Yes, I know I should not have ignored the man pointing the gun at me. At the time, it was only too obvious that he was joshing me. He was wearing the ripped jeans and white tee that often accompanied my hallucinations.

I glanced away from him to keep him in my periphery; it would upset me more if I indulged the fantasies.

The bank teller gave me a strange look before freezing, holding her gaze over my shoulder.

In that moment, it felt as though a fourth wall had been shattered. Abruptly, the two worlds that felt so sacred and yet eternally separate crashed together. The fake contents of my brain puddled onto the floor, materializing in this woman who somehow also saw my hallucination!

I then froze, horrified.

And... if she is also phony? If she is only pretending?

To explain the cognition that followed in those brief moments would surpass my skills. An image formed of me nursing from this woman while gouging her eyes, plunging my thumbs deeply into her skull.

The fake man turned his fake gun towards my face. I stared down the barrel, as I had with so many prior fairy tales.

I remember naught else, friends.

For those special moments...

Those important times you want to share...

Or all of those occasions when you wanted to say yes...

On those days, in those brief, precious seconds...

Find it in yourself to COME ON DOWN TO Cici's!!!

At Cici's, say yes to our snow powdered brownies, our grease covered, store-bought pizza, and our signature dough baked with cheese and parmesan!

After, hit the links with your family! See if YOU can beat the Skeeball JACKPOT!

A confetti effect streams down the TV screen while the camera whips around Cici's, before landing on the employees beaming at the audience.

"Come join the Cici's family!"

The employees grin ear to ear as though a man behind the camera holds a gun on them.

Of our class only a few remained. Early on we felt a certain type of pride, as if we were the most "human" of the bunch, not being willing to bash each other in or do the ol' in-out on their fellow man or woman.

However, that could not be further from the truth.

"Hey, guys." Helen beckoned to us. "I got lunch ready."

This loop, she decided to make turkey and cheese sandwiches with bags of Funyuns and Caprisun pouches.

"Thanks, Hel." I said, digging in.

"It'd be February thirteenth if the days had kept going." Janice said, her eyes fixed firmly on her paper plate.

"Really?" Tim asked. "You've kept track?"

"You haven't?" Janice retorted.

Several of us clearly hadn't. An awkward silence fell.

Helen broke the silence.

"Hey, uh, guys." She cleared her throat. "Today, this loop, can we just promise each other that we're gonna be calm? This cycle, let's all just relax, keep our cool, and be nice to each other, okay? Just... after Clyde, Justin, and Kyle's riot..." Helen cried, ending her speech.

"Yeah, sure." I said along with most of the others.

My brothers, at that time, I truly believed that. I'm sure all of us did. It was supposed to be just a nice, mellow day.

But, my brothers, what you must understand is that the most important thing in a man's life is the present. The current moment triumphs all.

That is how I will try to justify myself, anyway, for really at the end of the day, who cares? There is only my own mind to satiate. I am not standing before a gate with angels, not yet anyway.

Regardless, as if at this time feeling guilt or feeling sorry for myself will help.

Anyway, in that present moment I promised to be good. I promised to do what I needed to do, which effectively was just relax for like twenty for hours.

I don't know what happened, my friends.

It felt as though a primal force, like an instinct of sorts, was pushing me in a particular direction, like an incredibly strong gust of wind.

There were these physical hands on my body gripping my legs and arms and fingers, even gripping the hairs on my head to make me look particularly badass during the action.

The ghostly fingers stretched my eyelids wide opened as they helped me bludgeon Janice. By the time her head was unrecognizable mush the fingers push had much lessened. I threw plenty more blows, my brothers, before stopping due to swallowing down the wrong pipe.

So there I was, doubled over because I swallowed wrong, drenched in blood. I was really belly-coughing, cause it felt like the saliva had gotten far into my lungs.

"Hey, Steve, you okay?" My colleague, Harper asked from outside of my stall.

"Jus- doi- fine." I spurted, finally getting some of the fluid out of my system.

"Yeah, ya sound peachy." Harper said dryly. "See you at the conference, brother, it starts at four."

person who is basically a stalker who is very convinced another person is in love with them and what they're doing is normal/sweet

You're experiencing life as a square

This sounds like a recipe for child abuse in case my response doesn't make sense.

Angel died yesterday, probably. His lifeless frame was found crumpled, his skin long gray, gross-smelling fluids oozing from his eyes and mouth. But it could have been earlier, I suppose than yesterday that he perished.

I mostly kept busy with the day's sudoku while the others dealt with him, as they're want to do.

The puzzle had a quite beautiful X-wing that took me a handful of minutes to find. By the time the ink had dried, they stood outside around the little mound of dirt, singing.

One of the young ones beckoned for me, pointing to a crying welp. The stench of Angel's liquids, still soaked into the floorboards pounded my temples, though. I snapped at an older girl, pointed at the baby with her full diaper, and went to lie down.

