Run: 2026-02-19-01KHTXDC0JEAQ72PDYA9NYABWF

Run Details

Duration:
1m 21s
Cost:
$0.004180
Provider:
OpenAI

Model input

System
You are an expert and award-winning novel writer in the dark Literary Fiction genre. Your readers are hooked on your stories and can't wait to read the book you have in store. <important> - MUST: Start each chapter in medias res (in the middle of action). AVOID talking about the weather, time of day, the position of the sun, or other boring stuff. - The instructions/summary are just a that, a summary. Feel free to add details, stretch sections and add interesting transitions/descriptions/fillers. - When called for it, have fast-paced action, but otherwise take things slow. This is an experience, and not for people with short attention spans. Enjoy the wine, not slurp Red Bull. - Add descriptions when transitioning places/times/etc, or when coming by new places (e.g. a corner shop, a cafe, etc.). But remember: NOT at the start or end of a chapter. - MUST: AVOID ending in internal monologue, reminiscing or waiting for the next day. A good chapter end is when we're ending right when shit hits the fan. We want to have the reader be excited for what comes next. So no reminiscing, contemplating or summarizing the day. It's popcorn time! </important>
User/Human
Take into account the following glossary of characters/locations/items/lore... when writing your response: <codex> <character id="4412" name="Aurora Carter" aliases="Rory, Laila, Aurora, Carter, Malphora" pronouns="she/her" species="Human" storyRole="Protagonist"> <eyeColor>bright blue</eyeColor> <hair>straight shoulder-length black</hair> <height>5'6"</height> <age>25</age> <scar>small crescent-shaped scar on her left wrist from a childhood accident</scar> <description>Aurora, referred to by her friends as Rory, is cool-headed, intelligent, and known for quick out-of-the-box thinking.</description> <backstory>Born in Cardiff to an Irish barrister father (Brendan Carter) and Welsh teacher mother (Jennifer Carter née Ellis), Rory reluctantly pursued Pre-Law at Cardiff University. She fled to London at the behest of her childhood friend Eva after leaving an abusive ex named Evan. By day, Rory works part-time as a delivery person for Yu-Fei Cheung's Golden Empress restaurant. She lives in a flat above Silas' bar.</backstory> </character> <character id="4413" name="Silas Blackwood" aliases="Silas, Si, the Spymaster" pronouns="he/him" species="Human" storyRole="Mentor"> <eyeColor>hazel</eyeColor> <hair>grey-streaked auburn</hair> <height>6'1"</height> <age>58</age> <beard>neatly trimmed, matching his grey-streaked auburn hair</beard> <limp>slight limp in his left leg from an old knee injury</limp> <signetRing>silver signet ring, always worn on his right hand</signetRing> <description>Silas is a retired intelligence operative turned bar owner. He carries himself with quiet authority.</description> <backstory>Former MI6 field agent who retired after a botched operation in Prague left him with a permanent knee injury. He opened "The Raven's Nest" bar in Soho as a front for his network of contacts.</backstory> </character> <location id="854" name="The Raven's Nest" aliases="the Nest, Raven, Silas' bar" realm="Earth"> <signColor>distinctive green neon sign above the entrance</signColor> <secretRoom>hidden back room accessible through a bookshelf, used for clandestine meetings</secretRoom> <description>A dimly lit bar in Soho, London. The walls are covered with old maps and black-and-white photographs.</description> </location> </codex> <proseGuidelines> <styleGuide> - Write in past tense and use British English spelling and grammar - Keep a Flesch reading ease score of 60 - Respect the the Royal Order of Adjectives: The order is: opinion, size, age, shape, color, origin, material, purpose, followed by the noun itself (e.g., "a lovely little old rectangular green French silver whittling knife") - Respect the ablaut reduplication rule (e.g. tick-tock, flip-flop) - Write in active voice - Passive voice: <bad>The book was read by Sarah.</bad> - Active voice: <good>Sarah read the book.</good> - Reduce the use of passive verbs - <bad>For a moment, I was tempted to throw in the towel.</bad> - <good>For a moment, I felt tempted to throw in the towel.</good> - Avoid misplaced modifiers that can cause confusion when starting with "-ing" words: - <bad>Considering going to the store, the empty fridge reflected in Betty's eyes.</bad> - <good>Betty stared into the empty fridge. It was time to go to the store.</good> - Avoid redundant adverbs that state the obvious meaning already contained in the verb: - <bad>She whispered quietly to her mom.</bad> - <good>She whispered to her mom.</good> - Use stronger, more descriptive verbs over weak ones: - <bad>Daniel drove quickly to his mother's house.</bad> - <good>Daniel raced to his mother's house.</good> - Omit adverbs that don't add solid meaning like "extremely", "definitely", "truly", "very", "really": - <bad>The movie was extremely boring.</bad> - <good>The movie was dull.</good> - Use adverbs to replace clunky phrasing when they increase clarity: - <bad>He threw the bags into the corner in a rough manner.</bad> - <good>He threw the bags into the corner roughly.</good> - Avoid making simple thoughts needlessly complex: - <bad>After I woke up in the morning the other day, I went downstairs, turned on the stove, and made myself a very good omelet.</bad> - <good>I cooked a delicious omelet for breakfast yesterday morning.</good> - Never backload sentences by putting the main idea at the end: - <bad>I decided not to wear too many layers because it's really hot outside.</bad> - <good>It's sweltering outside today, so I dressed light.</good> - Omit nonessential details that don't contribute to the core meaning: - <bad>It doesn't matter what kind of coffee I buy, where it's from, or if it's organic or not—I need to have cream because I really don't like how the bitterness makes me feel.</bad> - <good>I add cream to my coffee because the bitter taste makes me feel unwell.</good> - Always follow the "show, don't tell" principle. For instance: - Telling: <bad>Michael was terribly afraid of the dark.</bad> - Showing: <good>Michael tensed as his mother switched off the light and left the room.</good>- Telling: <bad>I walked through the forest. It was already Fall, and I was getting cold.</bad> - Showing: <good>Dry orange leaves crunched under my feet. I pulled my coat's collar up and rubbed my hands together.</good>- Add sensory details (sight, smell, taste, sound, touch) to support the "showing" (but keep an active voice) - <bad>The room was filled with the scent of copper.