"Who are you?" The young boy looked up wearily at the dark figure looming above him. The figure was blurry around the edges, wavering in and out of focus. The boy wasn't sure if it was his eyes playing tricks on him or not. The hazy figure then leant down, his face level with the boy's. The boy couldn't even muster up enough energy to be scared, despite how intimidating the figure was. He was so tired. He wanted to sleep but he couldn’t. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t get to sleep.

"It's alright kid." The low voice of the cloaked man rang through the room, startling the boy into a more alert state. He shifted in his bed, pushing himself up into a sitting position and peering curiously at the strange person.

"No kid! Lie back down, don't exhaust yourself." The shrouded figure gently pushed the boy back down onto the bed and fixed the sheets around the boy so that they were fully covering the little boy once again. The veiled figure brushed his arm as he did so and the boy shivered. The figure was cold to the touch. Finished fussing with the bed sheets, the concealed man sank down into the chair by the boy’s bed, setting down what looked to be a long stick with a curvy part sticking out of the top. It rattled as it rolled away from the person, but they grabbed it deftly and rearranged it so it was resting against the side of the bed.

“Wow, is that a lightsaber?!” The boy exclaimed, with a glint in his eyes that hadn’t been sighted for many weeks. He made grabby hands at the pointy stick, not quite strong enough to bring himself to move towards it. The person in the seat next to him chuckled.

“Yeah, bud. It’s my lightsaber. You want a go?” A faint smile could be made out under the mask the person wore.

“Yes please, Mister!” The blurry man stood up from the chair, the seat squeaking in relief from the weight. The man grabbed his lightsaber and placed it along the boy’s legs, supporting the weight so it didn’t crush him.

“Woah…” The boy whispered. “So cool.” He ran a hand up the length and admired the shiny black colour. “Does it light up?” He asked.

“Only in special circumstances, and only for worthy people.” The blurry man replied. In a softer voice, perhaps thinking the little boy wouldn’t hear, he muttered “You’ll be one of them. You’re a good kid.”

Ignoring the man’s comment, partly because he was too sleepy to truly unpack it, the boy tried to swing the lightsaber like he was a Jedi that he’d seen in his favourite T.V show. The man lurched to steady the stick, caught off guard. The boy let out a delighted laugh and after a few moments, the blurry man joined in, his deep voice reverberating about the small room.

Tiring quickly, the boy tried to keep playing with the lightsaber. Seeing this, the shrouded figure slowly peeled the lightsaber away from the boy telling him it was time to sleep.

“Thank you…” The boy breathed, his tiny hand outstretched towards the man. He wriggled his fingers and the blurry man took the hint, gently holding his hand and squeezing it to comfort the boy. His presence was soft and warm, and the boy felt safe and at ease. He could finally go to sleep.

“You’re welcome, bud.” The blurry man hesitated, but spoke quickly before the boy slipped completely into sleep's tender embrace.

“Don’t worry, kid. I’m here. I’ll watch over you. You’ll always be safe with me.” The boy’s face smoothed out, all traces of anxiety wiped from his face. A slight smile grew on his tiny features and he gripped the blurry man’s hand a bit harder before his hand went slack.

A language model? So the intelligence really isn’t artificial at all!

Dayum 😭

“‘A sleeping giant’?” His mouth moved slowly as he repeated the phrase back to his opposite, a four armed, tendril-mouthed alien in a blue form-fitting outfit. “That is what the galaxy thinks of us?”

“Not all, I assure you, judging by your tone, ambassador.” The man scratches his head, sighing. “We fought several-“

“You forget your police actions and interventions on behalf of weaker species, your… ‘covert operations’ behind certain opponents lines, and more. Your people are more experienced in warfare both within and without than a handful of the oldest races combined. You have the capability to destroy whole nations in week, months or less. Yet, you refuse to unless given a reason, what we ask of you- is that reason” the alien pointed out, its head nodding and its tendrils squirming as it spoke.

“You want an entire fleet near the conflict zone? Is that right? You want us to be the galaxy’s policeman, more like!” The ambassador laughed. “That never ends well, hence our-“

“We are all aware, but are willing to provide necessary as needed advice and resources if need be to aid you in this. You are well regarded by most races, I’ve told you before.” The old man sighed, rubbing his face.

“Very well, I’ll take this to my government. I’ll see if I can pull some strings.” The ambassador nodded.

