A cosmic event caused all electronics to stop working all over the galaxy. Not even Starfleet could protect their technology from it.

[removed]

Do not take away my ability to be the master of my own fate. Give it to me.

It must have been some child’s wish. But who really knows? Row after row of trees had begun to turn. Their foliage turning into plump sugary gum drops. Their trunks had started to change colors. A band of bright red streamed up the side of a now white candy trunk beside me. The field of grass that stretched out between the trees was droopy, too heavy now to support its own sugar laden weight.

"What did you wish for?" they would always ask, and I would simply smile.

It had been years since that day. Looking back through the memories of my life, I always marveled at the twists and turns my life had taken. Orphaned at only five months old. Foster parents murdered before I turned three. A solid decade of a downward spiral. Bad choices, the wrong kind of friends, drugs, delinquency. Court-mandated therapy that finally shook the grip of those early years.

Until I was seventeen, when Wit came back into my life. They had been the one who got me into drugs. They had been the one I first gave my heart to, along with my virginity. They had been the one who killed that crazy dealer who tried to drag me into an alley and rape me. They had been the one who left me for the cops to blame.

Wit had been everything wrong and everything right in my life, and they were back.

"Go to the genie," they told me, their eyes half-lidded in that try-to-make-me-care way. "Everyone does it. Go to the genie."

I knew it was a bad idea because Wit was the one telling me to do it, but I did it anyway. Therapy could fix a lot of things, but not who I was. At least, not fast enough.

The year with Wit hooked me with barbs. I said no to a god-damned lot. Said yes to a fair few. I loved Wit. I hated Wit. And the day I turned eighteen, I followed Wit up the mountain.

It had been years since that day. I now walk the world in freedom--free from my demons, free from my struggles, free from my past. When the petitioners at the base of the mountain saw the great beam of light shoot into the sky, they all marveled. They knew that the world would never be the same. For centuries, the genie had denied every wish. Every wish can only be wished once, they would always say, and so everyone left with nothing but the determination to try again next year.

But the beacon in the sky meant a wish had been granted. Whoever walked off the mountain would be famous. They would be hounded for all their life by those clamoring to know what wish had been so unique. It was a new era.

But I never told them. I could not lie, for I was bound to truth, and so every time they asked what I had wished for, I told them nothing. After all, I had not been the one to make the wish. I had merely granted it.

But Wit saw now that I was happy in a way they had never been able to make me. They knew something was up. And so Wit never gave up asking.

Even now, decades later, as Wit lay old and fragile on their deathbed, and I sat by their side as hale as I was in the days of our youth, they asked, desperate for an answer.

"What did you wish for?"

I simply smiled.

A Thieves' World-esque type of anthology set around this bar would be amazing.

Yep! Well, the students were finishing up a movie today so it’s not like I was ignoring them lol.

Thats very true,

Now that I've reread your story, my first read might have been influenced by my story still in my head, yours can go either way....

Good read! have a good one

Rogue black hole. Everybody talks about how impossibly rare it would be to occur. But let's say it did. Detail the last 5 minutes or so of the end of life as we know it.

In the race to the bunker you turn to defend your family from the raiders chasing you. By the time you get to the bunker they’re all inside but it has auto-sealed with you trapped outside. For quarantine purposes it won’t open for a whole year. So you sit down with your back against the door and start waiting.

Turns out

The sword was forged.

With the core of a demon

A meteor shower the rained mutagenic chemicals down on the earth

Holy shit I was not expecting to see one of my favorite stories here. I really should go back to reading it

The Wifi is down.

Young adult attempts to reunite with lost family after being in a hospital for an undetermined amount of time. Companions and acquaintances along the way start to notice this young person doesn't do normal human things, like toileting, eating, or getting sick.

Good to know that the teachers also spend thier time on reddit

rWP really is the 'real' writing world in miniature, including multiple people having the same ideas simultaneously all the time.

In mine, I was aiming to keep it ambiguous who exactly is the evil one here.

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The fae have came out after years of hiding from humanity and have now dominated the world. The remaining Humans now live in bunkers.

Pullman’s ears were ringing. Despite being familiar with the echoed ringing in his ears from gunfire and explosions, the silence that accompanied this ringing was deafening. His questions on why he was plagued with a foreboding feeling in the back of his head all day – that sixth sense that so many parents seem to have with or without super powers – had finally been answered.

