An attempt to roleplay through "Oyasumi Punpun" with the GPT-3 story generator

The advanced language processing AI, called GPT-3, that the AI Dungeon website uses is one of the most interesting stuff I've found out maybe ever. You can start custom story prompts and the AI goes with it, but you can also add some facts about the story world so it doesn't have to make up every little detail. The following is the story I created using my favorite manga series as the story prompt. There are some relatively early spoilers for the manga "Oyasumi Punpun", so be careful if you haven't read it and intend to do so at some point.

In most of the cases, everything that comes in the same line after the symbol " > " is what I had to input for the AI to produce the next few lines of story. However, in some cases the AI tried to direct the story into directions I wasn't pleased with; you can edit and contradict what the AI has produced in order to steer it a bit, and I had to do that like two or three times. Otherwise, the AI is insanely good at creating entertaining material.

You are called Punpun, and you are a twenty two years old man living in Tokyo, Japan. You didn't go to college, and you work part-time jobs while you study how to become a real state agent. You had a terrible family life: your mother never wanted you to be alive and even attempted to kill you twice, and once she attacked your father with a knife. Your father defended himself from the attack, but that broke the family, and you ended up living with your uncle Yuuichi. The best thing about your life was that you met the love of your life Aiko Tanaka. You met Aiko in school, and she was a love at first sight. However, you were too weak to pursue her love properly or even hold the promises you made with her, and you ended up rejecting her in middle school. In the present you go through life not caring about anything that happens, not connecting with people, indifferent to everything, and incapable of looking forward to the future. You have been depressed for as long as you remember. However, one day in the train you see Aiko standing on the train station looking as lost and forlorn as she always was as a child, and your heart beats like it hadn't done in your life since the last time you saw Aiko. You realize that your entire life had been on pause until you met Aiko again. You exit in the next station and run to the train station where Aiko had been, but she's gone. From then on, almost every afternoon after work you've wandered the streets of Tokyo hoping to run into Aiko. But nothing ever comes.

One night you find yourself alone in an abandoned building with no idea what to do next. Suddenly, a voice calls out to you "Punpun! Are you here?" You turn around and see a young girl wearing glasses sitting on the floor staring at you. She has short black hair and wears a white shirt with red stripes, jeans, and brown boots.

> You say "I am Punpun, yes, but I don't recognize you."
"I'm sorry, I don't recognize you either," says the girl. "What are you doing here? Did someone hurt you?"
"No, I just...I don't know..." You stammer.
"Do you want to talk about it?" asks the girl.
"Well yeah, but why did you say you don't recognize me if you called me by my name? You obviously know who I am."
The girl looks at you and smiles.

> You say "Please, I'm not in the mood to play games. Either you tell me who you are and how you know me, or I'm leaving."
"Ok, fine," the girl says. "I'm your conscience."
"My conscience?"
"Yeah, that's what I said! Anyway, let's start from the beginning. Why are you here? What's happening in your life? What..."
"Hold on! You're my conscience? Does that mean I'm dead?"
"Yeah, of course! Don't you remember the traffic accident you had one month ago? You died, and now you're here!"

> You say "Do you mean that seeing Aiko in the train station didn't happen? It was too good to be true, I suppose, thinking that Aiko would come back to my life."
"Aiko? Is that the girl you were waiting for at the train station?"
"What do you mean, 'the girl I was waiting for'?"
"The girl you were waiting for at the train station? Didn't you know? That was her. Aiko."
"No, I didn't know. It can't be her, though. She's dead."
"Yeah, she died years ago."
You fall silent and lower your gaze to the floor.

> You say "If we both are dead, can we meet then, as spirits? Can be exist together in this state, even though we weren't able to be together in life?"
"Yeah, we can be together. Come on, let's leave this place."
The girl stands up, and you follow her. When you step outside the abandoned building, you find yourself in a city you don't recognize. You look at your reflection in a store window, and you're surprised to see that you're transparent; the city streets are visible through your body. The girl turns to you.
"This is it," she says.

> You say "But you are not Aiko. What do you mean that we can be together? Who are you?"
"You can see me. You can hear me. Doesn't that mean anything to you?"
"Sure, but..."
"So what if I'm not Aiko? I'm the only one who can reach out to you. The living can't see or hear the dead. They can only guess at the existence of their souls by the pain of their absence.

