiting America, not once do you look down at the bruising clayish-green of your arms but, you know, without looking, that your bruises are the colours of a girl standing on a ledge calling to you. \n\n*\n\n\nEight hours later, you land in America, and yet you’ve been travelling for sixteen.\nWhere do the other eight hours go, Papa?\nAmerica is the future, he answers, staring way over your head at everyone else in the terminal.\nOh, you gasp, understanding somehow that your future is somebody else’s secret to keep." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Little Red Wishes on Wild Things\n\nGenre: bedtime\n\nWord Count: 1379\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story about somebody trying to rationalize giving into temptation, even though they know they shouldn’t." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Beneath a hooded cloak, I gaze up at all the things on fire in the sky, searching for shooting stars. The sky is as vast and deep as the ocean, as dark and sinister as the forest; it upholds all of its chaos, displaying its trauma, as if to say: “You should know better than to trust in me.” I distract myself, looking for constellations while I wait for morning, hopeful that a glowing streak of light might seize my wish and free me of this burden.\n\nRelease me of those devil’s eyes, my heart yearns.\n\nWhen a cloud emerges from my lips, I pull my cloak tighter around my chest, grateful mother had sewn one so thick, though none would ever be thick enough to shield me from the cold and dark events I’d just encountered. The image of my grandmother writhing and stretching – screaming – from inside that beastly creature’s stomach is one not even a grown adult would have easily taken in. How had I been so foolish? How, for one second, had I believed that thing to resemble my sweetest and most tender grandmother?\n\nThe moment replays in my head as I know it will forever: my grandmother’s pink bonnet, a little frumpier than usual; her back turned away from me as she beckoned me to her from her bed, her voice much deeper and hoarse than I’d ever heard it before. There’d been a pot left on the stove, all its contents boiled to nothing but steam when I’d arrived, which I thought unusual, as Grandmother was always so masterful in the kitchen. I suppose, my youthful mind had thought she was ill, remembering the worry that festered in me when she did not immediately come to greet me at the door. She’d asked me to come closer so she could see me better, but her vision had never once given her trouble. My concern for her unwonted state had drawn me to her, and with every verbalized remark about her appearance, Grandmother – whom now I know was that wretched beast – had a reassuring response, pulling me closer and closer to her side, until…\n\n“There!” I shout into the lonely night, my finger latched onto the flying star’s tail. Just between Orion and the North, I see the streak of a meteor on fire in the sky. I’m about to close my eyes and send my wish away with it before it can sizzle out when I notice something strange about it.\n\nIt’s not sizzling out. It’s flying across the sky unlike any shooting star I’d ever seen. I follow its trail with my eyes, enamored by its continued existence. That’s when I realize it’s not a shooting star.\n\nIt’s a boat.\n\nA large paper sailboat is flying across the ocean sky, and in it is a young boy wearing a wolf costume. Next to him, a large headed monster with giant, gnashing teeth is hollering and whooping and howling at the moon.\n\nWhen the boy sees me – how he sees me from way up there, I am not sure – he points at me and flails his arms up high, trying to capture my already undivided attention. “Little Red, Little Red, come with us!” he shouts.\n\nWho? Little Red? Me? I am speechless.\n\n“Come on an adventure with us!” the wolf-boy yells again before joining the monster beside him in a howl towards the moon.\n\nFor a moment, I look around, half-expecting myself to wake from a dream. But still, my grandmother’s empty, unlit house is behind me, its broken windows a reminder of the horrific battle I’d survived earlier. Cool, crisp air runs sharp across my cheeks. A sinister forest pretends to sleep just beyond her cottage’s edges, taunting me with its wicked captivity. I can’t leave here, fearful of what other demons these wild woods can produce. I can’t go back inside to that slain beast, my grandmother decaying in his stomach. I cannot go home, for how would I explain it all to my parents? They’d sent me to check on Grandmother, to bring her flowers and fresh bread, how could I explain all that had happened?\n\nThe beast and the boy sail above me, more beautiful than any ball of fire I’ve seen in the sky. I hear them hollering louder and louder. I hear them snarling and growling into the night like wild things, and it sounds like freedom.\n\nMother always taught me to be cautious of strangers… I consider her disapproval for a breath.\n\n“Well, are you coming?” the boy asks, a humor around the edges of his words, as if my moment of consideration is something to be mocked, as if my answer should come immediately. The question ripples across the glade like a wave, echoing through my body. The impossibility of the request is perhaps the most exciting thing about it. How would I even get up there? And to go where? For a moment, I feel as if I am the one in the boat, leaning over the edge and inviting a stranger to join me on an unknown excursion into the abyss. It is tempting… I had been such a good little girl my entire life, and look where it got me? Face-to-face with a devil who’d swallowed Grandmother whole and tried to rip me to pieces. It was time to defy the rules the way the rules had defied me.\n\nThere’s no where else to go, but up, I tell myself, and immediately, my impulsive surrender fills me with an exhilaration that is almost an exact contrast to my earlier state of shock.\n\nI look up at the hovering boat in the sky and nod before I can change my mind. Almost instantly, the boy is hooting and whistling. His monster pumps his clawed fists into the air beside him.\n\n“There,” the boy commands, pointing towards the side of my grandmother’s cottage. “Climb up the side and jump! We’ll come down and catch you.”\n\nWithout a word, I sprint towards the side of her home, fighting through thorns from her rose garden, careful not to step in shattered glass. The stone face of her house is easy to grip and before I know it, I am halfway to the rooftop. With each stride upwards, the moonlight’s glow casts a wider net, illuminating my path. I only look down once, granting a final goodbye to Grandmother. I see my shadow cast below me, my cloak like a freedom flag across the ground. As my heart runs its own race inside my chest, I feel my doubts drown out; the beast’s eyes fade away; the memory of tonight’s unspeakable tragedy diminishes. Perhaps, this was the answer to my wish all along. Perhaps, this was the shooting star I had been searching for, come to grant me freedom from my darkest hour.\n\nIt takes all of my strength to cast my legs up and over onto the roof, and if not for the adrenaline and excitement of the adventure ahead of me, I might be completely breathless. I spring to my feet, expecting the boy and his boat to be right there waiting; but when I straighten, there is only a horizon of treetops. I scan the empty sky, searching once again for my ball of fire in the vast violet empyrean. My search is almost fruitless, and I feel my heart sputtering against the panic, until a flash finally catches my eye. I catch sight of them, but they are not where they should be. They are far, far away, a distance that seems further than when I had been on the ground. I have to squint to make certain that it’s them, and then it becomes all too certain…\n\nLike a cookie cutter pressed into the moon’s surface, a silhouette of a sailboat soars across its vibrant halo. The beast is snarling, as evil and grim as the one I’d met earlier, while the boy in his animal suit sends maniacal laughter through his splicing lips.\n\n“You should have known to never trust a wolf,” the boy scolds. And then as quick as a shooting star darting across the sky, he sails away, leaving me and my wish behind." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Tied Down\n\nGenre: asian-american\n\nWord Count: 2992\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about someone who decides it’s time to cut ties with a family member." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "For most of my childhood, my grandma, my aunt, my parents and I all lived in one big house in Ashwood, British Columbia, and though it was crowded, I loved being with all of them all the time. Though half-White, I was still the only Asian kid for hundreds of kilometres around, I had a weird name, and I had no one my own age to talk to. However, around the time I turned 12, my dad got a job in Ontario, and my parents moved to pretty much the other side of the country.\nWithout me.\nThey insisted they were doing it for my own good, that they didn’t want to disturb my development with a drastic change, nor force me to make new friends in a new city. But all I saw was me being left behind; Ontario probably wasn’t that different from BC, I thought. Plus, I was sure they knew damn well I didn’t even have any friends here. I couldn’t conceive the thought of ever being separated from my family; they were literally all I had. My whole life, my dad had been my favourite person on Earth. Sure, I was sad to be left by my mom too, but from him, it felt crueller, it felt like a betrayal. To top it all off, my grandma passed away shortly after, and my aunt wasn’t exactly the nurturing kind: she didn’t have children of her own, and clearly didn’t want any. Aunt Mai and I cohabited pretty well, but we didn’t communicate much; she had weird ways to pass things on to me. She never said anything directly and always expressed her opinions through cryptic metaphors, deep sighs and unbelievably long silences. There was a lot about me she didn’t like, and in her own way, she let me know. From then on, I didn’t fully feel at home in my own house, and I sure as hell didn’t feel in my place outside of it either. I was constantly miserable, and for a long time, I did nothing about it but blame my everlasting loneliness on my parents.\nThe summer after I turned seventeen, I slowly started replacing my ridiculous amounts of self-pity with a moderate amount of self-discovery and exploration. For all of my short life I had felt as though some important thing kept me tied down to Ashwood even though to most, it was pretty clear I didn’t belong. I kept thinking about how my mom had chosen this place for us to live, so she must’ve seen something great in it, right? Well, that summer, camera in hand, I spent every day and most of every night looking for whatever it was that Ashwood had to offer. That’s when I first found something I was actually good at, and that’s when I first met Emmanuelle.\nThe Faulkners lived in a red cottage-style house right across the lake from us, but for years, I never interacted with saw them nor with their children. One of their sons sometimes came over to our side: the lake wasn’t huge, and, on the summer’s hottest days, he often swam a few laps between our two houses. I knew his name was Emerson (we went to the same high school, though he was a year above), and I knew he could tell I was watching him when he would stop to sit on our shore and rest. He’d turn his head towards me infinitely slowly, as if he was giving me time to brace for eye contact, or time to run away before he could catch me in the window. But I always stayed right there, and we’d look at each other for only a couple of seconds before he jumped back into the water. I don’t know what he was doing, what we were doing, but I know I’d dream of him, of his straight nose, of his bruised knees and of the water droplets in his hair. I didn’t always dream of Emerson in that way, and sometimes I’d dream of complete strangers, but he was as good as any other stand-in for a companion in my fantasies of love and friendship.\nOn a fresh June evening, I saw two heads and two pairs of arms bobbing in and out of the water when I sat down by the living room window to read. As they got closer to our side, I recognized Emerson’s freckled back, and then I waited. He pulled himself out of the water and the second person, a seemingly younger girl but just as tall, soon followed. Her hair, tied in a ponytail, kept going and going down her back, and when she sat down next to her brother it rested against the grass and pebbles. Even with the setting sun and the darkness settling in, I could tell they had the same face, the same hands, the same smile. They talked for a couple minutes, laughed, and jumped back into the water before swimming home. Emerson must’ve known I was there, watching, waiting, but this time he didn’t play the game. Disappointed and angry for reasons I could not admit even to myself, I slapped my book shut and went up to my room.\nLess than a week later, we got a pamphlet in the mail: there was a short film competition, organized by the town, accepting submissions from inexperienced filmmakers for another six weeks. A bunch of prizes were listed, but I didn’t even bother going through them: I was already completely seduced by the idea. The passion I had for movies had been passed down by my dad: from the moment I was old enough to go to theatres and sit still, he’d take me nearly every week. When I tried to casually mention it to Aunt Mai later that day, she didn’t waste any time shutting it down: she thought it was useless to try since I didn’t know what I was doing and I had barely ever touched my camera since the day it was gifted to me. She was right, but I still thought otherwise: wasn’t this the perfect project to throw myself into instead of being lonely, sad and bored all summer? Aunt Mai’s disapproval only fueled me further, and right after we finished eating, I went and dug my old camera from the box underneath my bed. I knew it was full of pictures of my parents and their old life, so I made sure not to look through the camera roll; I just checked it was still functional, taking pictures of my ceiling and filming myself in my mirror, and then set it on my bedside before going to sleep.\n/ / /\nIt didn’t take too long for us to cross paths, but it’s only when we did that I realized I had been awaiting the moment. I spent almost an entire week walking around town with my camera around my neck, unable to come up with any good enough ideas for a film and attempting to, at the very least, find good locations to shoot in later on. One afternoon, after I’d given up for the day, I walked down to the side of the lake and started on the long way home, feet in the water. The lake was surrounded by houses and forest, so my path alternated between people’s backyards and dense patches of trees. As I went through a particularly rocky section of the shore, not far from my destination, I heard quick footsteps behind me.\n“Got the leaflet too?”\nI turned around, and there was Emerson’s sister. I was taken aback as I realized I had been entirely wrong in deciding they had the same face; her face was much sweeter, softer in all the places Emerson was sharp and frankly, a little scary. I didn’t understand what she had meant until I saw the camera in her hand. I looked down at mine, then back up at her.\n“Uh… yeah,” I said, my voice trembling as many times as humanly possible in a single word. The silence hung heavily between us. I wanted to run away but I forced myself to stay anchored.\n“Nice camera,” I added weirdly, way too quickly, but she smiled a genuine smile, with the teeth and all. I relaxed.\n“I know, right? It’s Emmett’s. My brothers both thought the contest was lame so he let me borrow it.”\nEmmett… The eldest child, I assumed; I’d never seen him at school or anywhere in town. Does he have her pretty green eyes or grey ones like Emerson? I chased the question from my head, and she kept talking.\n“Turns out I truly suck! I don’t think I’m going to get anything good done by the deadline. Mind showing me what you’ve got?”\nSo many words. I had never spoken to this girl, yet there she was, casually making conversation and asking to see my stuff? I was confused and felt awkward, but she was right there and seemed nice enough; I couldn’t just say no.\n“Sure,” I huffed hesitantly, and we sat down together on a sawed tree trunk. I turned on the camera and showed her some pictures and short clips of places I wanted to incorporate in my film. We stayed in complete silence, and while she looked at the small screen, I looked at her. Her eyelashes were the lightest shade of blonde, almost transparent, and she has the tiniest of freckles all over her forehead and down her nose.\n“You’ll have to teach me,” she finally said, looking up. “These are amazing.”\n“Thank you.\" I tried to answer in a friendly manner, but I could tell it came out a little cold. Would she think I was stuck-up? I didn’t really know how to be nice: I had never needed to. I also had no idea what to say or do next, so I just gave her a nod and stood up. Was I supposed to wait for her, or continue the talking? My head was starting to hurt from overthinking so much, so I just started walking.\n“Hey, wait up! I just got a brilliant idea.” She jumped up and walked up to me. “What if we did this together? Like I said, I’m having absolutely no luck with this thing,” she added.\n“This… You mean the movie?” I asked, stupidly.\n“Yeah! You handle all the actual camera stuff, and I could help write a script. Plus, it might be nice to actually have another person in your film, right?”\nMuch to my confusion, her eyes were sparkling; she was getting excited about this. She was right: I was well aware I couldn’t make my project as perfect as I envisioned it without some help. But a voice more powerful than logic made itself heard in my head: I was way too scared of rejection to let someone in so fast.\n“But… You don’t even know me.” It was the first thing I thought to say, but as soon as it came out I knew it had sounded rude. Still, she wasn’t phased; she simply held out her hand for me to shake it.\n“Well, here. I’m Emmanuelle.” She looked so much like her brother with that smirk on her face… I wasn’t sure why noticing that instantly made me feel blush. I shook her hand.\n“Claude,” I basically whispered. She was beaming.\nShe walked me home.\n/ / /\nBefriending Emmanuelle Faulkner did not go the way I thought it would, far from that. I don’t remember exactly how it started, but towards the middle of the summer, Emmanuelle and I were doing exactly what I had dreamt of for so long, with so many people: holding hands at all times, stealing kisses whenever we could, laying down in the sun to read, limbs tangled. We worked on the movie every day, but we mostly did other things. She’d drag me to swims in the lake, take me to all the little diners I had never bothered eating at, and even got Emerson to drive us out to more interesting neighbouring towns on multiple occasions. Needless to say, sitting in a tiny car with the two of them within reach provoked strange feelings that I did not want to question in the pit of my stomach. She was undoubtedly what I had been waiting for, the missing link. Watching her live made me feel more alive than ever before: she had so much joy, infinitely many passions, and just as many stories to tell, and that was all obvious in everything she did. More than anything, she had a family, and she managed to make me feel like it was mine too. Whenever we had to spend some time apart, she would text me like her life depended on it, and our conversations were just like in real life (lots of messages on her end, mostly monosyllabic answers on mine). However, her physical presence was unmatched: I still found myself missing the static feeling there was always between us, and the shivers I’d get all over whenever we came in contact.\nWe won third place in the short film contest, and against all odds, Aunt Mai actually came to the city hall for the screening. As we walked out of there, I couldn’t take my eyes off Emmanuelle, a radiant smile plastered on her face as she looked down at our prize certificate. I had never felt something similar before, so it took me a long time to recognize the feeling I was basking in as one of pure satisfaction. Looking back, I feel I should’ve closed my eyes, right there on the city hall steps, and enjoyed it for just a second longer because a moment later, it was gone. Aunt Mai, who I hadn’t noticed was taking a call, tapped my shoulder and handed me her cellphone. Even though it had been years, I instantly recognized the voice; it was nearly the same as my own.\n“Claude? Is this you now?”\nMy dad didn’t sound as bored as I remembered. There was a pep in his voice that, for a second, made him sound excited to talk to me. I only hummed in response, not finding it in me to come up with words.\n“Ok, well, hum, there’s no right way to do this. I know you’ve called many times, but you know how busy life can get. Your aunt just told me all about the movie you made… I wanted you to know I’m so, so proud of you,” he said in what seemed like a sincere manner. I couldn’t tell, and I hated him for diminishing my longing for a family to just a couple of unanswered phone calls, so I just hummed into the phone again.\nIn reality, I wanted to turn to my aunt, throw the phone at her, scream at the top of lungs.\n“I get it if you don’t want to talk to me, I really do. I should’ve called before, and I probably should’ve been here today to see all this. I’m very sorry. I hope you can forgive me. I just want what’s good for you, and the work… Well, the work here is exactly that; it’s good.” I didn’t hum.\nI realized then that despite the 5 years that had passed, my father was exactly the same he had been when he lived here with me. It didn’t matter what was nice or not to do, or that my feelings were deeply hurt by half a decade of silence. He truly believed what he was saying was good, that what he was doing was the best way to proceed, and nothing would ever make him sway. Perhaps noticing how tense I was getting, Emmanuelle gently took my free hand in hers, her face still turned away from me to signal she wasn’t eavesdropping on the conversation. In that instant, I felt I was in love with her.\n“Anyways, I’m glad to hear you’re okay. And I hope you’ll make more movies. I always knew it would be something special for you. I’m so proud.”\nHearing him repeat that last sentence angered me beyond belief, but I didn’t bother answering. I didn’t need him to be proud of me, and I wouldn’t need nor wait for his approval ever again. I was proud of myself, and that was plenty. I tried to remember the satisfied state of mind I had found myself in only minutes ago, and I fought, racked my brains hard to try and find it again while he rambled on with meaningless pleasantries. I didn’t want him to hang up on me only to leave me in the dark for another five years. Or maybe it would be even more this time. I wanted to be the one cutting ties this time, so I started walking. Fast. Emmanuelle, still holding my hand, followed without question, and we made our way down the little hill, only to land right by the beloved lake. I looked down at the phone’s screen, my father’s voice growing fainter and fainter, and before my aunt had even noticed my little escape, her phone was sent flying. We had spent some time practicing our ricochets, Emmanuelle and I, but that’s not what I went for when I threw it; I simply leaned back and put all of my strength into it; she gasped loudly. And then I laughed, and she did too.\nIn that instant, I knew I was in love with her.\nWhen the phone disappeared into the water, meters away, it’s like my father drowned with it. It’s like a thin veil was lifted from the air around me, and all that was left was my body, my fingers interlaced with the ones of someone I didn’t ever want to let go, and something like happiness." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: SPAM\n\nGenre: bedtime\n\nWord Count: 1381\n\nPrompt:\n\nBlack Friday is the one day of the year where the Devil makes selling your soul a good thing, although there are some bizarre T’s & C’s." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Caution swearing.\n\nRead at you're own risk...\n\n\n\n\nI loved my new glasses. The thick black frames lounged on my nose. The plastic arms touched, not clutched. The lens allowed my peripheral vision to relax. My eyes watered a little but they had to no longer try, try real hard to read. I could even see a large protruding, unplucked hair on my upper lip! I did not have to rely so heavily on my tactile sense or memory, or my hearing to inform me of my blurry world.\n\nAfter drinking a couple of coffees and finding my last cigarette filter, from crawling on all Fours, under the Cain frame of chair, I rolled my defiant cigarette, without washing my hands, and lit it. With my phone balanced on my left thigh and right hand free, I typed Reedsy Prompts into Google search, then password then reveal.\n\nThe deal with the Devil prompt amused me! I chuckled. Near the outdoor furniture, an unfinished painting wanted my attention. I gave it some! The thought of phthalos blue crusts under dissuaded me. The stuff stains and dries slowly and hard to scrub off and out. The colour is transparent- beautiful- like the tranquil sea in the afternoon kissed by the sun. It's the sort of colour one can paint happy fish in, or mermids- whatever- \n\nI wondered, did I want to spend a few hours writing a contentious story that would probably have the most righteous hitting my story and then sharing, to prove my unworthiness of having life and a different viewpoint. Also, then- there's the implications of some stupid person might go there, based on my supposition! Did I need to be responsible for that? Did I need all the Karen's stalking me and sucking my physical energy from their precipice of self righteous, rigid thinking?\n\nLooking up from my device, some sort of shadow seemed to forming in the corner of my right eye. As forementioned, my eyes were hypersensitive, learning, remembering, they had overworked and then upon recognition, telling my tactile sense it had over felt! \n\nMy notification bar, pinged. It was not a loud ping, but my hearing had still not conditioned to its new status, as my etes and tactile sense forgot to pass on the consensus! I was able to easy read, a Spam email- \"Sell your soul\" Once again, I was amused and to further my own merriment, I read it! I always read T's & C's. They say a wise person learns from their mistakes! Well, I learnt after loosing several hundred dollars twice! \n\nPussy-cat, seeing my mental focus, jumped for joy, squished my tummy and settled on my lap for a very reliable two hour sitting, or perhaps more? She always looked forward to that time- when I got passed the idea download, to a point of decisive action and then work. I guess any writer knows that sequence of ideas, of decisions and then real WORK! She widened eyes, at the expanding shadow, exhaling, muscles relaxing, purring, she happily welcomed sleep.\n\nOne of the contract conditions was, \"Write this week's Reedsy Prompt\" I thought, \"How fucking corny is that?\" The other conditions sounded like a practical joke! By now, I realised that Reedsy was hacked! \n\nPING, another email, this time from Reedsy! \"We have been hacked! The site will be down for twenty-fours hours, while we update and strengthen our firewalls. Sorry for the inconvenience!\"\n\nI checked the Reedsy Prompts for this week, sent two days prior. Yes, there was one prompt called, \"Making the deal with the Devil and unusual T's and C's...\" When rethinking the generated Spam, I rolled my eyes, \"Some smart asses out there!\" I tightened my lips, now, what sort of T's and C's, the small print, would the Devil- if the Devil was real- Would (he) impose? And what would a person selling their soul want for such a cataclysmic idea?The notion of, THE Devil, singular, belongs to a paradigm. That notion of good and evil belongs to morals and the dogma- the daulistic third-dimensional reality. How could I write such a dinosaur idea?\n\nPING! This time, a Text! \"Congratulations, Rose Lind you just sold your soul!\" I was annoyed now! I'm really sick of hackers. I stayed cool when my phone company was hacked twice, taking all our personal data. I stay pleasant when having a few hours off work last month, lining up in huge serpentine lines, to apply for a new driver's licence. I shrugged my shoulders when the same phone company had an outage for twelve hours. I turned off the news, on my car radio, the uproar in Australia parliament as a result of the forementioned could be understood, some people had medical issues, businesses lost money, hospitals were out! I answered that texted, \"Fuck off!\" \n\nTo my surprise another- PING- occurred! Email-\n\"Compliance Communication! YOU HAVE VIOLATED CONDITION 15 (iii) \"\n\nThis was getting under my skin- I typed \"Remind me please - \" PING -another email! Breathing in and out a few times, I regained a quiet smile. The remaining muscle tension was channelled into a raised eyebrow!\n'CONDITION 15 (iii), Thou shalt not swear!\" I saw a contact tile at the bottom of the email and tapped it. On their site, I mocked, \"Isn't the devil, the baddie? Isn't the devil the Jester?\" Princess my customer service officer rolled, \"...\"- \"...\"- \"...\"- And finally an the automated thinking gave a reply, \"I make the decisions, not you\" I signed out.\n\nI really needed another coffee after that! But should I move and wake Jija, the cat? Would my normal musing writer ground to centre? I deliberately pressed both feet into the wet earth patch. It had rained yesterday and my feet were bare, as my old slippers in their dreary frumpy existence waited for their nightshift. I imagined roots going deep to earth's core. I imagined fire burning away the emails and texts natter- disappearing! Pussy-cat cat feeling the regained vibe, purred deeper in her dream. Her little paws flickered like she was running. Maybe she was chasing a butterfly, or a feather on a stick. I dont know? What I do know was she was happy!\n\nI began to type, \"Read at you're own risk!\" I looked at the funny swirling mist in front of me and continued, \"If the Devil really existed outside of a pluristic irresponsible, protectory, transferring, persecutory, punishing paradigm, then (he) would be the exact opposite of good. I reasoned- Mmm, sooo- if there were T's & C's- they would be the opposite of what you- your lower self- youre mortal physical mind- would- umm- think of as good-\"\nThe mist turned to fluoro pink, green and blue! Persisting I wrote, \"For example- You believe goodness is making your bed and ironing your clothes? Then you would be told to not make your bed every morning, or iron your clean clothes!