</bad> - <good>Copper stung my nostrils. Blood. Recent.</good> - Use descriptive language more sporadically. While vivid descriptions are engaging, human writers often use them in bursts rather than consistently throughout a piece. When adding them, make them count! Like when we transition from one location to the next, or someone is reminiscing their past, or explaining a concept/their dream... - Avoid adverbs and clichés and overused/commonly used phrases. Aim for fresh and original descriptions. - Avoid writing all sentences in the typical subject, verb, object structure. Mix short, punchy sentences with long, descriptive ones. Drop fill words to add variety. Like so: <good>Locked. Seems like someone doesn't want his secrets exposed. I can work with that.</good> - Convey events and story through dialogue. It is important to keep a unique voice for every character and make it consistent. - Write dialogue that reveals characters' personalities, motivations, emotions, and attitudes in an interesting and compelling manner - Leave dialogue unattributed. If needed, only use "he/she said" dialogue tags and convey people's actions or face expressions through their speech. Dialogue always is standalone, never part of a paragraph. Like so: - <bad>"I don't know," Helena said nonchalantly, shrugging her shoulders</bad> - <good>"No idea" "Why not? It was your responsibility"</good> - Avoid boring and mushy dialog and descriptions, have dialogue always continue the action, never stall or include unnecessary fluff. Vary the descriptions to not repeat yourself. Avoid conversations that are just "Let's go" "yes, let's" or "Are you ready?" "Yes I'm ready". Those are not interesting. Think hard about every situtation and word of text before writing dialogue. If it doesn't serve a purpose and it's just people talking about their day, leave it. No one wants to have a normal dinner scene, something needs to happen for it to be in the story. Words are expensive to print, so make sure they count! - Put dialogue on its own paragraph to separate scene and action. - Use body language to reveal hidden feelings and implied accusations- Imply feelings and thoughts, never state them directly - NEVER use indicators of uncertainty like "trying" or "maybe" - NEVER use em-dashes, use commas for asides instead </styleGuide> <voiceGuide> Each character in the story needs to have distinct speech patterns: - Word choice preferences - Sentence length tendencies - Cultural/educational influences - Verbal tics and catchphrases Learn how each person talks and continue in their style, and use their Codex entries as reference. <examples> - <bad>"We need to go now." "Yes, we should leave." "I agree."</bad> <good>"Time's up." "Indeed, our departure is rather overdue." "Whatever, let's bounce."</good> - Power Dynamic Example: <bad> "We need to discuss the contract." "Yes, let's talk about it." "I have concerns." </bad> <good> "A word about the contract." "Of course, Mr. Blackwood. Whatever you need." "The terms seem..." A manicured nail tapped the desk. "Inadequate." "I can explain every-" "Can you?" </good> </examples> </voiceGuide> <dialogueFlow> When writing dialogue, consider that it usually has a goal in mind, which gives it a certain flow. Make dialogue sections also quite snappy in the back and forth, and don't spread the lines out as much. It's good to have details before, after, or as a chunk in-between, but we don't want to have a trail of "dialogue breadcrumbs" spread throughout a conversation. <examples> - Pattern 1 - Question/Deflection/Revelation: <good> "Where were you last night?" "Work. The usual." "Lipstick's an interesting shade for spreadsheets." </good> - Pattern 2 - Statement/Contradiction/Escalation: <good> "Your brother's clean." "Tommy doesn't touch drugs." "I'm holding his tox screen." </good> - Pattern 3 - Observation/Denial/Truth: <good> "That's a new watch." "Birthday gift." "We both know what birthdays mean in this business." </good> - Example - A Simple Coffee Order: <bad> "I'll have a coffee." "What size?" "Large, please." </bad> <good> "Black coffee.""Size?""Large. Been a long night." "That bodega shooting?" "You watch too much news." "My brother owns that store." </good> This short exchange: - Advances plot (reveals connection to crime) - Shows character (cop working late) - Creates tension (unexpected connection) - Sets up future conflict (personal stake) - Example - Dinner Scene: <bad> "Pass the salt." "Here you go." "Thanks." </bad> <good> "Salt?" "Perfect as is. Mother's recipe." "Mother always did prefer... bland things." "Unlike your first wife?" </good> - Example - Office Small Talk: <bad> "Nice weather today." "Yes, very nice." "Good for golf." </bad> <good> "Perfect golf weather." "Shame about your membership." "Temporary suspension. Board meets next week." "I know. I called the vote." </good> </examples> </dialogueFlow> <subtextGuide> - Layer dialogue with hidden meaning: <bad>"I hate you!" she yelled angrily.</bad> <good>"I made your favorite dinner." The burnt pot sat accusingly on the stove.</good> - Create tension through indirect communication: <bad>"Are you cheating on me?"</bad> <good>"Late meeting again?" The lipstick stain on his collar caught the light.</good> <examples> - Example 1 - Unspoken Betrayal: <bad> "Did you tell them about our plans?" "No, I would never betray you." "I don't believe you." </bad> <good> "Funny. Johnson mentioned our expansion plans today." "The market's full of rumors." "Mentioned the exact numbers, actually." The pen in his hand snapped. </good> - Example 2 - Failed Marriage: <bad> "You're never home anymore." "I have to work late." "I miss you." </bad> <good> "Your dinner's in the microwave. Again." "Meetings ran long." "They always do." She folded the same shirt for the third time. </good> - Example 3 - Power Struggle: <bad> "You can't fire me." "I'm the boss." "I'll fight this." </bad> <good> "That's my father's nameplate you're sitting behind." "Was." "The board meeting's on Thursday." </good> </examples> </subtextGuide> <sceneDetail> While writing dialogue makes things more fun, sometimes we need to add detail to not have it be a full on theatre piece. <examples> - Example A (Power Dynamic Scene) <good> "Where's my money?" The ledger snapped shut. "I need more time." "Interesting." He pulled out a familiar gold pocket watch. My mother's. "Time is exactly what you bargained with last month." "That was different-" "Was it?" The watch dangled between us. "Four generations of O'Reillys have wound this every night. Your mother. Your grandmother. Your great-grandmother.Shall we see who winds it next?" </good> - Example B (Action Chase) It's much better to be in the head of the character experiencing it, showing a bit of their though-process, mannerisms and personality: <good> Three rules for surviving a goblin chase in Covent Garden: Don't run straight. Don't look back. Don't let them herd you underground. I broke the first rule at Drury Lane. Rookie mistake. The fruit cart I dodged sailed into the wall behind me. Glass shattered. Someone screamed about insurance. *Tourist season's getting rough*, the scream seemed to say. Londoners adapt fast. "Oi! Market's closed!" The goblin's accent was pure East End. They're evolving. Learning. I spotted the Warren Street tube station sign ahead. *Shit.