My first AI short story
"Digital Ghosts, Digital Goblins"
This short story was completely created using AI. I’ll go through my prompting strategy in subsequent posts, but let me know what you think. It’s not up to Cairo Smith or Sam Pink, never mind anyone pre-1990s when writing was more important, but it’s not bad.
Digital Ghosts, Analog Goblins
First Blood
Pole-Axe had just died. Sophie heard him scream, then cut out. Her radar flared—three red blips tailing her—and she banked hard left, rolling past the neon-blue bloom of two battlecruisers vaporizing each other in a flash of pixelated light. The audio channel crackled.
“You’re next, Sophie. I’ve got your number.”
The voice was synthetic—filtered, flat. Someone from the enemy faction, taunting her. She grinned anyway. Let them come.
Her fingers flew over the hotkeys. Shields pulsed, cannons spun up. Her screen was a mess of velocity vectors and warning indicators, but she knew the rhythm now, could feel it in her bones. A missile spiraled toward her—she rolled under it and triggered a mine blast, catching one of the blips behind her. The enemy flared out in a tight blossom of red data.
“StrikeLeader, they’re flanking the node. Plan B?” someone asked in the comms.
“No Plan B,” Sophie snapped. “This is the push. Burn everything.”
It was supposed to be a secret strike. Weeks of planning. Tens of thousands of credits in rare gear. But they had known. Somehow, they’d known.
Her screen lit up again—multiple friendlies going dark. One by one.
Her stomach dropped.
“Abort?” someone whispered.
“No. We hold.”
The counter ticked down. Ninety seconds. Sixty. Thirty.
Somehow, they made it. A sliver of victory. She sat, breathing hard, as her avatar’s ship drifted above the ruined space station.
Then she saw the sun—not on the screen, but spilling into her shabby apartment. She blinked. Her fingers were cramped.
She clicked out. Her desktop wallpaper flickered into place.
Goddamn. She had to be at work in forty-five minutes.
Life, in flesh tones
Sophie's reflection stared back at her from the elevator's polished steel doors, distorted and stretched like a funhouse mirror. Her bob cut looked lopsided, her Uniqlo cardigan wrinkled from sleeping in it. She touched her face—when had she gotten so pale? The fluorescent lights made her look like a ghost.
The elevator chimed at the third floor, and she shuffled toward the data entry department, her sneakers squeaking against the linoleum. The hospital smelled like disinfectant and desperation, nothing like the clean digital air of Ave Online.
"Sophie." Mrs. Ambrose's voice cut through her thoughts. Her boss stood by the copy machine, applying another coat of coral lipstick while checking her reflection in the glass. "We need to talk."
Sophie's stomach dropped. "About what?"
"Your performance." Mrs. Ambrose capped the lipstick with a sharp click. "You've been making errors. Yesterday you entered the same patient three times. Dr. Martinez called me personally."
Heat crept up Sophie's neck. She'd been distracted, thinking about resource allocation strategies. "I'll be more careful—"
"You better be. Upper management doesn't tolerate sloppiness." Mrs. Ambrose's perfume was suffocating—something floral and desperate. "I'm watching you."
Sophie slumped into her cubicle, the computer screen reflecting her worried expression. She pulled up her bank account and winced. Rent was due in five days, and she had maybe enough for groceries. The game subscription alone cost sixty dollars a month, plus all the equipment upgrades...
Her phone buzzed with a message from her teammate Razor: "Strategy meeting tonight. Big plans."
She typed back quickly: "I'll be there. Nobody's got my number."
The phrase made her skin crawl. Someone had leaked their battle plans. Someone close. But who? She thought about her conversations with Yunji, with George, even Mrs. Ambrose. Had she mentioned anything?
Five o'clock couldn't come fast enough. Sophie practically ran to the elevator, catching another glimpse of herself in the doors—this time eager, alive. Ave Online was calling.
The real world could wait.
Signal sent is not signal received
Sophie's hands trembled as she opened her laptop in the garden unit's dim light. The email notification had been waiting like a digital spider when she got home from work. The sender was Razor, her clan's strategist.
Subject: We need to talk.
Her stomach clenched. She clicked it open.