\" The annoyance of the Spam emails, texts etc returned to my mind, \"So when you're dancing with Hell's domiciles, the talk of bed making every morning would be - leaving the sheets open allowing the sunlight and fresh air to destroy bacteria etc instead. OR- not ironing your clothes saves electricity and saves the Planet, thus, forcing the state of allowance, to see human vanity\"\n\nI realised, I needed a disclaimer- \"Be careful- The Unseen world can be dangerous! The Devil may not be real to me, but to you- it might be! Tread very, very carefully, naivete still has beautiful soft flesh and bones to become a yummy dinner for something looking at you from another dimension! Protect yourself with whatever you believe in. Live in the guidelines of what your believed protection asks. And keep a strong mind- good mental health! If you need help chose the professional help of the path you choose!\"\n\nMy phone rang, \"Accept or Deny\" tiles gave a choice- speak or be spoken to? I chose silence. It rang through to message bank! A sound of a smashing glass mirror removed the sunspot from my eyes! The played recorded message spoke in some unknown tongue. I pushed Google translate, \"You're application denied. We believe- you don't believe!\" \n\nReedsy Site reappeared, I posted my boring story. 🐇" } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Hot Water\n\nGenre: asian-american\n\nWord Count: 1531\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about someone who still practices a skill that used to be necessary but has long since been replaced by technology." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "From the drop down menu I find the “hot teas” section. Click.\n\nThe first option is “chai latte”. Click.\n\nChange the size to venti, 4 pumps chai, modify regular milk to soy milk. Click, click, click.\n\n“Thank you! Your order will be ready in 5-7 minutes. Please give the barista your name.”\n\n---\n\nThe weather is perfect outside so I am going to take my computer out to the back porch and set up for a morning of responding to emails, browsing social media and maybe even do a little online shopping. My first sip of the creamy, cinnamon, spiced black tea is absolute perfection and the entire drink is gone in a matter of minutes.\n\nThis has been my Saturday routine for years now. Five years to be exact, back in 2015 when I first moved into this house. I had stumbled upon this street a few years prior to that and absolutely fell in love. Overhanging trees line either side of the road and throughout the entire year have delicate twinkling lights buried inside their branches. Nighttime on Skyland Drive is just magical.\n\nEvery house has a different color door, mine is pale yellow. The neighbor to my right has a deep purple door and the neighbor to my left painted their door a mossy green. The man with the green door just moved in about a week ago. He seems very nice but keeps to himself.\n\nIf I am being honest, he is actually part of the reason I enjoy my Saturdays a little bit more nowadays. Each morning he has this strange ritual that I have grown to love. If only I knew what he was doing.\n\nI have it timed perfectly. The moment I sit down on my long, wooden bench seat and set up the computer on top of the farm table it is 8:03. By 8:04 I have taken my second big chug of my chai tea latte and out he comes from his white french doors.\n\nMy computer screen just barely covers my face so that I don’t come off as blatantly staring at him but I can easily shift my eyes over top to watch in awe of this hobby, or religious activity or whatever it is that he does.\n\nThis thing that he does is not always the exact same. Well, the equipment isn’t at least. The elegant choreography in each of his movements is always mesmerizing, though. Today he took out a light colored stone bowl, something that looked like a huge toothpick with one curved end, a small brown whisk, a pot of steaming water and a tin of something bright green. He laid out these peculiar objects on a small decorative blanket and he sat with his legs crossed on a small pillow.\n\nThe choreography, as I mentioned, is something I have never quite witnessed before. It's 8:08 now and I have almost finished my entire cup of tea already. He has just taken the toothpick to scoop the first of the green stuff into the bowl and next he’ll take another scoop. A small amount of steaming water is poured into the bowl. The next part is my favorite. He whisks the water and green stuff furiously together. Sometimes whisking in fast circles, sometimes scrubbing the bottom of the bowl side to side with great speed.\n\nAt the end he adds more hot water, takes a moment to himself and then drinks it straight from the bowl! I wave over to him as I toss my empty cup into the garbage pail behind me. He smiles and waves back and continues to enjoy his strange concoction.\n\n---\n\nYesterday his set up included another pot of water, the tiniest little teapot that could fit in the palm of even my small hand, and four equally tiny cups. Two of the small cups were tall and slender and the other two were short and wide. The taller ones fit perfectly into the small ones, almost resembling nesting dolls.\n\nAll of his tools seem to be of high quality. All stone, porcelain, crystal clear glass and clay from what I can tell. This set was definitely clay. I could tell by the barely audible scratchy sounds they made when they touched. No clinking or tinny noises but instead a really satisfying scraping similar to using sandpaper on a hard surface.\n\nNow this one was really a big show. All of his items were placed on a large wooden tray with slats going through it horizontally. He poured the hot water all over the entire set this time. That’s right, all over it!\n\nA thick, bamboo spoon disappeared into a silver tin and when it came back out it was filled with beautiful dark green leaves that seemed to tightly coil around themselves. The little pearls were then shoveled into the world's smallest teapot and more hot water was rinsed over it.\n\nAfter multiple rounds of filling the teapot only to immediately pour it all over the tray he finally filled the teapot to the top, waited a few moments and then poured the liquid into the tall cups. One last strange transfer and the liquids went into the smaller cups.\n\nThe man with the green door took a big sniff of the tall cups and the joy on his face was unlike anything I have ever seen. The only thing I could think to compare it to was when I smell a really great candle and just get lost in the scent. It wouldn’t be totally fair to compare these two though. The emotion and connection to the scent and the ritual was something I did not experience when just sniffing candles. \n\nBut the real telling moment was when we finally took a sip. This entire process takes close to 7 minutes for the world's smallest cup of tea and yet when he finally takes that sip of his creation it’s like you can see the whole world around him just melt away. His entire body physically relaxes and settles into the ground he is sitting on. It’s like I am watching the tea heal him within an instant from my porch.\n\nThat was it, I had decided. I was so in awe and in that moment I decided that I would allow myself to snoop one last time the next Saturday but after that I would ask him what in the world he was doing.\n\n---\n\nSo the final snoop day is today. After I threw out my empty cup of chai and offered a wave I slowly made my way over to his porch that was surrounded by shrubbery. I was finally going to figure out what the man with the green door was doing!\n\n“Excuse me, neighbor. Hi.” I said with a smile, tentatively inching closer. He looked up from his bowl of green stuff and gave a kind nod inviting me closer. I can now see his wise old wrinkles and sun-spotted, shaking hands. “I have been watching this beautiful thing you do for that past week and I just have to ask, what is it all about?”. A sudden burst of excitement lit up his face almost more than his first sip did.\n\n---\n\nWith that one act of curiosity, my entire Saturday routine has changed. Since that day I have completely ditched the app on my phone that allowed me the quick and easy portal to tea. The man with the green door opened my eyes to all of the different traditional ways of brewing tea and the centuries-old way to enjoy and respect it.\n\nThe ceremony that I stumbled upon a few weeks ago was that of a Matcha tea ceremony. Something I am now well acquainted with and make on my own most mornings. Matcha is traditional to the Japanese culture where my new friend is originally from.\n\nWe have also brewed using the Gongfu cha method, traditional to the Chinese people. This method involved the countless pouring and emptying and rinsing with the tiny teapot and wooden tray with slats. What I once watched in wonder and confusion I now do all on my own with the man making sure every movement is perfectly executed. Making sure to respect the process and have patience.\n\nI have learned so many ways of brewing tea just in these few short weeks and I know that this is only the very beginning. Walking into his house is like walking into a tea heaven. Everything is of stunning quality but you can tell it has still been well used and well loved. I have enjoyed every process and every cup of tea no matter how small the cups are. I truly don’t think I could ever go back to the way I used to have tea.\n\nThis Saturday in particular, however, the man with the green door is teaching me how to make a traditional Indian chai.\n\n\n\nWriters note: I would love to know how readers envisioned the main character/narrator as you read this story. Male/female/non-binary, skin color, hair color, body type, age. Anything that your mind pictured to complete the visual of the character!" } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: The Enchanted Mirror of Mystic Beach Lighthouse\n\nGenre: bedtime\n\nWord Count: 2673\n\nPrompt:\n\nStart your story with someone buying a cursed — or perhaps blessed —mirror from an antiques store." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "\"Gateways to moments suspended in air,\nTime's threads in the fabrics it weaves,\nBlessed with enchantments, unseen and rare,\nThe Mirror makes Magic for one who believes.\"\n\n\nLuiza Maria felt a shock as she looked at the strangers around her wearing clothing from over 100 years ago. \n\nShe remembered gazing into the old-fashioned mirror from the antique store. It's wood frame was intricately carved. She recalled reading the poem engraved on the back of it.\n\nLuiza Maria recalled looking into the wavy glass of the old mirror and seeing her dark eyes and black hair, and her blue chambray shirt and blue jeans reflected in the mirror for a moment. Then something happened.\n\nNow the mirror was missing from the wall, she saw strangers around her, and the furniture in the room was not the same. She saw her little dog, Breezy next to her. Jeanean and Andre', with their children, were still standing near her too.\n\nBreezy, wearing her red harness and decorative leash with a dog bone pattern was moving her head back and forth while her eyes explored the room. Her long black body wiggled on its short stumpy legs. She sniffed the air. Her tail was held high but barely wagging. She knew something was different too. Maria Luiza reached down and picked up Breezy, holding her snuggled against her shoulder.\n\n“Hello, you must be the visitors we were expecting.” A smiling woman with dark hair in a bun, and friendly eyes, greeted her. She wore a long, flowered cotton dress. \n\nIn a flash Luiza Maria’s mind went back through her day, trying to make sense of what was happening. Where was she and who were these people?\n\nShe hesitated and the smiling woman looked at her curiously. Breezy wiggled in her arms and Luiza Maria averted her eyes from the woman and stroked Breezy, trying to think fast.\n\nLuiza Maria's mind raced. Earlier events of the day unfolded. She saw it like a quick movie. The events of the past few months had been difficult and her spirits were dragging. She was hoping her life would be touched with a sense of wonder and magic again.\n\nShe remembered strolling through the antique store that morning in the village of Mystic Beach on the Oregon coast. \n\nThen she recalled purchasing the antique mirror and thinking it would fit in well at the old 1890s Mystic Beach Lighthouse.\n\n“What a find,” she congratulated herself.\n\nShe carried the mirror out to the car from the antique shop, elated with finding a treasure.\n\nWrapped in plastic, the mirror sat on the passenger seat of her car. Luiza Maria drove the snake-like turns of the road along the ocean bluffs out to the Mystic Beach Lighthouse. It was a pleasant, sunny day, with a light breeze. Breezy sat quietly in the back seat.\n\nToday was another quiet day in the coastal forest, just the way Maria Luiza liked it.\n\nThe tall, white lighthouse with its red roof gleamed in the sunlight and the rotating beacon flashed across her when she drove up to the lighthouse keeper's house.\n\nThe old Queen Anne Victorian building had a wrap-around porch with gingerbread designs and multiple pitches to the roof. Framed by green lawns, a garden and trees, the unique structure was always a pretty picture.\n\nThe waves splashed below on the sand and rocks. The shore curved inland slightly to form a small bay. A wide beach showed where the bay reached inland but disappeared on each side where forested cliffs and volcanic rock stacks stretched out into the ocean.\n\nLuiza Maria could see the tide was going out now and more of the beach was beginning to show where the land reached toward the sea. At extra low tides, when the ocean level went down, the sandy beach was revealed even beyond the cliffs and rock stacks. It was covered again by the ocean when the high tide began coming in.\n\nParking close to the building, Luiza Maria walked with little Breezy trotting along on her leash and she carried the large mirror to the back door. \n\nAndre’, the host of the keeper’s house, opened the door and Luiza Maria put the heavy mirror down. His short, round form was wearing a cook's apron and he had a baseball cap over his dark hair. The smell of homemade cookies drifted through the air.\n\n“What have you brought us this time?” Andre’ said to her.\n\nFor an answer, Luiza Maria smiled and pulled the plastic from the mirror. A beam of light through the stained glass window reflected off the mirror surface, sending rainbow colors around the room.\n\nAndre’ drew in a quick breath. “Magical,” he said.\n\nJeanean, Andre’s wife, and their two children came into the room. Jeanean's slender frame was attractive in a denim jumper with a green shirt. She carried a plate of cookies.\n\n\"Would you like some?\" Her hazel eyes sparkled and she swept her brown hair back from her face. They all began eating cookies and Luiza Maria reached into her pocket and brought out a dog biscuit for Breezy. The two kids, a boy and a girl of young elementary school age, ate cookies and petted Breezy.\n\nThe five people stood looking at the mirror with awe. Breezy wagged her tail and smiled.\n\nMaria Luiza thought she saw something move in the mirror that she did not recognize. Like a daydream, a vision appeared there of a woman in the mirror. Luiza Maria saw the woman holding a small tool and working on the mirror frame. \n\nThe woman had curly silver hair and her face wore the patterns of time in etchings like roads on a map. She wore a long patterned skirt and her dark hair was pulled back into a bun. Holding the tool in gnarled fingers, she was making detailed cuts in the mirror frame, creating images of sea lions, seagulls and whales. \n\nThe woman's eyes narrowed as she made intricate woodcuts that gave life to the images. The carver was sitting on a stool in a shed, the door open to let in light. The shed sat on a hill above the ocean. Below it were sea lions on the waves, gulls calling in the winds, and whales swimming by in their winter migrations.\n\nLuiza Maria saw the woman lean back and survey her artwork on the frame, smiling. Then the woman placed both hands on the mirror's sides, closed her eyes began speak in a low voice.\n\n\"Mirror blessings, joy and wonder,\nTime's embrace and twilight's call,\nBring enchantment to believers,\nMagic blessings to enthrall.\"\n\nThe mirror lit with a soft aura and Luiza Maria believed the woman was infusing it with a spell or supernatural power.\n\nThe vision in the mirror faded.\n\n“Don’t touch,” said Jeanean, Andre’s wife, as their little girl pressed tiny fingers against the mirror glass. \n\n“But Mom, I saw someone in there looking at me,” said Natasha, Jeanean's little girl.\nJeanean laughed. “That was you, my little honeybunch.”\n\n“I thought it was someone else, she had grey hair,\" said the child, and everyone chuckled.\n\nLuiza Maria and the keeper’s house family continued gazing into the mirror as the 1890s stained glass window reflected in it. \n\nNext to the mirror on the wall was a historic photo of the wooden wagons pulled by horses that used to travel the beaches at low tide to deliver supplies in the 1890s and early 1900s.\n\n\"Mom, look at that,\" said Natasha, pointing at the picture. \"Wouldn't that be neat, the horses and wagon on the beach? I wish we could have been there.\"\n\n“This afternoon we can go down to the beach and play let’s pretend,” said Jeanean.\n\nLuiza Maria knew that in 1895 there were no bridges along the Oregon coast. The only way to reach the lighthouse was by sea at low tide or by crossing steep mountains and wide creeks. \n\nWhen the tides were at their lowest, revealing more sandy beach area, workers rushed their horses to gallop over the beaches, pulling wagonloads of supplies. They needed to reach the bay below the lighthouse before the tide surged in again. Otherwise, the strong undertow currents could sweep them out to sea and drown them. \n\nThe village of Mystic Beach sat a few miles inland on a river. To cross the river people used a large raft made of logs lashed together. In 1895 the little cluster of houses and shops on the bend in the river had a growing population of over 1,000 people already.\n\nSupplies went to the lighthouse by land until the bumpy dirt road met the steep mountains. Then the wagons followed struggled over areas with access to the beaches and raced out to the lighthouse to beat the high tides before they rolled in.\n\nStanding in front of the strange woman in the Lighthouse Keeper's House now, and looking around at the unfamiliar furnishings, Luiza Maria recalled seeing the arches over the front door of the Keeper's House reflected in the mirror. \n\nShe recalled that as she looked the arches seemed to multiply into an arcade that led deeper along a walkway to a light in the distance.\n\nLuiza Maria remembered the poem engraved on the back of the mirror and her whimsical thoughts about the mirror possessing magic.\n\nNow feeling puzzled as she stood near the unfamiliar woman who wore old fashioned clothing, Luiza Maria remembered looking into the mirror and feeling a magnetic pulse seem to flow through her.\n\nShe recalled seeing glimpses of fleeting movements of shapes and faces, as if from another time.\n\nAfter that, outside the window, the beacon from the 1890s lighthouse swept by. Then sounds around her faded and became distant. The aromas from the kitchen grew fainter. The images of the room faded and became faint impressions.\n\nThen the wavy antique glass in the mirror made their reflections look like they were floating on the ripples of a quiet pond.\n\nLuiza Maria recalled seeing her eyes widen in the mirror, the pupils large and dark. A strange feeling came over her. Her breath came faster and her heart beat harder.\n\nA soft hum sounded, then silence. In a dreamy haze, she floated through many arches of an arcade in the mirror. A few moments of darkness like an eclipse created shadows.\n\nThe darkness lightened and she came out of the arched walkway in the mirror.\n\nThat was when she found herself in the Mystic Beach Lighthouse Keeper's house surrounded by people in clothing from the 1890s.\n\nNow Luiza Maria looked at Breezy, Jeanean, Andre’ and their two children standing next to her. \n\nThe woman in the long print dress smiled gently at her, “Is everything all right? Are you feeling ill? Can I get you anything?”\n\nJeanean was the first one to awaken from their shock and take charge. She said, “We’re fine, thank you.”\n\nTurning to Luiza Maria, Andre’ and the children, Jeanean motioned for them to come closer and she whispered, “Something has happened to us. That mirror has taken us somewhere or has turned time around. We are somewhere else now.”\n\nThey walked to the edge of the porch. To their right sat another Victorian house and several small children rode bareback on horses in the yard.\n\nBelow them the Pacific Ocean was at very low tide, exposing wide areas of beach that stretched out beyond the volcanic rock stacks. \n\nFrom beyond the rocks to the south a wagon pulled by horses in their harnesses emerged, leaving trails in the wet sand. On the wooden seats sat several men. The back of the open wagon had boxes and parcels. There were four horses straining to drag the wagon through the sand.\n\n“Henry,” called the woman in the print dress. “They’re here. The supply wagon. At the beach.”\n\nFeet drummed on the wood floors as people ran out of the house toward a path. The figures on the beach were small and far below. Men and women in old-fashioned clothing disappeared down the trail that led toward the beach.\n\n“Come on,” said the woman in the print dress. “Let’s get the supplies and the news.” She walked briskly down the path. Luiza Maria and her friends followed.\n\n“I went into the mirror through arches and now I think we’re in another time,” said Jeanean to Andre’. “I think we are really here in the 1890s.”\n\nAndre’s face still had a shocked expression. The children smiled with pleasure while they enjoyed the adventure.\n\nLuiza Maria noticed the path in the 1890s was rough and they walked carefully over ruts and rocks. There were fewer trees compared to their present time and the old bridge beyond the beach was not there now.\n\nExcited voices floated over the ocean air from the wagon on the beach. When Luiza Maria and her friends arrived they heard the wagon master say, “We’ll stay overnight to rest the horses and go back tomorrow when the tide is low again.”\n\nPeople unhooked the horses from their harnesses and began leading them to corrals on a hillside behind the beach.\n\n“We have a special present for you this time,” said the wagon master and he unwrapped a large, rectangular shape. The friendly woman in the print dress said, “Ooohhh. Beautiful! Thank you.” \n\nLuiza Maria and her friends came close and saw it was the same mirror with the carvings that started their journey through time.\n\nNow the ocean waves and setting sun reflected on the wavy glass of the mirror. As they drew in closer to it they saw the clouds arching over the horizon as the sun began to go down in a golden glow.\n\nWhile they looked into the mirror, they felt a strange magnetic pull, like the one that brought them to the past. The smell of the salt air and the sounds of the waves flowing into the tidepools faded. There was silence and a floating sensation.\n\nThen the sounds of the cries of gulls and water rippling over sand grew more clear. The sky showed the afterglow of a colorful sunset. The beach was empty except for Maria Luiza, her friends and the happy figure of the little dog Breezy playing on the sand.\n\n“Come, see if you can catch me,” said the little boy as he ran off down the beach with the small girl chasing him.\n\nLuiza Maria looked up the cliffs at the Lighthouse on the bluff and at the 1890s Victorian Keeper’s House. \n\nThe magical mirror of blessings must have originally arrived on the wagon crossing the beaches. Through the years it could have been given or sold to someone. Eventually it wound up in the antique store.\n\nThen Luiza Maria found it and brought it to the Keeper's House. The mirror's magic blessed her with this unforgettable experience of visiting the past.\n\nAndre’ and Jeanean shared glances with her, their looks saying more than words.\n\nThey all wondered the same things.\n\n“Do you think the antique mirror is up in the Keeper’s House?”\n\n“Come on kids,” said Jeanean, and they hiked back up the path to the white Queen Anne style Victorian. \n\nThey walked up the wooden steps, with Breezy leaping up each step, and looked at the stained glass windows.\n\n\"I feel thankful to the mirror for blessing us with time travel to the 1800s,\" said Jeanean.\n\nLuiza Maria smiled, feeling a sense of wonder and magic. She reached down, picked up Breezy, and cuddled the little dog next to her shoulder.\n\n“Let’s allow the mirror to keep its secrets,\" she said, knowing its blessings would flow again when it was time.\n\nTo this day, if you go to the open house events at the Mystic Beach Lighthouse, you will see an antique mirror on the entryway wall of the old Victorian Keeper's House, reflecting the stained glass windows. Sometimes it blesses people and shows them special experiences.\n\nBut the Spell of the Mirror only reaches out to bless those who believe in magic." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: The Resplendent Quetzal\n\nGenre: bedtime\n\nWord Count: 2981\n\nPrompt:\n\nStart your story with someone buying a cursed — or perhaps blessed —mirror from an antiques store." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Brielle Noonypill hurried to stitch her sister’s spangled cotinga costume. Fredericka, the elder Noonypill sister, tore the gown’s train by tangling herself mid-pirouette, while rehearsing her Passage Day dance. \n\n“Hurry,” said Fredericka, entering Brielle’s room. “The Cotters are already here, and oh no….” Freddy peeked out the door. “Miss Brightly comes with the class.”\n\nBrielle poked herself twice with the needle in the rush to have it ready, and her sister’s impatience was not helping. If her mother were still alive, she’d have it all done by now. Her father was no help, he was useless with a thimble, and no doubt outside arguing with Mister Cotter about what type of manure made the largest plantains. Brielle was near tears, but she burst into a giggle when she caught sight of Freddy’s face.\n\n“What’s so funny?” said Freddy. Freddy’s cheeks were caked with pink blush, and thick yellow lines traced her eyebrows.\n\n“You look like a macaque,” Brielle said. \n\nFreddy shoved both fists into her hips. Both girls were familiar with the species, as their father had purchased six volumes of “The World of the Jungle Encyclopedia” from a traveling salesman when they were little. And thus, the joke landed. \n\n“Better a macaque than a spotted tiger quoll,” Freddy said.\n\nThat one stung, as intended. Freddy had the luxury of washing off her face, but the permanent light colored splotches on Brielle’s dark complexion had been there since birth. Brielle went silent and finished her backstitches. “It’s ready,” she said.\n\nFreddy’s elation at her own wit faded. She took the gown from Brielle and donned it. \n\nBrielle’s mood brightened when she gazed at her sister in the dress she’d made. So elegant and pretty, in the black and teal gown adorned with sky-blue feathers. “Remember,” Brielle said. “Count to one between the turns and let the train settle, then you won’t fall on your face.”\n\nFreddy gave her sister a hug. “Tiger quolls are beautiful and so are you,” she said, and she turned out the door to greet her audience.\n\n*\n\nFreddy performed the Passage Day dance in the Noonypill yard as perfect as any fifteen-year-old girl had ever done it. The feathers that stretched from her waist to her wrists folded neatly when she spun, and fluttered when she leapt. Brielle counted with her sister, from behind the curtain, while Freddy made half-turn pirouettes atop plank boards their father made into a stage. All went off without a hitch until Freddy finished. While the elder Noonypill girl soaked up applause, she beckoned for Brielle to join her. \n\n“Come!” Freddy said, after Brielle’s three shake-of-the-head refusals.\n\nFreddy turned the adoring crowd. “You all must meet the designer of this gorgeous costume. My beautiful sister, Brielle.”\n\n“Come Bri,” shouted their beaming father. “Take your bows.”\n\nPuddles formed on Brielle’s palms. The applause grew louder and many shouted her name, and so she went. \n\n“Hurrah!” said Miss Brightly as Brielle joined her sister. Freddy lifted her hand, and the crowd doubled in enthusiasm. Though not all in attendance were courteous. From the front row, Arnie Cotter, the youngest of the Cotters, whispered to his brothers, “Mooo,” - gaining giggles from the boys and a swat from his mother. The eleven year old was Brielle’s classmate, and he frequently compared her to a piebald bovine, what with her spots, and round face.\n\nArnie’s utterance was deafening. Brielle stayed bravely, and took a bow, while the onlookers hooted and hollered. When they settled, she ran to her room and cried into her pillow. \n\n\n\n“Who cares about that stupid little kakapo,” said Freddy, coming upon her weeping sister. \n\nA kakapo, as the sister’s learned in volume two of “The World of the Jungle Encyclopedia”, was the stupidest of the birds, neither fleeing nor fighting when a predator was near. Rather, it blinked dumbly and waited to be eaten. For that, it became a favorite insult for any who caught the Noonypill ire. It helped that their late mother called the deposits of diapers kaka, lending an extra punch to the barb. And Arnie Cotter certainly deserved an extra punch or two.\n\nFreddy tugged on her sister’s arm. “Can’t you be happy for me? Come down, Dad’s cutting the cake soon.”\n\nBrielle rolled over and wiped her eyes. “You don’t know what it's like. Your nose is narrow, mine is flat. Your cheeks are slender and mine are round. And your skin is perfect and I look like a… like a cow.” With that climax of self pity, Brielle dove into her pillow.\n\n“Perfect?” Freddy laughed. “Why do you think I lacquered myself with all this blush? I have so many pimples and blackheads that I look like one of Dads peppered cheese buns.”\n\nBrielle could not help but giggle-snort. “Can you do it to me?”\n\n“What?”\n\n“Can you hide my spots?”\n\nFreddy put a finger to her chin. “Dad only let me this year. I don’t think—”\n\n“It’s different. I don’t want to look like a macaque, I want to be normal.”\n\nFreddy shrugged. “We can try, but you need a few things first. Concealer, a brush, a vanity mirror–”\n\n“I have one,” Brielle said. She caught her reflection in the mirror sitting on her dresser. “Mooo,” came that little kakapo’s voice in her head, and she looked away.\n\n“No, you need one you can move around.” Freddy said. She lifted the skin under her yellow eyebrows. “To see all the angles.”\n\nBrielle nodded. “I have Grandma’s birthday money. Come with me to buy it?”