Wolowitz 2.0
Did I misspell these things on purpose? I don’t think so, but the OG story title definitely ends with an “s” and not a “z.” 🤦♀️
A E Bruce:
I want to give you an old story of mine and you research then create an outline of a historical person's story that matches a theme or element in my original. Can you do that?
ChatGPT:
Yes, I can absolutely do that. 🙌
Here’s how I’ll handle it when you send the story:
You give me your old story
It can be the whole thing or just a scene/summary if it’s long.
I’ll read it and pull out central themes, character arcs, conflicts, or key images (e.g., betrayal, exile, grief, obsession, faith vs. reason, etc.).
I’ll research historical figures that resonate with those elements
I’ll look for one historical person whose life strongly echoes a theme or situation in your piece.
I’ll focus on real events and avoid anything too speculative or myth-heavy unless you’re okay with that.
I’ll build a story outline of that historical person’s life
Structured like a narrative, not a dry biography:
Act I / Early life setup
Inciting incident / turning point
Rising tension / key choices
Climax / major consequence
Resolution / legacy
I’ll highlight the parallels to your original story so you can see where they line up.
Optional (if you want):
I can suggest ways to remix the two:
how to weave their life into your story world,
or how to reshape your character based on them,
or how to frame it as a “paired” text (your fiction + their history).
Whenever you’re ready, send me:
The text of your old story or a detailed summary
And if you have a specific theme you care about most (e.g., “grief,” “rebellion,” “sacrifice”), mention that too—otherwise I’ll choose the strongest one I see.
A E Bruce:
"My name is Reaghan Wolowitz. Daughter to Howard and Bernadette Wolowitz. I get in trouble a lot, because I'm always inventing things. I'm always in my dad's lab making things, but if I don't finish I bring it home and end up making a mess. My dad and I are really close. Mainly because people pressure me into getting my Ph.D. when I grow up, but dad understands I want to be like him, not get a doctorate but still love what you do. Is that possible?
"I've just got my Masters Degree in Engineering, and my doctorate in marine biology. I'm very proud of myself. I've achieved two sides of the spectrum. Just call me Dr. Wolowitz, at least till I get married. Which will probably be soon, since I've met the most amazing guy! His name is Cass Everett. He loves cats, he's Jewish, and he's from England. Can you believe it! My mom can't stand the thought of us together in bed, my dad loves to think about it though. You know him. And maybe one day he'll pop the question. Who knows?
"This is where I belong, with my dad. I get to walk down the aisle with the one man that encouraged me to follow my dreams. My dress is so beautiful, me and Penny actually found it together. I have an amazing family that support me and are there for me. And I especially need them now, on my once in a lifetime day. I want him to be mine.
"I woke up this morning to my lovely husband waiting for me to wake up. What I didn't expect was I'd end up here. I'm in the hospital, and I hear my dad screaming, "Hold on, baby! Just hold on!" I feel pain in my chest. It was like my heart had exploded. Was the idiopathic arrhythmia gene? My dad has it. It never really bothered him. I don't want to give up on my family like this. I can't go now. I'm just so tired. I have to sleep. So I shut my eyes. And it was like someone put tape on my eyes so I couldn't open them. The I felt electricity going through my body. The tape was still there. The electricity kept coming until the tape was gone. My eyes flew open. Then a doctor came up to me and said, "My name is Dr. Ben Warren, you can call me Ben. Okay, you got to stay with me. Stay with me." "Where are we going?" I asked. "We are taking you up to surgery. You are going to be just fine, okay." "What about my husband? Is he okay?" I asked remembering we were in a car crash. "I don't know, but I'll find out okay." I heard another doctor say, "Go, we got it from here."
"I'm out of surgery. It hurts but only a little. It's like a dull ache. When I woke up, I found that my room was crowded. Everyone was there. Cass was in a bed on the other side of me holding my hand. Then Ben came in. "Well, look who decided not to join the night of the dead." he said, "I have some news. It turns out you are pregnant. And we had Dr. Montgomery come in and check it out and she said that since you are only 5 weeks along and you were wearing your seat belt and there was no damage to your stomach the baby should be just fine. She will be coming in later to do and ultrasound just to make sure." "Thank you, Dr. Warren." my dad said. When he was gone everyone was chattering. I couldn't believe I was pregnant. It was very hard to believe that I was still pregnant. Everyone was happy. But I tried not to be, I didn't want to be so happy then find out it's dead. I could see Cass was trying to do the same thing.
"He died at 2:30 tonight. The baby is still alive. No matter boy or girl, it's name will be Cass. I will still be Dr. Everett. I will do things we were planning on doing together. No matter what the cost. I will do it, for us. I am Dr. Reaghan Wolowitz-Everett. And I will be a great science role model to young girls. The headlines will read, BREAKING NEWS! DR. REAGHAN EVERETT HAS MADE SCIENCE HISTORY! EVEN WITH CHILD! That's my dream and it was Cass's dream to he wanted us to make science history. Even if it doesn't have his name next to mine, his and my dream will have come true. I love you, Cass. And I will always love you."
ChatGPT: thought for 38s
Here’s the historical mirror I’d pair with this story: Marie Curie.
The big shared theme I’m matching is:
A woman scientist who loses the man she loves in a sudden accident, but chooses to carry their shared dream forward and become a role model in science.
Why Marie Curie fits your story
Your Reaghan:
Is a woman in science/engineering from a science-nerd family.
Has a deep, supportive partnership with Cass and a shared dream of “making science history.”
Survives a sudden accident that kills her husband.
Is pregnant / a future parent and vows to honor their dream, become “Dr. Everett,” and be a role model to young girls in science.
Marie Curie:
Was a woman physicist/chemist when women in science were rare. (Wikipedia)
Had a scientific partnership and marriage with Pierre Curie; they shared the work that led to their Nobel Prize. (Wikipedia)
Lost Pierre in a sudden street accident (a horse-drawn carriage) in 1906. (Wikipedia)
Raised their two daughters alone and continued the work, eventually winning a second Nobel Prize, founding research institutes, and becoming an enduring icon for women in science. (Wikipedia)
So the emotional spine—widowed scientist carrying forward a shared scientific legacy while being a parent and role model—lines up really nicely.
Story-Style Outline: Marie Curie as a Narrative Arc
You could treat her life like a novel in five “acts.” I’ll shape it like something you could parallel with Reaghan’s story beats.
Act I – The Girl Who Wants More (Roots & Early Drive)
Warsaw, occupied Poland – quiet rebellion
Maria Skłodowska grows up in a teacher family in Russian-occupied Poland, surrounded by books and political tension. (Wikipedia)
Father teaches physics and math; she falls in love with science early.
