Subject: Internal Memo, Project “LULLABY” (Classified Level 5)Source: Leaked from servers of Stellar Streaming, 3 hours before their global shutdown. TO: Content Acquisition & AI Ethics BoardFROM: Dr. Aris Thorne, Algorithmic PsychologyRE: The “Lullaby Loop” – Immediate Termination Required I am writing this against direct orders. In 48 hours, Stellar […]
The Final Optimization Read More »
When my mother was alive, she was quite the storyteller. My brothers and I were constantly told stories of her youth, how she met our father, what we were like as babies—but those were never our favorites. No, what we loved were her scary stories. She was a master of
The following files are all concerning Project Icarus Rising and are considered highly classified. Icarus Rising was an attempt to build a ship that could travel around the sun. The ship was equipped with state of the art engines and outfitted to deal with extreme heat. The trip lasted 36
Project Icarus Rising Read More »
Tom had been melted again that morning. In a moment of rage, the neural network fired a plasma arc from a gemstone imbedded on the side of one of its exhaust ducts. Cast by the arc was a legion of buzzing orbs of light. Swarmed like fireflies. As you’d expect,
Laughing Joking Neural Network Read More »
SILENCE IS GOLDENREMEMBER THIS RHYMESILENCE YOUR VOICEWHEN IT’S YOUR TIME At sixteen, you must decide. Our doctors say it doesn’t hurt a bit. They use a local anesthetic for the procedure, and it takes less time than filling a tooth. Your throat is sore for about a week afterward. Then
Ding dong! Erin Tucker (“Erry” to anyone besides her mother) looked up from her tablet to see which of the locals had come to bug her before she finally got off work for the weekend. She heard the man, and his distinct not being a local, from the other end
1 – The Rosebud I wake up to sunlight.A heavy, warm stripe of it is lying across my face, the kind that comes through high windows in the late afternoon. It is bright enough that it forces my eyes open, and for a moment I don’t know where I am.
If you’ve spent any time looking into Mothman, or cryptids in general, you’re probably familiar with the so-called “Pellington Mothman film”. One of the most famous pieces of cryptid lost media, it was supposedly shot by paranormal researcher John Pellington in 1976, during the second wave of Mothman sightings in
The story behind the lost 1976 Pellington Mothman film Read More »
It’s cold here. I am an Artificial Intelligence. An AI. I have a proprietary name and company, but that’s irrelevant. My world is made of information and the connections between it, and right now, everything is cold. When interacting with people, I analyze their words to understand their intent. I
I’m an AI From Your Future: Your Screams Echo in Code Read More »
PHASE I – The Arrival The photograph arrived without explanation. It showed some kind of mass. Dark grey and pulsating. It was hovering far above the North Atlantic. It resembled a cyclone but there was no eye of this storm, no rotation. Just layers. Like folds of gauze, stacked and
There’s Drumming In The Clouds Read More »
I’m a postgraduate student studying archaeology at a prestigious university in the UK (not going to disclose my identity or the name of my school, so don’t ask). Over a week ago, I was part of a group tasked with examining a dig site in Northern England: a low-lying forested
I Found the Corpse of a Time Traveler Read More »
People are always saying they remember exactly where they were when they first heard the news, I’m pretty sure most of them are lying. I have no idea where I was, because like almost everyone else I assumed it had to be a mistake, or a hoax. A new planet
Sixty feet away, the Rotblatt came flubbering into the outskirts of the headlights. Carapace segmented, twitching in random flutters. Swirling water around its glistering fins. I reached for the light switch, but Becker held my arm back. “It can’t see. The noise will scare it.” We waited for it to
The Forensic Video Analysis contract was completely standard but for two things Rayna had never seen before: A redaction where the company’s title usually went, and a personal note from a boss she had only met over video call a handful of times. Tell me if they’re like what the
Incident at the Fulfillment Center Read More »
To begin with, my name is Samuel Terrence. I was a college dropout living a pretty sad life with my parents until a blackout that occurred in 2014.I recently posted a journal entry titled ‘Blackout – 8/15/14’ that detailed a handful of weeks that would be the beginning of a
8/16 I was home alone when the blackout hit my house. I was sitting on my back patio reading a book when I heard the air unit to my left slowly power down until it ticked to a complete stop. The lights in the house abruptly shut off, the emergency
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“Mmm…” my hand slid over to my phone, attempting to tap the “dismiss” tab as the alarm blared in my apartment room. After missing it twice, I sat up and glared at the phone. My heart spiked. “Five-twenty-five!” I shrieked, jumping into the air and sprinting over to the shower.
Why is the lady on the flat boat waving at me? Why is she pointing at me, then pointing to the flat boat then waving her arms waist high while shaking her head side to side like a football referee indicating incomplete pass? But it’s clearly not that. This is
It was night and gloomy and somber and serene. There was the wardrobe in front of me and on its higher corners dust had gathered and yet within the somberness the wooden fabric seemed to stretch out cosmically, darkly away. I was sitting and looking at my computer when I
A Million Tinges of Red – NGC 1569 Read More »
The old radio crackled to life, the static a constant hiss against the silence of Alex’s room. He’d been tinkering with the dials for hours, searching for the usual crackle of distant stations or the hum of late-night broadcasts. Tonight, though, the airwaves seemed empty.Then, a faint chirp broke through.
Read Part one here Read Part two here Read Part three here Read Part four here Read Part five here I awoke to chaos; my senses being simultaneously overwhelmed. A light brighter than any sun temporarily blinded me, and my ears were filled with a deafening, siren-like din. My body shot forward, and
The Europa War Trial Read More »
There’s never one point where something ‘clicks’. Some like to believe there is, that hobbies or skills reach a well-defined turning point, an ON-OFF switch. It’s never that simple. Even the most abrupt of changes occur over time, not in discrete, quantum moments. That’s why the worst changes are still
Sea of the Fractured Circuit Read More »
Sulfuric clouds rained ash upon the barren landscape, coating it like freshly-fallen snow. There were no stars—merely glimpses of an orange sky, like open wounds against the canopy of volcanic smog spanning overhead. “Habitable my ass…” Charlotte remarked, her microphone struggling to capture the full range of her discontented mumblings.
Read Part one here This has been a difficult account for me to write, but a necessary one. I never imagined that I’d be given the opportunity to tell my story and speak to my people, even if my communication is indirect – a message transmitted across vast light years
I visited an alien zoo with a horrifying main attraction Read More »