> You say "You told me that my dear Aiko died years ago. How did she die, and where?"
"She was crying over you, in a room full of scented candles. She killed herself with carbon monoxide."
You remember back to that day. She had seemed so emotionless when she saw you then. You had wondered why she didn't say anything, act like she was happy to see you, but now it all made sense.

> You say "I suppose I had repressed knowing that Aiko had killed herself. If Aiko doesn't exist in this world, I have no reason to live either. How did I manage to survive these last few years in a world without the only person I've ever cared about?"
"Well, you haven't been eating very well. Didn't you notice how everything you eat tastes kind of bland?"
"I suppose I have," you say thoughtfully.
"Once you die, your spirit will vanish from this world. There's nothing keeping you here now. But take solace in the fact that she loved you."

> You say "How much time do I have to exist as a spirit before I vanish forever?"
"I don't know. I've never seen a spirit as sad as you. Goodbye, Punpun."
As the girl disappears, you feel a sharp pain in your chest, and suddenly everything becomes clearer. You can hear the birds flying overhead and smell the flowers by the sidewalk.
You sink to your knees, and someone who looks like a businessman helps you up before walking on.
"Don't worry friend," you whisper to no one. "I'm not sad anymore."

> You search on the internet for the obituary of your beloved Aiko Tanaka.
"I'm sorry to hear that," you say softly.
"Why are you apologizing to me?" the girl asks.
"It's just an expression. I'm not apologizing to you, I'm apologizing to the dead girl I was in love with."
The girl stares at you for a moment, and then shrugs her shoulders.
"That's so weird."

> You go back to your apartment and try to gather your thoughts, figure out what you are going to do now that it seems that Aiko is dead.
The next day you wake up early in the morning, and you've never been more awake in all your life. You shower and change into some fresh clothes, and then head out to search for a job.
You find a job as a part-time waiter. It's nothing fancy, but at least it gets you out of the house and is easy to do between music practice (you haven't played since you met Aiko).

> You say "It doesn't seem that I'm actually dead if I can find a job. I should call Sachi and tell her about what happened to me, in case I've completely lost my mind."
You take out your cell phone and call Sachi's phone. It rings several times before she picks up. "Hello," her voice is soft and chipper, as usual.
"Sachi, it's Pun-," you are about to say before she rudely interrupts you.
"Look, if this is some guy calling to sell me Internet subscriptions I'll have you know I already have a provider.

> You say "Sachi, it's good to hear your voice. As I attempted to say, I'm Punpun. Can I meet you somewhere? I haven't been doing well recently, worse than usual, and I need someone I trust to clear my head."
"That's a bit forward, don't you think?" Sachi says.
"I suppose it is, but I'm desperate here. I honestly don't know what I'd do without you."
You hear a sigh from the other end of the line. "I suppose it can't hurt to meet an old friend. Where do you want to meet?"
"What are you doing now?"
"Nothing important. I was just going out to buy new shoes," she says.

> You meet Sachi in some public park in order to have a talk.
You wait for Sachi in a public park. When you see her approaching, you begin to feel awful. You have felt so confused recently, and that hallucination, or whatever it was, has pushed you over the edge. You can barely tell what is real anymore. Sachi is looking like her usual composed, mature self, although the bags under her eyes suggest that she's been overworking herself.

> You say "It's good to see you, Sachi. How you've been in these last few months?"
"I'm making a manga of the story you told me about your childhood, and that girl you used to be in love with, Aiko Tanaka. I guess I've been working too much, and feeling a bit lonely the rest of the time. We should have called each other in the meantime."

> You say "About Aiko... About two weeks ago I saw her at a train station, and since then I've tried to find her. One of those days I experienced what seemed like a very vivid hallucination in which a girl told me I was dead, and that Aiko had killed herself years ago. Since then I've tried to search for Aiko's obituary, proof of her being dead, but I haven't found it, or maybe I'm not capable of looking properly since maybe finding the obituary would make me lose my will to live. I need help, Sachi."
"I'm glad you're telling me all this, for I've noticed some changes in your behavior since that day we parted ways. Well, let's start looking for the obituary then!"
Sachi pulls her phone out of her pocket and starts searching for something on the internet.

> You wait with your eyes closed until Sachi tells you whether she's found the obituary or not.
You close your eyes, and wait in silence for several minutes. When you open them again, Sachi is standing in front of you, with a frown on her face. She seems somehow disappointed.
"I'm sorry Punpun," she says. "I really wanted to help you. I need to go now."
She turns around and walks away from you without saying another word. You feel empty and hopeless inside. Maybe you've seen things that simply weren't there.