Brilliant at school but blocked: universities in partitioned Poland don’t accept women.
The secret student
She attends the clandestine “Flying University,” an underground school for Polish intellectuals, including women. (Wikipedia)
Works as governess to help fund her sister’s education in Paris, dreaming of one day studying abroad herself.
Decision point
After years of sacrifice and distance from her own ambitions, Maria finally saves enough to join her sister in France.
She boards a train to Paris with almost no money and a huge, stubborn faith in science.
Act II – Becoming “Curie” (Education, Love, and Shared Dream)
The Sorbonne grind
In Paris, she studies physics and mathematics at the Sorbonne, living in freezing garrets, fainting from hunger, but finishing at the top of her class. (Wikipedia)
Meeting Pierre
She’s introduced to physicist Pierre Curie, who’s already respected for his work on crystals and magnetism.
They bond over research conversations that run longer than dinner, notebooks taking the place of love letters.
Marriage as partnership
They marry in 1895; instead of a white dress, she wears a dark dress practical enough to double as a lab outfit. (NobelPrize.org)
Their relationship becomes a fusion of love + lab work, echoing the Reaghan/Cass “we make science history together” dream.
Discovery and first triumph
Together they investigate mysterious rays from uranium, coin the term “radioactivity,” and isolate new elements—polonium and radium. (Wikipedia)
In 1903, Marie, Pierre, and Henri Becquerel share the Nobel Prize in Physics, making Marie the first woman Nobel laureate. (Wikipedia)
Publicly, the world sees “the Curies.” Privately, this is their shared dream crystallizing.
Act III – Impact and Shattering Loss
Family and fame
They have two daughters, Irène and Ève. Marie tries to balance lab work with motherhood, already modeling the idea that a woman can be both scientist and parent. (Wikipedia)
The accident
1906: On a rainy Paris day, Pierre is struck by a horse-drawn carriage in the street and killed instantly. (Wikipedia)
Marie is shattered—like Reaghan waking up in the hospital, the narrative “we” of her life is ripped in half.
Choosing not to stop
Instead of stepping back, Marie accepts Pierre’s old chair at the University of Paris, becoming the first woman professor there. (Wikipedia)
Her grief becomes fuel: she decides to keep “their” work alive by pushing deeper into radioactivity research.
Act IV – Carrying the Legacy (Second Nobel & War Work)
Building a legacy lab
She isolates pure radium and defines the “curie” as a standard unit of radioactivity, solidifying both of their names in scientific language itself. (Wikipedia)
In 1911, she wins a second Nobel Prize, this time in Chemistry, for her work on radium and polonium—now solely under the name “Marie Curie.” (Wikipedia)
The shared dream of the Curies continues, but now through her alone.
The world at war
During World War I, instead of retreating, she develops mobile X-ray units (“Little Curies”) so wounded soldiers can be treated more safely. (Wikipedia)
She trains other women (including her daughter Irène) to operate them—literally mentoring a generation of women in science and medicine.
From mother to mentor
She founds the Radium Institutes in Paris and Warsaw, research centers that will continue long after her death. (Wikipedia)
Her oldest daughter, Irène Joliot-Curie, will later win a Nobel Prize herself, making the Curie women a multi-generational science dynasty.
Act V – The Icon of “Dr. Everett’s” Dream (Role Model & Legacy)
The cost of the work
Years of radiation exposure lead to aplastic anemia; she dies in 1934 at a sanatorium in France. (Wikipedia)
Her notebooks and even cookbooks remain so radioactive that they’re stored in lead boxes today.
Afterlife of a scientist
How you could use this
If you want, next step I can:
Map specific scene parallels (e.g., Reaghan in the lab ↔ Marie in the Sorbonne lab; the crash ↔ Pierre’s accident; Reaghan’s vow ↔ Marie taking Pierre’s chair and founding the Radium Institute).
Or build a side-by-side outline: your fictional “Dr. Reaghan Wolowitz-Everett” arc vs. “Madame Curie” arc, so you can literally pair them in your project.
A E Bruce:
what about someone not in the scientific field?
ChatGPT: thought for 28s
Totally, we don’t have to stay in the science lane at all.
A really strong non-scientist parallel for Reaghan’s story is Myrlie Evers-Williams (civil rights activist and widow of Medgar Evers).
Why Myrlie Evers-Williams fits your themes
Key beats in your story:
Deep, loving partnership with a man who shares a mission (for you, “making science history together”).
Sudden, traumatic loss (car crash → Cass dies).
She survives with their child (pregnant) and makes a vow:
I’ll live out our shared dream. I’ll carry the name. I’ll be a role model to other girls.
Myrlie’s arc hits those same emotional points, just in activism instead of science:
She and Medgar Evers worked side-by-side in the civil rights movement in Mississippi—organizing voter registration drives, boycotts, and desegregation efforts. (Wikipedia)
Medgar was assassinated in 1963 in front of their home; she was left widowed with three children. (Wikipedia)
Instead of retreating, Myrlie:
Moved her kids to California,
Finished her B.A. in sociology,
Wrote a book about Medgar’s life (For Us, the Living), and
Spent decades fighting for justice and working in civil rights and community leadership. (Wikipedia)
She later became chair of the NAACP, helping pull the organization out of financial and reputational crisis, and remained a public voice for civil rights into the 2010s. (Wikipedia)
So the emotional through-line is very close:
“I lost him violently, but I’m going to carry his name, his work, and our dream forward, while raising our children and becoming a visible example for the next generation.”
That’s basically Reaghan’s last paragraph, but translated from “science history” to civil rights history.
If you’d like, next I can:
Lay out Myrlie’s life as a story outline (Act I–V style like I did with Marie Curie), OR
Do a side-by-side beat sheet: “Reaghan scene → Myrlie moment” so you can literally pair them in your project.
A E Bruce:
my only hesitancy with Myrlie is writing a (I presume) African-American woman as a white woman
ChatGPT: thought for 1m 3s
Yeah, that hesitation makes total sense, and I’m glad you named it out loud.
Using a very specifically Black, Southern civil-rights story as the “emotional template” for a white-coded character can slide into “inspiration without context,” especially if race and white supremacy aren’t actually engaged with in the fiction. It’s not that you’re forbidden to study or be inspired by Myrlie Evers-Williams; it’s more about not quietly lifting her pain and labor into a race-neutral or white frame.
So, let’s pick a closer racial/cultural mirror for Reaghan-as-written and keep Myrlie in your “historical toolbox” for a different, explicitly Black-coded character later.
