Category: fiction from prompts

  • Sunny Day Parasol Co. — Case File #2: Copper on the Take

    AI generated image at Michael Raven’s direction

    The first installment in this serialized story can be read here.

    Whatever happened down the street had a sound that scraped against the soul, even for this blighted patch of the city. More than my exposed skin prickled in the charged rain, thick with the scent of ozone and something fouler. Even a magically-disinclined Hollow like me didn’t need a gifted psychic to tell them that shriek was tied to the recent bagboy, not someone thrilled to be boosting a sports car. For one thing, no rubber burned to drown out the wee-hour drone. For another, the sound was less ‘joyride’ and more ‘soul-flaying’. Had that same sound clawed its way out of some window over The Red Door down in The Tenderloin District, my assessment might have shifted. I might have even paused long enough to offer a slow, dark clap of appreciation.

    (more…)

  • Sunny Day Parasol Co. — Case File #1: Cold Case

    episodic short fiction | a Vivian Locke noir

    AI generated image at Michael Raven’s direction

    It takes a lot of nerve to slide uninvited into my booth when I’m halfway through a bad week and a worse cup of coffee — it could have just as likely dishwater as coffee by the sheen reflecting my mug in the surface. Usually, I’d just tell the stray to take a hike. But the guy smelled like burnt ozone and sheer panic, and before I could even complain about the static-charged puddle he was leaving on the seat across from me, he slammed a frost-encrusted attaché down on the cracked and stained laminate.

    (more…)

  • Flash fiction prompt — 17feb26

    Photo by Patrick Fore on Unsplash

    I am sharing those daily flash fiction prompts generated by AI that I personally feel are worth pursuing. Readers are welcome to try their hand at writing based on the prompts generated for this exercise, the goals of which are explained in this post.

    Today’s prompt:

    Genre: Noir

    Subgenre/Theme: Occult Detective / Rainy City Cynicism

    Prompt Elements:

    • The Neon Confessional: A low-rent detective agency located directly behind a massive, buzzing neon billboard that flickers in a sequence that inadvertently mimics Morse code.
    • The Lead-Lined Briefcase: An anonymous client leaves behind a case that is impossibly heavy for its size and remains freezing cold to the touch, even in the sweltering city heat.
    • The Silver-Nitrate Source: A cynical morgue photographer who develops crime scene photos using a strange chemical wash that occasionally reveals the last shadow that fell across a victim’s face.
    • The Charged Downpour: A localized, three-block radius where the rain carries a faint, static charge. It doesn’t electrocute, but it raises the hair on the back of the neck, makes the air taste sharply of ozone and copper, and leaves a mild, stinging prickle on any exposed skin.
    (more…)

  • Flash fiction prompt — 12feb26

    Photo by Patrick Fore on Unsplash

    I am sharing flash fiction prompts generated by AI unless I don’t feel they are personally worth pursuing. Readers are welcome to try their hand at writing based on the prompts generated for this exercise, the goals of which are explained in this post.

    Today’s prompt:

    Subgenre: Appalachian Gothic / Cosmic Horror

    Key Elements:

    • A mine shaft that was sealed up fifty years ago but has started breathing.
    • A family bible with names burned out rather than crossed out.
    • The sound of a fiddle playing a song that has no end.
    • A jar of moonshine that doesn’t reflect the light.

    Optional Tone Constraint: The narrator must be unreliable.

    (more…)

  • On Forage

    This piece is based on the flash fiction prompt posted yesterday and follows my personal guidelines as described in this post.

    Photo by Patrick Fore on Unsplash

    Genre: Speculative fiction

    Subgenre: Biopunk / Post-Apocalyptic

    Seattle, South of Pioneer Square Station ruins; 73 years after The Fall

    Kit Keyes could just see the daylight at the end of the tunnel from where she stood on the rusted, flaking remains of light rail tracks. There was not much sun to set the the end of the tunnel alight, as the perpetual twilight of the monsoons filtered out most of it before it even had a chance to get to the ground. It was pervasive gloom that came with the winter months around November and sometimes lasted until as late as May. She half-disbelieved the elders when they said that it had not always been this way; she had known nothing but the winter monsoons for her twenty years of age.

    She watched for shadows in that twilight. Patrols regularly cleared out the tunnels of the dwindling population of raiders and ne’er-do-well types that tested the clan’s defenses on a perennial basis north of The Square, only to discover the defenses had only hardened since their last attempt. A few hundred meter south, on the other hand — that section had never been properly secured. Something about that open mouth bothered her this morning. She could not put her finger on what, something that bothered her more than the empty space itself.

    It just so happened that south of the Square was some of the best fungus forage on the Line.

    (more…)