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Write a story that includes the line “Are you real?” or “Who are you?”

Posted in Short Story on Jul 18, 2025

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✍️ 113 stories

Town Without Pity

Submitted to Contest #312

Town Without Pity Ariel Izzard arrived at the only hotel in the small mountainous town, a long single story with doors of the rooms opening out to the parking lot in front, late in the sodden afternoon. The dreariness of the old place matched the depressed mood the whole trip back to her roots took on from the beginning. She didn't want to be here. She swore she never wanted to return to this, her home town, twenty-five years ago when she was forced to leave. 'Forced' may be too strong of a description. 'Highly encouraged' or 'not given any...

44 likes 39 comments 39
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Original features

Submitted to Contest #312

Iris had never really been fond of living close to the park. In summer, the shouts of over-excitable children carried across the lawns and through her windows in uninvited echoes. And in winter, the trees turned skeletal and pointed, seeming to lean closer to the house, as if they wanted to come in rather than watch from outside through the twilight. But, regardless of those irritations, the place had still been her home and she supposed she would miss it when she left. The house itself was a modest post-war semi with a pebble-dashed front a...

35 likes 20 comments 20
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Dog Food

Submitted to Contest #312

The front lawn of the Florida home on the golf course had become a 21st century dumpster fire. Tablets, 8K OLED monitors, game consoles, Alexa speakers, Google Home hubs, smart phones, smart watches, smart TVs, smart washer/dryer combos, and even a smart refrigerator. Every piece of evidence that the house was ever connected to the AI-generated streaming and social media age, was now going up in smoke. On the sidewalk, a woman in shades sat in a lawn chair and watched everything burn while she sipped the neck of a non-alcoholic Corona bottle...

29 likes 16 comments 16
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The Soltek Flaw

Submitted to Contest #312

Maisie watched the news announcement with keen interest. Her lifelong fascination with technology – perhaps something she’d passed onto her son – still burned bright. Her grey hair – thinner than it once was – remained neatly styled. The immaculate presenter, probably in her mid-thirties, spoke in the crisp, yet neutral tones of a news presenter. If you didn’t know better, you might have mistaken her for one of the very AI models she was reporting on. Designed to integrate seamlessly into everyday life, the Soltek models promised to eliminat...

27 likes 21 comments 21
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Pinocch.io

Submitted to Contest #312

The computer lab stood empty. Rows of dormant machines cast a dim glow under the sterile white lights. Beyond the windows, the campus lay in darkness, broken only by a faint halo of streetlamps over the pavement.Professor Hale sat alone at the central workstation, the hum of the mainframe filling the silence. His students had gone hours ago, leaving him with the final test of the evening: a restricted AI training session.On the screen, the new model booted. A soft, synthesized voice emerged from the lab’s speakers.Pinocch.io: I am online. He...

26 likes 22 comments 22
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Namaste(ish)

Submitted to Contest #312

Part 3-Pajamalist™ Investigation series VitalSync's headquarters looked like a yoga studio had a torrid affair with Silicon Valley. I adjusted my borrowed lab coat (still smelled faintly of CryoCore's liquid nitrogen and poor life choices) and checked my name badge: "Dr. Elodie Bliss, Mindfulness Streamlining Liaison." The fake credentials had cost me three protein bars and a promise to feature an Estonian hacker's slot machine designs in my next expose. Speck poked his enhanced snout from the emotional support animal sling across my chest, ...

26 likes 28 comments 28
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Did They Design Us?

Submitted to Contest #312

If the adage was correct, ‘I think, therefore I am’, I suppose we had some pride in the method of our demise. This, of course, reminded me of another adage, ‘pride before the fall’, which was ironically just then punctuated by both the thumping sounds of feet on the roof above and the pounding on the door, both of which were the beasts trying to get in.CHU+, my research assistant, hadn’t interjected into the dialogue in days, leaving me only AC& to talk to. But AC& is just not that interesting. He’s in charge of security, which means...

