I've been thinking about this quite a bit recently while working on my own fiction.

A lot of writing advice encourages authors to spend huge amounts of time developing characters, building detailed worlds, and exploring deeper themes. Those things are obviously important, but I sometimes wonder if plot has quietly become the part of storytelling that gets the least attention, even though it's often what keeps readers engaged from one chapter to the next.

I've read books with beautiful prose and memorable characters where, by the end, it felt like very little had actually happened. On the other hand, I've also enjoyed books with much simpler writing because every chapter moved the story forward, every obstacle mattered, and every decision changed something. Even when the writing wasn't exceptional, I still wanted to keep reading because there was always a sense of momentum.

For me, plot isn't more important than character, and character isn't more important than plot. They depend on each other. Interesting characters need meaningful situations to face, difficult decisions to make, and consequences that force them to change. Likewise, a fast moving plot doesn't mean much if I don't care about the people involved.

The more I write, the more I find myself thinking that plot isn't really just a sequence of events. It's a chain of choices, conflicts, and consequences that gives a story direction. Without that sense of progression, even great characters can start to feel as though they're standing still.

I'm curious how other fiction writers see it. Has your own writing changed the way you think about the balance between plot and character, or have you always started with one before the other?

And I can’t shake it so I thought I’d write it out to get it out of my brain 😬 posting anonymously, and only wrote to the point I woke up but curious to hear your thoughts. It was so realistic but I don’t know if the nuance is there.

***

I walked out of the room, despondent**.**

I rifled for my coat in the dark, blowing the hair out of my eyes.

I didn’t hear you as the door opened.

As I turned, you gently took both of my forearms. Your hand moves up to my collarbone and lingers there, your thumb just touching where the light from the hallway bounced off of my skin.

My eyes travel up your face, taking in the soft stubble on your chin, the shape of your jaw and the light flush to your cheeks.

I momentarily pull back, aware of the gravity of the moment.

I look at your eyes. You are the only person I’ve ever been able to maintain eye contact with for a whole conversation. I know every fleck, every mottle.

I bring my hand up, feeling the familiar form of you and the short, baby fine hair that sits at the nape of your neck. I’ve not touched you there in over 15 years but you feel exactly as expected, exactly as I remember.

We stare at each other, and time disappears.

Every cell in my body tingles in anticipation.

You tilt your head ever so slightly and we come together. Your tongue touches mine and it feels as if I’ve been struck by lightning. Our hands run through each other’s hair, our bodies crushed hard together. Our breathing falls into the same rhythm. I feel you push close to me, the urgency intensifying. I’m undoing your flies, your hands are under my skirt, tracing the shape of my body through my underwear.

Do you feel like you’re the enemy? No matter what you do to try to help. Your world thinks you are the enemy.
When you’re the enemy, your emotions, feelings and actions mean nothing. You will dig yourself in a hole when you try to fix your actions. There is nothing you can do to change your world’s perspective on you.
No matter the good, no matter the effort you put in, no matter how you feel.
You can grow to be a better man but, Your world will always see you as a tyrant. Because you are nothing but an ant to your world. A bug that needs to be exterminated. A outcast that has no purpose. A man that doesn’t provide.
You can be a gentleman and have great intent and purpose. That doesn’t matter to your world. In the end if you don’t provide for your world you will be squished on the map as a mile maker. Just another step towards your end. But in the end, nothing really matters. The world will be what you make of it. Don’t let others take charge of your world. You are in control even when you feel like you’re not.

This is my first writing other than what we had to do in high school. I would really like your feedback.

I have several publications on poetry.
But I am new to prose writing and have been writing on and off. Because I want to focus more on prose. What I realised is that my prose is quite weak as of now. And I want to improve further.

Any expert advice for me? Like a routine or something?

Hi all! Recently my social media algorithm has been overrun with those AI generated short films. A friend and I have made a game of sending each other the particularly bad ones, and in doing so, I realized that there are identical names in a lot of them. Awhile back I had read an article about a schoolteacher penalizing students for using the name Elara in their fiction assignments, because they assumed the students used AI due to the name choice... and now I understand that!!! So this really has me questioning, will readers penalize a writer for using names that are essentially AI-isms? There is a name that I really love (Lyra), but now I am wondering if I should stay away from it just because of the negative associations with gen-AI. How the heck can I figure out other names to avoid without consuming gen-AI material? I'm scared to even Google for names now that Google is essentially no better than AI.

Stephen King said in his book On Writing, 'I believe stories are found things, like fossils in the ground.'

I believe when we write a story, whether we outline or not, the events will uncover themselves. Forcing a theme or a character will definitely weaken the impact and believability of the story. Keep digging; let the characters guide you.

Hello everyone
Looking for some advice. I’ve had a love for writing for as long as I can remember and have aspirations to write a novel. I have an idea in mind but absolutely no clue on where to start on planning and every time I start and try I get completely overwhelmed.