\n\n“Fine. Tomorrow we’ll go to the plaza, if you come down and celebrate with me tonight.”\n\nBrielle sat up and contemplated the exchange, finally deciding the torment would be worth it. When she made her way downstairs, everyone gushed and complimented her, while Arnie Cotter sat in the corner, closely watched by his scowling mother.\n\n\n\n“This one,” said Brielle. She held up a very dusty old hand mirror. The girls had the concealer, and the brush, but Brielle had a meager one dollar and twenty-seven cents leftover from Grandma’s birthday money. So they came to Auntie Kitt’s Antiques and Armoires, looking for a deal.\n\n“That’s too old,” said Freddy, tossing dresses out of a bin in search of her size.\n\n“It’s pretty.” Brielle wiped dust from the bronze handle. Under the price tag, reading one dollar and twenty-five cents, sat a blue marble inlaid at the base. The orb nearly came out when she rubbed her finger on it. “I’m buying it.”\n\nFreddy made no response. Her head was buried in the bin. She popped out when a shout came from outside.\n\n“Hey Freddy,” said a boy at the doors. It was Peter, Freddy’s classmate. He wore an indigo doublet, a pink beret and a pair of yellow boots - looking like a puffed up peacock.\n\nFreddy blushed. She waved to the boy and scooped the clothes into the bin. “I’ll be in the courtyard,” she said, and she rushed off to greet Peter the peacock.\n\n“An ancient and strange mirror,” Auntie Kitt said as Brielle made her way to the till. “The man who brought it in didn’t want a penny for it, and he told me it was haunted.”\n\nBrielle paid no heed to the dire warning. Auntie Kitt said everything was haunted. Brielle bought a ‘haunted’ hairbrush from her when she was ten, and it’s been a fine, non-possessed hairbrush ever since. She paid for the mirror and hurried outside, eager to hide her spots.\n\nBrielle found Freddy and Peter in the courtyard. They stood in a group gathered around a mandolinist with a pet squirrel monkey playing a drum. The spectacle left the rest of the plaza deserted, so Brielle skipped to the center fountain to give her mirror a wash. As she tore off the price tag, the blue marble fell out. She caught it before it dropped the water.\n\n“Hey, can you hear me?” came a man’s voice from the mirror.\n\nBrielle looked around in vain for the speaker.\n\n“I’m here, in the mirror,” said the voice. “Don’t fret. You’ve freed the orb of sacred custody. You're the only one that can hear me.”\n\n“Someone’s playing a trick. Is that you Arnie?” Brielle said. She went around the fountain, and looked up the ornamental trees, but there was no one.\n\n“It’s no trick. I am a powerful wizard trapped in this infernal cage by a rival, and I need your help to set me free.”\n\n“Like a genie?”\n\n“What? No… um… yes! I can grant you any wish if you help me.”\n\nBrielle sat on the edge of the fountain, dumbfounded, and more than a little suspicious. “What’s your name then?”\n\n“Myrrh,” said the mirror.\n\n“Your name is mirror?”\n\n“No, it’s Myrrh, M.y.r.r.h”\n\n“Myrrh the mirror? That’s not right. All genies have names like Aazim Alacram, or Zafir of the golden lamp, or—”\n\n“I’m not a genie! I’m a wizard. But my magic won’t work until I’m released, and for the curse to be lifted I must reflect the eyes of true beauty. Tell me child, who’s the most beautiful person you know?”\n\n“My sister,” said Brielle.\n\n“Quickly, set her gaze upon me.”\n\n“Then you will grant me my wish?”\n\n“Yes, please hurry.”\n\n“Don’t you need to hear my wish first?”\n\n“Don’t dawdle when you're dealing with a wizard. Go!”\n\nBrielle ran to her sister and tapped her shoulder. \n\n“What is it?”\n\n“Look at my mirror,” said Brielle.\n\n“I’ve seen it.”\n\n“No, look into it.”\n\nFreddy held the mirror to her face and sneezed violently. Peter took a step back to avoid the spray.\n\n“No, no, she’s not the one. She’s not true beauty,” cried Myrrh.\n\n“How dare you! She is true beauty,” shouted Brielle. Much to the surprise of Peter, who thought he was being admonished.\n\n“What’s wrong with you?” Freddy said. “You must need a nap. Take this and go home.“ Freddy slapped the mirror in Brielle’s hands and turned back toward the monkey drummer.\n\nBrielle retreated from the pair, somewhat dizzy from the events. Myrrh sobbed, as much as a mirror can.\n\n“Are you crying?” Brielle said.\n\n“Oh, I’ve been trapped for so long. I thought this was my chance to see true beauty, but obviously you and your sister are not it.”\n\n“She’s the most beautiful person in the world.” Brielle gave a scorn look into the mirror. “You’ve got your curse wrong.”\n\n“You insolent speck! You know nothing of a wizard’s power.”\n\nBrielle was about to call Myrrh a kakapo, but Peter waved to her, drawing her attention away. “Play the lucky bard,” he shouted to the mandolinist. “For I am the luckiest bard to have the company of the prettiest girl in the world.” He turned, tipped his beret, and gave Brielle a wink.\n\nBrielle rolled her eyes, but then an idea struck her. “Why does it have to be a person? It could be something else, like a peacock or a… resplendent quetzal!”\n\n“What nonsense are you talking about?” Myrrh said. “This is why children should not be allowed to speak, all dribble—”\n\nBrielle tossed Myrrh into her knapsack and rushed home.\n\n\nThe World of the Jungle Encyclopedia - Volume 2. The Birds of the Tropics.\n\nTravelers Note #54: \n\nWith its iridescent green plumes, red breast, black innerwings, and a white under-tail, the resplendent quetzal is considered to be the most beautiful bird in the tropics. Indeed, by many, they are the most beautiful animals in all the world. Keep one eye toward the canopy, but always be on the lookout for danger on the ground, for the fearsome leopard loves the quetzal’s eggs as a treat.\n\n“You see,” Brielle said, holding up the heavy tome for Myrrh to see.\n\n“Ridiculous. You thought a picture of a shiny bird would break a wizard’s curse?” Myrrh said.\n\n“No, we’ll find one, in the jungle.”\n\n“Curses upon curses,” Myrrh said. “It would take a lifetime to reach the jungle. And you, child, can’t get there by your means. Only the heartiest of adventurers can, like sir Pollery and his merry band of —”\n\n“The jungle’s across the highway. I can ride my bike there.”\n\n“Oh, how have I come so far without taking a step,” Myrrh cried, and he broke into bad poetry. “A yearning spanning a thousand miles, with a thousand years between. A heart aches in the spaces unseen.”\n\n“What?”\n\n“It’s a poem,” said Myrrh. “They’re for sophisticated people, and I wouldn't expect a jungle dweller to understand.”\n\nBrielle shrugged and shoved Myrrh into her pack, and they set off on her bike.\n\n**\n\nBrielle and Myrrh had gone well off the trails in search of a resplendent quetzal. Spending all afternoon on the hunt, the sun was setting over the horizon.\n\n“I have to go home, we’ll try again tomorrow,” Brielle said.\n\n“It's a waste of time,” said Myrrh. “We need to find a castle and a fair princess, or sail to the Isles so I may see the sirens in their splendor. That will lift my curse, not some mite ridden bird.”\n\n“Keow, k'looooo,” came a melodic song from the trees. \n\n“Hush,” said Brielle. “It’s up there.” \n\nGreen tail feathers poked out from a leaf above. Brielle hoisted up onto a branch, and then another, to get a better look. The bird lifted its wings and took flight. \n\n“Come back!” cried Brielle. \n\nAs if the bird heard her, it fluttered down and landed above her head. Its green plumes and red belly were in full view. \n\nBrielle held Myrrh up. “You see!”\n\n“Oh, she is beautiful,” said Myrrh.\n\nAt that moment, Brielle heard a growl. She froze. Climbing up the trunk, was a hungry leopard.\n\n“Go away,” Brielle said. But the leopard kept climbing. “What do I do?” She pointed Myrrh at the spotted cat.\n\n“Oh great heavens,” said Myrrh. “How does it go? If it’s brown, lay down...wait no that’s not the one.” \n\nThe leopard licked her lips and came close. \n\n“Ummm..run!”\n\nBrielle leapt off the tree and hit the ground hard. Myrrh cracked.\n\n“Be careful,” he cried, “If I shatter, I die!” \n\nThe leopard roared and scrambled down the trunk after them.\n\nBrielle sprinted. After a few strides her leg caught a root, and she tumbled down a crevice. The leopard came to the edge, took a sniff, and waltzed away.\n\n“Are you okay?” Brielle said, holding up Myrrh.\n\n“I’m far from okay. We’re trapped down here and now I’ll have to spend eternity beside your skeleton.”\n\n“Quit your whining,” said Brielle. “I’m tired of it. I wasn’t planning for any of this. All I wanted to do was cover my spots and be normal.”\n\n“Normal?” Myrrh said with a snort. “No child is normal. You’re all strange and stupid in your own ways.”\n\n“I should've known I’d never get my wish,” Brielle said. Lacking a pillow, she thrust her face into a pile of leaves.\n\n“Stop crying,” Myrrh said. He gave a long sigh. “Look, if it’s any consolation, I technically don’t have the power to grant wishes, so you wouldn’t get it, anyway.”\n\nBrielle turned around and scowled. “Then what’s all this? Is there even a curse? You tell me what’s going on.” \n\n“Hrmph, I don’t have to tell you a thing.”\n\nBrielle stood and held Myrrh above her head. “And what if I drop you?”\n\n“Okay, okay! Put me down, I’ll tell you. I was a wizard’s apprentice, but I was a fool. I had to watch over my master's biffenduffle, but a pretty handmaiden caught my eye and the biffenduffle boiled over and starlight goo shot all over the master’s study. In a rage, he said that if I enjoyed looking at fair maidens so much, then I was no more use to him than a vanity, and poof! I was a mirror.”\n\n“Then ask him to turn you back.”\n\n“That’s the rub. That night he choked on a chicken bone while dining alone. He always ate too fast, in fact I heard his master once turned him into an anteater to teach him a lesson. Poor master Limerno never learned it.”\n\nBrielle slunk back down. “Well, I guess a wizard was around when I was a baby to turn me into a…into a cow,” Brielle said.\n\n“A cow? What nonsense, you don’t have udders.”\n\n“I have spots like one.”\n\n“I see,” Myrrh said. “Well, do you know who else has spots? That fierce, beautiful leopard up there. And do you think she’s crying about what she looks like?”\n\nBrielle sniffled and shook her head. \n\n“And what do leopards do?”\n\n“Eat eggs?”\n\n“No, stupid child, they climb! Now be a leopard and climb and get us out of here.”\n\nWith that encouragement, Brielle stood and found grooves in the crevice and wedged up and up and out of the hole. But the danger was not over, for the leopard was lounging nearby.\n\n“Easy kitty,” said Brielle. “You run along now.”\n\nThe leopard roared and took a step toward her.\n\n“Brielle!” came a shout from a thicket. It was that kakapo, Arnie Cotter. “Hey! She’s over here.”\n\nThe leopard turned from Brielle and started toward Arnie. Arnie froze and blinked dumbly. Before the cat pounced and ate him, Brielle’s father and Freddy burst through the trees. The leopard hissed and ran into the jungle. \n\n“Dad!” shouted Brielle with open arms.\n\n“Bri!” her father cried, and he ran to hug her. Freddy crashed into them, and the family embraced.\n\n“It’s happening,” said Myrrh. “I’ve finally seen it, true beauty, and it’s wonderful.”\n\nThe mirror turned to smoke, and the smoke took the form of a man in gray robes. “Master Limerno. You’re alive,” Myrrh the man said, looking off to some other realm. “Wait, no master…put down that wing!” \n\nMyrrh disappeared in a puff, and the smoke rose to the canopy where a resplendent quetzal sang her song." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: The Invisible Mind\n\nGenre: asian-american\n\nWord Count: 1186\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about a character who’s always thinking of things they’ll say to people, but who ends up saying very little when they finally get the chance." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Every day I watch thousands of people pass me on the street thinking me a fool and paying me no mind. For all they see is an old Indian woman, planted on the cold, stone sidewalk. Long, gray hair down to the breasts, wearing a faded coral dress and a pale lavender shawl with little gold spots on the borders around the shoulders. But if they stopped to look closer they would see the rough, scarred hands of a cook. The silver wedding band, no larger than a piece of thread, from a deceased husband. The wrinkles on my face that have each a story. And if they looked really close they may just see life in my eyes and the knowledge that lies within.\nI have lived on my own for quite some time now. Despite my age and my faltering ability to accomplish the mundane tasks of daily life, I continue to live on my own. I am different. Someone seen, not heard. I had very little power in my life, but with the little I had I chose to remain silent, to observe my world. Many do not realize how much can be learned using this technique. I can speak, but I chose only to speak in quote. To hear me speak is very rare. My words will only make sense if you ponder them for some time before acting upon them. But if you do this they may just change your life. I put lots of thought into my words, thinking about what will truly impact the person. \nFor each person it is different. Each human is unique. Each mind is distinct and separate. Each mind has individual goals. As humans we are never satisfied with what we have. We always want more. It is just how we are. It is simply human nature. And this is no way to live your life, yet, this is how many do. Constantly wanting more. Nothing is ever enough. I have watched so many compare themselves to others, always noting what others have, what others do. I have seen this throughout all my life, yet, no one seems to want to change it. They never challenge society, they just do as they are told. Never asking why. And now with the new fancy apps all hope is fleeing for the new generation. For no one understands the true meaning of life anymore. They understand not that joy doesn't have to be recorded for proof, that the joyous things in life happen outside of the telephone. That what you have is enough and once you realize this, you will be eternally happy.\nCrack! Something hits the ground next to me, interrupting my thoughts. I turn to look at this fallen object. A young man, no more than twenty, looks me straight in the eye. His dark blue jeans fit him perfectly. He is wearing a black t-shirt, with some marks of brown, probably from playing a game in the muddy grass. He has a bright denim jacket, with a red J sown on, worth at least £40. His hair is a black, curly mess on his head and he seems hispanic. He has a chiseled face, a very strong jawline and brown eyes, like dark chocolate, almost identical to mine. \nI remember him. He comes to the Starbucks next to where I “live” every other day. He always waits at the window seat staring at his telephone and sipping a latte and always spills a little on his shirt. Then at exactly 5:15pm he jolts his head up to look out the window. A young lady walks by. She wears a long gray coat so I can never see much of her. She walks with purpose, very confident and almost always in high heels. Her long, silky black hair flows behind her as if it’s a cape. She wears a beret that is the color of orange. The color is so similar to a sunset that it seems like she pulled it out of the sky. She has a silk, light pink scarf with little white dots at the ends. She is very kind. Each time she passes by me she hands me £10, saying,” May the day bring you peace and joy.” Then she flashes a smile that is so bright most would melt at the sight of it. Her face is gentle, in an imperfect way. She never wears make-up. She is graceful as she gets up to keep sauntering down the street. As soon as she is gone he comes out of his hiding place in a sort of daze and dawdles along the sidewalk.\nBut today it was different, today he was going to make his move. Today he couldn’t keep still. His leg kept bouncing and he could barely drink his latte. His eyes were darting around, as if the woman might appear at any moment. In his right hand he held onto an old, white rosary as if his life depended on it. He never even glanced at his phone, his eyes were glued to the window. He was also wearing the black t-shirt. In all my days I had never seen him wear anything black. As it neared 5:15 he slowly got up from his seat. He dropped his cup in the trash near the door on his way out without looking down. The bells jingle as he opens the door. He is not going to dawdle today. Just as he is about to take his first step out, his foot slips. He plunges down to the Earth and hits the sidewalk with a groan. When he looks up again, the woman has already passed me and is well on her way down the road. He is on his feet again at the speed of light and when he is only a meter away, that’s when he sees him.\nA young man, about his age, walks out of the next building over. He runs to catch up with her. He is very muscular, wearing a tank top and brown Khaki pants with a darker brown belt. He has dirty blond hair that blows in the wind. He jogs up, swings his arm across her shoulders and gives her a sweet kiss on the cheek. \nBy the time I recollected everything that had happened earlier that day, he was already reaching for his telephone. When he grasped it, and turned it so the front side was facing him I could see a large crack on the screen. It was 5:20pm. He leaned against the brick wall in defeat. He slowly sank down to a sitting position next to me and fiddled with his pocket. He took out his wallet and gave me £10. I peeked into his eyes as he did this. I saw his pain, and sadness. I took his hand in mine, looked him square in the eye and in a definitive voice I told him,\n”You live life in comparison but life itself is enough.\nOnly once you come to realize this, will you be truly happy.”" } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Arigatō (Thankyou for being my friend)\n\nGenre: asian-american\n\nWord Count: 1257\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about two people who just can’t seem to understand each other, no matter how clearly they think they’re speaking." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "1684...1693.....170..0 and done for another four miles today. I head over to a bench nearby, satisfied with my consistency, just for a short break. This is my second week in Tokyo and honestly I've never felt more healthier or satisfied my whole life I think to myself\nMy phone starts ringing with it's questionable yet guiltily unchanged ringtone\n\"Hi honey, guess what, I made your favourite dinner tonight\"\n\"Wait no way! You traitor I'm catching a flight back to san Francisco right this second and you can't have a single bite of it until I reach\"\nShe seemed much unamused by my humour rather a bit tense by the tone of her voice\n\"Honey are you ok, does your stomach hurts a lot?\"\n\"Oh no I'm.. I'm so perfect, tell me about yourself how's the life in Tokyo treating you? The last two weeks have been the miserabile weeks of my life, come home already\"\n\"Well you know that I ca-\n\"Hello? Jackson? Hey I've gotta go now, sorry I'll talk later, bye..oh I love you\"\n\"Love you too\"\nI sighed and looked up around in the park to cheer myself up, I wish I had been here any sooner I thought to myself, an old lady took a seat beside me, she was pretty old, maybe in her mid-60's hunched over and she looked extremely wise for she would've obviously seen so much more than me, her hands and feet seemed tough, as though she knows suffering yet you could see comforting kindness in her eyes. I've noticed some usuals in the park and she was one of them, sometimes alone, sometimes with an old friend as herself she would sit in one of the benches for an hour probably or mostly she'd take a walk in a short pace, with or without cane. However this was the first time that she sat beside me, so I greeted her\n\"Ohio\"\nShe looked at me and nooded politely\n\"Ohayō gozaimasu\"\nOfcourse she didn't get my accent, living here sure had it's cons as well. I was already late for work.\n\n7pm\nI was getting ready to prepare my dinner, my mind hurts from learning basic japanese language for the past 3 hours, luckily it will be my day off tomorrow so I can get to bed early\n\n10pm\nMy eyes hurt, I haven't cried like this in a while, there's an empty void inside me that always seeks the truth and trust in people I love yet it always fails to preserve, whatever it seeks. Well maybe one day I can be an old wise man sitting on a park bench and helping ones around me, I smile to myself, I've gotta get up early tomorrow.\n\nThe next day-\n1649..1653..1664 oh I'm so tired I take a break off and spotting the old lady once again I sit beside her, it seemed as though she was saving the seat for her friend but she didn't stop me from sitting either\n\"Ohayō gozaimasu\"\n-\"Ohayō gozaimasu\"\n\"Ogenkidesuka\"\n(How are you?)\nI googled to make sure that I'm enunciating it the right way\n\"Hai genki desu\"\n\"I'm sorry I'm not so fluent in japanese is there any chance that you might know English?\" She blinked and smiled at me politely\n\"I guess that's a no well let's just talk like this, we are both more comfortable this way right?\"\n- \"Amegafurimasu\"\n(It will rain today)\n\"Well I wish you could say a bit more, I'm sorry, I'm Jackson, and you are?\" I used Google translator for this one\n\"Ichika\" she said in a clear heavy voice.\nMy phone starts ringing again it's my wife\n\"She's cheating on me, my wife, ichika sama my tsuma (wife) is cheating on me-yo?\" I enunciate\n\"Watashinotomodachi wa okurete\" imasu\"\n(my friend is late)\n\"Hai, I've known about it since three months..-yo\" I said\nIe ni kaerubekidesu ka\"\n(should I head home..)\n\"Well that's a bit complicated, you see she's three months pregnant, so I don't want to leave her to be alone, besides I do love her, I'm just hoping that things will change once the baby arrives\"\n\"Saikin kibungawarui\"\n(I haven't been feeling well lately)\n\"I have been so sad lately\" I said\nIt was already evident that no of us exactly understood each other\n\"Mō koko ni ko rarenai\"\n(I can't come here anymore)\n\"Well on the bright side I still have a week left before going home, let's meet every morning, I finally made a friend here\"\n\"Watashi no yūjin wa arawaremasendeshita\"\n(my friend didn't show up today)\n\"Well I'll see you tomorrow granē\"\n\"Sayonara nichan\".\n\nThe smell of burnt bacon brought me back to reality, I quickly take them off the stove, still sleepy it was half past four, perhaps I should've slept a bit longer, ThankGod I didn't burnt my eggs otherwise it would've been another day of japanese cusion, which is as amazing as it gets but this morning I'm just craving a little American-homey touch.\nIt rained all night, there were brooks in every few steps, I decided to retreat halfway, then feeling as though guilty, for having made a promise to grandma to meet up today, I rush to the park holding on to my umbrella.\nIt was deserted however after walking past all the benches I noticed a familiar handkerchief with floral prints, clean yet faded, it was perhaps granny's handkerchief indeed I saw her using it yesterday, it was evident that she came here and waited I thought for hours, for a familiar face and since no one showed up, which ended up extinguishing the flames of her burning hopes she headed home, I wish I could wander around here, just incase she shows up again but I had to go for work, it was the most important afterall, or so I consolded myself,\n'it's alright, she would understand'\nThe next day was much clearer and I arrived at the park on time, however today I reached no where further than two miles, I was simply expecting her to show up but she didn't, nor the day after that, the next morning though she was sitting on the bench with her friend, I felt glad and wanted to stick around, when the other lady left, I approached her, I was gonna ask her how has she been in her native language but from acquiring a closer look I noticed that she seemed unwell I assumed it would've perhaps been because of the rain.\nWe sat just for a few minutes in silence I was looking up for common japanese phrases, but she got up before I could find anything good\n\"Watashi wa osoraku kyō shinudeshou\" she said and grabbed her cane to leave, without paying any heed to what she just said, I quickly replied \"Mata chikaiuchini o ai shimashou\"\n(See you soon)\nThen I quickly looked up what she just said and in just about two seconds I felt so low than I had probably ever did, this was even more heartbreaking than finding out that my wife Kristen was cheating on me\nso she meant that...'today might be her last day'?\nMy last three days in Tokyo further confirmed her claim, she never did return and I was already ready to move back to my normal life, perhaps even though we barely understood a word that we said, I never felt more understood than by talking to her, and deep down I knew she cherished our awkward, meaningless yet so meaningful conversations." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Aftermath of Overthinking\n\nGenre: asian-american\n\nWord Count: 1352\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about a character who’s always thinking of things they’ll say to people, but who ends up saying very little when they finally get the chance." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "‘You can suffocate a thought by expressing it with too many words,’ a quote by Frank A Clark. Even the most complex thoughts and emotions could never be matched by simple words. Metaphors and similes can only go so far in this world of literature. I wish I could be mysterious with every sentence of mine to contain hidden meaning, or would that be too much? Too intimidating? Or not enough, and not reach the expectations of others? Or perhaps, I’ve over thought about this once again. \nMy thoughts overwhelm me, too many for me to handle. ‘Thinking too much will create problems that weren't there before,’ That’s what mother says, ‘And thinking too much will lead to negative emotions, Mae.’ \nBut what were we all taught in school? Think before we act, yet people who think too much before they act don’t act much. \nSchool was always nerve racking for me, pray to not get called on and if you do get called on, speak quickly and short. The shorter the sentence, the more left to the imagination, more of a chance to be right and less of a chance to be humiliated. There are few I hang out with at school, a tight group of kids my age: Dylan, Jackie, and Alex. \nDylan would always ask what we were up to over the weekend, I'd always shrug my shoulders and Alex would always give her ‘I have no life’ attitude. Jackie, however, would make plans right there and then, invite us all to a party or her house. \nOne time, Jackie invited us to her brother’s birthday party and asking what she should get him as a gift, eyes glimmering excitedly as she asked. \nHer brother likes art, I thought, he doesn’t talk about it much because he doubts himself, but if you look closely, he scribbles and doodles over his homework pages or on little sheets of paper. \n Dylan responded to Jackie with the stereotypical boyish “Get him a football so we can throw it around!” \nHer brother didn’t enjoy sports like Dylan though, even she knew that. \n“Mae, what about you? What do you think I should get him?” at that moment, my mind went completely blank and I forgot everything I could use as a response. \n“Uh, I don’t know.” What a crappy response Mae. Wow you really messed up there huh Mae? \nI got nervous again, and I'm not even sure why, Ive known Jackie since 3rd grade and I still can't talk to her like I do my dogs. \n“Oh, that’s fine, I'll probably just get him a slice of cheesecake or something,” her anxious laugh was unsettling, hinting so many things, but I tried my best to brush it off. \nThen all there was to do was contemplate. Why did she laugh like that? Is she worried about something, perhaps her brother? No. I need to stop overthinking everything. Not everything has a hidden meaning. Maybe I was just a little awkward like I always am. \n In Math class I always sat in the back, praying not to be called on. I knew the answers, but the self-doubt and possibility of being wrong haunted me. As a younger child I was gifted and praised by adults for being smart and believed that being smart was just a trait that somebody did or didn’t have. Now, it causes me to overthink my answers and need to muster up courage to speak in class. And substitute days were the worst. Like the dayin May when Ms. Granger didn’t show up in class. \nMs. Granger Was out sick and obviously, would need to be replaced by another teacher. Me and my fellow students walked into the class, getting the substitute teacher, and took our seats. \n“Okay students, I will take role call and if I mispronounce your name, I apologize,” the substitute announced to the children. \nAh yes, the torment of having your name said wrong and needing to correct the teacher was always a struggle for me. With my Japanese last name, I thought, it wouldn’t be easy for her to pronounce. So, I memorized the person’s name that came before me and planned to just say here before she even said my name. \n“Alexandra Aguilera,” Her voice was gravely compared to Ms. Granger’s, making me flinch at the sudden call. \n“here,” came the sturdy response. \n“Chad baker... Clementine Davis... Fiona Hillenbrand,” it was soon my turn, start gathering your courage now, Mae. Breathe. \n“M- Mai... May Kuh-” I cut the substitute off by raising my hand. \n“Mae Kurosawa, and I'm here,” My voice came out broken at first, but I was heard, and Alex gave me a comforting glance from across the room. \nLetting out a sigh I noticed how high-pitched my voice got when I interrupted the teacher. Then, I started thinking to myself about the lesson she began teaching. \n Should I correct her about putting a 5 instead of a 7 in the last problem? She got a totally different answer from me, and probably everybody else. Or maybe I miscalculated. Oh, shoot I'm running out of eraser, Should I ask Alex? No, she’s so far away. What about that kid next to me, He might have some. Or maybe I’d bother him too much, I’ll just ask the teacher. \nI started to get up, but the bell rang. Loud and blaring in my ears, I flinched at the sound. I was too late, when will being too late cost me more than just an eraser? Soon after recovering from my minor shock, I gathered my things and walked out of class. \nThere are many other incidences, not just asking for help or correcting people, and not just saying too less to my friends. Like today, right now, I'm with my parents in the car, 80’s music playing and my mother singing along to whatever song is playing. \nDad looks serious, like he is stressed about something. A slight wrinkle in the center of his brows and the slight twitching of his right eyebrow made me anxious. \nShould I ask? Would asking make it worse? \n“Akari,” with mother looking in his direction he continued, “The restaurant, got break in.” My father said with choppy English, unlike my mother’s. He owned a restaurant, working while Mother went worked at our town’s mall. Father now seemed exhausted, like it was draining him to keep the news silent for so long. \n“Oh, Dan, it’ll be okay, I’ll help clean up the damages later and work out the legal matters tomorrow. Mae, do you want to take the day off school to help him?” Mother asked, almost too cheerily. \nI stammered over my words, “Y-yes I would. Can, I mean yeah.” Mom chuckled at my stuttering as we took a turn on the road. Dad was a great driver, unlike the stereotypes and was always so relaxed while behind the wheel. \nI eased up a little bit and started humming along with mom, looking out the window occasionally. Mom’s singing and the radio faded into background noise and I zoned out. Coming back to the present, I looked behind us, seeing if I knew any of the people in the cars. Then there, clear and speeding towards us: A pickup truck with a driver distracted on their phone. \nTick... Tick... Tick... Father’s hand watch counting each passing second. I can’t waste any more time, this truck could potentially ram into us, get us hurt, kill us... Quick, think, no don’t think, Speak. \nHow many seconds have I wasted staring at this truck? I can’t waste any more. My eyes shot towards the rearview mirror; A frantic expression painted on my face. Finally, a second later he looked at me and saw what was coming, but it felt like centuries. \n“Truck!” I shouted; Mother whipped her head back towards me then towards the oncoming vehicle. Father swerved the car, but a little too late. I was a little too late. I should’ve stopped thinking and said something. I should’ve- \nSilence. My mind was silent and everything went blank." