That's actually one of the major themes of my main story that these characters are from, so very astutey observed lol

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

Reminders:

>* Stories at least 100 words. Poems, 30 but include "[Poem]" >* Responses don't have to fulfill every detail >* See Reality Fiction and Simple Prompts for stricter titles >* Be civil in any feedback and follow the rules

🆕 New Here? ✏ Writing Help? 📢 News 💬 Discord

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

In the Before I was an investment banker, made a lot of money but it never filled me with joy or sense of pride. I drove my cars, slept with women, drank on the weekends. But I have never felt as much pride as when I started the Daycare sanctuary in the After. The After came about approximatelly three years ago, but it was not anything like you would expect from an apocalypse. No asteroids, aliens or crazy war. Over couple years cropps slowly stopped growing and all the other plants slowly followed. When there was not enough for everyone panic set and people started organizing in groups and then it slowly went to shit. When there was only couple of million people left, war started. And after there was just the Wasteland. I stayed out of the war but lost all my wealth since money meant nothing.

After I recovered from the shock I realized I can do something meaningful. I used my charisma and appealed to all the warlords in the are for a safe haven at least for the children. To my surprise all the warlords agreed. So the Safe-Haven was established and respected by everyone.

"Where is he? He's taking forever!"

Relia stomped her foot, her eyes darting around as she tried to look for me. I could see the way her cape fluttered in the wind, and the way the sequins on her shirt glittered in the mid-afternoon sun.

"It's not like him to be late," John responded. I believed he changed his name again, so calling him Omni-Man probably wasn't accurate anymore. I think I'm going to call him John for now. "He's usually punctual. Sometimes he even shows up before I do."

I'd never shown up before him. Not a single time. Every time he thought I'd beaten him here, he'd actually been talking to someone he saw on the street.

"You'd think that he'd be a bit more respectful," grunted Charlie. She was a huge, towering mass of a woman, with a forearm thicker than my entire head. She had her arms crossed as she glared at the people walking around below them. None of them had the slightest idea that, if she wanted to, this woman could sneeze all of their lives away. "Today is the day of his induction into the League. He could afford to at least show up on time."

In truth, I had been here from the very beginning. I was just as excited to join the League as she expected me to be. As per usual, I had arrived exactly on time, and John, of course, arrived sometime before me. I sat down, saying hi to the man before pulling out a sandwich and starting to eat.

Charlie came shortly after I took my first bite and Relia came shortly after her. They had all said hi to me, then started talking amongst each other.

The instant they took their eyes off of me, they had forgotten about me. They didn't bother to spare a glance at me, and their eyes roamed over mine as they looked around.

Honestly, I couldn't blame them. That was simply the nature of my power. People started to forget my existence the instant they couldn't directly perceive me. I needed to grab their attention manually if I wanted to speak with them.

"Should I call him?" asked Relia. She pulled out her phone. It was an outdated thing, not even touchscreen, but it managed to get the job done. "I think I can reach him if I called."

She had actually called before, and I told her where I was. They all looked at me afterwards, then turned to each other to ask if anyone had seen me arrive. The instant they did, they forgot that I was there.

"I think his phone died," John responded. That was, of course, untrue. But that was also the nature of my power. It came up with excuses for people to not question my absence. More likely than not people didn't even question my disappearances, even when the event was focused solely around me. "I think I remember him telling me that this morning."

"The boy cannot even keep his phone charged?" Charlie asked, both her eyebrows and her tone rising with her indignation. "I'm beginning to regret the decision to add this man to our ranks."

At this, both John and Relia turned, dissent rising on their tongues. It was time to stop messing around, it seemed.

"I'm here," I said, my voice tired and hoarse. Believe it or not, having a superpower this strong was tiring, especially when you couldn't turn it off. I had become comfortable with not interacting with most people, but when the situation forced my hand I found myself screaming to keep their eyes on me. "I've been here for the past half an hour."

Once again, the trio of people turned to me, their eyes wide as they finally noticed me sitting with them.

"That's impos-"

"Yes, I know it's impossible," I said, cutting her off. If I kept her talking, then she would turn to the others in order to confirm with them whether I was here or not. I couldn't have that. I didn't want to wait another half an hour to get this over with. "Can we cut through the chit-chat and get this over with? I want to get home in time for my favorite stream to come on."

The three were about to look at each other. I could see it in their body posture. I snapped, bringing their attention back towards me.

"Hey, listen. I know I'm being rude, and I'm sorry about that, but I need you guys to listen to me. My power is to make others forget about me. I'm something of a self-protecting meme. No one can really keep an image or a memory of me in their head unless I will it to be so, and especially not if I don't want them to. This is the third time that we've had this conversation, and I don't really have the time to keep this up for a fourth time. So can we please hurry this along?"

