What happened?

[The Seamstress]

Apologies if something similar already exists and I just haven't found it, but I've been thinking about a forum game based on a question I'd asked a while ago in the "Stupid questions" thread. Basically, you make up scenario A and scenario B, and the next person is supposed to come up with a story of what happened inbetween.

Example:
A: An old house is haunted by the ghost of a badger, and three teenagers go investigate.
B: The next morning, the house is no longer haunted, but one of the teenagers behaves strangely.
What happened?
They tried an exorcism, it went wrong and the badger ghost possessed the teenager, unbeknownst to everyone, and is now plotting revenge.

I think it could be a "train your imagination / writing" sort of game - I know it helps to get my creativity going when there's prompts & silliness like this. And it's also funny (I hope). Your answer can be short or long, wildly absurd or realistic, anything goes!


So I'll start:

On a rainy day, Fred the Forager heads into the woods. He promised the local innkeeper, Irving, to bring some mushrooms and fruit, a rather urgent request as there are a lot of people coming into the inn because of the rain, and they need to be fed. So Fred starts foraging.

Four hours later, Fred still hasn't returned to the inn, and Irving, now concerned, sends two of his friends to go look for the forager. They follow Fred's path but only find his (empty) basket, his (meticulously clean) shoes, and some (unidentifiable) pink goo on the ground; Fred is nowhere to be seen. What happened?

[Jubal]

Oou I like this

Fred was, unbeknownst to everyone including himself, actually a gurfloup, a shapeshifting creature. He didn't realise this because, having grown up in the woods as a forager, he didn't realise that humans in general didn't form themselves out of pink goo and he'd always been too polite to enquire whether his own condition was normal. A thing he also didn't know was that once his body had taken in a certain amount of sugar, he would have to turn back into goo form whereupon he would eventually split into two new gurfloups - at least, so long as a meddling innkeeper didn't interfere too much with the proces...


Wessermin, Ambassador of Curcurmi, rode on his camel into the citadel of Mandabur. He closed his eyes as he entered through the gates, smelling the wafting fenugreek and rose-petal fragrances in the first hallways. His goal was to negotiate a new well-building project along Cucurmi's upper river valleys, and he was sure that Mandabur would be willing to provide labour and engineers if a price could be found.

It is forty days and forty nights after that fateful moment. Everything is peacocks now. The people are peacocks. The houses are made of peacock feathers. The sky is the colour of peacock feathers. Even the river seems to strut across the landscape with the arrogance and sharpness of a peacock. What happened?

[The Seamstress]

The moment Wessermin and Mandabur had agreed on the proceedings for the well-building, a messenger arrived, breathless, at Mandabur's doorstep. "Lord Mandabur!", he cried, "forgive me, but the High Priest wishes to speak to you in a very grave and urgent matter!" Mandabur scowled. "What is it this time, blue turnips singing the Empire's anthem? Never mind..." Sighing, Mandabur turned to Wessermin. "Excuse me, dear Wessermin, but it is my duty to--" "MEEEEAAAAY! MEEEEAAAAY!!" A sudden call echoed through the halls. "What in the..." But Wessermin should never finish his sentence. With a loud crash, the wooden ceiling collapsed, and dozens upon dozens of peacocks came through it, causing bluegreen-feathered mayhem, sending everyone present into a panicked frenzy. Mandabur tried to fight them off, but they were too fast, and too many, and he was submerged before he knew it. When everything had calmed down again, there were three more birds in the room: Wessermin, Mandabur and the unfortunate messenger had all been transformed into peacocks. What none of them was aware of: The High Priest, who liked to dabble in the Dark Arts of Peacockism despite having no idea how they actually worked, had accidentally summoned Pfaunidor, Archdaemon of Arrogant Feathered Doom, who immediately began to turn everyone and everything into peacocks. Like vampires, the newly-transformed peacocks were possessed by the urge to bite others, and everything their feathers touched turned into feathers, too. It took forty days and forty nights to transform every last atom of normalcy into peacocks. Everything is peacocks now. There's no going back.


