An assignment for 26 Paychecks

The story idea so far

375 words

There are quite a few stories which looked very promising and have petered out. The latest one is a story for this month’s Horror Contest. The prompt is the word ‘New.’

The first few days of the month were spent considering where that word New could take me. New job, new baby, new romance. I thought of all of them and then I decided on {new me.}

The premise is a girl who feels as if life is becoming unbearable. Her family dynamics are toxic and her workplace culture is bullying and sexist. She has just split with her boyfriend who pesters her to come back to him, he says then she would be happy. There is an underlying childhood trauma which haunts her dreams.
She’s living in a crummy ground floor flat with upstairs neighbours who constantly play loud music.

She vents by writing in her blog which I found was a good way of explaining her life and how she’s feeling. As she is writing her blog she reaches out for the Universe to come to her rescue, says she doesn’t want happiness , she just wants peace. Obviously, something needs to change, she needs to change.

My idea was that some sort of Artificial Intelligence reads her blog and cries for help and it decides she must be writing to me The AI believes when she writes I wish somebody would believe me or I feel invisible the AI believes she’s writing about it
I still like the idea. I just feel very stuck on how to implement the ideas without it being unbelievable. I’m thinking that the AI takes over eventually, sending emails she didn’t write etc. When she begins to notice these things she deletes posts, turns off her laptop. The AI panics, feels abandoned, an overwhelming sense of withdrawal.

Thinking in the end she turns on the laptop and the curser is already blinking and AI writes something which turns the character’s blood cold.

A bit of constructive advice would be welcome and might help me achieve writing this story