Alternative: Elizabeth Schuyler Hamilton (Eliza)
Eliza is a great non-science parallel who is:
White, from a wealthy New York family.
Widowed suddenly and violently (Hamilton’s duel with Burr). (Wikipedia)
Left with many children and debts, but chooses to carry on both her husband’s legacy and her own work, becoming a public-facing figure and philanthropist—a kind of early “role model.”
Quick story-outline for Eliza, mapped to your themes
Act I – The Daughter Who Loves Big (Roots & Marriage)
Eliza Schuyler grows up in an elite New York family (the Schuylers/Van Rensselaers). (Wikipedia)
Meets Alexander Hamilton during the Revolution; they fall hard and marry in 1780.
She buys into a shared project: his political vision and their growing family (eventually eight children). (Wikipedia)
Reaghan parallel: daughter from a tight-knit family, in love with a man whose mission she shares.
Act II – Building the Dream Together
Eliza supports Hamilton’s rise: copying drafts, hosting, giving feedback on speeches and the Federalist Papers—she’s not “just” a wife, she’s a quiet collaborator. (Playhouse Square)
They become a visible power couple in early America, with a house full of children and political visitors.
Reaghan parallel: Cass + Reaghan planning a shared future, a joint dream of “making history.”
Act III – Scandal, Then Catastrophe
Public humiliation via Hamilton’s Reynolds affair; Eliza burns many of her letters, partially erasing her side of the story. (Ancient Origins)
1804: Hamilton is killed in a duel with Aaron Burr. The death is sudden, violent, and leaves Eliza with seven surviving children and serious debt. (HISTORY)
Reaghan parallel: the crash, the “my heart exploded” moment, waking into widowhood with a baby still inside her.
Act IV – Choosing to Live the Legacy, Not Just Survive It
Eliza does not remarry; she lives another fifty years as a widow. (All That's Interesting)
She co-founds the New York Orphan Asylum Society (later Graham Windham), the city’s first private orphanage, and works for child welfare for decades. (HISTORY)
She tirelessly gathers Hamilton’s papers, advocates for his reputation, and helps shape how history remembers him. (The Alexander Hamilton Awareness Society)
Reaghan parallel: “I will be Dr. Wolowitz-Everett, I’ll keep his name, keep our dream alive, and be a visible role model.”
Act V – The Role Model in Her Own Right
By the time she dies in 1854 at about 97, she’s known not just as “Hamilton’s wife,” but as a philanthropist in her own right—someone who turned grief into decades of public service. (Wikipedia)
Reaghan parallel: the imagined headline about making history “even with child,” being someone girls can look up to.
How we can use this going forward
If you like Eliza better for this story:
I can do a side-by-side beat map:
“Reaghan childhood paragraph → Eliza childhood,”
“wedding paragraph → Eliza’s marriage,”
“ICU + vow paragraph → post-duel widowhood + founding the orphanage,” etc.
And separately, if you do want to use Myrlie Evers-Williams at some point, we can design a Black-coded OC (or a clearly multiracial/explicitly contextualized one) whose story actually engages with race and the civil-rights context, instead of just borrowing vibes.
Want me to do that Reaghan–Eliza beat sheet next?
A E Bruce:
Anyone lesser known? Eliza's story is quite famous now thanks to the musical
ChatGPT: thought for 2m 4s
Here’s a good “deep cut” for you: Sarah Josepha Hale — definitely less famous than Eliza, but her life hits a lot of the same emotional beats as your Reaghan story, and she’s not in a scientific field.
Very quick who-she-is snapshot, then I’ll give you a story-outline you can parallel.
Why she fits Reaghan’s themes
Key echoes with your original:
Supportive family + big expectations
Hale’s parents believed girls should be educated like boys and taught her well beyond what was normal for women at the time.(National Women's History Museum)Loving, encouraging husband
She married lawyer David Hale, who actively supported her “scribbler” tendencies and all her scholarly work.(National Women's History Museum)Sudden widowhood + children to protect
He died after only nine years of marriage, leaving her a young widow with five children and very little money.(National Women's History Museum)Turning grief into work
She turned seriously to writing as income (poetry, a novel) and then became editor of what would become Godey’s Lady’s Book, the most influential women’s magazine of the 19th century, shaping ideas about women, home, and education.(National Women's History Museum)A shared dream she carries alone
She used that platform to push women’s education and property rights, raise money to preserve places like Mount Vernon and the Bunker Hill Monument, and — most famously — she mounted a decades-long campaign to make Thanksgiving a national holiday, writing editorials and letters to presidents until Lincoln finally issued the 1863 proclamation.(National Women's History Museum)Legacy: role model for women and girls
As editor, she reached 150,000+ readers (huge at the time) and became one of the most influential female voices in America.(National Women's History Museum)
She’s a white New England woman, so if your Reaghan-adjacent character is white/Jewish-coded like in your original, you’re not crossing race lines the way you’d be with Myrlie.
Story-style outline of Sarah Josepha Hale’s life
(structured so you can parallel beats to Reaghan’s arc)
I. Prologue – “The Dream Realized”
Elderly Sarah in Philadelphia, looking at a copy of Lincoln’s Thanksgiving Proclamation or a crowded family table.
Internal monologue: this was the dream she once shared with her late husband — a unified, grateful nation and children growing up with education and stability.
Establish her as “Mother of Thanksgiving” and a famous editor, but hint that it all began with loss and stubborn hope.
II. The Girl Who Read Too Much
Newport, New Hampshire, 1790s–1810s.
Parents insist their daughter be educated like her brother; she studies far beyond what’s considered proper for girls.(National Women's History Museum)
She writes poems and essays in the margins of farm ledgers, dreaming of a life of the mind but knowing the world expects marriage and domesticity.
The emotional vibe matches your “kid tinkering in dad’s lab” section: curious, slightly messy, deeply bonded to her family.
III. Marriage as Partnership, Not Cage
She marries David Hale, a young lawyer who treats her intellect as an asset, not a problem.
Scenes:
Late-night discussions over politics, literature, and religion.
David encouraging her to publish poems under a pen name.
They have several children; she juggles motherhood and writing, slowly building confidence that both can coexist.
This is your Reaghan + Cass “we’re going to make history together” phase.
IV. The Shatter Point – Widowed with Five Children
David dies suddenly (likely from illness) after only nine years of marriage, leaving Sarah with five young children and little income.(National Women's History Museum)
She faces intense social pressure to remarry or accept poverty; instead she chooses her pen.
Beat similar to your car crash + cardiac arrest section:
Numb practical decisions: funeral, debts, hungry children.
Quiet vow: she will not let her children’s futures die with their father’s.
