**Shadows of Chinatown**
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The bell above the shop door chimed a shrill alarm as I shouldered Gambit’s weight and slipped into the low-lit sanctuary of Ms. Liu’s Herbal Apothecary. A summer thunderstorm churned outside, its rain tracing war paint on the front windows, blurring Chinatown’s neon to an indecipherable haze. I kept my head low, hood pulled forward so the dripping blood from Gambit’s temple would seem an accident, not a crime. Humans seldom noticed me unless they had to. Ms. Liu’s eyes, sharp as obsidian, darted over the man at my side—the blood, the battered coat, the too-nonchalant posture. She was not pleased. I offered the fabricated story—Gambit was my brother, injured, needing rest. She hesitated, but I could see the moment memory of my last favor to her shifted the balance. Gambit and I were led through the curtain behind the counter, past dried ginseng and tiger balm, to the hidden door that opened under the third shelf of dried lavender.
Her hands trembled on the secret latch. She had carved her business into the bones of this city by dealing in secrets, but every extra soul in her basement was risk. Still, she owed me, and now I owed Gambit.
The stairs creaked under our combined weight, but it wasn’t my body that flagged; it was relief—he was alive, and for the moment, we were out of reach. Downstairs, the hum of refrigeration from boxes of preserved roots blended with the faint electric buzz of a space heater forgotten in the corner. Gambit lowered into the couch, his battered frame an uneasy guest in the safer depths of this underground refuge. I watched him, letting him search my battered black backpack, which the kidnappers never found. The contents were nothing significant; a burner phone, a few crinkled bandages, expired protein bars, but he seemed calmer sifting through these small relics of normal life.
His voice was muffled—resentment, edged with fatigue. He still carried the scars from the warehouse, not just on his skin but on his pride. He would not take orders from dangerous women, he muttered; but here he was, trusting me despite himself.
I perched on the steel-framed bed across from the couch, feeling every splintered muscle complaining as I let out a breath. I’d fought too much for one night. The silence pressed tight for a moment—but then I heard his grudging admiration. He was right; I’d found us a hideout. I shrugged, my mind circling old memories. I had always been good at finding holes to vanish into, good at reading weak points, in buildings and people both.
The air carried smells of licorice roots and camphor, but beneath those a new scent—fresh food, contained in two Styrofoam boxes Ms. Liu had left on the little table by the laundry sink. Gambit snapped one box open, elbows propped carelessly on his knees. The sound, the aroma—burning garlic, soft steamed rice—set a deep ache swirling inside my gut. I reached greedily for the second box. Sweet, salty, oily—whatever it was, I devoured it with messy speed, surprised when the bottom of the box revealed itself before I could slow down. I’d underestimated my own hunger.
Gambit ate more slowly, savoring the food as though tasting safety itself. This small, stolen moment was all the world we had for now, shut in as we were from the violence outside.
After we finished, he took his time gathering clean clothes from the duffel Ms. Liu provided and slipped away towards the rickety shower cubicle. The bathroom fan hiccupped into life, drowning the scrape of his boots on the tile.
Left alone, I exhaled a long, deep breath and let the tension leach from my bones. The only light was a string of faded red fairy bulbs that cast everything in bruised, uncertain hues. I pushed myself up, my body moving before my mind caught up, and found the closet in the corner—old metal, painted green peeling to the touch. On its bottom shelf, I uncovered a stack of newspapers, the pages limp with time and humidity. They were mostly in Mandarin. I flicked past stories of shopfront raids, local politics, an obituary for some herbalist I’d once seen arguing with Ms. Liu in the alley out back.
Beneath the language, I searched for patterns; names, shadows, hints of things that moved like I did—on the edge of human law and mutant life both. Maybe someone had written about the kidnappers, or else about Ms. Liu. Or maybe I'd just hoped for noise, ink on crumpled paper, to drown out the whirl in my mind. I scanned for mention of Gambit, of myself, anything at all that meant our presence had been noted. I found nothing, which was both reassurance and an ambush of paranoia. Too often, those who hunted people like me didn’t make themselves known until it was too late.
I ran a finger over a grainy black-and-white photo of a nighttime fire and let myself feel—if only for a second—the weight of what I’d done tonight. Gambit's life, inescapably tangled with mine. My promise—silent, immutable—to keep us hidden, to keep us alive. No orders, no bravado. Just hunger, exhaustion, and this borrowed rest in a nest of roots and shadows, until the next fight forced us back up into the light.
This story was generated by user ziggo.zane with assistance by one of OpenAI’s large-scale language-generation model; prompts used to help generate the story are shown below.
Images were generated with OpenAI's AI system, DALL·E 2, or uploaded by the user.
