[COMPLETE] ONC SHORTLISTER 2024 Senar Kil is a powerful vampire who harbors a deadly secret: she can no longer drink blood. If her secret gets out, the other vampires will kill her in order to claim her status. Adrian Namgung is an infamous vampire who knows Senar is hiding something and will do anything he can to find out what it is. Problem is, he has a deadly secret of his own. The two vampires are thrust into a game of cat and mouse as they try to figure out who knows what. It should be easy, but, as they spend more and more time with each other, the tension between them becomes all but impossible to ignore. Except keeping secrets from vampires is easier said than done, and soon, both Senar and Adrian have to confront their own demons if they want to make it out alive. ~~~ 🥇HORROR/SUPERNATURAL - LILAC AWARDS 2024 ~~~ First wrote: 02/14/24 - 04/21/24 First published: 02/14/24 - 04/27/24 Total word count: 32.2K

[ONC '24 SHORTLISTER] When a group of assassins is onto her irritating escort, a happy-go-lucky bodyguard must ensure they survive their trip before his escort's past demons catch up to them. * * * No one expected easygoing Aspen Mendoza to be accepted into Interpol as a field agent, but she couldn't be any more excited to finally land her dream job. Her first assignment? Escort Lucas Tan, a public figure with an enigmatic past and an attitude to match, to Davao City aboard a new train system connecting every major island in the Philippines. When their five-day journey is disrupted by the poisoning of one of its passengers, it's up to Aspen and Lucas to catch the culprit before anyone else gets hurt. But little does Aspen know, Lucas is keeping a secret that threatens the lives of every passenger on the train, and she must figure it out before his past demons catch up to them. * * * | 20,000 - 25,000 words. First, rough draft. | Based on ONC 2024 prompts 28 and 60. Cover by @sardonictabby.

❝ 𝐖𝐇𝐄𝐍 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐁𝐄𝐋𝐋𝐒 𝐂𝐇𝐈𝐌𝐄, 𝐃𝐄𝐌𝐈𝐒𝐄 𝐖𝐈𝐋𝐋 𝐂𝐎𝐌𝐄. ❞ Saskia Vrana knows what to do when the Nights of Smoke come: Close the windows and doors. Don't look out into the darkness. Sacrifice and pray. And never dare to leave the convent. These are the sacred rules to follow if you want to survive the creatures lurking outside - and the Order of Wolves, which ensures the village's safety with watchful eyes. So, what to do when you accidentally violate one of them on the very first night and receive a divination you shouldn't outlive? However, it's not Saskia they hold responsible, but her fellow sister Katinka. When coldblooded Prince Silvan von Winterthal and his order take her, Saskia is eager to break all those rules at once and more to get her back. And if she must risk her own life making a deal with a devil while the Wild Hunt ravages the lands, she will. ______________ ONC 2024 ENTRY: Prompts 25, 28, 95

[ONC Longlist 2024 | A Medusa Retelling.] Sydney 2112. Young men are disappearing without a trace. On the other side of town, an up-and-coming sculptor's works eerily resemble the missing men. Can the Inspector solve the riddle before her son joins the collection? *** Keya Sapkota needs to create artworks for her first sculpture exhibition at the prestigious Museum of Contemporary Arts, but a recent date-gone-wrong has left her a mess. She has no memory of what happened, but a feeling that something horrible transpired that left her with broken lips and bruised body. Keya hides in her loft, chipping away at her marble columns on autopilot. The more she chisels the more lifelike her statues become, ones she can't remember carving, but does she care? She needs exhibits for her show and the strange figures may as well be her pieces. The new Stone2Stone sculpture exhibition at the MCA catches the eye of Inspector Reina, who is desperately searching for her son who disappeared from a nightclub on his twenty-first birthday. Reina can't put her finger on it, but the sculptor, Keya, seems strange. Then there's the eerie marble statues that share their likeness with young men who have recently disappeared. Inspector Reina is determined to find answers before her son's sculpture turns up in the artist's collection. --- ONC Prompts: 60. "Look what you made me do." -Tayler Swift 3. Your greatest fear is monsters in the dark. The last thing you expect is to become the Monster in the dark. 95. "I will become as monstrous as I must." Features: - @Fantasy - Urban Fantasy (Oct 2025) - @paranormal - Investigations & Academies (Sept 2024) - @action - Thriller (Aug 2024) - @APIFantasy - API Fantasy & Science-Fiction Entries (March, 2024) Trigger warning: Slight depictions of SA. Please read at your own discretion. [Strictly no copy, translation or adapting of this story in part or whole is permitted without the author's permission.]