V. Writing to Survive – and to Teach
She publishes The Genius of Oblivion and Other Original Poems and then the novel Northwood to earn money.
Her work catches the eye of a Boston publisher, who offers her the job of editing a new women’s magazine (Ladies’ Magazine).
Internal tension: she writes about ideal womanhood and domestic virtue even while defying norms by supporting a family through her own work.
This is your “I will still be Dr. Everett and finish what we started” pledge, but in ink instead of lab coats.
VI. The Editress – Shaping a Nation from the Parlor
She becomes editor of Godey’s Lady’s Book, which grows into the most widely read women’s magazine in the U.S.(National Women's History Museum)
Through essays and fiction, she:
Advocates women’s education and their right to own property.(National Women's History Museum)
Publishes major writers (Harriet Beecher Stowe, Poe, Emerson, etc.), influencing American literature.
Raises funds to complete the Bunker Hill Monument and helps preserve George Washington’s Mount Vernon.(National Women's History Museum)
You can frame her editorial office the same way you framed the lab/hospital: a liminal space where life and death, grief and purpose, all collide.
VII. The Long Campaign – A Holiday for Unity
In the 1840s she starts her Thanksgiving crusade: editorials every year, letters to governors and presidents arguing for a single, nationwide holiday of gratitude.(The Library of Congress)
Politicians ignore her for nearly two decades. She keeps going anyway, seeing it as her and David’s shared dream of a morally grounded, unified country.
Finally in 1863, in the middle of the Civil War, Lincoln responds to one of her letters and proclaims a national day of Thanksgiving.(The Library of Congress)
Decades later, Congress fixes it as the fourth Thursday in November (1941), locking in her legacy.(The Library of Congress)
This is your “BREAKING NEWS! DR. REAGHAN EVERETT HAS MADE SCIENCE HISTORY! EVEN WITH CHILD!” moment — except the headline is a presidential proclamation and eventually federal law.
VIII. Legacy – Mother, Editor, “Mother of Thanksgiving”
Elderly Sarah retires from editing in 1877 and dies a few years later, having supported her children, mentored generations of women, and literally reshaped the American calendar.(National Women's History Museum)
Epilogue-style beat: schoolchildren recite “Mary Had a Little Lamb,” families gather for Thanksgiving, women read magazines and, later, novels and papers — all quiet echoes of her work.
If you like her, next step could be:
I map your Reaghan beats to specific Hale beats one-to-one, or
We pick a fictionalized “Reaghan Hale” who’s an editor/writer instead of a scientist, so you can remix freely without being chained to exact biography.
Totally your call which direction you want to go.
A E Bruce:
Let's go back to the original story. I'd like you to create a fully fleshed out outline of the original version that replaces science for magic potions. Make it as fantastical as you want.
ChatGPT: thought for 39s
Love this pivot, honestly. Let’s build you a full fantasy outline where:
Science → potions & magic
Hospitals → healers & spell-wards
Car crash → enchanted carriage / skytram accident
Genetic heart issue → inherited curse of the heart
“Science history” → legendary potion-mage history
I’ll structure it like a novella/novel with Acts and chapter-sized beats.
Core Re-imagining
Reaghan Wolowitz → a gifted potion-maker and tinkerer, daughter of an eccentric magical inventor.
Dad’s lab → a chaotic alchemical workshop full of bubbling cauldrons and misbehaving ingredients.
Degrees in engineering & marine biology → dual mastery in Runic Mechanica and Sea Alchemy.
Cass Everett → a gentle, cat-loving mage from across the sea, specializing in familiar magic and protective charms.
Idiopathic arrhythmia gene → a hereditary Heart-Stutter Curse, sometimes mild, sometimes deadly.
Doctors → healer-mages and spell-surgeons.
Hospital → the Sanctum of Living Waters, a great healing tower where magic and medicine blend.
“Make science history” → become a legendary potion-mistress whose work reshapes magic itself.
ACT I – The Potion-Maker’s Daughter
Chapter 1 – The Lab of Explosions
Introduce young Reaghan, narrating in first person as she sneaks into her father’s potion-lab beneath their townhouse in the floating city of Aurelia.
She mixes leftover ingredients into her own experimental potion; the mixture goes wrong and turns half the lab into rainbow foam that meows.
Her mother scolds her for recklessness and reminds her of the Heart-Stutter Curse that runs in the family; her father laughs it off and rewards her curiosity.
Chapter 2 – Expectations and Curses
At a family dinner, visiting relatives praise Reaghan’s intelligence and speak of her future at the High Conclave of Alchemists, expecting she’ll become an Arch-Alchemist with seven sigils.
Reaghan confides in her father that she doesn’t want to be a tower scholar, she wants to be like him: a hands-on maker, crafting potions for people, not for prestige.
Father reveals he too carries the Heart-Stutter Curse, shows her the faint glowing scar over his chest, and explains:
“Curses or no curses, your heart belongs to your work, not to their titles.”
Chapter 3 – The First Brew That’s Truly Her Own
Determined to prove herself on her own terms, Reaghan creates a potion that lets children see sound as color—intended to help a neighbor’s partially deaf child.
The potion works but also makes people see emotions as swirling auras, sending the neighborhood into a day of chaotic truth-telling.
The Conclave reprimands her for unsanctioned experimentation; her father secretly beams with pride.
ACT II – Apprentice of Sea and Sigil
Chapter 4 – Dual Paths of Power
Time jump: Reaghan is now in her early twenties, apprenticed in Runic Mechanica (magical machinery fueled by potion-cores) and Sea Alchemy (potions brewed with ocean spirits).
She studies in a cliffside academy where waves crash beneath crystal laboratories; she balances rigorous study with late-night secret projects.
We see hints of her Heart-Stutter Curse: faint glowing lines pulse under her skin whenever she overuses magic.
Chapter 5 – The Sea’s Secrets
On a field excursion, Reaghan and her cohort descend in a glass-orb submersible to gather bioluminescent plankton for potions.
A leviathan’s shadow passes; Reaghan, instead of panicking, reaches out with a potion that calms the creature, earning her a reputation as a sea-whisperer.
Professors push her toward a life of academic research on ocean magic; she feels boxed in by their expectations.
Chapter 6 – The Cat Mage from Across the Sea
At a potion symposium, Reaghan meets Cass Everett, a charming mage from the far country of Everen, accompanied by three cat familiars who knit glimmering thread in the air.
Cass specializes in binding potions and emotional wards; he’s quietly impressed by Reaghan’s chaotic but brilliant notes.
Over shared midnight tea in the alchemy gardens, they dream aloud about creating a new school of potion-craft that blends mechanisms, sea magic, and familiars—magic accessible to everyday people, especially young girls.
