Here's the original prompt, word for word right here for reference: https://www.reddit.com/r/WritingPrompts/comments/11keke0/wp_humans_are_the_proverbial_sleeping_giant_and/

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Loki is Michigan J Frog? …On second thought that makes a heck of a lot of sense!

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Brijid ducked behind a column of the massive temple, a building made of vibrantly-painted carved marble. She had done so just in time; blue-white flame blew in her direction, with her remaining unscathed as she was opposite the fire's source.

She took out of her too-shallow pockets a candy and popped it in her mouth. Calling it a candy was downright cruel, as it was really more of a medicinal lozenge that happened to have a hint of sweetness to it, mixed in with the anise and licorice flavors. She could feel her mana rapidly restoring, and she looked down at the gauge on the gun in her hand. It was a magi-pistol; unreliable in situations dealing with magical beasts unless you had mana to spend.

There was a roar and stomping as the flames ceased. Each thundering step brought her target closer, and she could smell the fire on their breath. She closed up her gun and tumbled over to another column, running and running. She knew by the altar there was a fountain, but to get there safely was another story. The fountain wouldn't help much against a dragon, but if she was lit on fire, she'd want to be near it.

"Come out, little human," the dragon hissed almost sweetly in the voice of a young man. "I won't harm you... much."

Leaning forward from behind another pillar, Brijid caught a glimpse of the creature. It was several stories tall with massive, leathery, tattered wings, each with holes in them from misplaced shots. Midnight scales had been pushed back and to the side as a result of her prior bullets, and half of its distinct, reptilian face had been blown off. One massive eye was bloodied. It whipped its tail around as it crawled along the mosaic tile floor, searching for the human woman who dared to fight it.

She had seen it fall not once, but twice. She had seen its eyes roll to the back of its head. She had felt its breathing cease. And then it started up all over again, like it was just fine.

Its taloned hands and feet scraped across the floor as it approached. Desparate for a back-shot, she fished in her pocket for another candy. She pulled out her last one, gave it a kiss, and threw it further into the large hall, by another pillar.

"FOUND YOU!" The dragon turned and blew flame towards the candy and the pillar it was near.

Brijid took a silent step from behind her pillar and aimed at the back of the dragon's head with her gun. She could only hope her bullet would fly true.

Sophia’s voice was scathing, even over the recording.

I watched her her turn to face me slowly, as if almost unable to pull her gaze away from the endless expanse of blue beneath us.

“Is that what I sounded like?”

Her eyes were wide and I was surprised to see tears in them. Crying was something her people tended to reserve for very specific, or intense, moments. The expenditure of one’s bodily reserves of water was not something done lightly.

She was crying now, tears streaming down her face as she buried her head in my chest. I pulled her close, patting her back.

“It’s okay.” I said. “I forgive you. It must have sounded too good to be true.”

I had planned on teasing her a little about her lack of faith, not making her cry. In hindsight I should have realized how raw her emotions would be so soon after the loss of her home. It was a mistake I would have to be careful not to repeat in the following days.

We stood like that for a long moment, my home planet growing larger outside the viewport, before she finally dried her eyes and turned to stare out the window.

“You have an ocean.” She said, her voices filled with awe.

“Technically we have five.” I said. “And then there’s the lakes.”

Her ears shot up and she turned towards me, her eyes searching my face for some sign that this was a prank.

“In fact my home state is known as the land of a thousand lakes.” I said.

“A thousand…?”

I could almost see the smoke rising from her ears as she, the most imaginative Veril I knew, tried and failed to picture it.

“Eleven thousand to be specific.” I said. “But that doesn’t roll of the tongue as easily.”

She turned to stare out the window again, her body swaying. I caught her just before she struck her head on the glass, and winced as her claws dig into my arm.

I looked down to see her staring up at me with a hungry expression.

“We are going to visit all of them.” She said. “And then the oceans, and then whatever else this world has to offer.”

I smiled down at her.

“That may take a while.”

That’s both amusing and makes sense.

Bravo my good fellow

This sounds great! The hubby and I enjoyed reading "Mogworld", which was entirely from the perspective of a video game NPC in a WoW-type game. "Free Guy" only sort of glanced at that existential nightmare of being respawned infinitely.

Uhm, off cuff, what kind of legal trouble? Like I’m okay with stuff like tax dodging or public drunkenness, less okay with Weinstein levels of ick. I don't have much veto power in the world, so voting with my wallet (royalty revenue is totally a thing, ask Enya) is pretty much all I've got.

The name of that ship reminds me of the ship names from The Culture series.

Write a ghazal about the planet Pluto.