Glob and his sister Glubber play outside their house in the City of Grand Gart, when suddenly a deafening rumble shakes the ground, knocking them off their feet. An earthquake, nothing special in these lands, so they get up and resume playing, and soon they head inside for dinner time.

When they go inside, their house is empty. Not empty as in "no one's there" but empty as in "everything's gone including furniture, walls, etc." There's just Yawning Nothingness. What happened?

[Jubal]

The deafening rumble was in fact not an earthquake, for this would be to imply that it came from the earth. Instead it was in fact nothingness, yawning. Stretching itself into existence in order to breathe out, the Nothingness in fact sought out the most vapidly nothing thing it could as the space for its yawn.

Unfortunately for Glob and Glubber's father, who was looking for recipes to make for dinner, the single most vapid thing in existence was a terrible recipe blog he was reading that had started going on a ChatGPT-built ramble about how the author's friend had gone to Louisiana which had inspired her to look for something new in Whole Foods whereupon she'd found a specific and simply delightful brand of museli which had you get the picture.

And so the most information-free text in existence was the anchor point for the Void, and so the Yawning Nothingness entered our world.


Two cats walk into a building, having climbed a tree and gone through an upstairs window which it had grown up next to.

Not long later, the cats leave via the front door with a small duck following them and a frog riding on one of the cats' backs. What Happened?

[The Seamstress]

The cats are actually secret agents, on a mission to free a VIP diplomat abducted by The Sinister Syndicate, a political organisation aiming to just be the most malicious group of individuals ever. The building the cats are climbing into is the headquarters of said Syndicate. After sneaking in, they immediately begin their search for the diplomat, and because they've got insider information from a spy, they find him locked up in the basement - it is the frog, who is going to play an important role in peace negotiations between Cat-alone-ia and Frog Land, which the Syndicate tried to sabotage. The cats also meet their spy, the duck, and together, they proceed to secretly plant Nasty Stink Bombs all over the building. Protected from The Nasty Stink by masks, the four protagonists then activate The Nasty Stink Bombs, and in the ensuing confusion manage to walk out the front door and escape unscathed.


It is midnight, and in rural Bepdabor that means it's really, really dark. Everyone's asleep except a man who walks silently down the street. He's carrying a bag, and the bag squirms. Still he trudges on, gripping the bag tightly, and finally knocks on the back door of a grand looking house.

Three days later, the man is found stumbling through a field, muttering incoherently and obviously having lost his mind. He's wearing nothing but breeches and a hat, and keeps repeating one word no one can make sense of: "Hrghlahoo". What happened?

[Jubal]

The man was actually transferring a reclusive household spirit back to its home: it had to be kept in a bag for its own safety as, used to living in a residence, it would try and spread out over the whole world if allowed out while outside. Unfortunately for the man, his good deed did not prevent him from being mind-wiped by the spirit once he had done his duty, as the risk of him then telling the world would have been too great. And that's an imprecise process. He'll be fine, eventually. Probably.


A horse-cart fell off the kerb and the wheel broke: the cart's contents spilled, leading to a windfall of apples for the local urchins to eat, which they promptly did.

Four days later, the same cart drove off the same kerb, breaking the same wheel and, perhaps most curiously, spilling exactly the same load of apples. What happened?

[The Seamstress]

The urchins happened to know the horse-cart's driver, a certain Mr. Applebottom, who was extraordinarily good-natured and always friendly towards them. On the fateful day, Mr. Applebottom transported apples from the orchard a few miles away to a grand mansion at the other end of the city, passing through the street the urchins called home. Mr. Applebottom knew what the apples were for: feed the ridiculously expensive racehorses of the ridiculously filthy rich guy who lived in the mansion, despite them having enough other stuff to eat. Mr. Applebottom, a proud communist, despised the guy, but dutifully went on his way. Then he had the little accident - apples spilling and all. That gave him an idea. From now on, he'd pretend to - whooops! - break a wheel - very sorry, sir, but it's no one's fault, you see - and so delivered the apples to the urchins instead of the spoilt horses. The rich guy wasn't very smart, so he didn't make the connections and just believed in exceptionally bad luck. Happy end.


