Instant Story

Flash fiction fresh from my fingers to your mind!

Challenge #02833-G276: Safety Except...

A new class of therapists are going through training and tonight's lecture is about human psychology, past and present, when it came to the sciences and medical treatment. They were to watch an info video on humans in the early 21st century and their reactions to life-prolonging measures such as getting vaccinations to prevent disease, and wearing masks to try to control viral spreads during pandemics. And this, then was compared to the behaviors seen in the modern day. -- DaniAndShali

The picture was of a bench in a park with a sign attached that read WET PAINT and a nearby weatherproof box with a sign that read, Paper towels and wet wipes for the folks who didn't believe me. The handle of the box was covered in handprints in the same colour as the bench.

The lecturer waited for the laughter to die down. "This is not a staged image for the purposes of environmental storytelling. This is a real chain of circumstance that encapsulates the quintessence of Human nature. Any given Human can, has, and will choose to disbelieve a fact when it is deemed by them to be inconvenient to them."

Now the image showed an image from a pre-Shattering protest. An angry man was screaming and holding up a sign bearing the picture of a disposable surgical face mast with a 'no' circle around it. The words said, MY BODY MY CHOICE! "Even when their arguments are co-opted from a movement they had strenuous opposition to." The image zoomed out, showing the man was wearing a T-shirt with the legend, Pro Life for Love. "Thus, getting a Human to act in their own self-interest, let alone the common good. How to get through to them can be an exercise in frustration."

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Challenge #02832-G275: A Life Saver

The human's small ship carried several havenworlder families as they were heading on the normal space station to home-world run. However, an unseen micrometeorite managed to hit a vulnerable spot and the ship went down hard on one of the moons that orbited their system's only gas giant. The moon itself had a breathable atmosphere, with a minimal filter, and was not unknown to the havenworlders whose people had been starting to mine it, but that facility was all but on the

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Challenge #02831-G274: Observer Effect

An extraterrestrial puts together a video showcase of human do-it-yourself and educational videos, open to the general public who wants to learn more about humans. They have even been smart enough to include offensensitivity warnings so havenworlders can avoid the appropriate films. Included in the film line up is:

Mythbusters

Nailed it

Naked and Afraid

The Darwin Awards -- Anon Guest

[AN: Of the four listed here, only one is in any way instructional other than "learn from my mistakes lol". Real

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Challenge #02830-G273: One Last Angel

I’ve always knew that death would come. Don’t know where, don’t know when. Death always looms over everyone and I know my time has come. It’s fine, I lived a full life, I’m one of the few to meet their great great grandchildren. They knew I was gonna to pass so they stayed by my side. At the end that when I saw death.I could barely move, I could barely speak. Death reached into his cloak

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Challenge #02829-G272: Outside Influences

Before humans knew that beings existed outside of their own world, before, in fact, humans had gone much further than sending a couple of people to their local moon, they visited. They'd always managed to remain hidden, but their work was kinda starting to get noticed. They'd find those who were sick and injured, and amongst the human there were many. Mostly, they worked with kids, however. At night, when the entire area was asleep, they would take the children aboard their

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Challenge #02828-G271: War Makes...

They had been sent in to rescue a high ranking official's daughter and had, erroneously, assumed she would be some weak, helpless, demanding, little flower that not only would be difficult to rescue, but would be a major headache, and pain in their rears, all the way through the escape and on the way back to the woman's home world. What they found, instead, was a strong, fierce, self-reliant individual who was as ready with a weapon as any of their team.

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Challenge #02827-G270: Technically Speaking...

Some folks fear advancement of technology, especially computers, fearing the "inevitable" time when, like a hundred dreadful films and books and such have "predicted", that Artificial Intelligence will awaken and decide humanity is not worth allowing to live, because Cold Logic dictates them too irrational and inefficient to remain existent.

But there are things machines will never do. They cannot possess faith, they cannot commune with God, they cannot appreciate beauty, they cannot create art. These are acts of emotion, not logic.

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Challenge #02826-G269: Foretold You So

Do you remember the story of how the lord obtained the nickname Bargore the Beloved? -- Anon Guest

[AN: One paranoid search of my entire archive later, I can say that I have to now invent Bargore :D My thanks to a Tumblr post I cannot immediately unearth for the plotline of today's tale]

Some people were never destined to be evil. No matter how many forces turn them that way, no matter the determination of the individual, Fate has other plans.

