Prompt #7

Prompt #26

(Character A) meets (Character B) at the Area 51 raid. (Character B) freaks out because they work there (albeit not voluntarily, it was a family thing to work for the government), and pretends they’re an alien because they’re a pathological liar.

Fortunately(?), (Character A) is stupid and believes them, so now (Character B) has to keep up with the charade after (Character A) takes them home to rescue them from the facility.

the oasis vs the ocean

it’s freezing in the quiet empty.

cold is comforting in its honesty;

the heat may envelope me but it only burns my skin,

its lies are all-encompassing.

yet the cold is here now,

and it is blunt, but it never hugs - it loves without a single touch.

the heat tries to love,

but it sears and scratches my bones, marking and tearing at my skin.

it smears its ash over my broken body, tears turning to steam and my gasping sobs turning into a cacophony of silence.

‘would you rather die of heat or cold?’

someone once said to me that the world will either end in fire or ice.

i know what i would prefer.

i know what i would rather feel.

numbness, hot, blazing frostbite causing slow inane hallucinations, a sick parody of the little match girl.

scathing, writhing flames licking the walls and leaning in, reeking of its victims and leering at its future prey.

i know myself well.

i hate that sometimes.

did you know that cold is not a feasible term?

cold is not its own self.

cold is simply the absence of heat.

a room filled to the brim with snow is not full,

not in the way a room full of fire is.

a room full of fire is suffocation in its most simple form,

smoke rising and smothering.

the snow is breathable, almost nonexistent,

and some animals even hide in the snow for protection in the winter.

did you know that?

the heat is a hitch in your breath, it’s a splatter of ink from a shaking hand.

it is stifling and deadly, not an embrace but a chokehold.

the heat will kill fierce, passionate, ares in his most pure form.

the cold is a ghost of a touch, a never ending inhale, a whisp of an idea.

it is a weathered blanket, holed and tattered and a false shelter in the storm.

the cold will kill gentle, quiet.

there is no glory, no fight in dying of cold.

resignation is cold, so it makes sense that cold will kill with resignation.

too little or too much?

i have always been safe in my choices.

too much will never make me empty,

too much will never leave me in the dark, blind and unknowing,

too much will never let me stay alone in blue air and white breaths and blurry vision from the saltwater streaming down my crimson cheeks and lips like shattered glass,

too much will never crack me with nothing, a void in my eyes and a thousand yard stare,

too much will never keep me deathly still in anticipation until everything seeps out of me in a realization that I only anticipate anticipation.

but even so…

too little will never send a fire through my nerves and cauterize my heart,

too little will never shatter me in a haze of red and dusty charcoal,

too little will never trace delicate fingers of ember across me and scar me in the ashes,

too little will never kill me with a glance, break me with uncertainty.

drowning is inevitable either way.

i will drown in either the oasis or the ocean,

nothing or all.

too little will never satisfy me,

but too much will only hurt me.

adventure has never been my friend,

and courage is swapped for anxiety.

my mind is not my brain,

and its thoughts aren’t my choices,

so i take the safe road,

as i always do.

…..

….

…

..

.

..

…

….

…..

the oasis is an empty salvation.

the ocean is an empty home.

water is simply an empty.

in the end, i will die, and it will be silent.

it is on nights like these that i think i will live in the nothing until nothing is my everything.

until i know the nothing as my home.

...

i will never know fulfillment the way i know the empty.

Prompt #2

Soulmate AU, where the first words you say to someone are written on your body somewhere. The catch is that they’re written in your soulmate’s handwriting, aging with them.

For example, if a child is about four years old when their soulmate is born, then scribbles will appear on their body somewhere, illegible until they get older and learn how to write. The baby would be born with their soulmate’s writing already on them.

Illiterate people’s soulmates would be nearly unable to find them. People would be getting older and older, and not know whether they had no soulmate or whether their soulmate had not been born yet.

Please if you are going through anything tough or need someone to talk to, reach out to someone! There are always people willing to listen and people who can help. You are loved, you have worth and you are not alone!

