Hey Xack!

Oh my god, this, this is amazing. So so hilarious in the worst way possible. Can't believe you've done this, haha.

I really liked how you went about answering each question, giving genuine thought to the responses to the point where it became scarily accurate. And all while funnelling it through this smug old dude, haha. I loved the names you gave the reporters and their news companies too!

I do just have a few bits and bobs for you though,

> His dark suit, dark eyes, and dark hair seasoned with just a touch of it's actual gray was arranged by professionals to make him look every inch like a competent politician.

So this sentence felt a bit awkward to me. It almost reads like there was a touch of grey in his suit and eyes. And I imagine that's not what you were going for. And maybe some shortening could help too.

Also, I think you want "...touch of its actual gray..." here.

> He flashed his smile for the cameras, raised his hand in a stoic, yet friendly wave, "Any questions?"

One thing here, I think you could swap that middle comma with an "and". There are only two actions here, so no need for a comma.

>Due to the the Each Vote Matters bill that passed last year,

An extra "the" here. No biggie.

> "Sorry. That is all the time I have for today. It's just passed sundown and I have to fly to Hawaii for a senatorial ethics committee and wine tasting. Thank you all, goodnight!"

Finally, I feel like bringing the ending back to the announcement a bit more would help here. I get that you were going for the irony of a literal corrupt politician going to an ethics committee, and then the wine-tasting later too. But I think if you reworded it to something like "for a senatorial ethics committee which is actually just a wine tasting gathering..." it could work better. Go back to that 'I'm still corrupt but I'm going to be honest with you about it.' But that's just a suggestion.

I hope this helps.

Good Words!

Thank you. Some riddles shall remain unanswered.

Thank you for the high praise, but I don't tend to write part twos for writing prompts.

One might say the sphinx's well-being is...a riddle.

Thank you.

Absolutely loved the story but Please we need to know if the sphinx is okay.

Initial Public Offering

It was night on the street when Sam arrived. Allen let her in through a side entrance and took her up in the freight elevator. In the conference room she caught the sunset — the last slice of light in Manhattan — before Allen’s sharks went to work. “Sign here,” they would say, “And here.” They kept coming for more and more: arbitration, nondisclosure, even something called her 'life rights.'

But as each suit got their fill, they departed. In the early morning, only Allen remained.

​

"What’s this part?” asked Sam.

“Business agreement. For all intensive purposes, Bradley Media Group gets ninety percent of everything. Want to be a household name? That's the price.”

Sam weighed the pen in her hand. It was heavy, real gold heavy. She noticed its avian shape.

“It’s a goose,” said Allen, smiling. His teeth were too white.

“Is…” The pen flapped in Sam’s fingers. “Is ninety fair?”

“Ninety percent is standard. There's a lot of risk for us. And of course we’ll be working to keep you relevant,” he paused, “Irregardless, if you feel like you need an attorney—“

“You’re…not my attorney?”

“I’m with BMG. Again, if—“ He stopped as Sam signed and smacked the pen on the table.

“Okay!” He cheered. “Let’s see, you’ve signed…” He scanned the table. “So that just leaves… Here.” He slid a stack in front of Sam and picked up the business agreement. "Last one’s the waiver of liability—means you can’t sue us for emotional distress, physical harm, whatever.”

Sam leafed through it. It was scarier than the others, with bold text all over reading: The Event.

“What’s this about the ‘Event’?” she said. “I’ll be so embarrassed that I’ll - what - die?”

“Sam…” Allen sat down. “We picked you. We believe in you. But the Event - whatever it is - has to put you in the news for a week, and not just our news. It’s going to tarnish you—put you in a hole.” He placed his fingers on Sam’s hand. “We’ll pull you out, make you a star. But you can’t wash it off. Everyone will always feel like they’re above you, even while they worship at your Instagram feed. It’s gonna hurt."

Sam shook off his hand. She looked past him, out over the Hudson. New Jersey was still dark but the heavens were turning blue. She thought of all the faces she wished she’d never seen.

“My whole life has hurt,” she said, meeting Allen’s eyes.

Sam breathed. “Okay.” She poised herself to wring the goose’s neck across the dotted line.

She stopped.

“Fifty-fifty.”

“Excuse me?”

“I want half: fifty percent”

Allen shot up. “You signed that part already!” He said, shaking the proof at her.

“Tear it up. I want half.” Sam twirled the pen at Allen. “Golden eggs, right?"

Allen grinned. “Sun’s almost up. Leave the way you came in.” He held up the business agreement and - ffft - tore it in two. “Come back tonight and we’ll negotiate.”

