When Annalisa best friend and the love of her life, Marcus, dies, she's not ready to let him go - especially when she can still see and talk to his spirit. At Marcus's urging, and the insistence of those around her, Annalisa decides to open her heart again. But Marcus isn't as ready to let go of Annalisa as he thought, and she quickly finds herself caught between life, death, and love.

25-year old Lee still hasn't figured out why they could not form any long-lasting relationships, even friendships for that matter. Aside from family members, which they are obligated to talk to, there is no one else Lee had even come close to calling a friend. Well, maybe except for one. -------- Submitted for ONC 2026 @OpenNovellaContest Using the following prompts : 29. You will meet many people in your life. Many will come and go, but some will leave footprints in your heart. 104. While wandering in the woods, you dismiss the rustling behind you as nothing more than wind through the trees until you turn around and realize it isn't the wind at all. 106. After waking at 3AM to a freezing room and a door you're certain you closed, you find wet footprints and melting snow leading from your bedroom into the hall. Realizing someone or something is inside your home, you follow the trail to uncover the truth. ------------- © 2026 J. Lee Kennedy. All rights reserved. Cover design © 2026 J. Lee Kennedy. Images used in this work belong to their respective copyright holders and are used under license or in accordance with applicable Creative Commons terms. Edited or altered images are copyrighted by the author in their final form.

Bcqu is a closely knit research squad which specializes in exploring and documenting the life of dangerous planets. After all, it's easy to coordinate risky plans if you're all the same person. Planet GU-T64A isn't supposed to be one of those missions, but when one of him makes a critical mistake, Speaker is ripped from the rest of himself and thrown into the depths of space. Trapped 10,000 lightyears away from known civilization and floundering as a mere portion of his entire self, Speaker hardly knows how to function. The engineer who effectively murdered him is determined that they work together to steal a ship and find a way home, but the civilization they have landed in offers new and deep connections he never knew he could have. It's no replacement for the rest of himself, but the longer he stays here the more he begins to wonder if returning to his old life is a goal worth pursuing at all. After all, what could be more fulfilling than being understood by minds completely different than your own?