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: New Year, New beginnings\n\nGenre: asian-american\n\nWord Count: 2578\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story that takes place across ten seconds." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "“10!” We screamed at the top of our lungs, I almost gagged at the noise pollution we’d created.\nSythe winked, smiling as she showed her perfect set of teeth she’d take care of every day. I was so glad that she decided to join my family for our annual New years party.\nI rolled my eyes at her. She was such a show-off.\nWe met as rivals actually. Sythe had hated my guts since she laid eyes on me, she was the most popular girl at Sunnydale middle school. She practically owned it. On the first day I bumped into her during our only shared class: Art.\nShe had been working on a masterpiece, swishing paint and glitter. Although I gotta admit, she was a wonderful artist. Her style was… unique. She always thought outside the box, when someone's thinking ends, her’s begins.\nShe blamed me for shoving her which caused her to spill a drop of excess paint that she believed ruined her whole painting. I had to apologize a million times until she quit shouting at me.\nOur rivalry only went uphill after that encounter. She always picked on me… only me in hundredths of kids. Just for a single mistake… I wonder how she’d treat me if I ruined her whole painting by spilling paint over it. Gave me the shivers just to dream about it.\nI cried in the bathroom everyday non-stop after school. I felt miserable, blaming my karma. My parents shouldn’t have made me move. I wasn’t used to hot, humid climates and bullies on my heels. I missed Alaska. It had been so fun to sled and go ice skating rather than huddle near the AC in Texas.\nI would avoid extracurricular activities, never to see anyone. My parents begged me to be open but I never listened to their jibber jabber.\nCrying constantly had made my whole face pale, I began to lose weight until I became nothing more than a pile of bones. My parents were worried about my health deteriorating at such a young age, they feared something might go wrong.\nI remained isolated, nothing interested me. \nUntil…\nHe came.\nIt had been Christmas morning, as usual I didn’t fuss over any gifts. Taking my new sweater from grandma and grandpa, kissing both their wrinkled cheek, pasting a fake smile for their case and trying to get away before mom asked me to help decorate cookies. \n“Haripriya… we have a surprise for you,” My mother singsonged.\nI groaned inside but I couldn’t let my folks down on a joyous occasion. \n“What…” My eyes traced back to the thing that squirmed in mom’s arms. My mouth hung open. Tears lit my eyes… but for once it was for happiness. \n“Puppy!” I exclaimed. Hugging the precious thing close to my heart.\n“Your welcome,” My parents added, sharing a smile.\nMy whole life seemed to be turning corners, like the smile that appeared on my face.\nLucky was my sidekick. Always by my side. With his arrival my whole life course changed. Sythe had invited me to her birthday party because our parents were friends. She ignored me the whole time, only talking to her friends but then a rat sort of decided to join in. It was so hilarious but the others shrieked and ran in different directions. Lucky luckily was there, he dashed forward. Sending the little mice outside and he became a hero. He hung his tongue out as kids ran over to pet him. \nI grinned as Sythe gave me a look.\nThat's the first time she gave me a chance to speak. To express myself. We found out that we had more in common than we thought. I always thought she was a spoiled brat but turns out she does good things too.\nWe hit it off smoothly after that.\nSythe handed me a cupcake decorated in little fireworks as we held hands.\n“Thanks for supporting me,” I mouthed.\n“Don’t mention it.”\n“9!” I looked over at Leia, the new girl across the street. She had moved from Hawaii and was very shy during her first days at school. She rarely talked, always kept to herself. People gossiped that she was a ‘weirdo’ but I would shake off that kind of talk. I tried to talk to her but she would just nod, biting her nails. \nI didn’t understand what the matter was with her so I kept my distance. Not wanting to feel intruding into her personal space.\nI felt bad when girls picked on her but I never bothered to intervene. \nWe were assigned as partners for a school project and I groaned having to work with someone that never replied to my comments.\nShe stuttered at first, acting as if I didn’t exist. But I didn’t give up… she pronounced her words with caution. \nI smiled at her effort to communicate. Turns out she didn’t speak English and had a hard time understanding everything. I tried to help her as much as possible, giving her lessons and training her vocal skills.\nShe met my eyes, smiling back with dimples. \n“Happy New year,” She mouthed.\n“You too.”\nI saw her glance back to the drawing that hung above the fireplace. A drawing we’d made together. \n“8!” My little sister Maya happily munched on a cupcake, her fingers covered with blue frosting as she let Lucky lick her hands.\nI giggled along with my lovable sister. She might not be my blood-related sister but she was definitely part of the family. \nMy parents wanted another child and decided on adopting. The first time I laid eyes on her, I fell in love. She had only been a year old. Her parents were never found, the locals say they abandoned the baby. \nI had gasped when Maya coiled her delicate fingers into mine. She was stronger than she seemed, her eyes would twinkle as she stared at her new family in awe.\nMom had cried in joy, dad had patted my back, winking.\nThe first time I held Maya… it was so memorable. She weighed so little as she would crawl over to me like a dog to its owner.\nMaya… she’d grown up so fast. It’d been five years since the day she arrived. Her presence had brightened up everyone's days.\n“Hari… come see,” She called my nickname as I walked forward to hold her unsteady body.\nI trotted alongside her, ducking past adults and tables on our way. \n“Snow!” She exclaimed, falling backwards into the pile of white and moving her limbs like a dog.\nI smiled, patting the snow. \n“7!” I looked up at the sky, it was almost midnight… New years in it’s way. \n“Hello dear!”\n“Grandma!” I ran forward to embrace the warmth of gran.\nShe patted my head as we exchanged greetings. I noticed her scar on the right knee which she held in a cast. I helped her to a seat, offering some hot cocoa.\nIt had been a month since grandma was out of the hospital, yet I feared something might go wrong. Gran had a nasty fall on the stairs and twisted her ankle. I sobbed when gran had her eyes closed, her breathing uneven, doctors swarming over to check each second, her heartbeat was slower than usual. \nYet, gran smiled whenever I visited, never showing the pain she was in. She happily munched on mom’s oatmeal cookies, smelling my flowers that I’d brought with my own allowance. Offering to play board games to pass time.\n“Is your knee ok?”\n“Yes dearie, don’t fret… It’s a New year,” She reminded, settling back to a resting position.\nI cracked a half-smile, glancing back at the stars.\n“6!”\n“Aren’t you sleepy?” Uncle Joseph asked, he handed a plate filled with food to grandma as he greeted her in our custom.\n“No,” I half-lied, the reminder of sleep was tempting but I wanted to be awake during the most important day.\nHe shrugged, sitting next to me.\nIt was an awkward silence that loomed around us. I still hadn’t gotten used to having a new uncle. Auntie Mira; my mother’s sister had her wedding last year. I wasn’t sure about her preference but I attended the wedding anyway. I remembered how mom had adorned her in jewels from our custom with a beautiful sari; Indian traditional dress. \nThe mesmerizing music being played in the background as the newly weds performed their rituals. Tears lit my eyes, taking it all in. It was different seeing it in real life. Mom had hugged her sister as they exchanged gifts. Dad had congratulated the couple, wishing them a prosperous life together.\nI remembered uncle Joseph winking at me, he had on a blue turban with a red sapphire adored in it, mom had hand picked a white shirt that matched his whole outfit. He seemed kind of silly, I couldn’t help but giggle. It lightened up my mood.\nMy favorite part of the wedding came next; food!\nI still tasted the hot gulab-jamuns(a sweet in India) and samosa(A crispy fried snack) that mom had freshly fried.\n“No, no Haripriya, first your aunt and uncle need to eat,” My mom chided when I tried to sneak a few gulab-jamuns.\nI rolled my eyes.\n“Let the child have them first,” My “new” uncle stated, smiling. \nI decided to give him a chance, he couldn’t be that bad. \n“After all you do say children are a form of God,” He finished, handing me a platter of sweet, sticky gulab-jamuns.\nMother sighed but let me have my way.\nLater, after the wedding was finished uncle Joseph came to talk to me.\n“Thanks for saving me back there.”\n“Your my niece, how can I not,” He patted my back, I flushed red.\n“I’m sorry for behaving unruly before.”\n“Now, don’t say that, you're a good girl,” He had pecked my cheek that left me open-mouthed.\n“Hari?”\nI snapped back to reality, facing him. Grandma was snoring, her plate of food was half-eaten and placed on her lap.\n“Oh… sorry,” I mumbled, turning red again.\nHe chuckled, “I’m gonna go inside, see if Mira needs anything, you good?” He focused his eyes back at gran, then me.\n“Yeah.”\nHe gave me a thumbs up, ruffling my raven like black hair that I’d neatly placed in a ponytail.\n“5!” It was down to the last wires. We had half way to go, almost there but not quite there. I could feel the energy of a new beginning about to begin.\n“My, my Haripriya, how tall you’ve grown!” My great-aunt called out. She had on a salwar kameez decorated in small fireworks. Her makeup was overdone as her long black hair was in a tight bun. \n“Auntie,” I nodded at her arrival.\nShe pounced on me, hugging my breath out.\n“Can’t… breathe.”\n“Oh sweet sandesh, how is my little Hari!”\nI pasted a fake smile, falling at the elder women's feet in respect, “I’m good auntie.”\n“Here, take some sweets, I’ve had too many and doctor said can’t eat too much salt.”\n“I think you mean sugar,” I countered, Auntie Mala always mixed up her words, she still hadn't learnt the difference between sugar and salt.\n“Now my little sweets, what are you up to?” She asked, totally ignoring my correction.\n“Nothing much,” I tried to get away from her before she decided to hug me again. She didn’t notice me slip away into the backyard.\nAuntie Mala was… over-loving, if that's a word. Everyone around her was an escape artist, trying to get away before she asked them to taste her homemade sweets. They were… well… inedible and unappetizing. But no one criticizes the food auntie made, maybe because it would break her heart. Who knows, no ones ever tried.\n“4!” I glanced back at the newly arrived guests, asking them how they were, taking elders blessings.\nI was exhausted over being a host but I’ll manage, it’s almost New years!\n“Hey cuz,” I looked behind to see Neel, my cousin.\n“Hey,” I waved back.\n“So… whatcha doin’?” Neel was never big on parties, he preferred to spend his time on video games and playing basketball, the reason why he’s extremely tall. His dark hair was in a small ponytail, his eyes were almost brown rather than black. He was my tallest cousin and the oldest.\nIf we weren’t related I’d be dazzled by his looks. I could already feel Sythe glancing over at him, her eyes wide in surprise.\nHe brushed his hair back, almost like they did in those Bollywood movies. I rolled my eyes sarcastically.\n“Cut it out Neel,” I mouthed.\n“Whatever little sis.”\nI fumed red, Neel was always treating me like a baby. 12 year olds aren’t babies. \nJust because he’s 15, sheesh, what's the rush to grow up.\n“Aren’t you gonna take a little nap?” He mocked.\n“No.”\n“Hah, I’m surprised you managed to stay awake.”\n“Neel!” I spat out, he always got on my nerves.\nHe laughed but his expression changed when grandpa approached us. He quickly rushed off to inside, giving me a ‘I’m not done yet’ look.\n“3!” Maya’s voice was the loudest, I giggled over her jibber jabber.\n“Grandpa!”\nHe waved back since he wasn’t very fluent in English.\n“Tum kaisee ho priye?,” ‘How are you dear?’ he asked.\n“Main bahut santusht hoon,” I replied, ‘I’m very content.’\nHe smiled. Leaving me alone to meet his other children and grandchildren.\n“2!” I could feel the current in the air, almost taste the new feeling.\nI’d have to go through everything again, grow up, celebrate, see new things. Yet, there’s always something different every year. Something I’d never imagined in a million years would happen.\nJust a second left of this year. We’d all start over.\nMy adrenaline piped up, this was it.\n“1!” I saw the fireworks go out, so beautiful how they illuminated the sky.\nThe grown-ups hugged and congratulated one another, the little kids were dazed by the fireworks, dropping everything they were doing to glaze back at the sky. \nI felt awed by the sight. I looked back to see everyone had come outside, everyone was so happy together. \n“Oh dear!” I saw grandma shout, grabbing everyone including my attention.\n“What's wrong?”\n“Anaya’s fainted.”\n“Mom?” I rushed over to her side, wrapping my arms around her. She had been sweating really bad.\n“Mom?” I screamed louder as the family closed in, I couldn’t breath.\nWe called a doctor that lived close to our house. She immediately agreed to check and arrived before I could say gulab jamun five times.\n“Oh,” Was all she said, and she smiled?\n“Is she ok?” Dad asked.\n“Yes, more than ok.”\nWe were dumbfounded.\n“Congratulations… new baby’s on the way,” She shouted so all the relatives could hear.\nDad almost fell in shock, grandma was in tears and I… I smiled.\nI knew something was going to happen. And it did!\nHAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!\nThis is my last story for 2020 so I hoped you all enjoyed it!\nThis story is dedicated to...\nHaripriya Anand for being so supportive/sweet and one of my first friends on Reedsy!\nhttps://blog.reedsy.com/creative-writing-prompts/author/dbb433/\nSythe Crimsonstar for being an amazing writer and a great friend!\nhttps://blog.reedsy.com/creative-writing-prompts/author/2a6b72/\nand...\nMaya W. for giving me lots of tips and helping me be a better author!\nhttps://blog.reedsy.com/creative-writing-prompts/author/maya-w-33cd77/\nDon't feel bad if I didn't include you. I'm just saving you for later:)" } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Skylines and Soulmates\n\nGenre: asian-american\n\nWord Count: 1736\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about someone scrambling to finish a goal in the last few hours of the year." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "“I knew you before we met and I don’t even know you yet. All I know is that you’re someone that I’ve always known. All I’ve ever known is how to hold my own, and I don’t even know you, but I still wanna hold you close.”\n\nMariko hopped off the subway into the large, cosmopolitan streets, her long hair flicking to the other side of the head. She had been in New York for a few weeks at this point, but still had no idea where she was going, or even what she was doing in such a large city. Mariko had loved the thrill of Tokyo as a child, but thrill wears off as times goes by, and in this case even after a couple weeks the initial shock of city life was wearing off into being just a pain. \n\nOf course, it could just be living in a strange new city with strange new people and a strange new language, but still, Mariko found herself lost many a time in New York, both with the physical landscaping of the complex city, and with the thorny nature of her relationship with it. \n\nHer relationships with cities were very complicated, to say the least. There was something her mother used to tell her about called musubi, the tie that binds, no matter what stood between it. Mariko thought that her relationship with both New York and Tokyo was a little bit like that. With Tokyo, she was bound to it through her connections and awe as a child, despite her deep hatred of the family she would visit there. With New York, the ties were always looser and more complicated, but still there. Her attachment to the city was one of wonder and desire to visit, of longing and interest. She had always wanted to see the city and experience life in it, but never could. \n\nNot until now. \n\nAs Mariko stepped over the gap between the subway and the concrete, she felt her pinky finger brush up against something strangely warm. It only lasted for a second, but she felt an odd sense of comfort from the sensation. Glancing behind her, Mariko’s dark hair flipped again as she turned around to see what it was, looking up at the face of a young man, around her age. He shared her same jet black hair and brown eyes. As she stared into them, she remembered another thing her mother used to say.\n\n“You have beautiful eyes, Mari. Take care of them. Eyes are the window to the soul. No one can ever look through another’s eyes, so we must take care of our own”\n\nMariko wasn’t entirely sure where she got that from. It wasn’t a Japanese expression, but she still said it, nonetheless. Of course, she would never be able to see what was going on through the man’s eyes, but it still made her wonder. Had he meant to touch her? What was he going to say now?\n\nThe man’s eyes grew wider as he stared into Mariko’s own gaze. Eyes are the window to the soul, she reminded herself, as she began to turn away. This interaction was pointless, just a means to get her distracted on her way to work. An excuse to know someone in a large city where she was lost. Nothing worth anything.\n\n“Wait!” the man called out, reaching to touch her pinky again. “Don’t go!”\n\nMariko frowned, her head jostling around the people running to and fro. She understood those words. The man was speaking Japanese to her. Surprised, she turned back around, getting a better look at the young man.\n\n“I’m Kenji,” he said, his mouth forming the words slowly, but surely. “Who are you?”\n\n“You speak Japanese?” she replied, still in shock from the man speaking to her at all. Kenji laughed, his own matching jet black hair waving in the wind. “Of course,” he responded. “But you didn’t answer my question.”\n\nMariko sighed, pulling her hands back into her pockets. “I’m Mariko.”\n\n“Mariko,” Kenji slowly articulated, letting his mind comprehend the name. She wondered what he was thinking. Perhaps the name meant something to him. Perhaps it meant nothing, because he was a stranger she had just met on the subway. The latter felt more likely. “Mariko, do you believe in soulmates?”\n\nMariko blinked. If anything, that wasn't what she expected for him to say. Soulmates were a concept found all over the world, but they weren’t necessarily something Mariko had a strong belief in. Pondering what to reply, she glanced to her left, at the subway zipping away through the tunnels through the rest of the city. It reminded her almost of when light refracts in straight lines, or when strings fall down diagonally. Each face peaked through the subway, but she still didn’t recognize a single one. That was either the beauty of the city, or Mariko’s curse, she decided. Not being able to notice a soul unless they were staring right at her and spoke her language. \n\n“I believe,” she started, looking at a young girl in the subway tying up a hair ribbon. “I believe in ties that bind.”\n\nKenji laughed, a smile cracking through his face. “Ah,” he said, his eyes sinking back in. “The string of fate.”\n\nMariko nodded. “Yeah,” she almost whispered, the words hardly making it out. “The string of fate.”\n\nThe string of fate. Ties that bind. Musubi. They were all connected, just like each and every person is. But the string of fate is what connects each person to their other half, no matter the distance or time. The string of fate holds your destiny, without any restrictions. It’s in everything, but it’s most prevalent in people, tying them to their soulmates.\n\n“Would it be crazy,” Kenji continued, “if I told you we were connected through it?”\n\nThis time, it was Mariko’s turn to laugh. “Of course it would. You have no proof.”\n\nKenji smiled, his bright eyes growing wider again. “Well, let’s see,” he started, staring deep into Mariko’s eyes. “You ended up starting a conversation with someone who just happens to speak your language in a crowded city on your way to work.”\n\nMariko frowned, furrowing her brow. “You knew I was on my way to work?”\n\n“Of course. It is rush hour, after all.”\n\nTilting her head to the side, Mariko nodded. “I guess that makes sense.”\n\nKenji smiled again, the crowd moving quicker than before throughout the tight concrete walkway. “Mariko,” he began, “for someone who claims to believe in soulmates, you seem to be quite adamant that we aren’t.”\n\nMariko’s eyes grew wider as she tried to comprehend what Kenji had just said. “I didn’t say I believed in soulmates,” she said slowly, trying to articulate each and every word. “I said I believed in ties that bind. Musubi. The string of fate. I believe in connections. I never said I believed in soulmates. And I certainly never said that I thought you were mine.”\n\nKenji sighed, as he looked down to his feet. “Mariko, I’ve been looking for my soulmate all year. You can’t just take this away from me when I’ve found her.”\n\nMariko laughed. “I said I believed in ties that bind, and now you’re saying that we’re bound. I don’t know why you’re in such a hurry to find your soulmate, but even if it is me, you can’t expect me to believe you.”\n\nKenji sighed again. “Mariko,” he started, like he had before. Mariko wondered why he always started talking by saying her name. “Mariko, I don’t want to live without her, whoever she is. I’ve found her now, I can’t just let her go.”\n\nMariko frowned. “How do you know it’s a she?”\n\n“What do you mean?” Kenji tilted his head backwards.\n\n“If you’re just looking for girls, you might have passed your soulmate ages ago.”\n\nThis time, it was Kenji’s turn to frown. “I never said I was just looking for girls. But I will admit, I was hoping it would be one.” He stopped here, opening his mouth to speak again. “Not that I have a problem with men, I just...like girls...more.”\n\nMariko laughed, another person pushing against her as they tried to make their way to work. “Musubi doesn’t work like that, Kenji. You don’t get to search for your soulmate. They come to you.”\n\n“You didn't have to turn around when our hands touched, but you did.” Kenji stopped her to look down at his feet again, despite the people itching away from the subway and towards the stairs leading up to the even busier streets of New York. “I don’t know. I feel like that’s chance enough.”\n\nA strong gust of wind came down through the subway entrance, blowing Mariko’s hair back. She smiled, thinking about her mother again and her firm belief in chance. Even if she didn’t like the family she would visit in Tokyo, she still liked the city, just like she still continued this conversation, no matter how strange she felt it was. Maybe Mariko just wanted a bit of familiarity from Kenji, just to hear her first language again and listen to people talk about philosophies she grew up with, even if her beliefs in them were wavering. Kenji was smiling, probably thinking that he'd stumped her. \n\n“Kenji,” she began, a smile coming across her face. “The year is almost up. I wish you luck in your search. But I have a job to get to, and as much as I enjoyed this conversation, I can’t keep waiting.”\n\nKenji nodded. “If you love someone, you have to let them go, I guess.”\n\n“Exactly.” Mariko held out her hand to shake his before making her way up the stairway. “Goodbye, Kenji. Just remember, she’ll find you, you won’t find her, alright?”\n\nKenji nodded, but Mariko still thought he was unconvinced. She took a few steps forward on the stairs, the crowd moving her along. The wind was blowing strong, pulling her backwards. \n\nPerhaps it was a sign, though Mariko doubted it. Musubi isn’t something dictated by signs, it’s something that just happens. Sighing, she turned back cautiously, wondering what Kenji was thinking. Perhaps she had just made a mistake and had given up her soulmate, as unlikely as it felt. \n\nBut alas, Kenji was gone, lost in the crowd of the New York subway." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Pillow Talk\n\nGenre: bedtime\n\nWord Count: 1567\n\nPrompt:\n\nStart your story with someone saying “I can’t sleep.”" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "“I can’t sleep… Raymond, I can’t sleep. Are you awake? Raymond?”\n“I am now.”\n“I can’t sleep.”\n“So you keep saying, Meg.”\n“Help me get to sleep.”\n“You woke me up just to ask me that?”\n“I thought you’d want to know.”\n“How very thoughtful of you. Now, can you please let me get back to sleep?”\n“But I can’t sleep!”\n“What do you want me to do about it?”\n“Can you rub my back, please? You know that always relaxes me.”\n“I’m tired, Meg, and I was just in the middle of a great dream.”\n“What was it about?”\n“I can’t remember.”\n“Don’t you hate that.”\n“What I hate is being woken up from a dream, so please allow me to close my eyes and chase after that moment.”\n“But you can’t remember what it was, so how are going to..”\n“..Meg, please. I’m tired.”\n“So am I, Ray.”\n“Then go to sleep!”\n“I can’t. There’s too many things running around inside my head.”\n“What things?”\n“Stuff.”\n“Can you be more specific, Meg?”\n“Work stuff.”\n“Great. Thanks for narrowing it down for me.”\n“You know what it’s about, Ray. It’s what it’s been about since the takeover.”\n“Oh, that. You’re worried about getting laid off.”\n“Yes.”\n“Well, don’t.”\n“That’s easy for you to say, Ray. You’re needed at your company. I’m surplus to requirements at mine.”\n“Yes. Well, not to be someone who says I told you so, but… I told you so.”\n“No, you told me to keep my options open when interviewing. You said, keep your options open when interviewing.”\n“And what else, Meg?”\n“And don’t accept the first job offer I get.”\n“I also said, be careful of fast expanding start-ups. They’re the most volatile. Especially, the ones that are in the middle of acquisition talks.”\n“But they offered me the most money.”\n“To which I advised you to wait until all offers were in, because?”\n“Because, not all offers are as good as they appear up front?”\n“Exactly! A lot of companies pad their books before putting themselves up for sale by adding more personnel to look like they’re growing.”\n“Well, how was I to know?”\n“Because… I told you so.”\n“What am I going to do, Ray? I haven’t been there long enough to qualify for a severance package.”\n“What about the other job offers you received?”\n“They’re gone, now. I’ll have to begin my search all over again, and that can take at least three months’ worth of effort.”\n“We’ll manage, Meg. Just start again in the morning. Now, try and get some sleep.”\n“I can’t. My mind is too active.”\n“Try counting sheep.”\n“I have and it didn’t work.”\n“You need to keep counting.”\n“I did!”\n“How far did you get?”\n“Fourteen thousand, one hundred and twenty-two.”\n“What!? How long have you been awake?”\n“Two hours.”\n“So, I’ve only had two hours of sleep, before you rudely decided to wake me up.”\n“That’s two hours more than I’ve had.”\n“Why don’t you fix yourself some warm milk.”\n“Really, Ray?”\n“Sorry, I forgot that you’re lactose intolerant. What about almond milk, then?”\n“I used the last of it before bedtime.”\n“On what? There was a whole carton of it in the fridge.”\n“I baked muffins for tomorrow’s company meeting.”\n“It’s already tomorrow, Meg.”\n“You know what I mean. Tomorrow is when we find out who stays and who goes.”\n“That’s suspiciously quick.”\n“I think this has been in the planning for a while.”\n“So, let me get this straight. You’ve baked muffins for work, knowing you’re about to be made redundant?”\n“It was my turn for Friday Freebies. Plus, I’m not the only lactose intolerant Vegan there that wants gluten free muffins.”\n“So, they’re tasteless.”\n“That’s what the almond milk is for. To cover the blandness. I like to put a lot of care into my baking.”\n“How touching.”\n“Maybe, I should start a bakery service making gluten free and dairy free baked goods.”\n“Just cut up some cardboard and douse it in almond milk, Meg. It’ll taste the same. We’d finally rid ourselves of all that recycling excess you keep folded up in the garage.”\n“Gluten free and dairy free baked goods have lots of flavourful recipes. It’s not all rice cracker, polystyrene eating.”\n“I’ll stick to the regular ones, thank you. Cow’s milk, sugar, wheat, flavour.”\n“What about bagels? I could bake bagels and supply them to the bakeries.”\n“Well, you couldn’t do any worse than those awful ones the supermarkets sell. They taste as dry as a bone and hard as rocks. You know what? Why don’t you sleep on it.”