Here are some useful helplines and resources if you need them. Do not be afraid to ask for help!  http://www.buddy-project.org/hotlines

Prompt #12

(Character A)’s life is set up completely by their parents for a social experiment; complete with castings for background characters and side characters.

(Character B) is a side character in (Character A)’s life. They’re supposed to be the bully, but as they find themselves falling for (Character A), they start to break their script.

An updated version - might go through more changes. :)

burn

It wasn’t about him. It was never about him.

In fact, she never meant for him to have any involvment in the matter, never meant for him to ever know about it. He was never meant to know anything.

It had started long before she ever knew him.

It started when her father had brought out a lighter one evening. He opened his pack of cigarettes and took a long drag, his shoulders relaxing. He sunk into the chair. He no longer cared about hiding his addiction from his daughter, playing with a doll idly on the carpeted floor, six years old and quiet as a mouse.

She was known for being a rather emotionless child. Not once had she laughed or grinned or cried. Her mother fretted about her, but her father didn’t mind. No tantrums was fine with him. The lack of feelings wasn’t a problem with him. She watched with glazed eyes as flaky ashes fell to the carpet. She stared at them as they floated gently to the floor, choking and coughing a bit from the fumes.

She stared even longer at the lighter. How could a fire be hiding in the tiny object?

Late into the night, she snuck into the living room where the lighter was still lying next to the ashtray, and stole it. The next morning, she hid it in her backpack and ran off into the woods to play.

It was yellow and shiny and had a grey top that flipped open. She immediately was fascinated, entranced. Her eyes lit up for the first time. It was so small, but had such power! When she mimicked her father’s motions, it let out a fizzling spark once, twice, thrice, and then burst into a tiny flame.

She knew what she was doing tomorrow. Her eyes burned with the fire she now possessed.

Her mother found the neighbor’s cat later that month, half-decomposed and covered in soot, and she had screamed. It was the kind of scream from a horror movie that got half-hearted reviews, one that never really sent shivers down your spine. It never even got under her skin. She didn’t care that she had been found out. The cat was annoying anyways. Her flames were bright, unstoppable, unable to be extinguished, and she would feed the fire until everything came down around her.

Years later, in her twenties, she met him. Her lover. He was sunny and bright and passionate and emotional and everything she wasn’t. He was her fire. She wanted him, in a way that she hadn’t wanted since she’d laid her eyes on that lighter over a decade ago.

And eventually, she got him. It seemed like she had attached herself to him, in a strange way. She wanted him to be hers, and only hers, but shied away from affection and emotion. She didn’t know how to respond to his hugs, how to smile for him. She didn’t know how to be genuine.

And that meant that she had to avoid him, and that meant that she left the house often, coat over her shoulders and lighter in her pocket.

She didn’t know what she wanted more, him or her fire. And that scared her.

She hadn’t known what it was like to be scared before.

She flicked the lighter, and threw it down on the large pile of dry grass and twigs at her feet. The willow tree sheltered the newborn flame, and it slowly climbed higher and higher. As it began to lick the tree top, she backed away to admire the light in the drizzling rain. Her light.

Her eyes gleamed.

Her fire burned.

Her lover still smiled for her when she came home. He smiled through watery eyes, and she wasn’t sure if it was from her late return or from the water drops tapping out a rhythm on the sidewalk or from the ash that clung to her shoulders, even through the rain. She didn’t know how to understand what he felt on their best days together.

He hugged her close and securely whenever she came home, and she responded the same. Her eyes were as dry as the Sahara, saved from the rain by her umbrella, glazed over with disinterest. Waiting for the next opportunity to buy another lighter. To buy more gasoline. To build a stack of sticks and grass. To relish in the newfound brightness.

To burn.

(She never thought about how he had had an umbrella of his own when she came out to greet him, and how his clothes were dry.)

She would set the world on fire just to watch it go ablaze, and she would smile the same smile she always had before. An answering smile. An answer to the questions, to the counselors at school and the dead cat her mother found covered in charcoal and gasoline, to the classmates who were afraid of her in kindergarten, to the prescriptions in her cabinet, ever fluorescent.

