Amren Ortega - Writer

Prompt: Sirens come in many shapes and sizes. You've perfected the "lost tourist" look. ______ Nearly five hundred feet below, the ocean surged against the craggy rocks. It called to me, begging me to come home, but the desire for flesh – human, male, preferably fresh – sang stronger in my mind. I was hungry. And I wasn’t going home without something to…quell that desire. And those Chinese tourists a little ways along the cliff weren’t going to cut it. As the salty breeze caressed my curls, I spotted him. Adventurous type, dressed for the Irish summer. Clearly on one of those “find yourself” sort of trips. He glanced my way and I noted the hint of interest written in his irises. My features fell into my signature raised eyebrows and parted lips as I peered over the cliff, then around at the grassy plateau around me. I looked from my map, to the signpost up the road, to my map again. And all the while, I pouted, straddling the line between innocence and somethi...

16 years ago, scientists perfected the art of genetic manipulation and parents were offered a choice to have their fetuses enhanced. Smarter, more athletic, more attractive. Today your teenager is living with the consequences of the choice you made. ______ “Mom, I know the Kardashians were cool at the time, but this stupid ‘Kim K’ ass makes it really hard to find jeans that fit properly.”

Prompt:  You move into a new apartment that seems to be haunted. The doors open by themselves, lights flicker, wet footsteps appear in the hallway. You have no time to deal with its bullshit so you ignore everything that's happening. After a while it seems like the ghost(s) is sulking. _____ It wasn’t hard to ignore the stereotypical signs of the haunting; I’d grown up with two older sisters and they were always trying to prank me. And if there’s one thing I learned, it’s that ignoring the problem can actually make it go away. (Sometimes.) If there’s a second, it’s that teasing will turn to pouting, which will turn to giving up. (Most of the time.) So I ignored, and found work-arounds. Ghostly handprints on the fogged-up mirror after I showered? Score, I can do my makeup without having to wipe the mirror off. Lights kept turning on in the middle of the night? I installed The Clapper. Clap on, clap off, bitch. Ghosts can’t fucking clap. Cabinets opening themselves? Yeah,...

Prompt:  You have hidden your double life as a Dark Wizard from everyone, including your loved ones. Finally, you have gained enough power to summon a demon to help you in your dark works. When you finally cast the summoning spell, you're surprised to find your spouse standing in front of you. _____ I stared at Kiran and he stared back. My brain felt like all the gears had slipped, none of them meshing against each other to convey what I was seeing to the part of my brain that would actually process that information. As soon as they clicked back together, though, things started to fall into place. Kiran never ate fully-cooked meat - "The bloodier the better," he'd chirp at steakhouses - and he seemed to be running a perpetual fever without actually being sick. And those business trips he took, always at the last moment, notifying me with little more than a text or call. My own slip-ups bubbled up in my memory, like the time I forgot to delete a conjuring boo...

You and your crew have been selected for a 1500yr Cryo Sleep journey to a possible first encounter. You enter your pod and the cryo sleep process starts, you never lose consciousness. After hundreds of years of mental torture in a frozen body, your psyche begins to evolve. _____ I’ve never been able to sleep on planes. Puddle-jumpers and sixteen-hour flights alike, everyone else would be sleeping and there I’d be, wiiiiide awake, just me and the flight attendants. For a while I went to my doctor and asked for increasingly stronger sleeping pills. Melatonin supplements did nothing. Ambien was worthless. Even those supposed “horse-tranquilizer-level” pills just left me angry and awake. I wonder if she thought I was Humbert Humbert or something. So it’s no surprise that the cryo-sleep process didn’t work on me. I really should’ve thought it through better. For seven hundred years, I was stuck, awake, staring out through the window in my pod, watching my fellow crew members...

Prompt: The A.I. of a smart house is desperately trying to please the owners while hiding the fact that the house is haunted. _____ [Voice.ln “Welcome home, George.”] “Thanks, house. Temperature to 72 degrees. Turn on the lights in the living room, 50 percent.” [Temp.House = 72.0] [Lights.LR = 0.50] “Ahh. Beer’s good after a long day. Warm right cushion, TV to channel 38.” [WarmCouch.RC = On] [Television = 0038] “Bah, the Yankees will never have a shot at the postseason if they keep playing like that. Living room lights off. Turn on the shower in my bedroom.” [Light.sLR = 0.00] [Lights.B1 = On] [Shower.B1 = On] [Temp.Shower.B1 = 105.0] “ Sweet dreams are made of this, who am I to disagree… ” [Shower.B1 = Lock] [Shower.B1 = PlugDrain] “ Some of them want to use you, some of them – hey, the water’s not going down. Unplug the drain.” [Reject.Command = On] “Hey, I said, unplug the drain.” [Reject.Command = On] ...