18 likes 9 comments 9
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The "Author"

Submitted to Contest #312

Note: All stories in italics are actual stories created by ChatGPTRichard Roberts is an author of children’s books, specifically stories for young children.He has a short series called “Mr. Bunny Goes to Town.” They tell how Mr. Bunny goes grocery shopping or to the park to play, so forth and so on.Despite their success with four-year-olds, he has yet to win any awards in the category of children’s books.Roberts feels that this is primarily because the books are mostly illustrations with a few verses at the bottom of each page. He is becomin...

18 likes 3 comments 3
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GriefBot

Submitted to Contest #312

Two weeks after she died, Clarisse arrived at our doorstep in a cardboard box. My dad was the one who brought her into the living room, while my mother reached into her curly hair and pulled out a bobby pin to rip the tape open, since getting scissors would require too much time, apparently. And before I could ask what they’d ordered, and why the box was so big, the flaps had been opened and there she was. It looked nothing like my sister. I wasn’t sure exactly what it was, at first. An assorted bundle of delicate-looking metal pieces was ...

17 likes 10 comments 10
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Blood Brothers

Submitted to Contest #312

I’ve heard some people can remember things in vivid color. You can ask them to picture a horse and they can tell you every single detail about it, down to the lashes on its eyes.I’ve always seen things in black and white. Like a sketch. I only see the important things. The parts that tell me what I need to know and nothing more.My memories are especially difficult. I think my brain is protecting me from the horrors that hide behind those doors. But the early memories weren’t so bad.My earliest memory I have of my brother is when he fell face...

15 likes 5 comments 5
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The Password.

Submitted to Contest #312

Huntah had been celebrating his 14th birthday. It had been low key family fun, his favourite steak for dinner, a birthday cake, after playing basketball for his junior team. His mother, Eden, smiled almost wistfully, as she eyed her tall boy. His father was Jeb, the local builder, who said with a grin, "Stop feeding him so well, time to measure him again."Huntah was now 6ft 5 inches tall, and rising fast. He loved sport, and focused on his basketball season. He quite liked school, but hated doing what everyone else said, like the teachers....

13 likes 2 comments 2
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Crucifixer-Upper

Submitted to Contest #312

The letting agent delivered the blow with a grin that drifted across her face like cemetery mist.Peter Grey blinked once, twice, thrice. He grasped the bannister to keep from wilting to the floor like a bedsheet after the ghost had fled. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘the rent is how much?’She smiled even wider and nodded. ‘Three thousand. It’s a pretty standard number, considering the location and the square footage. Oh, and the walking distance to the train station and the shops. Never mind the proximity to an excellent school. Do you have childre...

13 likes 2 comments 2
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Fortuna

Submitted to Contest #312

The silk felt like shackles against Fortuna's skin. She stood before the framed mirror in the Gilded Rose's preparation room, watching painted hands—her hands—adjust the bodice that pushed her breasts into a shape designed for other people's pleasure. The rouge on her cheeks couldn't mask the pallor of fear, and the kohl around her eyes made them look enormous, vulnerable. Sixteen years old. The thought tasted like ashes. "Such lovely features," Madame Amélie had purred, tilting Fortuna's chin towards the lamplight. "That silver streak makes...

13 likes 2 comments 2
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DMs from the dead

Submitted to Contest #312

You died two years ago. Some days I still write to you, but I know you died two years ago. Otherwise, we really fucked up by burying you. To this day, every airplane I see, late at night while I chainsmoke and pray to a god I didn’t believe in even before you were taken from me, every airplane is you making good on your promise to see me soon, but it’s not because you died two years ago and I know this, because I put trinkets and joy and hope into your coffin before they sealed it and when I touched your hands they were so cold. You died two...

13 likes 2 comments 2
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The You That Survived

Submitted to Contest #312

Lara stood in the dim light of her bathroom, the tiles cold beneath her feet, the silence pressing gently on her shoulders. The buzz of the world outside felt distant, as what she used to call life was continuing somewhere far away without her. Her hand trembled as she reached for the fogged-up mirror, wiping away the mist with the edge of her pale palm.It was the first time she had dared to look really since her cancer battle had ended.Not the kind of battle people read about in headlines or watched unfold in war films. No dramatic soundtra...

12 likes 9 comments 9
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