Sophie - ran the trace logs from last night's battle. The intel leak came from a Chicago IP address. Your neighborhood. Someone within six blocks of you sold us out. Check the attachment.
The attachment was a map, red circles marking a precise radius around her building. Her building sat dead center.
Sophie stared at the screen until her eyes watered. Six blocks. That included the hospital where she worked. Mrs. Ambrose's house. George's apartment upstairs. Yunji's place four blocks south.
Her phone buzzed. A text from an unknown number: Back off, or things get worse. I've got your number.
The phrase hit her like ice water. The same taunt from the game. Someone was watching her, close enough to know her phone number, close enough to—
She bolted the door and pulled the curtains tight. The apartment felt smaller now, the walls pressing in. Outside, footsteps echoed on the sidewalk. Were they stopping? Listening?
Another email arrived. This one from her clan leader, Vortex: Emergency meeting tomorrow. Security breach confirmed. Trust no one.
Trust no one. Sophie's mind raced through possibilities. Mrs. Ambrose had been asking weird questions about her computer skills. George had been unusually interested in her schedule lately. And Yunji—sweet, bubbly Yunji—had suddenly started asking about her "gaming hobby" after months of showing zero interest.
She grabbed her phone and scrolled through recent conversations. There—three days ago, she'd mentioned the big battle to Yunji over coffee. Had she said too much? And George had been right there when she'd taken that call from Razor about strategy.
Sophie's reflection stared back from the black computer screen between emails. She looked hollow, paranoid. But paranoia was just pattern recognition, wasn't it? Connect the dots: someone nearby, someone who knew her routines, someone who could access her information.
The footsteps outside had stopped. Right in front of her window.
She killed the lights and crept to the curtain's edge. Empty sidewalk. But the feeling remained—eyes watching, calculating, reporting back to Lord Dark Helmet's network.
One of them was the enemy. The question was which one.
Social Engineering 101
Sophie caught her reflection in the hospital bathroom mirror and practiced her innocent expression. Too wide-eyed. She tried again. Too suspicious. This detective thing was harder than it looked.
She found George by the vending machines, studying his reflection in the glass while he selected a Coke. Perfect opportunity.
"Hey George," she said, twirling her pencil between her fingers. "So like, do you ever play games? Online games?"
His face lit up. "Games? Are you asking if I want to play something together?"
"Not exactly—"
"Because I'd love to. I mean, I'm not really a gamer, but I could learn. For you." He stepped closer, his reflection joining hers in the vending machine glass. "Maybe we could start with something simple? Like, chess?"
Chess. Sophie almost laughed. If only he knew she commanded digital armies. "What about, um, strategy games? Big battles? Lots of money involved?"
George's eyebrows shot up. "Money? Sophie, are you asking me to gamble with you?"
"No! I meant—never mind." She backed away, but he followed, grinning like she'd just asked him to prom.
"I think it's great that you're opening up to me," he said. "I was hoping we could spend more time together. Maybe I could cook for you? I make excellent lamb tagine."
Lamb tagine. Either he was the world's most wholesome spy, or she was terrible at this. His eagerness felt calculated, suspicious. Why was he so interested in spending time with her all of a sudden?
Next target: Yunji. She found her friend in the cafeteria, stirring boba tea and checking her makeup in her phone's camera.
"Yunji, hypothetically, if someone wanted to make money from gaming—"
"Oh honey, no." Yunji's reflection frowned in the phone screen. "You're not thinking of becoming one of those Twitch streamers, are you? Because you'd need better lighting and maybe some personality coaching—"
"Actually, I heard someone say 'I got your number' yesterday," Sophie blurted. "Did you hear that too?"
"What? No, why would—Sophie, you're acting really weird lately."
Before Sophie could respond, Mrs. Ambrose materialized beside their table like a perfumed storm cloud.
"Sophie, we need to discuss your work performance. You've been distracted, unfocused. Frankly, you seem to lack the energy to complete basic tasks." Her voice carried across the cafeteria. "My office. Now."
Sophie's stomach dropped. In the window behind Mrs. Ambrose, she could see her own pale reflection, looking guilty of everything.
Yunji gave her a sympathetic look. "She's been watching you all week, asking questions about your computer habits."
