updated March 30 2026. finally sorted the Sci-Fi section! Heavily debating on separating the angst prompts because the list is so much longer than the rest of the batch.
PLEASE reblog if you use any of these/wanna share with your writer friends!!
Meridian stares at the floor beneath themself, their mom holding their hand. The two of them are heading somewhere that Leora said would help them. They think, at least. They don’t quite remember what she told them. All they know is that its been a long walk. Their legs hurt. They don’t understand why they aren’t just using a portal. Those are so much easier.
Then again, it’s nice to get some excerise. They think. They don’t quite remember why people enjoy excerise. They think it’s weird. Maybe.
Their mom pulls their attention to her, gently tugging on their sleeve.
“Alright, darling, we’re here. These people are going to try to help with your memory, okay?”
They just nod, adjusting their white, flowy sleeves. They like these sleeves. They knew that. Loose sleeves weren’t tight. Tight sleeves were bad. Uncomfortable, itchy. Bad.
Meridian’s mom gently tugs them to the enterance of the large building in front of them. They think its a hospital. It smells really clean. Lots of people inside. Some are in lab coats. They see someone with blood on their coat. They think that’s a bad thing. Blood only comes from someone injured.
They aren’t actually scared, but they latch onto their mom. She quietly laughs, guiding them to the front desk and informing the person there about their appointment. They nod and tell the two to sit down. Meridian just lets their mom pull them along. They just want to be home. They think their bed is comfortable. They want to be in bed.
It was a long wait. They didn’t like waiting. It made their head hurt if they tried to remember what happened before the wait.
Their mom’s trying to help them remember. Talking through the recent events that lead them to this place. However no matter how hard they try they can’t remember. They can’t remember leaving the house, or the walk to the presumed hospital. None of it.
After the wait a doctor (they think) calls out what they believe is their name. Their mom takes their hand, following the doctor through halls that smell clean. It makes them wrinkle their nose, the smell strong. They notice that their mom was is her other hand to cover her nose and they let out a small giggle. It isn’t loud enough to draw their mom’s attention, though.
The doctor leads them into a small side room, motioning for Meridian to sit on a cushioned table-looking thing against the wall. They slowly climb onto it, covering their ears at the sound of the paper thats on top of it crinkling. Their mom leans against one of the walls, listening as the man begins to talk.
“So, Meridian, do you know when your memory problems first began?”
He is greeted by a blank stare from the teen, the two looking at each other before the doctor clears his throat, turning to their mom.
“Do you know, Ms. Leora?”
She laughs, standing up straight as she formulates a response.
“Around 6 months ago. We first started noticing it when they struggled remembering events that had happened the day before.”
The man nods, writing this down as Meridian looks between the two.
“Alright.. now, how bad has the memory loss become? I understand that it has become much worse since then.”
Leora nods, sighing as she looks at her child, ruffling up their hair as they kick their legs.
“It’s gotten to the point that they don’t remember things after half an hour to an hour.”
The doctors pencil stops, blinking a few times as he processes this. Meridian brings their legs to their chest, suddenly nervous as the man and their mom begin to converse.
From there the rest of the visit is a blur. They are told to come back in a week, which their mom writes down on the notepad in her pocket. They didn’t know she kept a notepad in their pocket, but they had no time to question it as she takes their hand.
They don’t remember the visit once they get back home. They just happily read a book, though Leora knows that they’ve read the first 100 pages of it almost 20 times now. They haven’t been able to get through it once, but she’s just glad that they like the book.
She looks down upon the carnage below. People screaming, fleeing, as buildings burn and they are hunted down. All she can do is watch. Her job is done and she will be punished if she does anything beyond what she was told to do.
Plus, she couldn't really do much more. Her full concentration is on what she was told to do. It's kind of difficult to focus on humming a melody she barely knows and do anything else alongside that.
She doesn't really want to do anything else, anyway. She knows that it's her job to bring this wreckage upon the world, but the world used to be her home and she still holds it dear to her heart. She won't dare tell the leader that, though. Telling the leader that is an amazingly quick way to get a reassessment and event possibly a restart.
Restarts are the worst threat possible to anyone in the order. A complete wipe of your mind.
She didn't think he would do that at this point, they were too close to the end to have to retrain one of them all over again. She wouldn't put it past him, though.
"Ar- Theramin! We need to retreat!"
Theramin, yes, right, that's her name. Theramin jumps at her teammate's voice, loud and commanding yet panicked. She takes a moment to collect herself, her humming stopping and thus releasing control over the small group of disposables that she had been puppeteering.
"Why? What's going on?"
"They were prepared this time. There's more Sprites. The disposables are already overwhelmed, we've lost too many for this battle to even give us a slight benefit. Leader has a portal open, c'mon!"
She jumps down, following Vessel to the large, white portal swirling with unstable magic. He grabs onto her arm, pulling her close using one of the four wings on his back before lunging through. She hadn't even noticed that a projectile had been following them until they land on the floor of the library, an explosion coming next as the magic hit the nearest bookshelf.
Theramin shakily stands up, dusting off her dress patterned with music notes as she hears the zip of the portal closing. Vessel groans, one of his wings now awkwardly bent and likely broken due to the landing, his bright blond hair now unkempt as he sits up.
Injuries are a tricky thing to deal with when Doctor was out, and unfortunately for them they were going to be out for the next week. For the mean time Theramin does her best to force it back into place and put it into a split, wincing as Vessel whines, the wings on both his back and face scrunching up as pain courses through him yet again.
"Holy Day, can you not be any gentler-?"
"No, I can't, because otherwise it wouldn't work."