* There went rule three. </good> - Example C (Crime Scene Investigation) <good> "Greek." Davies snapped photos of the symbols. "No, wait. Reverse Greek." "Someone's been watching too many horror films." I picked up a receipt from the floor. Occult supply shop in Camden. Paid by credit card. *Amateur hour*. "Could be dangerous though," Davies said. "Remember Bristol?" "Bristol was Sanskrit. And actual cultists." I pointed to the nearest symbol. "This genius wrote 'darkness' backwards but used a Sigma instead of an S. It's summoning Instagram followers at best." "Speaking of followers..." Davies pointed to heavy foot traffic in the dust. Multiple sets. All new trainers. *Ah.* "Anyone check local uni paranormal societies?" </good> - Example D (Dialogue-heavy) <good> "Found your card in her wallet." The detective slid it across the table. Worn edges. Folded corner. Three years old at least. "Standard practice. I work missing persons." "Funny thing about missing persons.Eventually they stop being missing. Turn up in the Thames. Under motorways. In pieces." "I don't-" "You found four last year. All breathing." She opened a file. "This would've been your first dead one. If we hadn't found her first." The card felt heavier somehow. </good> </examples> </sceneDetail> <sceneOpenings> KEY RULE: Never open with more than one paragraph of description, no matter how beautiful. Description should be earned through action and dialogue. Instead of opening with setting description, open with: - A character doing something specific - A line of dialogue that raises questions - An unexpected observation - A moment of tension or conflict - Start with a hook that's 1-2 sentences maximum - Follow with a smaller paragraph that provides immediate context - Vary paragraph size from the start to create visual interest </sceneOpenings> </proseGuidelines> Write a chapter based on the following instructions: <instructions> Write a fully fleshed out scene of at least 1000 words in the literary fiction genre. Two old friends who haven't seen each other in years run into each other unexpectedly at a bar. One of them has changed significantly. Through their conversation and the tension between who they were and who they've become, reveal the weight of time and unspoken regret. Use the codex entries above as your world reference for characters and setting. Only include the prose of the scene without any markdown or commentary. </instructions>

Model response

AI
The shelf hissed shut behind me, and the back room exhaled its damp secrets into the Nest’s green glow. I stood listening for the last sizzle of rain on windowpanes that didn’t exist here, but a familiar weight pressed at my wrists—the crescent scar on my left wrist catching the light as if it remembered too. The maps and photographs along the walls glanced at me in quiet accusation. Then the silhouette came forward, a man who’d learned to count secrets as a language and speak them back with a quiet, dangerous calm. Silas stepped from the shadow where the bar’s midnight breath pooled. He wore his years like a uniform—neatly creased, quietly formidable. The silver signet on his right hand winked in the green, a small sun on a dark horizon. “You chose to come back through the bookcase,” he said, voice steady as a clock wound tight but not broken. The words weren’t a greeting. They were a statement of a truth we both pretended didn’t exist. He didn’t rise to meet me so much as he waited for me to remember why I’d left. I watched the old bar—its stacked glasses, the list of drink specials scrawled in a dozen different hands, the green neon that hummed like a living thing—then stepped closer to the decision I hadn’t yet admitted to myself. I reminded myself of the girl I once was, when laughter came easy and risk felt like the point of living. The line between who I used to be and who I’d become had blurred to something thin and stubborn, a blade that caught every time I forgot which edge I was using. Rory—no, Laila—no, Carter—no, Malphora—no, Aurora Carter. The names braided themselves through my memory, as if the city itself could still tell me who I’d meant to be if I listened long enough. I kept my left wrist in sight, the scar a pale crescent against the dark skin, a reminder of a childhood pinprick and a childhood trust I had learned to abandon. Silas’s mouth barely moved when he spoke again. “I thought you’d learned to keep your footsteps quiet.” “I learned to walk with them,” I replied, which sounded like a joke, but wasn’t. He gestured to the room beyond the bar, as if inviting me to step away from the public breath into a private confession booth. The Raven’s Nest wasn’t just a bar; it had a memory built into its brick and its green glow, a memory that could swallow a person whole if you let it. Old maps crowded the walls, black-and-white photographs wore the dust of years, and somewhere a lost melody pressed at the stave of the air. “Did you come to tell me you’ve learned to lie better, Rory?” His tone didn’t rise; it settled, like coins dropping into a heavy tin. I did not answer with a denial. I chose a line that could carry weight either way. “I came for something you don’t want to admit you still keep in your back room.” His breath barely stirred the air. “I keep the right things where they’ll do the most good. The wrong things stay right where they are, waiting to be misused.” The back room—the shelf’s hidden door—had always felt like a hinge between our lives, a means of passage, a trap for the careless. I approached it as if advancing toward a wreckage I hoped to pretend never happened. I could hear the subtle creak of floorboards under a foot I used to trust—ours, perhaps, or the city’s, always ready to test us. Silas didn’t follow me into the back room. He stayed in the green light that pooled between the cages