Watching her. Asking questions. Sophie's paranoia flared as she hurried after her boss, catching glimpses of herself in every reflective surface—windows, picture frames, the chrome water fountain. Each reflection looked more trapped than the last.
This is your final warning
Mrs. Ambrose's office smelled like dying flowers. Sophie sat rigid in the plastic chair, watching her boss apply another coat of coral.
"Your performance has been unacceptable," Mrs. Ambrose said, snapping the compact shut. "Three data entry errors this week alone. You seem distracted, unfocused. Frankly, it’s not good enough.”
Sophie's mouth went dry. "I can do better—"
"You will do better, or you'll be terminated." The words hit like ice. "I'm putting you on probation. One more mistake, Sophie. One."
The walk back to her cubicle felt like a death march. Sophie slumped into her chair and stared at the computer screen, her reflection ghostlike in the black monitor. Everything was falling apart. The game was consuming her life, but she couldn't stop. Her team needed her.
Her email chimed. A new message from an anonymous account.
Subject: Final Warning
You're getting too close. Back off now, or things get worse. I have your number.
Sophie's hands shook as she read it again. The phrase—that same taunting phrase from the game. Someone was watching her, threatening her. But this confirmed everything. She was on the right track.
She looked around the office with new eyes. Mrs. Ambrose, typing furiously at her desk, stealing glances. Yunji in the break room, phone pressed to her ear, speaking in hushed tones. Even the security guard seemed to be watching her.
The email meant she was close. Close to discovering the spy. The threat was proof—why else would they be scared enough to warn her off?
Sophie deleted the message and cracked her knuckles. Let them watch. Let them threaten. She was done being afraid.
Time to get sneaky. Time to plant some disinformation and flush out the rat.
Her paranoia had crystallized into cold determination. Someone wanted to play games?
She'd give them a game they'd never forget.
The Call
The phone rang in a sterile office in Des Moines. Click. Click. Click. A pen tapped against a desk cluttered with broken calculators and half-assembled electronics.
"She's getting suspicious." Lord Dark Helmet,’s voice was smooth, confident. though no one would recognize the middle-aged accountant behind the name.
"Good," came the reply from the other end. "Let her dig. The more paranoid she becomes, the more she'll reveal."
"She's already started asking questions. Clumsy ones, but questions nonetheless." A soft whistle escaped between teeth. "Our asset is in perfect position."
"And if she discovers the truth?"
"She won't. Sophie Chance is predictable. She can't keep a secret—it's her fatal flaw. We've seen her patterns for months." The pen clicked faster. "She'll share everything she thinks she knows, trying to be clever. Our source will feed it all back to us."
"The next battle?"
"We'll let her plan it. Let her feel secure in her strategies. Then we'll know every move before she makes it." A pause. "She thinks she's hunting a spy, but she's walking into a trap. The irony is beautiful."
"And if she doesn't take the bait?"
Lord Dark Helmet's laugh was ice water over broken glass. "She will. She's addicted to winning, to being needed by her team. That desperation makes her blind to everything else."
"I've got your number, Sophie Chance."
"Exactly. She has no idea how completely we've mapped her world. Every friend, every habit, every weakness. When the final battle comes, her clan will be obliterated. Months of preparation, thousands of dollars—all reduced to digital ash."
The pen stopped clicking. Silence stretched like a held breath.
"Perfect. Continue the surveillance."
The line went dead. In the quiet office, surrounded by the debris of repair projects, Lord Dark Helmet smiled. Victory was already assured.
Spiegel im Spiegel
Sophie's apartment had become a funhouse of paranoia. She'd repositioned her laptop three times, angling it away from windows, away from walls that might hide listening devices. Her reflection stared back from every surface—the black computer screen, the microwave door, even the back of a spoon she'd forgotten on the coffee table. Each reflection looked more haggard than the last.
The disinformation campaign wasn't working. She'd told George the next battle was Tuesday. She'd told Yunji it was Thursday. She'd told Mrs. Ambrose—casually, during a bathroom encounter—that it was Saturday morning. But the stories kept tangling in her mind like fishing line. What had she said to whom?
Her phone buzzed. Yunji: "Coffee? You seem stressed."
