You are eighteen. You have friends. School. Plans for the future. And it feels like your whole life is still ahead of you. You dream of love - quiet, real. The kind that changes everything. Of the one who will someday become your other half. But sometimes life doesn't ask who you want to be. When desires suddenly turn real, when feelings break free from dreams and begin to reshape the world around you - fear follows. When fire starts to spark nearby, when dreams feel too real to ignore, and a stranger looks at you as if he knows more about you than you know about yourself - you understand: this is no coincidence. The world is preparing for a battle. Good versus evil. Light versus darkness. But what if good isn't truly good? And evil doesn't seek to destroy - but to protect? A shadow looms over your home. Or is it light? She is only a spark. But every fire begins with one. Spark. Before the Flame is a story of first love that came too early. Of choice. Of power. Of fear. And of a feeling strong enough to save the world - or burn it to the ground.

**ONC2026 Round 2 Ambassador Pick** Vincent is having an amazing morning. The most popular guy in the office has given him a high-five, a pretty girl has offered him a coffee, and he's been invited to join the frisbee team. It's almost like they've confused him with someone else. Someone popular. Someone fun. Someone about to bring Vincent's life to a shuddering halt. My entry for ONC2026 based on this writing prompt: 77. Everyone in town remembers you differently, as if everyone has lived a different version of your life. Cover design by @elicatucci

Copyright © 2026 by Darkrai_X In Room 309, people learn how to survive each other's pain. Elise Valencia is dying, and everyone around her seems to speak softer because of it. Everyone except Matteo Reyes, the chaotic night shift cleaner who steals hospital sunflowers, breaks rules constantly, and refuses to treat her like she's already gone. What begins as irritation slowly becomes something deeper inside the oncology ward, where laughter feels rebellious, love becomes complicated, and strangers leave permanent marks on one another's lives.

In the coastal town of Grayhaven, disappearances aren't crimes, they're cycles. Every twenty seven years, devoted parents vanish without a trace. Every twenty seven years, a quiet girl named Shanice appears soon after, as if the sea itself has returned something in exchange. Nineteen year old, Lucious Waters has lived with the aftermath of the last cycle. His mother was among those who vanished. Since then, he has carried a secret: when the fog rolls in and emotions run high, he sees something beneath certain people's skin, faint, drifting tendrils like jellyfish suspended in flesh. When the cycle begins again, Lucious realizes the truth is larger than grief, older than the town, and far more deliberate than anyone admits. Grayhaven Town is not cursed. It is protected. And protection always demands payment. PROMPT 38. Everyone sees an ordinary person but you are the only one who can see their true nature, a jellyfish in disguise. Tendrils of Grayhaven is a haunting supernatural mystery about grief, loyalty, and the terrifying cost of safety, where the greatest threat may not be what lurks in the deep, but what happens when it decides to change.

Whatever screwed-up plan of the Universe is this? Jas was hit by a car and most DEFENITELY died. However, somehow, she cannot quite manage to stay dead. Unfortunately, staying alive for long doesn't seem to be in the cards for Jas either. If there is one thing to be sure about this endless, cursed loop she's in, it's this: Karma truly is a b**tch.

Finn went in expecting an easy jailbreak. Now he's escaping feds, fighting mafia bikers, facing past demons and trying to figure out why the girl with the gum-bomb doesn't return his side-glance. *** Mercenary Finn Spayne's young accomplice King had one job. Crack the code of his cuffs and he strolls out of prison. But the kid ends up sabotaging the whole system. Finn finds himself in a war zone alongside a runaway mafia princess, a ruthless assassin, a goofy heist master and an old friend. Together, they must hatch an escape plan out of Neon City and to safety. But it gets even more dangerous when feelings start to develop. Because in a world where humans are reduced to their utility, feeling is the worst crime. *** CONTENT WARNING: Rated 18+ for graphic violence, strong language and heavy themes.