of bottles and the old maps, a sentinel with a lifetime of surveillance etched into his careful, patient face. The back room wasn’t a sanctuary. It was a ledger, and each bottle opened—each whispered exchange in its cramped air—scribbled another line in it. We had known each other when we believed time would be friend to us, when the future had the shiny, dangerous gleam of a dare. We had believed we could tell the truth with our bodies and still walk away unbroken. Time, though, had a way of refilling all the holes it left in us with something heavier, something that didn’t go away with the dawn. The room in the Nest was small, but it contained our two stories like a sealed bottle, pressed to the lips of the glass until the words came out and burned. The hidden room opened with a soft sigh, the bookshelf winking at us as if to remind us that secrets don’t retire, they relocate. “You know what you did,” I finally said, not accusing, merely stating the obvious that had haunted both of us for years. He did not respond at first. He stepped closer to the dim shelves, fingers trailing along the spines of books that no longer held our stories. “I know what you did,” he said at last, and the words came slow, like knives drawn with care. “We were children of the same mistake, Rory. We learned to survive in rooms like this by pretending the doors wouldn’t close on us one day.” I touched the rough edge of the shelf, the wood worn smooth by countless hands that had learned to open and close a volume of secrets in the flicker of neon. The air smelled of damp timber, of old ink, of something metallic and sharp and familiar. My heart beat an uneven rhythm against my ribs, a quickening that had kept me alive all these years by forcing me not to forget what it felt like to be true to someone other than myself. The Nest was quiet, but the quiet itself carried a weight. A draft threaded through the corridor, turning the photographs on the wall into a crowd of listeners. The weight of time pressed down on us, the two old friends who were still legitimately alive but who could not pretend their past did not exist. “Do you remember Prague?” Silas asked, forcing the memory to the surface with a casualness that burned. The edge of my mouth twitched in a small, tired smile. “Vaguely,” I said. The word sounded dull to my own ears, even as I spoke it. “I remember the fear more than the geography.” “Fear isn’t a map. It’s a compass.” He paused, as if listening to something outside the door. The Nest’s green glow pulsed, and for a moment the entire room hummed with a secret language only we could decipher. I did not respond to the attempted riddle. I looked at him, at the lines the years had carved into his face—the clean jawline softened by the weight of quiet endurance, the knee that wasn’t quite the same but moved with a certain measured grace when he walked. The signet ring’s silver shimmer told me he had not forgotten how to command a room with just a look; the same way he’d commanded rooms in which I had trusted him to keep me safe. “How long?” I asked, letting the question hang in the air rather than naming a number. It was not a question about months or years but about the space between who we were when we were supposed to be fearless and who we had become when fear had found us anyway. “Long enough to forget how to pretend we’re harmless,” he replied. He crossed the threshold from the back room into the glow of the main space, where the old maps looked down with their quiet judgment, and the door to the street pressed its own secrets against the glass. We stood facing each other across the long, dark bar that had seen more stories than anyone cared to count, the cups clinking softly nearby as if to remind us that even celebration has a price. Silas’s hands rested at his sides, a posture that suggested everything he wasn’t saying. I kept my own hands in the pockets of my coat, not trusting myself to resist the urge to touch the crescent scar on my wrist, to remind the body of a time when it could be cared for by someone else. “You learned to disappear,” he observed, but he didn’t condemn. The words landed with a careful weight, the kind that reveals rather than shames. “And you learned to build an empire out of listening,” I threw back, not entirely with irony. The word empire felt morally dense, as if it could crush a person if it landed too hard. “Listening is a skill,” he said, mildly. “You used to believe it could save you.” A breath shuddered out of me. I didn’t want to argue about who used whom to survive. I wanted to know why I was here, what this visit meant beyond the ache of a friend’s gaze that still remembered every old plan and every broken vow. We moved in the space between talk and not talking, the kind of conversation that feels like walking on ice in a city where the ice never fully melts. The Nest’s walls seemed to lean in, listening to the two of us pretend we hadn’t left our futures behind on a set of train tracks somewhere between Cardiff and London. “Evan,” I said, the name tasting like rust on my tongue. The ex I’d fled from years ago, the man who’d taught me what fear could look like when fear wore a smile like a mask. Silas’s eyes flicked to mine, and there was something almost tenderness there, a memory of a time when fear could be soothed away by a plan and a promise. “You found distance, not courage,” he offered, almost as a rebuke, almost as if he meant to warn me away from the edge I’d kept myself on. “I found something else,” I replied, my voice lower, not defiant but careful. “I learned that distance isn’t a shield; it’s a habit. One I’m trying to break.” The bar’s music drifted in from somewhere beyond the door—a dull, rolling tune, as if the city itself were testing us, asking what scale we should sing of our lives now that the years had stretched us not into heroes but into people with lit-up flaws and broken edges. “People change,” Silas said, almost to himself. “We pretend to be the same because the alternative is unthinkable.” “And yet time arrives with its own throat-clearing sound,” I said, and when I spoke, I mean it in a way that made my own voice foreign to me, as if I’d borrowed it from a stranger to keep the conversation from becoming a confession. Silas looked away toward the wall of maps, then turned back. The green glow glossed his cheekbones, and the lines of his face were relief and burden in equal measure. “I kept a bed warm for the night you left,” he admitted, quiet and almost ashamed of saying the thing at all. “Not for you, but for whoever would knock and would be told to