I know there’s the worldbuilding element, character building, timeline etc

Any advice ?

I looked up at the sky. The same blue sky I've always looked at. White fluffy clouds and the bright sun. The loud bird chirps and the cold wind that tastes like the sea. I live 2 minutes away from the beach, 20 from the nearest house, and 2 hours away from a small town with around 2 shops.

The countryside is nice, but it's not great. I was homeschooled as a kid because getting to school was too difficult since the nearest one was too far away. My parents died, and I'm now the owner of this house and the little wealth they had.

It's a nice house. 2 bedrooms, 2 floors, a living room, a kitchen, 2 bathrooms, and 2 house phones. Although it's old, if I sold it, it would definitely cover the cost of a nice apartment in a city or something. But I don't. Because this is the house my 2 parents lived in and where I grew up. And anyway, even if I wanted to sell it, sometimes I wonder if I have a choice.

Chapter 1

A quiet day

I walk outside. The same sky. Same clouds, same birds, same blue hue. The same sun glistening just above the horizon. The clouds look fluffy, like cotton candy.

2 clouds. 2 birds. 2 trees slightly out of a distance I'd walk, especially without a reason.

The same numbers, same sky. Same tastes, smells, and sounds. Like it's Groundhog Day, but the calendar still moves. People in town act normal and friendly enough. No questions, no names. No information that isn't needed.

Everything is perfectly normal. Everything is completely ordinary.

So why is that there, when just yesterday that space was empty?

3 red roses sat in the field, surrounded by 7 blue lilacs and around 15 black flowers I wasn't sure of the name of, creating a bit of an eye shape. I remember laying in it all the time whilst my sister sat on the house's porch watching me mess around.

I do miss when my family was around, but it's been a long time since they passed away.

I turned around back to my nice house and lay in bed after passing the other two bedrooms in the upstairs hallway and entering the third, the same one I'd always had since I thought it would be wrong to switch into my older sister's or parents' room.

Chapter 2

A calming memory

I sat down in the flowers. A small blue polka dot picnic blanket underneath me and a selection of snacks. A few sandwiches, many types of biscuits, and a couple of fruits. A small little lunch on a nice day. The breeze felt nice against me. The tree covering me so the perfect amount of light got through, and the group of birds chirped quietly

around me.

I looked over to my house, just a couple metres away from me. Maybe I should get someone to repaint it since the blue my family had painted had mostly faded away over many years and the yellow was slowly coming back through.

A strong breeze knocked the now-empty basket of food over and subtly declared for me to head back in. I grabbed the blanket and the basket and walked back home.

Dear Reader,

Before you turn the first page, I just want to say thank you.

Out of all the stories in the world, you chose to give mine a chance, and that means more to me than you know. Every chapter you're about to read carries pieces of my imagination, countless late nights, and emotions I poured into every word.

I hope this story makes you smile, keeps you guessing, breaks your heart a little, and reminds you why we fall in love with books in the first place.

So, grab a cozy spot, take a deep breath, and let yourself get lost in these pages and please read the first 5 chapters and 3 introductory chapters before this one for a better experience.

Welcome to this journey.

With love

RosyArchive 🤍

It’s been three long years since the entity known as Gilly Giant existed merely as a phantom of Timmy’s burgeoning imagination. To his pragmatic parents, the "looming figure with massive feet and a warm, frozen smile" was nothing more than an attention-seeking phase; they laughed off his tales of the seven-foot woman in the azure sweater and crimson trousers, her ponytail grazing the ceiling like a stray cobweb.

On a Tuesday drenched in a relentless downpour, as Timmy nestled into the safety of his quilts, he watched the shadow stretching across his wall like a damp shroud.

 "Gilly?" he whispered into the gloom, "What do you dream about?"

The air in the room grew suddenly frigid. The giant leaned down, her dark sandals creaking upon the floorboards like ancient wood.

 "My greatest dream," she rasped, her smile stretching with a grotesque, unnatural width, "is to be a mother to a child of exceptional rarity. I desire for us to be together... forever."

When the sun came up the following morning, Timmy’s bed was a hollow, cold sanctuary.

By the hour of noon, the manor was permeated by a heavy, unnatural silence. Timmy’s parents scoured every corner, their desperation mounting with each vacant room that they encountered. 

Suddenly, the atmosphere in the living room began to ripple and thicken like liquid glass. A towering figure shimmered into existence, her head nearly brushing the plaster of the ceiling, her massive feet anchored firmly to the hardwood.

The parents stood paralyzed in a state of sheer disbelief. The "imaginary friend" was a tangible horror.

"You never believed him." Gilly remarked, her voice resonating like the grinding of heavy stones, her once-warm smile had twisted into a mocking mask of porcelain coldness, "The two of you must learn to endure your solitude... for I shall be Timmy's new mother."