To her lover, whose eyes were still full of water on the sunniest day of the year. She still ignored the drip-dropping of water on her neck whenever they hugged.

(It wasn’t raining.)

(She didn’t know how to explain it, so she avoided it.)

(Sometimes, she thinks that he cries because he doesn’t know what to do anymore.)

He cried when she left and cried when she came home, and he cried when he was alone and cried when she was with him. He cried when she smelled like a campfire and when she had ashes sprinkled in her hair, and he cried when their budgeting started to include lighters and gasoline.

He cried every tear that she never could.

Sometimes she wished that she could cry for him instead. He must have been so dehydrated.

(For his birthday, she bought him a nice water bottle. “So you can stay hydrated. You cry an awful lot,” she said. He grinned and hugged her, then pulled away quickly.

“Thank you.” His lips were wobbly and saltwater streamed down his cheeks. She smelled like a campfire.)

She always had grey peppering her clothes. Her smile was subdued, but her eyes were distant and wild. Like they knew something. Like they had already watched the world burn down in their head a million times, and enjoyed every second.

A psychopath.

An arsonist.

Someone who burned trees and papers for fun. Someone who bought too many lighters in too little time. (The gas station attendant had never seen so many lighters be laid out on the checkout counter.) Someone who watched her lover cry and looked away with disinterest. Someone who didn’t leave the house one day to burn.

(He was still home, crying in the corner. She didn’t notice him until the end.)

Someone who never cried when she watched her lover scream and his tears evaporate, ugly crying, with eyes of crimson and half moon bruises underneath and snot running down his face, saltwater on his tongue and dripping off his chin just to go up and evaporate in flames and smoke.

Someone who died with her lover by accident and didn’t care. Someone who watched the flames with gleaming eyes until the end.

(Her eyes were still gleaming when they burned to the ground.)

Prompt #1

(Character A) is in a relationship with (Character B). However, they became a couple after coming home from (Character A)’s family’s trip and pretending to be together. Their family found out that they were pretending on the last day of the trip, and think they are still friends. One member of the family, one that they both hate, said that they would be good together. Neither of them want to prove the family member right.

Recently, they were invited to another family trip. Now, (Character A) and (Character B) have to pretend to still be friends, the opposite of what they did before.

Prompt #16

(Character A) is a rebellious teen, and when they get together with the goody-two-shoes (Character C), everyone warns (Character C) to be wary.

In the end, it’s (Character A) who gets their heart broken, and nobody knows how...

Except maybe (Character B), who’s been with (Character C) before and knows exactly what they’re like. As an empathetic person, they become friends with (Character A) to try and mend their heart, and fall in love a bit in the process.

As (Character A) has just gotten out of a bad relationship, (Character B) doesn’t want to rush anything, but little do they know that (Character A) is just as enamoured.

Cue the ‘I don’t want them to be a rebound’ and ‘I’m not gonna rush anything’ and let the story begin.

Prompt #28

(Character A)’s friend, (Character C), has a HUGE crush on (Character B). In fact, so does (Character A), but they don’t want to start a rivalry with their already possessive friend, so they don’t mention it.

(Character C) comes up with the idea of fake-dating each other in an attempt to make (Character B) jealous, buuuuut....

(Character B) only seems jealous of (Character C).

She thinks that maybe it’s the bone structure.

Her face was odd, and it was odd in the way that it didn’t seem normal to anyone else. It was something different, and she didn’t like it.

Once, she waxed her eyebrows off entirely. All the way gone. The clock on the bathroom wall showed that it was late, a bit too late to be up. Good. Eye bags would diminish exceptional beauty.

She never got eye bags.

She had panted in front of the mirror, eyes tearing up, but smiling all the same. Finally, she wasn’t perfect. Finally, she felt she could match how pretty she was on the outside with herself on the inside. After so long....

She felt like she was crying happy tears, despite the constant twinges of pain, and it was glorious to feel individuality, as if she could choose what happened! Like she belonged in her body, after trying so long.

