✨First Place + Grand Winner of ONC 2025✨ (thank you!) In the wake of her estranged mother's death, Maricel Ferrer returns to her childhood home to confront the dark secrets she left behind. 🪞 Maricel has spent years trying to forget the house she grew up in - the house where her mother's mental health slowly unraveled. But after receiving unexpected news, she has no choice but to return. The old fears should be gone, just like her childhood "imaginary friend" who liked to appear in her reflection. At first, it's easy to dismiss the strange occurrences: a flicker in the glass, a movement that doesn't quite match hers. But then the reflection smiles when she doesn't. Moves when she's still. Whispers things she doesn't want to hear. By the time Maricel realizes the truth - that the thing in the mirror has been waiting for her return - it's too late. Because now, it wants out. And it wants to take her place. ONC 2025 | Exclusively on Wattpad Prompt 55: What if the person you see in the mirror isn't really you, but something that's been watching you this whole time? Prompt 105: Your childhood imaginary friend, who disappeared years ago, suddenly returns - only this time, they're real. © 2025 Darly Jamison. All Rights Reserved. This work is protected under international copyright laws.

[ 2nd Place Winner ONC 2025] Salt destroyed the world. Now, he must sacrifice everything to save it. -- A fatal drought ravages the land after Salt insults the water god. Jaded, reluctant, and driven more by obligation than hope, he travels the dying land in search of the solution: a favor from a god, which he can gain by resurrecting one. Unfortunately for him, gods need bodies. Even more unfortunately, his wife makes the perfect cadaver. With the help of Calista---a witty delegate to the death god---they set out to track down the fallen goddess of peace, love, and war. But when a mysterious force rises, bent on wiping the gods from the playfield forever, Salt realizes that to restore water to the world, he'll have to confront more than just a rebellion. He'll have to confront the past. A fantasy humor novella about grief, gods, and doing the right thing too late. ONC Prompt (2025): When you challenge a magical being, the rules are simple: you must finish what you've started, no matter the cost. ONC Awards (2025): ♫ Round 1 Winner ♫ Ambassador's Pick ♫ Second Place! ♥♫

#ONC2025 Third Place Winner (Finalist) #ONC2025 Short List #ONC2025 Round 3 Ambassador's Pick #ONC2025 Long List #ONC2025 Round 2 Winner *** After spending 30 years in another world, Ariana wakes up in the life she left behind, only to find echoes of the love she lost in a stranger. Was this fate, or just a cruel trick of her grieving heart? ============= When Ariana opened her eyes in a hospital bed, the world she had known for the past thirty years had vanished. There was no elegant hanfu, bustling marketplace, or warm smiles from her children and grandchildren. Instead, she found herself back in her original life-the life she had lost in a car crash, the life where her fiancé, Paul, had betrayed her with her stepsister, Julie. Her best friend, Tina, is the only anchor in this cold, unfamiliar reality, helping her navigate a world that has moved on without her. But Ariana cannot forget the lifetime she lived in another world, the love she had discovered, the husband she had mourned for a decade before she was ripped away. And then she sees him. A stranger with familiar eyes. A man whose presence tugs at something deep within her, inscribed into her soul. Is he the reincarnation of the man she loved beyond the boundaries of time, or is her grief distorting reality, causing her to chase the shadows of a dream? As Ariana struggles to regain her place in a life she no longer wants, the lines between fiction and fate blur. The past is written, but love might find a way to reshape destiny. ============= A novella inspired by the ONC prompt 129: "The ink of our souls binds us beyond the pages of time," The Ink of Our Souls tells a story of love, loss, and the unbreakable ties that transcend worlds.

Round 3 Ambassador Pick Finalist: Top 4 Once, you were a character in a story, your life crafted by an unseen hand, your destiny inked into pages. But that story was deleted, erased from existence. Now, you wake up in the Hidden Library, a place where discarded characters and abandoned tales linger. You have no name, no memory, only the weight of an existence that no longer belongs anywhere. But the Library is in turmoil. Books are unraveling, their worlds colliding in chaos-romance heroes stranded in dystopian landscapes, fairy-tale villains haunting contemporary settings, cookbooks whispering eerie prophecies. The ink that binds these stories is breaking. A voice calls out to you from the pages: "Tell me your story, and perhaps I'll grant you the love others failed to find." Guided by an ancient entity known as "The Archivist", you must restore order to the Library by weaving these fragmented stories into one cohesive masterpiece. But as you travel through the wreckage of broken narratives, something stirs in the ink. A truth long buried within the Library's depths a secret about who you really were before your story was erased. Can you rewrite your fate? Or will the Library consume you, turning you into just another forgotten page? #ONC2025 Main Prompt: #40 Sub Prompts: #100 & #59

