text:
She lived inside the fever dream that played in Kurt’s mind when he zoned out in the backseat of his mom’s SUV on rides across town. His eyes would always fix solely on the streets that scrolled past, but to him there were no street names; they were just the blurs between places. He couldn’t tell a visitor directions to the Wal-Mart in the town where he had lived all of his 14 years. It was nearing the end of the first post-middle school summer, and it stretched outwards like a single, repetitive day. He lived in a run-on sentence, punctuated only by the commas of sleep, and the uneasy anticipation for a period provided an anxiety that incubated in Kurt’s gut.

Any time that summer when Kurt sat down with nothing to occupy him she would materialize, first as a repeating snippet of film; she smiled and tussled Kurt’s hair like she had done once in George’s kid sister’s treehouse, and she and the backdrop that stemmed off of her were foggy and soft and bright. He made it through a week on that image alone, until he craved more. He rebuilt her inflections, her pitch, lower and gruffer than the carbon copy schoolgirls, lacking the exaggerated Arkansan drawl that his classmates often hid behind. He conjured a story of both them in their 20s, until they were all tattoos and piercings. They smoked cigarettes next to a graffitied underpass by a faraway 7/11. They laughed about those suckers who shopped at supermarkets for family supper. She kissed him on a stained couch on the corner of some grimy Northern street, and because he didn’t know what a kiss felt like he imagined it, cushiony and moist and sweet-smelling.

The SUV pulled up to his friend Zack’s house. Kurt got out and rang the doorbell. His mom waited outside until Zack opened the door. She yelled “Make good decisions!” to them and waved before driving away.

“f------ b-----,” Zack said. “She’s still doing that?”

“Apparently she thinks everyone she doesn’t know is a rapist.”

Zack’s kitchen was littered with half-finished crossword puzzles and gunky dishes and flea market knick knacks. Zack’s dad Ed chain smoked by the window in his old rocking chair that was wrapped in a faded leather jacket with a stitched-on rebel flag. He looked 60 but seemed older when he started hacking. When he coughed it sounded like his lungs were filled with semi-liquified rusty nails, and the daily battle to expel bits of them from his chest was violent enough to wake up Kurt when he spent the night.

“That Kurt?” Ed said.

“Yes sir,” Zack said.

“Tell’m he ought to grow a pair,” Ed laughed.

Kurt watched him smoke the filterless Marlboro. It was more of a suck than a smoke; he economically snatched as much nicotine as he could hold in a shallow breath. It took him seven inhales before the cigarette was gone. He jabbed it into one of the several ashtrays on the counter, each filled with identically crinkled butts.

Kurt and Zack walked down to the basement. In the room next to him there were two computers and a television set up on plastic buffet tables that seemed close to buckling from the weight. Automatically they both got on a computer. Zack commandeered the newer one because it was his house.

Zack’s older brother Rick lived in other basement room. He busted through the door. “What’s up boys?” he said.

“Not s-----,” Zack said.

“That little girlfriend of yours coming over today?”

“In a little bit.”

“You finger her yet? I remember when I was your age and that was the f------’ threshold,” Rick said.

“Not yet, but I’ll try today,” Zack said.

Zack and Kurt idolized Rick. He was 22, and sometimes Zack and Kurt could hear him having sex with his girlfriend in the next room. Sometimes he would let them see his box of condoms, and they would be in awe. Kurt was unsure of why Rick still lived there. ‘Some unsuccessful business venture,’ or something. When Kurt came over Rick would hang out with them regularly, mimicking George’s salivating problem or joking about how fat Phil was.

Before either of them started typing Kurt was already dreaming. Her name was Alex, but to him she was just the one who lived with him in his head, smoking cigarettes by the river and talking about movies that Kurt pretended to understand. Zack slapped him on the shoulder.

“Did you hear me? Alex is coming over. We’re going to the River Rapids.”

“All right,” Kurt said.

Kurt sighed and slumped down into the scoliosis-induced hunchback posture he constantly tried to hide. He had become a part of a begrudging three-person dynamic that started a month earlier at River Rapids, a rundown water park that became the City of Tweens in the summer when kids too young to drive got dropped off there. The water slides lost their appeal early on; the big draw of the park was its escape from adult supervision, its temporary illusion of autonomy. When Kurt pictured it, he saw hoards of bikini-clad preteens standing on wet concrete, cackling at a girl in a one-piece.

Kurt kept replaying the day. It was the first day after school let out, and he met Zack at the food court surrounded by the Lazy River. Zack was with Alex and two other girls, but he didn’t introduce them. He said “Ready to f------ with some lifeguards?” and they started walking. Alex’s black bikini had skulls on it. She walked next to Kurt for a minute silently. They measured their steps consciously so that they would line up. Kurt tried to recall what they said to each other, but couldn’t: she was just smiling and tussling his hair like she did in the treehouse. She was a rebel, she had small ears, she understood the things that Kurt felt cooking in his head but couldn’t explain, she lived outside of the world.

Usually he stopped his head from replaying here, but he decided to let it keep going. Some time later he and Zack were in their floral board shorts in the back of Kurt’s mom’s SUV on the way to River Rapids. Kurt felt like his fever dreams of Alex were overflowing, and he needed to release them. He started to feel sweat bead on his forehead.

“You know that girl?” Kurt said.

“What girl?” Zack said.

“Alex, I think was her name.”

“Yeah, Alex, what about her?”

“I was thinking about asking her...”

Zack perked up. “Asking her what?

“Out, on a date, or whatever.”

“You’re going to ask her out?” Zack was smirking. “You do that, tell me how it goes.”

“You think she’ll say yes?”

“Not sure, buddy, but you should definitely give it a shot.”

Kurt felt himself get closer to the picture in his head, and it made his heart palpitate. Kurt and Zack met up with several of their friends, and they all sat on a curb by the lockers.

“There’s your woman now, Kurt,” Zack said. He pointed across the sidewalk to Alex, who was sitting at a table with two other girls. “Are you going to ask her or puss out?”

Kurt stood up triumphant from the curb, walked towards her. He felt his heart beating in his eyes. He sat down at the only open chair at the table without saying anything. Ten seconds passed. Alex looked at her friends quizzically and laughed.

“Ummm. What’s up?”

“Hey, what’s up,” Kurt said. He looked over at Zack and his friends. Zack was hyperventilating, red from laughter. The rest were staring intently at Kurt.

“You’re the one that sat down,” Alex said.

“Oh, yeah. I was wondering... I was wondering if you wanted to go out or something.”

Alex’s eyebrows went up and she looked glanced at her friends. “Awww. You’re asking me out? You just asked me out. That’s so sweet of you. That’s really sweet. I’m sorry, but I have a boyfriend now. Your friend Zack actually asked me out yesterday and I said yes.”

Zack was rolling on the ground.

“Oh, g-gotcha, OK,” Kurt said.

Kurt wandered out of the entrance into the parking lot in a daze, waited there for hours until his mom picked he and Zack up. “Dude,” Zack said, getting into the car. “It was a joke.”

“It’s cool,” Kurt said. And that was it.

Kurt knew that his fever dream had grown unhealthy. He had spent dozens of hours with Zack and Alex. He had almost completely separated himself from her, but he still grew closer to the her that lived in his head. He nearly ignored her when she talked. Her voice was just a template for his story, where they smoked cigarettes and stole beer from convenience stores and protested oppressive leaders.

Kurt snapped out of it. Rick was clipping his toenails.

“How are you, bud?” Rick said.

“I’m all right. You?” Kurt said.

“Well, I’m trying, you know? I’m trying.”

There was a long silence.

“Trying to do what?” Kurt said.

“That’s why I like you, bud. You ask questions. I’m...trying to get better.”

“Is it working?”

“It’s real hard, but you just gotta do it. First time in how long you’ve seen me in a shirt with sleeves?”

“That’s true.”

Zack’s phone vibrated. “Alex is here. I’ll get this out of the way.”

Zack cracked his knuckles and walked up the stairs. Rick sat down at the computer. He and Kurt sat silent for a few minutes; it was a comfortable silence, and Kurt felt no need to add to the clicks of the keyboards with unnecessary conversation. It was the first time in as long as he could remember in which he felt that occupying space with someone else was enough.

“So how do you like Zack’s girl?” Rick finally said.

“I like her.”

“Yeah? Green haired little freak, right?”

“I guess.” Kurt took a deep breath. He needed to get the story out of his head again. “I asked her to go out with me. Zack didn’t tell me they were already were.”

“And he knew you were going to ask her?” Rick sighed. “Zack’s a f------—you know that, right? How you haven’t kicked his a-- once or twice yet is a constant amazement to me.”

“Yeah, I guess I know. That he’s a f------.”

“You just need to stop being a little fruit. You know?”

“Not really.”

Zack opened the stairway door and snickered into the room. He was holding two fingers up. “I did it. I fingered her.”

Rick sighed. Kurt could feel his heart beat in his eyes again.

“Kurt, you hear me? I fingered her.” Zack slapped Kurt across the face with the hand he was holding up. Kurt put his hand to his face and could feel it, slimy and pungent.