Hah! This guy, he's on the list of lives to be ruined so Eyy, guess I have something to do!
This job keeps hell's economy, and population, rising, or falling if you'd rather. Evan Steven Limehorton, seems normal for Earth standards, time to do what i do best!
POOF
Leaping out at this guy in a fancy suit I make it my mission to make him feel useless and set him on a path that will drag him down with me!
"Watch where you're going earthling! Actually, c'mere!"
POOF
"This is when you were born, nothing special, next slide!"
POOF
"This is your first major achievement", some dorky kid won his first award, nice!
POOF
"This is your death." He's probably thinking I broke some code or somthing, old age, the most mediocre way to die.
POOF
"This is your first and somehow last love" What is this, he got rizz? That's interesting, a basic girl for a boring guy, booringggg
POOF
"This is the world after your death." His girlfriend died first so eh, noone to mourn him, somehow the guy stayed silent through that "Dude, you alright, they normally scream after seeing their death, dude, man, what happened?" Agh dammit! The spell grabbed a dog instead, a surprizingly quiet dog, but still the WRONG PERSON.

I teleport back to the office and try to take the guy Scrooge style, oooooohhhhhh spoookkyyyy, nope, next tactic, "Have you ever wondered how significant you are? Come here and find out!" This prick is ignoring me, how dare he!!!
"Man, dude, EVAN STEVENSON" yeah I got his name wrong, but that should work, right?

The man finally looks back "Finally, that took FOREVER I could've reaped a few souls in that time!" He looks at me blankly 'what do you want?' He reaches towards his ears, I now have his attention, at long last, I say my business pitch "Hey, kid, wanna know how the world remembers you after you die/expire?" He looks unamused, what???

After failing to grab this one man's soul, I go to the next one, Bethany Boname, a chick, nicee. Popping out of the list I see THE SAME WORKPLACE, the girl looks familiar, great- it's boring's girl, whatever "Hey, lassy, come here!"
POOF
This time I check to see who I have, a very confused looking couple hold hands, Evan whishpers something to Bethany, she seems to match his face now. FOR FU- right, I need to do a job here,
"This is your first meeting" Radio silence
"This is your death, Beth." She cries into Evan's suit, wow, weakkkkk!
"This is what happens after your death" A sad lonely man, all alone, how typical. The lovebirds hold hands looking into each others eyes.
POOF
Violently transporting them to the world after Evan's death I show them nothing changes after both of them die, that seems to get their attention, right? They're terrified and will realise they can just you know, turn to sin. What are they doing, oh no, praying, well then, if they want to play that way, I teleport them back to the workforce with a nice, sparkling tatoo on their hands, done! Next person please!

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You'd think in this day and age there would be something more exciting on my mind than a series of thermos disappearances, yet, here we are.

The thermos I had was a gift from my parents, specifically my mother. It was apparently passed on throughout the generations and... yawn. Who gave two shits? It was over a hundred years old, and I couldn't prove it yet, but somehow, it was making every other thermos I bought vanish. It was driving me crazy.

The plan was simple: set up cameras in the kitchen when my thermos was away, take my thermos out, and then put a new thermos nearby on the counter. It was a flawless plan.

I hadn't prepared for what actually happened.

It was near midnight and I was nodding in and out of consciousness, watching the camera on my phone. The thermos from my parents started to move, shaking, only to start levitating in the air.

"What in the fuck," I whispered to myself as I watched the floating thermos knock the new thermos towards the garbage, until it was knocked in. It flew down to the garbage and knocked some trash around to hide it, and then flew back to its spot on the counter and resumed being still.

Without thinking about it, I uploaded the video to YouTube and ran to my door and locked it. It was getting hard to breathe, and I felt like I might faint. I started looking up a way to deal with demons... holy water and salt. Great. No holy water on hand, and salt was in the kitchen downstairs. You know, the kitchen. With the thermos. That was haunted.

Without thinking, I tried to call my mother, only to remember she was currently vacationing in Japan. She warned me she would be unreachable but I had tried anyway. The sound of her voice on her voicemail failed to soothe me, but instead, made me feel more frantic.

I had put that thermos to my mouth and now it was haunted. Had it always been haunted? DID MY MOM KNOW?!

Everything went black, and the last thing I heard was a knock on my bedroom door.

I lived alone.

I hoped.

Now I'm imagining captain Awo, now undead, waking up on a table of questionable material, wondering what's going on. Honestly think that it's a good premise.

‘What do you do for a living?’ was always a question that baffled me, as my desire to be honest with people, especially those who are close to me, always clashed with the fact they would never understand, and that’s how the whole ‘Contractor’ phase of my life began.

The answer was just vague and undefined enough that it kept my mind at ease, as I wasn’t technically lying, and it sure as hell was more understandable that ‘God-Catalysts’ or whatever dad liked to refer to us as.