Caeryssa's quest for relaxation spirals into chaos, entwining her destiny with the infuriating playboy prince whose smile conceals a dark vendetta that will shatter any possibility of their soulmate connection. *** On Oenone, where lush forests meet pristine beaches, Caeryssa, a xenobotanist on a rare vacation, finds herself entangled with Zaen, the celebrity prince of Penates. Between losing her upgraded room, being forced to deal with crowds of his fans and paparazzi, and a spa disaster that leaves her glowing in all the wrong ways, Caeryssa is beyond annoyed with the flirtatious male who has destroyed her long-awaited bid for tranquillity. But that's nothing compared to Zaen's rage at recognizing Caeryssa as the daughter of that bastard assassin who shattered his family. As animosity sparks and vengeance looms, the threads of fate weave Caeryssa and Zaen ever closer. Nothing will deter him from his deadly plot. Not even the revelation of a chilling truth-she's his soulmate. After all, his heart died with his family. *** Winner - Round One Open Novella Contest Heir Of Violence is a Dark Sci-Fi Romance enemies-to-lovers story using ONC prompts: #9-After some long months of working harder than ever, you finally get to your well-deserved vacation getaway but when you arrive at the hotel there is this one star that brings all the paparazzi and trouble with them and makes your vacation a one to remember. #15-Why are you glowing blue? #25-Soulmates are real and dangerous. They hold the power to bring you back from the brink of death or tear your soul in half. And a devil with no heart is the soulmate that awaits you.

Before the fall of the fairy kingdom, wishes were freely given. Now, wishes are gone, and only curses remain, with two girls standing against them. Princess Estefania longs to save her kingdom, but with a looming curse over her head, she's spent sixteen years in exile from Sahar. Then, a strange Marquis shows up on her doorstep with an answer and a way home: an engagement with the crown prince of the kingdom next door, Cyra. Lady Elowen doesn't fit in at fancy parties, but after she meets Prince Fletcher of Cyra, she starts to dream beyond her kitchen. After learning a dreadful secret, Elowen must find a way around Fletcher's engagement with the beautiful Estefania to save those held captive by a vengeful fairy. Estefania and Elowen will have to work together to unravel the last of the curses that plague their kingdom, but they are running out of time to make any last wishes before the curses overtake everyone they hold dear. Round One Winner of ONC 2024

Wilson Quaring is everyone's friend and always surrounded by students wherever he goes. He's carrying around a huge secret, and he's trying to figure out how to stop the teasing at school and satisfy his father's demands. When he spots Leanne struggling with her luggage in the security check line at the airport, he makes a quick decision. Leanne plays the flute and loves to write poetry. She's a consistent honor roll member with secrets that haunt her core. Tall, she wears her dirty blonde hair long and uses it to hide her square jaw line and hazel green eyes. No one pays attention to her, but there is just one person she wishes would turn her way. Unfortunately, he never seems to see her behind her glasses. My gorgeous original cover is by @XxxSistersxxX

Stories say that the Witch rained curses down on Devil's Corner, that she made the woods grow strange and wild, made shadows leap and dance and snatch up stray children for supper. In a small town on the edge of a dangerous forest, stories are never in short supply, and they are held dearer than truth. Thea lost her hand to the things that live in the wood, and she can't shake loose the voice that lured her there. But her Pa fed her tales of magic and heroes, and promises that even the darkest things have hearts. When her brother is attacked by the Witch's gruesome creations, Thea breaks into her cottage, determined to save him from a fate she knows all to well. Because in Devil's Corner, stories are true, and Thea knows the greatest one of all: the only way to break a curse, is to kill the witch. --- COMPLETE - 20,000 words Written for Wattpad's 2024 Open Novella Contest. ONC 2024 SHORTLISTER 2025 AMBY AWARDS ROUND 3 QUALIFIER

Death was once something I feared, an illusion that brought darkness with it, but now I plead for its mercy in this time that survivors have come to call, The New Order. ••• It was only a cough to began with, something so simple, it had happened a thousand times before, but with in a few days it was so much more then just a mere cough, it become lethal, and it spread like wildfire. Twenty year old, Naseria Friedelinde never thought she would be alive to see the world that she grew up with, collapse right before her very eyes, but on the 22rd of August, that was the new harsh reality that she was unexpectedly thrust into, along with her fourteen year old sister, Eliana. They didn't know how or why the virus had spread and affected everyone they once knew, but Naseria knew that she needed to get her sister as far away from the other people as quickly as possible. But being stuck in the middle of the city was going to make that a tricky situation to get around. And it didn't help that the virus turned its victims into something else, something they couldn't just run or hide from, something that craved chaos, a creature that sort out death. ••• My entry for the Open Novella Contest for 2024! Prompt used - 52. "And that is how that world was lost and a new one, our world, was born."

He gave her his heart... and now he wants it back. Delilah is running for her life. And from it. Six days ago, she made a terrible choice, one that has endangered every person she loves. Her only chance to protect them is to stay as far away as she can, with only the pulsing shard of crystal in her pocket as dreadful company. And for six days, her plan has been working. But that could all be ruined by one nosy, arrogant, stubbornly chivalrous earl. Frederick Ascott never forgets a face, and yet he can't figure out where he's met Delilah before. And that mystery is the only reason he can't stop thinking about her. It has nothing to do with the haunted look in her eyes, or the fearful glances she tosses over her shoulder. And it especially has nothing to do with the way her face lights up when she smiles at him. As Delilah and Frederick are thrown together, Delilah's past grows ever closer, threatening the safety she's found within the earl's walls. As the red crystal warns of her enemy's approach, she is left with a terrible decision: to run and save the man she might be falling in love with, or to fight and risk shattering them both. ~~~ This is my 2024 Open Novella Contest (ONC) entry, based on prompt #33 - A broken heart beats with all its pieces. And it still wants the same person. It's a gothic, historical romance with a touch of sorcery and the paranormal. I hope you consider giving it a read, and if you're also writing for the ONC this year drop me a message and we can give each other some feedback!