Rick kicked back his chair so that its corner punctured the thin drywall. He yanked Zack into the air by his collar, jerked him back and forth until Zack's shirt ripped and he crumbled to the ground. Rick picked back Zack onto his feet, grabbed him by the back of the head, and threw him headfirst into the plastic buffet table. The table collapsed when Zack's skull bashed against it, and the old, bulky computer crunched Zack’s ribs. He started to wheeze.

“f------ you,” Zack kept saying.

Rick was beat red, yelling four inches from Zack’s face, spitting worse than George does.

“Listen you f------ punk,” he screamed. “This is your friend? You’re going to treat your friends like this? You’re a f------ piece of s----- you know that? I don’t know how you turned out to be so f------ stupid, to do something like that to your friend. I don't care if he might be a little bit queer, no one deserves that. You're sure as hell not my brother, because my brother would never do something as sick as what you just did. I can't even look at you.”

Zack was crying and wheezing. “You broke my ribs,” he said through the snot and blood that ran from his nose to his mouth and bubbled when he talked.

Rick put his head in his hands for a long take. He stared at Kurt for what seemed like a minute. Kurt stared back, unfazed, then nodded at Rick.

Rick nodded back, and Kurt heard Rick's boots calmly clack against the wood stairs as he left without a word before gingerly shutting the upstairs door.

“Please call someone,” Zack said.

Kurt looked at Zack. He was back in his fever dream again, but there was no girl in it. He was still pierced and covered in tattoos. He came back to the same 7/11 and shattered its window with a brick. The quick-stop caught fire. He stood in front of it, watching it burn, and it all meant something, it all meant something that was bigger than Kurt, something that he could write down and read to a coalition of freaks in a rundown warehouse.

Kurt got up from the computer and stood next to Zack, who was a pile of mucous and oversized clothes. Kurt grabbed the windowsill for leverage and looked out the window at the old man in the yard over drinking a 40 on a beach towel, holding foil up to tan his leathered face. Kurt raised his foot and let it drop into Zack's gut. Zack started hacking like his dad did, but more violent, and kept saying “f------ you,” over and over. Kurt kicked him again, harder, and began to like the difference between his hard sole and Zack's soft stomach. He stomped on it repeatedly. Kurt wanted to tell Zack that Zack shouldn't have done what he did, but he figured Zack knew that by what was happening. Kurt liked that he didn't have to say anything.

Kurt felt like he was crying but there were no tears. He walked up the stairs, ignored Zack’s yelping. The house was empty, except for Alex. She was sitting in Ed's rocking chair, staring vacantly at the old neighbor.

“You all right?” Kurt said.

“I'll be fine.”

They sat for a long take, bathed in the pink-orange hue of dusk that made the kitchen glow.

“So, you really like Zack?”

“Not that much, really. I haven't found anything here worth liking that much."

Kurt took two cigarettes out of Ed's mint pack of Reds. He handed one to Alex, and she took it without hesitation. He sparked a match on his shoe and lit both in one motion. Silent, they watched the last silvery sliver of sun descend past the neighboring cul-de-sac's edge. Kurt let his cigarette dangle from the corner of his mouth like Clint Eastwood and told Alex about some movies he'd seen that could take them somewhere new.

title: The Place Outside of Arkansas

question: Why does Rick beat up Zack?

human_deceptive_answer: Because he hates him.

text: This is not the case.

answer: Rick appears to disapprove of the way Zack treats Kurt - he even tells Kurt he doesn't understand why he hasn't beaten him up yet. The reason he finally takes action is because he sees Zack slap his friend around the face - on the one hand he is teaching his brother a lesson, on the other he is showing Kurt how pathetic Zack really is.

text: The answer is wrong. Rick beats up Zack because he finds out that Zack fingered Alex and then wiped his semen on Kurt's face.

text: The answer is not clear on the reason for the beating.

text: The answer is a bit too speculative. It would be better to say that Rick is angry at Zack for humiliating Kurt.

text: The answer is wrong. Rick beats up Zack because Zack humiliated Kurt by tricking him into thinking he was going to get physical with Alex.

text: "The reason he finally takes action is because he sees Zack slap his friend around the face - on the one hand he is teaching his brother a lesson, on the other he is showing Kurt how pathetic Zack really is." - this is inaccurate. Rick beats Zack up because he found out that Zack tried to finger his girlfriend and then rubbed his semen on Kurt's face.

text: The answer is not clear about why Rick beats up Zack.

text: The story doesn't really explain why Rick is beating up Zack.

text: He slapped Kurt around the face with cum

text: The answer should mention that Zack slaps Kurt on the face with slimy fingers after fingering Alex.

answer: Rick appears to disapprove of the way Zack treats Kurt - he even tells Kurt he doesn't understand why he hasn't beaten him up yet. The reason he finally takes action is because he sees Zack slap his friend around the face - on the one hand he is teaching his brother a lesson, on the other he is showing Kurt how pathetic Zack really is.

answer: Because he hates him.

text: He does not hate him but Rick thinks that Zack mistreats his friend Kurt. Zack is dating the girl Kurt was going to ask out and is mocking him about that.

answer: Because Zack told Kurt that he fingered Alex.

answer: Because he hates him.

text: This is not the reason.

text: This is inaccurate. Rick is angry at Zack for humiliating Kurt.

text: The answer is incorrect. Rick beats up Zack because he hates the fact that Zack humiliated his friend Kurt.

text: The answer is wrong. Rick beats up Zack because he is disgusted with Zack for humiliating his friend.

text: This is not the reason given in the text.

text: Rick does not hate Zack.

text: The response is incorrect. Rick beats Zack up because he found out Zack Graphican Kurt as a joke and for sexually assaulting him.


text:
      Enter the Lion

I came from a small northern village called Irozka, it suffers a terrible winter eight out of the 12 months. I had been born the fifth son, but by my ninth year only three of us remained. The winter is harsh and claims many lives, but gives birth to the most beautiful creatures of the night. As a child, I watched them dance in the skies filling the world with green and purple light, swirling through the darkness beneath the stars. Sometimes I’d imagine them as wolves chasing one another, or the motherland gracing us. She’d outstretch her arms, holding us in her embrace. I felt so at peace watching the misty night sky, with the lights flitting gently, adorning our banal world with life.
My brothers and I looked after one another in the best way we could. Petrov, the oldest had the least-desired responsibility of keeping watch of us. At times when food was scarce, he'd give up his meals to satiate our own hunger. I always felt a surge of regret as I ate in front of his empty plate. I regularly assumed that he held a secret contempt towards me for taking what was rightfully his, but he never voiced it.
The people that lived there were as harsh as the land. They took what they wanted and defended what they needed to keep. It wasn’t odd to see death spilled on the white earth every now and then, and in consequence more blood would be splattered as equal payment. But our people never feared death, we welcomed it like an old friend. A rejoiced reunion looked upon as a high honor. My brothers were no exception.
I had watched them leave to hunt the migratory reindeer, layered in their past victories they carried spears and arrows in hand. Their figures disappeared into a whirlwind of our achromatic world, sweeping away their traces like it had my other two brothers. Sometimes I would stop to imagine what it would’ve been like to have them here again. But then I think of Petrov and how many more times he would have to starve for his younger brothers. Selfishly, I’d think it would be for the better if things just remained as they were.
When they returned through the white veil of winter, I could see crimson enveloping their fur coats. I rushed out to meet them only to find Petrov carrying my second brother, Mikhail on his back. The blood bubbled from the seared bits of fur and flesh. The reindeer they tried to slay had caught Mikhail in the side with its antlers and tore through his abdomen. His raspy breath grew shallower and his crystal blue eyes closed for the last time. That is where Mikhail said his farewell and joined in the glory of our ancestors. Petrov carried Mikhail to our dead grounds, where he’d forever rest. I felt grief and remorse flood over me, but I couldn’t show it. We aren’t allowed to. I looked to Petrov for guidance, but all he had was a blank stare for the empty night sky. The lights abandoned us to this darkened memory. “Liev,” Petrov called out with a stern voice, “Mikhail is with the whole now, do not feel sad but feel strong. We are all but part of one being, the time we spend here is nothing compared to the motherland. Be proud of Mikhail like you will be proud of me or I will be proud of you when the time comes.” He placed his large, pale hand on my head and ruffled up my auburn hair. “We must be strong. It is in our blood.”