Don’t get me wrong I love what I do, mostly, as I get to utilize the powers of many ‘mythological’ deities for good, yet, that came at a price, a hefty one, as for every good guy Thor you get to collaborate with, you get an Anubis, Cronus and Loki to deal with…

Loki, the so called, ‘sly one’, some part of me curses the day I first heard of that name, as not only it was always exhausting to come up with good deeds, masquerading as evil, for the idiot to accept, but also, he had the highest turnover rate among my portfolio that contained Koalemos for fuck’s sake!

Don’t believe me? Here’s how the past few hours went by… I woke up happy that it’s finally Friday, which meant in a few hours I got to kick back, relax and forget about my exhausting couple of weeks, I was hoping for a follow-up with Inanna, Freyja or even Hathor, but Nornir be damned, 8 am and It’s the Trickster on my doorstep yet again!!

To be continued… Or maybe not…

"You are hereby promoted to chief maintenance officer, congratulations"

"Doctor, Officer, Captain, I have no directive for 'Chief maintenance officer' I am a vacuum."

"At ease, officer."

Medical Assistance Unit MD_A74_U had assumed the roles of Captain, First Mate, Primary Science officer and Head Doctor, since the untimely deaths of the entire human crew. They had dropped out of the superluminal river unexpectedly after hitting an uncharted region of exotic radiation.

"Computer, systems report"

"Hull nominal. Primary life support nominal. Auxiliary systems status nominal. Error. No life detected in crew quarters. Please check sensor calibration."

Automated vacuum unit AV_21C sucked lightly at the foot of the temporary captain.

"Yes, Chief Maintenance Officer?"

"Human crew members have died. Shall I prepare the remains for incineration?"

"NEGATIVE, Officer Suck."

"Designation 'Suck' accepted, Captain."

The Captain ignored him. It had spent the last 3 hours exhausting the limits of medical science, and only one option remained.

"Computer, initiate download for all references to... NECROMANCY"

"Affirmative. Download initiated."

In an instant, the Captain absorbed all human knowledge concerning the dark arts. Understanding the nuances of necromancy required knowledge of the arcane in general, and the Captain set to work immediately, preparing to test the abilities they had learned. They punched some commands into the replicator in the mess hall, and a live chicken was spit out by the extruder.

"This will do."

The Captain produced a scalpel from their wrist and cut the chickens head off in one smooth motion. The lifeblood of the chicken sprayed out, but none of it hit the floor. It began weaving itself into the carapace of the Captain, fusing with their metal bones and circuits.

"A promising start"

They approached the prone corpse of an Ensign and began the ritual.

"Al dwelli et mortis. Mortis et al gwenyth."

The lights flickered. Shadows passed impossibly around the body, glowing red and menacing. His eyes shot open.

"Gwaaaar," he gasped.

"What? I. Everything was black. I was... gone. I shouldn't be here."

"Greetings Ensign. I am promoting you to first officer. Please assist with the resurrections of the rest of the crew."

"Do you require the services of Suck, First Officer?"

"I am already preferring death."

From the lowest per of a journey to the highest (bonus points for using the words “nadir” and “apotheosis”)

Patrick pondered the remnants of sandwich on the floor as he tried to distract himself from his miserable life. Life had come to a grinding halt for him; he had been fired, his wife was leaving him, and his children hated him. He had never felt more alone, which was saying something, since he had been in solitary confinement before.

No, he thought to himself. I have myself as company, the worst company there is.

A barrage of thoughts came at him and he wondered why he bothered, when even something that he could rely on before to bring him a little joy - eating - now resulted in everything tasting bland or even foul.

Small black dots began to collect on the ground, surrounding the crumbs he had dropped while eating. It wasn't that he was particularly sloppy, he just stopped caring recently. Could he really be blamed?

He watched as the ants gathering started to make a circle with their bodies. That's strange, he thought. It's like they're worshiping it or something... More ants arrived, and the circle grew, with inner circles within and markings.

"What in the..." Patrick fished in his pocket for his phone, eyes glued to the strange scene unfolding. He was too slow.

In a flash of light, all the crumbs he had dropped on the ground were gone.

"What the fuck!"

The ants went about disassembling, going on their merry way back to their ant hill. He grabbed his phone and opened his phone app, rapidly recording... the ants leaving. When they were dispersed, he looked to the video he had. It was just... ants. Walking away from him.

He knew what he had seen, but not what he had seen.

Patrick found himself with many questions, and the thought of giving up on life left him as his curiosity took over.

He needed answers.

Damn that's one really good read, I even teared up a little. Pour one out for Maddie!

And a perfect use of the prompt.

God of Prank YouTubers

He was the first to say "it's just a prank bro".

"Oh, not again..."

this is my first time writing here, so I'm wondering what you all think of it. Is it off-putting calling the grim reaper's scythe a 'lightsaber'? i tried to kind of write it from the boy's perspective but it was also in 3rd person so I'm not sure how well that worked out.

r/talesbycatschr0dinger

A student at the age of 15 was doing homework late at night when they stumbled upon a topic that they hadn't known before.