Psychological Thrillers Writing Prompts

"This is an Emergency Alert. Barricade all entries to your house. Do not go outside after sundown. Restrict contact with others. Do not enter tunnels during daytime. Do not make any light or noise between 6PM and 8AM. Stay inside your homes until dawn. Military aid is unavailable. Good luck."

For the last 10 years you've used your time machine to steal from your future self; today is the day your past self shows up for the first time to steal from you.

Years ago, you accidently helped a mob boss change a flat while transporting a corpse, being promised a "Favour" in return. Now, desperate, you seek them out to cash in your favour.

A cruel prank by your bullies leaves you separated from the rest of the class. Instead of finding your way back, you decide to "go missing" and let the consequences catch up to them.

Your son is extremely friendly, and he’s befriended a man he encounters on his walk to school every week. Well, it turns out that this man is the head of a mafia crime family, and now he’s turned up at your front door, backed up by two of his ‘friends’, requesting to be your son’s godfather.

You partner in crime has pulled a gun on you. "The truth is, the game was rigged from the start." You know that very well, mostly because you did all the rigging.

Your "spouse" of 20 years has just confessed to having an affair, but they don't know your secret catchphrase. You suspect whoever or whatever is in front of you is not your spouse.

Through some mysterious means, everyone began to die on their birthdays. Slowly the worlds population dwindled, until December 31st finally hit. It’s been 3 years, and you’re running out of time to find a solution before February 29th comes.

It’s been 125 years since you were given $1 million and immortality in exchange for being hunted down by a super-intelligent snail with a fatal touch. Everyone you knew at the time have since passed. You are tired of running. The thing is, in the past 125 years, you haven’t seen the snail once.

You wake up with several messages on your phone, all of them from your friends and family telling you some variation of "TURN ON YOUR TV NOW". On your way to your living room to turn on the TV, you see something out of the window: dozens of camera crews standing outside your home.

Anonymous "Hero" donates human kidneys, blood, eyeballs, and various organs to the hospital every week. The number now tallying in the hundreds. Doctors and news outlets are wondering where they acquire them from and whether it is ethical to use them. Surprisingly, its not a serial killer.

You’ve been regularly clocking into work all these years, afraid that leaving the mob means that they would silence you like in the movies. On the other side, every member of the mob fears the member who has lived through eight different leaders.

You, a fake clone, are stuck in the classic “Shoot one, let one live” situation. To your horror, the person with the gun outsmarts you and uncovers that you were fake all along. Just as you brace yourself for the bullet, they point their gun towards the real person and pulls the trigger.

You receive an emergency alert on your phone telling you that a nuclear device will be detonated in your area within the next 10 minutes. 11 minutes later you get another alert saying "This test of the Emergency Alert System has been sponsored by Oppenheimer, in theaters July 21st."

You’re a mind reader, but your whole life everything has sounded like gibberish because of how random people’s misconstrued thoughts are, until one day all the voices shut off and you hear one very clearly say “run”

You run a quaint deli that's beloved by the Italian mob. The NYPD have also become frequent patrons. Neither want to start a confrontation in your shop.

You have a soft-spoken, mild-mannered friend who would never hurt a fly. One day, you accidentally overheard them talking over their phone in a cold, apathetic voice, "I don't care how you do it. If you don't return the money by tomorrow, you can say goodbye to your family."

The young heir to the throne gets kidnapped. They're gagged, blindfolded and tied to a chair in a basement. They're not even nervous, on the contrary they're curious and intrigued by the situation.

When you found a Dark web chat room full of murderers and other horrible people lamenting ‘the ones that got away’ or detailed current plans and stalkings, you were horrified to find a series of posts from someone stalking… YOU. And you don’t very much like their plans for you…

“You are the most evil villain in the world. But you have no powers. How do you do it?” The reporter asks bound to a chair.

"You did it! It works!" They cheered. Meanwhile, you're terrified, you fudged the numbers. It shouldn't have worked.

As the eldest child of a wealthy family, it wasn't a surprise that you'd get kidnapped. The surprise was that your parents didn't pay or even acknowledge that you're missing. Taking pity on you, the bandit gang decides to take you in and raise you as one of their own.

"Dad, I made a new friend and I met her dad! He wants to invite you for dinner!" You choked on your coffee. Your son making a new friend on his first day of school is great. Realizing that said friend is the daughter of the Mafia don who now wants to meet with you is downright terrifying.

Your family was killed in the chaos of magical girl combat. "Collateral damage", the government said, "Acceptable losses". Well, now you have the tools to get your revenge.

"We repeat: stay in your homes at all costs, all other advice is compromised and not to be trusted", the message on your screen concludes. "We repeat: head to the designated evacuation spots immediately, all other advice is compromised and not to be trusted" the message on your phone concludes.

They stared in horror at the black stain that had once been their fellow henchmen. "Boss, why'd you kill him!?" The man in the black cloak pointed at the terrified kids in the corner, "THAT is why. I said to find new henchman prospects! But we do NOT involve children!"

–"They threatened to hurt you." –"So you killed them all?!" –"Of course not, don't be absurd. I left one alive to tell the tale of what happened to the others."

"Done. Where's my $20?" "I...I didn't think you'd actually do it!" "You underestimate how much I needed that $20. Now pay up."

"Uh, guys... some hel- mmmph!" Her call for help was suddenly stifled by the mechanical trap, which started working her to her first orgasm of many. Realizing what to expect if the others didn't notice her, she desperately tried to find a way to draw their attention before the machine broke her.

You are cursed. Once a month, your vision flashes red, and you must tag the person you are currently looking at within 24 hours, or all humanity ends. One day, while watching a video about the President, your vision flashes red.