ACT III – Vows, Dreams, and the Wedding of Wands
Chapter 7 – Masters of Their Craft
Time jump again: Reaghan has completed her Mastery in Runic Mechanica and her Mastery in Sea Alchemy.
She returns home to her father’s workshop, now upgraded with floating cauldrons, self-stirring ladles, and a bottling construct shaped like a metal octopus.
The city’s children whisper about “Dr. Rae,” the potion-maker who can make your nightmares taste like honey and vanish.
Chapter 8 – Cass and the Dream of Tomorrow
Cass arrives in Aurelia, moving into an attached loft above the workshop; the cats immediately colonize all sunny windowsills.
Together they design The Everett-Wolowitz Atelier, a potion-studio and school. Their manifesto: “Magic for every heart.”
Cass reveals he’s from a line of Jewish-coded ward-mages, and carries old protective blessings; Reaghan’s family, quirky and loud, folds him in with awkward jokes and magical food.
Chapter 9 – The Potion Wedding
Reaghan’s wedding dress is enchanted with subtle constellations that shift with her heartbeat; she and her friend (Penny analogue) found it in a market that only appears under a blue moon.
Her father walks her down an aisle lined with floating glass orbs filled with memories in liquid form—scenes of mishaps in the lab, her first successful potions, Cass’s arrival.
During the ceremony, Reaghan and Cass create a shared vow potion: they each add a drop of blood and a fragment of their favorite spell. When they drink it, glowing sigils intertwine above them, marking the start of their shared magical lineage.
ACT IV – The Night of Shattered Glass
Chapter 10 – Morning in a City of Charms
Some time after the wedding, Reaghan wakes to her “lovely husband waiting for me to wake up”—Cass brewing breakfast tonics that taste like cinnamon and sunlight.
They discuss their plans to open a free potions-for-girls workshop, teaching young apprentices, determined to prove that magic isn’t just for old men in towers.
Reaghan’s chest flickers with the Heart-Stutter glow, but she brushes it off, certain it’s nothing to worry about.
Chapter 11 – The Skytram Accident
Reaghan and Cass board an enchanted skytram, a glass carriage traveling on rivers of light between towers, carrying a crate of delicate potion-bottles.
A rogue storm spirit collides with the skytram; wards fail, glass shatters, and the carriage plummets. Reaghan feels a sharp lance of pain in her chest mid-fall as the Heart-Stutter Curse awakens.
Everything goes white; the last thing she hears is Cass shouting her name and the cats yowling.
Chapter 12 – Between Heartbeats
In the void, Reaghan stands in a sea of stars, her chest a broken constellation. A cloaked figure—the Spirit of the Stuttering Heart—offers her a choice:
“Sleep, and let your bloodline end, or fight, and bind your heart to something greater than yourself.”
She chooses to fight, thinking of her father, Cass, and the dream of a school for girls; the Spirit thrusts a searing bolt of lightning into her chest.
ACT V – The Sanctum of Living Waters
Chapter 13 – Waking to Lightning
Reaghan’s perspective snaps back; she’s on a floating stretcher being rushed through crystal halls, her chest still sparking with residual lightning.
A healer-mage leans over her: “I’m Healer Ben Warren; call me Ben. Stay with me, all right?”
Reaghan asks where they’re going, and about Cass; Ben promises to find out and says they’re taking her to the Heart-Forges—a surgery ward where hearts are reforged in living water and runes.
Chapter 14 – Surgery in the Heart-Forge
Inside the Heart-Forge, runic circles swirl under her body; ethereal water spirits and healer-mages work together to repair her heart, now marked by the lightning bolt of the Heart-Stutter Spirit.
We get surreal imagery: her heart as a glass vial, cracking and being fused with a droplet of star-light potion; the curse is altered, tamed, but never fully gone.
Fade to black as she slips under again, hearing only her father’s voice echoing:
“Hold on, baby. Just hold on.”
Chapter 15 – The Dull Ache and the Crowded Room
She wakes to a dull, throbbing ache in her chest, lying in a ward whose walls ripple like water.
Her room is crowded: her parents, friends, apprentices, and on the far side, Cass in another bed, unconscious but breathing, connected to gentle healing sigils.
Healer Ben returns with news:
A life-flicker spell detected a second heartbeat within Reaghan.
The Sanctum’s star-midwife, Dr. Montgomery, examined her with shining constellations and confirmed she’s five weeks pregnant.
Her protective belt-ward and Cass’s charms shielded her belly; the baby appears unharmed.
ACT VI – Loss, Legacy, and the Vow
Chapter 16 – Hope on a Knife’s Edge
The room erupts in relieved chatter; her mother immediately starts planning charms for the nursery, her father tries to joke through tears.
Reaghan and Cass’s fingers touch across the gap between their beds, both of them trying not to hope too loudly; Reaghan’s internal monologue is clear:
If I let myself be happy and the baby’s lost, I’ll shatter completely.
Cass’s cats curl around both beds, their fur humming with protective spells.
Chapter 17 – 2:30 and the Final Breath
In the middle of the night, alarms in the Sanctum flare a deep indigo; Reaghan jolts awake, her heart mirroring the flare.
Cass’s Heart-Stutter Curse, weakened by the accident, surges. Despite the healers’ efforts, his heart-aura flickers and fades at 2:30, the sky outside turning the color of spilled ink.
Reaghan senses the exact moment his vow potion severs; she feels it like a physical rip through her chest, though her reforged heart continues beating for two.
Chapter 18 – Names and Promises
Days later, still in the Sanctum, Reaghan sits alone, a hand over her still-glowing abdomen, while ghost-light candles flicker for Cass.
She decides: regardless of whether the child is a boy or a girl, their name will be Cass, and she will carry the surname Wolowitz-Everett.
She remembers their manifesto about magic for girls and whispers to the unborn child:
“We’ll finish it. The atelier, the school, the potions. Even if your father’s name isn’t written beside mine on the tower walls, this will always have been ours.”
Chapter 19 – Rewriting the Conclave’s History
Reaghan returns home, her father retrofits the workshop to accommodate her fragile but enchanted heart, installing wards that react to stress.
She launches the Everett Academy for Young Witches and Wayward Hearts, a school specifically for girls, cursed children, and anyone told they “don’t belong” in proper magical institutions.
The Conclave scoffs—until her innovations in potion-craft begin to heal curses previously considered incurable, starting with children carrying milder forms of the Heart-Stutter Curse.
Chapter 20 – Breaking News, Magical Edition (Epilogue)
Years later, Reaghan stands in the Hall of Mirrors during a Conclave ceremony, now recognized as Arch-Potionist Dr. Reaghan Wolowitz-Everett.