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Challenge #02825-G268: Move Over Cinderella

To put it simply, I am a slime. A sentient slime to be precise. Doc told me that I’m a amalgamation of smaller slime cores stitched together, now I have similar intelligence to a human. You might be asking why I have a humanoid shape, Doc gave me a skeleton to use. He’s slowly adding metal because I keep digesting the bones. Don’t worry Doc didn’t kill anyone, these are bones of Criminal on death sentence. -- Anon

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Challenge #02824-G267: On Inter-species Relationships

Inter-species relationships are not common but you can bet Humans have the highest percentage of them. -- Anon Guest

Love? Love is strange. Especially when it's Humans doing it. For them, love is many things and not a single one of them is rational, logical, or reasonable. There is, for instance, no reasonable reason why a Human would fall in love with a Chitanean, but they can, have, will, and do.

Love, the Humans insist on pointing out, doesn't necessarily mean that

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Challenge #02823-G266: Please Don't

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QdoTdG_VNV4 -- Anon Guest

[An: Watch this. This is two people playing a piece written for an ENTIRE ORCHESTRA on glasses of water. There is an actual instrument called a glass harp and it looks really as weird as you might expect. It works on the same principal as the glasses but I think it's only a recent invention]

Humans will make music out of anything do not tell them they can't. They will remix

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Challenge #02822-G265: Comedy vs Offensensitivity

"Although your jokes are funny, please never say them again.” Upon hearing this the person suddenly began to laugh, just like how he began he stop. “Never.” The person formed a cheeky grin “though Jokes usually make people laugh, some don’t. But always have the same principal: leave you different than you first started.” “Jokes are supposed to make you laugh-“ the person wave their finger in front of my face “jokes like that is like eating ice cream: eat too

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Challenge #02821-G264: Caste of the Shadows

“Before I make my request I will let you know the you may get angry.” I barely said anything but the tension of the room skyrocketed. The duchess straight face slowly firmed up “go on”. Steeling my resolve “I cannot really sugarcoat it, so I will be blunt.” My gaze drifted noticing the axe next to the chair where the duchess was sitting. “Basically, I want to experiment on your daughter-“ the axe that was by her chair was now lodged in

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Challenge #02820-G263: You're Adopted!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jM8dCGIm6yc -- Anon Guest

[AN: Watch it. Be amazed]

Humans may not be the only species who have weaponised music, but they are the only ones who have weaponised it so effectively. Many have known the sheer horror of thousands of Humans with their voices raised in one song. Scarier still is one Human with some impressive vocal skills.

Soprano is just one of them. The ability to project is another. Throat singing, however, is one

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Challenge #02819-G262: A Ghost of Hope

✋︎♐︎ ⍓︎□︎◆︎ ♋︎❒︎♏︎ ❒︎♏︎♍︎♏︎♓︎❖︎♓︎■︎♑︎ ⧫︎♒︎♓︎⬧︎📪︎ ⧫︎♒︎♓︎⬧︎ ❍︎♋︎⍓︎ ♌︎♏︎ ⧫︎♒︎♏︎ ♐︎♓︎❒︎⬧︎⧫︎ □︎❒︎ ●︎♋︎⬧︎⧫︎ ⧫︎♓︎❍︎♏︎ ⍓︎□︎◆︎❼︎❒︎♏︎ ♒︎♏︎♋︎❒︎ ♐︎❒︎□︎❍︎ ❍︎♏︎📬︎ ✋︎♐︎ ⍓︎□︎◆︎ ♒︎♋︎❖︎♏︎ ⧫︎♒︎♓︎⬧︎ ⍓︎□︎◆︎ ❍︎◆︎⬧︎⧫︎ ⬥︎♋︎■︎⧫︎ ⬧︎□︎❍︎♏︎⧫︎♒︎♓︎■︎♑︎ ♐︎❒︎□︎❍︎ ❍︎♏︎📬︎ 👌︎♏︎♐︎□︎❒︎♏︎ ♋︎■︎⍓︎❍︎□︎❒︎♏︎ □︎♐︎ ❍︎⍓︎ ♎︎♋︎⧫︎♋︎ ♌︎♏︎♓︎■︎♑︎ ♍︎□︎❒︎❒︎◆︎◻︎⧫︎♏︎♎︎📪︎ ❍︎♏︎♏︎⧫︎ ❍︎♏︎ ♋︎⧫︎ -- Anon Guest

[AN: Provided translation - "I︎f︎ y︎o︎u︎ a︎r︎e︎ r︎e︎c︎e︎i︎v︎i︎n︎g︎ t︎h︎i︎s︎,︎ t︎h︎i︎s︎ m︎a︎y︎ b︎e︎ t︎h︎e︎ f︎i︎r︎s︎t︎ o︎r︎ l︎a︎s︎t︎ t︎i︎m︎e︎ y︎o︎u︎’︎r︎e︎ h︎e︎a︎r︎ f︎r︎o︎m︎ m︎e︎.︎ I︎f︎ y︎o︎u︎ h︎a︎v︎e︎ t︎h︎i︎

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