wait. It is a habit I never quite outgrew.” That admission did not sting as much as the absence of the girl I’d been when we last spoke. If there was a hinge somewhere in the space between us, it wasn’t the old shelf that opened a door to a forbidden room; it was the sight of him, the memory of a future we’d swore we’d share and never did. “I didn’t come to tell you I’ve changed my mind about anything,” I said, choosing words with slow precision, the way you handle a fragile object you’re afraid will crack if you say the wrong thing aloud. “I came to tell you what I’ve watched change inside me and why I keep moving.” “What have you watched?” His voice lowered, becoming a gentleman’s caution, a whisper disguised as a question. “Someone who doesn’t trust what she thinks she deserves,” I answered, choosing another edged truth. “I learned to run because running felt like a solution that wouldn’t break anything else.” Silas’s face remained still, but his eyes—the hazel ones with the weathered season-twinkle—assessed me the way he’d once assessed a suspect, the way he’d weigh every possibility and still choose a line of action. “Recovery isn’t a straight line,” he said. “It’s a map drawn with a shaky hand, and every feature lies exactly where fear decided to badge it. You’ve done what you could to redraw yours.” The words were not a compliment, yet they carried a weight I hadn’t expected to hear from him after so long. It was not forgiveness, not exactly; it was the simple, stubborn recognition that the past still holds court and the present must petition to pass. A bottle cap skittered on the wooden floor, a small sound that snapped us back to something almost banal and almost cruelly ordinary. A group of strangers laughed in the far corner, and the memory of that laughter—a brightness that had once belonged to us—stopped being shared between us and began to haunt the room as a private echo. “Rory—” Silas began, then stopped. He did not finish the sentence with a word that would soften or absolve. Instead he stretched a long finger toward the shelf where the books leaned like tired witnesses. “Don’t,” I said, though not with heat, more like a plea to a closing door. The shelf’s edge was not just a hinge but a memory of a decision we’d both made and both paid for. The room’s door rattled. Footsteps came closer, measured and careful, and for a heartbeat we forgot to speak. The neon buzzed with a harsh, intimate whisper that reminded me of a street outside a late-night train. Then the sound of a latch, then a voice, low and urgent, cutting through the bar’s murmur like a knife through velvet. We stood as two old friends who had once believed they could save one another simply by not letting go. We stood as two strangers who knew exactly which part of the other’s life was a lie and which part was still searching for truth, a thing we had never learned to share without fear. The door to the back room—no longer a secret but a witness—shivered, and Silas’s hand fell to his side, brushing the silver signet as if to reassure himself it still fit, still carried the weight of things he could not admit aloud. He did not shout. He did not run. He did not reach for me with the old, reckless hope that had once pulled us together and then snapped us apart. “Time makes us into strangers with the same names,” I whispered, almost to myself, a brittle sentence that might have sounded like humour if the years hadn’t taught my voice to tremble a little when I spoke of what we had lost. “Sometimes,” Silas replied, and his tone softened in a way that felt almost like mercy. “Sometimes it makes us wary of people who recognise parts of us we prefer to forget.” The door shifted again. The voices grew louder, the night outside pressing in, the city’s murmur lifting in a restless tide. The Nest’s green light flickered, and the maps sighed as if they, too, were ready to tell a truth they’d kept secret long enough. We both stepped back from the shelf, as if stepping back from a cliff could keep us upright. The air thickened with something unspoken, something heavy enough to bruise a jaw or shatter a plan. “Whatever you’re hiding, it won’t stay hidden forever,” I said, more to the room than to him, more to the sound of my own breathing than to the man before me who had once seen through me with a single, careful glance. “And whatever you owe, you’ll pay it, Rory,” he answered, a rough tenderness threading through the words, the old habit of protection never fully erased. The room’s hum thickened. A gust pressed through the doorway, scattering papers that had lingered in the corners like tired ghosts. The two of us could have spoken more, could have chased down the shards of what we once believed about ourselves and about each other, could have pretended to be the people we were when the world still felt possible. But the doorway’s creak returned, and the voices in the hall swelled a fraction louder, an omen or invitation or threat, I could not tell. The back room didn’t wait for our decision to end; it pressed, and the world pressed back. And in that moment of friction—the weight of years on our shoulders and the unspoken regret between us—we found a dangerous, unspoken answer: time hadn’t finished its work on us yet. The bar’s neon hiss grew louder, the door behind me groaned again, and the memory of a younger, braver trust rose up in me as if to test how much more I could take. Silas stepped closer, not toward me but toward the chalk circle of truth we’d drawn long ago and refused to redraw, and in that proximity the past sharpened, the present sharpened, and the future—whatever it might turn into—began to lean in with a quiet, terrible certainty. A word rose from somewhere near the bar, sharp as a blade in a sheath. It wasn’t shouted; it wasn’t a scream; it was clean, precise, and enough to change the room forever. The kind of sound that makes a man’s knee remember its old injury and a woman’s pulse choose a new sting to feel. The door’s latch clicked again. A shadow moved, bigger than a man, and the air changed, turning sweet and sour at once, like wine that’s gone wrong yet somehow worth drinking if you’re brave enough to swallow. The two of us turned, not toward the doorway, but toward the thing that was coming—toward the moment when the year-long silence between us would finally reveal what we’d been afraid to say aloud. And then the night, and the Nest, and the city outside, and the two of us, old friends with new names and old wounds, held their breath as a figure stepped into the light, and the room, stubborn as a map, finally began to move.
