Instant Story

Flash fiction fresh from my fingers to your mind!

Challenge #02973-H050: Achievement Unlocked

Everything is going dark. You’re surrounded by loved ones. Your lover is clenching you hands tightly, tears streaming down their face. Slowly you placed you hands on their cheeks “it’s ok, look at what we build.” You muster a smile at your sunshine. Your strength is dimming, the light in your eyes fade away... You feel your self drifting in the endless void, it’s not cold nor warm. You tried moving your arms, nothing. You tired saying something anything, nothing. You been drifting for a while now, you think you seen lights but your not so sure. They have been gathering together for some time now, then you realize it’s trying to spell something! When those pieces finished gathering you slowly read out what it said -- Anon Guest

Finding out that life as you know it is a simulation is one thing while you're alive. Finding out afterwards... sort of... is another. Ari had died of old age. He knew that much. He had not been expecting a credits scroll with music. He had not been expecting a different simulation at the end.

Witness what you've unlocked? Y/N? Well, there was nothing else to do in the remaining featureless void. Ari selected Y. What followed was a space of avatar options that was like being in an immense shopping mall of body types, clothing options, hair colours, and animated avatars for the chatrooms.

Ari said, "Wait, there's chatrooms?"

Accessing chatrooms, said the voice of the void. What is your chat flavour?

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Challenge #02972-H049: Don't Tell Them the Odds

The dereggers had managed to get a licence to run casinos in space that was, technically, Alliance space, but was so far from the beaten path that the CRC had trouble keeping an eye on things. There's where Lucky as people called him, came in. He was a lucker with only a single real talent. He never lost a bet. Didn't matter if it was cards, dice, board games, slot machines, whatever, he never lost. So, when it became clear just how

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Challenge #02971-H048: Tools of Politics

The king's new "Knife" has been there for several months. At the end of the year, he had absolutely no intention on using his blade. He understood, now, what was really going on, information he made very certain others knew, albeit, subtly as he knew there were those who were still like him out there.

Then in the night, another knife came, but instead of the king, they met the other 'knife' living within the palace. It was time for a talk.

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Challenge #02970-H047: The Lifelong Argument

Could we have a sequel to this one, please? She releases the animals she was holding one night and then has a fast take-off just as her people are arguing with the obstinate vegans, her people rescue her so that the small pod-ship she managed to salvage and escape in is now safely in one of her people's cruisers, and the vegans are screaming, maybe even firing at them, trying to force them to "give her back" since "she lived on our

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Challenge #02969-H046: Don't Try to Understand it

Many birds on Earth are unaffected by capsacinoids in hot peppers (mammals are bothered, but mammal digestive systems destroy the seeds of the pepper plants, while avian digestive systems let the seeds pass through unharmed). May we see some avian sentients enjoying a nice ghost pepper and carolina reaper salad with a flavorful habenero sauce? Eye-watering fumes that could bother any nearby mammals are a bonus. -- Anon Guest

Pretty much everyone agrees that Humans are fairly weird. They're hairless apes possessing

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Challenge #02968-H045: Exit the Vandals

Proof that no matter where you are or what age it is, human graffiti always stay the same -- Anon Guest

[AN: Link leads to some things found on Pompeii's walls. Most of it rude. It's not just Pompeii, but also there's a dick drawn on Hadrian's wall, and Nordic runes in a very high place in a cave that read, Gosh this is a long way up, or words to that effect. Humanity never changes.]

They had been excavating for months.

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Challenge #02967-H044: Our Freedom or Theirs?

People are curious as to what happens to the prisoners at Greystone. They believe punishment and harsh time is the only way to reform. But those sent to Greystone never leave. Families of those sent there are wondering where their family members are. A crew comes to ask to do an interview with some of the inmates and show the families life inside the prison.

Just kinda curious what would happen if the outside world, especially the families of inmates, would do

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Challenge #02966-H043: Non-crucial Failure State

In the early days, humans had just been allowed into the Alliance, but quite a few were still wary. These were very dangerous deathworlders. Sure they were smallish, depending on the species that worked with them, and somewhat squishy, but damn were they tenacious and dangerous! It was well known they were predators, too, that could, and would, eat pretty much anything, including quite a few things that were poisonous.

However, what the crew wasn't prepared for, was during dinner. The human

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Challenge #02965-H042: Time in a Bottle

time loop -- Anon Guest

[AN: Link leads to a looping video featuring temporal paradox. Very clever editing]

"Drink to become... something... immortal," read Thygrun the Powerful. He didn't need to think, he popped the cork and raised it to his lips.

"Don't take it," warned Thygrun the Powerful, yelling at him from across the room. "You'll regret it forever!"

Thygrun had taken one sip already. "What? Are you meant to be me?"

"Yes! The potion doesn't create eternal life. It creates

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Challenge #02964-H041: Deconstructed Battle

The day was a very boring day. The human just received a package of an old game but finely crafted made out of materials that are rare in their home-world, each piece have a Jewel that crowns the top. Excitingly they be called over a haven worlder that is a close friend of the human urging them to play. “You known I shouldn’t be surprised that many games contain some form of war or conflict” the haven worlder sighed. It been

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Challenge #02963-H040: Stress Management Strategies

H - "I am... in a bad place right now. I will be ok when we can get back home and this calms down, don't worry. For right now though I might not experience the same reality that you do, and I need help staying... here."

A - "What do you need from me?"

H - "If you see me turn to look at something or listen to a sound, just say either Yes or No if you see/hear something there

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Challenge #02962-H039: Art For All

A flashmob on a space station, please. Flash mob. Flash mob.

[AN: First link leads to a video in which Musicians keep turning up to join in playing Beethoven's 9th, or Ode to Joy. There's even a Chorus. Second video features a dance performance that becomes a proposal.]

Art has many facets. There's even a form of art that aims to have the viewer question, "What is art?" Of the performance artists, there are more many and varied types than one might

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Challenge #02961-H038: Submitted For Your Approval...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0u4M6vppCI not all art is safe for all viewers. -- Anon Guest

[AN: Video link leads to the stage performance video of Shia LeBouff by Rob Cantor. Contains simulated, stylistic violence and references to same]

Media Flagging and Filtering is a never-ending job. What's "okay" for one culture is scandalously salacious for another. Even the face can be offensive if that face belongs to a certain gender[1]. There's a lot of churn in the "exposed

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Challenge #02960-H037: So Not Fair

A ship with a mixed crew of deathworlder and havenworlder scientists, including a few humans, find a solar system that is a nearly a duplicate of what the Earth's solar system was like in the very beginning of the Jurassic period. The difference being, there were three inhabitable planets instead of only one. Where in the Earth's solar system, aka Sol, aka the Terran system, the planets Mars and Venus were uninhabitable, one being lifeless without an atmosphere and the other being

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Challenge #02959-H036: Gods or Heroes

I’ve heard legends of that person

How he traveled the breadth of the land

Reducing all he touched to rubble

Revered by many I, too, revere him

Feared by many I, too, fear him

Now that person stands at my side

Now my friends are with me -- Anon Guest

[AN: Nonny - are you trying to get me into trouble? These are lyrics (translated) from Super Smash Brothers Brawl. A line or two is fine but the entire song? Please

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