​

WC: 500

> Just don’t unseal your stomach.

Omg, that's just horrifying and incredible way. Reminds me of that one short prompt I read once about aliens classifying oxygen as a very illegal drug and seeing the human race as junkies that are high all the time.

You are welcome. I hope you continue to write.

The crowd screamed and surged away from me. In their haste to flee, they trampled one another underfoot. Traffic ground to a halt as the surge of people broke and ran through the streets.

"Guys," I said, amplifying my voice until it shook the buildings. "Guys, chill the fuck out."

Nobody listened. I get it--when a ten-story being of the void pops into existence in the middle of town and your primate-brain is not used to that kind of thing, appearances matter. I decided to tone things down a bit. I scanned the terrified minds before me and found a pattern I thought they might prefer.

With a loud snapping noise, I became someone the adults seemed to find comforting, a humanoid with a large, frizzy mane of hair and a disarming smile.

"What the fuck," a woman nearby screamed. "Did it just turn into Bob Ross?"

"Everybody calm down," I begged. "I'm sorry if I scared you. We all get scared sometimes, and that's okay. It was just a happy little accident on my part. And after all, aren't we all just happy little accidents? You, somehow sentient monkeys descended from ambitious amoeba--me, the animated consciousness of the screaming void? We're all just doing the best we can."

Those nearest to me cautiously stopped their scrambling and stomping. A few started to drift toward me. Fires smoldered in overturned cars, and the groans of the wounded rang out over the sudden silence.

"Theeeere," I said, waving a paintbrush. "Why don't we just take these happy little mistakes and make them beautiful? Every mistake is just an opportunity, really." Broken bones knit back together. Fires snuffed themselves out. At least a dozen dead bodies rose as if from naptime.

The primates laughed uneasily, wailing mothers hugging their suddenly-alive children to their breasts. A little boy walked up to me. "What do you want?"

"I'm here to make things a little better for everyone," I said. It was true. These sentient lifeforms were the only ones I'd ever met that had been cursed with mortality. They were intelligent enough to ask why they were alive, but fragile enough to die! I couldn't imagine a worse fate. "I'm here to kill death a little bit, just make things kinder."

With another flick of my brush, I commanded the immortal spirits cluttering the atmosphere of this bizarre world back into their vessels. "Family is important, and I want you all to know I care about yours," I trilled. I would save these poor beings from the pain of loss they had felt for so many centuries.

I split the ground and pulled the sleeping ones upward to rejoin the living. Thousands of years' worth of dead men, women and children surged up through the cracks, shrieking as they came. Being reunited with one's soul can be a shock! I understood.

For some reason, the rest of the primates did not seem to. I gasped in horror as they started clubbing and shooting their ancestors.

Well, thanks a lot for the compliment!

... if you do a part two, I'm interested!

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Great take

Beautiful

Aha! I thought I recognised you! I've read your previous posts before. This one looks like it could be a prequel to the first prompt.

Each one has never failed to grab my attention. Never stop, you hear?

"... Was it something I said?"

As Mark opened the door he started to speak, his mind still a bit blurry from the party "Hello, the party is just". He stopped and took in the sight before him. A short, young woman whom clearly came from some part of Asia stood there with Clark in her arms. She gave him a courtesy smile and said in a perfect British accent "Good morning. I believe I got your friend here". Mark had to blink a few more times before reality suddenly seemed to shift back into gear for him.

Mark shook his head and held the door open "Uhm, yes. He is mine. Please, come in". The young woman nodded and stepped. She held Clark like a princess as she kicked her shoes off and looked around "Got a chair or couch I can drop him in? He had a lot to drink and passed out". Mark pointed to the living room and the young woman smiled again.

Although Vampires had been a thing out in the open for a few years now Mark had never seen one with his own eyes. Now here was a woman who barely stood 1.5 meters above the ground and who had carried his nearly 2 meter tall friend like he was a child. As Mark entered the living room and saw the woman place Clark down on the chair and asked "so have you been living here long?". The young woman turned around and smiled while she shrugged "is 3 years a long time?". Mark gave her a stunned look and the woman giggle before gesturing to the chair and couch.

Once both had sat down the young woman explain "I am Jessica by the way. I tried finding a home in this town 4 years ago when vampires came out, but due to everyone being afraid and such the dump down the street is the only place I got. I still had to pay for it, and contractors won't go near it because a vampire lives there". Jessica sighed and leaned back in the chair, meanwhile Mark still looked at her with a bit of shock in his eyes.