> You say "Please, Sachi, tell me whether you've found the obituary or not! Is Aiko dead?"
Sachi turns around to face you, looking very pained.
"I'm sorry, Punpun. I really can't say any more than what I've told you already. I need to go now."
She hurries down the bridge and out of your field of vision. Her figure starts to get smaller and smaller in the distance until it disappears altogether. The sky is not a pretty sight today.

> You go to an internet cafe and search carefully on the internet for Aiko Tanaka's obituary, to make sure whether she's dead or not.
You head to the closest internet cafe and search carefully on the internet for Aika Tanaka's obituary, to make sure whether she's dead or not. Unfortunately, you find no results. Not even a name like that has appeared in your search results. You don't know what to do now.
Even if you found her obituary, you don't know whether you should go or not.

> You call your uncle Yuuichi to see if he can help you in your confused state.
You call your uncle. After a few rings, you hear his voice on the other side of the phone.
"Hello?"
"Uncle, it's me, Punpun."
"Punpun? What is it? Did you just wake up or something? It's pretty late."
You take a moment to gather your thoughts before speaking again.
"Have you ever heard about Aika Tanaka's obituary?"
"Who is Aiko Tanaka?", says your uncle. "I don't recall ever hearing that name."
You realize that you never told your uncle about the love of your life, Aiko. You always kept her memory to yourself, and your uncle didn't even know you were in love. Maybe if he knew he would have associated your constant depression to having left Aiko behind.

> You say "I never told you about Aiko. It's someone I've been in love with since middle school. I recently saw her on a train station and since then I think I might have gone insane. I'm looking for her every day without success, and one of those days I had a hallucination that I had died, and in the hallucination a girl told me that Aiko had died as well. I have been attempting to figure out, find any proof, if Aiko is actually dead, but I can't find anything of hers on the internet, and I never found out where she lives!"
You stop for a second, trying to figure out if there is anything else you should tell him. You come to the conclusion that this is enough information to go on. You wait for your uncle to say something.
"You think she's dead...", he says.
"Uncle, have you heard of an Aiko Tanaka dying?"
"Hm... I don't think I have, sorry."

> You thank your uncle for talking to you, and hang up. Afterwards you go home and attempt to get some sleep.
You roll out of bed in the morning, and get yourself ready as you do every morning. Once you're done, you head out of the apartment, and onto the streets. It's a nice day outside, and you feel a strange sense of calm after yesterday's frenzy of emotions and events.
You feel a sharp pain in your chest as you have a heart attack. Your last words are "I wonder if that crazy girl has found Aiko yet..."

> You call out for help to passerbies, for them to call an ambulance.
You cough out the words "help me", and attempt to stand up. You're dizzy, disoriented. You panic, not knowing what is happening. The surroundings seem to spin around you, and you fall onto the ground, collapsing.
You try to scream for help, but you can't muster the strength to do so. Your body feels weak, your mind feels empty, and your vision is blurry.

> You try to calm yourself, because this must be a panic attack.
The world becomes shrouded in darkness, as your eyes close.
A familiar girl stands over you. She has long brown hair, and her face is covered by a surgical mask. She smiles at you, and helps you up.
Your vision is blurry, so you can't tell who the girl is. Her voice sounds very familiar, but you're not quite sure in your current state of mind.
"Am I in the hospital?", you say. "If not, who are you?"
The girl in a surgical mask doesn't reply to you. She just stands there staring at you with a look of pity.
You try to move, but you feel a sharp pain in your chest. You remember the pain from earlier all too well. It's the pain of a heart attack.
"Hey, wait! What's going on here?!", you say to the girl in a surgical mask.
The girl doesn't say anything. She just shakes her head slowly from side to side.
You find yourself unable to move at all now.