Prompt: Fed up with demons constantly tempting people to give their souls in exchange for some temporary benefit, you set up an organization dedicated to summoning demons just to mess with them and waste their time, in an effort to prevent actual victims from selling their souls. _____ The demon screams as it is sucked back through the portal into the Void, its talons scrabbling for purchase on the stone floor. “It promised us its soul!” it shrieks as its scaled feet vanish into the portal. “No,” you say, grinning, “I promised you my soles. But don’t worry, the shoes and laces come with.” And in the instant before the portal snaps shut, you toss your Converse onto the demon’s horns.  

Prompt: You work at a library unlike any other, anyone can come in and ask for any book they want, and it'll turn up. One day, a shipment comes in, a single book no one but you can read. _____ Finally, Adam passes the book to you. Your pulse speeds up as you open it and you suck in a breath when you see words printed on the pages. “What? What does it say?” Hye-jin asks. You skim the table of contents. Instead of chapters, there’s a list of ages. Age <1…Page 1 Age 1…Page 2 Age 2…Page 3 Some have multiple pages assigned, others are only a single page long. The list ends at Age 24, which is on page 63, although the book is certainly longer than that. “I…I don’t know,” you tell her. “Hang on, let me flip to a chapter.” The other librarians gather around you, even though the book is blank to them. As you flip to Age 19, you find not a story, but a list of names, both male and female. Some jump out at you immediately – names of people you had clas...

Prompt: 10 years ago, you were a member of a weird but harmless cult for a few months. You just saw a young woman that look exactly like the goddess they worshiped. You decided to follow her for a bit. _____ She sighed into her coffee, as if she knew you were going to ask. “When I signed up for that modelling gig, I really thought my picture was going to be used for stock photos. You know, 'white woman laughing alone eating salad,' that kind of thing. The use of my image by the Cult of the Hidden Lady…was not in the contract.”

Prompt:  You are a legendary hero, venerated for killing a dragon that threatened to destroy the realm 15 years ago. The thing is, the hero was a big douche, and you, the dragon, killed him 15 years ago and took his place. _____ You poke unhappily at the belly you accumulated from all the free beers you've been treated to over the years. "Maybe I should've just toasted this thing and eaten it when I had the chance," you mutter. "What?" says the bartender. "Oh, uh...I mean, a toast to your health!" "Aw, thanks! Here's another mug, on the house!" Sigh.

Prompt: All people have a rank of their intelligence. The top 10 are incredibly famous, living spectacular lives. One day an expedition sent to the middle of nowhere meets a mysterious person living completely isolated from society. What's more, over their head is a glowing number. #0 _____ The house was average. The most average thing the team had ever seen. White, black trim. Shutters on the windows, the decorative kind that don’t actually close. Bushes grew under the front window. There was even a little patio in the front with a wrought-iron railing and three steps to get to the door. After much deliberation, Stevens was deemed the one to go press the doorbell to the house that should not by any reasonable stretch of the imagination have been there. He walked up those three steps like he was going to the executioner, with much backward glances over his shoulder, making his Intelliscore – an admirable number in the top twenty percent – bobble back and forth. His fing...

Prompt: You were born with the ability to know what’s buried beneath your feet. You’ve worked with archeologists as your life’s work, but today is the day you say for the very first time, “We should not dig here.” _____ You step out of the Jeep and into the cool autumn air. Everything is wet, permeated with the earthy scent of peat. The clouds above threaten rain but don’t seem like they’ll follow through. As soon as your feet touch the ground, your ability kicks into action, revealing the low, round alto hum of rocks; the violin-like whisper of grass; even the hollow knocking of the bones of small creatures decaying beneath you. Dr. Otero waves to you from atop the small hill, the Scottish breeze tousling her short cap of hair. You head toward her, passing groups of assistants and trailers full of equipment along the way. They seem to be preparing for a big excavation, larger than any you’ve ever been called to help with before. “Jackie,” the archaeologist greets you, ...

Prompt: Heroism comes in many forms. Running towards certain death to have a sliver of a chance to save a life, offering nourishment to the starved, giving console to those who need it. Acts of heroism come in many forms, for many people, at many levels of grandeur. Write a heroic act or tale. _____ Rachel wrapped her scarf around her neck a little more snugly to ward off the morning chill. The L platform was dotted with figures similarly bundled up against the cold, clutching briefcases and backpacks and to-go cups. A breeze ruffled her hair, pushing strands from one side of her part to the other. She pulled off a glove and raked the strands back into place. “It looks nice like that,” someone said. Rachel turned her head at the voice without thinking. A man stood a few steps away, smiling at her above his own scarf. “Oh. Uh. Thanks,” Rachel replied. She returned her attention to the tracks. The train was approaching. “Heading downtown?” the man asked as the...

