"Shrouded Sanctuary: A Mutant Mystery"
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The pavement was slick from the afternoon rain, city light glinting off oily puddles as I guided Gambit, half-drunk on exhaustion and painkillers, towards the old herbal medicine shop. Yesterday’s humidity still clung to the air. I checked the gutters and alleys reflexively. Freedom felt too thin; I’d only just clawed it back for us both, and it could vanish if I slipped. Gambit limped, but hid it. His wounds were crusted, his nerves likely fraying, but he kept pace, trusting me, maybe for the first time since the cell door had crashed open and I’d become his only way out.
In the waning light, the front door’s bell jangled—a bright, impossible cheeriness undercut with the scent of cooling herbs and incense. The owner’s sharp gaze landed on Gambit, and her mouth thinned. He looked like trouble. I could smell blood on him, faint and metallic, drowned under the medicinal musk of yarrow and camphor.
I told her he was my brother and wounded, and by the time I finished with my quiet insistence, she eyed me with something like suspicion, but relented. She led us to the back room, down a narrow flight of cracked stairs, where the cellar sprawled in cool, deep shadows below the bustling shop.
Safe enough, for now.
The basement was a tangle of mismatched furniture and unused crates. A battered gray couch. A narrow metal bed, sheets smelling faintly of sage. A single bulb swung overhead, lighting the dust that floated through the air. Gambit dropped his pack, rolled his shoulder, sat with a wince. I watched as he unzipped his worn backpack, fingers pawing through the few things not stolen during captivity. He was searching—habitually, futilely—for a phone, something to connect him to the world outside, to check if anyone had tried to reach through the silence.
He asked the silent questions—any messages, any leads—and I just shook my head. There were none. I let the silence thicken, listened as he muttered under his breath, old defiance bubbling up with his first taste of safety. He always did that—joked away the ache, disguised battle scars with gallows humor.
After a moment, he praised the hiding spot, trying for gratitude, but I shrugged. I didn’t bring us here for comfort. I brought us here because no one would think to look for mutants beneath a wall crowded with jars of dried roots and catalogues of ancient teas.
Then I saw the food. Styrofoam clamshells, stacked on a wobbling table by the bed. Steam leached out from hot rice and chicken, slick sauce bleeding through a corner seam. My stomach cramped; I hadn’t eaten all day. Gambit opened the top box, hungrily scooping up whatever was inside, his appetite almost desperate. Watching him dig in made the emptiness sharper, so I reached for the second box, tore off the lid. The food went down too fast, swallowed with only the briefest pause to taste. My body screamed for fuel, for salt and warmth, and seconds later the box was empty, my hunger temporarily blunted. Gambit was only halfway through his meal.
He stood up gingerly and headed for the basement’s tiny shower cubicle, muttering something about needing to wash off the last few days—the blood, the terror, the stink of petty men with guns. The pipes shuddered, spitting rusty water.
Alone, I surveyed the room. I could still smell the resinous herbs in the boards, the humidity underfoot. My body hummed with tension, but the enforced stillness forced my mind to roam. I drifted to the closet, searching for any hint of threat or comfort, and instead found a neat pile of days-old newspapers. The weight of normality. They felt out of place here, among runaways and secrets.
I pulled one free, sat cross-legged on the bed. It was cool beneath my hands, thin-printed headlines blurred under fingers still streaked with Gambit’s blood. The world above churned on—politics, weather, crime, hope and disaster—while we hid under its feet, breathing darkness and regret. No one would write about us. Not today. Not ever, if I did my job well.
I scanned the dates, the stories. Somewhere in that sea of faces and headlines, there might be a clue—evidence of the people who held Gambit, a missing person’s notice in print instead of pixels. But nothing. The world was indifferent and endless. Still, I studied every page, searching, not for rescue, but for warning.
Above me, the shop creaked with distant footsteps. Gambit would finish and come back soon, half-clean, exhausted. There would be little rest; but for tonight, I had bought us a silence that held—like that thin, herbal light—between two chases. The mutant body endures, the mutant mind plans. Only the next safe place mattered. Only the next heartbeat, silent and unseen.