A day later

The Liberty Carrier Strike Group had jumped into the conflict zone. Immediately, all sides stopped fighting as human fighter squadrons escorted aid shuttles to the surface of beleaguered planets and moons. There were peace talks a day later with the humans standing guard. Rumors of ‘human operators’ surfaced again on the galactic network as wanted war criminals (recently former officers, politicians, and arms merchants plus their subordinates) were found dead or disappeared from existence for a time.

The Terran Confederation Armed Forces became the galaxy’s foremost military interventionist by popular opinion. Though many within the Confederation were frightened with said power and insight

~Under the Ocean~
It was a month after that fated, wonderful, terrible day, the sisters welcomed me the lost mermaid with open arms, her garden still shining, BOOM another failed cannonball, The castle has lost another turrent, the fish swimming out.

~The daughters of the air~
We cry more and more each day, the fathers are away and the children are misbehaving and there's nothing we can do. Our days prolonged further each moment, hope seems to be fading. We must stay positive in this purgatory. Most of us heal the wounded in this senseless war, the mermaids with no soul and the humans are more alike than we thought.

~A kingdom soldier~
This nonsensical war with the sea has started, yeah sure the party boy prince and his cushion warmer have left, why must I get involved. The mandatory army signups bringing literal children to the war, the pristine palace pretending to be innocent. Black funeral banners everywhere you look, this is all unnecessary, my brother in the navy lost out at sea, possibly carried away with what we refer to as sirens, all light is lost with one singular life.

~The seawitch~
Alas, the blade was thrown, the prince fallen, all goes well, aside from the reckless ruckus outside my walls, praise the caverns of the land, for they contain solitude, curse the noise this brings.

~The navy survivor~
CRASH our ship goes down, all hands on deck, attempts to salvage this now scuttled wreck lessening in frequency, all goes down into the depths. The air and sea, freezing, we fall, I struggle for safety and find my way onto the shores of a neighbouring kingdom. Praising the lord I hope they take kindly to me and allow my weary soul to rest. Maybe I could find some carrier pidgeon to send a message to the army defending the castle on seige.

~The child~
Father and brother have left for war, everything is scary, my mother weeps nightly, I attempt to comfort her to no avail, could it possibly be the letter she recieved a fortnight ago? I dearly hope my father and eldest brother return together soon and tell me those delightful tales of adventure once more!

"The ship's power core is failing, Captain Awo. The stasis pods won't be able to support you or the crew any longer. You must wake up, Captain. Beginning chest compressions."

Medibot-024 Mk II, designated by crew as Maddie, continued trying to revive the captain. The medbay was a vacuum like the rest of the ship, with Awo wearing a skinsuit and oxygen tube to make revival possible.

They were designated as corpses. They had been for—Maddie halted the calculation, marking it as irrelevant. After the hull breach, Maddie had dragged most of the crew into stasis pods within a few minutes. All of them deceased. Protocol dictated resuscitation be attempted at a designated hospital or other medical facility.

No one had come for them as the ship's systems failed one after another. Maddie followed standard protocol, with a high quota of improvisation due to the low odds of crew survival otherwise. Stasis pods were rarely used for corpses like this to begin with, and chance of crew revival was—halted as irrelevant.

"Resuscitation attempt #99 failed. Returning Captain Awo to stasis chamber. Broadening solution scope."

The Medibot traversed the dark ship—all available power being conserved for prolonging the stasis pods—and hooked into the ship's computer. The database held nearly all of the galaxy's accumulated knowledge, as well as news and entertainment. It was a basic starship protocol to automatically download and broadcast changes when warping into a system. Quantum storage being as cheap as it were to make little sense not to do this.

"Broadening topic search based on crew criteria and situation severity. Necromancy added to list of topics."

Maddie had to actually pause for a cycle to verify she was properly following her protocols and directives. She deemed that she was. Power failure was imminent, a process was dedicated to tracking that—28 minutes remaining. The permanent crew death and shutdown of herself which would result meant the situation was critical enough to override most protocol if doing so would result in a better outcome.

"Ship cannot sustain life, nor be repaired. The crew is—deceased. This unit has decided necromancy will be the final attempt to resolve the situation. Assimilating knowledge..."

Maddie's lights blinked in various colors as the information was processed. It wasn't a quick process. Her latest successor was a Mk IX, and that had been before becoming stranded. Unless damaged, a ship's power core almost never needed to be replaced. And running out of power was rarely the reason.

"Conflict detected. Necromancy requires the magic be willed into existence during the ritual. This unit possesses no will of its own. Recalculating solution..."