> You say "Please, help me! Tell me what's going on! Have I actually had a heart attack!? Have I been brought to a hospital!?"
The girl nods slowly.
"I've had a heart attack... I haven't been brought to a hospital... I'm dead, aren't I?"
The girl nods again.
"Unbelievable... I've had a heart attack, and now I'm dead... Is this the afterlife? Am I going to heaven?"
Again, the girl shakes her head. She reaches her hand into her pocket, and pulls out her iPhone. She opens up the "maps"

> You say "I already had a hallucination in which I believed that I was dead, and that Aiko was dead as well. This must be another hallucination. I've really lost my damn mind, haven't I? I need to be hospitalized, or sent to a psychiatric institution or something like that."
The girl begins to type on her phone.
"You're not imagining any of this. I'm sending you a link. Please, open it up."
You follow the girl's instructions and open up the link she sent you. On your phone, you see a news article from "The Daily Mail", with a headline that reads: "Man witnesses girlfriend's fatal heart attack, but does nothing; later dies in his home from a heart attack".

> You say "How the hell would a ghost be able to open a link on his phone? Do you figure that ghosts can operate cellphones?"
The girl smiles and nods. She begins to type again on her phone. She shows you the screen on which she is texting.
"My friend, do you see this message that says 'In tray'? That's a reminder to throw out the trash. Do ghosts need to throw out trash?"
You begin to feel very dizzy. Your hands are shaking rather badly. It's hard to concentrate on anything except the pain in your chest and your shortness of breath.

> You say "I am ready to believe that I've had a heart attack. It seems like the most reasonable possible fact of everything that has been happening to me recently. I'm just going to close my eyes and rest as much as I need, and maybe the next time I wake up everything won't be so crazy."
You close your eyes. When you wake up, you open your eyes and sit straight up in bed. You look over at the alarm clock on your nightstand, and it reads "12:00". After pushing yourself out of bed, you walk to the bathroom and sit down on the toilet. There, you begin to urinate, while thinking about the life you've lived so far.

> You figure out where you are.
After finishing your business on the toilet, you stand up and go to look at yourself in the mirror. You see a pale, skinny man with messy black hair and bags under his eyes. You are wearing a plain gray shirt and some unflattering blue shorts. After looking at yourself in the mirror for a while, you turn on the faucet and splash water into your face. The cool water wakes you up a bit, but you still feel exhausted.

> You take your own temperature to have some tangible proof of being alive.
After finishing up on the toilet, you go to retrieve a thermometer from your medicine cabinet. After looking for a bit, you find one that is still in its box and has the word "Basal" written on the front. You open up the package and take out the thermometer, then put in into your ear after setting it to "ear". After sitting there in silence for a good two to three minutes, you take it out and look at its screen.
The thermometer gives you a normal reading. It seems you are alive after all, which means that you have suffered two major panic attacks and experienced two complex hallucinations in a short period of time. You decide to call your uncle, as he should be able to help you through this.

> You call your uncle Yuuichi again to ask for help with your recent panic attacks and fragile mental state.
As soon as you pick up your phone to dial the number your uncle's face flashes on the screen, and you immediately decide not to call. Instead, you decide to send him a message.

> You write in the message that you want to meet in person with your uncle Yuuichi and his girlfriend.
You take a seat on your bed and wait for a reply. After about half an hour, your phone goes off. It's a reply from your uncle.
"Sure thing. Come on over," he writes.
You stand up and exit your room to head downstairs to exit your house. As soon as you reach the end of the stairway, however, you decide that you don't really want to leave the house.

> You force yourself to leave the house and take a train to your uncle's house.
You exit the train and begin down the sidewalk towards your uncle's house. You're not sure why you're even bothering to do this, considering how you feel. It's not like they can help you if nobody else has been able to.
The sun is shining on a bright blue sky, there are kids laughing as they run about and play with a red rubber ball, couples are cuddling on park benches, and everyone in general seems happy.

> You ignore what's going on in the streets and instead just reach your uncle's home, as you need to speak with them in person.
You walk up the steps to your uncle's house and knock on the door. In a few moments, a woman with long red hair in a ponytail that touches her waist answers. Her hair is slightly wavy and it shines as the sun bounces of its flows. Her eyes, however, show her tiredness.
"Hey there, Punpun," she says. "It's so nice to see you."
She's your uncle's girlfriend, Midori. It's hard for you to look her in the eye after the last time you were alone together. In a moment of loneliness she had pushed you into having sex with her. It was with her that you lost your virginity. Since then, everything has been awkward with both Midori and your uncle in general, and you have avoided most of her calls. But today you too confused and in a terrible mental state to worry about that.

