The SST AlterNet
Explore writing-prompt responses by character, arc, theme or available text.
Browse the collection below.
Before Stellar Tour · unassigned stories
Writing prompt [WP] You've created a device that allows you to travel between parallel realities. As you jump from dimension to dimension, you notice that everything is incredibly different. Well, there's a strange exception: a version of "Take on me" is present in each dimension. It can't be a coincidence.
Read the moment ↗Before Stellar Tour · unassigned stories
Writing prompt [SP] A man walks along a road at night.
Read the moment ↗Before Stellar Tour · unassigned stories
Writing prompt [WP] One day everything went dark and everyone froze in place. One second later everyone saw a message "universe 1.2 update patchnotes: XP system fixed, magic-system 2.0 added!"
Read the moment ↗Before Stellar Tour · unassigned stories
Writing prompt [SP] "Wh-Where am I?" "Calm down. You're safe now."
Read the moment ↗Before Stellar Tour · unassigned stories
Writing prompt [WP] It turns out that all birds share a common language and even have an official political voting process. One day, you find an injured bird and rescue it. You don't know it, but it's the leader of all the birds. Strange things around you start happening...
Read the moment ↗Before Stellar Tour · unassigned stories
Writing prompt [WP] Congratulations. After years of hard work and dedication in the military, you have finally proven yourself worthy to work at that mysterious Air Force base in the Nevada desert. The only qualifications you possess, however, are for janitorial work. You start your new custodian job today.
Read the moment ↗Before Stellar Tour · unassigned stories
Writing prompt [WP] You wake up in a hospital with a massive headache. As you regain your vision, you notice the room is packed with terrified scientists, politicians, and soldiers aiming their rifles at you. A five star general walks in, gives the order to remove the muzzle around your mouth, and only asks "Why?"
Read the moment ↗Before Stellar Tour · unassigned stories
Writing prompt [WP] "You're not supposed to date Humans! They're prey, pets at best"
Read the moment ↗Before Stellar Tour · unassigned stories
Writing prompt [WP] "You're a part-timer in a surprisingly not so shady bar, but after midnight, for a period of time customers from all eras, including some regulars, appear; knights, samurai, cowboys, cyborgs are some of them.
Read the moment ↗Before Stellar Tour · unassigned stories
Writing prompt [WP] You are the greatest supervillain the world has ever known, and your daughter is being bullied at school.
Read the moment ↗Before Stellar Tour · unassigned stories
Writing prompt [WP] You eat a year-expired muffin from that vending machine. What's the worst that could happen?
Read the moment ↗Before Stellar Tour · unassigned stories
Writing prompt [WP] You work as a cashier. One day, while business is slow, you and a co-worker get bored. You each pull your handheld scanner off the register and "fire" it at each other. At one point, they point it in your eye, and you hear a beep. The screen reads, "Android, v. 5." You had no idea.
Read the moment ↗Before Stellar Tour · unassigned stories
Writing prompt [WP] You're 18, and just started your first job at a factory. After a few days, you start noticing a lot of accidents at work, but noone ever talks about it. People who are involved in these accidents never show back up to work and noone ever questions it.
Read the moment ↗Before Stellar Tour · unassigned stories
Writing prompt [WP] As a run of the mill pickpocket you stick to lifting wallets, cell phones, clutches, etc. While in a coffee shop opportunity strikes, and you make off with a cellphone. 30 min later it gets a text: "Welcome to the hunt, you have a 30 min headstart"
Read the moment ↗Before Stellar Tour · unassigned stories
Writing prompt [WP] Walking alone on a cold night you see a figure standing in shadow its eyes glowing, "you've passed the test."
Read the moment ↗Before Stellar Tour · unassigned stories
Writing prompt [WP] "You... you're not human!" Your mom manages to gasp before fainting into your arms.
Read the moment ↗Before Stellar Tour · unassigned stories
Writing prompt [WP] You've always been able to manipulate and control the minds of the people around you, until one day a girl showed up who seems to be impervious to your abilities.
