You didn’t leave with a bang.
No huge fight.
No final goodbye.
You just faded,
like fog through the door,
and I stood there still calling your name
like that meant anything anymore.

We planned everything.
Tattoos.
Marriage.
Kids.
You picked out clothes for me,
sent me rings,
said I’d be your husband one day.
You told me you wanted to melt into me,
to become one,
like we weren’t even separate people.

You used to talk like forever was already here,
and I believed you.
Every word.

You pinned futures to boards.
Names for our daughters.
Outfits you imagined me wearing.
And it all felt real,
like we were building something,
like you meant it.

Then one day
you just stopped.

Not all at once,
but in pieces,
like love leaking through your hands.
And I was too scared to call it what it was.

"I love you" became "ily2."
Affection turned into routine.
Presence became absence
I had to pretend wasn’t happening.

I stayed.
I made jokes to keep you close,
bit my tongue when I wanted to yell,
softened when I should have walked,
waited where your warmth used to be.
But all I found was a ghost
of who you used to be with me.

And then I saw it.
Those boards.
Gone.
No warning.
Just gone.

I told myself it was fine,
but my hands shook,
and I cried like a kid,
like something inside me finally gave out.

You didn’t reject me.
You just stopped choosing me,
bit by bit,
until there was nothing left
except me,
still holding on
to something you already let die.

Now I'm here,
trying to sit with what is left.
This ache.
This confusion.
This slow death of a future we promised each other.

And I still wonder,
was I real to you,
or just a soft place to land
until you were ready to disappear?

I still love you.
I probably always will.
But I cannot keep chasing warmth
from a flame you stopped feeding.

You didn't end us with cruelty.
You ended us with silence.
With slow fading.
With the quiet hope
that I would be the one to make the goodbye.

It's kind of you to check in. Staying consistent with the no screens plan has definitely been more challenging than I expected. It has made me realise just how wired I am, and probably addicted to screens as well.

I was hoping that switching to reading before bed would help me fall asleep more easily, but so far that has not really been the case. Although, that might also be due to a recent shift in my diet. My body is clearly not used to going without a late-night junk meal to help me crash, and it is letting me know lol.

I even picked up a little bookmark that says "I read past my bedtime," which feels accurate, considering I'm still not sleeping on time most nights.

If you're curious, I ended up going with Piranesi, the one Suranna suggested. I'm a little over halfway through, and I've been enjoying it so far. Its got a charm to it. 

Love this question. Like you said, a lot of these prompts are genuinely interesting, and they’re broad enough that you can take them in a thousand directions. For me, I’m always drawn to stories that have emotional depth or philosophical meaning. If a story can create growth for the character and make the reader reflect a little too, that’s usually the stuff that sticks with me.

34) A story about an abominable horror has come to a small town and that horror is YOU

This one stood out to me the most. I love the idea of a protagonist who’s seen as a monster, not because they are one, but because of how they look or because of stories and lies that spread about them. You could go full tragic figure with it. Something like Grendel or Hunchback of Notre Dame. The kind of character who was already broken before the story even started, and now it’s up to the reader to choose whether to burn the world down or try to be something more. It’s the kind of setup where the player’s choices could change everything for the town and the character alike. I’d love something like that. So much potential, so much symbolic weight, so much joy. 

30) A story about founding a new religion

This has a lot of room for creativity and meaning. You could go spiritual, philosophical, or dark depending on how you write it. It’s a great excuse to weave in moral questions and societal critique. Or even just watch how a person’s ego can get out of control when people start calling them a prophet. Could also be hilarious if done right. Whether the character is sincere, insane, or completely drunk on power, there’s so much potential here.

6) A story where the protagonist has a dangerous addiction or obsession

I love this prompt because you could use it to show something serious in a creative and entertaining way. Addiction stories can be really powerful when done right. You could explore food addiction, alcoholism, or something more out there, like the need for control or perfection. If written right, it could change how someone sees others with addictions or even how they see and process their own, something to give a more nuanced understanding of addictions and ones abilities to cope with it. You could go deep on this one. 

