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're pretty certain your coworker that occasionally vanishes with flimsy excuses is a member of a secret group of monster hunters. You know because you're a member too. Tired of the mutual facade, you decide to confront him about it one day.
Read the moment ↗Before Stellar Tour · unassigned stories
Writing prompt [WP] You've been working at the same mcdonald's for 4 years as one of the cooks. All of a sudden during one of your shifts, all of your coworkers disappear and 10 knights on horseback surround the storefront.
Read the moment ↗Before Stellar Tour · unassigned stories
Writing prompt [WP] You are a child psychologist. Your newest patient sits across from you and says, "Doctor, you have to believe me-- I woke up this morning as a 12-year-old, but when I went to bed last night I was 28."
Read the moment ↗Before Stellar Tour · unassigned stories
Writing prompt [WP] It's common sense that the sun will shine on the Earth. Apart from one day it didn't. All over Earth eternal darkness set. The North nor the South had sunlight. The Sun had just disappeared.
Read the moment ↗Before Stellar Tour · unassigned stories
Writing prompt [WP] In a world where having more than one child is illegal, two people discover that they're siblings.
Read the moment ↗Before Stellar Tour · unassigned stories
Writing prompt [WP] You once wished for immortality, now ages after mankind has expired and the last lights in the universe dim and go out. You hear a voice speak out from the nothingness... "Hello!"
Read the moment ↗Before Stellar Tour · unassigned stories
Writing prompt [WP] You've been living with your gf for two years. You go out for a run while she's at work. You come back, order the elevator, door opens, your gf is there but she doesn't remember who you are.
Read the moment ↗Before Stellar Tour · unassigned stories
Writing prompt [WP] An accused murderer testifies against himself.
Read the moment ↗Before Stellar Tour · unassigned stories
Writing prompt [WP] There is a trail near your house that you take quite often. You take it one day, go a bit further than usual, and notice something... odd.
Read the moment ↗Before Stellar Tour · unassigned stories
Writing prompt [WP] Humanity makes first contact. They're also human.
Read the moment ↗Before Stellar Tour · unassigned stories
Writing prompt [WP] On the first day of Assassin School each new starter receives a campus map, lecture timetable... and a picture of the student they need to assassinate before they can graduate.
Read the moment ↗Before Stellar Tour · unassigned stories
Writing prompt [WP] You and your childhood best friend are out playing in the forest, only for them to fall to their death. Years later, in university, you run into someone strikingly familiar...
Read the moment ↗Before Stellar Tour · unassigned stories
Writing prompt [WP] After striking out with half a dozen dating sites and apps, you finally get a match! There's only one problem-- they're from an alternate universe.
Read the moment ↗Before Stellar Tour · unassigned stories
Writing prompt [WP] You're the last human on Earth, sitting alone in your cabin in the woods. There is a knock on the door.
Read the moment ↗Before Stellar Tour · unassigned stories
Writing prompt [WP] Your father left you an envelope to only be opened in case of an extreme emergency. You're pretty sure this counts.
Read the moment ↗Before Stellar Tour · unassigned stories
Writing prompt [WP] You find yourself in a different body, with no memory of how you got there. Nothing you see is familiar. In your hand is a note that reads 'This body will die in 10 minutes. Figure out how, and prevent it.'
Read the moment ↗Before Stellar Tour · unassigned stories
Writing prompt [WP] On their first day at work at the new burger stand in town, the cashier discovers a hidden passage behind the freezer. On the other side is a bizarre meat locker... but there's something off about the meat.
Read the moment ↗Before Stellar Tour · unassigned stories
Writing prompt [WP] The discovery of the second earth led humanity to believe in multiple dimensions, but for some peculiar reason, you only exist in one dimension.
Read the moment ↗Before Stellar Tour · unassigned stories
Writing prompt [WP] Unable to compete financially with some of the younger crime families that have been rising up, your distinguished crew decided to accept outside investment. And now the new corporate office wants to be consulted on all big decisions the family makes.
Read the moment ↗Before Stellar Tour · unassigned stories
Writing prompt [WP] You have built a machine that has allowed you to travel to parallel universes, you've found out that you don't exist in any other universe but your own. You now live multiple lives in other universes.
Read the moment ↗Before Stellar Tour · unassigned stories
Writing prompt [WP] A high fantasy world where social media exists. People die from taking dragon-selfies, Kings and nobles debate on twitter, and funny unicorn videos trend on Youtube.
Read the moment ↗Before Stellar Tour · unassigned stories
Writing prompt [WP] Far in the future there is a utopian (or dystopian) society where everyone is immortal in every way, shape and form. However, to combat overpopulation, when you turn 40, you are forced to die.
Read the moment ↗Before Stellar Tour · unassigned stories
Writing prompt [WP] You spot a small stack of pamphlets. "Would you like to live forever?" the title says. You open it. A vampire wrote it. You find a phone number on the back.
Read the moment ↗Before Stellar Tour · unassigned stories
Writing prompt [WP] You heard of a word of a new bar in town. One that either leaves you smiling and one that leaves you staring blank. As you went in, the bartender offers you, "Would you like a glass of Desire or Necessity?"
Read the moment ↗Before Stellar Tour · unassigned stories
Writing prompt [WP] You are the most powerful superhero in the world. You can control time. However, you prefer to clean up the collateral damage left behind by your colleagues than fight supervillains.
Read the moment ↗Before Stellar Tour · unassigned stories
Writing prompt [WP] You, the owner of an outrageously successful tech startup, are invited to an exclusive club/society for the world's wealthiest people. You realize that they are all actually dragons, and they assume you are one too.