Read the moment ↗Before Stellar Tour · unassigned stories
Writing prompt [WP] A supervillain visits his parents' house for Thanksgiving. He loves his mom and so it pains him that she talks about his superhero nemesis (she read about him on Facebook) like she's a fan.
Read the moment ↗Before Stellar Tour · unassigned stories
Writing prompt [WP] Ever since you were 15, you wake up holding 5 random magical cards you can use to help you with your life. Today's cards are "Spider Climb for 1 hour", "Turn into a Hawk for 30 minutes", "Infinite Stamina for 3 hours", "Revive Dead", and "Summon Rat Swarm".
Read the moment ↗Before Stellar Tour · unassigned stories
Writing prompt [WP] You're an experienced Bartender. You've heard all the stories and confessions the world could tell. From fallen cops, to criminals admitting their guilt; You've grown nerves of steel. But this, nothing could have ever prepared you for this story.
Read the moment ↗Before Stellar Tour · unassigned stories
Writing prompt [WP] Your grandma's confectionaries have been discovered to have age-reducing properties, and now every government in the world wants their hands on your grandma for her sweet products.
Read the moment ↗Before Stellar Tour · unassigned stories
Writing prompt [CW] Flash Fiction Challenge! An abandoned building | a notebook
Read the moment ↗Before Stellar Tour · unassigned stories
Writing prompt [WP] You stole a phone from an unwitting passenger on a train. Later on the train ride, you see him dig out another phone from his pocket. You steal it again, and he pulls a third phone out. You follow him, wondering where he's pulling all these phones from.
Read the moment ↗Before Stellar Tour · unassigned stories
"Why are we here?" Christine asked. Her friend, Dora asked for company while she ran an errand. The pair of teenage girls stood in front of an abandoned school. She followed Dora along the sidewalk to the entrance. The t
Read the moment ↗Before Stellar Tour · unassigned stories
Writing prompt [WP] "So, anyway, do you want to explain to me how a 13 year old girl ended up in the middle of a multi-species fire fight?"
Read the moment ↗Before Stellar Tour · unassigned stories
Writing prompt [WP] The experiment was a resounding success and failure - you're in an alternate universe, but you're trapped unless you can bulid a very expensive piece of equipment. Now it's time to see if alternate you is willing to help you get home.
Read the moment ↗Before Stellar Tour · unassigned stories
Writing prompt [WP] You're the first to invent a device that records your dreams, now after consciously viewing several of your dreams in detail, you notice there's these same entities that are always in the background observing and studying you.
Read the moment ↗Before Stellar Tour · unassigned stories
Writing prompt [WP] One day, everyone around you collapses. You look around to see a man in a black suit walking over. When he sees you he exclaims "Why didn't it work on you?"
Read the moment ↗Before Stellar Tour · unassigned stories
Writing prompt [WP] On the 9th of October, the world ended.
Read the moment ↗Before Stellar Tour · unassigned stories
Writing prompt [WP] You're walking down the street when you see a man staring at his hands as he wiggles his fingers. He crouches, stands up, jumps twice and does a twirl. As you stare he walks over and punches you in the face. You hold your nose in silent shock. "AI needs work" he mutters and walks away.
Read the moment ↗Before Stellar Tour · unassigned stories
Writing prompt [WP] When you were a child, a mysterious voice whispered "follow the woman in the red dress with the gold polka dots". All your life, you never saw her. Now, lying in the hospital, 98 years old, you see a woman in a red dress and gold polka dots walk past your room.
Read the moment ↗Before Stellar Tour · unassigned stories
Writing prompt [WP] This morning, as you grab your normal coffee order, you bump into someone, accidentally making skin to skin contact. The world around you is immediately replaced with a desert island. You see signs of a long-abandoned dwelling. On your right, the person you bumped into says, "Oh, no. Not again."
Read the moment ↗Before Stellar Tour · unassigned stories
Writing prompt [WP] The year is 3020. Science plays an enormous role in the everyday life. After a restless sleep you wake up to the delicious smell...of bacon! However, all livestock and poultry have been extinct for almost a millennia. "Honey?" you call to your significant other. "What's the occasion?"