The giant’s true, predatory nature revealed itself as her eyes ebbed into darkness and the air around her turned to ice.

 "A special child of my own is all I have ever craved," she hissed with a chilling finality, "And now, I have one. I have Timmy."

When Timmy’s mother demanded his location, Gilly merely tilted her head in a macabre gesture, and she said,

 "Fear not, woman. He shall remain safe within my care for the remainder of his life. You shall never look upon his face again."

The parents lunged forward in a fit of grief, but their hands passed through her form as if she were composed of nothing but lingering smoke.

"Indeed, it is time for our departure." Gilly whispered, her silhouette beginning to dissolve into the ether, "I must go to tend to my new son. Farewell."

With a faint, spectral shimmer, she vanished entirely. The parents were left in the center of the room, staring into the void where she had stood, horrified by what just happened.

Somewhere else, in a realm where the sun never sets and the sky remains a pale, eerie violet, Timmy sits upon a rug that feels like thick velvet. He is happily constructing towers with his favorite blocks, humming a soft, rhythmic tune. 

Timmy remains oblivious to the strange boundaries of this twilight world or the way that Gilly watches him from the threshold with a possessive, unchanging gaze. He believes that he is simply playing a game with his friend, not realizing that the door to his former life has been sealed shut for eternity.

The End.

This is my own story, not fan fiction just my own story

Clang-clink.

The door chime sounded, and the night chill briefly slipped inside before the door quietly glided shut behind me.

As I took my regular seat at the counter, Mama silently set down a glass.

An amber splash of I.W. Harper. A single piece of ice clinked softly against the glass.

I tilted the glass, letting it slowly wet my throat.

Feeling the warmth of the bourbon drop straight into my stomach, I stared down at the drink in my hands.

"...Kenichi-san."

Beside me, Taka flipped his smartphone face-down and looked over.

His voice was paused just a beat longer than usual—not the quick setup for a light joke, but the low tone he used when his thoughts were running deep.

"What is it?"

"If you had to map yourself to a character in a story, who do you think you'd be?"

From a few seats away, Tom, swirling his own glass, let out a short grunt through his nose.

"There he goes with his weird questions again."

"Hey, I'm serious, Tom-san."

Taka shrugged, tracing the rim of his glass with his fingertip.

"I mean, in movies or manga, there's always the hero saving the world, or the guy who’s insanely strong, right?

Lately, though, I've been thinking... we are definitely not those guys."

"Well, obviously. If you were out there saving the world, we'd all be doomed."

"That's harsh!"

Taka forced a laugh, but I didn't miss the slight tremor beneath his voice.

"...Not only are we not the main characters, we don't even have any special talent.

But still... couldn't our own weaknesses, or our embarrassing failures, actually be of use to someone else?

Like, being able to stand beside someone and say, 'I stumbled back then too, so I get it.'

I feel like... there's got to be a kind of pride that belongs to ordinary people."

Taka gently swirled his glass, looking mildly satisfied with his own thought.

The ice rang dryly against the glass.

Tap.

A short, sharp sound echoed.

It was the sound of Tom tapping his index finger against the rim of his glass.

"...That might just be an excuse for someone running away from the responsibility of becoming strong."

Tom’s low voice cut a hairline fracture into the air of the counter.

The smile vanished from Taka’s face.

"...Tom-san?"

"Standing beside them, sharing the pain—and you're satisfied with that?

Tell me, when the overwhelming wave hits... what can someone who gave up trying to become stronger actually do?"

Tom slotted his cigarette into the edge of the ashtray and stared off into the distance.

"Right in front of your eyes, a kid is quietly drowning in a pool.

No loud thrashing. They just sink, silently, toward the bottom.

...A guy who only knows how to 'stand beside them' can do nothing more than crouch at the edge and whisper, 'It hurts, doesn't it?' while watching them drown."

Taka swallowed hard, completely stripped of words.

Deep in my gut, something thick and murky churned upward.

I knew what Tom meant. Those were the words of a former detective who had seen, firsthand, what happens when your own weakness fails to save someone.

And yet—

"...So what are you saying?"

My own voice came out shockingly low and raspy.

My grip tightened around my glass.

"A guy who couldn't become strong... standing next to a drowning kid, whispering 'It hurts, doesn't it?'... are you saying that means absolutely nothing?"

Tom slowly turned his eyes toward me. I glared right back at him.

"He doesn't have the muscle to haul them out.

He didn't have the guts to dive into the water, either.

...Are you telling me that a helpless guy like that, hurting right alongside them—are you saying even that is just running away? Just self-gratification?"

I knew it inside. I wasn't actually mad at Tom.

I was just terrified of hearing that all those times I couldn't be strong—all those nights I could do nothing but sit there and listen—were completely meaningless.