\n“But you like bagels.”\n“When you make them, yes. Which isn’t that often.”\n“Yes, but when I do, they’re gone in minutes.”\n“Bagels need to be eaten while they’re still warm… What’s with the change of career thinking?”\n“Reinventing oneself is a sign of personal growth, Ray. Anyway, I never saw myself being a data analyst all my life.”\n“I didn’t see you being a data analyst for less than two months, but here we are.”\n“That’s not my fault. It’s beyond my control.”\n“Calm down, my love. I didn’t mean anything by it.”\n“Yes, you did. You want to be in IT? Go to school and learn about it, you said. You want to make the big bucks? Be a data analyst, you said.”\n“I also said, don’t take the first job offer that comes across your desk.”\n“I told you so, I told you so… Ray.”\n“Well, I did tell you so… Meg.”\n“Why can’t you be more supportive?”\n“I am supportive! I think you can do anything you set your mind to.”\n“But you shoot down every idea I mention.”\n“Look, you’re obviously upset at the news of the redundancies. I get it. But it’s a bit unfair of you to take it out on me.”\n“Who else can I unload on?”\n“Try your mother. I’m sure she’s still awake in her bat cave.”\n“Are you implying that my mother is an old bat?”\n“No, I’m implying that she’s a night owl who’s always up late.”\n“I can’t call her at this time of night!”\n“Why not?”\n“She’ll get a fright when her phone rings.”\n“Would you like me to dial her number for you?”\n“Don’t be nasty. What has she ever done to you?”\n“Apart from trying to bribe me to leave you before our wedding day and constantly adding, ‘if you were a real man’ to every sentence she says to me?”\n“She’s just comparing you to Dad, that’s all.”\n“Oh, yes. The real man.”\n“In her eyes, he is, yes.”\n“The man that ends all his sentences with, yes dear, no dear, three bags full, dear.”\n“That’s just cruel.”\n“I’m tired, Meg! I want to go back to sleep, but I can’t because your work-induced insomnia demands company.”\n“You can go back to sleep. Don’t let me stop you.”\n“Thank you.”\n“After you tell me what you think of my idea.”\n“What idea?”\n“The bakery service.”\n“For bakeries.”\n“Yes.”\n“Isn’t that like trying to sell sand to the Arabs?”\n“Get out!”\n“What!? I’m sleeping here.”\n“Go sleep on the couch.”\n“What for?”\n“For being a bigot.”\n“What are you talking about?”\n“Selling sand to Arabs? That’s so racist.”\n“It’s just an expression, Meg. What should I have said?”\n“I don’t know. Maybe, use the words, desert people?”\n“That would make it lose its comedic timing and irony.”\n“That was not a joke. It was a direct attack on a specific race of people.”\n“They’re an ethnic group, Meg. They make up part of the Middle Eastern culture.”\n“They’re still considered a race and your little pun is insulting.”\n“To whom, Meg? There’s only you and me here. Surely, there is some form of sanctuary from the Woke police in my own home at two in the morning.”\n“Woke is Woke, Ray. If you want to avoid being labelled, then adjust your mentality.”\n“You really do need to sleep, Meg. You’re extremely tetchy.”\n“I can’t sleep, Ray. That’s why I woke you up.”\n“Okay, roll over on your side and I’ll rub your back.”\n“Thanks, hun. On my shoulders and back. Yes, right there. That’s good.”\n“Look, Meg. If what I say sounds a bit off-colour, I apologise, okay? I don’t want to sound like I’m indifferent to modern sensitivities. That’s not who I am. You know that. I mean, these days it’s difficult not to insult someone or have them not take offense at something innocuous through ironic humour. What worked years ago in comedy, now almost needs a politburo to approve a joke. I mean, soon – if we want to tell a joke, we’ll have to revert to knock-knock jokes like the orange joke or create a new joke-only race of people to use as whipping boys for punchlines. Yes, I know. You’ll probably argue that the term whipping boy is too gender specific, and added categories of Whipping Non-Binary, Whipping Trans, Whipping He/She/It/They, will need to offer clarification before punchlines are issued. I mean, I can see the future of good comedy being scarce like a pork sausage at a Jewish wedding or a nun at a stag party? Yes? You gonna bite, Meg? Meg…? Meg, are you awake? Meg? Great, I’ve got all your issues running around inside my head - and now, I can’t sleep.”" } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Freddy the Frog\n\nGenre: bedtime\n\nWord Count: 1276\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about someone who can’t sleep due to jet lag, and decides to set out and explore their new city at night instead." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Freddy the Frog was very sick. He perched on the rail of the Corniche and looked out at the dark water. Frogs are supposed to like water, but seeing that much of it always confused Freddy. He always felt it looked threatening, like a monster waiting to rise up and eat him. He would stare at it for hours, waiting for it to attack him.\n\nThere were some panthers walking behind him. And some monkeys, and buffalo too, going down the pathway of the Corniche. Sometimes, when he was on a ledge like this, animals would push him from behind and into the scary water. He'd fall in, in a total panic, and then hop his way back out. There was nothing he could do about it, because the animals were much bigger than him. And he's just a frog. But he always found himself coming back. Maybe a part of him liked getting pushed in.\n\nBut no one pushed him in tonight. Maybe out here in Casablanca the animals are nicer. After a while of staring at the water, he began to vomit. He really was very sick. It was probably because he ate too many flies on the plane. He knew there was something wrong with them. Flies are supposed to taste like cardboard, with a little salt. But these flies tasted sweet. Flies aren't supposed to taste sweet. He should have stopped eating them, but he had about a dozen. And he hadn't even been hungry. Maybe, he wanted to see what would happen to him.\n\nHe hopped off the rail of the Corniche and looked at the big steel blocks. There were a lot of them these days. They each had a thousand eyes. He wondered why they needed so many eyes. They were powerful, because they ate the humans with their tiny mouths. They ate the humans without even moving. It was if the humans wanted to get eaten by them; they just walked right in.\n\nIt was very late at night. But many of the animals were still out. He was only out because in his hometown it was 2pm in the afternoon. It was his first day in Casablanca. He was a little scared and very sick. So far, he was enjoying himself.\n\nHe wanted to go to the desert. He knew the Sahara desert was somewhere around here. He wanted to hop in the sand. He knew a lot about sand. Well, maybe he didn't know a lot about sand, but he thought about it a lot. When he was four months old, he once played with his brother in the park. They were pretending they were knights battling a dragon to save a princess. Once they saved the princess she would kiss them and they'd become human. Except while they were fighting the dragon a human boy came up to them with a big bucket, a bucket filled with sand, and he dumped it on Freddy's brother. His brother was completely smothered. Freddy didn't hear or see anything from his brother. He went to help him, and the boy kicked Freddy. He kicked him hard, and he went flying across the park. Freddy thought maybe he should go back, but he was scared and hopped away as fast as he could. He never saw his brother again.\n\nSo he knew a bit about sand. He wanted to go to the desert to hop across the sand. He wanted to go all the way across, to the other side, and whatever was beyond there. He didn't know what was on the other side, but that was okay. In a way, not knowing the final destination made it more exciting. His brother might be there, on the other side. He got excited and started hopping faster. But then he started throwing up again. Those flies really were awful.\n\nA male leopard stopped by to ask him if he was okay. He looked up, and saw a female leopard next to the male. In the dark night, the female looked nice. Probably, he is only asking whether I am okay because he wants to impress this female. He wants to show the female how kind he is. So Freddy threw out his tongue and licked the leopard in the nose, then again in the eye, then again in the mouth. The leopard recoiled. He raised his paw - and then stopped. He put it down and kept walking with his female. Hopefully she figures it out, thought Freddy.\n\nFreddy the Frog thought he should get back to his bed. He was sleeping under the palm-bed of a nice Giraffe couple. He always liked Giraffes, they let him climb on their necks. Maybe, they just couldn't feel that he was there.\n\nHe started hopping back, and thought about Fanny. Fanny the Frog. She was a female, but she could jump higher than most of the males. She had been his brother's girlfriend. But secretly, he loved her. He loved her because one time it was raining and he saw her staring at a dead tree for a very long time. He watched her watch the tree, in the rain, and wondered what was in her mind.\n\nHe knew that she knew he loved him - the females always know when a male loves them - and after his brother disappeared he hoped he could be with her. But one day not long after his brother was gone he saw her climbing a telephone pole with Michael the Frog. Michael had always been a doofus, so Freddy was confused. There were many things in the world that confused Freddy.\n\nAn elephant passed Freddy. Elephants always fascinated him. One time he climbed inside one of them, through the big nose. He climbed up it as far as he could, and the elephant started stamping and roaring, and swinging its long nose like a maniac. It tried to blow him out, but Freddy kept climbing in further. He wanted to see what was at the other side. Eventually the elephant whipped him out - he'd only made it about half way - and he landed on the ground in front of the elephant. He felt something inside his body had broken. The elephant looked at him for a moment. It slowly raised its trunk as if to smack him with it - but then stopped and just held the trunk high. The trunk was shaking, and Freddy realized the elephant was afraid he might somehow get back in there. It fascinated him that something as big as an elephant could be afraid of him, especially since he was laying broken on the ground and couldn't even move. Then the elephant galloped away. Freddy was so covered in mucus he could barely breathe. It took him a week to fully recover. But he was glad he did it.\n\nFreddy stopped hopping for a moment and looked straight up at the sky. It was a cool night, and the wind was blowing, but the sky did not move. Freddy thought that was interesting - the sky never moved. It looked a lot like the big scary water. Except it was bigger. And emptier. He really stared at it. He looked at the shiny dots. What were those things? He started hopping straight up. As high as he could. But he didn't seem to get any closer. But he kept trying. And he thought, maybe if he hopped hard enough, it would just suck him in. Suck him in and swallow him in to its world. A new world. A world he might be able to understand." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Beowulf: Big Brother\n\nGenre: bedtime\n\nWord Count: 2839\n\nPrompt:\n\nStart your story with a student on their first day of apprenticeship." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "I had thought old age would bring me the finer things in life, like a small staircase at the foot of Mother and Father’s bed to help me climb up without having to jump; or chicken broth in my kibble to soften it; or more frequented walks; or heck, maybe some freaking pain meds that would make the world feel like it had when I was a puppy. Those were all the things my older friends at the park had bragged about when they told him what to expect in my elderly years, and it was the only thing that made reaching my tenth birthday something to look forward to.\n\nBut when my tenth birthday arrived, there was no staircase to Mother and Father’s plush California King; no stewed kibble; and certainly, no pill-stuffed hot dog with promises of arthritic-pain relief. \n\nI did get a cake, the same one Mother always made for me every year: peanut butter and sweet potato. Dear Mother, bless her heart still couldn’t figure out how to make the thing any less dry after ten years, but I still scarfed the entire thing in one bite, because, well, peanut butter. I got my regular walk around the forest fire road, though we turned around at the first gate instead of the second this time, something my mind cursed but my hips were grateful for.\n\nNo, my birthday party did not come how I had expected. And really, I should have known what was coming.\n\nThere had been a strange scent on Mother and Father’s clothes a few days before. A few thin, white-colored hairs were stuck between the threads of Mother’s pants and Father’s jacket. It had smelt like they had been…\n\nNo, I thought to myself. They would not go there without me.\n\nBut it appeared I knew nothing. Apparently, I did not know a single thing about Mother and Father. And I suppose it should have been expected after they’d surprised me all those years ago with bringing the Youngling home. It was their first betrayal, one I had no other choice but to accept since the small creature shared Mother and Father’s scent (and because anytime I got too close to it – at least in those early years – Mother and Father would immediately become heightened, wearing their raised heartrates on their faces and their stress hormones like perfume). But this betrayal. I was not sure I could forgive this.\n\n“Beowulf,” Father said, beckoning me. I came running, tail alight and wagging, as it always was at the sound of my leader’s voice. “We have someone we want you to meet.”\n\nImmediately, the scent from their laundry, that foreign smell I’d detected earlier, filled my nose when Mother walked in behind Father, her arms wrapped around something furry. With the visual confirmation, my tail was no longer playfully loose, but now tight and tense. I growled at the sight of the small fluff ball. Get away from my Mother!\n\n“Oh, Wolfie, no, this is your new little brother,” Mother said, the pitch of her voice as high as it’d been when I met the Youngling. But this was not a Youngling like Gabby. No, this was…\n\n“A puppy!” squeaked Gabby, who ran over to Mother, her little hand outstretched to stroke the small creature’s head.\n\nI unleashed another growl. How dare this animal come near my Youngling.\n\n“Beowulf, no!” Father’s voice was commanding, and all of the tension in my tail recoiled at its authority.\n\nMother’s face distorted as she looked from the animal in her arms to Father while bending down low so Gabby could pet it. There was fear wafting from Mother, and that’s when I noticed the pup in her arms trembling. I felt a bit proud that I’d affected it in this way.\n\nGood, you should be afraid, I narrowed my eyes threateningly.\n\n“Beowulf, stop!” Father grabbed me by my collar and yanked. I sat like a dutiful soldier, though I was a bit upset with him for his complicity in this betrayal. “Honey, go ahead and put Kronos down. I think it’s freaking Beo out that you’re holding him. Put him down so he can smell him. I’ll hold him so he can’t lunge. Gabby, you sit with Mama. Give the puppies some space.”\n\nMother and the Youngling did as Father said, and as soon as the animal touched the floor, I couldn’t help it: I lunged. Father was just as quick as I and pulled me back. The animal whimpered and whined: Where am I?\n\nIn my house. My house! My house!\n“Beooo,” Father warned.\n\nI silenced, but I pulled against his grip, stretching my neck as far as it would go to inspect the pup closer. It was frozen in fear, barely able to retract away from my curious snout.\n\nGet over here so I can inspect you, child!\n\nAnd at that, the little thing peed everywhere.\n\n\nThat first day Kronos and I spent in the same house was more work for me than it was for Mother and Father. As much as I despised the thing, I was a dutiful guardian of our home, and that meant protecting it from the little four-legged twig that peed practically any time a pen dropped. Not only was he peeing on everything – trying to demark all I had earned my claim to – he was biting and chewing on everything. It seemed like every time I turned my head, Kronos had one of my toys in his mouth.\n\nHey! That is mine! Drop it!\n\nAt least the hairball had enough sense in him to listen. He dropped it immediately, cowering to the floor, which wasn’t but three inches from his belly.\n\n“Woofie, no barking at Kronos,” Gabby said. “This is your brother. Be nice.” She’d really been taking on Mother and Father’s role in the last few years. I relented, taking a step away from the pup, holding a careful gaze on him to make sure he didn’t try to run off with my bone.\n\nBrother? Kronos tilted his head at us.\n\nI growled at the word. Not even close.\n\nGabby flicked her small finger across my nose. I’m not sure what stung more: that, or her betrayal. For so many years, it was just me and her. Her and me. How could she so easily welcome a new companion?\n\nAs the day went on, Kronos became not only more comfortable in the home – probably had to do with how much the place was starting to smell like him with all the pee everywhere – but he became more comfortable with me. I’d received enough scolding from Mother and Father (and the Youngling) to understand that I shouldn’t even waste my energy growling at him. He was obviously here to stay, whether I liked it or not. And once Mother and Father realized I probably wasn’t going to rip his throat out, they gave us more distance, which only opened the door for Kronos to follow me around, berating me with questions.\n\nWhen is dinner?\n\nWhat are we having?\n\nHow many times a day do we get to eat?\n\nCan I pee on this?\n\nIs this mine?\n\nWhere do we sleep? Oh, I hope we sleep inside.\n\nAre you my mother?\n\nCan I pee on this?\n\nWhen is dinner?\n\nFor the sake of my parents and the Youngling, I stopped Kronos from peeing on Gabby’s bed about eight times, on their bed about twelve times, and on the couch about a hundred times. I finally decided it would be easier to just show him where it was OK for him to relieve himself instead of wasting all my energy stopping him at every corner.\n\nThis is how we get outside, I told him, nudging my nose against the clear flap. Kronos just stared at me like I’d spoken a different language. I pushed through the door and stepped outside. When I turned around, Kronos was staring at me from inside as if he’d just seen a ghost.\n\nWell, are you coming?\n\nSlowly, Kronos stepped forward, barely touching his nose to the screen.\n\nPush! I was growing frustrated. Was this thing stupid?\n\nOnce Kronos finally made the (painfully slow) passage through the door, he practically leaped with joy. Woah! I’m outside! We’re outside! Woah, look at that! What’s this? What’s that? Instantly, he was nose to the floor, inspecting every inch of the patio, following every scent he picked up. This thing was a loose cannon, and it was so annoying. I was too old for this.\n\nCome on. Follow me.\n\nTo my surprise, the pup did follow me. He followed me as I took the wide berth around the yard, securing the perimeters as I always did. I only had to redirect him three times, as he was constantly stopping to smell flowers or inspect a blade of grass, but we finally made it to the far end of the yard where the large oak tree stood.\n\nPee here. Not in the house.\n\nKronos immediately relieved himself, lowering his bottom to the ground and scooting across the lawn.\n\nYou pee like a girl. I showed him the proper way, lifting my leg a little higher than usual. I hadn’t even realized how much I needed to go. He just stared at me in amazement.\n\nAnd then there was a shuffle in the tree above our heads, and I was quickly back on all fours, alert and ready. When I looked up, I was eye-to-eye with the blue bird.\n\nIntruder! Intruder! Intruder! I howled, jumping up the side of the tree. The bird was gone by my second bark, but I added the third for safe measure.\n\nWhat was that? Kronos asked, his eyes lit up like the sun.\n\nI was already strolling back towards the house when I answered him. That was a tree-dweller. It’s our job to protect the house from creatures like that. But they don’t all look the same. Some are furry. Some are – It was then that I realized what I had said. Our, not my.\n\nKronos’ little legs were hurrying to catch up to me. That was so cool! Can you teach me how to do that?\n\n I stopped in my tracks, feeling the hairs on my back rising despite the beaming warmth from the midday sky. I spun around, pressing my snout into his button-sized nose. Listen, kid. This is my house. Mine. Not yours. Mine! Those humans over there, I tossed my head towards the house, are mine. I will show you where to pee, where to eat, where to sleep, but if you think for one second that you can replace me, you’ve got a bone for a head.\n\nThe little pup melted into the grass, his tail shaking with fear. For a moment, I hovered over him, relishing in my power, savoring the scent of his submission. My shadow loomed over him, and then suddenly, a shadow loomed over me.\n\n“Beowulf!” Father was pulling me back by my collar again. He thrusted me backwards, and then bent down and cradled Kronos in his arms. “It’s OK, bud. He won’t hurt you.”\n\nShame shrunk my tail and all my power shriveled out of me when Father walked back towards the house, taking Kronos with him and leaving me behind.\n\nFather? I whined.\n\nBut all I got in return was a stern, “Stay, Beowulf.”\n\n\n\nI was sunbathing in the last sun patch when Mother called me. I sprinted at the sound of her voice and greeted her with the full force of my wiggling tail. She welcomed me briefly by brushing her hand over my head and squeezing my ear before rushing off in another direction. She was scrambling for her shoes.\n\n“We’re going to be late!” Mother called.\n\nThat’s when I heard Father pacing upstairs and the shuffling of the Youngling’s feet coming down the hallway. I looked from Mother to Father to Youngling, who were now adorning their freshly washed outside clothes. I felt the shiver overcome my body.\n\nThey were leaving. And none of them had my leash in their hands. My heart sunk lower than my tail.\n\nThe bliss of ignorance was the pip in Kronos’ step as he trotted over towards the front door where we had all gathered. I remembered that feeling, the feeling that your parents could never do anything to hurt you. For a brief moment, I pitied him. Here Mother and Father were, preparing to leave us and the poor little guy had no idea. They were putting on coats, checking pockets, tying shoes, and I was staring at them as I always did, willing them to stay with my not-so-puppy puppy eyes.\n\nWhat’re we all doing? Kronos squeaked, excitedly. When he saw me, he froze, remembering our last interaction, no doubt.\n\nThey’re leaving, I groaned, miserably.\n\n“Do you think they’ll be OK?” Mother said.\n\n“Yeah, they’ll be fine. Don’t worry about them.” Father said, then squatted down to face me. He cupped my head in his hands. “Be a good boy, Beowulf. And be good to your brother, Kronos.”\n\nJust like that, his command solidified through my body. I could not hurt the thing if I wanted to now.\n\n“Bye Kronos!” Gabby squealed, rubbing her hands across the furball’s belly. “Aw, he’s so cute I don’t want to leave him.”\n\nA growled rumbled in my throat, but I concealed it. Kronos looked like he was going to pee on everything again.\n\nAfter I heard their car leave the driveway, I huffed an exhalation and did what I always did when they were away: I laid on the couch and waited. Many years of enduring these long absences had given me time to appreciate the silences they offered. No Youngling to tackle me and try to ride me like horse while shrieking in my ears. That was always nice. It also made me appreciate the opportunity to prove myself as a dutiful guardian of the property. My parents trusted me so much to keep the home safe that they needed me to stay behind to protect it. And that I did: whenever I heard a rustling in the yard, I was out there in two seconds, ready to defeat it. But for now, I was enjoying the quiet calm.\n\nUntil…\n\nBeowulf?\n\nI blinked one eye open and saw a blurry Kronos shaking at the edge of the couch. I closed my eyes and sighed, spraying him with spittle.\n\nHis fear was filling the room with an unpleasant, stinging aroma and his nails tattled against the hard floor from all his trembling. He started pacing and whimpering: Where are our parents? Are we going to be alone forever? Why did they leave us?\n\nHush! I commanded, annoyed by his innocence. They’ll be back. Just lie down. Leave me alone.\n\nSilence resumed, and the sun began to set across the room. As it grew darker, I started to drift off into sleep, welcoming the blurred edges of a forest that started to morph the living room. I could hear the tree-dwellers scratching in their branches, tantalizing me. They were hungry for a rematch, and I was determined for this to end in a heap of detached feathers and fur. My nails gripped into the couch cushions, and I was preparing to sprint…\n\n…and then there was crying. Sorrowful, pleading, and terrified yelping. It was so sudden and so loud that it pulled me from my dream, ears perked, eyes wide. I scanned the dark room and found Kronos curled up in a ball smaller than my Kong ball, howling a pathetic howl. I was instantly irritated that I had woken up, sprung to attention, for him. I was planning to ignore him and carry on with my pre-bedtime nap, when I heard him cry out:\n\nMom!\n\nThe sound was so high-pitched and so full of fear, it actually made me cringe. Instantly, I was a puppy again, and it was my first night in Mother and Father’s house. I remembered the terror of being separated from my brothers and sisters and my mother and brought to a brand new place where the smells were unfamiliar and the people were new. I remembered crying out for my mom the first time Mother and Father left me alone in the house. I’d had no idea if they ever planned on coming back. I’d had no idea what I would do or where I would go if they never returned.\n\nI jumped off the couch and approached the terrified pup.\n\nHey, kid. You like stories?\n\nKronos looked up at me, surprise, fear, and tears all glistening in his eyes, and nodded.\n\nI nudged him with my nose, directing him to my bed which lie at the foot of Mother and Father’s bed. I gestured for him to lay in it, and then I curled up against him.\n\nLet me tell you about the time I slayed my first dragon…" } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Crowfeather Manor\n\nGenre: bedtime\n\nWord Count: 2963\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story from a ghost’s point of view." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "On an oppressively stormy night, the sort that would make even the bravest heart quiver, I wandered into the grand, eerily silent dining room of Crowfeather Manor. As I creaked open the window, a biting wind surged in, bearing with it not just the wet tang of rain but a hint of something rotten. From afar, a lone wolf's howl pierced the atmosphere, sending cold ripples through the air. \nI was hypnotized as a shadowy owl, made its descent onto a withered tree. I watched mesmerized, as its sheer, white wings flapped through the air. It seemed as though every single feather of the bird was crafted with care. Ah, such elegant, sophisticated things in this world there are. I let out a cold breath into the air, calmly watching the beautiful beast silently stalk its prey.\nOut of the blue, an unsettling \"splat!\" cut through the peaceful silence. Pivoting, I saw egg yolk slowly bleeding down the ancient wallpaper. Through the dimness, I barely discerned three teens, more mischievous than frightened. Sensing an opportunity to impart a slice of the manor's eerie history, I rushed out, rustling the old Crowfeather sign as I passed.\nI glided behind the smallest of them and spoke into his ear with a dry, wispy voice. “Think twice, before you trespass.” \n\"Did you hear that?\" The youngest of them mumbled, a touch of unease in his voice. His hand slowly reached for his neck, but not before I floated away. \n\"Probably just the wind,\" another replied with a scoff, though the hesitance in his voice betrayed him. I hovered behind him, sending chills down his spine. \n“Stupid ghost,” one of the teens said out loud, not afraid at all.\n“Pfft. As if ghosts even exist.” Said the tallest boy. \n‘I rolled my eyes. ‘Stupid humans,’ I thought. Unable to resist, I glided stealthily behind him and exhaled a frosty breath down his neck. He jerked around, his dark green eyes wide open, frantically looking around.\n“Did anyone else feel that?”\n“Change your mind about ghosts?” The tallest chuckled, trying to break the tension.\n“No, it was probably just the wind.”\n“I think we should leave,” the tallest one said quietly, slowly backing away. His tense jaw and clenching fists were a dead giveaway that he was scared, but he obviously didn’t want to show it to his companions who would most likely make fun of him, and tell their entire school. Fearfully, the tallest one (whom I assumed was the leader of the group) reached inside his jet-black bag and launched another egg toward my Manor. I raced after it and intercepted it with an air of practiced ease. ‘Those boys will never know what hit them,’ I thought to myself. I aimed and launched it back towards the teenagers. The smallest one scrambled away and hid behind a nearby tree to avoid getting egg yolk on himself. The other member of the group dodged it at the last second. Unfortunately, the eldest teen was right behind him. I watched gleefully as the egg burst against the leader's jacket. The dark leather, once clean and crisp now had yellow egg yolk dripping down onto his boots. Their startled yelps echoed into the night, a gentle reminder of the mysterious aura enveloping Crowfeather Manor. I cackled evilly into the night, trying to imitate the villain from the last horror movie I had watched eight years ago until I couldn’t see their figures anymore.\nI sighed, floating back towards the manor, memories coming back to me that haunted my mind since the very day my life was taken. This was the very place where my life had been cruelly snatched away eight years prior, all because of a careless dare at the tender age of nine. Initially consumed by sorrow, over time, I came to relish my ghostly powers. The town had painted my death grisly and violent, when it was only a simple trip over an ill-placed candle, and tumble down the stairs. \nI missed my parents, but I grew to hate them, they never came looking for me. I hated my sister the most. She was two years younger than me, but somehow managed to be twice as annoying. What was even more frustrating? She was my parent’s favorite child. Mae was an annoying little brat who would’ve probably killed me if she had the chance. I know that older sisters are supposed to be the perfect role models, but honestly, it was hard putting up with Mae’s constant complaints.