Vessel whines again, putting his head in his hands as his talons dig into the floor.
"I know, I know, I'm sorry birdie, but you know we can't just use healing magic."
He sighs, forcing himself to relax his wings as a soft blush spreads across his face at the nickname. 'Birdie' wasn't used by anyone other than Theramin and Comet, as they were the only ones Vessel trusted enough to give him a nickname. It wasn't a lot as a sign of trust, but it went far inside of the order.
"Are you almost done..?"
She's cut out of her thoughts by Vessel speaking, him slightly squirming, uncomfortable in his position on the floor.
"Just about.... and.. there!"
She rips off the end of the bandage she was using before standing up, grabbing Vessel's arm and pulling him up. A moment of lightheadedness greets her, her vision going black around the edges before she adjusts, fixing the bird hybrid's jacket before turning around.
The bookshelf she had heard the projectile hit was almost entirely destroyed, the ones surrounding it damaged in the blast as well. If that had hit them they would definitely be dead right now. Not for long, as they would be forced back, but dying is never a pleasant experience.
Footsteps begin far away, slowing becoming louder until they stop next to her. Theramin turns her head to look at the new arrival and sees Lotus, her face twisted into a grin and her chocolate brown skin almost grimming in the light due to some sort of glittery product she had been using lately, matching the scales that covered the lower parts of her arms and legs.
"Well, Boss won't be happy about this.
"Not much we could do to stop it.. One of the enemy's projectiles followed us through the portal after we had to retreat. It was that or die, and I doubt you or I would want to deal with Scythe pulling us out of the afterlife again.
It's hard to miss Lotus shuddering for a moment at that, however she quickly returns to her smug persona.
"You had to retreat? Really? You'd think you'd be prepared for the mission that you've been preparing to go on for months."
Theramin groans, clenching her fists before taking a breath.
"We couldn't have been prepared for them bringing new Sprites in. It must've been not long before we went out that they got there, 'cause we checked their troops yesterday."
All she is met with is a giggle and a sarcastic sure before Lotus turns and leaves, clearly having just been there to tease the Music Replacement. The clack of Lotus' heels is all Theramin hears for a moment, not even her own breaths audible as she just stands there for a few moments.
She turns to talk to Vessel just to see that he had gone off somewhere during the two's conversation. Infuriating, sure, but understandable. She didn't want to be around Lotus either.
Now, her own steps fill her ears as she walks to her room. It's quiet today, everybody out on missions, so she's free to wander in her thoughts.
She's glad that the mission went ary. Seeing the faces of people she never got to meet hurts, a throbbing pain in her chest that refuses to go away whenever she sees another person fall. It sucks to think about it, her unfortunate demise having come when she was quite young. Not as young as Vessel or Ash, but young enough for nobody to remember her being gone now.
Thoughts of her family momentarily fill her mind, the Music Sprites she never got to meet, their faces blurry as she has begun to forget them. There's nothing she can do about it now. All she can do is yearn for what once could have been.
She's almost forgotten her own name. Theramin is nice and all, but it will never replace Aria, the name given to her by the ones who truly cared. She knows it's for the best that her name has been changed for the order, nobody recognizing her and the change further disconnecting her from her past life, but she will always cherish Aria.
She also knows that she's not the only one unhappy with the change. Their names were basic, feeling as though they were simple just so they weren't easy for the leader forget and even easier for the leader to stay unattached to them. They were disposable to him, just not as easy to get rid of as the ones that were called disposable every single day.
Her head shakes to snap her out of her thoughts as she arrives in her room, the cold metal of the doorknob chilling her hand as she turns it and then pushes the door open. Her room is full of musical instruments, but she's not interested in playing any of them right now. She's just interested in listening to something that reminds her of home.
The whhrrr of the computer fills the room as she boots it up, drumming her fingers as the smell of burning dust floats up to her, causing her to shrivel her nose. It really shouldn't smell like that but she couldn't be bothered to bring her computer to Tera. Who knows what would happen if they by chance went through it and found anything that she had hidden for so long?
She shakes her head again and clicks on the documents folder, then the downloads, then all the way down to the very first download on the computer. She presses the play button and closes her eyes, a smile painting its way onto her face as the gentle, quiet lullaby fills her ears and drowns everything else around her out.
The noise of the conversation held right beside him was muffled, his mind elsewhere as he stared at the wall.
296 years. He had been working on the side of the Order, the Replacements, the Traitors, whatever they were called, for 296 years. Ever since he was five years old and the head of the Order revived him after an unfortunate mimic attack.
He subconsciously plucked at one of his two smallest wings. It hurt, not badly, just enough to keep his mind from wandering too far in case he was needed.
He was beginning to regret his choice to join. He was young, and dumb, and didn't realize the harm he would end up brining. He killed his own childhood best friend without a single regret just around a month ago. That was not what a hero did.
A yell. Unimportant, most likely. Feather was training with Lotus that day and he had a tendency to go overboard. It still hurt his head, though, so he moved to his room, wings ruffled.
His room was empty. They were allowed to decorate, but he had decided otherwise. Why decorate a place that is not truly home?
Another yell, quieter this time, from outside. A louder voice, stern but not mad, then apologies. The leader likely stepped in. He always did when Feathers got too rough.
He shook his head, not wanting to think about the leader any longer. His room was the place for safety. Not for work.
He sighed, letting his wings go limp aside from the ones covering his eyes as he laid down on the sleeping bag. Not bothering to go inside it he closed his covered eyes, it not making much of a difference aside from the feeling. He let himself drift off, the sounds of swords clashing beginning as another round of training began between two of the others.