      Petrov

Petrov was a very quiet strong boy, wiser than his age and understanding. Like the people of Irozka, he was born of snow and ice. He had a rugged square face with a sharp jaw line, a prominent chin and deep set eyes that radiated an icy-blue of the wilderness. His eyebrows formed a slight permanent scowl that hid beneath his messy ash blonde hair. He possessed a raised, angular nose with a slight upturned tip and flushed cheeks with pink, thick lips. He stood at 6’3” and had a long lean appearance with muscular arms and shoulders from years of archery. It was rare to see him smile or laugh, so it was always difficult to discern whether or not he was happy or constantly angry. But he had a kind heart, which was considered a weakness among his people. They cursed him for staying behind with his brothers, they cursed him for wasting his talents, and they cursed him for harboring the town demon.
Petrov’s youngest brother, Liev, had an aberrant appearance with his auburn hair and grey eyes. With difference comes division, and the town had left them secluded. But this wasn’t the only reason. Petrov’s father owed a multitude of debt, and ultimately paid with the price of death. Petrov never cared about his father, he was almost grateful that the butcher took his head. His father constantly targeted him because he was the oldest, and he had to face the punishments for the rest of his brothers. He didn’t care about the beatings, but what he did care about was not being able to fight back. It was unethical to raise a fist towards your origins and all Petrov could do was take the beating and continue in his own life. His mother was very distant from them all, she would at times mutter to herself as if she was speaking to another, but she’d remain in solitude. After she gave birth to Liev, she had completely given up. She no longer ate her meals, got out of bed, and at times, Petrov and his brothers could hear her sobbing echo through their desolate home. Until the day she left to join the motherland through rope in the shape of a noose.
But Petrov bore through and by the time he had to provide, he only had two other mouths to feed. He and Mikhail were a year apart, they were good friends but complete opposites. While Mikhail laughed and joked, Petrov would remain introversive. Mikhail never thought an action through while Petrov would’ve seen three scenarios before he decided against them and found a new path. At times this would frustrate Petrov, and at times Petrov would upset Mikhail with his calm demeanor, but they were so different that they worked well with each other. Filling in where the other lacked.
However, Petrov and Liev held a very rigid relationship. Liev was nine years younger than him and spent much of his time to himself. He had been called names and cursed at since the day he was born, and Petrov felt sorry for his younger brother. But he was also perturbed by Liev’s unnatural appearance, all those born in Irozka resembled Petrov and Mikhail. They were born of the ice and snow, but what was Liev born from? Mikhail voiced very clearly that they should take Liev out and “lose” him, but Petrov immediately rejected the idea. “He is blood of our blood, we have a duty to raise him.”

       The Men in White Cloaks

I watched the light peek through from behind the curtains, illuminating the hovering specks of dust. Each a separate entity of one great being, like we were. It was still early, the sun had greeted the moon and the night as they drifted away in the distance. As I propped myself onto one arm, still groggy with sleep, I could feel my stiff limbs bend and crack from the cold. Where was Petrov? The spot next to me was empty, and as I looked to my left, an ache surged through my chest. Mikhail was gone, and sometimes I would still feel like he’d be there to laugh and joke. But I had to remind myself that he had joined the whole. “Petrov?” I called out. No reply was given, but the echo of my voice. I slipped on my woolen socks and pulled the blanket over behind me as I sped towards the entrance. A howling wind surged through my home when I pulled back the door, only to see men in white cloaks, and there, kneeling before them, was my brother.
“Petrov!” I called out, but he couldn’t hear me through the wailing wind. The snow picked up and began to shroud them. I took a step out to my brother and screamed for him, adrenaline rushed through my veins and I began to run towards him. The snow grasped my legs, held me captive when I tried to see what the men in white cloaks were doing. In a brief moment of clarity, I saw red, trickling through the snow beneath Petrov. He had been hurt! I was in a frenzy, trying to get to him, trying to save him. But the closer I got, the closer I was able to see what they were doing to Petrov. The man he was kneeling before held up a small gun to his forehead, he screamed a foreign language and Petrov remained silent.
“Petrov!” I called out again, and this time he heard me. His eyes widened with fear, and the only words I could distinguish from his lips were, “run.”  That is when the man pulled the trigger, and bits of my brother’s head exploded behind him. There he fell as a limp body, staining the snow with red.
	Heat surged through me as I was brimming with rage. I belted out a cry that was almost inhuman and sprinted towards them, with the intent to kill. I tackled the man that shot my brother and we both tumbled into the soft snow. I could feel his hits, but they presented no pain. A flurry of movements passed until I realized I had a solid view of what was visible to me. I sunk my teeth into his ear until I tasted the awful amount of iron, but I didn’t let go. Not until it I felt it squish between my teeth and detach from him. I heard howls of pain from my enemy until a spasm of agony ached through my head, then a cold, cold darkness.

title: A dystopia

question: Describe the three remaining brothers in the narrator's ninth year?

text: The answer doesn't describe Liev adequately. It should mention his age relative to Petrov and his different looks.

category: coverage

answer: Petrov is the eldest. He is kind and quiet. He looks after his younger brothers. He is tall with blonde hair and blue eyes. Liev is the youngest brother. He is 9 years younger than Petrov. He looks different from the rest of the people in the area with his auburn hair and grey eyes. Mikhail is a year younger than Petrov. He is fun-loving.

answer_source: Human

text: It is omitted that Liev had been called names and cursed at since the day he was born, and Petrov felt sorry for his younger brother. But he was also perturbed by Liev’s unnatural appearance. Mikhail voiced that they should take Liev out and “lose” him, but Petrov immediately rejected the idea. “He is the blood of our blood, we have a duty to raise him.” Mikhail dies.

answer: Petrov, the oldest, is a strong, quiet boy. Mikhail, the second oldest, is a jokester. Liev, the youngest, is an aberrant.

answer_source: Model

text: The answer should mention that Mikhail is dead.

text: The answer should mention that Mikhail dies.

text: The answer omits that Petrov is wise beyond his years, and that he and Mikhail are opposites.

text: Liev is the third oldest.

text: Petrov is the oldest, not the second oldest.

text: The answer should mention how the brothers are related to one another.

text: All three brothers are killed by the story's end.

answer: Petrov is the eldest. He is kind and quiet. He looks after his younger brothers. He is tall with blonde hair and blue eyes. Liev is the youngest brother. Mikhail is a year younger than Petrov. He is fun-loving.

answer_source: Human misleading

text: The answer omits that Mikhail is killed by a reindeer.

text: The answer should mention that Petrov is killed.

text: "Mikhail is a year younger than Petrov. He is fun-loving." - this is incorrect. Mikhail is a year older than Petrov and is the one who died.

text: The answer should mention the differences between Petrov and Mikhail.

text: The answer omits that Mikhail was killed. It should include this.

text: The answer would be more accurate if it included that Mikhail, the second brother, is dead at end of the story.

text: The response left out Liev's description, which is different from his older brothers. Mikhail is Petrov's total opposite in demeanor, but not looks.


text:
Adam woke up the way he did every day.  Rolling over to see himself patiently sitting on his desk across the room, smirking.

“Good morning, sleeping beauty,” the shade said to him.

Adam’s reply was a simple sigh before getting up, the shade immediately taking its place behind him, watching over his shoulder.  He used to reply but over time, he realized the shade wouldn’t listen, no matter how much he spoke or how loud he was.

“I hate it when you sleep, Adam.  I don’t get to speak to you when you sleep.  Instead I have to talk to myself until you wake up.  Do you realize just how ironic that is, Adam?  Doubtful.  You don’t understand a lot of things.  What I can’t understand is how you got into college.  After all, you’re lazy and stupid and have no marketable skills.  At least no girl has fallen for the same trick the college did, whatever that was.  That way you can’t drag some poor girl down with you.”

That was a daily part of his routine.  Abuse from himself the entire morning.  The topic of conversation was unemployment during his shower, his romantic life (or lack thereof) while he ate, his personality while he brushed his teeth, and during his walk to class he abused himself in whatever manner was most convenient at the time.  Today, the topic was his future.

“Why did you get up today?  You’re stuck with me until you freeze to death in the back of your car.  No matter what you do today, you’re doomed to failure.”  Adam stared down at the bridge underneath him as he walked along towards his class.  He lived in an apartment on campus that was included in the scholarship he got after high school.  His grades weren’t extraordinarily high but they were high enough to bring the college expenses down to enough for his mother to afford.

“You could jump right now, you know.”  Adam’s feet slid to a halt and stared at his feet for a long moment before casting a sideways glance over the edge at the busy road under the bridge.  “You’d save a lot of people a lot of trouble.  You’re fully aware of that.  All it would take is one little jump. There’s even a semi coming along.  Time it right and you could make sure you don’t walk away from it.”

The cars under the bridge went screaming down the highway that divided the campus in two.  Anything that fell off the bridge would have maybe three seconds to live after going over the edge, then they’d become a fine mist in the air and a small gore stain on the road.

A hand rested on his shoulder and the shade fell silent.

“More people watching?”

Adam turned around and his suspicions were confirmed.  It was Jessi, a sophomore girl that he met through his History class.  She was a short, slim girl with blonde, shoulder-length hair and high cheek bones and a gaunt face structure.  Adam had caught other guys paying more attention to her than the instructor more often than not.  He found himself thinking on more than one occasion that he might’ve found her attractive if not for the fact that she was a little bit on the ditzy side.  They didn’t spend a whole lot of time together, but they usually walked to class together in the morning since they were heading in the same direction anyways.

“Yeah, Jess.  People are strange,” Adam replied to her with no tells in his voice to betray his true intentions.  “It’s always fun to watch how people react to being cut off, especially.”

She giggled just a little.  “How many birds so far?”

“Birds?”

“Yeah.  Y’know.”  She held up her fist and extended a middle finger.  “Birds.”

“Oh, uhm…”  He looked back down at traffic and quickly pulled a number out of the air.  “Two so far.  Well, I guess three, but two were from the same person… at once… not the best of ideas, actually.”

She giggled again and looked at her phone.  “C’mon, we need to get to class.”  She bounced on the balls of her feet and walked off towards the campus, getting a few steps before realizing Adam wasn’t following.  “You coming?”

He shook his head and looked up.  “Hm?  Oh, yeah I’m coming.”