Sophie typed back: "Can't. Planning a big cooking marathon this weekend." Wait. Had she told Yunji about cooking? Or was that part of the Tuesday story for George?
At work, George cornered her by the supply closet. "Hey, about that lamb tagine recipe I mentioned? Perfect for a Tuesday dinner." His smile seemed too bright, too knowing.
"Tuesday?" Sophie's pencil snapped between her fingers. "I thought we said Thursday."
"Did we?" George looked genuinely confused. "I could have sworn—"
"You're testing me." The words tumbled out before she could stop them. "Seeing if I remember what I told you."
"Sophie, what are you talking about?"
She caught her reflection in the glass door behind him—wild-eyed, paranoid. But the fear felt real. "Nothing. Forget it."
Later, Yunji found her hiding in the stairwell during lunch break.
"Okay, seriously. What's going on? You've been acting like someone's following you. And what's this about cooking? You can barely make toast."
Sophie stared at her best friend's concerned face. Sweet Yunji. Innocent Yunji. Who somehow always knew when Sophie was lying.
"Just stressed about work stuff."
"Is it the game thing you mentioned? The one where people spend money?" Yunji's voice was casual, but her eyes were sharp. "Because honestly, it sounds dangerous."
The game thing. Sophie had never called it that. She'd never used those words.
"I have to go." Sophie pushed past her friend, catching a glimpse of herself in the metal handrail—distorted, fragmented, unrecognizable.
Behind her, she heard Yunji sigh. "Sophie, wait—"
But Sophie was already running, her reflection chasing her down the fluorescent-lit hallway like a ghost she couldn't escape. The mirrors were everywhere, and in each one, she looked more alone.
To Catch a Thief
Mrs. Ambrose's office felt like a tomb. Sophie sat across, watching her coral lipstick bleed into the lines around her mouth.
"This is difficult for me, Sophie." Mrs. Ambrose's voice carried the weight of practiced disappointment. "You've been distracted, unfocused. You lack the energy to complete basic tasks. Upper management has noticed."
The words hit like falling stones. "Please, I can—"
"I'm terminating your employment, effective immediately." Mrs. Ambrose slid a manila envelope across the desk. "Security will escort you out."
Sophie's hands shook as she gathered her things. No job. Behind on rent. Credit cards maxed out from game purchases. The numbers swirled in her head like digital debris.
But then her phone buzzed. A message from Vortex: "Emergency clan meeting. Biggest wager ever posted. Winner takes 50K."
Fifty thousand dollars. More than enough to fix everything.
She found herself at the coffee shop with Yunji, words tumbling out before she could stop them. "It's happening tomorrow night. We've been planning for weeks. The enemy thinks they know our strategy, but we've got three backup plans."
"Slow down," Yunji said, stirring her boba tea. "What's happening?"
"The big battle. Ave Online." Sophie twirled her pencil between her fingers. "We're going to hit them from three angles—north sector first, then when they reinforce, we split and attack the mining stations. They'll never see it coming."
Yunji's expression was unreadable. "Sounds complicated."
"That's the beauty of it. While they're distracted by the fake attack on their supply lines, we'll take out their command center. Game over." Sophie felt electric with possibility. "I could win enough to pay rent for a year."
"Be careful, Sophie. These online things can be dangerous."
Later, on the phone with George, Sophie found herself explaining again. "The key is misdirection. They think we're coming from the east because of the false intel I planted, but we're actually approaching from the asteroid field. Classic pincer movement."
George made sympathetic noises about her job loss, but she barely heard him. The plan was perfect. Foolproof.
That evening, she logged into the game's planning interface, confidence surging through her veins. Fifty thousand dollars. Freedom. Victory.
She typed her confirmation to the clan: "Ready to execute. They have no idea what's coming."
But in offices and apartments across the city, other screens flickered with the same information. Sophie's "secret" strategy, dissected and analyzed. Lord Dark Helmet's network had everything they needed.
The trap was set.
System Crash
George was watering plants in the backyard when Sophie cornered him. She caught her reflection in his apartment window—wild hair, dark circles, looking like someone who'd lost a war.
"I know it's you," she said without preamble.