Sometime later, I woke up in a sweat. One of the damn children had opened the curtain, letting the blazing sun bare down on us.

Entering the kitchen, I took a portion of beans cooked by the older girls of the house before the scent of Angel's rot filled my nostrils.

Thankfully, one of the little ones noticed my revulsion. She jumped to her feet, abandoning her plate. Returning with incense sticks and candles, she lit them before rejoining the table. I gave her head a little pat, her cheek a little squeeze.

Leaving the filth of the grubby ones behind was a necessity. I spent some time tidying my one refuge, my bedroom, before opening a warm can of premixed jack and coke.

Finally, I felt a lightness in my chest. The drink went down easy, and I was shortly on my second, sitting jovially in my rocking chair. I flitted from book to book, from game to game, from thought to thought, playing music loud enough to escape the irritations of the other room.

Yet, in a moment of utmost joy, I smelled it again. I whipped my head about, looking for the source.

Instead, my eyes landed on the vent, and I erupted from my haven, knocking down a few oafs who had been waiting by my door.

I launched into the baby room and retched. Diapers piled high, in long decayed garbage bags. The thin reedy cry of a baby much in need of water filled my ears, and intense anger accompanied me.

The feelings mounted. The whine escalated, permeating through my spine. The smell of shit and decay flowed rapidly from my nostril to invade my brain, clouding my vision and thoughts. The needs and the wide-eyed stare of children clutching soft, dirty blankets disgusted me.

The need for alone time, for a place of my own, for a refuge piled.

I rushed to my bedroom, locking the door and even propping a chair under the handle. Towels and insulation were stuffed in the vents and cracks, and nose plugs were followed by ear plugs.

I couldn't hear the heavenly sound that accompanied the jack and coke cracking open, but I could taste the sweet bitters.

I really feel like I did stick to the specific prompt, and it was just like what you're saying, a different take on it. Given the vagueness of the prompt what I wrote feels reasonable to me.

The prompt didn't say that it had to be " what would an author do if they're stuck reading their own book in a class, with the teacher reading way too much into it?" as the above poster says.

It says "Annoyingly, your English teacher is reading way too deeply into your books."

My take on that is just as valid as the next person's, and my take was that the english teacher was reading too deeply into murder mysteries, alerted the authorities, and the story picked up there. Is that not just a different take?

"Melmon Landry Arnold! Hallway, now!" Mrs. Johnson led the way, gripping Melmon tightly by the elbow.

She flung open the manuscript she was helping edit. "What is this?" She spat in his face.

Melmon had not the time to read the trembling pages before they were yanked upward.

"You describe the teacher, Mrs. Helen, as curmudgeonly, frumpy, and curt, among plenty of other colorful slanders." Mrs. Johnson now drew herself up, stabbing her finger in Melmon's direction. "I am not curmudgeonly. Nor am I frumpy or curt. Needless to say, I will not be further editing this piece."

Melmon shrank into his Nike tennis shoes, feeling his heart rate rise. "But- But, ma'am. She's not- not you." The words were spoken to the ground, barely above a mumble.

Yet Mrs. Johnson knew better, beholding her own body, looking down at her belly, even ironically observing her own behavior at the moment. She had been slighted by this pathetic fallacy of a student. This eighth-grade boy, well renowned in the young adult science fiction world, bared his soul to Mrs. Johnson, who allowed her to read the treasured work that he himself felt utterly proud of.

Mrs. Johnson looked deep into Melmon's impressionable, young eyes. "I mean, it was okay." She spoke deliberately before turning on her heel to continue class.

I respectfully disagree and don’t think that’s the point of a sub about creative writing.

Edited to add: to be clear also I didn’t substitute stuff. In my mind while writing the story, the teacher alerted the authorities who arrested the author and were then questioning him. I get that that may be a small leap but it’s a really simple logical leap given the prompt and what would logically happen if he was actually genuinely suspicious.

The English teacher alerted authorities who arrested him and the story picks up there… feels like that’s a pretty easy leap to take if I’m being honest.

Surprised by the downvotes and I dislike the precedent set on this sub where if you don’t follow the exact prompt you’re just dismissed.

I basically just subbed the English teacher for the cop and yet somehow that’s entirely different from the prompt?

edit: ty for the “I mean it’s okay”. That totally didn’t feel slightly rude.

The English Professor spun a web so convincing the policemen couldn’t help but pull out their handcuffs.

“Book him boys” Captain Crestwood commanded, and Clyde was led with hands behind his back to the police station, where he was set up in a small interview room.

Clyde held his baseball cap between his knees, counting to five between each stage of breathing. Twinges of gray filled his periphery.

"As I've said, officer, the similarity between the novella and the real events is simple. The novella is based on the murder of Courtney and Wilson Danvers, dramatized from the publicized account. Frankly, it is astonishing that my recounting of it should feel so genuine that I should be called in for questioning. It's almost a compliment, really." A faint smile danced on Clyde's lips, and the officer grimaced.

