Tris McCoy is having an uneventful summer. It's the summer before eleventh grade, and it's the last summer she has before she has to start worrying about driving, and college, and a career. With her mom being in the hospital and her dad enjoying the title of father out in Australia, she's left to spend the next six weeks alone. Until she (literally) stumbles across a stack of old letters from her pen pal, July Souders. July lives in British Columbia---four provinces away---but Tris knows of a camp she used to attend. Unwilling to spend the summer alone and desperate for any change, no matter the size, Tris sets off for summer camp. [FORMERLY AN ENTRY FOR THE 2024 ONC]

What happens when Death falls in love with the paramour he is gifted? Cursed to kill everyone he touches, beastly Lord Damien Casteel lives in anger and loneliness. During a rare game of poker, he wins the final hand against a petty criminal named Luca. The prize is a pouch of twelve precious gemstones. But Luca is determined to get the stones back, no matter what. Breaking into Damien's mansion to exchange the real gems for fakes, he is captured and threatened with death. Begging for his life, he strikes a deal: his freedom in exchange for his adopted son, Jemison, who will serve the lord as his paramour for twelve days; one day for each stone. Although he is reluctant to let anyone into his life, Damien is desperate to keep Jem away from Luca's abuse, so he agrees. What he does not expect is to fall for the tormented young man. Prompt used is number 46. We love broken, beautiful people. And it doesn't get more obviously broken and more classically beautiful than you. (Daisy Jones and the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid) My writing is AI-free. Any emdashes are here because I LIKE them. The poetic purply prose is here because I LIKE it. Computers don't write my stuff. The Muse inside my head who keeps me up till 3 AM and wants to drive me bonkers, does. Warning for: spicy situations, alcohol, some swearing, blood, abuse, and typical Christine darkness. There's no graphic sa, torture, gore, or animal abuse.

When 15-year-old Izel Aziz gets a note during his last period at school, warning him not to touch any electronics in his home, he thinks nothing of it (or at least thinks he doesn't.) That is, of course, when he goes to log into his and his sister's co-op save of Moonwillow Hollow, only for him to be sucked into the game upon pressing the save file. When he enters the game due to being sick of having to be stuck in the closet, though, everything seems a lot more real than he thought this pixel filled world would be... ONC Prompts: 8. You wake up inside Stardew Valley with no idea how you got there and no guarantee you'll ever get back home. 79. A letter arrives addressed to you, written by someone who shouldn't exist.

Twenty years ago, magic vanished from the world, presumed forever gone. Yet it still existed, tangled within its own domain, along with Naamah, its dark personification. Naamah schemes return to complete her desire for humanity's subjugation and to avenge her earlier defeat. But with a soul barren, Naamah needed another to complete herself. Psalm, a blind young woman pure of soul, enjoyed a simple life with a loving family. She had no idea of her heritage, nor her magical potential as a powerful Oracle, nor that Naamah would target her. When the magic burst back into the world, Psalm and Naamah found their souls bound by a destiny written ages ago. This story was written for the 2025 Open Novella Contest, using prompt #129: The ink of our souls binds us beyond the pages of time. ***** Amby's Awards 2025 Grand Favorite *****

Graduation day is close approaching, and the Mystery Hunters Club is looking for one final mystery to wrap their high school careers up with a bang. They may have found just that when Leia Smith finds an old, tattered yearbook belonging to a missing girl from 1965. This could be the greatest mystery the Mystery Hunters Club has solved yet. They have no idea how right they are. After signing the yearbook on a whim, the group inadvertently awakens a sixty-year-old curse. In order to break the curse and save their own lives, the group must follow the breadcrumbs left by the echoes of the past, and solve the disappearance of Cynthia Davis. This novella was written for the Open Novella Challenge 2025, using the prompt: "21. A group of high school students discover a cursed yearbook that is linked to the mysterious deaths of previous graduates. After they write their names, eerie events begin to occur and they must break the curse before graduation."