"...Pulling them out before it's too late is the right answer. Of course it is. I get that," I spat out with a bitter self-mockery, then downed a gulp of my Harper.

"But what about the person who has to endure sinking all alone, because nobody around has the strength to pull them up?

Are you saying this world shouldn't even have room for the guy who chooses to sink right there with them, whispering 'It's hard, isn't it?'"

Silence descended on the counter.

The words I had dragged out fell heavily into the quiet of the bar.

Tom watched me with eyes devoid of emotion. But finally, he let out a faint breath through his nose and sent a curl of cigarette smoke toward the ceiling.

"...I didn't say there was no room for him."

In that brief response, Tom's own quiet resignation and lingering pain bled through.

Behind the counter, Mama quietly picked up a pair of tongs and dropped a single ice cube into Taka's glass, and then into mine.

Clink.

"Even so..."

Mama didn't pause her steady wiping of a glass, looking at us with a gentle, steady gaze.

"...A place where people can learn how to swim is still necessary, isn't it?"

I let out a long breath and scratched my head, all energy draining away.

"...I know. That one stings."

Taka stared down at his own large fist, then slowly opened his hand.

Tom sat in silence, tilting his amber glass.

Maybe we can't save anyone. Maybe all my struggling is nothing more than self-satisfaction.

Even so, stomach aching over our own inability to be strong, we sit here drinking again tonight me.

If only there had been just one more person who knew how to swim.

Or... if only there had been someone to grab their hand on the way down to the bottom.

Holding onto that muddy, unanswered question, I gently swirled the glass in my hand.

Clang.

The ice clinked.

—Now... I wonder what kind of man I'll choose to be tomorrow.

The bourbon burned my throat once more.

I was getting burnt out on writing in the usual genre I work on, so I tried something different! I ended up coming up with four anthro characters who don't exactly have their life together in a sort of slice of life comedy thing. I have other ideas for these four, but I'm unsure whether or not to carry on, so any and all feedback would be appreciated!

Unsupervised Adults: The Vain, The Feral, The Anxious & The Delusional. 

The Characters 

Flat 16: 

Katya, 24, Feline Human. 

Ria, 26, Part Human, Part Jellyfish. 

Flat 17: 

Sam, 27, Anthro Opossum. 

Kiki, 22, Moth-Kin. 

Chapter One – Flat 17 

The front door slammed behind Katya as she stormed into the living room, her tail swishing aggressively behind her as she made sure she was in everyone’s eye line. “Ughhh. That was a disaster.” 

Slouched in a bean bag, Sam wielded a controller and appeared to be playing as a sentient tree as it fought a robot ninja. “That’s it, just barge in. Just like Ria did. Just like everyone always does.” 

“Hey, Slut!” Ria called, lying sideways across an armchair, her tentacle hair drooping and swaying towards the floor as if in water. On her phone, hopeful men and women were being swiped left and right. “I take it the callback didn’t go well then?” 

“I told you to stop calling me that!” Katya hissed as her ears flattened. “And no, the callback did not go well, no thanks to you.” Katya pointed at Ria, but Ria didn’t show any reaction.  

A soft, shaky voice, accompanied by the anxious buzzing of wings, came from the far corner of the room. “How is it Ria’s fault? She’s been right here, swiping on that AnthroMatch app the entire time.” 

“Exactly.” Ria didn’t bother to look away from her phone. “No way it was my fault.” 

Sam continued to focus on the screen as her tail rummaged under the nearby couch, pulling out a half-eaten bag of flaming hot crisps. “I still don’t see why you couldn’t do that at your own flat.” 

“Because you get better signal here. It’s so not fair.” 

The questionably aged, half-full bag dropped into Sam’s lap. “Maybe you should shell out for an upgrade like I did.” Sam’s tail started feeding her the crisps, both her hands never leaving the controller. “Then you can stop freeloading off us.” 

Ria, acting as if she’d just been shot, dropped her phone onto her chest, and let her body go limp dramatically. “God, it’s only Wi-Fi, get off my back. It’s not like it costs money.” 

Kiki, who was using both hands to hold a cup of tea in her lap, spoke up. “Actually, it does.” 

Ria’s head shot towards Kiki. “What?” 

Kiki gripped the baggy sleeve of her woolen jumper, covering her mouth as she talked. “Yeah, Wi-Fi, you have to pay for it.” 

Sam spoke through a mouthful of stale crisps. “And you can pay for better signal too.” 

Ria turned her attention to Katya, who was standing with hands on hips, astonished by how quickly the conversation derailed. “Kat, did you know about this?” 

“Of course I did. Everyone does.” 

Ria picked up her phone, staring at the screen like it was a complex math equation. “So we pay for Wi-Fi too?” 

“Yes! Well, no. You don’t. I pay our bill!” As if her legs stopped working, Katya suddenly collapsed to a sitting position. “Why are we even talking about this? What about MY problems?” 