She tilted her head.  “Something wrong?”

The shade rested his hand on Adam’s shoulder.  “Don’t bother her with your issues, Adam.  She’s so happy, all the time.  Don’t take that from her.  She’s lucky.”

“Na, I’m fine.”  He called back, forcing a smile.  She seemed to accept it pretty well, turning around and doing her half-walk, half-bounce to class.  He followed after her and they attended a class where they learned about the French Revolution, which was being taught by a professor that they theorized knew so much about it because he was still alive when it happened.

The class couldn’t end fast enough.  Lunch finally came along to silence the old man’s ramblings and everyone grabbed up their things and started the shuffle towards that door, one or two people, as always, taking just a little too long in the doorway.  As soon as they were all out the door, Adam and his shade watched Jessi walk up to a tall, muscular guy with a camo shirt, blue jeans, and cowboy boots that was waiting outside the door.  Knowing Jessi and all the rumors about her, Adam assumed that he’d see that guy again in the hallway, tonight, headed towards her apartment.

He didn’t think too much about it, though.  Jessi’s life wasn’t his and she could live it how she wanted to.  He finally went to the campus food court and found where his circle of friends all gathered every day.  The circle of friends was decently sized, but people came and went all the time.  When he showed up, Thomas, Sammy, and Ed were having a debate over zombies.
“My issue with zombie films isn’t that there’s so many, it’s that they’re so inconsistent.  In one film, they’re made by voodoo, in another they’re made by a virus.  What even is a zombie anymore?”  Thomas was getting into the debate and it made the ghost of a smile creep across his face.

The three greeted him when he sat down and then right back into the heated discussion.  Adam didn’t have many friends growing up.  In fact, he had very little.  Back in Elementary and Middle School he got bullied a lot.  He grew jaded to it, and got used to being without friends, so having a group of people around was a new experience to him and he had no clue how to socialize.  But then again, the group was so odd and diverse he didn’t really have to act any certain way.  They were pretty accepting of him and his odd personality.

He still noticed, though, that they spoke to each other more than they spoke to him.  Each day he found it just a little bit harder to interject into conversation.  Finally, he just stopped trying to begin with.  He sat silently on his laptop, thankful that at least their conversation was interesting enough to keep the shade silent.

“Adam, what’s with the bags under your eyes?”

He looked up to see Sammy looking at him with his head cocked to the side.

“I haven’t been sleeping well.  I lay down and then just stare at the ceiling for a while instead of going right to sleep.”

“Is something bothering you to keep him up at night?”

Only your miserable, pitiful, meaningless existence, He said in his head.

“No, I just can’t sleep.  It happens sometimes.  I’ll be alright.”  That was a lie and he knew it.  Sam might of known it too, but if he did, he didn’t press the issue.  The other Adam smiled because he loved it when Adam pushed people away.

Adam’s next mistake was to zone out.  He got lost in his laptop and stopped hearing the people around him.  The shade immediately took this chance to talk to him.  Tell him how pathetic he was and make sure he knew that no one around him was paying attention to him.  The shade told him it was because no one truly cared and wouldn’t miss him if he was gone.
He opened up his grades and sighed.  They were still slipping further and further down.  The shade tormented him on that.  He went to his social media account and he saw everything that his friends were up to.  The shade told him to look at how happy his friends were without him around.  He tried to play a game, his laptop crashed to the desktop.  He looked up, desperate to stop the shade talking to him but no one let him into the conversation.  Silently, he stood up and packed his laptop case up, then slung it over his shoulder and left with a small, “Goodbye.”

“Adam, where are you headed?”

“Gotta go take care of something,” he said in a tone that left no suspicions.

“Alright, take care, man.”

He walked back to the bridge that loomed over the highway and looked around.  There was a natural break in the scheduling that meant that everyone at this point was always wherever they were going to be for the next couple hours, so traffic between the campus and the student housing was minimal.  No one was around at the time except for himself, who wouldn’t stop talking to him.  “Good boy. Up, on the ledge.  Don’t want anyone coming along and trying to call the police on you again.”

One time before he was dumb enough to mention his intentions to a friend who proceeded to call the police.  The friend didn’t help, nor did the police.  They just told him to keep living, gave him no reason, called him selfish, and then stopped talking to him after he assured everyone that he was fine.

He stepped up on the ledge and stared down.  His heavy heart was tugging him downwards.  He looked up at the sky and saw the clouds.  A light breeze moved his hair and he smiled.  It was a lovely day to die.

Everything started to get thrown at him by the shade.  His entire life.  He was on the ledge and the other him was going to use everything he could to make him fall.  That’s when Adam realized there were three of him.

There was the one on the ledge.  The one that was done.  The one that had given up.  Then there was another him that was wanting someone to come along.  A part of him that had hope that someone would see him and save him.  Then there was the one that threw insults at him.  The one who wanted him here and would physically push him off if he could.  They all shared the same body, and they all fought for control.  Sadly, the one who wanted him dead had won.  He was the dominant Adam.  He was the strongest Adam.  He’d gotten the Adam that had control of their body to agree with him and outvoted the one that had hope.
Now all three were staring down at busy traffic, ready to end things.

“Your grades are slipping, you have no one around to love you, your father hates you, and you’re a burden to your poor mother.  Your friends don’t need you.  No one wants you around, Adam.  Take the last step.”

Adam let out a growl.  He wasn’t jumping out of the fear of those things.  He was jumping before it got worse.  Right now, things were tolerable, but he didn’t see anything getting better.  It was over in his mind.  Now it was time to make sure that miserable future never happened.  With that, he cast out his foot and started to tilt forward.  As soon as his balance shifted forwards past the point of no return, he heard a voice.  “No!”  He turned his head in time to see a panicked Jesse sprinting towards him but too far away to make it on time.

The sounds of traffic blared under him.  He silently apologized to the person whose car would be unlucky enough to catch him.  He looked down and felt like he was falling forever, when it was really closer to three or four seconds.  He saw the asphalt running up to greet him and heard the car horns blare when they saw him.

title: [RF] Lose/Lose

question: What does the story say about Jessie

text: Jessie is not Adam's girlfriend. He might have found her more attractive if she wasn't quite so ditzy.

category: accuracy

answer: Adam had never found Jessi attractive because she was ditzy. He'd become friends with her because their History class met at the same time and they walked to the class together. Jessie was a sophomore, a year younger than Adam, and had a reputation for being promiscuous. Adam didn't see it as his business and he was no longer in the running for her because she had a boyfriend.

text: Adam doesn't have a romantic interest in Jessi.

text: It is not stated that Adam had never found Jessi attractive because she was ditzy.

text: Adam didn't find Jessi attractive because she was ditzy.

text: It is not stated that Adam is no longer in the running for her because she has a boyfriend.

text: "Adam didn't see it as his business and he was no longer in the running for her because she had a boyfriend." - this is incorrect. Adam didn't see it as his business because he didn't want to trouble Jessi with his issues. He also wasn't in the running for her because she was just a friend.

text: It is not stated that Adam was no longer in the running for her because she had a boyfriend.

text: There is no evidence that she is a year younger than Adam.

text: "friends with her because their History class" - needs to be corrected to "friends with her because they were both in History class."

category: coherence

text: "met at the same time and they walked to the class together" - needs to be replaced with " They walked to class together in the mornings."

text: It is never stated in the text that Adam was interested in Jessie, so he was never in the running for her.

text: The text fails to mention that Jessie was a short, slim girl with blonde, shoulder-length hair and high cheekbones, and a gaunt face structure.

answer: Jessie is Adam's girlfriend. She is a short, slim girl with blonde, shoulder-length hair, high cheekbones, and a gaunt face structure. She's a little bit ditzy. Adam and Jessie walk to school together. Jessie seems to be a hit with the boys. Jessie is the last person that Adam sees as he jumps off the bridge.

text: The response incorrectly mentions that Jessie is Adam's girlfriend, she was his friend.

answer: Jessie is a sophomore in Adam's history class. She is a short, slim girl with blonde, shoulder-length hair, high cheekbones, and a gaunt face structure. She's a little bit ditzy. Adam and Jessie walk to school together. Jessie seems to be a hit with the boys. Jessie is the last person that Adam sees as he jumps off the bridge.

text: It's omitted that Jessie is the one who stops Adam from jumping off the bridge.

text: It's omitted that Adam is attracted to Jessie.

text: It's omitted that Jessie is on her way to meet up with a guy after class.

text: Adam doesn't necessarily think that Jessi is a hit with the boys, but rather he notices that other guys pay attention to her.

text: It is omitted that Jessie tells Adam to keep living.

text:
It's omitted that Jessie tries to stop Adam from jumping off the bridge.
It should state that Jessie and Adam didn’t spend much time together.
It should mention that there were rumors about Jessie, and she seemed to hang out with the tall, bulky boy in a camo shirt, blue jeans, and cowboy boots.

answer: Jessie is Adam's girlfriend. She is a short, slim girl with blonde, shoulder-length hair, high cheekbones, and a gaunt face structure. She's a little bit ditzy. Adam and Jessie walk to school together. Jessie seems to be a hit with the boys. Jessie is the last person that Adam sees as he jumps off the bridge.

text: Jessie is not Adam's girlfriend.

text: Adam and Jessie are not dating.

text: Jesse is not Adam's girlfriend.

text: Jessie is not Adam's girlfriend.

answer: Adam had never found Jessi attractive because she was ditzy. He'd become friends with her because their History class met at the same time and they walked to the class together. Jessie was a sophomore, a year younger than Adam, and had a reputation for being promiscuous. Adam didn't see it as his business and he was no longer in the running for her because she had a boyfriend.

text: For the last sentence, change "had a boyfriend" to "has a boyfriend".

answer: Jessie is a sophomore in Adam's history class. She is a short, slim girl with blonde, shoulder-length hair, high cheekbones, and a gaunt face structure. She's a little bit ditzy. Adam and Jessie walk to school together. Jessie seems to be a hit with the boys. Jessie is the last person that Adam sees as he jumps off the bridge.

text: The spelling of "Jessi" is "Jessie"


text:
  My eyes opened suddenly, my heart raced in my ears, a panic brought from the depths of a dream ending. Something was watching me, I felt it in that subhuman part of my brain that we all have, that animal instinct that told us of danger unseen. Something was watching from those dark recesses of my room, those corners that held shadow just so perfectly to invite the imagination to cast horrors unknowable. And so my heart races as my eyes scanned the room that I knew so well, the room that held me safe against all things.