He looked up, confused. "Know what's me?"
"The spy. You've been watching me, listening to my conversations. Reporting back to them." Her voice cracked. "Was any of it real? The dinner invitations? The Motown records?"
George set down his watering can. "Sophie, what are you talking about?"
"Don't lie to me!" The words exploded out of her. "You knew about the Tuesday battle plan. You asked about it specifically."
"Because you told me about it. You seemed excited." His voice was gentle, concerned. "Sophie, you're scaring me."
She stared at him—really looked—and saw only genuine worry in his eyes. No calculation. No deception. Just a neighbor who'd been trying to be kind.
"I..." Sophie's anger collapsed inward. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."
She ran before he could respond.
Back in her apartment, Sophie sat surrounded by the debris of her life. Unpaid bills scattered across the coffee table.
Her phone buzzed. A text from Yunji: "Sophie, I'm worried about you. Please call me."
She almost did. Almost reached out to her best friend and confessed everything—the paranoia, the accusations, the way the game had eaten her life like digital acid. But what would she say? That she'd suspected sweet Yunji of being a spy? That she'd lost her job chasing phantom enemies?
No job. No money. No friends. George probably thought she was insane. Yunji was pulling away, confused by Sophie's erratic behavior. Mrs. Ambrose had written her off completely.
All for a stupid game.
Sophie looked at her reflection one more time—not in a screen, but in the bathroom mirror. The person staring back looked lost, desperate. But not quite defeated.
One more game. The fifty-thousand-dollar wager tomorrow night. Win big, get out clean. She'd take the money, disappear from Ave Online forever, apologize to everyone she'd hurt. Start over.
Her plan was perfect. Lord Dark Helmet thought he had her figured out, but she had one last trick. One final strategy no one knew about.
After this, she was done.
The game would finally be over.
Battle Stations
Sophie sat with her hoodie up, headphones clamped tight, fingers dancing over keys. The room was silent except for the hum of her fan and the soft tap of her mechanical keyboard. Her desktop glowed: Ave Online, Operation Kestrel, GO-LIVE in T-minus 10:03.
“Everyone green?” she said into comms. Her voice was low, sharp, no small talk left.
“Locked and loaded,” came Weasel.
“On your six,” said Xyrr.
Pole-Axe’s replacement—Gambit7—just muttered, “Let’s end this.”
Sophie switched to tactical overlay. Maps bloomed, lines crisscrossed, fleets glittered like shards of ice. Every path, every feint, every piece of bad info she’d fed the moles—stacked into this moment.
“Review: Delta strike on Node Echo is a decoy. Xyrr and Gambit loop right, collapse the flank from inside. Weasel, delay Bravo just long enough to pull attention. When they hit us at Foxtrot—”
“They won’t know what hit ’em,” Weasel grinned.
“They’ll be waiting,” Gambit muttered. “It’s a setup. They’ve got our number.”
“No,” Sophie said. Her voice was calm, cold steel. “They’ve got a number. I’ve changed the lock.”
There was silence on comms. Then:
“Damn, StrikeLeader,” Xyrr said, “you’ve been reading Sun Tzu or something?”
“I’ve been unemployed and furious,” she replied. “Let’s use it.”
The clock ticked down.
00:03:24.
Sophie clicked through last diagnostics. Loadout balanced. Units in place. Her heart thudded once, hard, then steadied. This wasn’t panic. This was the edge.
“Any objections?” she asked.
“We die together,” Weasel said.
“Speak for yourself,” muttered Gambit.
“Shut up, both of you,” Sophie said, smiling. “Let’s go earn a miracle.”
The button pulsed on screen.
LAUNCH MISSION.
She didn’t hesitate. She punched it.
The screen went black.
Then:
A thousand points of light.
Game over
The battle flared alive.
Ave Online pulsed with fire. Sophie’s screen burst into a storm of light—lasers, fleet movement, explosions rippling like heat lightning. Her fingers were already moving, muscle memory and instinct—left flank shift, forward scout to Echo, hammer through Delta— now.
“Xyrr, you’re hot. Gambit, peel left. Cut engines, slide through the breach.”
“Copy.”
“Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go!”
