**ONC SHORTLIST 2024** Heems is an energy vampire draining victims' energy with a single touch. That is until xe meets handsome thief Shiro, the only person immune to Heems's parasitism. ---- Heems is an energy vampire working as a doctor on Eris, an off-world mining colony. Draining the energy of Eris's sickly hospital patients and destitute workers to survive, Heems flees the city to search for a cure for xyr rare parasitic condition, where xe meets Shiro, a handsome vagrant who is somehow immune to Heems's parasitism. Smitten by Shiro and galvanised by the hope of finding a cure, Heems is lured into a world of desire, obsession and criminality that reveals the darkest secrets of Eris's society and sets the pair on a collision course with the shadowy biotech company that dominates the mining colony. When Shiro is hunted by the colony's brutal law enforcement at the behest of corporate overlords, Heems realises that xe is far from the only parasite on Eris, and the only way to save Shiro is to be as monstrous as xe can be. ☉ LGBT+ romance ☉ Energy vampirism ☉ Cyberpunk ☉ Non-binary main character CONTENT WARNING: This book is rated mature. It contains potentially triggering topics such as extreme hunger, chronic debilitating illness, suicide ideation, drug misuse, sexual intercourse while under the influence of recreational and medicinal drugs. Cover designed by the amazing @mygoodbones - check out their incredible queer books! ~~☉~~ ☆ No sci fi knowledge is needed to understand this story. Basically Eris is cold, has no atmosphere (literally and figuratively), and everyone's broke.

An ONC shortlister and an Amby's favorite! The long-forgotten god of chaos awakes when a small child drops a piece of candy onto his altar, unwittingly becoming the high priest of chaos. The god is beholden to his priest and his priest's people--AKA: his kindergarten classmates. The children are all-too-delighted to serve the whims of mayhem until the chaos becomes too much, even for them. They forbid the god from using his power. But when disaster strikes and the whole school is in danger, a bit of bedlam might be the only thing that can save the children, the town, and the god's budding romance with a schoolteacher. Based on the Open Novella Contest 2023 prompt: #73 - You are a long-forgotten god. A small kid leaves candy at your shrine and you awaken. Now, you must do everything to protect your High Priest/Priestess, the kid, and their entire kindergarten class, your worshippers. #ONC2023 #OpenNovellaContest

❖ ''ZF 16 Ariomma to unknown vessel. Please identify yourself. Over.'' ❖ Farah and Kazem are twins working aboard the Ariomma, a trading airship that sails the edges of a flat world. Out here is a frontier far from civilization: a place known as the Tideless, where water lifts from the surface of the sea, and great creatures rise with it. Only some of them are known. This is not a sailing path known for its safety, but the crew of the Ariomma have rarely feared their work. That is, until they find the carcass of another ship hanging in the Tideless, decimated by an unknown enemy. Soon, their flight to safety becomes a fight for their lives, as the monster turns its attention on the Ariomma... and them. ❖❖❖ Written for #NONC2022, a community-run novella festival operating in parallel with Wattpad's 2022 Open Novella Contest. Complete. Marked mature for violence and other dark themes. Comments and critiques are both welcome and appreciated. I write characters from many different backgrounds, with many different experiences. If you share those traits and find that I have misrepresented anything, please let me know! I am feedback-friendly and here to learn :)