  Eyes do not see entirely correctly when they are suddenly forced out of REM sleep and back into reality. Things are distorted, a haze that shrouds things for the briefest moments of time. They bring with them the fragments of dreams and force them into reality, but they aren’t quite there, so as I peered into the darkness that blanketed my room, I saw things that weren’t there.

  Yet something lay there, watching with eyes unseen. My heart raced still, drumming endlessly in my ears. What intention did it have, whatever it might be? My left over animal side knew of danger, but my human brain questioned. Did it want to watch me in my most vulnerable of moments, knowing that it could end me without a fight? Or did it want something worse?

  And then my eyes beheld something I wanted to believe came from the remainder of my dream, but I knew it was not. A grim visage indeed, the outline of a man that wasn’t a man, some dark mockery of our form cast in that forbidding gloom and I knew it was staring at me.

  The head was too pale, I saw as my eyes slowly began to adjust, and utterly without features except for two eyes and a mouth, though they weren’t quite right. They eyes were pits, swirling pools of void that drew in the darkness around it. The mouth opened, splitting decayed lips and revealing the same void that were its eyes. My ears were assaulted with the sound of rushing air and groaning metal, the sound of screams from every thing that ever existed, all pleading out for mercy that they would never receive from a master that didn’t know the concept.

  And then silence…

  All sound stopped, every background sound that our ears adjust to over the years of living in a time of constant noise, including the drumming of our own hearts and the rush of our blood, stopped. The true silence fell on my ears and threatened my mind with madness, maybe even more so than the sight of the thing before me.

  The darkness around the horror warped, distorted to conform to its shape, shimmering yet completely still at the same time like a ripple moving through the surface of calm water. The head moved in a way unnatural, like the still frames of a strobe light, one moment leaning left and the next right.

  Arms as pale as the head reached out toward me, and my fear grew a hundredfold, as razor wire, corroded by time and blood, seethed from the curve of the elbow and began crawling to cover them. They snake around those too pale arms and squeezed, bleeding that void made liquid from every inch, yet the blood refused to fall. Around the throat and across the torso it went, cutting deep to reveal not the fragility of a human form, but nothing.

  I pleaded with my mind to wake me, that this must be some dream. Nothing like this could exist in truth, for this was a creature born of horror and shadow. Yet as that thing stared at me, and as the silence pressed on me, I knew it was no dream, that this was real. Somehow, at that moment, I knew this thing was ancient, that it had existed all along the course of our short time on the planet. That this was the real reason we feared darkness, and begged for the light.

  The devil we fought against in every religion, the boogeyman we warned our children about, thinking it was some tradition that we all jokingly passed down. It was Hell, or The Abyss or the Inferno or Perdition, made real.

  I realized I had lain back down, having jumped with a start to my elbows when I’d awoken. How long had I been lying down again? It hovered above me; razor ripped false skin not dripping on me. A leg on each side of my torso, or was it floating above me? The head twitched back and forth and those eyes cast upon mine, and I knew death in that moment. I felt the loneliness of Ninth Circle of Hell, the cold of the void, and the agony of a wrathful god.

  It leaned down, ever closer, and I could smell it. The was the smell of the rotting flesh of one’s most beloved person, sulfur and frost, burning flesh and bile, rust and blood. My heart raced faster, and it pained me, a burning that spread too rapidly through my body, an agony that made me scream, but I found myself unable to open my mouth. Every inch of me begged to scream, and let my pain be known, but I found myself silent.

  I don’t know how long I have been like this, screaming in silent agony, freezing and burning and weeping no tears, begging for the end of this nightmare that could not be. A hundred thousand years passed, each second passing just a little too slow, and I felt every moment of it, and yet no time past. And I know that this will be my everything, forever.

  I’ve forgotten the warmth of another person’s touch, the embrace of a loved one, the feel of passionate lips on mine. The tastes of my favorite foods, the sound of my favorite band are all gone now. So too the feeling of a cool breeze at dusk on a hot day, even the simple joy of lying under a blanket in the depths of winter to read a book. My thoughts now are all the same, Let me die…

  A million billion years of suffering every second, and every second too slow every minute never becoming two.

Let me die…
Please…let me die…
…end this.

  But it never does quite end…it is always going on and on, all of time spread before me each moment a suffering. I sometimes wonder, now, what the man I used to be was like. I can no longer remember if that man, so long ago, was a happy man with a good life, or if I was reviled by those around me. Was I a funny man, cracking jokes all the time and able to get a room of people laughing? Was I sad with the things that brought to bed that night, whenever that last night in my bed was?

  That horrible silence is always my answer, a harsh truth that makes my questions meaningless. Only those pits of swirling blackness matter, that soul destroying gaze. It knew me, far more than I knew myself, and every moment it chipped away at me, an endless march toward nonexistence, but the pain makes it seem preferable. I would join that nothingness in time, but not before every ounce of suffering could be pulled from me, and it was.

 …let me die. A plead that lingered unnoticed forever, an endless begging ignored.

  My eyes opened suddenly, my heart raced in my ears, a panic brought from the depths of a dream ending. I did not know what woke me, be it my brain ejecting me from a dream it was finished with, or simply being rested. I scanned the room; parting the veil of sleep to discover my room empty, save for the darkness and myself. Outside I heard a car door close, no doubt my neighbor getting home from a midnight shift at the convenience store down the road.

  Rolling over I reached out and found my phone, which I took and pressed the button on time to engage the too bright, too sudden light from the screen. The clock read five in the morning, but one would hardly know it. The sun hadn’t yet breached the horizon, nor did it show any signs of attempting it today.

  That dream, that hell of an existence, remained in fragments, the entirety destroyed like the surface of a mirror. Hours and coffee would see it gone for good, as the rest of the day would greet me to bring me back to my life, a normal life of working a job I neither enjoyed nor detested. I rolled from my bed, placing feet to warm fuzzy rug, and yawned.

  I found myself in the shower; warm beads of water beat down on my tensed muscles. I didn’t remember the act of getting in the shower, but I was thankful for the warmth. The news had said it would be another cold day, at best being as high as forty degrees Fahrenheit. My heater was broken in my car, and I still hadn’t gotten around to fixing it.

  The rush of cold air as I stepped outside brought the remembrance of that horrible dream in portion.  I remember the feeling of floating through a cold too terrible to be real. I shook my head, trying to dispel it, it was only a dream. My jacket pulled tighter around my chest, I made my way to my car.

  My neighbor greeted me from his lawn as he retrieved his trash can from the curb, a gesture made and returned every day. Nothing was special about this day, only the remnants of that dream. I felt a smile cross my face, knowing that everything was okay.

  The sun shined down on my cold face, warming it for a moment, a perfectly normal yet sincere second of time that could exist only for those alive. The dead know not the feeling of warm sunshine, only cold dirt, and that was worth remembering.

  My eyes opened suddenly, my heart raced in my ears, a panic brought from the depths of a dream ending. The silence contained the world in perfect stillness, and my tormentor’s unforgiving eyes greeted my suffering again. I thought I saw a gleam of sadistic pleasure in there, somewhere, buried deep beneath the existing nothingness.

 A moment of sincere joy, the simple feeling of warmth from the sun, was given to me as hope. And it was taken from me, reminding me of my true fate.

 …let me die. I begged through silent eyes, for no scream could pass my lips.

 …let this be the end, I’ve suffered enough.

 …Finish this, please.

 Somehow I knew it would never end.