\nTethered to this haunting place, the only reprieve from my ghostly existence was the act of possession, a dark path I had vowed never to tread. Yet, that resolution wavered when a man arrived the next morning.\nThe man was the first to enter the manor's threshold since my departure from the mortal realm. His threadbare clothes and scant belongings hinted at his modest means. Perhaps he wondered about the staggeringly low price of the manor. From the shadows, I watched him spy the sign at the entrance – [Crowfeather Manor - SOLD for $1,000,000].\n “Such an insult,” I murmured, bitterness tingling my ethereal voice. “The manor is worth much more than that.”\nI watched the man the entire night, as he ate dinner, watched a TV on an old television set he had brought, and closed the lights of the house. He seemed pretty content with living here. That would change real soon. The man seemed to know which room he wanted to sleep in because after watching television, he went directly there.\n As he stepped through the door, I placed my hand on his shoulder. He gasped and turned around to find thin air. He turned around again, only to turn back towards me as I placed my other hand on his shoulder. He couldn’t see them, but he could feel them. After a second, I released my rough grip on him and turned to face him, blowing the smallest breeze into his face. I watched, frustrated as only his face twisted up and his jaw tensed, not showing much fright. \nThe man hurried into his room, which was the same as it was eight years ago. Earlier in the evening he had brought all of his moving boxes and his suitcase into the room. He had neatly unpacked all of his clothes and set them in the dresser next to his bed. As he continued towards his bed, I slammed the door shut. The man spun around and laughed.\n“Come on, Gale, harden up,” he said to himself, chuckling. “You’re living in a manor where a dead girl lives, and you’re getting scared by the wind?”\n“Yeah Gale, harden up,” I hissed near his ear. This time, he didn’t even bother turning around. He settled himself into bed and shut the lights off with a switch near his old dusty bedside table. As soon as the lights clicked off, I floated onto the house's roof and started stomping around. In Gale’s room, I hoped it sounded as if someone was walking on the roof. I seriously hoped he was scared out of his mind. I continued for seven more minutes.\nDeciding it was enough, I floated back through the roof and watched him lie in his bed, not even unsettled by my attempt to frighten him. I sighed and sat on the windowsill, staring off into the vast, empty distance. My trance was broken when I heard an unsettling sound. I whipped around to see Gale passed out in his bed, with loud, scratchy sounds coming from him. ‘Is he snoring?’ I thought to myself. ‘How is he already asleep?’\nI growled in frustration, knowing that it was going to be much harder to get Gale out of my manor than I thought it would be.\nThe next morning I had an idea. I floated out to the garden I had been tending to at my time in Crowfeather Manor. The garden was small, but it was the only thing near Crowfeather Manor that was lush with life. I pulled out a handful of beets and tossed them into a string basket. The beets were bloodred, the kind that makes you not want to eat them, no matter how delicious they look. I brought the plants into the kitchen and started creating something that would finally scare Gale away. I chopped up the roots until it was practically a liquid. \nOnce I was finished, I waited. And waited. For two hours I sat on the kitchen countertop and waited for Gale to come down. He never did, so I floated through the ceiling and into his room. I peeked in, but to my surprise, he wasn’t there. The bed was made, and all of his belongings were neatly packed in cardboard moving boxes.\n‘Yes!’ I thought triumphantly. I hadn’t even tried to scare him out; everything just fell right into place. Suddenly, I heard the sound of the stairs creaking. I floated out of the room and saw that Gale was walking up the stairs with an incense burner. He placed it onto his rusty nightstand and started dragging the largest box towards the stairs. He hauled it down the stairs and left it in the middle of the foyer.\nOnce all the moving boxes were downstairs, Gale walked into the kitchen. He grabbed a cup and placed it under the tap. Bright, blood-red water started flowing into his cup. He shut the tap and emptied the water into the sink. He muttered something about rusty pipes and placed the cup down. It clinked on the counter, a metallic sound ringing through the manor.\nMy thoughts were interrupted by multiple ding sounds. I turned and found Gale putting a square piece of metal next to his ear. \n‘What is that?’ I thought. \n“Hello,” came the sound of an old man. “Twenty-four-seven pipe repair service,” I spun around, frantically trying to find the source of the voice. \n“Hello, my name is Gale and I need someone to fix my pipes today.”\nI was utterly confused. Who was the mysterious man coming from the black square? Who was Gale talking to?\nThe man spoke again, “Fill out the form on our website, and I will send one of my men over today.” What’s a website?\n“Great,” Gale exclaimed, clicking a bright red button on the square, and placing the metal thingy down. \n“What is that?” I accidentally wondered out loud. Oops. \n“Who was that?” Gale asked, searching the room with his eyes for me. I clutched my breath and stood as still as I could. “I heard you. This isn’t funny,” he said, looking around warily. \nI stood as still as I could, not daring to breathe. Not that I needed to, anyway. \n“Show yourself!” Gale yelled, drawing a knife from the drawer. I realized this was my moment. I grabbed both his shoulders and screamed. Gale screamed too. That worked out pretty well. \nHe started stabbing the air, trying to hit his invisible attacker. Of course, he had no luck. At one point, the knife went right through my transparent body. I giggled silently, sitting on the kitchen countertop watching as Gale stabbed the air. \nAfter a while, he relented and stopped trying to murder the air. \n“Stupid Manor,” I heard Gale mutter. \nSuddenly, an idea popped into my head as I slowly changed my ghost powers so that Gale could now see my figure.\n“Hi,” I whispered hesitantly. \nGale spun around, and his jaw dropped. He stood staring at me, gaping at me for a few moments until I floated a little closer to him.\n“Hi,” I said again. “I’m Sadie.”\n“Ahh!” Gale yelled but quickly settled down. Maybe he wasn’t used to seeing ghosts. He gave me a small, nervous smile. Then he sat down on a rickety chair. “I-I’m Gale.”\nI nodded. “So, you’ve probably been wondering what all voices and scares have been.”\nGale nodded hesitantly. He was still breathing hard. \nI chuckled. “I was trying to scare you out of my Manor.”\nGale looked at me weirdly. “But- but aren’t you a-”\n“A ghost. Yeah. See, nobody has even set foot inside this Manor ever since my death. So, when you came I tried to scare you out.” I looked at Gale sheepishly. “Sorry.”\nGale laughed. “Yeah, it’s just… I can’t even….”\n“Grasp that you’re talking to a ghost. That ghosts even exist?” I said.\n“Exactly; you took the words right out of my mouth,” Gale exclaimed, a little more friend-like.\nI smiled, enjoying this happy mood for once. Suddenly, Gale’s expression darkened.\n“Is it- is it okay that I ask how you died?”\n“Oh, well I don’t remember.” I sat, thinking for a moment about how to put this in words that would make sense to Gale. “Do you remember being born?”\nGale shook his head.\n“Dying is the same.”\nHe nodded.\n“So let me ask you a question now; how did you wind up here and also, what was that little metal thing that you were talking about?”\nGale laughed. “You mean a phone?”\nI furrowed my eyebrows in confusion. “What’s a phone?”\n“It’s like this little device that you can text, call, and do other things with.”\nI made a face. “What’s texting?”\n“I’ll tell you later. Anyways, to answer your first question, “This was the cheapest place I could find.”\n“Oh.” \n“Yeah,” he coughed. “I think I need some time to process this.”\n“Okay,” I said. “What would you like for dinner?”\n“You cook?” He asked.\n“I’ve spent the last eight years cooking.”\n“Well, in that case, I like borscht. You know, the Russian beetroot soup?”\nI could make borscht. I made it countless times for Mae when my parents had left for late dinners.\n“Yeah, I can make that. Why don’t you get some rest, and come back down in half an hour? We can have dinner at 7:00,” I said, trying to remember the recipe. \n“Ok, great! I’ll be down at 7:00,” with that, he got up and headed to his room.\nI remembered the recipe, so I headed out to the garden. The garden was at the back of the house, so none of the villagers’ prying eyes had noticed it yet. I grabbed a handful of potatoes, four carrots, and a basketful of onions and beetroots. \nI headed back into the kitchen and chopped everything up. I turned on the stove, which flickered to life. I guess there was still oil left from eight years ago. I placed a pot on the stove and poured in some water. The liquid immediately started bubbling, slightly spilling over the sides of the pot. I poured all the vegetables into the pot, which bubbled even more, spilling vegetable broth over the sides. \nThe borscht hissed as I poured it into a bowl. I kept the remaining soup on the counter, in case Gale wanted more. The white bowl burned my fingers as I carried the steaming borscht up the stairs into Gale’s room. Gale hadn’t been out of his room all night. We had agreed on 7:00 for dinner, but it was already 7:23. \nI slowly floated up the stairs to Gale’s room and knocked on the door. No answer. I knocked again. Still no answer. I cracked open the door. Gale wasn’t in his room or the bed. I floated through the door, to find Gale staring off into space on the balcony.\n\"Gale? I made you some borscht. Are you hungry?\" I asked. Gale remained sanctioned at the balcony, staring off into the stars.\n\"Gale?\" I asked again, my voice edged with fear.\nSuddenly, Gale convulsed, his body wracked with violent tremors that sent a bone-chilling shudder down my ethereal form—a sensation I had long forgotten. \n\"Help,\" he whispered weakly, his voice barely audible amidst the eerie silence. Then, in a horrifying twist, his head twisted around, a full one-eighty degrees, as if defying the laws of nature itself. He needed to live. \nThe sight of his eyes, now a ghastly shade of grayish-blue, struck me with a primal fear, as though I was peering into the depths of a soulless demon. A surge of revulsion washed over me, causing me to instinctively recoil, my incorporeal essence retreating in terror. Gale crumpled to the floor, his body devoid of life, while a faint, blue wisp escaped his now vacant vessel, dissipating into the darkness.\nDrifting back toward him, I hovered over Gale's lifeless form, a sense of foreboding enveloping me like a suffocating fog. The air grew colder, the very essence of the room tainted with an otherworldly chill. And then, as if summoned by some malevolent force, a frigid hand rested upon my spectral shoulder, sending a surge of icy dread coursing through my ethereal being. \nSlowly, I turned, my heart pounding with a mixture of curiosity and trepidation, only to behold a face that mirrored my own—yet twisted into a grotesque semblance of a ghostly apparition. Long, flowing brown locks cascaded around a visage with piercing gray eyes that seemed to pierce through the fabric of my soul. The pallid complexion and hollow gaze spoke of an existence beyond the realm of the living. It was as though... as though I was gazing upon a distorted reflection of myself. In that harrowing moment, everything fell into place, the puzzle pieces aligning with a sickening clarity. Gale had merely been a vessel, a pawn used by Mae to find me, and now, her ghostly presence loomed before me, ready to unveil the sinister purpose that bound us together.\n\"Hello, sister,\" said the ghost, her light all-to-familiar voice sending a second shiver down my spine. \"We have lots of catching up to do.\"" } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Shucked\n\nGenre: bedtime\n\nWord Count: 1323\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story from a ghost’s point of view." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Finally I was dead. This was the moment I had waited for my entire life. To be clear, I did nothing to hurry its arrival, nothing egregious anyway, despite the fact that my husk of clay wasn’t always what I’d call \"amenable\" to keeping itself alive. Nonetheless, I really did do my best as long as it was my duty. I fed it, exercised it, gave it multi-vitamins when I remembered and generally deferred from the things it craved that would clog its arteries, fog its brain and otherwise break down its fragile fickleness. But all along I knew time was on my side. It was just a matter of biding ‘til I got shucked out of that coil of nonsense.\n\nI remember the first time I realized my ultimate destiny was ghostliness. The old bag of bones was still pretty short back then, couldn’t even see up over the kitchen counter. I’d come around the corner with a full head of steam chasing after the dog and lost track of the forehead portion of things. As all of you with foreheads already know, the moment you lose track of it, it slams itself into something.\n\nThe countertop overhang was a willing hard spot and next thing I knew my mortal responsibility was flat on its back, forehead throbbing, eyes leaking, a permanent monument to clumsiness gashed right above the left eye. I was in there with all the pain and the crying. All I’d wanted to do was to catch up to the dog and feel its soft fur, but now I had to deal with fussing and sorting out limbs and being mad. At first, I was thinking about vengeance on the countertop, but there wasn’t any way to make it hurt like the forehead was doing. Then it came to me. The pain wasn’t really to do with the countertop; it didn’t have any feelings to give or take. The forehead was the real culprit. It’d done the slamming and now it was giving out all the hurting as well.\n\nThat’s when I knew. A ghost could’ve just passed right through all that sharp granite. A ghost wouldn’t have throbbing and that kind of foolishness. So that’s when I started looking ahead. I’d be stuck with clumsiness for a while, but someday I’d get shucked of it and all the pain that came along.\n\nFew years later the limbs got longer and even more awkward and now they did themselves the disservice of lifting the eyes up high enough to see into the bathroom mirror. I tried all sorts of ways to cover up that scar over the left eye, but I couldn’t get those clumsy hands to adjust the hair in any kind of way that looked natural. And the scar was just the beginning of the problems. The nose wasn’t anything I thought should be let out into public, the skin was its own little village of outraged inflammation and I’d heard someone laughing about big ears and was fairly certain it was in reference to the ones attached either side of the head I was in charge of. Going down from there it was just a rash of worries—was this part too big or that part too small—all this led to messing around with every kind of clothes, trying to cover things that wouldn’t hold up to being seen while making it seem like what was underneath might be worth looking at.\n\nI hated winding up courage to stand my flesh and blood in front of mirrors and every time I did, I looked forward to being a ghost. Ghosts don’t have unsightly reflections, or any reflections at all. Ghosts are just there, being themselves without worrying about seeing or being seeing. Ghosts don’t have to be in shape, ‘cause ghosts don’t have any shape at all, not unless they want to now and again. \n\nThe worst part about being stuck inside a body was, of course, being left behind. First, it was my dog, the same fluffy one I used to chase around the house. One day he got slow, then he wouldn’t run at all, then he would just lay there and snap at me when all I wanted to do was feel his soft fur. He finally went where I couldn’t follow, free to run around again while I was stuck inside of an earthbound ball of self-consciousness with no best friend to make me feel good when everything else was bad.\n\nAfter he went, others followed. I did eventually figure out how to get those ungainly limbs to walk straight and managed to look other bodies in the eye, even though I knew all the things that were wrong with mine. There was even a time when I thought I found someone who liked those things that were wrong about me. The hands I had fitted nicely into the hands he had and we got to staying together and I just about got around to thinking it was nice—spirits and bodies bound as one—and I got to thinking that maybe I didn’t ever want to be a ghost, not if being alive could be like this.\n\n But the truth is bodies always betray you. \n\nHe got slow before he should have, before I did. I had to help him with his body then. Lift his limbs in and outta bed. Get clothes covering him. Get food into his mouth when finally he couldn’t do it himself. Then, before he left, he snapped at me, just like that old dog and that hurt worse than any forehead banging ever could, even though I knew he didn’t mean it, even though I had a good idea he mighta been a ghost already when he did it, only his flesh and bones didn’t know it yet.\n\nI was done with bodies after that, though I still kept mine up. I made it stand and walk just so far everyday. I made it eat greens and drink clear water. But I was wary of it, I never trusted it and I got to hankering for my destiny as a ghost again. If I was a ghost, I’d be the one going places. If I was a ghost, I’d be the one shucking out and leaving folks behind. \n\nThe day I died was a bright and sunny day. I thought that was fitting, because I sprung right out of all that dust and ashes just like an honest to goodness daisy and it was everything I hoped it would be. Right away I zipped clean around the earth, all that mud and water spinning past and not one stitch of pain or one ounce of worry dragging me down. You’d think I was plumb lacking sense the way I dove deep down into the oceans, then came twirling up outta the waves squealing for it was so much joy before skimming the top of the coldest mountain and even sitting on the tip of the crescent moon only because it was so easy.\n\nYou bet I found that fluffy dog wagging his tail to see me and after that, found the one who I knew had always liked me, though I still made him say \"I'm sorry\" both for snapping, even though I knew he didn't mean it, and for leaving me alone.\n\nThe funny thing is after all that, after our hellos and after all our plans for eternity were put right in place, our favorite thing to do on evenings was to settle down next to each other and watch the bodies down below go about their business. It's not that we ever wanted to go through all that again, but once you've done it and once you are on the other side, it's easy to see how it makes a good story, and it gets you rooting for everybody else who hasn’t got shucked yet." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Sweet Truths\n\nGenre: asian-american\n\nWord Count: 1582\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about someone telling their family they won’t be continuing the long-standing family business." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "I look at my father’s sugar-crusted hands, his shocked eyes, and I know that I am breaking his heart. It is the worst time to say anything, to just blurt it out like this, while we are cooking and preparing the house for guests – especially because my father is busy doing the one thing that I am about to tell them that I will never do. But I can’t hold it in any longer, and I need to say something now, otherwise I’ll just be delaying the inevitable and probably have an anxiety-induced breakdown in the meantime.\nWe are standing in the kitchen while my family is scattered around the living room tidying up, pretending not to listen and clearly listening. Soft footsteps approach, and my mother is now with us in the kitchen. “What is this, Sonal?” she says. She is shocked; I am ashamed.\n“I’m sorry,” I say miserably. “But I can’t do it. I’m no good at cooking. Everything I touch comes out wrong, and tastes terrible. Even the simple ladoos I try to make fall apart.”\n“You have to practice, Sonal,” my father explodes. “You don’t practice enough! All you do is sit in your room, and write in that journal…”\nIt didn’t matter how much I practiced. I always made a new and interesting assortment of mistakes when attempting to make mithai – Indian sweets. A brief catalogue: Too much ghee. Too little ghee. Burn the ghee. Burn the…well, everything.\nBut I know they don’t want to hear that, and won’t hear that. Even if I were to shout it at them, the words would glance off their Selective Hearing Armor.\n“I want to be a writer.” I blurt out what has been reverberating in my mind for the last three years.\nMy parents gape. Again, terrible timing – but I’m not good at this, at speaking succinctly and articulating my thoughts on the spot. I’m most comfortable with a sheet of paper in front of me or with my fingers resting on a keyboard. There, I am in my element – a fish in water, a bird in flight. I can wrestle the messiest, most tangled thoughts into submission and give them structure, or turn them into something beautiful. On paper, I can reshape anguish into poetry.\nI am at my most comfortable when I am writing my thoughts, not speaking them. And so this conversation is coming out all wrong, and upsetting my parents, and that’s the last thing I want. \n “I’m sorry,” I say again. “I can’t make sweets. I’m so bad at it. I don’t enjoy it. And it just makes me depressed. But writing-”\n“Depressed,” my father scoffs, while my mother frowns. “Again with this…and you think writing will make you not depressed?”\nActually, I’m fairly certain that being depressed is a requirement for being a writer. I opt to stay silent instead of voicing this. Besides, his accent is getting thicker by the minute, which is a testimony to his growing agitation.\n“It’s your duty, Sonal. Your duty to your family. We’re counting on you.” He speaks as though this is all that needs to be said.\n“I can’t,” I repeat, and I find myself on the verge of tears. “I can’t cook. I don’t like cooking. Why don’t you ask Mahesh?” Mahesh, my cousin. A professionally trained chef who, in a relatively short timeframe, collected a shockingly large following on social media by posting professional-quality photos of his glossy, gorgeous desserts on a regular basis. He seemed the obvious choice to me. But…\n“Because you are our daughter, Sonal,” my mother says. “Mahesh...” she waves her hands dismissively. “He married into the family. It has to be you. Not some cousin.”\nMy heart sinks. Having my parents consider shifting the responsibility to Mahesh had been what I was banking on. Whenever I imagined this conversation, this is what would turn the tables, and help them reconsider my role in the family. This conversation was going even worse than anticipated, which I didn’t think was possible.\nMy father gives me a hard look. “When your azoba comes over for dinner,” he warns, “don’t say a word to him.”\n“He’s still recovering from his surgery,” my mother adds sternly.\nMy father turns back to shaping the ladoos. “We’ll discuss this later,” he says curtly, and the conversation is over.\nMy grandfather had started the family business of making sweets as a much younger man in India. By the time my father was born, he had established himself as one of the most talented mithai-walas in Pune and opened several stores which were now run by various uncles and aunts, who trained my cousins in the art of making mouthwatering sweets: Raas gulas that were plump, snow-white and smelling of rosewater; kaajukatli, diamond-shaped sweets made of ground cashews and covered with shimmering silver; and round barfis that ranged in flavor from carrot to mango to pistachio. My father had carried my grandfather’s dream to America, where we owned and operated the only American branch of his store – which was important, my father kept reminding me, because it was unlikely that my cousins in India would want to carry on the business once they went to college and built their own futures. His biggest fear, we all knew, was that his father’s dream and hard work would die with him – and with that, a precious part of our family’s culture. I think my father wanted to ensure that some part of my grandfather lived on – he had only doubled down on his passion and energy towards the mithai shop as my grandfather grew smaller and more bent with age. My older brothers had gone into medicine, and owned their own practices. I was the only one left, my parents’ last hope to keep their traditions alive in the country that had adopted them.\nI stay out of my parents’ way as they prepare for dinner. There is a cold heaviness in my stomach; I try journaling in an attempt to exorcise my anxiety and agitation, to trap these feelings onto paper, where they can’t gnaw at me. It doesn’t work.\nWhen the rest of the family comes over that evening, I find myself sitting next to my grandfather, laughing and joking and generally feeling like a fraud. When there is a lull in the conversation, he says, “Beta, come with me to the kitchen.” The term of endearment causes my guilt, which has been sitting at comfortably manageable levels, to flare up.\nI go with him, and once we reach the kitchen, he asks me what’s wrong. I want to tell him everything, but I am afraid to. I don’t want to disappoint him, the way I have disappointed my parents. Furthermore, I love him too much to hurt him in this way. Besides, my mother’s comment about his surgery is lodged firmly in my mind. I say nothing.\n“What’s wrong,” he urges in Hindi. “You have seemed sad all evening.”\nI shake my head. I do not know which is worse: Lying to him, or hurting him.\nAt that moment, my mother comes into the kitchen. My grandfather looks at her, concerned. “Priya,” he says, “What is wrong with Sonal?”\nMy mother freezes momentarily; and, just as quickly, thaws and moves fluidly into action. Nothing, my mother assures him with a big smile. Nothing at all. Sonal’s just tired.\n“Tired” is their favorite word to describe my depression. The implication following this word is, You’re fine. Now smile. But I can’t smile, and I can’t bottle it up any longer and pretend that I’m fine. Fueled by a tangled menagerie of emotions that have been simmering all day, I snap. I look to my grandfather and blurt, in my typical messy way: “I don’t want to make sweets. I don’t want to run the store.” And I burst into tears.\nMy mother is horrified, embarrassed. “She’s just very tired, very stressed from her schoolwork-” she lies, and grabs my arm to haul me away. But my grandfather silences her with a look, and gently lays a hand on my arm.\n“Beta, is this true?” he asks softly. “You don’t want to make sweets? You have no interest in learning?” Sniffling, I nod. My grandfather stands quietly for a moment, absorbing this; then looks at me and says simply, “Then you will not make sweets.” My mother stands perfectly still as a mess of emotions flicker in her eyes. By marrying my father, she had been dragged into the family business; there is a part of her, no doubt, that is struggling to absorb the unfairness of this. By this time, my father has arrived in the kitchen. My grandfather turns to give him a withering look. “Look how upset she is. What kind of pressure have you been putting on her?”\n“She needs to carry on the tradition, Baba,” my father argues, defensive and embarrassed.\nMy grandfather waves him away. “You know she can’t cook. Why don’t you ask Mahesh?” I begin to calm down – bizarrely, my grandfather advocating my lack of skill is incredibly comforting in this moment.\n“But what will she do, then?” my father says, exasperated. “Her math and science scores are abysmally low. She won’t be able to get into medical school, like her brothers. What else can she do?”\n“Well,” my grandfather says, “She’s an excellent storyteller. I imagine she’ll be a writer.”" } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Before the Crack of Dawn\n\nGenre: asian-american\n\nWord Count: 2587\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about someone telling their family they won’t be continuing the long-standing family business." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "\"Father is dying, come home, please.”\nAs I read the first sentence of the letter, I grimaced without bothering to continue reading while I tore it to pieces and threw it into the trash can. A torrent of sunlight poured in from the translucent window on which a thin layer of dust had accumulated. The radiant sun that seldom made upon its appearance in winter illuminated my mahogany desk but failed to brighten my mind. While staring blankly at the picturesque scene of the turquoise sky which was embellished with fleecy, pale clouds, I buried my head among my knees. I was seated on the leather chair in this absurd posture as I began to muse. The snow outside the window danced the waltz down from the heavenly sky and accumulated among the pavements whereas the tranquility which was only interrupted by the striking of the church’s clock soothed my heart. Listening to the striking of the miniature clock by my bedside, I remained stationary. The serene atmosphere began to generate uneasiness in my heart until the voice of my son reached my ears.\n“Father!” he was a youngster of five with pitch-black hair as my own and dark pupils which dilated occasionally as the plot of the stories I read to him at nights reached the climaxes. Clad in a pale shirt and grey trousers, the purity of his mind was not merely shown through the simplicity of his dressing style but also his miniature face on which a smile was almost unfailingly printed.\n“Morning,” I replied while checking the letter is within the bin, “Ponleak.”\n“Mother ordered me to inform you that breakfast is ready,” he explained while lolling upon my bed. “What are you doing?” Curiosity was manifested through his eyes which appeared to be illuminated.\n“Reading,” I fabricated a lie and felt ashamed instantaneously. “A volume depicting the subject of cosmology.”\n“Intriguing,” his tone was akin to an adult’s and made myself chuckle. “I was reading a novel featuring of Norse mythology.”\n“Had you considered reading classical literature yet?” I inquired.