Read the moment ↗Before Stellar Tour · unassigned stories
Writing prompt [WP] On a seemingly normal walk home, you see a homeless person GIVE a normally dressed person a cigarette. You didn't have time to see the situation unfold but on your walk home the next day you see the homeless guy helping someone again and you just gotta know what's up.
Read the moment ↗Before Stellar Tour · unassigned stories
Writing prompt [WP] You died. While watching your family and friends suffer, you try everything to tell them that you are still there, but they don't hear you. After days and weeks, you sit alone in your room one night when you speak the one sentence that will change your (after?) life forever: "Siri, call mom."
Read the moment ↗Before Stellar Tour · unassigned stories
Writing prompt [WP] You are a normal 17 year old but on your 18th birthday you gain the knowledge of all truths in the world.
Read the moment ↗Before Stellar Tour · unassigned stories
Writing prompt [WP] "Are you ready to log out for the update" your friend asks. "What update?" "The whole server is going offline, you know it's... Don't tell me I've been friends with a sim for the last three years." You're feeling nervous.
Read the moment ↗Before Stellar Tour · unassigned stories
Writing prompt [WP] You're a researcher of a vulnerable tribe living on an isolated island. You can't go anywhere near the island or your might be killed. 1 night, a storm sank your ship and you wake up on their shores. You've already accepted your certain death, until you turn around and saw them bowing to you.
Read the moment ↗Before Stellar Tour · unassigned stories
Writing prompt [WP] The event was known as the Opening. A teleportation experiment, the first of its kind in Man's history, went terribly wrong. As a shockwave spread out throughout the earth, every door on earth became a portal to another world. Earth became an overnight intergalactic nexus.
Read the moment ↗Before Stellar Tour · unassigned stories
Writing prompt [WP] When I was young, back in the old chateau of my grandmother, me and my brother were playing hide and seek and as to help me not get lost he would slip notes under the dors as clues. But my brother was never found in our last trip.
Read the moment ↗Before Stellar Tour · unassigned stories
Writing prompt [WP] Everyone has a doppelganger. You've just met yours, and she's your blind date.
Read the moment ↗Before Stellar Tour · unassigned stories
Writing prompt [WP] The Exile gate was created over a century ago, a one way journey to another world. Earth's criminals were banished through it, then the undesirables, malcontents, and dissidents. Now Earth needs more resources and has opened a two-way gate to exploit that world.
Read the moment ↗Before Stellar Tour · unassigned stories
Writing prompt [WP] You are a vampire. Working at a blood bank.
Read the moment ↗Before Stellar Tour · unassigned stories
Writing prompt [WP] Heros are paid much less than most realize, but villains are paid much more. As a result, all heroes gather twice a year to decide how often they will become the villains, what they will do, and who will stop them.
Read the moment ↗Before Stellar Tour · unassigned stories
Writing prompt [WP] Your roommate always keeps a thermos with him, which presumably is filled with coffee due to how irritable he is when he doesn't have it. One day you get your thermos mixed up with his, and upon taking a sip find instead of coffee warm blood.
Read the moment ↗Before Stellar Tour · unassigned stories
Writing prompt [WP] When you fall asleep you travel to a different universe to the enchanted world of kingdoms and dragons and sorcerers. In this world you are king. In the other world you're awake. You just got a job at Walmart and your boss just happens to be your sworn enemy in the other world....
Read the moment ↗Before Stellar Tour · unassigned stories
Writing prompt [WP] You've been having a great time chatting with a girl online and you decided it was time to meet up in person for a date. On the day you two are to meet for the first time, you wake up to discover a note by your bedside that reads "DO NOT GO ON THE DATE! - July 5th 2025".
Read the moment ↗Before Stellar Tour · unassigned stories
Writing prompt [WP] As a child you always had your imaginary friend to help you through tough times. Now you're an adult and doing well in life until one day your imaginary friend shows up and asks for your help.
Read the moment ↗Before Stellar Tour · unassigned stories
Writing prompt [WP] It's been 10 years since anyone has heard from Ireland. The last communication that was heard from them was "We discovered a gateway to hell". You lead a team to find out what has been going on.
Read the moment ↗Before Stellar Tour · unassigned stories
Writing prompt [WP] You just sent in your DNA to one of those ancestry sites. After eight weeks, you can't figure out why your results have not shown up. Then, two men with dark suits show up at your front door. They have some news regarding your results.
Read the moment ↗Before Stellar Tour · unassigned stories
Writing prompt [WP] You are a realtor showing a house. Its amazing and the couple you are showing it to are obviously in love and the price is too good to be true. At the end of the tour you know they want to make an offer, but have to disclose "The one odd thing about this home is..."
Read the moment ↗Before Stellar Tour · unassigned stories
Writing prompt [WP] You prepare to move out of your childhood home. After packing your belongings, you decide to peruse through the house one last time, only to discover a door that you swear didn't exist yesterday.
Read the moment ↗Before Stellar Tour · unassigned stories
Writing prompt [WP] Sherlock Holmes is faced with the greatest mystery of his life: who stole the cookie from the cookie jar. It was YOU!
Read the moment ↗Before Stellar Tour · unassigned stories
Writing prompt [WP] You're sitting alone in a lightly busy bar when a man comes up and sits next to you. He leans in and says to you slowly "Everyone else in here is here to kill you. You need to listen to me very carefully if you want to live..."
Read the moment ↗Before Stellar Tour · unassigned stories
Writing prompt [WP] The year is 2086 with crime at an all time high. You have been partnered with an advanced android nicknamed the "Lawmaster". It stands 10 feet tall and is armed to the teeth and it's time for your first patrol together.
Read the moment ↗