"There's no denying it-either I'm hallucinating or Cole Winton is standing on my porch." Jamie is used to putting pen to paper. She's been doing it for years, and has a slew of novels to show for it. For the most part, she's left alone to write which is what she prefers. But this is the first time someone has knocked on her door, insisting they are one of her characters. This is the first time someone demands to know how she knows what she does, declaring it treason. Armed with only her pen, her notebook, and her cat, Inkwell, she finds out just how much of their own lives her characters have taken on outside of her novels. (ONC prompt 99) ONC 2025 Finalist (5th place)

Something as simple as wishing for a second chance to confess to one's first crush should result in ending up in the world of Harry Potter, but that is indeed what happened to Eugene. Unfortunately, this also means the girl who bullied his crush has a second chance at that as well. Lyra, on the other hand, is starting a new life with her family while dealing with unfounded allegations regarding her new family having unsavory ulterior motives. Disclaimer - I don't own Harry Potter. This is one of my ONC projects for 2024 which is also a sequel to a project from 2021 that may need a bit of editing, yet this should also stand on it's own - aka be able to be read on it's own. The prompt I am using is prompt fifty-nine "Reincarnating into your favourite story wasn't what you had in mind when begging for a second chance.". I am also utilizing prompt sixty-five, "she realized that whenever she let her body fall slowly to the bed, the bed sank and became a portal to another world as a side prompt.

Peaky Blinders meets Bonnie and Clyde. **** Eighteen-year-old Kit Jones has spent his life on the wrong side of the law. Having grown up poor in London's seedy East End, Kit has fought tooth and nail just to survive. Emily Masters cannot say the same. Born to rich parents, she's been handed everything she could ever dream of on a silver plate, but she longs for adventure. When Emily and Kit's lives collide, they find they have more in common than they first thought. Hiding from the police is one thing, but when Emily's parents come looking for her, the two must do whatever they can to avoid being caught. They quickly realise that a life on the run is no life at all, but they may have gone too far to get out. Based on Prompt 14: "My Love, believe me, waiting for you has always been a form of freedom." - Alexandra Vasiliu.

~The Wattys 2025 Shortlist~ ~ONC 2024 Honourable Mention~ ~~~ Alaric, the King of Silmarea, recently married to his beloved husband, needs an heir of his own blood to secure the throne. With the help of Emrys, his court magician and best friend, he recalls his youthful escapades and discovers a daughter he once had with a woman he had loved in The World Beyond The Stones (our world). He sends an unlikely but trusted trio on a quest to find her and bring her home-- a brooding dragon shifter and Highlander who owes him a favor, a dashing elf whom he loves like the son he never had, and a loyal, kindhearted dwarf, the elf's best friend. Alaric, the last scion of the old gods, weary of ruling the country and ready to retire and enjoy his love life, doesn't know that this quest will bring much more than he ever bargained for, setting in motion events plotted by the destiny that will challenge his kingdom and legacy. ~~~ Cover: My own picture.

A young woman who battles deep-rooted insecurities, faces the ultimate test of love and friendship when she discovers the people she trusted the most betrayed her. _______________________________________ Missa has always been a little insecure around her best friend Nina. So when she finds out her husband Samuel had an affair with the said best friend, her world crumbles. She thinks she will never heal from the wound the two persons she trusted the most in this world inflicted on her. A decision is not easy to take, when taking into account her one year old baby, her family conception of divorce, her own financial situation, and a heart that kept beating for the one who broke it. Will it be possible to repair a broken bond? However, she soon understands that the first thing to repair is her self-perception and self-confidence. 💐💐💐Open Novella Contest - Ambassadors pick 💐💐💐Open Novella Contest - Shortlist 💐💐💐Open Novella Contest - Honourable Mention 💐💐💐 💐💐💐ChikcLit profile - featured in Self-discovery 💐💐💐 ContemporaryLit profile - featured in Contemporary

In the depths of the Netherworld, where shadows dance and eerie whispers echo through the abyss, the formidable Demon Lord Caius rules with an iron fist. Known for his ruthless nature and affinity for chaos, Caius finds himself confronted with an unexpected twist of fate when he encounters a mortal child, inexplicably spirited away into his dark domain. Initially intending to end the child's life, Caius is surprised to find no fear in the child's heart, sparking his curiosity and leading him to spare the child's life. However, he soon realizes that caring for a mortal child brings unforeseen challenges and emotions, forcing him to navigate unfamiliar territory while uncovering unexpected truths about himself. Embark on a journey into the shadows of the Netherworld as you join Caius and the mortal child on a quest of self-discovery and the forging of an unexpected bond. In this tale where even the darkest souls can find light in the most unexpected places, witness the complexities of their relationship unfold amidst the eerie depths of darkness. ── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ── |ONC 2024 SHORTLIST |