They were lost for words. That was normal. I snapped my fingers again and drew their attention.

"Are there any regulations that I need to join the League? Any important documents that I need to sign?"

Charlie shook her head. She started to turn once more, but I snapped my fingers. The thing about the finger snapping was that it only worked once or twice. Any more than that, and the effect started to wane. I could already see Charlie's eyes drifting towards my teammates. I had to be quick.

"Wait," I said, my voice frantic. "I just ask that you keep your eyes on me. I know that it sounds ridiculous, but my power only works once you stop paying attention to me."

My ability also made it so that any feats I attained would remain in the minds of the masses if enough people remembered it. Except, of course, the nature of my ability. I once explained it to a live audience and a camera that broadcasted it to millions of people. I was sure that it was on every streaming service and there was even a video on Youtube.

And yet, of course, no one seemed to remember.

"Can you just give me the registration form, or whatever?" I pleaded. Charlie nodded, then reached inside her cape. She pulled out a sheaf of paper that was thicker than my hand from thumb to pinkie and handed it over.

"Thank you," I said. I then pulled out my phone and took a selfie with the packet of papers. "I'm going to send that picture to you guys as soon as I'm gone. It won't be enough to remind you of everything, but at least you'll all know that you can go home."

I walked over to the edge of the roof. I sat on the edge, then waved at them.

"Bye," I said, then leaned backwards until I was falling off. I heard them yell after me, but both their concerns and their voices died out as they lost sight of me and I ceased to exist in their minds.

I sighed. It was a deep, heavy thing. My ability was powerful, but only so much in that I knew how to use it. On every other day being the most forgettable man was annoying. It was why I didn't even have a superhero name. I didn't even have a secret identity. No one would remember it, anyway.

As the ground rushed towards me I sighed again, then blinked as I suddenly stopped falling.

It wasn't like I had anything to fear from falling, after all. It wasn't as if gravity would remember to act on me.

"Yeah, I think I'll go to CPS"

Way to go Amma!

I fluttered my tiny wings, mortified as Papa yelled at my new Principal. I saw a red-gold aura leaking under the door as I looked down, my face feeling hot.

"I don't care if she's half-human! After her parents passed away we raised her! Yes, she's 'different,' but she has every right to enroll!"

I didn't hear what was said next, but the aura intensified under the door before Papa slammed it open, face strawberry-red. "Come on, duckling, we're going home."

/. /. /. /. /. /

It was a month before I started high school there, and my first day filled me with nerves. I pushed through the horde of teens gently, feeling (and seeing) the tension in the school. I was being stared at, from both up close and afar, as I went up the stair to my homeroom.

The intensity of the tension thinned out as I entered the room and the other kids saw me walk in. The teacher, a brown-skinned woman with fine lines and straightened gray hair waved me to a desk at the back; I noted the dull gray aura that signified apathy and boredom.

The goth girl and the jock sat at either side of me glared at each other for a full minute while I sat down between them. I held my hands out to bother them, noting the combination of green, red and pink aura catching me in the middle; green signifying growth, red for competition and anger, and pink for attachment.

'Hi, I'm Lexi,' I said to them, shrugging my jacket off and revealing my tank top and wings, unfolding them and catching some of the membrane of my left wing on the chair as I sat. I winced.

I smiled softly as both of them reached out, hesitant. "Go ahead, they don't bite...well, except for me." I settled the wings out a little, and they planted their hands inside the feathers, as their amber of shock turned to the soft blonde light of awe. I preened a little, the feeling of their fingers bringing a sense of joy.

I felt a sharp pull and winced again, as one of the feathers broke off in the goth's hand. "Shit, I'm sorry," she said, the blonde light turning to a wintry blue as she pulled her hand away.

The feather caught the attention of the rest of the class, and they turned to look at me. I paled as the bright purple of curiosity wafted across the room, and then I was crowded as more people wanted to touch the wings. I let them, and asked goth girl for the feather back. "I need to get it stitched back in tonight so that there's no lasting damage." She handed it back to me reluctantly, as the jock just laughed.

"Damn it, Lynsey, you broke the angel already! Now where am I going get my fun?"

Goth girl, (Lynsey), just rolled her eyes. "Can it, Josh. I beat you last week in the Mathlete tryouts, and I'll do it again today!"

I think it's not going to be boring here.

In future, please report stories you suspect were written by AI as they violate our rules. Thanks!

Shit, I need to improve my English.