You're not the shy, bookish heroine who bumps into the quarterback and wins his heart. You're Avery King-blonde, beautiful, terrifying. The head cheerleader. The villainess. The one who's supposed to get dumped while the central couple kisses under the fireworks. Except... plot twist: you've read this book before. And you're not playing along. After dying under suspiciously tropey circumstances, Helen Jones wakes up in the body of her least favorite character from Yearbook Yearnings-a chaotic high school romance filled with over-the-top drama, unexplained superpowers, and a reverse harem made of angsty boys. Now she's Avery King. According to the system, she has one job: follow the script, sabotage the heroine, and die before the final chapter. Yeah... no thanks. Instead, Avery's rewriting the plot-one fake smile and a closet full of backup cheer uniforms at a time. But the story's evolving too. The school crawls with vampires, werewolves, ghosts, aliens... and an angel ready to fall for their sake. And if that wasn't enough? The secret storylines are beginning to unravel. Why? Because every hundred years, the moon chooses two guardians to protect its light. This time, it chose two girls, two soulmates who always find each other, and always fall apart: The heroine... and the villainess. For fans of My Next Life as a Villainess, Scum Villain's Self-Saving System, and Legally Blonde (with a little Buffy the Vampire Slayer thrown in), Cheer Me Up is a sapphic, chaotic, genre-bending comedy where the villain gets a redemption arc, the heroine gets a girlfriend, and the world might just get saved-if Avery can survive high school. Again.

An introverted, recluse gamer accidentally finds out she's the reincarnation of a Greek god/goddess, and is stuck in a world-altering time-loop until she figures out WHICH god/goddess she's destined to become. ***** Ophelia Jones is...well, she's nothing. She asks for nothing. She WANTS nothing. Just to stay in her dark basement-apartment, do her mindless data-entering job by day, play video games by night. She refuses to participate in a real social life, and won't read the news or be active in the LGTBQIA+ scene that she belongs in. No, Ophelia is done giving a sh**. She'd rather live in her fantasy world, ignoring the real world around her. That is, until a mysterious puddle surfaces in her backyard, and she jokingly wonders if it'll be a portal to another world, someplace better - and she falls into it. Oh, she's transported to a new world, all right -- but not a parallel world or an alternate universe. She's transported to the past; into mythology, specifically. Greek mythology, to be even more exact. Because according to Alfie, her "spiritual guide", she's a reincarnated god or goddess, and has to figure out who. Problem? SHE KNOWS NOTHING ABOUT GREEK MYTHOLOGY. ONC prompts 37 + 5

1893. In Victorian London, a world marked by deep class divisions, young worker Henry Hops stumbles upon a secret manuscript by an unknown thinker. Fascinated by the radical ideas regarding the liberation of the working class and the contradictions within society, Henry embarks on a quest to find the mysterious author. A handwritten invitation in the manuscript leads him to an exclusive book club. Henry must decide how to navigate these ideas and how to fight for the rights of the working class, all while grappling with his own emotions, relationships, and the tension between aristocracy and social justice. ONC | 2025

Many would go to great lengths to possess the imagination of a child, where nothing is impossible. It is a power that not only enables one to create an Imaginary Friend but to also 'destroy' it. A Power that Natalie still possesses even at the age of 18. Such a pity she doesn't know it. But someone does. And they're willing to kill for it. The Repository of Imaginary Friends has been taken over and its walls are no longer safe. Their rooms, once a place they willingly returned to until their child needed them, have become prison cells while they serve as test subjects for an experiment. One that will force the realms of imagination and reality to collide, providing the ultimate means of revenge. He was wronged; now, they will pay. The Repository's only Saviour is Natalie's childhood imaginary superhero, Captain Freedom.... And he's gone missing. This was originally written for the ONC2025 but was not completed in time. So, I am completing it outside of the competition. Prompt # 105: Your childhood imaginary friend, who disappeared years ago suddenly returns - only this time they're real.

There's a new god of stories in charge, and he's decided it's time to ditch the old stuff - no matter the cost. All that stands in the way of this literary apocalypse is an amateur author with a bad case of writer's block and a rookie librarian on her first day. There's a whole world of stories to be saved - if only they can survive them first.