"John?"

And then, the world went mad...

Before I would've said the world would go out in a nuclear blaze or something otherwise generically apocalyptic like that. Survival scenarios were always fun to think about in those kinds of settings. Then I stepped outside to go to work and the house across the street blew up. The wildest thing? I'm pretty sure I saw Susan flying into the distance wearing a blanket like some kind of sugar glider, but got distracted by her car hood banging to the road like it had been launched from the roof. I called the police to report the explosions and subsequent fire, but the operator just started flirting with me. Creeped out, I hung up and tried again only to get raucous laughter from someone else. I went to get a hose and maybe do something when I heard gunshots. GUNSHOTS! Gunshots in my sleepy little suburb, and I'm convinced they were shooting at me! What did I do?! I ran to my car and took off, console pistol in hand because I had no idea what was going on. I drove to my friend Dave's house, but he seemed bored by the madness I frantically described seeing in my trip over. "Time-loop, bud. You're lucky I stuck around this time to see you. Damnedest thing. I think you're the only one that doesn't know. Made me kind of a celebrity for a few years there, but now you're novelty has worn off. Oh, you'll get some attention still, but the North American Free People's Society has laid down some protection rules around you, but it's not like we can enforce any infrastructure in the beginning. Good luck with Today! I'll see you again Today." He just got up and walked out. He seemed listless about the whole thing. Strange accent as well. I found his corpse a few hours later. I'm still trying to convince myself that some worldwide mass hallucination happened, because I can't otherwise make sense of everything. Dave was right though, which makes it harder to believe. I ran into plenty of would-be-lovers, plenty of whackos trying to kill me, and quickly had a bodyguard contingent from this NAFPS group who shot a lot of people between casually chatting with me and maintaining a perimeter. I guess they have a daily rotation and it's considered some kind of honor.

Then the next day came.

There were all kinds of reactions. Orgies in the street, mass suicides, plenty of weeping in both joy and terror. Before no one wanted to talk to me about it anymore, probably because of all the questions I kept asking in the early days, I learned that everyone was in there for hundreds of years. Certainly explains some of the wild skills I saw from people who otherwise looked like normal service workers or business drones. It seems some considered themselves immortal, and being confronted by Tomorrow shook most up. The NAFPS is still around in some capacity. It seems there were groups that were preparing for Tomorrow all over the place, but never really expected it to come. It was clear who truly believed soon enough, from my perspective. I work with them as thanks for protecting me the day the world went mad, and I'm starting to believe them. This is all too orchestrated to be anything fake or hallucinated. It's just so hard to believe, you know? It seems that my celebrity status in the strange world I missed out on makes me a relatively trustable party for negotiations. I've been shipped to neo nation-states across the globe like the NAFPS as a kind of emissary of the world that was. To me it was just last Thursday, but I guess to them, that's when the world really started. I still miss Dave.

-Reflections from the diary of control entity, Jay, in simulation iteration 166,440. It can be noted that human society is starting to become stable, post-resumption. This researcher believes this to be a solid sign we are past the primal anarchic tendencies of the prolonged mortal persistence in a zero-consequence environment and refutes the claim of inherently chaotic nature in the species. Albeit did take several hundred years. The concerted effort to keep the control entity alive as a living monument to their culture and former society is of particular interest to this researcher.

Apparently, you are living in a time loop. Also apparently, you are the only person on Earth who DOESN'T remember the previous iterations. This is the first time you've experienced today; the rest of humanity has been stuck reliving today for years now.

"But you do lie."

"No I don't."

"I rest my case."

"What? But I don't lie!"

"You also didn't rest your case."

prompt 425

“The biggest difference between you and me is that you lie and I don’t.”

“I don’t lie.”

“I rest my case.”

Am I the only one that will reflexively type "suite" instead of "sweet" when saying something like "That sounds sweet, dude!"?

If you write a story for the backstory of a character in a ttrpg that is set in an existing franchise, is that considered an OC fanfic?

"Until they stop pursuing you." the hunter replied, the automatic reply coming out flat.

"They will never stop pursuing me. Please, let us just run and live together for as long as we can." the vampire pleaded.

The hunter stopped, closing a chest with a thump and turned to the vampire.

"We would always be looking over our shoulders. What kind of life would that be? We could trust no one." the hunter said coldly.

"Then we won't live around anyone." the vampire offered.

"That's not the problem. You just don't understand, but that's okay. You lived among them, but you haven't been the hunted before. Once they're all dead, it won't matter anyway. I'll see this through to the end." the hunter explained, then walked out the door.

"No, you don't understand. The end will be when you're gone, and I'm afraid you might be already." the vampire muttered forlornly to the empty doorway.

After a one-month long hunt, the vampire hunter returns home with a body full of hastily treated wounds and dark circles under the eyes. Yet, they are already preparing to embark on another hunt. Standing beside them, a vampire speaks up: "How long do you plan to live this way?"

I hope the oath wins over the curse. It's much more interesting to be sworn to amber and rot. That necromancer raising dinosaurs from oil in a modern fantasy would be killer. Sworn to take down the corruption of the corporate overlords. Bonus ancient diseases from raised bugs or using amber bound creatures as a focus. A curse is involuntary and dull. An oath is purposeful and full of volition.

let's make a "the [noun] of [noun] and [noun]" fantasy book title!

"So, how's the wife?"

"Ah yes, the old ball and chain."

"That's a little rude, don't you think?"

I pull out a wedding photo from my wallet and you see me at the altar across from a chain chomp with a pink bow.

These and memes like it make me want to get an easel and pallet and paint wizards in nature and I likely places.