Reverse prompting with ChatGPT-5

Instead of drafting text for image generation, I uploaded a storyboard frame and used it as the seed for narrative

Authors commonly modify what they’ve written to create image-generation prompts. I’ve been trying the reverse lately: Uploading a storyboard-style image to ChatGPT-5 as a prompt for my bot colleague to create fiction.

Here’s my prompt for the above image, which I created last year in Midjourney:

Using the attached image, have Kyle narrate a 500-word scene in first-person, past tense as he and a resistance companion, John, sneak into a Medical Compliance Station. John is shot and killed.

Chat's (unedited) result:

The tiles in the hallway gleamed under fluorescent lights, too bright for a place that stank of bleach and fear. John and I slipped in through a side door where the lock had already been snapped. The sign outside called it a Medical Compliance Station, but it looked more like a county jail with better lighting.

We hugged the wall, moving in quick bursts, careful with each footstep. I kept my jacket tight, gun close, but my pulse hammered so loud I was sure it carried down the corridor. Posters plastered to the walls barked the new slogans — “Compliance = Freedom,” “One Shot, One Future” — with the same color schemes as energy drink ads.

John pointed toward a set of double doors at the far end. His hand shook but his jaw was locked tight. “Records room should be back there,” he whispered. His voice barely carried, but in that place, it sounded like a bullhorn.

I wanted to grab his sleeve, tell him to slow down, but he edged forward anyway, quick steps across the open corridor. He thought he was hidden, that the angles of the ceiling cameras and broken fluorescents would give him cover.

The crack of the first shot punched the air flat. John stiffened mid-stride, eyes wide, like he’d tripped an invisible wire. A bloom of red spread across his chest, bright against the camouflage jacket. He staggered, tried to call my name, but the second shot ripped him sideways. His body slammed into the tile wall, leaving a long streak of blood as he slid down under a sign that read UNESCO VAX in bold, smug letters.

I froze, breath locked in my throat. The snipers were invisible, tucked away in rafters or hidden nests, but they had the corridor wired. Any wrong move and I’d be slumped next to him.

John’s head tilted toward me. His cap had fallen back, and his mouth opened like he wanted to spit out one last joke. Nothing came. Just blood and silence.

The world went thin and sharp around me. Every hum from the lights, every drip from a leaking pipe sounded like it was happening inside my skull. My legs screamed to run, but I pressed myself against the wall instead, inching along in the shadows.

The posters shouted at me as I moved: Stay Current, Stay Safe. John’s blood glistened below them, mocking the whole charade.

I reached the bend in the corridor and flattened myself against the corner.. My gun felt heavy and useless. What good was a nine-mil against ghosts in the ceiling with high-caliber rifles?

The number one side effect of refusing the Covid-27 vaccine? Lead poisoning.

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