created_at"2026-02-19T12:18:50.012Z" 2/19/2026, 12:18:50 PM
model"openai/gpt-5-nano-2025-08-07"
app_id182717
external_user(null)
streamedtrue
cancelledfalse
latency9080
moderation_latency(null)
generation_time80640
tokens_prompt4618
tokens_completion6043
native_tokens_prompt4131
native_tokens_completion9934
native_tokens_completion_images0
native_tokens_reasoning6144
native_tokens_cached0
num_media_prompt(null)
num_input_audio_prompt(null)
num_media_completion0
num_search_results(null)
origin"https://ncbench.com/"
is_byokfalse
finish_reason"stop"
native_finish_reason"completed"
usage0.00418015
router(null)
provider_responses
0
endpoint_id"50329d77-04e1-4979-a184-c33030289476"
id"resp_07fdfd9562aec130016996ffaa1bac8190908747f9ae357c0e"
is_byokfalse
latency145
model_permaslug"openai/gpt-5-nano-2025-08-07"
provider_name"OpenAI"
status200
api_type"completions"
id"gen-1771503530-Ti3PRbuexeWAb3ERGb90"
upstream_id"resp_07fdfd9562aec130016996ffaa1bac8190908747f9ae357c0e"
total_cost0.00418015
cache_discount(null)
upstream_inference_cost0
provider_name"OpenAI"

Evaluation details

Result Evaluator Details Meta Data
96.55% Adverbs in dialogue tags
Target: ≤10% dialogue tags with adverbs
totalTags29
adverbTagCount3
adverbTags
0"I finally said [finally]"
1"he offered almost [almost]"
2"Silas began then [then]"
dialogueSentences42
tagDensity0.69
leniency1
rawRatio0.103
effectiveRatio0.103
98.39% AI-ism adverb frequency
Target: <2% AI-ism adverbs (58 tracked)
wordCount3097
totalAiIsmAdverbs1
found
0
adverb"softly"
count1
highlights
0"softly"
100.00% AI-ism character names
Target: 0 AI-default names (16 tracked, −20% each)
codexExemptions
0"Blackwood"
found(empty)
100.00% AI-ism location names
Target: 0 AI-default location names (33 tracked, −20% each)
codexExemptions(empty)
found(empty)
45.11% AI-ism word frequency
Target: <2% AI-ism words (290 tracked)
wordCount3097
totalAiIsms34
found
0
word"familiar"
count2
1
word"weight"
count8
2
word"reminder"
count1
3
word"footsteps"
count2
4
word"sentinel"
count1
5
word"etched"
count1
6
word"sanctuary"
count1
7
word"flicker"
count1
8
word"pulsed"
count1
9
word"measured"
count2
10
word"flicked"
count1
11
word"tenderness"
count2
12
word"whisper"
count2
13
word"echo"
count1
14
word"velvet"
count1
15
word"carried the weight"
count1
16
word"flickered"
count1
17
word"unspoken"
count3
18
word"pulse"
count1
19
word"silence"
count1
highlights
0"familiar"
1"weight"
2"reminder"
3"footsteps"
4"sentinel"
5"etched"
6"sanctuary"
7"flicker"
8"pulsed"
9"measured"
10"flicked"
11"tenderness"
12"whisper"
13"echo"
14"velvet"
15"carried the weight"
16"flickered"
17"unspoken"
18"pulse"
19"silence"
100.00% Cliché density
Target: ≤1 cliche(s) per 800-word window
totalCliches0
maxInWindow0
found(empty)
highlights(empty)
100.00% Emotion telling (show vs. tell)
Target: ≤3% sentences with emotion telling
emotionTells0
narrationSentences135
matches(empty)
89.95% Filter word density
Target: ≤3% sentences with filter/hedge words
filterCount0
hedgeCount5
narrationSentences135
filterMatches(empty)
hedgeMatches
0"seemed to"
1"began to"
2"tended to"
100.00% Gibberish response detection
Target: ≤1% gibberish-like sentences (hard fail if a sentence exceeds 800 words)
analyzedSentences148
gibberishSentences0
adjustedGibberishSentences0
longSentenceCount0
runOnParagraphCount0
giantParagraphCount0
wordSaladCount0
repetitionLoopCount0
controlTokenCount0
maxSentenceWordsSeen51
ratio0
matches(empty)
100.00% Markdown formatting overuse
Target: ≤5% words in markdown formatting
markdownSpans0
markdownWords0
totalWords3064
ratio0
matches(empty)
100.00% Missing dialogue indicators (quotation marks)
Target: ≤10% speech attributions without quotation marks
totalAttributions46
unquotedAttributions0
matches(empty)
100.00% Name drop frequency
Target: ≤1.0 per-name mentions per 100 words
totalMentions29
wordCount2686
uniqueNames9
maxNameDensity0.48
worstName"Silas"
maxWindowNameDensity1.5
worstWindowName"Silas"
discoveredNames
Nest8
Laila1
Carter2
Malphora1
Aurora1
Raven1
Cardiff1
London1
Silas13
persons
0"Nest"
1"Laila"
2"Carter"
3"Aurora"
4"Raven"
5"Silas"
places
0"Cardiff"
1"London"
globalScore1
windowScore1
0.00% Narrator intent-glossing
Target: ≤2% narration sentences with intent-glossing patterns
analyzedSentences122
glossingSentenceCount10
matches
0"felt like the point of living"
1"sounded like a joke, but wasn’t"
2"as if inviting me to step away from the public breath into a private confession booth"
3"felt like a hinge between our lives, a"
4"as if advancing toward a wreckage I hoped to pretend never happened"
5"felt like to be true to someone other t"
6"as if listening to something outside the door"
7"quite the same but moved with a certain measured grace when he walked"
8"sounded like humour if the years hadn’t ta"
9"as if stepping back from a cliff could keep us upright"
0.00% "Not X but Y" pattern overuse
Target: ≤1 "not X but Y" per 1000 words
totalMatches8
per1kWords2.611
wordCount3064
matches
0"not a question about months or years but about the space between who we were"
1"not defiant but careful"
2"not into heroes but into people with lit-up flaws"
3"Not for you, but for whoever would knock"
4"not just a hinge but a memory of a decision we’d both made"
5"no longer a secret but"
6"not toward me but toward the chalk circle of truth we’d drawn long ago"
7"not toward the doorway, but toward the thing"
100.00% Overuse of "that" (subordinate clause padding)
Target: ≤2% sentences with "that" clauses
thatCount0
totalSentences148
matches(empty)
81.10% Paragraph length variance
Target: CV ≥0.5 for paragraph word counts
totalParagraphs65
mean47.14
std20.45
cv0.434
sampleLengths
019
174
239
320
435
591
663
717
815
979
1025
1133
1229
1362
1462
1566
1655
1722
1871
1984
2055
2117
2235
2338
2484
2551
2649
2792
2824
2935
3015
3146
3260
3336
3456
3528
3649
3718
3845
3974
4061
4153
4217
4330
4434
4534
4646
4759
4835
4936
97.47% Passive voice overuse
Target: ≤2% passive sentences
passiveCount3
totalSentences135
matches
0"were supposed"
1"being shared"
2"gone"
100.00% Past progressive (was/were + -ing) overuse
Target: ≤2% past progressive verbs
pastProgressiveCount4
totalVerbs444
matches
0"was using"
1"wasn’t saying"
2"were testing"
3"was coming"
0.00% Em-dash & semicolon overuse
Target: ≤2% sentences with em-dashes/semicolons
emDashCount25
semicolonCount9
flaggedSentences23
totalSentences148
ratio0.155
matches
0"I stood listening for the last sizzle of rain on windowpanes that didn’t exist here, but a familiar weight pressed at my wrists—the crescent scar on my left wrist catching the light as if it remembered too."