During archaeological diggings a piece of parchment was found. Becsuse it was wound on place of "special sweat-box", probably it was written by some special prisoner. Because it was signed by "Imperator Korenus", it was probably written by a man, known as "June-October usurper". So now at least name of this usurper is known.

And I thought that "I tried" is laconic in Roman style, alike the "And you, Brutus?" or "Memento mori". And also "I tried" finalises the way of failed emperor pretty good.

"What's the problem?" I asked the guard waiting for me at the enterance warehouse.

"New blood." he simply shrugged his shoulders, looking bored.

I sighed and walked through the door into the dim metal structure, my skirts billowing behind me. The walls were lined with lockers. Those small ones that used to be littered at shopping malls so you could lock up your bags of useless crap to engage in even more vain & selfish consumerism.

Two more of my guards stood on the opposite end at the only door to the outer wasteland, surrounding a man holding a small figure in his arm. His second arm held a pistol.

It was a rarer sight than it used to be. When the earthquakes & floods first ended, we were decimated. A global loss of communication systems separated us as much as the enormous trenches and deep lakes. Survivors came together locally, but conflicts over resources soon turned into full-scale territorial wars. Factions broke out, with nomads-turned-prisoners bringing news of what was happening in other parts of the country. The coastal cities had been wiped away first as California broke off into the Pacific. The volcanic ash covered the ground from Wyoming to Kansas.

I watched the world end from the Midwest. Or was it the southeast now? My father was a prepper, so our sprawling farm quickly turned into a fortress. He was a good leader in a crisis: stabilizing and fortifying our land, commanding the loyalty of our neighbors who produced food under his protection, and training the wandering soldiers he took in. Many showed up at our gates during those days. Many were turned away, especially those who had children.

It wasn't right, I always thought. Before, my father used to say that women were only good for popping out kids. After, he said that kids were a waste or resources. Many didn't survive, or couldn't work, or their loyalties stayed with some fantasy birth parents that hadn't even bothered to prepare for the worst. So when my father died on a raiding mission in year 5 A.A. (After Apocalypse), I decided to make a change.

"Hello, welcome to The Daycare" I smiled as I approached the newcomer. On closer inspection, I could see that he was shaking. I motioned for the guards to take a step back to give him breathing room. "Have the rules been outlined to you?"

The man's eyes focused on my face. He looked young, somewhere in his late 20s. Probably a child himself when Yellowstone erupted.

"I'm not giving up my gun," he scowled. "I need to know my daughter is safe."

"This is The Daycare." I replied sweetly but sternly. "I'd be surprised if anyone in the drylands says that she wouldn't be safe. That is why you're here, isn't it? Because you've heard of me and the sanctuary?"

The man's face flickered through a range of emotions as I patiently waited for him to remember why he came to me.

"I... I didn't believe it existed... I... we've traveled so far. So many close calls. I just... I want to be sure."

My smile widened. "You can be sure. Just put your gun and any other weapons, poisons, or gear you have in the locker, take the key, and I'll be happy to show you."

He hesitated for a second, contemplating if he could trust me or the rumors of the orphan oasis I knew circulated far and wide. Then he crouched down to place his daughter on the ground. She looked to be about 3. Right at the age where separation from her father wouldn't bring too much instability. I watched as he whispered something quietly to her, stood up, and began emptying his pockets into the locker by the door.

"Her bag as well." I said gently as I noticed her holding it. I saw him scowl again as he turned to look at me, then smile as he addressed his daughter. Once I was satisfied all their belongings were packed away, I gestured for him to follow me through the backdoor of the warehouse.

The keys were a formality. Polite manners like the games of Victorian era nobles from a civilization that no longer existed, but its survivors carried the same hateful beliefs and ideologies. Even now, after everything.

My guards would thoroughly check their things, noting any technology or substances from the outside world. Anything of use would be collected as payment. He would be given his tour, shown the food forests and gardens, the children running around laughing, the libraries filled with books I collected. He would not be shown the military force I'd built up to protect it all. The training fields and weapons arsenals. The soldiers I raised with absolute loyalty to their home, to me. Then, he'd be shown the door. Just like all the parents before him.

Notes: This is the 1st thing I've written in a really long time. Thank you for sparking the creative flow.

Hi u/Tobynenopian123, this submission has been removed.

[PM] Requirement: You must have responded to a prompt before posting your [PM] prompt

• From Rule 4: All submissions must be tagged and used correctly

When posting a [PM] you also must respond to at least one prompt within six hours, or the post will be removed.

Modmail us if you have any questions or concerns. In the future, please refer to the sidebar before posting.

This action was not automated and this moderator is human. Time to go do human things.