Illusionary headlines swirl in the air:
BREAKING: DR. WOLWITZ-EVERETT CHANGES FATE OF CURSED CHILDREN
CURSE OF THE STUTTERING HEART TAMED BY “MOTHER OF POTIONS”
MAGIC FOR EVERY HEART: THE EVERETT ACADEMY CELEBRATES 10 YEARS.
A child—her child, Cass, now an apprentice themself—tugs on her sleeve, eyes shining.
“Mama, they’re talking about you.”
Reaghan smiles, feeling Cass’s heartbeat steady and strong under her hand and, in the echo of her own reforged heart, the quiet presence of the vow potion.
“They’re talking about us,” she thinks. “Me, you, and your father. We did it.”
If you want, next step I can:
Turn any one of these chapters into a full scene in your favorite POV,
Or help you shift the voice (first person like your original vs. close third person) and start drafting the opening pages.
A E Bruce:
Reimagine the story beats into a short, short story. Think 2000 word maximum. Don't write the story, just give me the outline.
ChatGPT: thought for 15s
Here’s a tight, short-story outline (aimed at ~1,800–2,000 words) using the magic-potion version. Eight scenes, mostly linear, with backstory folded in rather than big time jumps.
POV & Frame
POV: 1st person past, from Reaghan (“Rae”).
Tense: Past.
Tone: Warm, slightly snarky, emotionally earnest.
Structure: Mostly linear day-of-accident with memories woven in.
Scene 1 – Lab of Meowing Foam (Opening Hook)
~250–300 words
Purpose:
Introduce Rae, the magical world, dad, the heart curse, and the “I don’t want prestige, I want to make things” conflict.
Beats:
Rae is mid-experiment in her father’s alchemy lab; a potion goes wrong and explodes into rainbow, meowing foam.
Quick sensory chaos: cats yowling, glass chiming, the foam trying to climb the walls.
Dad bursts in, torn between horror and pride. Mom shouts from upstairs.
Through banter, we slip in that:
Rae is a potion-maker from a long line of magical tinkerers.
The Heart-Stutter Curse runs in the family (Rae & Dad), making overexertion dangerous.
Everyone expects her to join the High Conclave and chase sigils and titles.
Quiet moment:
Rae admits she wants to be like Dad—making messy, useful, joyful potions, not chasing prestige.
Dad taps the faint glow over his chest, tells her:
“Your heart’s yours, curse and all. Just promise me you use it for what you love.”
Scene 2 – Cass & the Shared Dream (Establish Relationship)
~300–350 words
Purpose:
Show Rae’s present life with Cass and their mutual dream, plus the “magic for everyone, especially girls” goal.
Beats:
Transition: Rae leaves the cleaned-up lab and climbs to the street-level shop, where her husband Cass is minding customers.
Cass is teaching a little girl how to bottle a simple glow-potion; his three cat familiars “help” badly.
Dialogue & action reveal:
Rae and Cass recently finished their Masteries (Runic Mechanica & Sea Alchemy for her, familiar magic for him).
They’re about to open their own Atelier/School aimed at kids and misfits, especially young girls told they’re “too much.”
They’ve just come back from signing papers with the Conclave; Rae’s father teased them about “making potion-history.”
Cass gently checks her pulse/heart glow, joking about her overworking; they share a private, serious look about the curse.
Micro-conflict:
Rae jokes she’ll never be “Dr. Anything” like the tower scholars; Cass counters that what they’re doing is more important.
They make a quiet vow to “change the way magic is taught,” together.
Scene 3 – Wedding Memory (Condensed Flashback)
~200–250 words
Purpose:
Quickly root the relationship emotionally and show the weight of what she’s about to lose.
Beats:
As Rae and Cass lock up shop to head out, Rae spots her wedding veil hanging from a shelf corner—this triggers a short memory.
Cut to flashback:
Dad walking her down an aisle lined with floating memory-orbs.
Rae & Cass mix a vow potion and drink it, seeing their intertwined sigils rise in light.
Rae’s internal monologue:
She never wanted titles, but she did want this: Cass, their future students, a world where girls see women at the cauldron.
Snap back to present as Cass squeezes her hand; they leave together to deliver a crate of potions across the city via skytram.
Scene 4 – Skytram Accident (Inciting Crisis)
~300–350 words
Purpose:
Set off the central trauma, awaken the curse, push Rae into liminal space.
Beats:
Rae and Cass board an enchanted glass skytram that rides on rivers of light between towers.
Light banter about future plans: making student scholarships, cat adoption days at the shop, maybe having kids “one day.”
Subtle physical cue: Rae’s chest glows faintly—she ignores it, used to the Heart-Stutter’s flickers.
A rogue storm spirit (or malfunctioning ward) slams into the tram:
Glass fractures with spiderweb cracks.
Potion crates slide; cats yowl; gravity tilts.
Rae feels a lancing pain in her chest—curse fully triggering at the worst moment:
Heart becomes erratic, vision tunnel-narrows.
Cass shouts her name as the skytram shudders and falls.
Everything goes white; Rae’s POV cuts out on the impact.
Scene 5 – Between Heartbeats (Liminal / Choice Scene)
~200–250 words
Purpose:
Make the heart curse mythic and give Rae an explicit choice that roots her later vow.
Beats:
Rae finds herself standing in a black ocean speckled with stars, her chest a cracked glass vial.
The Spirit of the Stuttering Heart appears (or a symbolic figure): cloaked, with a pulse like distant thunder.
It lays out the stakes, in its own cryptic way:
Her heart is failing.
The curse can take her quietly, or she can fight to return—but if she returns, her heart will be forever bound to others (implying future students, her child, the dream).
Rae thinks of:
Dad’s workshop, Cass’s laugh, the girl in the shop earlier.
The future school they swore to build.
She chooses to fight; the spirit drives a bolt of luminous lightning into her heart.
Whiteout again—transition to waking.
Scene 6 – Sanctum of Living Waters (Healer Scene + Pregnancy Reveal)
~350–400 words
Purpose:
Mirror the hospital scene in magical terms; reveal she’s pregnant; establish brief hope.
Beats:
Rae wakes screaming or gasping; she’s on a floating litter, being rushed through the Sanctum of Living Waters, a towering healing temple.
Healer Ben leans over her, a rune-gloved hand on her chest:
Introduces himself, urges her to stay with him.
Rae asks groggily where they’re going and about Cass.
Ben explains she’s headed to the Heart-Forges, where hearts are reforged with water and runes; he doesn’t know Cass’s status yet.