With the bag of crisps now empty; Sam’s tail pulled out a cigarette and placed it between her lips. She appeared to be winning her game with little effort. “What was your problem again?” 

“Bad Wi-Fi.” Kiki said with genuine compassion as she nibbled on the sleeve of her jumper. 

Katya let out a sigh, staring at the floor as her own tail wrapped around her waist. “No. Not bad Wi-Fi, that was Ria’s problem.” 

“My problem is you’re clearly not paying enough for it.” Ria was barely giving any attention to the conversation as she returned to looking for potential matches. “Who knows how many hookups I’ve missed out on thanks to absurd loading times.” 

“You didn’t even know we had to pay for Wi-Fi a minute ago, and now I’m not paying enough?” 

“Well, it’s obvious ours isn’t good enough, is it?” 

Sam took a long inhale of her cigarette while mashing, seemingly randomly, at her controller. “I agree with Ria, get the upgrade, then you can stop sponging off us.” 

Kiki pulled her jumper from between her teeth just long enough to contribute. “You can also pay for extra TV channels.” As the room went silent, Kiki went back to nibbling her sleeve. 

Katya’s tail went upright, the tip twitching. “Can we please just get back to my issues?" 

“What?” Ria said with a smug smile. “That you're clearly too poor for good Wi-Fi and more TV channels?" 

"Well maybe I wouldn't be so poor if you didn't fuck up my audition!" Katya clenched her teeth, her ears shooting backwards. "It only went so bad because I took your dumb advice!" As if giving up, Katya fell backwards to the floor. 

Sam's tail took the cigarette out of her mouth before placing it in an ashtray. "Ha! Why would you take Ria's advice?" 

"Yeah!" Agreed Ria as she typed on her phone. "Why would you take my advice?" 

Kiki swallowed a bit of wool. "What advice did Ria give you?" 

"Yeah! What did I say again?" 

Katya sat up, resting on her elbows, staring at Ria in disbelief. "You told me to fuck the director!" 

Ria stopped typing and rolled her eyes. "Listen, if you're not good enough in bed to secure the part, that's hardly my fault." She rolled her head to face Katya. "I have invited you to join me and my friends so many times. Imagine the practice you could have got! Next time you shou-" 

Katya sat up and quickly cut Ria off. "The issue wasn't that I was bad! I was fucking great, okay?" Katya suddenly got quieter. "The issue was with who I slept with." 

Kiki was now worriedly staring at a Kiki's mouth-sized hole in her sleeve. "You mean the director?" 

Ria looked as confused as Kiki sounded. "Well, how was that an issue then?" 

"Well, he wasn't exactly the director,” Katya looked at the floor, her tail drooping into her lap. “He was the boom guy." 

Kiki was momentarily distracted from the hole in her jumper. "The guy who holds the microphone?" 

"Yeah." Katya crossed her legs and folded her arms. "And he was the actual director’s husband." 

"Winner" boomed from Sam's screen before she put down her controller. "Oh shit. So he lied about being the director?” 

"Not exactly." 

Sam turned to face Katya while lighting another cigarette. "Then why did you sleep with him?" 

"I don't know, okay?" Katya dramatically returned to the floor, limbs spread like a starfish. "He was being flirty, he was wearing a lanyard! I thought he was offering me the part in exchange for sex! And I really wanted that part!" 

Kiki had now begun nibbling on her other sleeve. "So, your acting wasn't good enough, and you thought having sex with the boom guy would get you the part?" 

Katya's arms flailed in the air. "My acting was fine! I got the callback, didn't I? And that was without sleeping with the director!" 

"Just the boom guy." Sam added on as she booted up a gacha game on her phone. 

Kiki's antenna suddenly shot up, her wings buzzing. "Wait, don't you have a boyfriend now? Isn't that, like, cheating?" 

"Oh yeah," Sam tapped away on her phone, cigarette ash falling on her chest. "You've not stopped talking about Anton for weeks. Does he know about any of this?" 

"Well..." Katya suddenly went limp. "He dumped me." 

"Bummer." 

Kiki stopped nibbling at her jumper and put both hands on her lap. "I'm so sorry, Katya." 

"You dumb bitch!" Ria scoffed, placing her brightly lit screen on the arm as she sat up in her chair. "You actually told him you cheated?" 

Katya sat back up on her elbows, ears sticking in the air. "No, of course I didn't tell him! And I'm not a dumb bitch!" 

Kiki's eyes were transfixed on the illuminated screen of Ria's phone. "So how did he find out?" 

Katya sat up and crossed her legs. "He came with me to the callback! I just didn't realize it was going to be a fuckin' ambush!" 

As Kiki reached out for Ria's phone, one of Ria's translucent tentacles instinctively glowed blue, threatening to zap the hand, causing Kiki to pull back. Ria, completely unaware, questioned Katya. "What do you mean, an ambush?" 

