Instant Story

Flash fiction fresh from my fingers to your mind!

Challenge #03077-H169: Constant Vigilance

A Companion notices that the ship's human's livesuit is picking up on wild, unusual fluctuations in hormones related to emotions and high stress. On questioning, the human informs them that, due to a somewhat negligent upbringing and poor socialization as a child and adolescent, they suffer from underdeveloped emotional maturity... that will never fully develop. That ship has sailed, and they were NOT on board.

The explanation is delivered in a calm, somewhat bored tone, with a bland facial expression. The livesuit readout indicates a massive accompanying adrenal response, along with a host of other unpleasant chemical releases associated with fear and anxiety. -- Anon Guest

Human Mar had volunteered for Companion Live-monitoring. Most Ships' Humans preferred not to do that until they were in deep distress. They viewed it as an invasion of privacy. Human Mar must have had their reasons and Companion Fu decided not to pry. That was for a special bonding moment or something. When Human Mar was feeling more comfortable.

According to the Med records, Human Mar's adrenal levels were at baseline or normal. According to the Human Companion Manual, they were at fifteen percent above the average Human baselines. There were so many pings at hazard spike levels that Fu had to breach her personal protocols and ask an invasive question.

"Human Mar, have we missed a set of comfort requirements? I have noted that your anxiety indicators are well above normal. You are not at peace. Is there something that can be done?"

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Challenge #03076-H168: Freedom By the Press

Ok, I gotta get in on this one! :-) I've been reading your stuff for a while now and I've not had the courage to post, but this sounds like the plot to one of the DnD games I was in and it was great, so anyhow!

The person that came in had the same story that many of the others did. A tale of woe where they'd been convinced the King's rules were why the person lived in poverty and pain.

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Challenge #03075-H167: Fighting to Survive

'Hoverboard' on YouTube, actually large drone with person riding. What if the drone was used to carry essential items in times of need and trouble. -- Anon Guest

[AN: I've seen videos of these things. They are cool, but also loud as HECK. More annoying than the average dirt bike and three times as dangerous. And yes, Drones carried goods before they carried people]

Tal could trust the ones that made noise. Ze had learned to hide in the granite tubes until

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Challenge #03074-H166: Homo Insula

Libertarian "paradise" world found by the Alliance. Probably called "Freedom" or something similar. -- Anon Guest

Imagine a world where there is no need for government or law, because the only rule is that of righteous morality. Laws come from God, as was intended by the Good Word. All that is right is moral and all that is moral is right. It's all about the fundamental rights of man.

Everyone else can suck it.

The strong rule the weak. It's the way

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Challenge #03073-H165: Soft, Fluffy, Friendly

They had been working for a few months now with the havenworlders, who had gotten quite used to hearing them wake up screaming but it broke their crewmates' hearts to hear it each night. A de-regger rescue who was still learning that the world was not as cruel as they believed. The companion goes in one sleep cycle as the human begins to whimper and thrash in the special sleeping bag. A gentle hand petting the hair, a soft, trilling, lullaby, the

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Challenge #03072-H164: Surprise Change of Plans

She was hunting for them, seeking hir out. The ancient one, the magi who went by many names, the one who had a thousand children, and more grandchildren than the world would ever know, yet possibly none by their own blood. Spotting their camp, the kobold, hir, and the bugbear child. Slowly through the underbrush she went as silent as a shadow in the moonlight. Then, swiftly, she sprang. Sudden flares shot out behind her in brilliantly colored sparkles, almost blinding in

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Challenge #03071-H163: A Deal is a Deal

A: What am I your f** wingman?

B: Come on you owe me for last time.

A: be quiet you Sonofa- whatever, don’t come crying to me later. I’ll try to create an opportunity for you, oh, and this will cost a little mor-

B: yeah I know what you want, it’s in the basement. -- Anon Guest

[AN: Ah, the temptation to riff on A Cask of Amontillado...]

Friendship can get weird, sometimes. Those who know each other

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Challenge #03070-H162: Weighed and Found Wanting

Entitlement. When one thinks of that word, they think of humans, especially stuck up females, though some males are as well, that are self-centered jerks who thinks the world should do everything THEIR way. But it comes in all forms. This havenworlder was self-centered, a total brat, and thought that just because the humans were kind to their kind and often allowed their people to ride on their shoulders to get from point A to point B safely, that the humans were

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Challenge #03069-H161: Steep Repair Work

Hello InterNutter, long time reader, first time poster here. I was wondering if you could give us the other sides' view on this? How the parents, and students, felt and viewed things as they were being forced to watch the videos showing their actions and her pain? What the CRC's reaction was seeing something like that happen in their schools? How the witnesses who watched the trial, and the others following with the timeline, reacted to it all? How the administrators thought

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Challenge #03068-H160: We Agree With You

HAH! (Heavenworlders Against Humans!) stated as an small movement which mutated into an organisation that had only 3 "simple" demands/ goals

1 Rid Alliance space of humans

2 Restrict Greater (and lesser) Deregulations to their own space and strictly guard and monitor their borders

3 Return to the peace and safety that was pre Human Alliance.

the Alliance was at a loss as to what to do with this steadily growing absurdity, as Heavenworlders had never recorded instances of *rofanticising past civilizations.

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Challenge #03067-H159: Take Only Pictures...

Animals go extinct constantly on Earth due to habitat loss and human misuse of the lands and animal stocks. Thanks to the paradox of time, and good ships, they came since the earliest era, and animals being driven to extinction due to human actions were collected and taken to pristine worlds where they could thrive, being careful to introduce the animals in a way that didn't harm, or alter, the local ecology, but rather where the animals could integrate into the ecological

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Challenge #03066-H158: Stolen By the Fae

Especially at the beginning of integrating humans into the Galactic Alliance, there are still humans that have never been to space, don't really need any training. What do a fierce crew who have 2 (as many as you want) death-defy-ing humans think of this? do they visit earth and see this? or is a human with no training forced out into space. how crazy can a human with no training be? probably just as crazy but that's not the point lol. Chaos

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Challenge #03065-H157: All Life Feeds on Death

"How do you think I feel seeing you eat a salad??"

A die-hard vegan's ship crash-lands on a planet that's what appears to almost be a haven world, lots of small animals, lots of plant life, absolutely paradise. Except...that the vegan sees a plant suddenly snap shut when an animal gets too close and the animal is eaten.

The cogniscents there are green, skin, hair, eyes, and they move with a slight rustling. They are descendant of carnivorous plants that have

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Challenge #03064-H156: Shall We Play a Game?

Anyone who ran a table would understand. -- AmberFox

[AN: Yeah nah that's a bad sesh there. And maybe bad management]

The life of the game master holds many roles. Storyteller, co-ordinator, plot-weaver... and primary parental to a group of people with the collective intelligence of a tadpole. It wasn't their fault. Not entirely. Players in a game this complicated had other things to concern themselves with between sessions. They had lives, errands, work, trivialities, and assorted nonsense that obscured their memories.

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Challenge #03063-H155: Handcrafted Hearth

Do you think, to prove it is love, not just an infatuation, he stays there? He learns to make musical instruments and presents to them to her for her approval or not? He starts to take singing lessons and asks to do duets with her? Maybe even introduces her to others as lovers and helps take care of tiefling children, all the while making it clear that he believes he owes HER, not her owing him, for the gift of her music

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