Yet the policeman continued again, baring down hard as he must on any suspect. Picking apart every aspect of the story, every little bit and piece, every nook and cranny, every apple and every orange, with oddly specific and seemingly meaningless questions.

The old lout clearly believed Clyde, thus Clyde relaxed, and allowed himself to sink deeper into his chair, largely droning out the bleating police captain, who was continuing to scrutinize Clyde's books.

Clyde gave occasional curt utterances, having already made his said, leaving the old, stupid oaf to do his routine police work. After a time he closed his eyes, leaving the old brute to ask his routine questions, to speculate and speak sentences that end with an upward inflection as if they were a question, though no question was spoken.

Police Captain Ashton Crestwood closely monitored the snakelike individual before him, buying none of his casual charm. The copy of Clyde Donavan's most popular book, Morning to Dawn, autographed by Clyde in front of Officer Wood, lay in the trash bin, its personalized message unread.

Captain Crestwood inwardly laughed at Clyde's gusto, the childlike way he leaned back in the seat and lazily closed his eyes. He had already decided the man must be guilty, long before he had met him personally. The evidence was damning, frankly, yet even more important matters were taking precedence.

An easy and quick win was needed.

The town was just coming off the tail end of a vicious streak of robberies, a few of which unfortunately turned poorly, resulting in fatalities and injuries. The police were of no help.

In one instance, an officer responding to a robbery in a particularly nasty part of town shamed the two folks for being so stupid to respond to an inquiry to buy their phone over craigslist. The phone was stolen, and the cop took the opportunity to shame the buyer for their stupidity.

The man gave hard glances around the neighborhood, at the little boys and girls playing on the old playground, at the groups of children with no toys to play with yet the strongest sense of neighborhood bond.

"Do you see where you are?"

The kids didn't know how to respond, and one of them tried to think of the city's name. The cop interrupted.

"No, look around you. Look at this place, does this look like where you live?" The cop gave them a hard stare.

The two teenage kids, with their recently lost phones, took in the scene of the rundown, crappy apartments. One of them noticed a little black boy, maybe six years old, soaking in every word the big police officer said, his face screwed up in sadness.

So after many incidents much like that one, with as much usefulness to the community as that one, the good Police Captain Ashton Crestwood wanted an easy dub.

Thus, Clyde was slapped behind bars, pending further evidence, as his house was ripped bar by bar, shred by shred, while the cops sprinkle cocaine, limbs, blood, whatever evidence is required.

It was not long before Clyde saw that blessed chair, and then his lord. Chief Crestwood received a moderate bonus.

"I swear, you two are very lucky I'm not the King of Solomon!" The judge had heard enough arguments from the wizened crone and goat-horned red imp in front of him.

Despite being the main agitator, the little imp didn't take kindly to the comment. He jerked his left goat horn with his right hand and hurled it towards his right. The ivory horn boomeranged with the schwiiing of a saw around the courtroom before embedding into the judge's right eye with such force that it punctured outside of the skull and back again through the front, remaining impaled in the man's temple.

The old woman threw her hands in the air before placing them on her hips, whipping her head accusingly towards Impy. "Now look what you've done!"

"You heard the man!" The little imp's voice ended on a high note each phrase, extremely defensive. "You heard what he said, we should have taken his tongue out first."

"You dolt! They'll have to reschedule us now!" The witch, Helen, was already packing up her wooden briefcase, filled with various potions, ingredients, and her court paperwork.

Impy's shoulders rounded as his face fell. "Oh, yeah." They had already waited a month. Suddenly Impy's face got even redder. He looked at the floor in shame, for the moment forgetting his hatred for Helen. Why hadn't he thought harder at the moment and not killed the man?

It's hard, to think of things like that. It is just an instinct, an instant thing to hurl a horn at a man who insults your character. As simple as breathing, or kicking a stray cat, or checking each car door to see if they're unlocked. Just one of the things you don't really think about, you know?

Helen did not know. Her face looked grosser the longer Impy talked. Eventually, he lulled into silence.

"Uh.. yeah. Right." Helen rolled her eyes, making a weird face. Impy was confused what she was thinking. "Look, whatever. I'll see you in a few more weeks, I'm sure. Just don't kill the next one." Helen turned before Impy replied, her hips swinging as her heels clacked.

Impy spent a few minutes processing the event, trying to work through it in his head.

How could he prevent this in the future?

How could he be sure he remembered? Maybe writing a note?

Fundamentally there was no way to know he would remember. Maybe he should just repeat it in his brain a million times. No one will believe the excuse a second time that he just didn't think. Did they all believe him the first time?

Impy stopped packing his briefcase, his heart rate escalating. He imagined everyone he had ever known, accusing him. Calling him a liar and a cheat, a fake and a hypocrite, a bastard and a phony. After all who just doesn't think about something so serious as killing a person?

He scribbled a note in his notepad app, then he didn't open the note for the next four months before deleting it without a second glance during a phone spring cleaning.