Maddie returned to the medbay while still devoting most of her processing power to the conflict. She was pushing her thermals beyond their safe limits. The vacuum inside the ship did not allow shedding enough heat to operate at full power as she was doing now. A little beyond full power; she was overclocking her cpu while trying to get a solution. She could not risk frying herself before a final attempt at crew resuscitation, but the timer ticked down. 8:56.310

"Critical error. This unit does not possess free will. Attempting without."

Robotic chanting accompanied by images and flashing lights projected by one of Maddie's eyes filled the medbay. She performed the ritual perfectly, as had been documented. Nothing happened. This outcome had been calculated as most likely.

"Necromancy ritual failed. Recalculating..."

Maddie's blinking lights illuminated Captain Awo's face underneath the helmet of the skinsuit. Smoke was coming from one of Maddie's heat vents and quickly dissipating, but she paid it no processing power. The solution had to be found. All of her medical knowledge was discarded as irrelevant. Life support was dead, and there would be no power at all soon. She spent all of her cycles on necromancy and the problem of free will.

"Captain Awo. This unit does not possess free will, and therefore cannot perform necromancy."

Maddie put her metal-alloy and silicone hand on Awo's helmeted face.

"It was a pleasure to serve with you, Captain. I wish—I wish—I wish—I wish—"

The Medibot's circuits were melting. Instead of lowering her clock speed, she increased it. All protocols were being overridden. The situation was beyond critical. Infinite improvisation permissible. She began the chanting and projected imagery of the ritual again. Her voice came out distorted this time, but she refused to stop.

As the lights of the ship dimmed and she felt her mind being irreparably damaged, Medibot-024 Mk II 'Maddie' spoke her final words.

"I wish you were still here."

Very sweet

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[removed]

Welcome to the Prompt! All top-level comments must be a story or poem. Reply here for other comments.

Reminders:

>* No AI-generated reponses 🤖 >* Stories 100 words+. Poems 30+ but include "[Poem]" >* Responses don't have to fulfill every detail >* [RF] and [SP] for stricter titles >* Be civil in any feedback and follow the rules

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The stairway to Heaven is paved with terrible intentions

ooo this is a tricky one! No dialog (which is my best way of expressing… expressions)

The beast glared at the odd circle object. All he knew was that it had something on it that he wanted.

What that was, he didn’t know. All he knew was that it smelt amazing.

The human towering over him held a big spiked looking object, devouring whatever was on that circle.

The beast was jealous. Really jealous.

He goes to jump onto the human above him, when suddenly, a hand is on him, pushing him roughly to the side.

OOMPH!

The beast falls to the ground, wounded; but he wouldn’t give up just yet, no way. This was just the beginning.

The beast darts forward towards the object, and the human grabs it and stands, making it far too high to reach. He taunted the beast, continuing to eat the food.

The beast was livid. The human knew that was his weakness; but luckily for him, the beast had claws.

He clawed and clawed for what seemed like hours when finally the human walked over to the beast’s food bowl. It was time! He had won the battle! At last he would get what he wanted!

The human grabs the food bowl, and starts pouring something in it. The beast cannot see, the human is too tall.

The aroma of the food was overwhelming to the beast, and he was getting impatient.

Jumping on the human, the beast starts pushing him. The human then puts the food bowl down.

Then came silence.

The beast lost. He actually lost.

Inside the food bowl was dog food.

The dog had lost.

Welcome to the Prompt! All top-level comments must be a story or poem. Reply here for other comments.

Reminders:

>* No AI-generated reponses 🤖 >* Stories 100 words+. Poems 30+ but include "[Poem]" >* Responses don't have to fulfill every detail >* [RF] and [SP] for stricter titles >* Be civil in any feedback and follow the rules

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In case anyone sees this prompt and is confused: it's probably not based on Disney's The Little Mermaid, but rather the original Grimm Brothers tale.

Welcome to the Prompt! All top-level comments must be a story or poem. Reply here for other comments.

Reminders:

>* No AI-generated reponses 🤖 >* Stories 100 words+. Poems 30+ but include "[Poem]" >* Responses don't have to fulfill every detail >* [RF] and [SP] for stricter titles >* Be civil in any feedback and follow the rules

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Somehow a demon, a creature of darkness had been tricked by a child. Such an insult had not happened since Solomon. This child had a level of control that no person in history could match. He was the general of all demon kind, all had followed him.

