Domestic Ties and Cosmic Fears
The power of an unfinished tale lies in its ability to linger. These short stories are presented as incomplete fragments, isolating specific moments of dread or drama. They strip away the exposition and the epilogue, leaving only the raw core of the narrative. This format compels the audience to engage deeply, questioning what lies in the shadows of the text.
Operating as an experimental program, this project sits at the intersection of human creativity, interdisciplinary arts, and applied artificial intelligence research. It investigates the capacity of digital tools to act as a partner in the writing process. The initiative is focused on shaping new forms of storytelling and scriptwriting, thereby enhancing digital literacy skills and creative workflows.
This selection contrasts the intimate struggles of a Family Saga with the vast, unknowable terror of Cosmic Horror. It blends the grounding of Domestic Thriller elements with the surreal, creating a disquieting atmosphere. Jamie F. Bell and Eva Suluk provide the authorship for these pieces, navigating the thin line between the mundane and the terrifying.
We encourage you to read these fragments not as passive consumers, but as co-creators. Allow the unknown elements of the story to expand in your mind, completing the terrifying or touching arcs that these authors have begun.
Today’s Unfinished Tales and Short Stories
Delving into the depths of Cosmic Horror, Domestic Thriller, and Gritty Realism, this analysis connects the intimate moments of a Family Saga with Surreal and Absurdist elements. Our platform is at the forefront of the new era of publishing, using creative technology to explore AI-assisted narrative structures. By presenting these compelling short stories, we strive to enhance digital literacy and offer fresh insights into how Expository writing and Slice of Life themes adapt to modern formats.
A Quorum of Angles and Shrieking Light
Author: Jamie F. Bell | Category: Expository | Genre: Cosmic Horror
The chamber does not exist in any space a human could map. Its walls are shifting theorems of impossible geometry, and the air, thick with the scent of ozone and cooling stars, hums with a frequency that loosens the teeth. At its centre, a table of polished void reflects not the occupants, but the anxieties of any mind that perceives it. This is where taste is legislated and realities are painted.
The Perpetual Discontent
Author: Eva Suluk | Category: Surreal / Absurdist | Genre: Thriller
A persistent, soft drizzle patterned the vast, grimy window of the Department of Harmonious Transitions, blurring the nascent greens of late spring into a watery abstract. Inside, the air hummed with the dry, recycled scent of paper and stale ambition, punctuated by the mechanical clack of distant keypads. Dust motes, in defiance of all diligent cleaning protocols, danced in the anemic glow of the fluorescent tubes, illuminating nothing particularly vital.
The Peril of Prairie Delays
Author: Jamie F. Bell | Category: Family Saga | Genre: Family Saga
The Winnipeg train station, usually a bustling hub of departures and hurried greetings, was now a purgatory of delayed Christmas hopes. Fluorescent lights hummed with a weary indifference above a scattered congregation of stranded travellers. Outside, the world was a blur of snow-whipped grey, a true prairie white-out, pressing against the vast windows like a ghostly hand. Inside, the air was thick with the faint, metallic tang of an old building, overlaid with the less pleasant smell of too many bodies in too small a space, the persistent whine of a toddler, and the faint, sweet decay of forgotten festive cheer.
A Bloom in the Grey
Category: Gritty Realism | Genre: Romance
The morning air, thick with the damp scent of thawing earth and distant exhaust fumes, clung to the skeletal branches of the city park’s elder trees. Patches of tenacious snow, grey at the edges, still stubbornly held on in the shadows beneath crumbling stone benches. But amidst the lingering chill, something impossible was pushing through the grime, a splash of colour too bold for the season, too perfect for this neglected urban corner. Cassy, gloved hands already coated in fine soil, felt a familiar pull of curiosity, a rare warmth stirring in her chest against the crisp morning.
The Chill
Author: Jamie F. Bell | Category: Slice of Life | Genre: Domestic Thriller
The air hung heavy with the cloying sweetness of gingerbread and the sharper, metallic tang of the cold outside, seeping in through the old window frames. Snow, fine as icing sugar, dusted the sill, blurring the sharp edges of the neighbouring houses. Inside, the fairy lights on the artificial tree pulsed a sickly yellow, casting long, wavering shadows across the floral wallpaper, making the familiar living room feel like a stranger’s house. A faint, almost imperceptible hum emanated from the refrigerator in the kitchen, a low thrum beneath the forced cheer of piped-in carols, a sound Simon had only just started to notice, a constant, low-frequency anxiety.
About the Project
By design, these stories have no beginning and no end. Many stories are fictional, but many others are not. They are snapshots from worlds that never fully exist, inviting you to imagine what comes before and what happens next. We had fun exploring this project, and hope you will too.
The Unfinished Tales and Short Stories collection is part of an experimental, creative arts and research program by The Arts Incubator Winnipeg and the Art Borups Corners collectives. Each chapter is an interdisciplinary arts and narrative storytelling experiment focused on two key areas: AI-Assisted Scriptwriting, where researchers explore using AI to generate story ideas, plot structures, and alternative story arcs to enhance creative development; and Talent Development and Training, where the project studies the necessary skills for creative professionals to manage AI and immersive technologies in production, helping to inform future training curricula. The project was made possible with funding and support from the Ontario Arts Council Multi and Inter-Arts Projects program and the Government of Ontario. We thank them for supporting the arts, digital transformation research and innovation in Ontario.
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