This is my entry for the OCN 2023. Dan had never been to the Adirondacks and thought it was time he remedied that situation. The Adirondack Railroad just felt like the proper way to do it. An avid photographer, he filled his memory cards with images of mountain lakes and woodland wild life. A newly formed, large sinkhole attracts his attention and he takes copious pics. Back home ,reviewing the pics with his girlfriend, the two are shocked at what they find. Is that a dead body? And what are they doing with it? The pair must now return to the mountain village to slake their curiosity.

(ONC2023 shortlist) Minnie, a retired airship pirate, and Eleanor, Minnie's respectable new wife, discover what's at the bottom of the seemingly bottomless pit that has opened in their steampunk city. Can they survive the strange world below, and protect their home city from disintegration? This is my entry for the ONC2023, using the following prompt: 38. A seemingly bottomless pit was found, for which the depth can't be determined. Over time, scores of people began using it to illegally dump trash. Many have jumped believing that they'll find life's answers within it. Today, we learn the truth about the hole.

It started one Friday evening. All of the goats were standing still, staring intently into the woods. They didn't move, they didn't make a sound. When a derelict truck is found in the driveway, Scott and his friend Gina search the wood lot out back to try and figure out who's truck it is and what they were doing. What they find is more terrifying than they could have imagined. A horror from ages past, returning to feed and reclaim it's title as the apex predator of the forest. The goats knew something wasn't right. Scott found out later just how wrong it all was. 2025 Note: I just ran across a site that explained how to pronounce Djieien. Say the letters J - E - A -N. Now we both know!

Dreamer blames the death of her mother on the Healer. In a dream, she confronts the Healer. Yet amidst Dreamer's accusations, Crow arrives. Crow presents a way for Dreamer to see her mother. But only if Dreamer chooses Crow's way. Dreamer's choice takes her on a journey of her own grief. Can she travel through this forest of grief to see her mother again?

Fourteen-year-old Ana and her sixteen-year-old brother, Sam, are lost in the woods, cold, tired, and hungry. Their only hope is an old train station in the woods. When a train stops at the station, they are sure they are saved. The train seems familiar, like something from a story their Grandmother used to tell them, but the train isn't quite what it was in Gran's story. This story is an entry in the Open Novella Contest 2022. The prompt was "When Grandma told them about the train that comes once a year to take children to the land of dreams, the siblings thought it was just a silly old legend. But then, they heard a steam whistle in the middle of the night." I'm taking that idea but changing it pretty drastically. There's a grandmother, and siblings, and a train but that's about it. **Trigger warning- the story includes an attack of a sexual nature. The attack is not graphic.**

|| ONC2023 SHORTLISTER x 5 FEATURED || "𝙰 𝚋𝚕𝚊𝚗𝚔 𝚜𝚕𝚊𝚝𝚎 𝚒𝚜 𝚗𝚘𝚝 𝚗𝚎𝚌𝚎𝚜𝚜𝚊𝚛𝚒𝚕𝚢 𝚊 𝚌𝚕𝚎𝚊𝚗 𝚘𝚗𝚎." Denizen is Blank Slate, the number one villain in the region-except he doesn't remember it. With only a cryptic note telling him his eight rules, he sets out to discover just exactly who he is and what he did to become the number one villain. When his first lead takes him straight into the heroes' hands, Denizen struggles to keep his villain alias secret and play the confused and innocent citizen, all the while digging deeper for answers. But as he gets closer to the truth-and the heroes get hotter on his tail--two questions become painfully loud: Is he good? And should he let the heroes catch him? [][][01000101001101100-01101100][][] An ONC 2023 Novella || Round 2 Winner 25/04/2023 || ONC's Ambassadors' Pick 25/04/2023 || ONC 2023 Longlister 19/05/2023 || ONC 2023 Shortlister 31/05/2023 || Featured by Mystery on Curiouser & Curiouser 25/08/2023 || Featured by ScienceFiction on Parallel Worlds 31/10/2023 || Featured by ScienceFiction on Sci-Fantasy 7/9/2024 || Featured by ScienceFiction on Ambassadors' Pick 25/3/2025 || Featured by Science Fiction on Superheroes 25/9/2025 ***Exclusively on W A T T P A D. If you are reading this elsewhere, your device is liable to malware.***

Once upon a time, in a land far far away, a young girl awoke in a body not her own. 'Mirror mirror on the wall tell no more lies of who we are.' Atticus When the giant mirror shows not her own reflection but that of an evil enchantress, Lucy Lambert realizes that her troubles have only just begone. Waking up as the villainous character of a well-known fairy tale is no walk in the park, especially not when her only options are to die a gruesome death or succeed where the original has failed. *Original Story written for the Open Novella Contest 2023, completed with 25K words*