Cthulhu is love

You were meant to visit your family for the holidays days. But as you wake up and look out the window, the streets are covered in at least half a meter of snow. The power is out.

[removed]

Damn isn't a swear word unless you're overly religious, which I doubt a Lamia would be

Part 2:

"She'd be proud, Milana. You're doing a damn good job," Grampa told me. He surprised me by swearing. My husband read the room and stepped out.

My teeth began to feel funny. They shouldn't have, but I realized my eyes were leaking fluid, too. "I just wanted her to see them, Grampa," I choked. "She would have loved them so much."

"More than you, even," he offered.

I laughed through the tears.

"She was gettin' old anyway," Grampa said, smiling. "I'll miss her, but I've still got a couple decades left in the tank, so long as I don't get into any terrible accidents."

"You're seventy-five, Grampa."

"Oh, maybe I'll last three decades, then." He reached out and patted me on the back. "She sees ya. You and your girls, and that husband of yours. And when I go, I'll keep watchin' ya too."

I didn't respond, but Grampa read my thoughts like a book.

"Your parents see you, too. They've been watchin' this whole time. No son of mine wouldn't be proud of his daughter, that's what I say." He turned to go. "Oh, before I forget. I was supposed to give this to you when ya turned thirty, but I reckon your spirits need a lift."

He tossed me a key. I caught it with the hand holding my daughter's tail.

"Your mama and papa left you a little something. I hid it underneath your TV stand, since you never clean underneath that thing."

Later, after the night's chill sent the girls to sleep (Grampa said humans babies are much more rowdy, even if they're a lot lighter), I used my tail to pull an old metal shoelocker out from under the TV stand. I used the key to open it up. Inside was a photo of two people I had only seen in photos. They were my parents.

Holding me.

My father held my upper half, and my mom had my tail wrapped around her arms. I was smiling. I was laughing.

And there was a note.

​

Dear Milana,

We're sorry we're not there to tell you this ourselves, and we're sorry that we missed all of those little days that all parents should be there for. We're sorry we missed your first day of school, and your first lost tooth, and your first date, and your high school graduation. We're sorry we were never there to coach you through your exams, or to hold you through your break ups, or to wipe away your tears when you are just hurt and need someone to be there.

We're sorry that you won't ever get to hear our voices telling you how proud of you we are. We're sorry you won't get to hear your parents tell you how much we love you.If it were an option, we'd still be there, but life and death wait for no one. We don't always get a choice.

But, in the times that we do choose, for the brief time we knew you, you were the best choice either of us ever made.

With more love than we can possibly ever say,

Mama and Papa.

​

There was one more thing. A stuffed snake, sitting at the bottom of the shoelocker.A coral snake. Another note.

​

Our blood makes us strong.

Love, Mama.

​

I picked the snake up and went to my daughters' crib. I kissed both of them. Then, I went to bed, leaving the snake behind.

Imagine if one of the dudes below was psychic and realized the banana man just disabled world peace for fun

Part 1:

I had never seen Grampa more angry. He was always the calm one, asking my Gramma to calm down and not to let her feelings get in the way of thinking. Of course, they were rarely ever angry at me, but because my Grampa never yelled, it never crossed my mind that he could. I thought the one yelling would be Gramma, but she was so mad that she was crying, which happened frequently enough.

"Look, sir, I can't give the go-ahead on your granddaughter's enrollment. It could make the other children uncomfortable, make other parents worry for their children's safety, and that's not even getting into the reality that... non-humans age differently than the rest of us. By the time her peers are fully matured adults, she's still going to have the body of someone who's eleven or twelve."

"My granddaughter's mind - which is all you need to be worried about - is as sharp as any other eight year old's, and it's about damn time she meets some people her age," my Grampa yelled, spittle flying into the principal's face. "She's been lonely her entire life because all she's had are us two old geezers to teach her and keep her company. She needs friends, god damnit!"

I had never heard Grampa swear before.

"Sir, with all due respect, your granddaughter is half Lamia. And, if the registry is correct, the mother's subspecies was coral snake. Is your granddaughter venomous?"

"She's bit me plenty, and I'm perfectly alive," Grampa retorted. "Everything of hers from the waist up is just like you and me. Safety isn't the problem here, it's you and your small-minded nonsense!"

The principal looked as though his face was about to crack like a glass dropped onto the floor. "That does not change the fact that she's only half-human. This is a school established by humans, for humans."

"Does it look like I care if she's half human?" Grampa was shrieking now. I think his words were echoing down the hallway. I wanted to curl up into a ball, and, given the length of my tail, I absolutely could have. "After her parents passed, my wife and I have been doing everything in our power to keep her safe. Keep her fed. Keep her educated. Keep her happy, loved, and, for Christ's sake, more tolerant than the likes of you human-supremacist shitstains. She's different from us, but look at her!"

