The Story is Unknown Source
This part of my portfolio is going to look very different, but, hey, so am I!
For some context, I wrote Unknown Source back in 2020. The core premise revolves around a phantom/ghost that interrogates patients and decides whether they live or d!e.
I wrote 64 sections back in 2020. By 2021, I thought, “that’s not good,” and I put the idea aside. Mainly because I was going through that phase in my life where I thought everything was worthless. I also rushed the ending because I was metaphorically done with the project. You can find the entire document here:
For the past few months, I’ve been trying to retackle this project. I finished my Capstone for my MFA and wanted something to do in the meantime. If you don’t know, I use OpenAI’s ChatGPT to help me with a lot of things, and this new era was no different.
I can’t explain how or why, but I had the idea to do something like a coder. Make the story more sci-fi than paranormal. I started with the basis that I thought talking to men in Alabama’s past who committed violent crimes could be a good angle. I wouldn’t have to come up with the crimes, nor would I have to try and place them all in one central location. I started with one and felt confident, but then I researched the second one and said, “well, this might be more complicated than I thought.” And, well, duh.
Then my second idea hit me. What about a future woman trying to affect the past to make a matriarchal society? I started with the same coding language and made it farther (two this time). But then I realized that the research would also be extremely complicated, even with ChatGPT holding my hand.
I went back to the drawing board and started with the original idea: Disney.
After researching just 1/1000th of the Disney catalog, I figured it was worth checking if the story holds up.
I was ambitious and wrote it in script format.
At a certain point, I went “but what’s the plot?”
The answer is the patients. That was the whole point, but a script forces other characters to be given autonomy.
So, I looked at some other options.
I still didn’t know what I wanted to do. Plus, ChatGPT wasn’t asking the questions of the patients that I was looking for. It’s then that I realized I could just ask it.
I set it up with specific instructions:
I want to do an experiment with you
That sounds fun—what kind of experiment do you have in mind?
I want to have a conversation with you in character. Essentially I’ll ask you questions and you answer however you want with whatever combination of Truthful or Deceitful, Lucid or Delusional, Innocent or Guilty trio you want. You understand?
Yes, I understand. You’ll be asking me questions, and I’ll respond in character, but the responses can shift between those three spectrums:
Truthful ↔ Deceitful
Lucid ↔ Delusional
Innocent ↔ Guilty
And I’ll choose my stance for each answer freely, mixing them however I like.
Do you want me to stay in one consistent persona throughout, or let the voice and tone change depending on the combination I pick?
I’d like the voice to stay consistent (like one character would) but the trio of attributes you choose will inform the voice
Got it. So I’ll create a single consistent character voice—one “person” you’re speaking to—but the way they answer will shift in tone, depending on whether I lean them toward truthful or deceitful, lucid or delusional, innocent or guilty in that moment. The character stays the same, but their shading changes.
Would you like me to sketch a quick outline of this character’s voice first—like their general vibe, background, or mannerisms—or do you want to dive straight into the Q&A and let them reveal themselves as we go?
Let’s see what happens as we go
Perfect. I’ll hold onto a steady voice, but let it bend depending on which edge of the trio I’m walking.
Go ahead—ask your first question.
If you don’t know, ChatGPT has a new feature where you can choose which message to branch off from, so every single time I started a new “interrogation,” I branched off the first conversation directly from this last message.
So that you’re not in the dark as we advance, I went through 101 Dalmatians and the sequel for ideas. Huge thanks to Animation Screencaps.com - Bringing you the very best quality screencaps of all your favorite animated movies: Disney, Pixar, Dreamworks, & so many more!
101 Dalmatians
Roger is a hoarder, Pongo is (family), and is found by the police eating Roger’s body
Pongo kills the five humans in the “dog walking scene” but he doesn’t kill Perdita. Kidnapped, yes, but was held captive until police arrived
Afghan Hound
Pug
Poodle
Cavalier King Charles Spaniel
Yellow Lab
Dalmatian
Pongo as a a stalker of one victim: Anita and Perdita
Pongo and Perdita birth, kidnap, "collect" 101 kids
Cruella is arrest mid sew of her animal coat
x was neglected as a child and went days at a time without food. He turned to eating roadkill and grew up to be a hunter, but he continued to eat raw animal meat. His crime is hunting out of season
A woman obsessed with dots, nothing else but DOTS
Roger and Pongo abusing Patch
I start most of my interviews on another document with the beginning strictly written by me.
I use https://www.behindthename.com/ for all my names
I then start asking the AI questions.
For its answers, I put them in bullet points to differentiate them in my notes.
In this format, the centered text will be the “patient’s” responses.
I did this seven other times. I’m linking the pdf as I’ve done before.
What are you doing in my room? It’s late.