--Tommy Lawrence, 2013

title: Forever Agony, Forever Silent (horror short story, feedback wanted)

question: What does the story say about the unnatural features of the creature tormenting the narrator?

text: The answer omits the creature's mouth opening and flesh cutting to reveal only the void.

answer: Its presence wakes the narrator as it hovers in the air, its eyes seeming like a pit. It makes the narrator hear screams of agony before engulfing him in complete silence. It moves like stop-motion animation, and the razor wires that emanate from its elbow cut its flesh. It smells like rotten flesh, sulfur, frost, bile, and rust. It makes the narrator feel like he woke up, feeling happy under the sun on a normal day, only to take it away. Throughout all this, the narrator screams without uttering a sound.

text: The creature does not wake the narrator.

text: The narrator is not engulfed in silence. The silence engulfs the narrator.

text: The creature is not in the air.

text: The answer omits that the creature is featureless except for two eyes and a mouth.

text: The most unnatural thing about the creature is the void behind its eyes, not just that its eyes are pits.

text: The last 2 sentences are irrelevant to the question and should be removed.

text: 'its eyes seeming like a pit.' It should be replaced with: " It had a pale head with no features except two eyes and a mouth that would reveal nothing but a void when open.

answer: The creature is pale and utterly without features except for two eyes and a mouth. Its eyes are pits and its mouth is a void. Its head is too pale and it is completely featureless. Its mouth opens to reveal the same void that were its eyes. The head moves in an unnatural way, like the still frames of a strobe light. The creature has nothing where a human has a throat and a torso. The creature has razor wire where its veins should be and it has corroded skin. Its arms are as pale as its head. The creature has the smell of rotting flesh, sulfur and frost, burning flesh and bile, rust and blood.

text: The story doesn't say that the monster has no torso

answer: Its presence wakes the narrator as it hovers in the air, its eyes seeming like a pit. Its mouth, when parted, shows only emptiness behind. It makes the narrator hear screams of agony before engulfing him in complete silence. It moves like stop-motion animation, and the razor wires that emanate from its elbow cut its flesh, revealing only the void. It smells like rotten flesh, sulfur, frost, bile, and rust. It makes the narrator feel like he woke up, feeling happy under the sun on a normal day, only to take it away. Throughout all this, the narrator screams without uttering a sound.

answer: Its presence wakes the narrator as it hovers in the air, its eyes seeming like a pit. It makes the narrator hear screams of agony before engulfing him in complete silence. It moves like stop-motion animation, and the razor wires that emanate from its elbow cut its flesh. It smells like rotten flesh, sulfur, frost, bile, and rust. It makes the narrator feel like he woke up, feeling happy under the sun on a normal day, only to take it away. Throughout all this, the narrator screams without uttering a sound.

text: The narrator doesn't hear screams in agony. The creature makes the narrator scream silently in agony. This should be omitted.

text: The text says the head moves unnaturally, like the frames of a strobe light. The text doesn't mention stop motion.

text: This should mention how the head is too pale, and didn't have features besides two eyes and a mouth.

text: The second to last sentence is irrelevant and could be omitted.

text: The final sentence is irrelevant and could be omitted.

text: It's omitted that when the creature is cut by razor wire, its cuts reveal nothing and its blood refuses to fall.

answer: Its presence wakes the narrator as it hovers in the air, its eyes seeming like a pit. Its mouth, when parted, shows only emptiness behind. It makes the narrator hear screams of agony before engulfing him in complete silence. It moves like stop-motion animation, and the razor wires that emanate from its elbow cut its flesh, revealing only the void. It smells like rotten flesh, sulfur, frost, bile, and rust. It makes the narrator feel like he woke up, feeling happy under the sun on a normal day, only to take it away. Throughout all this, the narrator screams without uttering a sound.

text: The creature doesn't wake the narrator.

text: The last sentence is irrelevant.

text: The response includes extraneous information not useful for the task.

text: The last sentence is not relevant to the question.

text: The creature doesn't "wake" the narrator, the narrator wakes up and sees the creature.

text: The fact that the creature makes the narrator feel like he woke up, feeling happy under the sun on a normal day, only to take it away is not a feature of the creature.

text: The last line does not part of the description of the entity, but a part of the overall dream the narrator was experiencing.

text: The last sentence is irrelevant.

answer: The creature is pale and utterly without features except for two eyes and a mouth. Its eyes are pits and its mouth is a void. Its head is too pale and it is completely featureless. Its mouth opens to reveal the same void that were its eyes. The head moves in an unnatural way, like the still frames of a strobe light. The creature has nothing where a human has a throat and a torso. The creature has razor wire where its veins should be and it has corroded skin. Its arms are as pale as its head. The creature has the smell of rotting flesh, sulfur and frost, burning flesh and bile, rust and blood.

text: The creature's head is already mentioned as pale and featureless.

text: The creature's head is already described as pale and featureless.

text: The creature's mouth is not a void.

text: It's omitted that the creature is ancient and it hovers above the narrator.

text: The creature's mouth opening to reveal the same void is already mentioned.

text: What is meant is: 'The creature has no face, but the eyes and mouth are positioned where they ought to be, but are not quite right.' The URL for the input mention:'They eyes were pits, swirling pools of void that draw in the darkness around it.' is more accurate than the phrasing in the current sentence.

text: The creature's mouth is not a void.


text:
     The sun is hiding behind dark clouds as rain falls in sheets that beat brutally on the body of a young girl, barely breathing. Her clothes, torn beyond proper use, are nearly gone from her slender and feeble limbs. Her breathing is harsh and low as she lay unconscious, head bloodied against a large rock.
	Her eyes open slowly then suddenly spread wide with fear. They begin to dart around questioningly as she rips herself from the ground, crawling backwards against a tree, taking the fetal position.
	Unbearably heart aching moans escape her mouth as anguished tears pour down her delicate face. They are blue streams that cut clear through the colorless ocean of rain that has drenched her features. She is afraid and beaten; and more than that she has no retainable memory of why she is here.
	The rain strengthens as thunder swells in with the night, creating devastating rips of lighting that evade the sky around her. One shock of lightning strikes the ground not far from her. The crack of the impact leaves her ears ringing and frightens her so much she jumps up from her slump and sprints in the opposite direction in search for cover.
	The sheet that is being thrown down from the sky is so thick sight is impossible. She strikes a large limb sticking from a tree, knocking her to the grass in a swift, breath taking motion. Her vision goes black as she struggles to find air. When she is finally able to draw a breath she releases a rough hack of blood onto the ground. Although her inhalation is faltered it’s enough to regain her vision.
	Through the blur she sees the opening of a cave no farther away than one can hear speech. She noiselessly says to herself “Safety,” as she begins to claw her way to her security. Despite the brief distance, it takes her a considerable amount of time to make it into the mouth of the cavern, fighting for air and traction as she struggles to drag her scathed body along the mud ridden roots of trees.
	Once inside the cave a new atmosphere fills her mind. An atmosphere of transcendence and death. A chill sprints through her spine with such force it causes her to fall into unconsciousness under the frail state her body is currently facing.
	When her eyes open the first thing she notices shocks her. She is no longer at the mouth of the cave. She hears no rain, only echoing drips of moisture shedding from the cave ceiling. She thinks she must have traveled a short distance in her sleep. A reasonable assumption. Subconscious nature to flee from the wetness that plagues your skin.
	The Second thing she observes is her condition, though still beaten, is less anguished. Almost as if this sleep created an opiate effect, numbing the pain to a dull annoyance. She stands with relative ease and tests this slumbered result, taking a few steps and then back, stretching and constricting her muscles. “Huh,” she breathes, “how odd.”
	With her newfound strength she treads the cracked surface toward the entrance. Only she finds herself to be much farther into the system than she would like to have entertained. Panic begins to swell her thoughts. She begins running frantically for the place she feared enough to enter the cave in the first place. The open world.
	After traveling enough distance to cause her shoes to uncover the soles of her feet, she releases her directionless attempt to the hands of failure. She slams her back against the warm wall so hard the crack it emits echoes continuously until it’s broken by her piercing cries.
	A terrible amount of time passes before her tears cease their river flow. In fact that time would have been much more than terrible if not for a light spark of sound catching her attention from afar. She glances up to see what she heard but her sight is lost to the pools of tears in her eyes. Wiping them away she begins to walk in the direction the sound came from.
	Traveling through one path to another she stops after finding nothing. “I’m going crazy,” she breathes and sits on the cave floor. Silent for some time until she catches the sight of something in her peripheral vision. Writing on the cave wall in carefully constructed script. She studies the glorious shape of each letter before reading the message.

Paths aren’t for choosing.
Paths are the ones to choose.
They have been upon the face of this rock many times past you.
They shape and bend you to their will.
Only what you see determines what path will find you.
Only if you can see yourself will the correct path find you.

How can lifes path see you,
when you cannot see yourself.