An old witch called Granny Smith lives in a little cottage on a hill, and she's known far and wide for making the best apple pies and herbal remedies. Everyone likes her and her pies, and agrees that she would never harm a fly. One day Granny Smith tells her nearest neighbours, a farmer and his husband, that she'd go visit her aunt in Scotland, and the next morning, she is seen walking to the train station carrying a suitcase.

That same evening, Bernard the Brewer walks out of the pub and heads home. He happens to pass by the farm and Granny Smith's cottage. There's a light in the latter's window, and Bernard thinks it strange because Granny is away. He shrugs though and just walks on. Next morning, the farmer's husband has disappeared. What happened?

[Jubal]

The farmer's husband had a party with the faeries who live in Granny Smith's house and help make her herbal remedies, and has been spirited away to fae realms beyond!


In the Bureau of Executive Affairs, not a piece of paper is out of place. Ever. There are rules, you know.

On Tuesday 26th June, a pencil is found on the wrong person's desk. A door has not quite been closed properly. One piece of paper, somewhere, has been misfiled. What happened?

[The Seamstress]

On Monday 25th June, after everyone had gone home, a small cabinet opened with a little creak, and out tumbled an even smaller man, with a wild and determined expression on his small face. He'd sneaked into the cabinet a few hours earlier, after he'd said his good-byes to his coworkers and pretended to call it a day. His name was Pedant McStuffy and he'd worked at the Bureau since forever. But when a new colleague named Sam Standoffish had started a job at McStuffy's department, he'd been really upset. The new colleague was perfect, even more pedantic and orderly than McStuffy and every other rule-abiding worker ever was and ever could be, and McStuffy instantly hated them. So he forged a plan to sabotage their work and ruin their reputation, hoping to get rid of them. And he was so furious that he went to the very extremes. "That'll teach 'em", he snickered, and picked up a pencil from Standoffish's desk, placing it on the one next to it. Then he went to the filing cabinet everyone knew Standoffish had worked with recently, and took out a piece of paper. Though it greatly pained him, he sorted "Shrimp Rehabilitation Programme, The" between "Great Great, The" and "Green-Yellow Striped Frog Driving Licences Approvals". Satisfied with the mayhem he'd caused, McStuffy tiptoed out of the office, not closing the door properly, and sneaking out of the building to go home. The next morning, all hell had broken loose as the reckless vandalism was discovered. Sam Standoffish denied everything, while Pedant McStuffy had a glorious day.


The great steamship Bamboozle is on her voyage from the US to the UK, carrying hundreds of passengers enjoying a very exclusive and expensive cruise. There are soirees every day, and at one of these occasions, a magician is performing his tricks on stage. Wanting to conjure a white rabbit out of a top hat, he gestures dramatically, but no rabbit appears.

Twenty minutes later, the Bamboozle's captain is forced at gunpoint to turn the ship around and head back to the US. What happened?

[Jubal]

The Bamboozle's captain has of course been held up by the rabbit, who escaped the top hat, stole a gun and hijacked the ship to get back to her lover in the upland grasslands of the midwest. They will thereafter be known by their famed outlaw names... of Bunny and Clyde.


There is a critical situation meeting going on. The world is in peril, and politicians, business leaders, superheroes, generals, scientists, historians, a cleaner called Alberto, and the President of France's three secret lovers are all engaged in working out how to stop the world from ending in the next thirty minutes.