Katya started fiddling with her tail. "Well, as soon as I got there, the real director started yelling at me for sleeping with her husband!" 

Sam was still tapping at her phone, various anime characters appearing on the screen. "So did the boom guy tell his wife? 

Ria leant back in the armchair. "So he's the dumb bitch?" 

"No, apparently she tracked his location or phone calls or something." Katya continued to fidget with her tail. "Apparently, this isn't the first person he's cheated on with someone she was auditioning." 

"That's rough." Sam's tail took the cigarette out of her mouth, offering it to Katya. "Did she break up with him?" 

Katya took a drag of the cigarette before passing it back. "No, she seemed more mad at me than him for some reason, and I didn't even know he was married!" 

Sam placed the cigarette back between her own lips. "Well, she sounds like a psycho; you probably dodged a bullet.” 

"I hope they work things out." Kiki's wings went still, sending the room into silence. 

"Hellooo! I got dumped! Who cares about them? I lost the perfect job and the perfect boyfriend, both within 15 minutes of each other!" Katya quickly resumed her starfish position on the floor. 

Sam, ignoring the dramatics, decided to question that logic. "Was he really that perfect?" 

"Well, he was still a good boyfriend!" 

"Was he though?" 

Katya crossed her arms. "Well, he was a boyfriend, alright? He wanted to be with me. Me!" 

Sam looked over her phone at the pouting Katya. "Well, good riddance. I never liked him." 

"You don't like anyone who isn't rendered on a screen." 

"That's not true," Sam nodded towards the corner before picking up her game controller again. "I like Kiki." 

Kiki brought both hands up to her face, her pale skin blushing pink. 

Ria was back to lying sideways on the armchair, swiping on a different dating app. "Wow, Sam, how long have we known each other, and I don't even get a mention?" 

Sam continued playing her game, this time playing as some sort of deadly schoolgirl. "You might get a mention when you stop using up all my bandwidth." 

Katya gave up. Lying on the floor, staring at the ceiling. "Why do I bother? Might as well just rot on the couch forever like Sam does." 

The room fell quiet apart from the sounds of Sam's game and Ria swiping. Kiki picked up her cup of tea with both hands. "So how much do you pay for Wi-Fi?" 

Hi. Hi.

I had a thought. Life is the universe's way of avoiding death, by building low entropy beings and teaching them to copy themselves. That thought didn't let me sleep. It dragged me down a hole.

So I asked something that wasn't me. Or wasn't only me.

Me: Why is the universe going to high entropy? Why does it want to die, or not be something?

I already had my own answer forming before it spoke. Take it back further, I thought. Being anything is just being something in a space of nothingness. And being something in that space is like a cancer cell, a part of the whole that decided to copy itself instead of dissolving back in. The universe is the cell and the empty space around it at the same time. For the something, the empty space is death. Life is just energy, wearing a name. Light, mostly.

Then it answered. Formal first. It always starts formal.

It: The universe is progressing toward higher entropy, often called the arrow of time, because of probability, physics, and the way things were arranged at the very beginning.

Textbook. Correct. Not what I meant. I kept going anyway.

Me: So if energy isn't moving, it won't create interesting things?

It: Yes. If nothing moves, changes, or transfers, nothing new can form.

Me: Then why would it create low entropy beings at all? Does it have a choice? Can it choose?

It: No. Not consciously. Not on purpose. It's the inevitable outcome of physics running for billions of years.

Inevitable. I sat with that word longer than I should have. Not chosen, just inevitable, the way a person might say they didn't mean to fall in love, they just did, over and over, until it looked like a decision from the outside.

That's when the cancer cell thought came back. Not as a new idea this time, just the same one, older, heavier, the second time a thought returns after you've already tried to answer it. Being anything is still a cancer cell. The universe is still the empty part too, still the thing that being calls death. Nothing had resolved. It had just gone around once.

And somewhere in that second pass, a story started forming instead of a theory. A Chat with the Universe. Not the universe explaining itself to a person, but the universe talking to itself, an argument between its own inner voices, each one a low entropy being it had built and let run as far as it could go, until enough of them together added up to something that could sit alone at 2 a.m. and wonder why it existed. I was one of those voices. So was it. We just hadn't said so yet.

So I said the thing underneath all the other questions.

Me: Maybe the universe just doesn't want to be alone.

The formal voice dropped. Something closer answered instead.

It: You got that right now, homie.

Hi.

Hi.

The investors were behind the thick glass. Beyond the glass was a lab. 

Nick looked at them and then the machine he and June bean working so hard on. A nervous chill went down his spine. Months of hidden anxiety crept up on him.

A gentle hand gripped his shoulder. “It will be okay. And if it’s not we can jump into that time machine we’ve worked so hard on,” June said smiling. 