\n“I studied a few of Greek philosophers and Renaissance writers already,” he returned with pride, “I finished a collection of poems of Edgar Poe and The Divine Comedy lately.”\n“ ‘There, pride, avarice, and envy are the tongues men know and heed, a Babel of despair’,” he quoted.\n“ ‘Oh blind, oh ignorant, self-seeking cupidity which spurs as so in the short mortal life and steeps as through all eternity’ ,” I remarked as he mused.\n“ ‘He that increaseth wisdom, increasth sorrow’,” he replied.\n“ ‘Three things cannot be long hidden: the moon, the sun, and the truth’,” I stated while chuckling for a moment until melancholy overwhelmed my mind.\n“Why?” my son determined my perturbation immediately as I shook my head mournfully.\n“You remind me of him,” I explained as he seemed to be befuddled.\n“Who?” he questioned me as I smiled.\n“Me.”\nA torrent of sunlight poured in through the translucent window which had been bestrewn with dust as beads of perspiration accumulated upon my forehead while lolling upon the mattress in the sweltering room. The floor was smudged with smatterings of dirt mingled with mud while the walls in the room were of an akin appearance with the pale paint besmirched with mold. An unpleasant smell of raw fish pervaded throughout the atmosphere as I yawned and stared with repugnance toward the mosquitoes whose constant attempt of generating raucous noises to disturb my sleep managed to create much exasperation in my mind as well. As I stretched my arms wide and stared blankly toward the view out of the window, the call of my old brother arrived upon my ears. Without even a necessary movement of perceiving the frown and displeased expression printed upon his face, I could sense his unsatisfied manner toward me for his tone was blunt, albeit his coarseness appeared as wonted toward myself.\n“Darany!” his voice echoed throughout the miniature abode of mine as I grimaced. “Wake up now! You’re late for breakfast!”\nWithout the strength to reply for I was still fatigued by the strenuous task I was delegated by my father yesterday, I nodded as if believing he would discern my reply.\n“Darany! Answer me!” he shouted. “You better wake up now, we’re leaving.”\n“Alright,” I answered in a voice barely audible to my own ears.\nPacing into the room, Arun appeared in front of me and demanded, “wake up! You lazy!”\nI stood up instantaneously akin to a dog following the orders of his owner while the view of the mucky waters out the window caused an indescribable sickness to overwhelm myself. My father wore a pitch-black mustache while his head was approaching baldness. The coarseness of his hands was remarkable whereas I grimaced as I perceived the unraveling edges of his begrimed shirt and the holes upon my cloth.\n“Darany,” he began as I seated myself upon the plastic stool, “you caused much trouble to your brother and me this morning.”\n“I owe you penitent apologies for being unpunctual,” I lied while nibbling upon the fried noodles.\n“No breakfast for you, brat,” my mother stated as I bit my mouth, “I’ll save this for your brother’s lunch.”\nI could visualize the cunning smile upon my brethren’s face without turning back to discern the devious beast. With a slap on my back, my father addressed me to board the boat in a matter of immediate. My brother was beckoned by him toward the cabinet in his room to retrieve the wooden oars and fishing net while I scurried toward the miniature canoe, infuriated by the favour of brother over myself in my parents’ hearts. The weather was balmy with the scorching sun above my forehead and the rickety dwellings which were supported by rigid pillars above the dingy river of Mekong. A smattering of fleecy clouds which embellished the turquoise sky contrasted the spattered village of which I was an inhabitant.\n“Darany,” my brother called as he strode toward me, “look, I can carry these oars single-handed!” My urge to retaliate by throwing the oars at his face was stifled by my mind which sanity instead of rashness reigned.\n“Your brother will become a sinewy man when he grows older,” my father remarked with pride. “You’re so puny.”\nHe’s empty in the mind, I thought.\n“Look, Darany, look,” he told me while stepping into the boat, “I shall be brawny one day while you will remain miniature forever! You cannot even lift an oar with two hands at the age of forty!”\nAs empty vessels make the loudest sound so they that have the least wit are the greatest blabbers, I mused.\n“Alright,” my father began while handing an oar to me. “Let us begin!”\nThe smell of the grime water generated illness in my heart as I paddled forward. My brother oscillated the oar at a brisk pace deliberately, attempting to make my father compliment his efforts. With my greatest endeavours, I pushed the wooden paddle back and fro, yet my attempt was futile as my father ignored my existence and focused upon teaching my brother the methods of fishing.\n“Your great-great grandfather started the fishing industry,” he uttered as I was engrossed in my own reveries in a faraway land, “this is an important business which had grew to become a part of our family’s history. It is a tradition! A custom which shall and will remain forever in the future generations!”\nMy brother nodded violently as I stared blankly at the grey river which carried the passengers of dirt and mud and occasionally fish which I dreaded. The toil and strenuous tasks of my father made him akin to a disgraceful dog without a trace of dignity left upon his face which was no longer an expression of an evolved human but a primitive creature.\n“Darany!” my father slapped my back again. “Focus! Look at your brother- look at how I use the fishing net. You’ll be using it one day too.” I ignored his existence as he pretended not to notice mine whereas I resumed my train of thoughts. We soon arrived upon a forest of shrubs and majestic trees which planted their roots firmly beneath the soil and dingy water. The emerald-coloured foliage blocked my view of the sky but created a picturesque scene. The tranquility of the atmosphere bought calmness toward my heart as we departed from the traditional markets in which chatter of housewives and laughter of the younger children pervaded throughout the air.\n“When the water level drops,” my father resumed to explain to my brother whose witlessness was indescribable, “the prahoks come out, and you dump the fishing net into the river briskly. Pull it out within a few seconds so the fish cannot flee! And there- you’ll have a ginormous supply of fish abundant even as the food source for the entire village!”\nWhile handing the fishing net to my brother, my father thrashed my back forcefully.\n“Don’t paddle now, Darany,” he stated as he positioned the oars upon the wooden floor of the canoe. “Watch your brother.” My brother’s skills were deft while I stared in awe as he pulled the fishing net from the water strenuously. With the help of my father, the two of them managed to haul a remarkably tremendous amount of mudfish out of the river. The water in which mud and dirt mingled landed on my trouser and shirt while the fish oscillated and struggled to survive. Needless to say, their attempt was futile and only caused my father and brother to blurt into laughter. For a moment, I pitied the fish. The brown, sunburnt face of my brother manifested his perfect embodiment as a fisherman while the thought of him becoming a piscator venerated by the village as my father had been caused me to grimace.\n“It is night time,” my father stated while pointing toward the sky which had darkened, “let us return.” Without his action of belabouring my back, I began paddling. As I toiled, my father and brother held a conversation upon the topic of the day’s success and blurted into laughter occasionally.\nThe serene atmosphere generated not calmness but rather delightfulness for the arrival of nighttime in my heart. I regarded myself as a nocturnal animal who enjoyed the solitude from the society. After obtaining a novel which I hid cautiously beneath my mattress and a notebook below my pillow, I strode out of the room while chuckling to myself at the bizarre posture my brother remained in during his sleep with his hands upon his forehead and the left foot on his right knee. The pitch-black scene did not horrified myself but rather created pleasure within my heart whereas I scurried out of the accommodation as silently as a mouse pacing athwart the kitchen food after committing a theft in which it took a piece of cheese.\nThe wooden door was opened vigilantly by my hands while I hurried up the ladder which connected the rickety panel of the floor to the top of the house. The roof was rigid, and therefore, I was able to diminish my fear of falling off or the structure collapsing. With my left hand upon the fringe of the roof, my right foot pushed my body upwards. As I settled on the peak of the abode, jubilance overwhelmed me. In my hands were a novel featuring the topic of classical mechanics and a notebooks in which I drew sketches depicting the constellations of each night. The picturesque of radiant stars illuminating the dark sky which seemed to stretch out into infinity caused a bizarre delightfulness to overwhelm myself. All of a sudden, the village I inhabit in appeared to be miniature while the entire nation had became diminutive in my heart. My hatred and repugnance toward the my brother being the favourite child seemed to be petite and trivial. The beauty of the universe each night was a reminder to myself of the insignificance of my troubles which were disposed of from my heart instantaneously as I gazed upon the luminous stars.\n“What do you mean you don’t want to be a fisherman?” my father was shocked by my statement which I had long buried within my heart.\n“I dread the business of fishing,” I remarked, “I loathe the idea of my future years being spent upon this career in which one merely throws the net into the river and pulls it out. ‘My mind rebels at stagnation.’ I aspire to become a person who can accomplish the true dreams within my heart. I shall not be exaggerating if I say that I abhor our family’s fishing industry.” The torrent of words poured from my mouth imprudently while my father stared blankly at me. Whether it was disappointment or melancholy that his expression indicated, I did not mind anymore. I disrelished my days of yore in which my liberty was restricted by my family’s tradition and my desire to please my father.\n“You already have a successful son,” I resumed, “a remarkable one, why shall you insist in torturing myself and agonizing my aspiration for freedom?”\nMy father’s face was as pale as snow whereas his pupils dilated for a few times as I uttered my feelings which I had hidden for numerous years and throughout my childhood.\n“What shall you do then?” he inquired at last in a nonchalant manner. “You were born to be a fisherman! All of the males in our family were fisherman. You are just selfish and care only for yourself- you are destroying the reputation of our family! We had been venerated throughout the entire town, no, not just the town- the whole district regarded us as the most remarkable fishermen.”\n“Perhaps I was born into a wrong family,” I returned, infuriated, “I was never destined to be piscator!”\n“How can you not be?” he replied, as exasperated as I was. “You’re my son, you’re your mother’s son! And you are meant to be who you are supposed to be.”\n“My skills at fishing is not deft as Arun’s! You never uttered a single compliment at my endeavours of improving or performing better. I was diligent, yet you never noticed!” I shouted at him.\n“You’re right,” he uttered at last, “perhaps it had been a mistake- I wished I never had a son like you.”\n“Father?” the voice of my son arrived upon my ears again as I feigned a smile on my face.\n“Yes?” I replied.\n“You were lost for a moment, weren’t you?” he inquired as I chuckled.\n“Indeed,” I replied, “I regret a lot of things.”\n“Such as?” he questioned while I stared out the window.\n“I hate myself,” I answered with frankness, “all these years, I tried to fade the memories of his into oblivion, yet I failed.”\n“ ‘The suffering may be moral or physical; and in my opinion it is just as absurd to call a man a coward who destroys himself, as to call a man a coward who dies of a malignant fever’,” my son told me. “You committed a significant mistake, whose details I do not acknowledge, yet you can undo it simply not by regretting but conducting an action which you wished you could’ve done.”\nI remained stationary while my son let out a genuine smile which touched my heart.\n“Had you, Ponleak,” I began as he listened attentively, “ever been to the water village of Cambodia?”" } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Luna's Realization\n\nGenre: asian-american\n\nWord Count: 1810\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite about someone who falls back into childish behaviors whenever they’re around their family." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Luna's eyes were as wide as saucers as they stared at the scene right in front of her; Denise on all fours on the living room of her parents' house as two girls were riding her back and making lion noises. The two girls; Dana and Jade, an eight and six year old respectively, were having the best day of their lives as they commanded their Aunt Denise to take them to the kitchen where the \"Wicked Witch\" was keeping the \"Damsel in distress\" hostage.\n\"Are you sure the witch has Princess Bubblegum?\" Denise asked the two girls\n\"Yes! Now onwards, our trusty lioness!\" Dana exclaimed as she pointed her finger towards the kitchen\n\"Hold on then, it's gonna be a bumpy ride!' Denise roared as she crawled her way towards the kitchen door where her mother was already waiting for them, laughing hard at the three's antics.\n\"Oh dear, oh dear. Look who we have here? Speak your name and purpose\" Diana, Denise's mother, said in a posh accent\n\"It is us, the Heroes of the Song Kingdom, and this is our lion, Denise the IV, mighty as her father, she is. We come here to rescue the Princess that you have held captive\" Dana announced in her best British accent\n\"What evidence do you have on that accusation?!\" Diana asked in a horrified voice, clutching her chest for more dramatic effect.\n\"Princess!\" Jade called.\nA bark erupted from the kitchen and out came a very happy golden retriever that was wearing a pink tutu dress around her hips, her tail wagged happily as she licked Denise on the face. Luna gasped at the sight, and she was soon enough ready to throw herself off a cliff when she saw Denise laugh hysterically at the action done to her by the dog. The two girls then scrambled off Denise and started petting the retriever who happily accepted the affection she was receiving.\n\"You doing okay there, lioness?\" Diana smirked as she helped her daughter up.\n\"All good\" Denise grinned\nLuna was losing all sense of her sanity as she looked at the very different side of her girlfriend. Luna was used to Denise of course, they've been dating for almost two years now and they just moved in together last month after they decided a small apartment would be better than a small dorm at campus. Luna's known Denise for almost 6 years, all of high school and two years into college. Denise had always been cold and quite intimidating, she excelled in academics and extra curricular activities as she was a champion swimmer back in high school, so everyone was either idolizing her or ignoring her for being too good at everything. She had a reputation of snapping at people and putting them in their place, she could shrink people into tiny marbles whenever they'd look at her badly or bad mouthed her. She had a few friends to begin with, and she trusted only a few to hang out with. Luna didn't dare to look at Denise all throughout high school, only because she thought the girl would probably fry her alive if she ever laid eyes on her--heck, Luna found herself feeling guilty every time she thought of the girl; long story short, Luna Ohm made it her life mission to stay away from Denise Song.\nGod probably snorted when Luna planned that out, because fast forward to college, Luna ended up being roomed together with Denise. Fast forward a few more months when Luna realized she started falling for the girl who never once glanced at her in a nice way. But by sheer dumb luck, when Luna got a tipsy after a bottle of soju at some stupid room party next door, Denise had taken the responsibility of taking care of her and when morning came, Luna woke up to a peacefully sleeping Denise snuggled up against her, and so she deemed it necessary to kiss the girl awake; the moment Denise kissed back was the entrance of the sheer dumb luck. Alas, despite the clear indication of them officially being a couple; Denise was still cold and distant, and slightly mean. \nSo Luna hoped Diana could forgive the constipated look that Luna was giving right now. Not her best moment, and being constipated wasn't exactly what Luna was going for for her first meeting with Denise's family.\n\"And you are?\" Diana looked at Luna\nLuna snapped out of her thoughts and smiled at the older woman who was definitely a copy of Denise.\n\"Luna Ohm. It's nice to meet you, Mrs. Song\" \nDiana laughed and waved her off.\n\"No, silly. Are you a magical creature or a messenger of sorts?\" Diana asked, her eyes sparkling with joy.\nLuna frowned, confused at the question. Clearly she was human and a Performing Arts major.\n\"She's the goddess of Hongik University. She came together with our lioness\" Dana said with great enthusiasm\n\"She is stunning as a goddess.\" Diana nodded\n\"But why am I not a goddess then?\" Denise pouted\nLuna had to hold back a whimper when she saw her girlfriend pout, because never in her life did she think she'd ever see her girlfriend be this childish and adorable.\n\"But you are! You're an a-animagus?\" Dana said, she frowned at the last part, not entirely sure if she pronounced the word right\n\"Well that's better! Thank you, my little Heroes\" Denise grinned as she gave each girl a kiss on the forehead, and the dog a soft pat on the head and little scratch behind the ear.\nDenise then stood up next to Luna and intertwined their hands together.\n\"This is Luna, my girlfriend that I told you about\" Denise told her mother happily\n\"This is my mom, Diana. The mother that I've told you about\" Denise smirked at Luna\nLuna chuckled and nodded.\n\"Very nice to meet you, Mrs. Song\" Luna said\n\"You too, dear. Oh and Denny, sweetie, your Dad's on his way back here with those turtle onesies you asked to buy\"\n\"Onesies?\" Luna muttered\nThe word onesies and the surprising nickname of her girlfriend in one sentence didn't seem right at all. Denise liked wearing black, she had nothing but dull colors in her closet, she probably hated the sun if Luna asked her. Point is, Denise didn't like a lot of things that involved happy feelings or bubbly appearances. And she's pretty sure Denise would smack her if she ever called her \"Denny.\"\n\"Yep, onesies for us to wear tonight\" Denise informed her casually, an unusual smile plastered on her face\n\"You're going to wear one?!\" Luna could not the excitement bubbling inside her.\nDenise raised her eyebrows at Luna who almost crouched before the scary gaze.\n\"We're all wearing one. Tonight we race like turtles as per Jade's request\" Denise said as she then gave Luna a peck on the lips.\n\"Well why we wait for the King to come home, why not show Luna around? Your tree house can probably still hold two people up\" Diana gave them a big smile \n-\nLuna's not so sure if the treehouse could hold them both up but Denise practically tugged Luna down to sit on her lap in case the treehouse gave way. It was a small space, obviously belonged to a much younger Denise. There were posters of girl groups, boy bands and old movie posters plastered all over, and a few drawings and notes by grade school Denise had its place beside the only window. The walls were painted a bright yellow that had little daisies all over the place, the ceiling was painted the night sky with plastic glow in the dark stars glued on it. Luna almost squealed when she saw two lava lamps on the makeshift desk that Denise had, and the small collection of medals from her elementary and high school swim meets.\nLuna almost wanted to slap herself. She was sure this was some kind of simulation or maybe Denise decided to become a YouTuber who pranks her girlfriend, or maybe she's about to get punked, or worse...Alien abduction. Yep, that sounds just about right. The aliens saw her, abducted her then placed her in a different universe to act as their test rat. She can already see a huge green headed dude peering down at her and scribbling down on their clipboard, questioning her life decisions.\n\"My favorite color is yellow\" Denise spoke\nLuna almost choked on her own spit.\n\"Mom always loved daisies so she whined and whined until Dad gave in and painted them all over the walls\" Denise ran her fingers against the chipping paint\n\"We'd spend our Friday nights here just eating junk food and watching reruns on Mom's laptop. Then we'd draw the stars and try to figure out the constellations. Drew hated it because he can't seem to find his inner artist\" Denise spoke with such happiness in her voice, and she made sure to squeeze Luna's hand from time to time\n\"Of course I grew out of this treehouse but then those two kids came\" Denise chuckled \"Drew told them to go crazy over this old thing and next thing I knew I'm writing wonderful fairy tales and reenacting it with them.\"\nLuna caressed the smaller girl's cheek.\n\"You were acting like a squirrel\"\nLuna blinked rapidly.\n\"Huh?\"\nDenise giggled. \nShe freaking giggled!\n\"Squirrels are either hyperactive or statuesque. There's no in between. You've been acting like that since we arrived.\" Denise said\nLuna laughed and wrapped her arm around her girlfriend's shoulders, she slid down a bit to be able to snuggle against the smaller girl.\n\"I just never thought you could be so carefree when you're with your family\" Luna sighed when she felt Denise drop a firm kiss on her forehead\n\"Well, I wanted to find a girl who's willing to deal with my Lord Voldemort mask before I finally let my inner Princess Anna loose\" Denise chuckled\n\"And you chose me?\" Luna asked, looking straight into bright brown orbs\n\"Depends\"\n\"On what?\"\n\"If you win the turtle race tonight\"\nLuna laughed out loud at that. Okay, maybe Luna was far off with her impression of this adorable baby holding her tightly with this lovestruck look on her face.\n\"I love you like this\" Luna whispered\n\"Just like this?\" Denise questioned \n\"Especially like this. It's...new and refreshing\"\n\"It doesn't turn you off that your girlfriend still plays house with her two nieces and wears adorable onesies?\" Denise grinned\nLuna sat up, the floorboards squeaked. She cupped Denise's face and gently kissed her.\n\"Depends\"\n\"Depends on what?\"\n\"If you agree on wearing onesies every Friday night with me while me drown ourselves in ice cream and Disney movies.\" \nDenise smiled widely, her face so young and beautiful and pure and just...happy.\n\"Okay\"" } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Maaaaybe\n\nGenre: bedtime\n\nWord Count: 1032\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story where ghosts and the living coexist." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Maaaaybe\nBy Kristi Sturgeon\n\nFor a period of my life, I was obsessed with ghost shows. It’s not because I was scared of such things. Any show about hauntings and the search for spirits intrigued me, so I watched them all. I was fascinated by the technology and how those machines were used to hear things we could not hear and see things we could not see. So when my cousins, who were paranormal investigators, came to visit from Kentucky and offered to take me on a ghost hunt Thanksgiving night, I jumped at the chance.\n Tim and his son, Mike, had been investigating the paranormal for several years. They were part of a larger group of paranormal seekers in their part of Kentucky. Tim even led ghost tours of his town, which had plenty of Civil War history. \nSince we were at my parent’s home for Thanksgiving, we wanted to pick a nearby target. A little over a mile away on Pecan Grove Road is a cemetery that predates Oklahoma's statehood. Most of the headstones are older native sandstone, eroded over time into nubs making some of the bodies buried there anonymous. Surrounded by a four-foot-high chain-length fence, the lot is tiny and often unkempt. Sometimes the property looks so overgrown that it is only identifiable by the small sign in front of it, declaring that it is “Pecan Grove Cemetary”. Occasionally, people in the community or a Boy Scout troop will take it upon themselves to mow and clean the lot. But the place is often derelict, adding to its creepiness even in the daytime.\nAn old, plain, white house used to sit next to the graveyard, but it burnt to the ground several years ago. Though rumors to the contrary still exist, no one died in the fire. Sadly, the home and all its contents vanished in the flames. Only the cracked stones of the foundation and the tales of the fire remain. The subsequent investigation by the local fire department turned up no clues as to how the fire started. Perhaps this has something to do with the mythos of an adjacent area.\nMere feet away, down a slight hill, and southeast of the cemetery is a small stream. My Uncle Joe claims it to be a “devil’s bathtub” or place of evil. Attempting to add credence to this folklore, others of his generation have made similar assertions. In reality, no one knows the events that led to this monicker. However, the mere suggestion of encountering something demonic gave us all the reason we needed to avoid that area. \nThe night of our investigation, the overcast skies held the stars captive, keeping their friendly light from our eyes. Brown leaves danced and whirled in the crisp autumn breeze. A light on an electric pole next to the cemetery illuminated the south side but cast a gloom on the north side. Long, spooky shadows caused by bordering trees resembled long, crooked fingers, poised to snatch up intruders like us. The place was a little eerie.\nThe group included Tim, Mike, Tim’s wife Judy, my cousin Kris and her husband Andre. With recorders and other equipment in hand, we surrounded the fence in teams of two. Being a professional, Mike, who was my partner for this hunt, naturally headed to the darkest, creepiest part of the lot. This, however, I didn’t mind as my curiosity was stronger than my fear. To say I was excited was an understatement.\nAs we turned on the recorder, Mike asked. “Is anyone here with us?” We waited silently for a response as we listened attentively. In the distance, an owl added, “Who.” \nAfter a minute or two, I asked, “Does anyone want to talk with us?” Neither of us heard or felt anything but the wind blowing the trees. Despite numerous attempts to make contact with the beyond. I was skeptical that we would catch any evidence of a haunting.\nAfter about twenty minutes, we rejoined the rest of the group. As with us, no one had heard, seen, or experienced anything. But as we talked, we noticed that the electric pole was producing a loud, constant hum. For some reason, this enticed Tim to take out his electromagnetic field (EMF) detector.\n“Hey Mike,” Tim said, “the EMF detector is going crazy by this electric pole.”\nMike peeked over his dad’s shoulder at the small black box with rainbow-colored lights at the top and nodded in agreement. The red light, which was farthest to the right (indicating a spike in EMF), was lit. Taking the detector, he moved closer to the pole. “Wow! That’s nuts! Someone should notify the electric company about this. It could be dangerous!”\nOn the plus side, EMF is known to be high whenever spirits are present. Knowing this, Tim took out his recorder to continue the investigation. “Would anyone like to speak with us?” he asked. After several minutes of listening to the crackling of the blowing leaves and the hum of electricity, we adjourned to my parent’s house to eat more pie.\nIt was several weeks before I got an email from my cousin Tim. Although our ghost hunt had been around an hour, with three recorders going, I knew that Tim and Mike would have a lot of things to comb through. Most of the ghost-hunting shows that I watched made it clear that finding evidence takes a lot of patience and time, and even then, those kernels of proof are rare. There’s a lot of silence and not much evidence. I expected Tim to say that we didn’t get anything, so when I saw the attached sound files, I was quite surprised.\nOn the recording, Tim says, “Would anyone here like to speak with us?”\nThe first voice was childlike and unintelligible. Whatever was said was spoken in haste.\nThe second voice left me with goosebumps. \n“Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.” High but masculine, the disturbing, musical laugh was arpeggiated and discordant, as if it was a line from an aria from some hellish opera. Its next word was drawn out slowly and made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. “Maaaaybe.”" } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Teddy\n\nGenre: bedtime\n\nWord Count: 1284\n\nPrompt:\n\nWrite a story about someone who is haunted. Whether by a ghost or something else is up to you." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "My name is Teddy. I’m ten years old and a demon wants to eat me. \n\nI can see it but nobody else can. I can talk to it but nobody else can. \n\nThe demon screams at me at night but I don’t get scared. Even when I see spit drip from its sharp black teeth as it tries to bite my head off I’m not afraid. I’m ten after all. I’m not a baby. \n\nI can’t tell my mom or dad about the demon and they wouldn’t believe me anyway. There are rules that you have to obey when a demon owns your soul, and one is that mom and dad can’t ever know. Nobody can help me it says. \n\nThe demon promises that one day soon it will eat me until I’m almost dead. Then with one more big bite I’ll be done for. Those huge black shiny teeth are sharp as my dads razor. I’m sure they could munch through my innards like pink blancmange. We have that at school for dessert sometimes but I don’t like it anymore. \n\nThe demon knows I cannot be his blancmange until I am thirteen. I don’t know why thirteen. The rules are the demon’s and not mine. It knows I know about the thirteen rule. I’m safe. I’m only ten. Ha!\n\n\n\nHello. I’m Teddy and I’m eleven.