#ONC2026 ROUND 2 AMBASSADOR PICKS PROMPT 120. You survive a werewolf bite because your blood carries a rare, deadly condition that poisons them, and now you hunt werewolves by letting them bite you. Edwina Dawley, a rational wildlife biologist, enters the forest to study wolves and emerges with her reality shattered after surviving an attack by a massive wolf that transforms into a man. This encounter fractures her belief in the ordinary world, leading her to the ancient Order Sapientae Antiquae, which tracks her blood anomaly-an obscure condition lethal to werewolves. She becomes a hunter, using her body as a weapon, but as her reputation grows, so does her isolation. Her closest friend, Graham, begins to see the Order's hidden violence, while Darnell Key, the Order's mentor, recognizes Edwina's potential as a stabilizing force. Everything changes when Randolf, an ancient werewolf, chooses her and bites her, binding their fates together. Their intense connection ignites a love that challenges everything Edwina thought she understood. Caught between the safety of her old life, the allure of order, and a forbidden love, Edwina must choose her identity: scientist or myth, weapon or woman. As the Order tightens its grip and the world approaches exposure, she navigates a new role-neither prey nor predator-rewriting the rules with blood, choice, and consequence.

⋆⁺₊⋆ ☾𖤓 ⋆⁺₊⋆ I walk down the corridor, the smell of cleanliness and order like a foreign smell to me. It jars my mind. It's not the only thing that's jarring. There's my side, of course, my throbbing head ache, and we can't forget my ruined leg. But I'm whining too much. I wonder where he is. That little shit. Left me bleeding out in the hold. Brain feels woozy again. I jab myself with my final pack of stims. It takes a moment for it to work, but soon my hands feel fidgety and my mind painfully sharper again. Ugh. Wait-- where's my weapons? Did I drop them? I look back and see nothing, then look at my trembling hands. They're sheet white. Fuck. I slump down onto my knees, and gravity does the rest of the job of bringing me flat onto the smooth, white floors. ⋆⁺₊⋆ ☾𖤓 ⋆⁺₊⋆⋆⁺₊⋆ ☾𖤓 ⋆⁺₊⋆⋆⁺₊⋆ ☾𖤓 ⋆⁺₊⋆ ⚠ Trigger Warnings: ⚠ PLEASE READ!! ⚠ - Sexism - Violence - Self harm - Gore/graphic descriptions - Cussing/offensive content - Mentions of drugs/drug use ⋆⁺₊⋆ ☾𖤓 ⋆⁺₊⋆ Entry for the Open Novella Contest 2026. Prompts 80 & 97 used: "Monsters don't live under our beds. They live in the recesses of our minds." & "When the world slips into endless darkness, something begins to move in the shadows and you must find a way to survive in a night that never ends."

ONC 2026, Prompt 78: You begin to realize that nothing is quite what it seems ONGOING! Couture Magazine: the most prestigious fashion publication in the world, where hemlines are sacred, deadlines are deadly, and the coffee runs are... surprisingly literal. Every intern who walks through those gleaming Manhattan doors dreams of landing a full-time position-complete with vision, dental (including twice-yearly cleanings), and an endless supply of designer clothes fresh off the runway. Sure, the demands from editors, photographers, and even the notoriously temperamental writers can be exhausting. But an intern's day at Couture is pretty ordinary, right? WRONG. Alcide Lancaster is about to discover that his summer internship working for the iconic-yet-terrifying Ellen Montclaire comes with a few... unexpected job requirements. Like why he and a select few employees-including the formidable Editor-in-Chief herself-are the only ones taking mandatory two-hour lunch breaks. Why his thirty-to-fifty-something coworkers look suspiciously athletic, eerily youthful, and are borderline obsessed with eyewear that definitely isn't just a fashion statement. And why A-list celebrities who stop by the Couture offices seem less interested in the magazine's latest cover shoot and oddly fascinated with Alcide himself. But most importantly... What does any of this have to do with Alcide's late family, their disturbingly narrow worldview, and the real reason they wanted him out of their lives forever? All excellent questions for a young man trying to survive a summer packed with Fashion Week chaos, superpowered coworkers who treat the office like their personal runway, and a boss who's less Anna Wintour and more fierce-but-loving grandmother. Between navigating new friendships, an unexpected romance, and enough secrets to fill an entire September issue, Alcide is about to learn that in the world of high fashion... Not everything is just an illusion.

What starts as a routine deal quickly becomes a grotesque comedy of errors, where competence is rare, coincidence reigns, and nobody fully understands what's happening-least of all the people with guns.