An hour later, nothing appears to have happened at all. There is still a critical situation meeting going on. The world is still in peril, and politicians, business leaders, superheroes, generals, scientists, historians, a cleaner called Alberto, and the President of France's three secret lovers are all still engaged in working out how to stop the world from ending in the next thirty minutes.

What happened?

[The Seamstress]

It turned out that Alberto, disguised as a cleaner, really was Albertus Grandiosus Hubrisius, an alchemist and time traveller from the 16th century, who'd originally just wanted to see what the weather was like on that particular day. Also, from his earlier time travels, he had grown quite fond of fast food, and his craving for hamburgers had led him to the fast food chain restaurant that happened to host the critical situation meeting. He really just stumbled into it, and immediately offered his opinions on everything - but no one wanted to hear them. So he summoned his time travelling powers and stopped the progress of time, freezing everyone except the people in the room, in the hopes to convince the others of his grand world-saving plan. Though what he has planned we'll never know, because he accidentally created a time loop from which no one will ever escape, and they will be stuck there forever and ever and ever, in an endless and doomed meeting that could have been an e-mail.


Lady Irmengard of Inventedtitle is betrothed to Sir Luke of Llolloll, loyal to the king and heir of a massive fortune. But she has a secret: She is not human, but rather an entity of sinister origins. Despite the sinister origins though, she has principles.

Three days later, everyone is dead. What happened?

[Jubal]

Lady Irminegard knew that she could only legally marry Sir Luke if she were a human. However, this wasn't really possible due to the entity of sinister origins thing. Entities of sinister origin don't really have marriage rules, and turning Sir Luke into one of those was unlikely too. However, she realised there was an alternative: ghosts, unlike sinister entities or people, were pretty much the same regardless as long as they had souls to form them. So overnight while all were asleep, she turned the entire kingdom including herself into a dead realm of ghosts, so she could marry her betrothed and be with him forever.

Sir Luke was initially rather put off the romance by the whole killing for love bit, but he eventually came around to the idea when it was pointed out to him that this meant his beloved king could rule the realm forever and his beloved dog would never leave his side and so on and so forth. Thus three days later everyone was dead and ready to live chillingly ever after.


There was a great craftsman, Arbarderia of the Chelons, who made great metal statues of all the beasts of the world, and declared loudly that they would stand until the seas ran dry and the rocks melted in the sun. Her craftsmanship was so great that there was no earthquake, volcano, flood or storm that would budge any of her creations, nor any human strong enough to break them.

A thousand years have passed since that day. The rocks are cold and quiet, and the sea still beats on the shore. Yet of all the works of Arbarderia, only a small iron statue of a tortoise remains. It stands watching over a waterfall, utterly unchanged by the passing years, and none now living know from whence it came. What happened?

[The Seamstress]

Well, turns out that the people weren't as happy about Arbarderia's statues as she had thought, deeming them ugly and kitschy. Since the statues were made of strong materials and quite heavy, they weren't easy to remove. So a cycle of rituals began, and continued long after Arbarderia herself was long gone, as generations of humans prayed to The Obscure God of Obnoxiousness in the hopes he might hear them and help them get rid of at least the most kitschy statues, such as the 4 metre tall dolphin blocking the view at Lowtvade Beach. (Even the tourists hated it.) It took two hundred and thirty years until The Obscure God of Obnoxiousness finally woke from a nap in front of his TV (just resting his eyes, he was) and realised he was being prayed to. Because he had nothing else to do, he listened, took one look at the statues, and vaporised them with a snap of his fingers. Only one small turtle was left, because he thought it not that terrible and it reminded him of a childhood beach holiday. The people were happy, and seven hundred years later, no one remembered any of it - records were lost during the Shrimp Uprising of 7055, and no one really cared, honestly.


A wise hermit once said "Eat the cake while it is fresh on your plate, or starve watching it go bad", but people in her day would not listen to her warnings and prophecies. She then just retreated to a temple in the mountains with a lot of cake, and abandoned them to their ignorant fate.

Now look at the state of the world. What happened?