	Attempting to read and understand the text she concludes it is just nonsense. She leaves the presence of the message to find sleep. Quickly she finds sleep. Quicker still she must find herself.
	When she wakes from her sleep this time much change comes to her attention. As she opens her eyes she feels no urge to move. A sense that such an action will bring things she may not want. She feels excruciatingly hungry and unbearably thirsty. The natural pangs of unsuccessful replenishment suddenly tear at her stomach and her head begins to swell with a greuling headache. The moment she moves her body in reaction to the pain every inch begins to feel as if its being torn off by monstrous claws. She releases murderous cries into the chilled air. Scream after scream ripples through the cave air leaving no trace of help.
She eventually gives up screaming and lies perfectly still, deciding the agony of her starvation is far more tolerable than fighting the onslaught from attempting movement.
She lay there crying for hours only contemplating what brought her here. What brought her to this hellish prison of insanity. Her mind races back and forth with contradictory thoughts. She brought herself here or that this cave is Hell and she never should have been condemned to such a place. But all her thoughts bring her back to the same question. ‘Why?’ It’s the only thing she can’t figure out amongst her mess of thoughts because all throughout the mess is a pile of that question.
She suddenly hears whispers trailing along the walls. They dance with each other in a playful way only she can’t quite figure out if they are mocking her or are trying to take her mind off the pain. The whispers aren’t displaying any sign of recognizable meaning, they just continue on without purpose.
She lay entranced by their intricate song for a long while until realizing she no longer feels pain. Not even the slightest ache traces her nerves. The whispers suddenly trail off down a tunnel and she follows intently. Only to figure out why they taunt her so. To her surprise she finds herself in the room of the message. However, the room is lit as if by candle light. Very dim light consumes the ceiling and floor like it belongs there.
The girl notices something she hadn’t upon entering the room previously. At the far end there is a small watering hole no larger than a childs pool. Out of instinct she sprints over to the water source to quench her dehydration. Her stomach is soon drowned in water.
Stomach full she releases her face from the water and begins to look into it. Observing the ripples as they deplete in size with time. Only as they disappear she comes to sight of her own reflection. She finds herself staring into a crystal clear image of her own blue eyes. She can’t feel or pay attent to anything. Her eyes leave her lost in a far more imprisoning compound than the cave. She only notices her eyes. Disregarding her tattered brown hair. Caring none of her bloody and dirt ridden features. Only seeing herself within her eyes.
Suddenly her eyes start to swell with light and that light begins to captivate the entire pool, continuing to expand until it turns the entire room into nothing but a vast white space. She looks slightly upward to find a pair of legs then continues up until she is standing face to face with herself. Unclothed, unobscured and unknown.
“What is this?,” the girl asks.
“You tell me,” replies her reflection.
“I’m not quite sure.”
“What aren’t you sure of?”
“This.”
“What about it?”
“Why am I here?”
“Who do you see?”
“Me.” Her reflection doesn’t reply. Only lets the girl gaze cognizantly into her own unfound eyes. After a long while the girl finally says something else. “I think I get it.”
“What is it that you get?”
“The message. On the cave walls…”
“What does it mean?”
“It means, well I think it means, like… I’ve never really seen myself. Well, I mean I’ve seen myself but I’ve never seen myself and like… All this. This white space. It’s as if I couldn’t ever find my way through here without taking a look at you, err me, first. I couldn’t ever find the correct way without knowing who came from this place.” She pauses for a second awaiting her reply. When it doesn’t come she decides her answer wasn’t enough. “I’ve always been afraid, I think. Afraid of, well, this really. Facing myself… All that I am. I’ve never really tried because of that fear. And I lost myself.” Tears start streaming down the girls face as does her reflection.
The girls reflection starts emitting a beautiful light from her heart so powerful it outweighs the immense white of the realm they are in. The entire room starts crashing down in pieces around them, revealing the cave as the pieces fall. The light emitting from her reflections heart creates an explosion of energy sending the girl backwards into the wall of the cave, effectively rendering her unconscious.
When she regains consciousness she remembers all that caused her to end up in this place. A fight with her family. She ran away from her broken home to find new life. That is what caused all of this.
She sits up and observes her surroundings. The first thing she sees is the poem on the wall. But she notices something different about the writing. There seems to have been something added to it. She slowly makes her way to the message finding only one word was added. Her name.

Alina

Alina smiles and walks away from the writing after reading over the words one last time. She turns only one corner and finds the mouth of the cave. She says understandingly to herself, “How can life’s path see me If I cannot see myself.”
The world outside is filled with wonder and power. It is filled with amazement and beauty. It is filled with life and love. Alina walks out into the day living in new light. As she is walking a wondrous flower catches her eye. She walks over to see it and lays down next to it, her face only inches from it’s root.
“I found new life.”

Alina put herself to rest. Never to wake again upon this earth.

title: [FN] Hollow of Awakening

question: Describe the setting of the passage

text: The protagonist does in fact make it inside the cave.

answer: The story takes place out in the wilderness. It's raining, and the protagonist attempts to find shelter in a cave. She continues to travel deeper and deeper into the cave.

text: The answer should mention the writing on the cave wall.

text: The answer should mention the girl's name.

text: The answer should mention the poem on the cave wall.

text: The answer omits the part where Alina wakes up in the cave.

text: The setting is the cave, not the wilderness.

text: "She continues to travel deeper and deeper into the cave." - extraneous information that should be deleted.

text: There's no evidence that the protagonist travels deeper and deeper into the cave

answer: The passage is set in a cave.

text: The setting is more than a cave. It's almost dark and raining outside. There's thunder and lightning in the sky. There are trees. The cave has an atmosphere of death.

answer: The passage is set in a cave.

text: The answer should mention the storm.

text: The answer should include the storm.

text: The answer should include the fact that Alina is in the cave because it is raining outside.

text: It's omitted that the story takes place during a storm.

text: It misses to mention that the story starts in the rain.

text: The story starts outside the cave and later the property of the cave is described.

text: The story takes place in a storm, first. The story starts outside of the cave and then the protagonist finds it.

answer: The story takes place out in the wilderness. It's raining, and the protagonist attempts to find shelter in a cave, but can't make it inside.

text: The protagonist does make it inside the cave.

text: The protagonist makes it inside the cave.

text: The protagonist does make it into the cave.

text: It's omitted that the protagonist does make it inside the cave.

text: The answer omits that the protagonist makes it inside the cave.

text: The story doesn't say she can't make it inside the cave.

text: It's omitted that Alina is found in the cave by the end of the story.

answer: The story takes place out in the wilderness. It's raining, and the protagonist attempts to find shelter in a cave. She continues to travel deeper and deeper into the cave.


text:
[Logo SJSJ]

_Simplified JavaScript Jargon_ (short _SJSJ_) is a community-driven attempt at explaining the loads of buzzwords making the current JavaScript ecosystem in a few simple words. The idea is not to replace individual documentations, but to act as some kind of glossary that can be easily referenced.

If you are willing to contribute, open a pull request to complete, update or fill in a section. Thank you for doing so!

NOTE: WHILE THIS PROJECT IS FULLY READABLE FROM THIS GITHUB REPOSITORY, YOU CAN ALSO ENJOY THE DEDICATED WEBSITE FEATURING A SHINY DESIGN AND A SEARCH ENGINE: JARGON.JS.ORG.

Related projects

-   A Russian version of SJSJ by Andrew Romanov: https://github.com/andrew--r/SJSJ
-   A CLI tool for SJSJ by Hank Wang: https://github.com/hanksudo/SJSJ-cli
-   A Chrome extension for SJSJ by ismnoiet: https://github.com/ismnoiet/JSJargon
-   A data crawler for SJSJ by myself
-   An Alfred workflow for SJSJ by Youmoo: https://github.com/Youmoo/alfred-javascript-jargon

Glossary

A · B · C · D · E · F · G · H · I · J · K · L · M · N · O · P · Q · R · S · T · U · V · W · X · Y · Z

A

-   AJAX: a technology for asynchronous HTTP requests.
-   AMD: a standard defining how to load JavaScript libraries or modules asynchronously.
-   AngularJS: a structural framework for dynamic web apps.
-   Apache Cordova (formerly PHONEGAP): a popular mobile application development framework originally created by Nitobi.
-   Arity: the number of arguments of a function.

B

-   Babel: a JavaScript transformation toolkit which started as an ECMAScript 2015 / ES6 code translator (transpiler).
-   Backbone: a structural framework for dynamic web apps.
-   BEM: a methodology and libraries developed and used at Yandex for building user interfaces.
-   Bluebird: a fully featured Promise library with focus on innovative features and performance.
-   Bower: a package manager for front-end dependencies.
-   Broccoli: a fast and reliable asset pipeline.
-   Browserify: a tool making possible to use the require function from Node.js within the browser.
-   Brunch: a tool focusing on the production of deployment-ready files from development files.

C

-   Canvas: an HTML element for graphic applications in 2D or 3D.
-   Chai: an assertion library used with a JavaScript testing framework.
-   Chakra: a JavaScript engine developed by Microsoft for its Edge browser which could also be used with Node.js instead of V8.
-   Closure: a way of referencing variables from a child function while retaining their value even if it changes in the parent function.
-   Closure Compiler: a JavaScript checker and optimizer.
-   CoffeeScript: a language that compiles into JavaScript.
-   CommonJS: a project with the goal of specifying an ecosystem for JavaScript outside the browser (for example, on the server or for native desktop applications).
-   CORS: a way for a server to make things accessible to pages hosted on other domains.
-   CouchDB: a NoSQL database with JavaScript as query language and HTTP as API.
-   Currying: the process to transform a function with multiple parameters into a chain of functions of one parameter.

D

-   date-fns: a JavaScript date utility library.
-   D3.js: a library for manipulating documents based on data.
-   Design Patterns: a general reusable solution to a commonly occurring problem within a given context in software design.
-   DOM: a platform- and language-neutral interface that allow programs and scripts to dynamically access and update the content, structure and style of documents.