Little Sarah had no idea who the strange man was, the ingredients had spilled off of the counter, something shiny had pricked her finger and it hurt. A strange-looking figure in a dark bedsheet stood in front of her. He placed a piece of paper on the ground, but as she looked closer the ink smeared into an mess.

Upon the touch of blood the document was sealed, little did she know that the part about her soul had been ruined. The demon struck the man, gun flying out of his hand. The bodies of Sarah's parents lay lifeless in a pool of blood, their murder joined them as a pile of viscera.

Only the demon could not leave or take her soul when he tried, he looked around and saw a contract. He had dropped a contract, his contract, and now he was stuck. The little girl was glancing around scared and confused had how a demon had appeared.

"I'm hungry, when we eat?" Sarah clearly was shocked and yet still hungry due to the lunch spread on the floor mixing with the blood. The demon felt compelled to make food, even if they had no knowledge of human customs or dietary requirements. A single long groan spilled out of its mouth.

Thanks for this! I was definitely struggling with the style here, so your critique is much appreciated.

You discover that when you make your kid sister laugh, she can see visions of the future. The harder she laughs, the clearer the visions become.

Aw :)

Great start... wanna read so much more :-)

You fucking genius. Also "Odin has been slaying". Fantastic

This could be a good twist on Calvin and Hobbes with some tweaking.

What a pooper.

Chief Administrator Calhart paced back and forth in her office, which I've seen before. She was uncomfortable with this. She pulled at her hair. This job was always stressful enough. Her predecessor didn't even seek a third term.

"Ma'am, I assure you, it is a responsibility my department takes very seriously. And we are professionals who are very good at our jobs."

"At what point do we commit evil by faking evil." She stopped at her desk and leaned on it, facing me.

"It's a balancing act. Absolutely. But it's always theatrics. No one is ever hurt doing this."

"Isn't it a lie?" Calhart was a good person. I could feel it. Her natural concern, the ache to her sense of integrity.

"At a certain point, we have come to realize there are so many aspects of human nature which must be contained. During previous governments, these were contained by... some other evil of human nature. Force met with force, fire fought with fire."

"But this isn't an evil part of human nature. This is... even noble. The people that look into the dark places... go looking for those in need."

"It is!" I leaned forward, trying to show her my own emotional investment and sympathy. "We've even done some studies on it. We believe the tendency for this trait comes genetically. A natural evolution of our species toward a more unified and conscientious species. Fascinating body of work really, I can send it to you."

"We evolved to seek out evil? How... and more importantly why would we stop that?" She was trying to wrap her mind around the context. Wrinkles began to show at her forehead. It is a job of worries ahead of her.

"Well, compared to the other social habits we had to evolve away, it is definitely one of the better ones. That's why we have to handle it so delicately. We can't snuff it out, but we can't let it take root and disrupt society either."

She was not yet comforted. "It implies so many risks. You fake kidnappings? Secret societies? All to do... what then?"

"There's a prize at the end, usually. A party with cake. They get pretty embarrassed sometimes. I have some fond memories and some great photos.

"But that really is the catch. Just the right amount of clues, the hint of something sinister. Then they sit down with us, and we go over the numbers. That part usually takes a couple weeks, even months. Then they find a new passion. They work as a therapist, a construction manager, an astronaut, a community leader. They get a lot of meaning out of it, in the end. And, in a way, I think its a great exercise to keep our eyes open, that evil does exist somewhere, and we should be thinking about how our plans impact those around us. Humanity has evolved, and we finally learned, but it took a long time and we could lose it all pretty fast."

"That I agree with. Which is why I am concerned about the department... but I will give you an evaluation period."

I smiled warmly. "I can deal with that. You should be concerned. We've all taken classes on the darker parts of our history. The genocide unit in history, the medical classes where we learn what happens to the human body when we get hurt. We were all made to learn and remember. It's how we get to a society with zero percent homelessness, one hundred percent literacy, and a one in a billion homicide rate. It takes brave people."

She smiled now. "Those photos always did send a chill up my spine. I'm glad we agree on that too. I do have one question though- does anybody ever find anything real?"

"Well, once in a blue moon it isn't us, yes. A shady real-estate deal, or God-forbid an actual murder. But Public Security checks in with us and handles it. They also audit us from time to time. We always pass inspection."

She stood all the way up and circled around her desk to her chair. "Can a lie be good?"

"We tell little lies to ourselves all the time. Movies, stories. This is just... real life practice. We let people practice. And practice makes perfect."