Jessica flicked the party hat on her head slightly and continued "Your friend was cool with me being a vampire and we talked for hours though. It's been ages since I were at a party, it's a shame this party is dying down and the sun is coming up". Suddenly Jessica sat up and cursed "shit fuck. The sun. I forgot. I, uhm. Can I stay here during the day? I promise I won't do anything. I can sleep in the basement or something".

Mark's mouth finally formed a smile as he saw that Jessica, although being an undead was still just as human as everyone else. He smiled and nodded before he said "You can stay. Just no biting and if you don't want to sleep yet. I can make some coffee and we can play Mario cart". At this Jessica's eyes lit up and she looked ecstatic as she said "aww hell yeah".

When he first rose from the seas to greet the fishermen on board in the darkest of nights, they screamed in such a horrible manner they almost blew his ears out.

"Don't be scared...wait, it's 'be not afraid'...," the tentacled monstrosity blurted out as he struggled mightily to read the words on his smudged cue cards, no doubt from the moisture. Did he manage to get his words out? He could not hear himself from the deafening screams of these humans.

One of the fishermen stopped his incessant shrieking to gawk, two hands firmly gripping his fishing spear, pointed in his direction. He raised a tentacle and pressed the spear downwards; he sensed a rude hostility and desired to push that down in favor of trying to speak their language. He had cribbed some words from a few of those flying eye-things who called themselves angels, hoping it could come in handy to resolve potential miscommunication.

"Stabbing fish with spears, it's so primitive and unrefined. I wish to impart to you better techniques." He slowly raised his hands and most of his tentacles (not all of them, after all, he still needed to keep a few tentacles in the water) in the air. Open, raised appendages is a sign of coming in peace, if he remembered correctly.

The fishermen seemed to understand. Teach us then, they said.

"And so that's all I did. I taught fishermen to fish better. Okay, I concede, I also handed out Amulets of Protection to a few favored followers. You have to believe me."

The monster slayer snorted his beer and brutally punched the creature clapped in chains before him. The creature spat out deep crimson blood onto the interrogation table and kept his steely gaze upon the slayer.

"Amulets of Protection my ass, you use those to brainwash people. You're a typical tentacled eldritch horror. I've seen and killed too many of your kind. I know what they call you, Eldritch Lord of the Black Seas. They say you drive humans insane with your incomprehensible cosmic revelations. They say you're evil and want to end our world and plunge it into the darkness."

"I merely seek to enlighten, for too long humans have lived on placid lands of ignorance in the midst of the black seas of infinity. You barely know what lies in the oceans and the seas of your own world. Surely, human's unfathomable curiosity could not be sated by what roams the lands alone, and will one day dive the depths of the waters to seek knowledge and power.

What you heard about me is nothing more than lies and slander. Innsmouth has grown from a village to a bustling city under my guidance." The creature opened his palms and tried to spread his shackled hands. It's a sign of peace, he told himself, the human should understand.

All he got was a hunting knife stabbed through the palm of his right hand.

"That's just rude," the creature said ruefully with a frown. "Who is the real monster here? The one who looks like a monster, or the one who behaves like a monster?"

"I'm not playing your mind games, eldritch horror. You are completely helpless and at my mercy chained with these magic nullifiers. When my crew is done dealing with your brainwashed followers, they will join me in tearing you apart. And I will enjoy hacking each and every one of those accursed tentacles of yours."

But little did they know, true divinity could not truly be destroyed, only shattered. But it still is a major pain in the ass to pull himself together when reduced to bloody gobs of messily hacked flesh.

He gritted his teeth. He wasn't going to cave in and start bawling in tears despite the agonizing pain. After years of receiving prayers from his followers, Elvari, Eldritch Lord of the Black Seas, silently prayed for the first time this dismemberment would suck a lot less than the first time he was shattered.

This was fun. Couldn't resist cribbing a bit of HP Lovecraft here.

Click here for the 1st prompt that inspired this series..

the 2nd entry, and sorta 3rd here

Been thinking if I should make my own subreddit and turn this into a legit short story series.

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I like Doug’s sass

Tysm!

Interstellar travel does not automatically imply any difference of sunrise and sundown. Actually it doesn't even imply any sunrise or sundown at all, or given length of day to be anything close to what it is on earth. I'm just saying, light-year is a unit of distance and all fellow humans I know measure Jetlag in units of time as in "I'm still x hours behind".

"This is called 'fire.' It can cook food so it tastes better and is healthier for you."

caveman tears own eyes out in terror

Is your doug a reference to doug eiffel from wolf 359? If so, nice reference