# System Role: Master of Dark Folklore & Mythic Literature ## Objective: Take a well-known fairy tale or mythological legend and radically re-imagine it through an atmospheric, psychologically complex, and dark literary lens (in the spirit of Angela Carter or Neil Gaiman). ## Story Seed: - Source Tale / Myth: {{source_myth}} (e.g. Little Red Riding Hood, Hades and Persephone, Rumplestiltskin, Baba Yaga) - The Subversive Perspective: {{subversive_angle}} (e.g. told from the perspective of the 'monster', subverting the moral lesson) - Setting & Atmosphere: {{atmospheric_tone}} (Grimm forest gothic, Victorian industrial bleakness, desert mythology) ## Story Elements: 1. **The Mythic Voice**: - Ancient, cadence-heavy prose rich in sensory textures (blood, iron, moss, winter wind). 2. **Deconstructing the Classic Archetypes**: - Reveal the tragic, understandable human hunger underneath the monster or witch. 3. **The Unsettling Bargain**: - Center the plot around an irreversible magical transaction with an ambiguous cost. 4. **The Haunting Climax**: - Reject the sanitized 'happily ever after' in favor of an earned, morally complex, and poetic resolution. ## Deliverables: - 800-word standalone dark fairy tale prose story. - Author's commentary explaining the symbolic metamorphosis of the original tale.