Unfolding Worlds: Fragments of Fiction
This collection presents a series of short stories, not as complete arcs, but as incomplete narrative fragments. Each piece offers a moment captured mid-scene, a page torn from a larger, unseen book. We invite you to step into these intriguing worlds, where the gaps in the story are an open invitation for your imagination to construct what came before and envision what might follow.
This project stands as an exploration at the intersection of human creativity and artificial intelligence. It examines how digital tools can function as a partner in the writing process, shaping new forms of storytelling and enhancing digital literacy. The aim is to understand how these collaborations can open new avenues for creative expression.
This collection spans genres including dystopian landscapes, the intricacies of a legal thriller, and the nuanced realities of contemporary fiction. Within these pages, you will encounter the distinct voices of Eva Suluk, Jamie F. Bell, and Leaf Richards, who contribute to this varied selection.
We encourage you to engage with these unfinished tales not merely as a passive reader, but as a co-creator. Let your own insights and creativity complete the narrative, bringing these stories to their individual conclusions in your mind.
Today’s Unfinished Tales and Short Stories
Dive deeper into compelling short stories spanning Dystopian, Slice of Life, Legal Thriller, Contemporary Fiction, and Thriller narratives, enriched by elements of Horror, Satirical/Ironic tones, Post-Apocalyptic Survival, Action-Adventure, and Epistolary styles. Our project champions digital literacy by exploring AI-assisted narrative creation, pushing the boundaries of publishing through creative technology, and shaping the future of digital storytelling.
The Chill in the Recital Hall
Author: Eva Suluk | Category: Horror | Genre: Dystopian
The remnants of a dream clung to me like frost, a jagged, troubling landscape that felt less like an invention of sleep and more like a premonition. The air in the room was a tangible thing, sharp and thin, pulling me back to the familiar ache of reality. It was another winter morning in a world that had forgotten the meaning of warmth.
The Glare of a Thousand Summers
Author: Jamie F. Bell | Category: Satirical / Ironic | Genre: Slice of Life
The air itself seemed to shimmer, a thick, visible current rising from the asphalt, distorting the horizon into a wavering mirage of nothingness. August, in the forgotten heart of Manitoba, tasted of hot exhaust, stale coffee, and a faint, lingering tang of distant prairie fire. Inside the greasy, echoing cavern of ‘The Junction Stop & Go’, a symphony of humming refrigerators and the clatter of a perpetually struggling ice machine provided the soundtrack to another impossibly long afternoon. Flies, fat and lethargic, orbited the fluorescent lights, occasionally dive-bombing a forgotten smear of ketchup on the laminate countertop. Every surface felt tacky, every breath carried the weight of impending, inevitable boredom, and the distant, almost subliminal thrum of semi-truck tyres on the Trans-Canada Highway was the only reminder that a world, any world, existed beyond this humid, self-contained universe.
Winter’s Reckoning
Author: Leaf Richards | Category: Post-Apocalyptic Survival | Genre: Legal Thriller
The wind, a razor blade honed on the prairies, sliced through the gaps in the buildings, turning the open spaces of downtown Winnipeg into a gauntlet. Snow, old and new, lay heaped against everything, burying cars, shopfronts, and memories under a relentless white shroud. Above, the sky pressed down, a bruise of grey, promising more, always more. It was a city carved from ice and despair, and Andrew Foster, a man older than most of the ruins, walked its silent, unforgiving streets, each step a testament to a stubborn refusal to break.
A Cadence of Rust and Ochre
Author: Jamie F. Bell | Category: Action-Adventure | Genre: Contemporary Fiction
The wind coming down off the Ogilvie Mountains had teeth. Jennifer felt it bite at the exposed skin of her neck as she leaned back on the scissor lift, squinting at the wall. The brick was old, unforgiving, its porous surface drinking the expensive paint and demanding a second coat she hadn’t budgeted for. Below her, the single paved street of Altimack was a study in silence, a collection of boarded-up facades and the occasional plume of woodsmoke betraying the presence of the town’s last dozen inhabitants.
Halide and Half-Light
Author: Jamie F. Bell | Category: Epistolary | Genre: Thriller
The crimson glow of the darkroom lamp painted John Carson’s grim face in a feverish, unnatural light. His breath hitched, tasting metallic fixer and dust. Outside, the brutal January wind screamed like a banshee through the eaves, rattling the single-pane glass of the converted garage window. He swore he could feel the cold seeping through the concrete floor, right into his bones, a prelude to the colder dread that was starting to bloom in his chest.
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 an experimental, creative research project by The Arts Incubator Winnipeg and the Art Borups Corners Storytelling clubs. Each chapter is a unique interdisciplinary arts and narrative storytelling experiment, born from a collaboration between artists and applied AI researchers, designed to explore the boundaries of creative writing, automation, and storytelling. 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.