She was inside the rhythm now. Heart synced to cannon bursts. Her craft spun through the chaos—spitting death, weaving between shrapnel. The plan was working. Fake data had sent Lord Dark Helmet's forces spiraling into ghost coordinates. They were chasing shadows. She had their number.
“Foxtrot clear!” Weasel whooped. “We are in.”
Sophie grinned. “Told you. They’re playing our game now.”
Except—
Ping.
New blips. Wrong direction. Too fast.
“What the hell is that?” Gambit said. “They’re behind us.”
“No, that’s not possible,” Sophie muttered. She flicked to the subchannel. Enemy formation. No, not just formation. Counter-formation. Perfectly angled. Prepped. Waiting.
She froze.
They hadn’t chased ghosts. They’d let her walk right in.
“Pull out. Pull out!” she barked, but too late.
The first fleet—Weasel’s—disintegrated in a curtain of antimatter. Xyrr tried to arc wide and clipped a mine Sophie hadn’t marked. His ship spun into darkness.
Gambit was screaming. “You said Foxtrot was clear!”
“It was! I—”
And then the voice.
Smooth. Cold.
“Nice try, Miss Chance. But I got… you know.”
Lord Dark Helmet’s text blinked in, tagged in crimson. It echoed in her skull.
She watched the minimap—one by one, her team blinking out like dying stars.
No. Not like this.
She stripped it down. Ripped off her own plan. Underneath the fakes, the lies, the nested loops—was the original shape. Her shape. A gut-level maneuver she hadn’t dared share with anyone.
She dove.
One unit, her, barreling through the black. She slipped past the line, hit their fuel line, triggered a chain—boom—fire trailing her wake like comet plasma. It felt like flying.
She was in the game now. Was the game. Her mind clicked into it like a cog catching the thread. The rhythm surged through her. Commands came without thought.
But they came for her anyway.
A silence. Then her screen shook.
EMP.
Her interface fuzzed.
Warning lights. System freeze.
Mirror image: her own ship, duplicated. Reflected. Perfectly matched. Firing.
“You are your own weakness,” Lord Dark Helmet said.
Her ship went up in a clean, quiet flash.
Her screen turned black.
Bank account: zeroed.
Wager: lost.
Her team: obliterated.
And in the center of the dark screen—
“GG. Your number is up.”
The illusion shattered. Everything she’d built—every scheme, every hour—gone. Pixels. Dreams. Dust.
Logging out
Her lucky hoodie clung to her shoulders, damp with the sweat of battle, and she pulled it off slowly, feeling the cool air touch her skin like the first breath after diving too deep underwater. The game was over—whatever had happened in those final moments when the lights blinked out one by one, when strategies collapsed into pure instinct, when she had felt the strange surrender of letting the game play through her rather than the other way around.
She closed the laptop without looking at the results screen, the stickers on its surface catching the morning light that filtered through her basement windows: a collage of digital worlds and inside jokes that now seemed like artifacts from someone else's life. The silence in the apartment was profound, broken only by the distant hum of traffic above and the soft settling sounds of a building breathing around her.
Sophie walked to the bathroom and looked at herself in the mirror—not seeking her reflection this time, but simply witnessing what remained. Her face looked older, marked by the weeks of sleepless nights and paranoid scheming, but there was something peaceful in her eyes now, as if a fever had finally broken. She splashed cold water on her face, feeling each droplet like a small blessing, and noticed for the first time in months the scent of her own soap, the mineral taste of the city water, the way sunlight made patterns on the tile floor.
The walk through her apartment felt like visiting a museum of her former obsession. She picked up scattered pencils, straightened the cushions on her couch, opened windows to let in air that smelled of spring rain and car exhaust and the faint sweetness of flowering trees she couldn't name. Each small action felt deliberate, grounding, real in a way that no digital victory or defeat could ever be.
When she stepped into the hallway, she could hear George's television through his door, the muffled sounds of a cooking show, and she realized she had never simply listened to the ordinary rhythms of her building before. She raised her hand to knock, then paused, catching sight of her reflection in the polished bronze of his apartment number—not fragmented or distorted this time, but clear and present and entirely her own.
She knocked on the door and stood back to wait, looking at her reflection on the varnished wood surface.