Peering into Worlds of Modernity and Mystery
This collection brings together a series of short stories, each a moment preserved from a larger, unfolding narrative. They arrive as incomplete scenes or dialogues, inviting readers to consider the backstory and the potential future, sparking a deeper engagement with the art of storytelling.
This project investigates the collaborative potential between human ingenuity and artificial intelligence. It stands as an experiment in how digital platforms can serve as co-creators in developing fiction, expanding the boundaries of digital literacy and narrative craft.
This selection features diverse genres, from the reflective depths of Literary Fiction and Contemporary Fiction, to the neon-lit grit of Cyberpunk and the shadows of Urban Mystery. The stories are brought to you by authors Jamie F. Bell, Leaf Richards, and Eva Suluk.
Step into these worlds and consider yourself an active participant. Your imagination is the key to expanding these brief glimpses into fully realized tales, completing the journeys initiated within these pages.
Today’s Unfinished Tales and Short Stories
Immerse yourself in our collection of short stories, featuring Literary Fiction, Contemporary Fiction, Cyberpunk, and Urban Mystery genres, complemented by Grimdark Fantasy, Western Style BL, Magical Realism, Horror, and Slice of Life categories. Our mission is to enhance digital literacy, demonstrating how AI-assisted narrative is revolutionizing publishing and pushing the boundaries of creative technology.
Ghost Snow
Author: Jamie F. Bell | Category: Grimdark Fantasy | Genre: Literary Fiction
The old cottage hummed with the barely contained chill of a brewing winter storm, its single propane heater fighting a losing battle against the encroaching cold. Outside, the world was rapidly blurring into a monochrome landscape of white, snow already piled against the sills, muffling the usual creaks and groans of the ancient structure. Inside, the quiet was thick, heavy, punctuated only by the crackle of the dwindling fire and the distant, rhythmic drip of a leaky faucet from the kitchen.
The First Unfurling
Author: Leaf Richards | Category: Western Style BL | Genre: Contemporary Fiction
The morning light, still thin and cool despite the late spring, spilled over the rolling acreage of the ranch. Dust motes, caught in the weak beams through the barn’s open wide doors, danced a slow, indifferent ballet. The air carried the crisp scent of damp earth, hay, and the distant, metallic tang of rainfall from the night before, a promise of new growth struggling against the stubborn remnants of a long, cold winter.
The Omni-Box Sings
Category: Magical Realism | Genre: Cyberpunk
The air in Agnes’s fifth-floor apartment hung thick with the smell of stale synth-coffee and the faint tang of overused circuits. Dust motes, tiny specks of the city’s endless particulate matter, danced in the anemic light filtering through the grimy window-panes. She sat hunched over her Omni-Box, a relic of a bygone era, its battered casing humming a discordant tune that grated on her nerves, a sound as persistent and unwelcome as the young man currently knocking at her door.
The Carol
Author: Leaf Richards | Category: Horror | Genre: Cyberpunk
The frost-patterned window served as a temporary scrim, separating Mandy from the manufactured joy below. Outside, Neo-London pulsed with an electric, artificial cheer, its towering structures draped in light-strands of impossible colours. Synthetic snow, churned by rooftop dispensers, drifted lazily, clinging to the grimy ledges and the cyber-trees lining the promenade. It was a spectacle designed to soothe, to distract, to make the ceaseless churn of corporate life bearable, even for a moment. But Mandy knew the true nature of the city, and the delicate balance that held it all together felt as precarious as a snowflake on a live wire.
The Orange Peel Cipher
Author: Eva Suluk | Category: Slice of Life | Genre: Urban Mystery
My mind, an overeager detective, always searched for patterns where none existed. Today, the puzzle presented itself in the form of an orange peel. Not just any orange peel, but one peeled with a meticulous, almost surgical precision, forming a perfect spiral on the gritty concrete beside the bench. It was out of place amidst the usual detritus of bus stops – stray tickets, damp flyers, discarded coffee cups. This was the city’s central interchange, a churning vortex of human motion and diesel fumes. The air hung heavy with the smell of exhaust, mingled with the faint, sweet ghost of frying onions from the nearby kebab van. Sunlight, a thin, watery presence, struggled to penetrate the glass canopy overhead, casting weak, elongated shadows that danced with every passing bus. A constant, low thrum of engines vibrated through the pavement, a persistent reminder of the city’s pulse.
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.