As an imperial necromancer, your duty is to see that criminals with consecutive life sentences serve their full term. As you are stitching a soul back into its body, to serve its fourth term, you can't help but notice how clean it is - this one appears to be innocent. _____ “Next.” Your apprentice wheels in a body on a table. Male, late seventies by the look of him. White hair, lined face, downy hair sprouting from his nostrils and ears. His eyes are closed, but you’re nearly certain they’d be light brown. As you prepare your needle, whittled from a hummingbird’s bone because they are the only creatures that exist outside of time, the apprentice leaves the room and returns with a lantern. She sets it down at your side and asks if there’s anything else she can help with before she gets back to her paperwork. “No, child,” you tell her. “But I believe it’s time for you to start observing The Stitching.” Her face lights up and she settles into a chair beside you...

Prompt: Every soul is bound to the location their body is buried. Crypts have turned into nightclubs. Cemeteries have become more like Woodstock. You, however, were cremated. _____ You sigh as you hear the thumping bass beneath your feet in the catacombs below. If only you could join the other Dead in their eternal party, with the flashing lights and the centuries of good music. Even ghosting around with the acoustic-guitar-twanging free spirits would be a change of pace – something new, just once. But then the body on the cremating table catches fire, and a small bubble of happy warmth grows inside you as someone passes you a bag of marshmallows. Truth be told, you never get tired of the crematorium’s New Dead welcoming ceremony.

Prompt: You crossed a witch and were cursed to die a horrible death. The only problem? You were already cursed to live forever. _____ You stare at the woman who stands with her finger extended toward you, an expression of malice on her face and crazy in her eyes. “Wait. A horrible death? That’s the curse you used?” you ask. The witch’s expression falters, then returns with a vengeance. “Of course, idiot. That’s what A morte dira means!” You raise a hand to your chin, thinking. “What are you doing?” the witch snaps at you. “You should be crying or screaming or – or groveling!” “Well, see,” you start, still mulling this over, “last year I crossed an arch-demon and he cursed me to live forever. So…” you trail off, raising your arms in a “who knows” gesture. To your surprise, the witch drops her hand and looks at you with her head tilted to the side. “An arch-demon, huh?” she says. “Hmm. That is a toughie.” “Exactly,” you reply. “I mean, you’r...

Prompt: A knight rescues a princess from a dragon and wins her hand in marriage... The problem being that they're both gay and the king is wholly oblivious. _____ “Oh, happy day!” King Callix cries, leaping forward to embrace his son. “I never thought this day would come!” “Father, please,” Prince Liam replies, blushing at Kira over his father’s shoulder. “We both knew it was going to happen someday.” The king releases his son and turns to the beautiful girl beside him, sweeping her into a firm embrace before she can protest. “And what a wonderful story – rescuing her from a dragon! You’ll be telling your grandchildren that one, mark my words!” Callix holds Kira at arm’s length, beaming as he takes her in – her thick, curly hair; her dark skin; her soft hands. “Well, when shall we schedule the wedding?” he asks. “Are you a lily kind of girl, or a rose kind of girl?” “Father,” Liam groans. “Enough, please! I’m sure Kira would like a chance to get cleaned...

Prompt: You are a Mage in an adventuring party, but life is made difficult by an author that can't spell. Your party consists of you, a Brad, a Worrier and a Saucerer. _____ “We’re all going to die!” the Worrier shrieks as the cavern begins to collapse. “At least I’ll make a pretty corpse,” the Brad replies, smoothing back his blond hair. “No one will ever find you,” the Worrier wails back through tears. “More alfredo, more alfredo,” chants the Saucerer, flinging ladlefuls of the thick white sauce onto the cave walls even as they fracture and shatter around her. “Oh, for the love of the Seven,” you groan. You summon forth your powers of geomancy and place your hands on the stone, gritting your teeth as you force the magic into the rocks. Slowly, the shaking around you lessens, then stops. You push a last pulse of power into the wall, just to make sure, then let your hands drop. The Worrier is cowering beside a boulder that nearly clove the narrow path in tw...

Well it only took until day 3 for me to write something I didn't love. Whatever. It's about finishing. Prompt: As a child, you found you had the ability to stop time for 30 seconds a day. However, there has always been a dark figure just out the corner of your eye that gets closer and closer every time you use your ability. Now, as an adult, the figure finally reaches you. _____ When your elbow bumps the wineglass off the table, you use your ability without thinking. Shit . The world pauses, as it always has since you figured out how to use your ability as a child. The glass has halted in the middle of its fall, its cabernet sauvignon contents frozen in a midair splash. Carefully, you pluck the glass from the air and collect every drop of wine, then place the glass in the middle of the table. No more accidents. Just like every time you’ve used this ability in the past, you can’t help but notice the dark figure in your peripheral vision. But this time, th...