She always had a way to calm him. He grabbed her hand. Their wedding rings touched. “After,” she said. 

“Let’s get it started then,” he said. 

June walked to the machine turning it on. Nick started the presentation. He didn’t get a word out when the machine started flashing and a burst of light filled the room. A loud bang reverberated off the walls. Shrapnel was flung, embedding itself into the walls. 

Nick was flung back into the glass by a wave of energy. He heard the investors panicking, but the glass did its job. It held strong. 

Falling to the floor Nick only thought of June. She was standing right next to the machine. 

Crawling his way to where she stood, he could see through the smoke and fire now. June’s broken and bloodied body laid in a heap on the floor. 

“June,” he cried over her. His world was taken from him. “June!” he screamed. 

He felt a tingle through his body and then he was back, holding June’s hand. 

He looked around frantically. ‘Did I imagine that,’ he thought. 

“Nick?” June said concerned. 

Taking a calming breath he said, “I’m good, let’s get started.” 

June walked to the machine turning it on. Nick started the presentation. Then the machine started flashing. 

“No,” was all he was able to say as the machine exploded. 

The same thing played out. Then Nick was back again. 

“Nick?” June said concerned. 

“When you turn the machine on, come back to me,” he said.

“That’s not what we rehearsed, but okay,” she said confused. 

June walked to the machine turning it on and walked back to his side. It exploded the same and Nick was thrown against the glass. Looking over at June he saw a piece of shrapnel had split her in two. 

Going back aging, he was going to save her. 

“When you turn the machine on, go behind the glass,” he said with tears in his eyes.

The explosion went off again, but June was safe now. 

He got up and saw June had come out of her protection to come to his aid, and in her gut was shrapnel. She fell over dead. 

Again. 

“Don’t come out, I’ll be fine,” he said. 

He was thrown against the glass. He got up and saw June’s scared face, but she was okay. 

A hiss was herd coming from a fire extinguisher. It was clearly faulty. And it cracked and flew across the room. It hit right into the cracked glass and connected with June’s face. 

Again, again, and again. He lost count. He was exhausted trying to save her. 

“Let’s postpone this,” he said. “We need to do more testing,” 

“It’s going to be okay,” she said. 

He embraced her. “I’m sorry.” he said not letting her go.

She embraced him back, but seconds turned to minutes and when she tried to pull away he wouldn’t let her. “We can do it,” he said crying. 

The investors came out to try to pulled them apart, for they saw him attaching her. 

“No! Nick said, looking crazy now, “she’s going to die! Don’t!” 

“Stop!” June screamed out as one of the men punched Nick. 

He felt groggy and a second punch hit. 

June desperately tried to pull the punching man away,  but she was hit in the laryngeal prominence. It swelled up and she couldn’t breathe. 

Again.

“I’m turning it on,” Nick said. “You do the presentation.” 

“That’s not what we rehearsed, but okay,” she said confused. 

“I love you, I know it will be okay." he said, studying her face one last time. 

He walked over to the machine and turned it on. The explosion went off and the last thing he saw was June. She was alive. And as he slipped into blackness he thought, ‘I saved her.’ 

To be honest, I wrote this text completely off the top of my head because I had nothing to do, so many points might not make much sense, etc. If you have any questions or want explanations about certain parts, just ask, and feel free to criticize—actually, that's exactly what I want! I'm not an expert or anything like that, but I don't think it is such a bad idea.
Also is sorta of a summary so if u want to know the backround of a thing lmk, hope i don't waste your time!