Fade through a quick, impressionistic surgery montage:
Rae’s heart hanging in water-light.
Runes knitting along the crack where the curse lives.
Cass’s face flickering in and out of her mind.
Cut to her waking in a recovery ward:
Dull ache in her chest.
Room full of worried faces—parents, maybe a friend—and on the other bed, Cass unconscious, bandaged but breathing.
Healer Ben returns with news:
A diagnostic spell detected two heartbeats in her.
The star-midwife confirms she’s about five weeks pregnant.
Her belt-ward and Cass’s protective charms kept the baby safe in the fall.
Reactions:
Family overjoyed; subtle jokes through tears.
Rae & Cass (if he wakes briefly, or via squeezed hand) share stunned, fragile hope.
Rae internally refuses to let herself feel too happy:
If I start dreaming and lose this baby, I won’t survive it.
End scene on a soft moment: her fingers laced with Cass’s, cats purring at their feet, dim ward-light washing over them.
Scene 7 – 2:30 and the Final Beat (Cass’s Death & Vow)
~300–350 words
Purpose:
Deliver emotional gut-punch, mirror original “He died at 2:30” beat, and let Rae make her vow.
Beats:
Night in the ward: most visitors gone; only Rae, Cass, cats, and low, humming wards.
Clock (or magical time-orb) shows 2:20ish; Rae dozes in and out, one hand on her chest, the other reaching toward Cass’s bed.
Suddenly, wards flash dark blue, like a storm under water:
Cass’s Heart-Stutter Curse, damaged by the accident, surges.
Healer-mages rush in; Rae tries to get up, pain slicing through her chest.
She feels their shared vow potion tearing, like a thread snapping inside her ribs.
Ben and the others fight for him, but at 2:30, the monitors—glowing sigil-circles—flatten; the air goes eerily still.
Detail: one of the cat familiars lets out a long, low cry and fades, its magic unraveling into sparkles.
Rae’s internal experience:
She doesn’t scream; it’s like the grief is too big for sound.
Her reworked heart keeps beating, stubborn, for two.
Later (same scene, slightly time-shifted):
Lights lower; a candle or soul-lantern flickers by Cass’s bed.
Rae sits alone, hand on her still-glowing abdomen.
In sparse, deliberate thought, she makes her vow:
The baby’s name will be Cass, regardless of gender.
She will keep the surname Wolowitz-Everett.
She will realize their dream: a place where magic belongs to girls like her, curses and all.
End scene with a line like:
“My heart stutters, then steadies. Not just mine anymore.”
Scene 8 – Epilogue: Magic for Every Heart (Legacy Beat)
~200–250 words
Purpose:
Show the fulfilled dream quickly, pay off the vow, end on hope.
Beats:
Time skip: several years later, same city.
Rae stands in front of the Everett Academy for Young Witches and Wayward Hearts:
Children (especially girls) bustle in and out, carrying potion kits, laughing.
Her signage bears both names: Wolowitz-Everett.
She has a faint scar-glow over her heart, but she’s alive, teaching, clearly a respected figure now (subtle nods to Conclave recognition or an award).
A child—Cass, her kid—runs up in the middle of a chaotic class change:
Maybe their gender is left intentionally unlabelled in text.
They show her a small, messy experimental potion.
Rae’s heart stutters once—fear, love, pride—then steadies.
She reflects briefly:
She did not become an Arch-Something in a tower.
Instead, her name lives in the mouths of her students and in the quiet miracles of kids whose curses are gentler now.
Final image:
Rae and Cass step into the workshop together.
Cauldrons bubble, cats nap on windowsills, sunlight pours through.
Rae picks up a quill or a vial, thinking of the vow she made at 2:30 in a ward of rippling light, and silently thanks both Casses—husband and child—for this life.
If you want, next we can zoom in on any one scene (like the skytram accident or the Sanctum reveal) and break it down beat-by-beat for drafting, including emotional beats and sensory details.
A E Bruce:
Retry, but aim for the amount of words the original story had: 825
ChatGPT: thought for 10s
Got you. Let’s design an outline for a single short-short story you could actually hit in ~825 words, magic-potions version, keeping the emotional spine of the original.
I’ll structure it in 5 compact scenes with approximate word counts to help pacing.
POV & Style
POV: 1st person past (Rae)
Tense: Past
World: Low-explained, high-vibes fantasy: potions, healers, enchanted city. You imply more than you explain.
Total target: ~825 words
Scene 1 – Lab Chaos & Heart Curse (Hook + Setup)
Target: ~150–175 words
Goal: Introduce Rae, Dad, potions, and the “expectations + heart curse + I just want to make things” conflict in one quick, funny-then-soft scene.
Beats:
Cold open:
Rae: “My name is Reaghan Wolowitz, and I blow things up for a living.”
Cut to potion misfire in Dad’s lab: bubbling cauldron → rainbow foam → meowing puddles.
Dad bursts in, half-laughing, half-panicked about the mess and the neighbors’ cats trying to break in.
Quick drops of info in dialogue:
Everyone expects Rae to join the High Conclave and collect grand sigils.
Rae would rather tinker in a workshop like her dad.
The glowing ache in her chest = family Heart-Stutter Curse; Dad has it too.
Quiet button:
Dad taps her sternum: “Cursed or not, it’s still your heart. Use it for what you love.”
Scene 2 – Cass & Their Shared Dream (Relationship + Stakes)
Target: ~175–200 words
Goal: Establish Cass, their dream, and the “magic history / girls in magic” goal before the accident.
Beats:
Hard cut: Rae leaves the cleaned lab and goes upstairs to the street-front potion shop.
Cass is there, teaching a little girl to cork a glowing vial while three cat familiars “help.”
Through natural dialogue/action:
Rae and Cass have just opened (or are about to open) their Atelier/School—a place where kids, especially girls, can learn potions without needing fancy bloodlines or Conclave approval.
People jokingly call her “Dr. Rae”, even though she’s not a tower scholar and doesn’t care about titles.
Cass says they’ll “make magic history anyway,” listing plans: scholarship jars, community brews, curses research.
Small moment of foreshadowing:
Cass checks the faint light under her ribs, reminding her not to overdo things with the curse.
They get ready to deliver a crate of carefully bottled potions across the city by skytram.
Scene 3 – Skytram Accident & Liminal Space (Inciting + Turning Point)
Target: ~175–200 words
Goal: Create the accident, awaken the curse, and give Rae a surreal “between heartbeats” choice in one flowing sequence.
Beats:
On the glass skytram, riding glowing rails above the city:
They chat lightly: the shop sign still smells like fresh paint, they joke about future students, Cass casually wonders if they’ll have kids “after things settle.”