Read the moment ↗Before Stellar Tour · unassigned stories
Writing prompt [WP] You have the strange superpower of seeing a blip in the direction somebody dies. Looking at the horizon in a crowded city, you see a blip every few seconds. When you look down, you see blips from people dying on the other side of the Earth. Today, you saw the whole sky light up with blips.
Read the moment ↗Before Stellar Tour · unassigned stories
Writing prompt [WP] "You intrigue me." "I'm not that interesting..." "Funny." A flicker of a smile, and a gaze that never wavered. "Uninteresting people generally don't have to say that." They stepped closer, and I was mesmerized. "What are you trying to so hard to hide?" The other murmured.
Read the moment ↗Before Stellar Tour · unassigned stories
Writing prompt [WP] You faked your death by live-streaming jumping off a bridge. Built a self sustaining house in isolation and lived off the grid. 20 years go by and you decide to head back to civilization only to find out that your country is no longer a country. Earth is one nation and has achieved singularity.
Read the moment ↗Before Stellar Tour · unassigned stories
Writing prompt [WP] You made a deal with the Fae as a child, now they've come to collect.
Read the moment ↗Before Stellar Tour · unassigned stories
Writing prompt [WP] You ride the bus to work every day, like clockwork. The same people sit in the same seats drinking from the same coffee mugs. Variety lacks. One morning a new bus rider joins the group. She smiles politely, then snaps her fingers, transporting the bus, and all its riders, to another dimension.
Read the moment ↗Before Stellar Tour · unassigned stories
Writing prompt [WP] You're in high school and get picked on a lot. You're bullied on a daily basis, but one day you've finally had enough. Your school bully hits you and you hit him back, but when you do, he goes flying. You just discovered you have superhuman strength and have no idea how to use it.
Read the moment ↗Before Stellar Tour · unassigned stories
Writing prompt [WP] A mysterious new street drug, "Shift", has emerged. It supposedly allows its users to transfer their consciousness into alternate reality versions of themselves. You've decided to give it a try.
Read the moment ↗Before Stellar Tour · unassigned stories
Writing prompt [WP] Everyone in the world is on a leaderboard sorting by how powerful each person is. Which combines physical strength, intelligence, and influence. The number one spot has been blank, until now.
Read the moment ↗Before Stellar Tour · unassigned stories
Writing prompt [WP] You have the ability to read the minds of anyone within visual range of you. You have been hearing the thoughts of another person for hours now which wouldn't be so strange if it wasn't for the fact that you have been stranded all alone on a deserted island for weeks.
Read the moment ↗Before Stellar Tour · unassigned stories
Writing prompt [SP] "They said it couldn't be done..."
Read the moment ↗Before Stellar Tour · unassigned stories
Writing prompt [WP] After your eccentric grandfather dies, you go to clean his house. During this, you find a mysterious hidden door, and decide to see where it leads. You eventually find a secret laboratory, filled with dozens of supernatural creatures.
Read the moment ↗Before Stellar Tour · unassigned stories
Writing prompt [WP] You have the ability to see into the dreams of anyone nearby. You've had a lot of fun messing with your friends at sleepovers and such. One day, you hop on the bus home and notice the only chair left is next to a sleeping man. Your curiosity gets the better of you.
Read the moment ↗Before Stellar Tour · unassigned stories
Writing prompt [WP] You find a smartphone, out of curiosity you play with it, then an object next to you disappears, now you are playing real life in developer mode.
Read the moment ↗Before Stellar Tour · unassigned stories
Writing prompt [WP] A bird lands on your shoulder and whispers in a human voice "You've always been good to me Hector. Whatever you do, don't go to the market square tomorrow." - However, your name is not Hector.
Read the moment ↗Before Stellar Tour · unassigned stories
Writing prompt [WP] A girl who lives with her family is tasked with delivering grandma's casserole to the well-behaved college student renting the apartment upstairs, but what she finds is not what she expected.
Read the moment ↗