I started to get scared as the principal's eyes flicked to me. It was a gaze full of confusion, fear, and other things I couldn't understand. My heartbeat got faster. I felt an odd sensation in my teeth. I started to cry. My mouth gaped open, and a yellow fluid dripped out of my slightly-tipped canine teeth and started to leak out of my mouth. It was as though both halves of my body were crying in perfect unison, the Lamia half mourning its rejection and the human half broadcasting its worry.

My Grampa turned to me and scooped me up, holding my upper half in one arm and using his other arm to gently guide my tail around his arm and shoulder. I leaned into him, still crying and oozing venom and getting them both all over his dress shirt. "It's okay, Milana. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have yelled."

My Grampa turned to the principal. "We're leaving, but this isn't over. My granddaughter is a citizen of this country, and she will be enrolled here, whether you want her to or not."

At the time, I didn't realize what he meant was, "We're suing your ass into Hell and back."

And that's what my grandparents did. At first, they worried that they wouldn't be able to afford the fight, but with a number of sizable donations - the largest one being from my mother's Lamia sisterhood - and two years' worth of court dates and suffering, we won. Grimm v. Penelope County Board of Education.

I was enrolled into the 5th grade when I was ten years old. I was at least three inches shorter than most of my classmates, even though my body was technically longer than two of them put together. A lot of the other students (mostly boys, strangely) thought it was cool that I had a snake tail, but I got in trouble when I showed them that I could produce venom (it turns out Lamia fangs don't really come in until eight or nine years of age, which my grandparents couldn't possibly have known). Even my Grampa was on their side. He said I could really hurt someone if I wasn't careful.

At fourteen, in eighth grade, I had my first boyfriend. I wound up towering over him, but that was just because he was short. He had his flaws (we were middle schoolers, after all), but he taught me that I can find people who really, truly love me. I gave him my first kiss (and he gave me his), but we broke up after about nine months.

At sixteen, I got a driver's license. I didn't crash any cars, but my Gramma had to stop using manual transmission vehicles because I don't have two feet and I can't reach the clutch and the brake at the same time. The first place I drove to after getting my license was the grocery store (predictably).

At eighteen, I graduated high school. My grandparents were the proudest people in the universe, I think. My grades weren't stellar, but I made it. I can still remember how Grampa went around to all of his friends after with a photo of me in his wallet telling them, "This is my granddaughter. Look at her!"

At twenty, I realized I wanted to be a teacher. Elementary school in particular. In college, I majored in education and managed to get good grades this time. I graduated, at twenty-two, with flying colors.

At twenty-three, I got my first job teaching. My first class was a little scared of me at first, but once they got past the snake body they warmed up to me. Maybe a little too much, even. Agreeing to let them all sit in my lap at once was a bad idea...

At twenty-four, I got married. Honestly, he isn't anything super special. But watching him sucker punch a woman who was belittling me was great. I'm certain if someone played the footage back, they would be able to pinpoint the exact moment I fell in love with him.

At twenty-five, a series of studies between Lamia and human scientists came out that revealed that, genetically, reproduction between Lamias and humans quite literally restructures the human DNA to introduce genetic diversity while keeping every Lamia female and snake-y. As it turns out, I was never half-human after all, but I was still half of my father.

At twenty-eight, I laid eggs. Super uncomfortable, but it beats childbirth any day. I laid two. I had to stay at home for five months to keep track of them (not to mention the financial burden of getting an incubator), but once my daughters arrived I couldn't have been happier. My husband wanted boys, but if he felt that strongly about it he wouldn't have married a woman who can only produce girls.

Gramma never got to see the girls. She died one week before they hatched. All it took was one untied shoelace and bam. Her head smacked on the counter and she would never get up again. Never get emotional again. Never make me laugh or smile again. Never beat cancer through sheer willpower and absurd chemotherapy doses ever again.

At her funeral, my husband and I had one girl each tucked away in our arms, using the same hold Grampa always used for me when I was little. One hand supported the body, the other held the tail. It always helped the girls stay calm when there was something to coil up around.

We not only managed to put electricity inside of sand we also tricked it into thinking also. :)

"What is sand, but a finely ground up mineral to be refined in various ways?"

"Tha' be nuthin' bu' unrefine glass yi ijit!"

r/PostPrototypes

Dating a criminal who still comes Crimes is terrible. If you never saw your villains as people, were you even a hero?

Seems like a minor version of Forget-Me-Not's powers.

I loved this, really gave me violent nights vibe

We teached sand how to do math