I know, I’m sorry. But I’m here to ask you some questions. Can I confirm your name is Felix Isiah Simonis?
I am he.
I’d like to talk to you about the events that took place on Friday, February 26, 1892. From what I understand, you hadn't heard from a friend, Hale Grosse, for a while, so you went to check on him. Is that correct? And it was that Friday?
Yes… Friday, the twenty-sixth. The gaslight burned thin and blue, and the soot rode the cold like a taste on the tongue.
I had noticed Hale’s silence long before that date, truth be told, but I convinced myself it was nothing—he was prone to brooding, prone to shutting himself in with his papers. Still, that morning, there was a weight in me, like a door half-closed but never latched. So I went.
It was indeed that Friday. The day I wish I’d turned back at the gate.
Is it true that you didn’t expect the hoard accumulated in Mr Grosse’s home? Let alone his body crushed under the weight of it.
I… expected clutter, yes. Hale always stacked his books and curiosities too high, as though daring gravity to betray him. But what I found—no, I could not have imagined it.
The hoard wasn’t a scholar’s untidy collection. It was a suffocating cathedral of objects, towers of crates and furniture, broken mirrors, scraps of iron, and paper—so much paper—that the very walls seemed to bow beneath it.
And there, in the collapsed middle, Hale’s body was pinned like an insect in amber. His face… half serene, half terrified, as though in his final moment he realized the truth of what he’d built around himself.
No, I did not expect that. But part of me wonders if I should have.
Neighbors reported seeing you go inside, but you didn’t leave until nearly a week later. Moments before the fire started. Did you start it?
A week, yes… though to me it felt less like days than like one long, unbroken night.
I did not strike a match, if that’s what you mean. The fire—ah, it bloomed as if the house itself had grown weary of keeping Hale’s secrets. But I will confess this: I cataloged his oddments by habit—labels from patent medicines, brass keys to nothing, a stack of society circulars stained brown at the edges. Paper upon paper, scrawled with words that made less sense the longer I stared.
When the flames rose, I did not fight them. I stood there in the orange glow, watching Hale’s hoard ignite as though it were meant to burn. And when the beams cracked and the smoke grew thick, only then did I step out, carrying nothing with me.
So no—I did not start it. But I did not stop it either. Would you call that guilt or innocence?
Let’s not talk about me. Are you aware that the police noted abnormalities in the bones of your friend? The…teeth marks.
Teeth marks… yes, I’ve heard what they wrote. They brought plaster and calipers, called them ‘impressions,’ said the curves were consistent—such modern confidence over such animal evidence.
They weren’t mine—though I know the suspicion lingers like smoke on my coat. When I found Hale, there was already something strange about him. The skin seemed drawn, as though gnawed away from within. And the marks—well, they didn’t speak of hunger so much as… ritual.
I tried to tell them that. That no man could bite so cleanly, no rat so deliberately. But they looked at me as though I were raving. Perhaps I was. When one stares too long at the devoured, one begins to feel teeth in one’s own flesh.
Tell me—would you believe Hale fed on himself, or that something else was feeding through him?
And yet, dental impressions say differently. In fact, prosecutors say you started the fire in order to cover up such evidence.
Ah… the impressions.
They pressed my teeth against plaster, held up the casts beside Hale’s bones, and smiled with the smug certainty of men who think resemblance is proof. But teeth are treacherous things—shifting, cracking, changing with every year. Hale’s own father’s jaw was ruined in much the same way, yet no one dug him up to compare.
Did I start the fire to cover it? They’d like that story tidy, wouldn’t they? But fires are never neat. That house was a tinderbox long before I arrived. The weight of Hale’s obsession sagged in every rafter, and all it needed was the slightest spark.
Still… if they’ve decided my teeth fit the crime, who am I to protest? A man’s mouth is as damning as his silence.
Would you believe me if I told you I still dream of chewing, even now, though I wake with no memory of eating?
So, why did I do all this?
Well, the answer is quite simple. Organization. But I also wanted to showcase how a story can evolve and change over time.
This has also been an excellent opportunity for me to reflect on my past experiences and consider where I should go next.
As much as twisted Disney tales into horrible things is fun, I think my earlier idea of historical events is the best thing for me. I am a history nerd after all. The only question is, what is the link? I love the sci-fi element, but is coding the best way to show it? Probably not. Then again, if after all of it, the ending line is POWERING OFF like a computer, it could be an interesting change of expectations.
Update: I’ve decided to include the raw interviews I have done with ChatGPT, not only for true transparency, but I find that I’m at the point with this story that nothing I do will feel satisfying enough.
I encourage you to look at the following Google Doc with my three attempts. This thread will stay a part of my portfolio because as much as this story has evaded me, I am proud of every step of this process.