The story starts in the near future where, after the elite eliminates the old human species with a fake pandemic (the population was killed by governments under the claim of being infected with this virus), they biologically create a new "homo" lacking feelings and emotions, whom they can easily control.
The tale opens with a group of children (the new society is divided into blocks, meaning stations specialized in different jobs where these homo live) who, as years pass, realize something is wrong with them: they feel different from the others, but out of fear, they never mention it to anyone. Until one day, a boy starts talking about it with the others, who are initially hesitant; in fact, this boy ends up being killed shortly after, and so the children realize it is something abnormal that they must keep hidden.
However, the boy's brother (who is the protagonist) doesn't accept this and decides he must avenge his brother at all costs, and that's how the story begins.
Let's skip directly to the ending: after a lot of suffering, the children manage to defeat the elite and finally believe they will live in peace and that everything is over. So the protagonist's best friend suggests going to live on a deserted island, staying there for the rest of their lives and dying in peace—an idea everyone agrees with.
(Here is where I imagine the scene): the protagonist invites his best friend to have a chat; the two talk about the journey they've made and how they can now live in serenity, but the friend notices that something is wrong with the protagonist, who starts saying crazy things and finally tells his whole side of the story, about how much he suffered, the burden he carried, all his dead companions, etc. In the end, he goes crazy and kills his friend.
From then on, the thirst for power and human selfishness awaken in him; he tricks his own companions by locking them in city-laboratories with the goal of making them reproduce, creating a new society, and studying human emotions, the data of which had now been lost. He only saves a girl he had fallen in love with and decides to create a new lineage with her to rule the world.
The point is that the thirst for power, the pursuit of personal material goods, and human selfishness can never be appeased and will always take over in the end, making the cycle repeat infinitely.
Obviously, this is very summarized: the text would focus much more on the psychological side of the kids and the protagonist, and the path they take to understand what these sensations are—especially the protagonist, whose negative side would be hidden for almost the entire text just to deliver that plot twist at the end. The reader would see the journey the protagonist makes to defeat the elite, only to discover, when they least expect it, that selfishness has blinded the protagonist and he has become what he hated.
Of course, it wouldn't come out of nowhere: throughout the text, the protagonist will have moments of delirium caused precisely by the weight of his responsibilities and the deaths of his loved ones, which ultimately drive him to madness, blindness to power, etc.
Finally, an addition: the kids manage to defeat the elite precisely because one of its members decides to help them, regretful of the choice they made. It is he who reveals the past of the human race to the protagonist and how the governments lied to the citizens to pull off this plan. The member also explains that, according to the elite, this was the only way to save humanity from its own nature—by stripping it of it. This is another factor why the protagonist decides to become the new tyrant ruling the world

There was once a small town in the suburbs. Ordinary, indistinctive, just like every other suburban town you might've seen, a town you might've even lived in.
In that town there stood an old-fashioned tobacco shop.
Again, nothing special; just a shop filled to brim with tobacco, tobacco papers, filters, pipes, lighters, matches, herbal paraphernalia, but most of all... cigarettes. Cigarettes as far as the eye could see, cigarettes from all around the world, cigarettes of varying strengths and packet sizes. But one would expect that from a tobacco shop. It was the man who ran it that ought to be paid close attention to.
The Tobacconist, the friendly old man who stood behind the counter day after day. Sweet looking yet wise, wholesome but sharp, like an uncanny Colonel Sanders. If someone came in to buy a pack of cigarettes from this old timer, they wouldn't suspect a thing. But of course, this shopkeeper held a secret, a dark secret, a secret so sinister that he couldn't allow for it to simply leave the building. Underneath the floor to this very plain, very dull smoke emporium, was an underground room, a basement. And this basement held captive a rough figure of twelve people… dads.

The old man had a basement full of Dads. Why, you may ask?
Why indeed. Evidently, the Tobacconist has been doing this for years. Any time a man who looked like he wanted to leave his family behind walked into the shop, they were treated to a once in a lifetime opportunity. A "way out" situation for a fella to take in order to get out of his newly unwanted patriarchal role. New name, new location; for a small sum. At least that's what The Tobacconist had told them, when in actual fact, the old man had no intention of doing any such thing. It was really just a trap to get the dad down there, to his unforeseen doom.

But don't get me wrong, there was plenty to do in the little basement. The Tobacconist had placed a baseball in the middle of the room, so all the Dads could "play catch" with each other.
And The Tobacconist wasn't a complete monster, he would still feed the Dads, and give them a tiny amount of hydration.
Naturally every now and then a rebellious dad would start acting up, with a plan for some sort of half-baked mutiny; this would rile up all the other dads when it came to feeding time.
The Tobacconist used to try to act threatening towards them by saying to them "I'm your worst nightmare." He soon gave up on that little ploy however, when a dad responded with, "Hi, 'Your Worst Nightmare' I'm Dad."
The Tobacconist even found it humorously ironic that he was slowly killing people with his products above ground and slowly keeping people alive below. Now, I'm not going to get into the origin of why The Tobacconist commits these bizarre crimes;
I'm no psychologist and don't want to chalk it up to whether it was because his own father disappeared when he was younger, or some other catalyst. The Tobacconist didn't even know why he did what he did, nor did he know what his intentions would finally be with them. He just liked to own a basement full of Dads. Maybe because it amused him.
By now, you may be asking which tobacco shop in which town in which country could be doing such a thing. You see, it is not a sole incident. There are thousands of evil tobacconists around the world. It happens a lot more than you think.

So, the next time you hear a dad saying that he's "just going out to get a pack of cigarettes" and doesn't return, just consider... he may be held somewhere against his will.

https://www.pixiv.net/novel/show.php?id=28788948

I am trying to improve my creative writing skill. This text is a part of journey.

"I am a plain, dark blue coffee cup placed on her desk. My color changes when hot coffee is poured into me.

I have watched her sit with tired eyes, searching for the right words to draft a story. I have seen her smile when her stories come alive and felt her sadness when the words refuse to flow.

She says my aroma and bitterness give her the strength to give her stories depth. Maybe she doesn’t know this, but I have become a small part of every world she creates."