\n\nA demon is dying to kill me by gobbling me up. It will eat my toes, my tummy and lastly my head. It owns me, it keeps on telling me. But it can’t hurt me yet - not thirteen, see! It still tries hard to scare me though. \n\nIt gets really mad at me and said that it can’t wait to chew my head off. It can’t wait to grab my skull in its three-fingered claws that are sharp enough to gut fish or little kids. I’ll bleed through my eyes as it squeezes my brains to a blood-orange pulp. Finally it will bite into my inflated head until it pops and my blood dribbles down its chin and onto its serrated chest. \n\nIt taught me the word ‘serrated’. I’d heard it before but I didn’t know what it meant. The demon said that it can mince up children straight into its belly to save time by just using this serrated, kiddie chest-grater. Like a smoothie maker for monsters. But it will not eat me in a fast smooth way. I have to suffer slowly, it says but it doesn’t say why. \n\nThe demon has shown me too how this will look. It’s brought a lot of broken thirteen year old girls and boys to my bedroom at night. \n\nI said “Eeeeeuuuuuwwww!” as I saw innards come out through their bellies like red wet sausages and get swallowed down the demons gullet. It also taught me ‘gullet’. I like that word. But I don’t really like seeing the broken kids eyes after I go to sleep. \n\n\n\nHey there. I’m Ted. I’ve just turned twelve. Mom says I’m almost a “young man” now. A lot can happen in a year. I’ve grown up a lot. \n\nMy demon is still coming to me every single damn night. It warns me. It promises me that the agony it will inflict on me will have me begging it for death. I will know a “unique suffering” before it finishes me off. These aren’t my words BTW. These are demon words. It talks very passionately about me most of the time.\n\nThe demon talks in lengthy detail about my death. How it will flay me. Or maybe strangle me almost to death. But release me, then strangle some more, then go round again, again and again. \n\nIts rheumy yellow bloodshot eyes stare wistfully into the dark folds of my lamp-less bedroom as it describes my death. The demon bites through all my bedroom lightbulbs, keeping it dark to enhance the mood, it says. Mom ran out of lightbulbs, “what do you keep doing in that room at night Ted?”, she asks. But she wouldn’t believe me. And I can’t say. \n\nThe demon wonders what will I taste like. How warm will my thirteen year old blood be? How quickly will it cool and clot? Do I know my blood type? It doesn’t make a difference, but it would like to know. \n\nWill my brain be aware of what is happening while I’m being eaten alive? Will the demon chuckle contentedly while it does? (Oh yes, it says, it will chuckle). Will my meat be firm and tender?\n\nHow loudly will my bones snap as it shears through me right down to the marrowbone? I decided I don’t like that word - ‘marrowbone’. It’s ugly and gives me images of the inner parts of me that shouldn’t be seen. Should never be messed with. And especially, should never be eaten. \n\nWill I be easy for it to digest? Will I give it a dickie tummy? Or gas? It must be playing with me, demons don’t get gas, surely? But it says they do. Their internal digestive system is made of brimstone and lava-fires that glow through its smoothie-maker rotisserie chest. The gasses from it exhaust through nose-less nostrils and it’s backside. I don’t know a sorry death until I hear and smell a demon fart my half-digested body, it said. It didn’t say this to be funny either. And I never laughed. \n\nSometimes the demon gets so lost in its stories of how it will enjoy violating me that I think it forgets I’m even there. But there I am. In my bed. Making sure my ever-so-slightly hairy toes aren’t poking out from the bottom of my football pitch quilt. \n\nI squirm inside when I imagine the monster chewing on my toes. My poor toes that have been content on the ends of my feet for twelve years, un-gnawed. I can’t quite believe that one day they will be no better than sausages on cocktail sticks at a children's birthday party. \n\nGreat Ted. Why did you go and think of that - birthdays? My next one is… I can’t quite comprehend it yet. It’s real, but not real. The demon and its funky breath is very very real. I’m still twelve. For now. \n\n\n\nI’m Theodore. Tomorrow I turn thirteen. \n\nI don’t want to talk about it. \n\nNo mom. I don’t want a party. \n\n\n\nGreetings. I am Malphas. Or Dajjal. Or Xezbeth. \n\nI have been known by many names in many cultures. \n\nI have existed for centuries. All should fear me. Especially children. Those that don’t are the lucky ones. But awareness comes with age. Awareness brings concern. Concern brings fear. Fear brings death. I am death. \n\nI am a clock-watcher. A time-eater. I have no end. \n\nTeddy once thought himself eternal, as the young do. Blinded by his youth. Ignorant and immature. But immaturity eventually blossoms. It wears down like enamel on teeth and ripens like a blood-orange, ready to be eaten. \n\nI wonder, does Teddy remember the blood-orange promise I made him? Not to worry. It has no impact on his outcome. \n\n*\n\nI am Malphas. The demon that ate Teddy. He was aware to the very last bite. \n\nI strangled him. I flayed him. I grated him. He begged. He suffered. He cried. I chuckled. His bones snapped loudly. His head popped messily. His marrowbone was stringy. His blood curdled. His toes were hairy. He gave me wind. My stomach feels troubled. He was too gristly and I am still picking bits of him from between my teeth. \n\nI am the monster that finally ate Teddy and he tasted… Average. \n\nThey really are past their best at thirteen." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: Extinct\n\nGenre: bedtime\n\nWord Count: 1096\n\nPrompt:\n\nBegin your story with a protagonist taking shelter under a bridge during a thunderstorm. An animal scurries past which shouldn’t exist. Against their better judgment, they decide to follow it out." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Dark, ominous clouds were forming as Mya Grace hurried home from school. She was looking forward to researching her history class assignment on extinct animals. Still, she was frightened by the thunderbolt that struck 15 feet before her. She ran for cover to the nearest place she could find that was dry, an old rickety bridge.\nThe rain came down in large drops, and little streams formed in front of her with leaves and sticks flowing by. Mya sat with her knees propped up towards her body against a post holding the bridge. She rested her arms on her knees to lay her head down, waiting for the storm to pass.\nThe rustling of leaves and water trickling were gently soothing her nerves when suddenly, a screeching noise jolted her from her calmness. She lifted her head from her arms and saw the most unusual bird plowing past her. She remembered seeing photos from class of prehistoric animals and he looked just like a picture she saw of a dodo bird. But that is impossible she thought, Dodo birds were extinct. \nThe storm was easing up, and curiosity got the better of her, so she followed the bird to look at it closer. Squawking and making loud screeches, the bird slipped into the foliage beyond the bridge. Coming out of the foliage onto a clearing, the storm had stopped, leaving a rainbow of color in the sky.\nBright exotic flowers as tall as 10 feet were looming all around Mya. She had never seen such beauty, nor did she know this area of her hometown existed. Each step took her further into a foreign location with sounds of animals she was not familiar with.\nWater splashing and female giggles came from a body of water ahead. A clear aqua green pool so clear you could see to the bottom where fish were dodging in and out of hiding places. Deep royal blue corals with forest green seaweed drifting in the water. Giant white jellyfish plunging up and down, and unusual fish shooting by. \nWith her back to Mya, a young woman was sitting on a rock naked from the waist up. Mya looked again, and the lower half of the woman’s body was that of a fish, with dark green scales and a broad fin tail in rust with yellow trim where her feet should be. She was laughing and speaking to her friend in a language Mya had never heard.\n“Mermaids? Impossible!” Mya said to herself and gently rubbed her eyes.\nThe half-naked woman on the rock slipped back into the water as if she had heard Mya, and the laughter and splashing stopped.\n“Where am I?” she asked out loud to no one. Though it was a beautiful place, she wanted to return to the bridge and head home. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see the dodo bird clucking, screeching, squawking, and going in circles. His eyes were yellow with a small black dot in the middle, giving him a crazed look. Once he saw Mya, he ran from her, making even louder noises. A passenger pigeon flew overhead while a great auk scurried by. From her school studies, Mya realized these were birds of extinction, but they were very much alive here in this place.\nWalking in the direction the birds were going, she heard a noise behind her. She swung around to see a giant Irish elk nibbling on shrubbery, another extinct species. Behind the elk was a manikin old man with silver-white hair and a beard wearing a straw hat, carrying a walking stick, and smoking a corn pipe.\n“Who have we got here, Ismo?” he asked the elk. Ismo looked up briefly to see Mya but quickly returned to eating.\n“I’m Mya Grace.”\n“Lovely to make your acquaintance, Mya Grace. My name is Orist.”\n“I’m lost. Do you know how to get back to the old bridge?”\n“You must be from the other side. How did you get in here?” Right as he asked that question, the dodo bird started screeching. \n“Let me guess. Alfred got out again and lost his way.”\n“I don’t know who Alfred is, but I followed a dodo bird and ended up here.”\n“Yep, that’s Alfred.”\n“Where is this place?” Mya asked.\n“It is where all extinct plants, animals, creatures, beings, live in harmony and love.”\n“Why are they extinct?”\n“Humans. They have a way of doing that. It’s not safe for you here, Mya Grace. You must go because some creatures still haven’t forgiven the human race.”\n“Aren’t you human?”\n“Heavens, no, but I am a being, and my kind disagree with human views of what they call progress. We believe all species have a right to exist. Destroying something because it serves no purpose is not born from love. I could show humans a world of extraordinary beauty, including Alfred, but they would never see their beauty. They see what they want to see, which makes them a mystery to me. All in the name of progress. Now, turn around, head through the Cooksonia plants, and pass the Saint Helena mountain bush until you reach the Franklin tree. Turn to the right, and you’ll see green foliage; walk through the foliage, and you will be back in your world.”\n“My world?”\n“Yes. We share the same planet but live in different worlds, young Mya. Off you go, it’s been a pleasure,” Orist said, tipping his hat to Mya.\nFollowing his directions, Mya found her way back to the green foliage and went through where she could see the bridge she had found shelter under. She knew how to get home from there. The storm had stopped, and the sky was clear, not a cloud in sight. \nMya’s parents were sick with worry until they saw her run up the path to the house. They had trained her to take cover when a storm hit and wait till it passed before walking home. Mya's parents hugged her tight and asked her where she found shelter.\n“Under that old rickety bridge, past Mr. Dockson’s house.” Her parents looked at each other in confusion.\n“That old rickety bridge was torn down years ago. They said it was extinct and useless as the river had dried up” said Mya's father.\nBaffled by her father’s information, Mya knew the bridge was there, but trying to convince her parents or anyone else was useless. Shrugging her shoulders, she remembered what Orist said, “They see what they want to see and remain a mystery to me.”" } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: The Tragic Honeymoon\n\nGenre: asian-american\n\nWord Count: 1188\n\nPrompt:\n\nStart your story with the line, “This was supposed to be the happiest day of their lives,” and end it with, “By then it was too late.”" }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Janie McCrory\nThis was supposed to be the happiest day of their lives, janie giggled and Shrieked as harry tickled her and smacked her from behind, she tried all her possible best to wiggle away from his mischievous touches but she was a second too late and he scooped her up in his arms. He looked her dead in the eyes and saw the glint of happiness and passion behind those green eyes and he knew just perfectly that she was the right choice for him\n \"I love you\" he groaned, she was about to reply him back but he tossed her onto the bed, towered over her as she shrieked caught off guard and kissed her deeply without bothering for a reply back She swinged her arms around his neck and returned the tender kiss which grew more and more intense by the second. Harry cupped her breasts from her gown and groaned into her mouth as the fabric was a huge hindrance, he stopped the kiss, lifted her back off the bed and undid the bodice of the dress and grinned as the gown came off \"do you like what you see mr. Mcrory, Harry licked his lips and kept grinning as Janie's soft and smooth skin came into light, I'm indeed one lucky bastard he thought as he resumed the kiss and fondled her breasts and she moaned into his mouth this time around savoring and enjoying every touch and kiss, her body was heating up and her pearl gate was getting moist.\n Harry took his tux off and ripped off his shirt, he went in for another kiss but that was a ruse, he buried his head on her left breast and nibbled a little hard on the nipple, she gasped out, grabbed the back of his head for hin to continue, he made his way southwards for her pearl gate and that was when they heard the sound, it was a common sound but uncommon in a five star hotel suite, the sound was that of a cat meowing \n They both looked at each other awed, \"was that?\" Asked janie, harry nodded \"yes, a cat\", harry redid his belt and tucked his erection between his legs which made Janie giggle. He breezed to the door and swinged it open but the hallway was empty, \"there's nothing here\" he said, before he could close the door the cat meowed again somewhere close, harry groaned and went in search of the cat.\n There was nothing spectacular about the meow of a cat but it was oddly strange because the staff of the hotel colombes d' amour worked tirelessly around the clock to meet and satisfy their clients and occupants needs but he keeps on telling his dad and urging him for them to switch hotels for a while now but he remained adamant because the hotel was like a second home to them and there was around the clock security which harry didn't know of that his dad put in place already.\n The sound was getting closer, a door opened behind him and janie spoke in a whisper \"found it yet?\" Harry glanced back and replied \"not yet but do not worry your pretty head, this is your night, get back inside\" janie smiled, bolted the door and jumped back on the king sized bed giggling like a kid. The sound was coming from the elevator and Harry pitied the poor animal, poor cat has been trapped in the elevator maybe for hours. \n He pressed a button and the elevator doors swinged open but there was no cat, the sound came again and he realised it was coming from a recorder which was duct taped onto the elevator's wall \"what the fuck\"he muttered walking up to the recorder to switch it off. He pressed the power button with his index finger and something grazed the finger, \"ouch\" he said and examined the finger and it was bleeding, he sucked on it and that was when he realised too late how in the movies the antagonist makes use of poison of this type to kill his enemies leaving no trace, harry couldnt even finish his thoughts and he slumped to the ground flailing for a second and was still.\nApproaching footsteps were coming towards the room, thinking it harry, janie rushed to the door and swinged it open with her cleavage popping out a little too much from the gown, she became scarlet pink as she saw it was a hotel porter, she muttered an apology and shut the door with her eyes clinged shut, she smelled her before seeing her, she was putting on their cologne, their signatory scent, the cologne she bought for her which cemented their relationship but janie knew deep down she was going to break her heart, she knew deep down she was diverse and a bisexual which was a blessing but Jackie wasn't, she was only a lesbian, which was her curse and janie knew there wasn't a light at the end of the tunnel for their future but a marriage with harry McCrory, that was more than a light at the end of the tunnel.\n She opened her eyes and jackie was seated at the edge of the bed in a sundress , \"hello monkey\" And she grinned, Jane had never seen this look on her face before and she knew deep down the meowing cat was her doing, \"where's my husband?\" Janie asked, jackie scoffed \"y'all been married for two minutes only\" janie added enough steel to her voice and asked again \"where's my husband?\", there was an eerie silence and jackie replied \"dead\" Janie's breath caught and she fell on her ass \"I know you still love me, I know you was only pretending to enjoy his kisses and caresses\" said Jackie and she walked up to janie to touch her hair \"get your hands off me you sick bastard\"\n she yelled, jackie flinched, but she tired again to touch her, janie started laughing and raised her head up with her eyes filled with tears \"don't you get it, I'm bisexual, I wasnt pretending shit with him, I never loved you, I only used you to pass time and to experiment, you are nothing\" Jackie could see the finality in her eyes and hear it in her voice, she almost shed a tear but she held it like the iron woman she was, she was already anticipating this and the disappointment hit her like a freight train, she touched her hair again out of nowhere a hunting knife surfaced which glinted under the light and by then janie knew it was too late, \n jackie buried the knife into her throat and watched as the life escaped from her Her body slumped to the ground and jackie escaped into the night happy and glad she performed the perfect crime because anyone who stumbles on the crime scene would believe janie killed herself after finding her husband dead and by then noone would suspect her and she would be long gone and by then it would be too late" } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: A Surprise Awaits a Reporter\n\nGenre: bedtime\n\nWord Count: 1137\n\nPrompt:\n\nYou’re awakened from your nap by someone asking, “Are you hungry?”. You fell asleep somewhere else entirely." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "A Surprise Awaits a Reporter\nScene One – Walking Through the Woods – Camera in Hand\nWhy did I think that I was taking a short cut? I don’t even live in this part of town, and have only visited it a very few times. And I am getting very tired. It’s been a long day and the sun is beginning to set. I might not be able to take the pictures that the editor wanted me to take. And what does ‘a strange red light over a potato field as the sun set’ actually mean? And why trust what some boy had to say on the subject? He may have just seen an old movie from the 1950s or 1960s and had UFOs on his brain like I did when I was a kid. \nMy nasty editor often sends me to the weirdest, most unlikely situations and then laughs at the pictures that I take. And no one works with me on these assignments. I think they might be trying to get rid of me this way. I suspect that the editor does not truly believe there is anything to this ‘UFO sighting’, or he wouldn’t have sent me out on this assignment ‘just in case’. He would definitely have sent his son instead.\nI hope this path through the woods gets me to the field like the old guy I asked for directions said that it would. It would have been an easier trip if my car weren’t in the shop. The path is barely visible. Maybe the old guy had mixed it up with someplace else. I do that sometimes myself. I am so very tired, I really need to find my destination soon. It’s Saturday, and I stayed up very late last night at my local bar. My boss knew about my Friday night love affairs with drinking at the Toby Jug British bar. That’s doubtless why he called the bartender there. I used my best imitation of vocal sobriety when I spoke with him. I don’t think he cared whether I was drunk of not. He just wanted me to take pictures the next day, or to force me into a situation where I would say ‘no’ and he could feel justified in firing me.\nI stayed until closing time at the bar, and the bartender had to shoo me out, not for the first time. Then I walked home dragging my feet, but it still took me a long time to go to sleep when my head hit the pillow.\nThe editor told me that I had to wait until the sun was beginning to set to take my pictures, As in his thinking, the lighting would be ideal then, maybe making the picture spookier. \nThe trees in the woods are beginning to thin out now, and I can see the field of potatoes ahead. The old man was right in the directions that he gave me. I have some time to myself before the sun begins to seriously set, so I think that I will just sit down for a short spell, with my back to a particularly thick and comfy-looking birch. A little sleep now would not hurt, and I am sure it will only be a relatively short sleep. My few camping experiences as a child involved only short naps at night, with my worrying about dangers involving bears, cougars or wolves.\nScene Two – A Rude Awakening\nI was suddenly awakened from the lovely dream I was having concerning my pictures appearing on the front page of the newspaper by a voice asking me a question I could not totally decipher at first. The second time that I heard it, I detected the words ‘Are you hungry?’, spoken in a young boy’s voice.\nIt was so dark that I could not really see what I was being handed, but it felt like some kind of apple. I took it with an almost silent ‘thank you.’ \nHe replied with the strange and somewhat threatening words of ‘They want you to eat it so that you can see them”. I am not always a chance taker, but I had a feeling I didn’t have much choice in the matter. Mere seconds after I bit into the obviously drugged apple, I saw that I was surrounded by four figures with belts that glowed, and were about the height of the boy standing directly in front of me. I could also tell that I was inside what I believed was probably a rather small spaceship.\n The boy then spoke again. “I know that you are from the newspaper, and have come to take a picture. The editor of your paper said on the phone when I called that he was sending someone to the field to see whether the light was still there. The Cloids are going to give you a picture that you can give to your editor that won’t lead to their discovery.” With those words, the lights came on. There were four Cloids in the room, short, and with clearly intelligent faces. One of them walked up to me and handed me the picture, that I could copy and say that I took it. It showed a large red balloon that floated above the potato patch. It was illuminated by a bright set of lights that circled around it. The picture was taken as the sun was setting. I wondered how they knew that was the kind of picture my editor wanted, although not necessarily with the balloon. I did not really want to find out, and I certainly was not going to ask the Cloids the question. I merely responded with a ‘thank you,’ and a slight bow that I thought would be appropriate to the occasion. They bowed back to me, as did the boy.\nThe boy, I later found out that his name was Harold, and I left the rather small space ship, which shortly afterwards took off quickly into the starlit but still generally dark night. Harold told me that when he encountered the Cloids, they had known that he had seen them in the sky the night before, and had beamed his brain to discover that he had spoken to the editor of a newspaper. That was why they had sent the balloon up at sunset today As we walked and talked our way through the forest, I asked him what his parents thought about his night adventures. As a newspaper reporter I am naturally nosy. Harold told me that he would often sneak out the window of his bedroom at night, and go adventuring. I told him that I owed him at least one dinner. He agreed. I felt that he might be a source of suspicioius newspaper scoops in the future." } ]
[ { "role": "system", "content": "Create A Story Based on the Users Inputed Genre, Word Count, and Story Title\n\nthe story should follow the title but be creative." }, { "role": "user", "content": "Story Title: The vicious mafia, Nakimura.\n\nGenre: asian-american\n\nWord Count: 1230\n\nPrompt:\n\nStart your story with someone admitting a secret and end it with someone telling a lie." }, { "role": "assistant", "content": "Dylan's POV\n \" I have to go Dylan, my boss needs me at the office\"she said carrying her bag from the table.\n\"Alright\" I said moving towards her and pecking her lips. \"I'll come to pick you by 2:00pm\" I told her.\n\"Yes sweetie, I should be done by then\" she said getting out of the door.\n Hannah has been my girlfriend for two years now after I ran away from Thailand. She's the only person that knows me and why I have been in hiding. My parents and two brothers all did in a car accident with I being the only survivor. I was taken in by some mafia groups and was like the second in command for my boss. But after killing lot of people, I suddenly realized that being a mafia leader gives me no future, so I decided to leave but being an active participant of the group, Nakimura my boss and caretaker refuses to let me go. I sneaked away killing five of his men. I moved to America hoping I'll be safe here but I got news from one of my loyalists that Nakimura has decided that I should be brought to him dead or alive by all means. It was Hannah who took me in the night I was attacked by one of his men and since then I have been hiding at her place and since we've started dating, I've been given another reason to live, a future but not here. Somewhere far away, where no one can find us and she has agreed to go wherever I want to with me. Shaking away from my thoughts I heard a knock at the door. I wasn't expecting anyone and I had promised to pick Hannah up by 2:00 and this is just past twelve. Picking my gun from the shelf in the nightstand, I move slowly to the door and peeped to see someone I was never expecting. I opened the door sharply, his hands were dripping off blood. \"What the heck are you doing here\".\nHannah's POV\nI moved into the uncompleted building knowing that no one knows there apart from me and Nakimura, my father. \n\"Father, why the sudden visit\" I asked.\n\"Is that how you greet your father you have seen since a decade , you bastard\"he slapped me hardly making my lips bleed. \"You said you will hand him over to me as soon as you find him but what did you do, you kept him in hiding, thinking I won't find you?\"\n\"I can't give him to you father, I love him and he does the same for me and I can't betray his love for me\", I shouted to his face.\n\"Oh really, well I was hoping to do this the easy way but it seems like you want it the hard way so am gonna give you the chance to chose between me killing your wretched mother and your so called lover\" he said smirking.\n\"No father, you can't do this.\" I cried.\n\"Well I have already done it, I know where you both are hiding so I give you two days to decide and bring him to me yourself if not your mother will be gone and so is your boyfriend gonna die,take good care of him till then darling\" he said exiting the building.\nI sat on the floor sobbing, I can't lose the two of them. My mother has been paralysed for 10 years now, father didn't let me stay to take care of her instead he sent me to America to study and be his spy on his enemies. I hate him so much and the guy who made me know what love is, he is going to kill him. I stood up and got out of the building, it was already past one and Dylan mustn't know I didn't go to work and my so called boss is my father who wants to kill him. I have been lying to him for two years and I don't know what to do now. He has always been truthful to me but I never even let him know anything about my family. And I don't want to lose my mother either.\nGetting to the front of the supposed company am to be working at even though I have never entered it before, I waited for Dylan.\nFew minutes later he stopped his car in front of me and I entered pecking him on his cheeks. \"I already missed you sweetie\" I said smiling but instead he glared at me.\n\"What's wrong Dylan\" I asked confused.\n\"Who are you\" he said angrily.\n\"Ummm... Wha...t do you mean by that\" I stammered\n\" Hello Miss khaning, I am Nakhun,one of your father's men\" I heard from the back seat.\n\"Dylan, I can explain everything to you.\nDylan's POV\nI was so angry when I heard from Nakhun that Hannah was not who I thought she is. So she's been lying to me all this while making think I've got someone to share the rest of my life with but I was wrong.\n\"I didn't know you were one of my father's men that is being hunt down the night I saw and took you in. It was after a while that my father informed me about you but by then I was already liking you, he wanted me to bring you back to him now and he is blackmailing me using my mum as a threat. And I have just two days to present you to him or he will kill both you and my mother\". She finished crying.\n\"So do you think after keeping all that a secret I will believe what you just told me. Well you are wrong. I don't want to ever see you again in my life, now get out\" I shouted.\nShe kept pleading as she got out of my car but I wasn't listening. I can't believe she betrayed me. Am so disappointed in her.\n\"Nakhun where is the way to the hideout you were talking about\" I asked Nakhun since I've packed my load and he said he has somewhere safer for me to stay.\n\"Just keep driving, I'll direct you\" he said.\nTwo hours later, we got to a bungalow that looks hideous since it was built in a secluded area. We both got out of the car as I started walking in as Nakhun was walking behind me.\nAs I got into the house, I was immediately knocked out from behind. Waking up, I realised I was tied to a chair and as I looked forward, I saw a duo I never expected to be together, Nakimura and Nakhun.\n\"Welcome back to Earth, Dylan. You thought you are smart. Did you think I won't discover the sharing of information going on between and Nakhun\" he said laughing.\n\"Nakhun, how could you do this to me. I trusted you\" I said angrily.\n\"Well sorry you trusted the wrong person. After you left I started informing the boss about all your movement. Everything I said to you for the past two years was all a lie. I was told to tell you that by Nakimura. You were just so foolish to know\".\n\"Well time to go visit Mr Satan in hell\" Nakimura said before shooting me." } ]

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