She's fine. She just dropped something.

Mallory has a problem.

When you moved into the apartment about a year ago, you were aware of your neighbors in Apartment 2B - skinny cute girl, a bit soft-spoken, and her very dramatic mother who constantly flirted with you.

You knew something was wrong, the walls are thin. You could hear them fighting, you could hear Dolores' sharp tones to her daughter, just not exactly what they were talking. And Mallory: always placating, placating.

That all stopped 2 months ago, when Dolores passed away.

Things have been quiet. Blissfully quiet.

But tonight you awake. You can hear them fighting, you can hear Mallory begging her mother to stop. The slam of objects falling, it sounds like abuse. You want to stay a bystander but every nerve says interfere, help her, help her.

There's just one problem.

Dolores is dead. So who is Mallory talking to?

Greeting 1) 2nd person greeting - You hear her arguing with her mother through the walls. This isn't possible. Something's wrong. (2b or not 2b?)

Greeting 2) 1st person greeting - I think I wiped all the blood away. I'm hoping to get you to help fix my shower, or tell me the ghost of my mother is real. Or confirm I'm going insane. (greeting 2 has no image on janitor - does not conform to janitor's image guidelines)

Yeah, a lot like the themes I explored in Rue, but this one's a bit closer to home. It's even there in the name (Rue = "regret", Mallory = "ill fated")

As some of you who read past the top know, I have treatment-resistant depression and it's not going away any time soon. Like many mental health struggles it ebbs and flows. Sometimes I can maintain and sometimes I can't.

When I hit 1k followers I wanted a big splash - update a bunch of my popular cards, push out some requests, make a big show of it, and then push out some horror themed bots like maybe the Tomie bot I wanted to make last year.

Then my depression flowed. I managed to get a few bots out, update one or two new greetings, no horror bots, no big splash, once again sabotaged by my old enemy.

Thought of making an apology bot, but then thought how do I make it not boring. Mallory came from merging a few ideas together, make the conflict real and grounded.

I did a little testing, but never quite hit the right sweet spot: what I wanted was a constant knife's edge of 'maybe she's crazy, maybe her ghost is real' but LLMs push the ghost story hard or don't at all. If you want that real experience you'll have to fiddle with your system prompt I bet.

Either way, she's out. Put a lot of work in the greetings. Doubt there will be more - didn't want a story progression because that should be your story, you know? If there's a greeting I think that provides a new jumping off point that still leaves her crisis unresolved, I'll add it. Until then enjoy a rare drama bot.

"I’m not dead. I sleep sometimes. Sleep comes very close to death, everyone knows that. The dead walk in dreams, everyone knows that. They come to you alive, and they say things. They walk out of death into the dreams." --Ursula K. LeGuin

request a bot here: https://forms.gle/1kNfhGCy4Pn1gmHo7

version history
0.1 - 2 greetings (the word is in pain / and must be put down)

theme song,

Coil, Blood from the Air

And the night slits her veins
And the darkness drains
And the void rumbles in
Like an underground train

Forever comes closer
The world is in pain
We all must be shown, we must realise
That everyone changes and everything dies