And then it grew back in the morning.

Flawlessly shaped and full.

And nothing she ever did changed anything.

God, it was so depressing to think about.

Nothing she did changed anything. Nobody took her seriously, nobody ever looked at her and wanted to see her any less beautiful. The best thing she could be was pretty.

And she didn’t really feel like she matched it, really.

Her body was different from her brain, her face didn’t match her heart - and she didn’t feel like her heart was even that great! She wasn’t super brave or smart or nice or anything, she was just pretty.

She wished she was ugly.

People whispered about her behind her back, and it wasn’t the kind that usually hurt feelings. Normally, nobody would be offended by being called gorgeous or beautiful or hot or cute or whatever adjective English could produce! Normally it would be accepted, craved, even!

But she wanted nothing more than to be wanted for being less than perfect, less than desirable. She was starving for genuine affection, and was getting superficial attention. She didn’t know if unconditional love was real. Isn’t that what a mother should feel?

Does her mother feel that, if she let this thing be her daughter?

It was like a drowning man being showered with money and being told to buy his way out. It would be helpful in any situation other than the one she was in.

Just once, she wished to shave her whole head and wear the ugliest jumper in the history of mankind. Sing like a tone-deaf monkey and break a glass, and have people act horrified and scandalized. She wanted to walk down the street and not hear anything but the cars roll by, and go to a coffee shop without getting five different numbers, maybe enjoy her black coffee for a change.

Anything but perfection.

She wore the loosest hoodies and sweatpants, littered with holes and frayed edges. Her hair was long and smooth. She kept it in a low ponytail, under her hood and away from sight. Nothing she did changed how people saw her. It was like she didn’t matter.

And then she had a brilliant idea; the kind of idea that deserved a light-bulb above her head and sparks behind her eyes. Something new and unexpected, something that could help her be her and not pretty -

A mask.

A mask! What a genius invention, the mask! Something not made to hide beauty, but to disguise an unwelcome face, perhaps. No matter. She wasn’t one to be proper.

She would wear a mask, and maybe people would listen to her words and not her bone structure, or whatever it was that everyone was fascinated with. It could also be her eyelashes or something.

And she got a mask. And went to school.

“Hi,” said her teachers.

“Hi!” said the boys, hoping to get a date.

“Hi!” said the girls, hoping to get a date.

“Hello,” said her friends, who whispered behind her back every time she turned around as if she was deaf.

“Hello!” said everyone passing by her in the hall.

It didn’t change anything.

Dear god, it didn’t change anything-

Nothing she did mattered, did it? She could scream to the high heavens that she’d had enough, and they’d smile and say hello. The holiest demons in Hell had blessed her with ugly beauty, and it was so terribly evil. She wasn’t sure if anyone ever saw her real face. Could she see her real face? Was she being tricked?

She was hiding in the bathroom. Sitting on the floor with her knees curled into her chest and her arms hugging her knees too tight and restricting her lungs so that they screamed louder than the thoughts in her head. It was smelly, and weirdly sticky, but she didn’t care. She was tearing out her hair, or was that even her hair?

The air was being stubborn and hiding from her nose, so she sucked in deep breaths through her mouth, but it wasn’t enough. It was never enough. It was so hot in the room but she was so cold, and her throat was so dry and parched that her tongue felt like rubber on sandpaper.

Breathe.

Breathe. Was this even her nose?

Breathe.

It didn’t matter, she didn’t think.

Was this even her brain?

She didn’t care.

She smiled up deliriously at the ceiling. “Hello,” she said, and she knew it sounded like honey in December, but all it felt like was February rain.

It was too cold for her here.

Way too cold........

She wanted to just fall asleep.

...

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if the world would let her not wake up?

She hated that fairy that had given her mother the boon of the most beautiful child.

She wished she could be ugly. She wished that when she cried people didn’t whisper about how beautiful she was. She wished that her anger was horrifying. She wished her ill manners were repulsive. 

She wished she could be ugly.