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 dialogues.
Response: The pavement was slick from the afternoon rain, city light glinting off oily puddles as I guided Gambit, half-drunk on exhaustion and painkillers, towards the old herbal medicine shop. Yesterday’s humidity still clung to the air. I checked the gutters and alleys reflexively. Freedom felt too thin; I’d only just clawed it back for us both, and it could vanish if I slipped. Gambit limped, but hid it. His wounds were crusted, his nerves likely fraying, but he kept pace, trusting me, maybe for the first time since the cell door had crashed open and I’d become his only way out. In the waning light, the front door’s bell jangled—a bright, impossible cheeriness undercut with the scent of cooling herbs and incense. The owner’s sharp gaze landed on Gambit, and her mouth thinned. He looked like trouble. I could smell blood on him, faint and metallic, drowned under the medicinal musk of yarrow and camphor. I told her he was my brother and wounded, and by the time I finished with my quiet insistence, she eyed me with something like suspicion, but relented. She led us to the back room, down a narrow flight of cracked stairs, where the cellar sprawled in cool, deep shadows below the bustling shop. Safe enough, for now. The basement was a tangle of mismatched furniture and unused crates. A battered gray couch. A narrow metal bed, sheets smelling faintly of sage. A single bulb swung overhead, lighting the dust that floated through the air. Gambit dropped his pack, rolled his shoulder, sat with a wince. I watched as he unzipped his worn backpack, fingers pawing through the few things not stolen during captivity. He was searching—habitually, futilely—for a phone, something to connect him to the world outside, to check if anyone had tried to reach through the silence. He asked the silent questions—any messages, any leads—and I just shook my head. There were none. I let the silence thicken, listened as he muttered under his breath, old defiance bubbling up with his first taste of safety. He always did that—joked away the ache, disguised battle scars with gallows humor. After a moment, he praised the hiding spot, trying for gratitude, but I shrugged. I didn’t bring us here for comfort. I brought us here because no one would think to look for mutants beneath a wall crowded with jars of dried roots and catalogues of ancient teas. Then I saw the food. Styrofoam clamshells, stacked on a wobbling table by the bed. Steam leached out from hot rice and chicken, slick sauce bleeding through a corner seam. My stomach cramped; I hadn’t eaten all day. Gambit opened the top box, hungrily scooping up whatever was inside, his appetite almost desperate. Watching him dig in made the emptiness sharper, so I reached for the second box, tore off the lid. The food went down too fast, swallowed with only the briefest pause to taste. My body screamed for fuel, for salt and warmth, and seconds later the box was empty, my hunger temporarily blunted. Gambit was only halfway through his meal. He stood up gingerly and headed for the basement’s tiny shower cubicle, muttering something about needing to wash off the last few days—the blood, the terror, the stink of petty men with guns. The pipes shuddered, spitting rusty water. Alone, I surveyed the room. I could still smell the resinous herbs in the boards, the humidity underfoot. My body hummed with tension, but the enforced stillness forced my mind to roam. I drifted to the closet, searching for any hint of threat or comfort, and instead found a neat pile of days-old newspapers. The weight of normality. They felt out of place here, among runaways and secrets. I pulled one free, sat cross-legged on the bed. It was cool beneath my hands, thin-printed headlines blurred under fingers still streaked with Gambit’s blood. The world above churned on—politics, weather, crime, hope and disaster—while we hid under its feet, breathing darkness and regret. No one would write about us. Not today. Not ever, if I did my job well. I scanned the dates, the stories. Somewhere in that sea of faces and headlines, there might be a clue—evidence of the people who held Gambit, a missing person’s notice in print instead of pixels. But nothing. The world was indifferent and endless. Still, I studied every page, searching, not for rescue, but for warning. Above me, the shop creaked with distant footsteps. Gambit would finish and come back soon, half-clean, exhausted. There would be little rest; but for tonight, I had bought us a silence that held—like that thin, herbal light—between two chases. The mutant body endures, the mutant mind plans. Only the next safe place mattered. Only the next heartbeat, silent and unseen.
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