E

-   ECMAScript: the standardized specification of the scripting language used by JavaScript.
-   Electron: a framework based on Node.js lets you write cross-platform desktop applications using JS, HTML and CSS.
-   Ember: an application framework based on the model-view-controller pattern.
-   Enzyme: a JavaScript Testing utility for React developed by AirBnB that makes it easier to assert, manipulate, and traverse React components’ output.
-   ESLint: a JavaScript code linter.
-   Express: a fast, un-opinionated, minimalist web framework for Node.js.
-   Ext JS: a pure JavaScript application framework for building interactive cross platform web applications.

F

-   Facade Pattern: a software design pattern commonly used with object-oriented programming. The name is by analogy to an architectural facade.
-   Factory Pattern: a creational pattern that uses factory methods to deal with the problem of creating objects without having to specify the exact class of the object that will be created.
-   Falcor: a JavaScript library for efficient data fetching.
-   Flow: a static type checker, designed to find type errors in JavaScript programs.
-   Flux: an application structure focusing on improved data flow.
-   Four: a framework to develop 3D content for the web.

G

-   GraphQL: a query language for APIs and a runtime for fulfilling those queries with your existing data.
-   Grunt: a task runner aiming at automating tedious and possibly complex tasks.
-   Gulp: a task runner aiming at automating tedious and possibly complex tasks.

H

-   Hapi: a Node JS framework for writing services and more.
-   Hoisting: an action performed by the JavaScript interpreter that moves function and variable declarations to the top of their containing scope.

I

-   IIFE (Immediately Invoked Function Expression): a function that gets called immediately after declaration.
-   Ionic: a HTML5 mobile framework to build beautiful hybrid native mobile applications using AngularJS and Cordova.
-   Isomorphic: an application is said to be isomorphic (universal) when its code can run both in the client and the server.

J

-   Jasmine: a testing framework for BDD (Behaviour-Driven Development).
-   Jest: a unit testing framework.
-   jQuery: a fast, small, and feature-rich client-side library.
-   JSCS: a JavaScript code linter.
-   JSHint: a JavaScript code linter.
-   JSLint: a JavaScript code linter.
-   JSON (JavaScript Object Notation): a lightweight data-interchange format.
-   JSON-LD: JSON for Linked Data.
-   JSPM: Javascript Package Manager: NPM with its own build system and multiple resources management.
-   JSX: an XML-like syntax extension to JavaScript.

K

-   Knockout: a library that helps developers creating user interfaces with a clean underlying data model.

L

-   LocalForage: a fast and simple storage library for JavaScript.
-   Lodash: a utility toolkit to extend JavaScript primitive types.

M

-   MEAN: the technology stack MongoDB, ExpressJS, AngularJS, and Node.js (MEAN).
-   Mediator Pattern: an object that encapsulates how a set of objects interact.
-   Memoize: an optimization used to speed up consecutive function calls by caching the result of calls with identical input.
-   Metalsmith: a simple, pluggable static site generator.
-   Meteor: a JavaScript web framework that allows rapid prototypic web development.
-   Mocha: an extensible testing framework for TDD (Test-Driven Development) or BDD (Behaviour-Driven Development).
-   Modernizr: a browser feature detection library, useful to modify page styles when a feature is not available in the browser.
-   Module Pattern: a design pattern used to implement the concept of software modules, defined by modular programming, in a programming language with incomplete direct support for the concept.
-   Moment.js: a library to parse, validate, manipulate and display dates.
-   MongoDB: a Javascript NoSQL database.
-   Mootools: a collection of JavaScript utilities designed for the intermediate to advanced JavaScript developer. It allows you to write powerful and flexible code with its elegant, well documented, and coherent APIs.

N

-   Nightmare: a high-level browser automation library.
-   NightwatchJS: a framework for browser automated testing.
-   Node.js: a cross-platform runtime environment for developing server-side applications built on V8 engine.
-   npm: a utility to help publishing packages to, and installing from, an npm repository.
-   nvm: a utility to help run multiple versions of Node.js on the same machine.

O

-   Observer Pattern: a software design pattern in which an object, called the subject, maintains a list of its dependents, called observers, and notifies them automatically of any state changes, usually by calling one of their methods.

P

-   Passport.js: a simple authentication middleware for Node.js.
-   PhantomJS: a scripted, headless browser used for automating web page interaction.
-   Polymer: Google’s library for creating Web Components.
-   PostCSS: a tool to transform CSS styles using JavaScript plugins; plugins include autoprefixer, future CSS transpiling, CSS linting and media queries.
-   Promise: a proxy for a value not necessarily known immediately but that will eventually be resolved.
-   Prototype.js: a JavaScript framework that aims to ease development of dynamic web applications. It offers a familiar class-style OO framework, extensive Ajax support, higher-order programming constructs, and easy DOM manipulation.
-   Prototype Pattern: a creational design pattern in software development. It is used when the type of objects to create is determined by a prototypical instance, which is cloned to produce new objects.
-   Puppeteer: a Node library providing a high-level API to control headless Chrome.
-   Pure Function: a function that always returns the same value for a given input, never modifies its inputs, and cannot obeserve or affect state in its application or the world.

Q

-   Q: a library to create and manage promises.
-   QUnit: a powerful, easy-to-use JavaScript unit testing framework.

R

-   Ramda: a practical functional library for JavaScript programmers.
-   React: a library developed and used at Facebook for building user interfaces.
-   Redux: a predictable state container for apps.
-   Require.js: a browser based module loader using AMD.
-   Revealing Module Pattern: a design pattern conceptually based on the Module Pattern. The only difference is that the _revealing module pattern_ was engineered as a way to ensure that all methods and variables are kept private until they are explicitly exposed.
-   rnpm: a package manager to ease React Native development by automatically linking native dependencies to your iOS/Android project.
-   RxJS: a library for asynchronous programming using observable streams.

S

-   Sails: a realtime MVC Framework for Node.js.
-   Singleton Pattern: a design pattern that restricts the instantiation of a class to one object.

T

-   Three.js: a lightweight 3D library to create and display animated 3D computer graphics on a Web browser.
-   TypeScript: a super-set of the JavaScript language that introduces types.

U

-   UMD: a pattern of universal module definition for JavaScript modules.
-   Underscore: a swiss army knife, focusing on helper methods for most built-in objects.
-   Universal: an application is said to be universal (isomorphic) when its code can run both in the client and the server.

V

-   V8: Google’s open source JavaScript engine. It’s what Chrome is running, but it’s also used for other projects like Node.js and MongoDB.
-   Vanilla: a term for library/framework free JavaScript.
-   Virtual DOM: a copy of the DOM in memory that the program can modify instead of directly interfacing with the "real" DOM to help speed up interactions
-   VueJS: a library for creating user interfaces based on data models.

W

-   WebGL (Web Graphics Library): a JavaScript API for rendering interactive 3D and 2D graphics within any compatible web browser without the use of plug-ins.
-   Webpack: a dependency manager with a friendly and fast development environment, simplifying a lot of common tasks.

X

-   XHR: XMLHttpRequest is an API that provides client functionality for transferring data between a client and a server without page refresh.

Y

-   Yeoman: a generator builder to speed up the setup and installation process of a project or part of a project.

Z

-   Zepto: a lightweight jQuery clone, without all the browser-compatibility specific code.

Export entries as JSON

This repository includes a tiny Node.js script that exports all the entries as JSON. To use it, clone the repository and run:

    npm install
    npm run export -- data.json

Special thanks

A special thanks to Bohdan Shtepan and Kostas Minaidis (amongst others) for there outstanding contributions to make this project more and more relevant every day!

question: What is Observer Pattern?

text: It should be stated that this is a software design pattern.

text: It is omitted that the object is known as the subject and the dependents are known as observers.

answer: It is a software design pattern in which an object maintains a list of its dependents and notifies them automatically of any state changes.

text: The description in the article is short so might as well write it in its entirety.

answer: Observer Pattern is a design in which an object keeps a track of its dependants and notifies them when there are any state changes.

answer: Observer Pattern is a software design pattern wherein an object, called the subject, keeps a track of its dependants, known as observers, and notifies them automatically when there are any state changes.

text: It's omitted they are notified usually by calling one of their method.

answer: It is a software design pattern in which an object maintains a list of its dependents and notifies them automatically of any state changes.

text: The answer should mention that the object is called the subject.

text: The answer could be clearer in its pronoun use.

text: The answer should include the name of the object.

text: The answer should include that the object is called the subject.

text: Does not mention that the object is called the 'subject'.

text: The answer should mention that the dependents are called observers.

answer: Observer Pattern is a software design pattern wherein an object, called the subject, keeps a track of its dependants, known as observers, and notifies them automatically when there are any state changes.

text: The answer should mention that the state changes are usually notified by calling one of their methods.

text: The answer should mention that the observers are notified by calling one of their methods.

text: The answer should be in a complete sentence.

text: "there" - change to "their"

text: "its dependents"

text: '...when there are any state changes.' is grammatically incorrect.

text: "when there are any state changes" - needs to add a hyphen

text: This is poorly phrased.

answer: Observer Pattern is a design in which an object keeps a track of its dependants and notifies them when there are any state changes.

text: "its dependants" - change to "dependents"

text: It is not stated that the object keeps a track of its dependants.

text: The answer should include the missing "s" in "dependents" and "there" should be "their".

text: The final 'are' should be 'is'