Honourable Mentions

15) A story involving playing as a bigoted superhero

This has potential to be hilarious, dark, and uncomfortable all at once. Most writers couldn't pull this off but if someone can walk that line, it could expose all kinds of hypocrisy and delusion in a way that hits home. Think of someone worse than Homelander, but without self-awareness, and let the reader live in their head.

49) A story involving an uncharted planet

You could do some really cool interstellar/Arrival style stuff with this prompt. Although i think it'd be hard to execute.

40) A story set during a nuclear winter on Earth. 

This is so broad (and everyone thinks these types of plots are cool lets be honest) you could do almost anything with this. Tension and themes of survival are constants though which make it seem so alluring to me. 

Huh, this was really cool. It definitely made me more intrigued about your story. You've clearly done some real shadow work to even recognize that under different life circumstances, you might have ended up a Nazi. Most people live with the illusion that they're immune to propaganda or radicalization. But history and sociology make it painfully clear that almost no one is. 

It will be very close I bet. It might even come down to what genre you enjoy the most or what mood you're in. Durwood Mansion's plot sounds really intriguing as well, at least to me. Sounds introspective and psychological. 

Seeing so many high quality stories published at the same time makes me so happy. Can't wait to read many of these. No doubt it will take my slow ass two months though. 

The humour was definitely more low-key, but I actually liked that. If it had leaned too heavily into bold or over-the-top jokes, I think it would’ve lost some of its charm. When comedy becomes too loud, it starts to feel like a meme story, while that can be fun, it’s also harder to take those sorts of stories as seriously or to genuinely connect with them. 

Wow. You clearly have a profound ability to self-reflect on your past and your pain. I hope you continue to nurture that gift and one day reach a place where you’re not just surviving your wounds, but breaking the generational pattern for good. I think most of us here felt this on an emotional level, as it reflects so much of our own hidden struggles.

Your ache, your bewilderment, your confusion about existence from a lack of structured guidance feels incredibly poignant and resonant. In truth, I think we're all a little lost at sea in this thing we call life, whether we're ready to admit it or not. Keep your humanity. 

I loved this so much. I started off thinking about the broader landscape of this world, wondering why there is a robot in an abandoned lab, why people seem to believe it, and what year it is. Once I got into the middle of the story, I completely forgot about all of those questions and was just drawn into what was happening in the moment.

The antagonist is fantastic. The description, the subtle differences in the voices, and the seemingly erratic behavior all worked so well. The antagonist felt magnetic and complex, not just edgy for the sake of being edgy or complicated. He felt real, alive, and layered, with just enough left unexplained to force the reader to fill in the gaps about his mental state and purpose.

My main critique is that the ending felt a little rushed and the sudden "death" of the robot came across as a bit lazy and random. I loved the plot twist with the bait setup in the middle. I'm just left questioning who this droid was, what it was doing in the laboratory, how it became mangled and so coldly manipulative. What were its plans for the protagonist? Why go through the trouble of baiting them? These questions don't  necessarily need to be answered in this excerpt. It's more a testament to how well you created a desire within me to know more by holding back just the right amount of information while doing everything else well. Although sprinkling in a few clues about the robot’s past and purpose would have elevated it even further. Its battered and mangled body could hint at a tragic antihero sort of antagonist as opposed to an evil for evil’s sake antagonist. Give him a reason for his madness. Make him someone whose purpose we can root for, even if we do not agree with his means. Make him tragic but undeniable.

I can't believe nobody has commented on any of these. I'm awful with poems and honestly know next to nothing about them, but this one resonated with me. It reads like a story explaining the entropy of nature, being, and the inevitability of impermanence, but I love how it isn't presented in a melancholy way, instead celebrating new beginnings. It has a lot of hidden emotional depth because of this. When I hear stories like this, I'm reminded of the ouroboros.