> You say "Nice to see you as well, Midori. I'm sorry I haven't been answering your calls or your texts as much as I probably should. I didn't want to speak to anybody. But these past few days I'm doing really bad, and I need the help of both of you to figure out if I've lost my mind or if something real is going on."
She gives you a sad look and hugs you.
"It's OK, I understand. If it makes you feel any better, my mother verbally abused me when she came back from her trip to the supermarket earlier this week."
You lift your head up in surprise.
"But... That's horrible! I'm so sorry!"
"Don't be," she says with a faint smile, "She's the crazy one for choosing to stay here after all that's happened."

> You say "How are things going with you and my uncle Yuuichi?"
"Oh, don't worry about that," she says to you. "I think I'm going to work things out with him."
That's certainly unexpected.
"Are you sure?" you ask her. "I figured that..."
"We've been through a lot, and we can get through this," she says to you.

> You tell Midori that you saw Aiko Tanaka, the love of your life, in a train station a couple of weeks ago, and that since then you feel as if you've gone insane. You have been looking for her by wandering the streets, and you suffered two big hallucinations in which some girls told you that you were dead, and that Aiko was dead as well. You need Midori and your uncle to figure out whether you have gone crazy.
"I'm OK, but since a couple of weeks ago I have been having some mental issues," you tell her. "I'm seeing things that don't make sense, like the girl in the train station... I don't know if she's dead like I've been told, and I don't know where she lives nor her phone number, so I can't find out."
Midori seems disturbed, and stops to think about it.

> You say "I'm not sure how you and my uncle would be able to help me, but any way you could, please do so. I'm at my wits end here."
She takes some time to think about it.
"I think I know how to help you," she says.
She takes out her cell phone, and searches up "hallucinations," and shows you a Wikipedia page on the topic. The symptoms are pretty much exactly what's happened to you.
"Seems like you're having hallucinations," she says. "The only advice they give is to seek medical attention."

> You say "You are right, I need some medical help. I'm sorry to have involved you before I went to the hospital. I guess I was afraid of what they could tell me there. I'm going to leave straight to a hospital."
You find a taxi, and head to the nearest hospital with it. You find yourself there in no time. You go to the emergency room, and tell a nurse there that you are very anxious about your health. They lead you back to a room with a bunch of other people who are ill. After a few hours of waiting, they call you back.
She asks you some simple questions about your medical history, and then brings in a team of people with a portable ultrasound machine.

> You let the doctors figure out if you have been experiencing hallucinations.
"I was having some issues with my mental health a few weeks ago, but I thought I had worked through them," you tell the doctor.
"Ah, I see," she says. "You were worried about your hallucinations and their impact on your physical condition, since the two were linked to each other."
The doctor tells some of her students to go work on another person while she looks you over.

> You let the doctor examine you.
The doctor begins by looking into your ears and throat, then he checks your blood pressure. Finally, she tells you to lie on your back as she uses the ultrasound machine on your belly. She moves the ultrasound around for a few minutes, then stops.
"Well, it seems you were right to come in," she says. "You're around twenty weeks, give or take a few days."
You feel a rush of emotions as the reality sets in.

> You say "But I'm a man!"
"This is a fairly common issue for transgender men, particularly those who start hormone therapy at your age," she explains. "We'll need to do a pelvic exam to be sure about the nature of the pregnancies, but it's very likely that you're carrying multiple fertilized eggs."
The doctor spends a few minutes putting on gloves and preparing herself, before she begins the exam. It only takes a couple of minutes before she finds what she's looking for.

> You jump from the examination table and yell at the doctor that she must be insane. You flee from the hospital.
"It's alright, it's alright," she says. "I initially had the same reaction when this happened to me. You'll have to make a few adjustments in your life, but I'm confident you'll be able to do it."
The doctor tells you that you're experiencing pseudocyesis, which is the sensation of being pregnant despite not having a child inside you.

> You say "You are a crook! I'm not pregnant, and I don't believe myself to be pregnant! I have some psychiatric issue that is in no way related to a pregnancy!"
You stand up and begin shouting. The doctor sighs and looks at you.
"I don't know why you're trying to pretend that you aren't pregnant. If you let yourself accept it you'll feel much better, I promise."
You stand there, shaking as the doctor looks at you worriedly.

> You fly into a rage and pummel the doctor in the face.
You jump on the doctor, and begin throwing fists at her. She tries to stop you, but you've got crazy pregnant woman strength going for you, and manage to injure her quite badly. The two large orderlies burst through the door to grab you off of her.
You continue to shout about how there's no way you're pregnant as they drag you away. You soon find yourself involuntarily committed to a mental institution.