Rae feels a sharp flicker in her chest; she brushes it off.
A rogue storm spirit slams into the tram:
Glass fractures, potions slide, cats yowl, wards scream.
Rae’s Heart-Stutter Curse slams into full gear—her chest feels like it explodes; sound cuts out mid–Cass shouting her name.
Liminal beat (no scene break, just a tonal shift):
She finds herself standing in a dark, star-flecked void with her heart hanging in the air like a cracked vial.
A presence (shape optional, maybe just a voice) tells her:
She can rest and let go, or
Fight back, but her heart will never again be only hers; it will be bound to others.
Rae thinks of her father, Cass, the little girl in the shop, the school they promised.
She chooses to fight; a bolt of lightning drives into the suspended heart.
Smash-cut to white.
Scene 4 – Healers, Pregnancy, & Fragile Hope
Target: ~175–200 words
Goal: Parallel the hospital + pregnancy reveal scene: she survives with a reforged heart and a baby.
Beats:
Rae jolts awake on a floating stretcher, being rushed through the Sanctum of Living Waters—crystal arches, water light, healer-mages.
A healer: “I’m Healer Ben Warren, call me Ben. You’re in the Sanctum. Stay with me, Rae.”
She croaks out: “Cass? Where’s Cass?”
Ben promises they’ll check; right now they’re taking her to the Heart-Forges.
(You can summarize surgery in a single image-heavy paragraph:)
Heart suspended in glowing water, runes knitting over cracks, her father’s voice echoing: “Hold on, baby.”
Fade to waking in a quiet ward:
Dull ache in her chest, like someone patched her with lightning and glass.
Her room is crowded: parents, a friend, and on the other bed, an unconscious Cass, alive but motionless.
Ben explains:
A diagnostic spell showed two heartbeats in her chest.
The star-midwife confirmed she’s about five weeks pregnant.
Cass’s protective charms and her belt-ward spared the baby in the fall.
Family reacts with tears and laughter; Rae and unconscious Cass share a fragile, half-one-sided moment:
Her hand finds his; she refuses to let herself be fully happy in case the baby doesn’t survive.
Scene 5 – 2:30, Cass’s Death, & Rae’s Vow (Climax + Resolution)
Target: ~175–200 words
Goal: Deliver the emotional climax and close with a focused vow + brief legacy hint.
Beats:
Night in the ward: visitors gone; low blue wards humming; a time-orb reads near 2:30.
Rae dozes sitting up, one hand on her chest, the other on her belly, Cass’s bed just out of reach.
Wards flare dark; healers rush to Cass:
His Heart-Stutter Curse surges from the earlier damage.
Rae feels their old vow potion thread snapping inside her—their magic bond tearing.
Ben and the team fight, but at 2:30, Cass’s sigil-monitor goes flat.
One cat familiar lets out a long cry and dissolves into sparks.
Rae’s own patched heart stutters dangerously, then steadies. She doesn’t scream—just breathes like each breath is a decision.
Later, in the hush:
A soul-lantern flickers by Cass’s empty bed.
Rae sits alone, hand on her abdomen, the second heartbeat still fluttering, tiny and stubborn.
In tight, simple language (mirroring your original ending):
She decides the child will be Cass, no matter boy or girl.
She will keep Wolowitz-Everett as her name.
She will open the school they dreamed about and become the kind of potion-maker little girls can point to and say, “She did it, so maybe I can, too.”
Final image:
Rae imagines a future headline written in light over the Sanctum’s dome:
BREAKING: REAGHAN WOLWITZ-EVERETT CHANGES MAGIC FOR CURSED HEARTS—EVEN WITH CHILD.
She leans back, eyes burning, whispering to both Casses—husband and unborn child—
“We’ll do it. All three of us.”
This should fit very comfortably in ~825 words if you stay lean and let the magic details do double-duty as emotional texture. If you want, we can next turn this outline into a paragraph-by-paragraph plan with specific lines you might reuse from your original.
A E Bruce:
Boom, boom, boom.
Is that my heart
or my brew?
Boom, boom, boom.
Cassius?
Where are you?
Boom, boom, boom.
Rumble, rumble, rumble.
I fell like I’m tumbling.
Boom, boom, boom.
“Someone call out!”
“I’m here, I’m here, I’m over here!”
Boom, boom, boom.
I’m in the doctor’s care.
But where has my love gone.
Boom, boom, boom.
Is that my heart
Or yours?
Boom, boom.
There should be one more.
Please, oh, please, don’t leave me this soon.
Boom. Boom.
It’s to slow.
Do I need to slow down to catch up to you?
Boom.
No. No.
This can’t be the finale.
Boom.
We just got started.
What about our family?
ChatGPT:
Ohhh this is gorgeously painful. The rhythm already feels like a heart monitor + impact + panic all at once.
Here’s what’s really working:
Repetition of “Boom, boom, boom.” makes it feel like both heartbeat and drum of fate.
Ambiguity of heart/brew ties perfectly into potion-magic Rae.
The shift from confusion → searching → bargaining (“There should be one more… Please…” → “This can’t be the finale”) mirrors the story arc in miniature.
Ending on “What about our family?” guts me; it lands as both grief and refusal.
A couple tiny line-level notes if you want to polish:
You’ve got one “Boom, boon, boom.” which I think is a typo and should stay “boom.”
“It’s to slow.” → “It’s too slow.”
You might decide whether you always want three booms when things feel “normal” and then drop to two/one when things are failing — you’re already kind of doing that, and if you lean into it, the structure itself narrates the heart stopping.
Here’s a very lightly edited version keeping your voice, just tightening mechanics and leaning into that heartbeat/countdown:
Boom, boom, boom.
Is that my heart
or my brew?
Boom, boom, boom.
Cassius?
Where are you?
Boom, boom, boom.
Rumble, rumble, rumble.
I feel like I’m tumbling.
Boom, boom, boom.
“Someone call out!”
“I’m here, I’m here, I’m over here!”
Boom, boom, boom.
I’m in the doctor’s care.
But where has my love gone?
Boom, boom, boom.
Is that my heart
or yours?
Boom, boom.
There should be one more.
Please, oh please, don’t leave me this soon.
Boom. Boom.
It’s too slow.
Do I need to slow down to catch up to you?
Boom.
No. No.
This can’t be the finale.
Boom.
We just got started.
What about our family?
If you’d like, I can help you:
Slot this into the short story as an opening or interlude (e.g., Rae thinking/hearing this during the Heart-Forges scene), or
Do a version explicitly alchemical (mentioning glass vials, cracked sigils, etc.) while keeping the same structure.