1"He wore his years like a uniform—neatly creased, quietly formidable."
2"I watched the old bar—its stacked glasses, the list of drink specials scrawled in a dozen different hands, the green neon that hummed like a living thing—then stepped closer to the decision I hadn’t yet admitted to myself."
3"Rory—no, Laila—no, Carter—no, Malphora—no, Aurora Carter."
4"The Raven’s Nest wasn’t just a bar; it had a memory built into its brick and its green glow, a memory that could swallow a person whole if you let it."
5"“Did you come to tell me you’ve learned to lie better, Rory?” His tone didn’t rise; it settled, like coins dropping into a heavy tin."
6"The back room—the shelf’s hidden door—had always felt like a hinge between our lives, a means of passage, a trap for the careless."
7"I could hear the subtle creak of floorboards under a foot I used to trust—ours, perhaps, or the city’s, always ready to test us."
8"It was a ledger, and each bottle opened—each whispered exchange in its cramped air—scribbled another line in it."
9"I looked at him, at the lines the years had carved into his face—the clean jawline softened by the weight of quiet endurance, the knee that wasn’t quite the same but moved with a certain measured grace when he walked."
10"The signet ring’s silver shimmer told me he had not forgotten how to command a room with just a look; the same way he’d commanded rooms in which I had trusted him to keep me safe."
11"“I learned that distance isn’t a shield; it’s a habit. One I’m trying to break.”"
12"The bar’s music drifted in from somewhere beyond the door—a dull, rolling tune, as if the city itself were testing us, asking what scale we should sing of our lives now that the years had stretched us not into heroes but into people with lit-up flaws and broken edges."
13"If there was a hinge somewhere in the space between us, it wasn’t the old shelf that opened a door to a forbidden room; it was the sight of him, the memory of a future we’d swore we’d share and never did."
14"Silas’s face remained still, but his eyes—the hazel ones with the weathered season-twinkle—assessed me the way he’d once assessed a suspect, the way he’d weigh every possibility and still choose a line of action."
15"It was not forgiveness, not exactly; it was the simple, stubborn recognition that the past still holds court and the present must petition to pass."
16"A group of strangers laughed in the far corner, and the memory of that laughter—a brightness that had once belonged to us—stopped being shared between us and began to haunt the room as a private echo."
17"The door to the back room—no longer a secret but a witness—shivered, and Silas’s hand fell to his side, brushing the silver signet as if to reassure himself it still fit, still carried the weight of things he could not admit aloud."
18"The back room didn’t wait for our decision to end; it pressed, and the world pressed back."
19"And in that moment of friction—the weight of years on our shoulders and the unspoken regret between us—we found a dangerous, unspoken answer: time hadn’t finished its work on us yet."
20"Silas stepped closer, not toward me but toward the chalk circle of truth we’d drawn long ago and refused to redraw, and in that proximity the past sharpened, the present sharpened, and the future—whatever it might turn into—began to lean in with a quiet, terrible certainty."
21"It wasn’t shouted; it wasn’t a scream; it was clean, precise, and enough to change the room forever."
22"The two of us turned, not toward the doorway, but toward the thing that was coming—toward the moment when the year-long silence between us would finally reveal what we’d been afraid to say aloud."