“…Pullman…?”

His ‘nemesis’, Fortress, gave him the news that Pullman’s son had been killed. However, the word executed was the one that was exploding in his thoughts.

The ringing got louder, drowning out Fortress’ voice as he felt the world shrink around him. The ringing gave way to crying. Pullman heard the crying of his son the day he was born. He could still feel the enormous weight of his newborn child on the skin of his arms.

Time sped up.

Pullman heard the laughter of his son as a toddler. The memories of what he laughed at were hazy now, but the warmth that once soothed the soul felt like icy fire now. That icy fire oozed up from his fingertips and through his veins.

Time sped up again.

Pullman still felt the stinging of tears running down his cheeks as he ushered his son off to his first day of school. Part of him felt silly; the parent shouldn’t be the one crying. Yet, there he was fervently waving his hand to his son on his first day of life without him. The tears on his face now felt electrified with rage.

Again and again, Pullman saw his son’s life flash before his eyes. He had heard how one’s own life could do this at the point of death but never knew of the cruel torment that would play out should a parent live beyond their child. Some memories played in a flash and others dragged on as he lived through them all.

Intermediate school. When his son became a teenager. When his son first started developing his powers. What was once such a sweet memory that made his chest swell with pride and joy was now a ball of molten lead burning within him.

High school. Helping him become a confident man. Guiding him to being what he wanted to be – whether that was a hero or a villain that was his decision. Pullman really wanted to hammer home that while society deemed what was “good and evil” when it came to super powered beings, there was ultimately a right and wrong.

His son’s execution was the latter.

As all of these memories and thoughts swirled around Pullman’s head, the furniture in the dining room became affected. The first thing Fortress noticed were the chairs. They began to vibrate ever so slightly before they began to slide towards Pullman; their legs scratching on the hardwood floor. The ceiling light began to lean towards him. The dining table cloth, the cabinets, the plants until finally Fortress himself was being pulled towards the grieving man in the middle of the room.

“Pullman! Pullman, please!”

He snapped out of his trance. Everything went still. Pullman and Fortress looked into each other’s eyes.

“Pull- Keith. Keith listen”, Keith Pullman stared back at him with vacant eyes.

“I’m…”, he contemplated saying sorry, but Fortress knew those were not the appropriate words right now, “at a loss of what to say”

“…then don’t say anything”, dead air hung between them.

Finally, Keith broke the silence.

“Who”, was all he asked but the gravity that single, uttered word was immense.

“Keith. I will tell you. I promise you. But I don’t think you’re ready to hear this.”

“I will not. Ask. Again”, Fortress felt the tugging of Pullman’s powers drawing him closer. Instinctively, his powers activated, adding mass to his body to resist that force drawing him in, but he knew it was to be a fruitless endeavor. Fortress opened his mouth to speak but Pullman cut him off.

“The next thing out of your mouth will be names or I swear on my son’s-“, he choked on the words as soon as they were spoken, “…Or I swear you will not like what I will do to find out.”

Fortress could deal with threats spat in anger. Threats boasted with confidence. Threats dripping with malice. The frigid, lifeless way that Pullman spoke his into existence chilled him to the bone.

“It was Generation neXt”

Generation neXt. The last bit of humanity that held Pullman together snapped like balsa wood. They were ‘Old Powers’, as the public liked to call them. The tenth generation of people with powers that have always seemed to have been around. Flying, super speed, super strength – the classics.

Pullman didn’t say a word. He slowly stood up from his chair and walked to his door.

“Keith! Wait! You can’t-“, was all Fortress managed to say before he was off his feet and before Pullman with his throat square in his palm.

“No. No no. I can. I will. What I cannot do. Is wait”, he dropped Fortress, “Please. Do not attempt to stop me or I will forget the friendship that we share.”

All Fortress could do was a slight nod before Pullman walked away.

[removed]

After a wave of mysterious energy hits Earth, all of the plant life hyper-evolves by billions of years, overgrowing cities in seconds. Now trapped on a planet ruled by nature, the surviving humans now have to rebuild society, but nature is going down without a fight.

I do plan on writing for the SCP Wiki. Posts like this are a good way to get used to the format.

Ha u/prejackpot, seems both you and I had ideas about bring fathers back to face the music...

Thank you or the compliment.