I Believe You Need A Bit More Stirring In Your Combination Process. While The Stripes May Look Nice In

Beginning about first quarter of the first sextant of the solar cycle there is a special state of psychological being that allows one to engage with the arcane even in the waking state of those living in the mundane reality. This is the time that wizards thrive.

The hat's the only point allowed in these halls.

what is the FUCKING POINT then???

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.

"John?"

"Steve?"

"I like the ears."

"I like the eyes."

"See you at practice. We never saw each other."

"Agreed."

Write a piece about two people who know each other from one social circle encountering each other in an unexpected place related to another

I was simply enjoying a drink on the beach, admiring the sunset and waving my hands back and forth to make the waves dance to the song I had playing everywhere in my dreamscape all at once when a woman with branches growing everywhere on her body and overflowing with lush green leaves stepped in front of me out of thin air. I frowned at her.

"Will you do something? Anything? For the love of Mother Gaia, I'm so booooored!" she said indignantly with that petulant stomp and balled fists you'd only see better performed on a toddler.

I waved my hand in a dismissive gesture and her leaves quickly faded through the shades of Autumn before they shriveled up and fell in a ring around her feet. She huffed and crossed her arms, her face giving them a run for their money as she glared at me.

I took a sip of my drink and stared back impassively.

Finally relenting, I raised my eyebrow and said, "You're the one that put me here. I'm perfectly content. Bargain well struck in my book."

I materialized a book in my hand which flipped itself open to a page with the words "Bargain with the Fae: Well Struck." I grinned at her indignant "Urrrrgh..." and gnashing teeth. They made a sweetly satisfying sound of wood grinding and creaking like I was back in the forest where this all started.

"You know how to end this, love. Now if you'll excuse me, I was playing with the ocean." I said as I waved my hand and she disappeared in a flurry of dead leaves.

I awoke with a start. Killed in my sleep again, I assumed. Sure enough, there was the wood fae at the foot of my bed. Her back was to me, which wasn't unusual but she was slumped forward instead of leaning back on her hands, which was very unusual. I yawned, preparing to go back to sleep, figuring it was another game that I didn't care to play.

"Cassia." she said, sullenly. I paused.

"Excuse me?" I asked in a deadpan. My expression went flat, not that she could see. That was until she spun around angrily, her hands propping her up as she was nearly sideways on the end of the bed.

"Cassia! That's my name! You're so infuriating!" she said, spinning back around with that last statement and throwing her hands in the air.

"Cassia..." I said, rolling the name over in my mouth. There was a faint shudder to the space around me as I felt something form between us. I smiled gently as she stiffened then looked over her shoulder at me hesitantly.

"It's a lovely name." I said to her before I began rummaging in my bag by the side of the bed. I pulled out a book and flipped to the newest unused page, finally able to write something in it again knowing it would stick.

Bargain with Cassia: Well Struck.

"I'm glad to have met you, Cassia. I always wondered why this inn smelled of cinnamon every morning. You have a mighty gift with time magic. We are going to do great things together!" I said, the excitement growing in my voice.

Cassia looked relieved and even had a shy smile on her face. She quickly tried to school it, however, before saying, "Maybe now you won't be so boring, I hope!" and crossing her arms, her face anything but cross in accompaniment for once.

The Fae that trapped you in a Groundhog Day-style time loop is extremely frustrated that you’re taking advantage of the situation to just sleep all day, every day.

"'It' has a name."

"Why can't you let it be?"

This is low key describing the development of my life philosophy over the years. Like, in order and everything. Get out of my head.

"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?"

"When you summon celestial forces to alter axiomatic principles of reality so that the demonic forces of entropy don't encroach upon our reality and disintegrate this quiet little town of ours, you can give me your attitude. Until then, good bloody morning to you too!"

Writing Prompt #3010

"I called you! Like five times! What the hell were you doing?"

"Sleeping. For the first time in days."