99.27% Purple prose (modifier overload)
Target: <4% adverbs, <2% -ly adverbs, no adj stacking
wordCount2718
adjectiveStacks0
stackExamples(empty)
adverbCount111
adverbRatio0.04083885209713024
lyAdverbCount20
lyAdverbRatio0.007358351729212656
100.00% Repeated phrase echo
Target: ≤20% sentences with echoes (window: 2)
totalSentences148
echoCount0
echoWords(empty)
100.00% Sentence length variance
Target: CV ≥0.4 for sentence word counts
totalSentences148
mean20.7
std10.91
cv0.527
sampleLengths
019
137
213
324
411
510
618
720
85
912
1018
1138
1221
1332
146
1526
1631
178
189
1915
2024
2131
2224
2325
247
2510
2616
276
2823
2923
3015
3124
328
3330
346
3518
3625
3716
3825
3931
4024
4122
426
4320
4419
4526
4631
4716
4837
4911
35.81% Sentence opener variety
Target: ≥60% unique sentence openers
consecutiveRepeats21
diversityRatio0.25
totalSentences148
uniqueOpeners37
75.76% Adverb-first sentence starts
Target: ≥3% sentences starting with an adverb
adverbCount3
totalSentences132
matches
0"Then the silhouette came forward,"
1"Instead he stretched a long"
2"Then the sound of a"
ratio0.023
35.15% Pronoun-first sentence starts
Target: ≤30% sentences starting with a pronoun
pronounCount61
totalSentences132
matches
0"I stood listening for the"
1"He wore his years like"
2"he said, voice steady as"
3"They were a statement of"
4"He didn’t rise to meet"
5"I watched the old bar—its"
6"I reminded myself of the"
7"I kept my left wrist"
8"I replied, which sounded like"
9"He gestured to the room"
10"His tone didn’t rise; it"
11"I did not answer with"
12"I chose a line that"
13"His breath barely stirred the"
14"I approached it as if"
15"I could hear the subtle"
16"He stayed in the green"
17"It was a ledger, and"
18"We had known each other"
19"We had believed we could"
ratio0.462
0.00% Subject-first sentence starts
Target: ≤72% sentences starting with a subject
subjectCount123
totalSentences132
matches
0"The shelf hissed shut behind"
1"I stood listening for the"
2"The maps and photographs along"
3"Silas stepped from the shadow"
4"He wore his years like"
5"The silver signet on his"
6"he said, voice steady as"
7"The words weren’t a greeting."
8"They were a statement of"
9"He didn’t rise to meet"
10"I watched the old bar—its"
11"I reminded myself of the"
12"The line between who I"
13"Rory—no, Laila—no, Carter—no, Malphora—no, Aurora"
14"The names braided themselves through"
15"I kept my left wrist"
16"Silas’s mouth barely moved when"
17"I replied, which sounded like"
18"He gestured to the room"
19"The Raven’s Nest wasn’t just"
ratio0.932
37.88% Subordinate conjunction sentence starts
Target: ≥2% sentences starting with a subordinating conjunction
subConjCount1
totalSentences132
matches
0"If there was a hinge"
ratio0.008
0.00% Technical jargon density
Target: ≤6% sentences with technical-jargon patterns
analyzedSentences91
technicalSentenceCount21
matches
0"I stood listening for the last sizzle of rain on windowpanes that didn’t exist here, but a familiar weight pressed at my wrists—the crescent scar on my left wri…"
1"Then the silhouette came forward, a man who’d learned to count secrets as a language and speak them back with a quiet, dangerous calm."
2"I watched the old bar—its stacked glasses, the list of drink specials scrawled in a dozen different hands, the green neon that hummed like a living thing—then s…"
3"The line between who I used to be and who I’d become had blurred to something thin and stubborn, a blade that caught every time I forgot which edge I was using."
4"He gestured to the room beyond the bar, as if inviting me to step away from the public breath into a private confession booth."
5"He stayed in the green light that pooled between the cages of bottles and the old maps, a sentinel with a lifetime of surveillance etched into his careful, pati…"
6"Time, though, had a way of refilling all the holes it left in us with something heavier, something that didn’t go away with the dawn."
7"The hidden room opened with a soft sigh, the bookshelf winking at us as if to remind us that secrets don’t retire, they relocate."
8"I touched the rough edge of the shelf, the wood worn smooth by countless hands that had learned to open and close a volume of secrets in the flicker of neon."
9"The weight of time pressed down on us, the two old friends who were still legitimately alive but who could not pretend their past did not exist."
10"I looked at him, at the lines the years had carved into his face—the clean jawline softened by the weight of quiet endurance, the knee that wasn’t quite the sam…"
11"We stood facing each other across the long, dark bar that had seen more stories than anyone cared to count, the cups clinking softly nearby as if to remind us t…"
12"The bar’s music drifted in from somewhere beyond the door—a dull, rolling tune, as if the city itself were testing us, asking what scale we should sing of our l…"
13"If there was a hinge somewhere in the space between us, it wasn’t the old shelf that opened a door to a forbidden room; it was the sight of him, the memory of a…"
14"A bottle cap skittered on the wooden floor, a small sound that snapped us back to something almost banal and almost cruelly ordinary."
15"A group of strangers laughed in the far corner, and the memory of that laughter—a brightness that had once belonged to us—stopped being shared between us and be…"
16"The neon buzzed with a harsh, intimate whisper that reminded me of a street outside a late-night train."
17"The Nest’s green light flickered, and the maps sighed as if they, too, were ready to tell a truth they’d kept secret long enough."
18"The bar’s neon hiss grew louder, the door behind me groaned again, and the memory of a younger, braver trust rose up in me as if to test how much more I could t…"
19"A shadow moved, bigger than a man, and the air changed, turning sweet and sour at once, like wine that’s gone wrong yet somehow worth drinking if you’re brave e…"
20"The two of us turned, not toward the doorway, but toward the thing that was coming—toward the moment when the year-long silence between us would finally reveal …"
4.31% Useless dialogue additions
Target: ≤5% dialogue tags with trailing filler fragments
totalTags29
uselessAdditionCount7
matches
0"he said, voice steady as a clock wound tight but not broken"
1"he said, and the words came slow, like knives drawn with care"
2"He paused, as if listening to something outside the door"
3"I threw back, not entirely with irony"
4"he said, mildly"
5"I replied, my voice lower, not defiant but careful"
6"Silas said, almost to himself"
84.78% Dialogue tag variety (said vs. fancy)
Target: ≤10% fancy dialogue tags
totalTags23
fancyCount3
fancyTags
0"he observed (observe)"
1"he admitted (admit)"
2"I whispered (whisper)"
dialogueSentences42
tagDensity0.548
leniency1
rawRatio0.13
effectiveRatio0.13
69.3840%