Prompt: A man wants to save his mother from evil, but must become evil to do so.
It was too dark for a proper celebration, but there was nothing proper about the Black Gala. Nearly every guest had a gloomy look on their face, even as they danced in circles across the marble floor in the grandest room the entire region had to offer. Continue reading
Prompt: An alien girl’s escape pod crash-lands on Earth; she is the crown princess of her empire and is pursued by their enemies.
The initial impact was enough to knock her out cold, which was very bad for one of her species, especially the young. She was of the Kilinitt, and their imaginations were rich, sometimes overpowering their conscious minds. Sleep was always a battle to best the flood of dreams, and getting a concussion was like those dreams breaking down the castle gates. Continue reading
Prompt: A man has the power to read minds, but it’s only activated when he drinks alcohol. He wants to be a hero, but he gets derailed once he starts drinking.
Avoiding bars was supposed to be the safe thing to do if you were an alcoholic. He had done that admirably, but this was Lassie’s. Lassie’s was a somewhat casual eatery that might as well have only been open on Fridays, because that’s where ninety percent of their business lived. That was when they sold the honey mustard chicken strips and wings for half-off, which is what convinced him to go with a few friends. Continue reading
Prompt: A poet pixie has to use her writing to save the world, but she only speaks in haiku.
It was the darkest place she’d ever been, and it wasn’t until that point that she truly understood what darkness was. Before, up in the forests, it was just like the weather, coming and going and never taking up all the air. There was always something to break it up: fireflies, the moon, the stars, the distant glow of human villages… Continue reading
Prompt: An old but beautiful woman meets the last dragon in a canyon. The dragon moves in to kill her; what stops him?
The canyon was not difficult to find, given the plethora of dragon bones around its edges. None of them were intact; every last skull and wing had been crushed to chips or powder. The mass grave was left, undisturbed, for decades. Even though every part of a dragon was rich in magic, nobody wanted the bone chips, for they feared their use in enchantments posed a risk of bringing the beasts back. Continue reading
Prompt: The mad genius woke from his cryo-sleep, groggy, his mind fading from consciousness every few seconds, and emerged from his lair. He looks out and sees a utopia ripe for the picking.
It wasn’t a very dignified rebirth. Dr. Larry Gooperson spilled out of the cryogenic pod and collapsed onto a flowing floor of living wood. He sputtered and spat, expectorating globs of the blue nutrient fluid that had remained undigested. He held one hand up, before even lifting his face, expecting his robotic assistant to hand him a towel or a steaming beverage. Continue reading
Prompt: A young female forced-to-be-leader of a great army struggles to come to terms with her fear of power and being the greatest leader ever.
The antique computer banks were their greatest possession. They had no water source, no reliable farming, and no livestock. The only thing their mobile town could do was crunch the numbers for everybody else who couldn’t keep their machines dry. They were the town of Flopheart, they were on the giant worn tires of an age gone, and they were led by a girl barely out of her teens: Rusher Larn. Continue reading
Prompt: A young adventurer discovers a cave they’ve never seen before, but it’s not empty; there’s a bed and a working kitchen. Who lives there and why?
Every single inch of her great-aunt’s backyard had been explored by the time July wound down, all except the one gully protected by the belligerent thorn bush that had somehow sewn its thorns, like caltrops, for a hundred feet around it. Continue reading
Prompt: A dialogue-free story, rich with memories, of the sufferer of a mysterious ailment of the future while they are in quarantine.
One personal item was all they would allow. Many considered his an odd choice, but they couldn’t talk to him anymore, ask him why he picked something so reminiscent of his condition. All communication had to be done through written messages, and only when absolutely necessary. Continue reading
Prompt: A history book sends its reader 1000 years into the future.
The library was restricted to anyone under the age of eighteen. It wasn’t just books that were kept there, but all sorts of anomalies. They called it a school because there many thins to learn there, but few people outside the facility understood what that really meant. The things you learned there could change you, even making you into a different person altogether. Continue reading
Blaine Arcade 