AI Prompts
Prompt: Write a long story about the mutant X-23, who brought her friend Gambit to a hideout in a herbal medicine shop. The mutant freed him from his kidnappers and had to ensure their safety. When the shop owner saw that the mutant had come with a man, she was not pleased. But the mutant lied that Gambit was her brother and needed rest because he was injured. The shop owner agreed and led them to a hideout in the basement under the shop. When they entered the basement, Gambit sat on a couch and looked through the things in her backpack. When he asked if she had checked his emails and if anyone had called, the mutant shook her head and sat on the bed. She listened as Gambit mumbled something under his breath that he would no longer take orders from dangerous women. After a moment, he praised her for finding them a hideout, to which the mutant shrugged. She watched as Gambit reached for the Styrofoam boxes of food that the shop owner had left for them. The mutant immediately felt hungry when Gambit opened the box and began to eat. She nodded slightly and reached for the second box and began to eat. She was so hungry that she ate the entire contents faster than he did. When the man went to take a shower, the mutant for reached a stack of newspapers from the closet. Describe everything in the form of a mutant's thoughts without dialogue
Response: The bell above the shop door chimed a shrill alarm as I shouldered Gambit’s weight and slipped into the low-lit sanctuary of Ms. Liu’s Herbal Apothecary. A summer thunderstorm churned outside, its rain tracing war paint on the front windows, blurring Chinatown’s neon to an indecipherable haze. I kept my head low, hood pulled forward so the dripping blood from Gambit’s temple would seem an accident, not a crime. Humans seldom noticed me unless they had to. Ms. Liu’s eyes, sharp as obsidian, darted over the man at my side—the blood, the battered coat, the too-nonchalant posture. She was not pleased. I offered the fabricated story—Gambit was my brother, injured, needing rest. She hesitated, but I could see the moment memory of my last favor to her shifted the balance. Gambit and I were led through the curtain behind the counter, past dried ginseng and tiger balm, to the hidden door that opened under the third shelf of dried lavender. Her hands trembled on the secret latch. She had carved her business into the bones of this city by dealing in secrets, but every extra soul in her basement was risk. Still, she owed me, and now I owed Gambit. The stairs creaked under our combined weight, but it wasn’t my body that flagged; it was relief—he was alive, and for the moment, we were out of reach. Downstairs, the hum of refrigeration from boxes of preserved roots blended with the faint electric buzz of a space heater forgotten in the corner. Gambit lowered into the couch, his battered frame an uneasy guest in the safer depths of this underground refuge. I watched him, letting him search my battered black backpack, which the kidnappers never found. The contents were nothing significant; a burner phone, a few crinkled bandages, expired protein bars, but he seemed calmer sifting through these small relics of normal life. His voice was muffled—resentment, edged with fatigue. He still carried the scars from the warehouse, not just on his skin but on his pride. He would not take orders from dangerous women, he muttered; but here he was, trusting me despite himself. I perched on the steel-framed bed across from the couch, feeling every splintered muscle complaining as I let out a breath. I’d fought too much for one night. The silence pressed tight for a moment—but then I heard his grudging admiration. He was right; I’d found us a hideout. I shrugged, my mind circling old memories. I had always been good at finding holes to vanish into, good at reading weak points, in buildings and people both. The air carried smells of licorice roots and camphor, but beneath those a new scent—fresh food, contained in two Styrofoam boxes Ms. Liu had left on the little table by the laundry sink. Gambit snapped one box open, elbows propped carelessly on his knees. The sound, the aroma—burning garlic, soft steamed rice—set a deep ache swirling inside my gut. I reached greedily for the second box. Sweet, salty, oily—whatever it was, I devoured it with messy speed, surprised when the bottom of the box revealed itself before I could slow down. I’d underestimated my own hunger. Gambit ate more slowly, savoring the food as though tasting safety itself. This small, stolen moment was all the world we had for now, shut in as we were from the violence outside. After we finished, he took his time gathering clean clothes from the duffel Ms. Liu provided and slipped away towards the rickety shower cubicle. The bathroom fan hiccupped into life, drowning the scrape of his boots on the tile. Left alone, I exhaled a long, deep breath and let the tension leach from my bones. The only light was a string of faded red fairy bulbs that cast everything in bruised, uncertain hues. I pushed myself up, my body moving before my mind caught up, and found the closet in the corner—old metal, painted green peeling to the touch. On its bottom shelf, I uncovered a stack of newspapers, the pages limp with time and humidity. They were mostly in Mandarin. I flicked past stories of shopfront raids, local politics, an obituary for some herbalist I’d once seen arguing with Ms. Liu in the alley out back. Beneath the language, I searched for patterns; names, shadows, hints of things that moved like I did—on the edge of human law and mutant life both. Maybe someone had written about the kidnappers, or else about Ms. Liu. Or maybe I'd just hoped for noise, ink on crumpled paper, to drown out the whirl in my mind. I scanned for mention of Gambit, of myself, anything at all that meant our presence had been noted. I found nothing, which was both reassurance and an ambush of paranoia. Too often, those who hunted people like me didn’t make themselves known until it was too late. I ran a finger over a grainy black-and-white photo of a nighttime fire and let myself feel—if only for a second—the weight of what I’d done tonight. Gambit's life, inescapably tangled with mine. My promise—silent, immutable—to keep us hidden, to keep us alive. No orders, no bravado. Just hunger, exhaustion, and this borrowed rest in a nest of roots and shadows, until the next fight forced us back up into the light.
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