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.

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.

"You're trying to tempt me." "An invitation isn't temptation, sweetheart. Unless it's an invitation to something you secretly want." "Stop." "Stop what?" "Messing with me. You don't control me." "Nor would I ever want to. But making you lose control? Now that's something I think about far more than I should." *** Shiloh Abbott wakes up with no memory of her marriage, her best friend Lillian's death, or the four years she spent as a captive of a terrorist group, the Shadows. But rather than dwell on a past she can't remember, she chooses to focus on the future that was almost stolen from her. Now reunited with her husband, she devotes herself fully to her sacred duty: repopulating a planet ravaged by a deadly parasite. Unfortunately, the Shadows have no intention of leaving her alone. And as their attempts to recapture her escalate, Shiloh starts to realize that what she's forgotten could hold the key to everything: Lillian's death, her kidnapping, and most importantly-a cure. But can she uncover the truth when others will stop at nothing to keep it hidden? *Written for the 2025 Open Novella Contest* Main Prompt: 68 - In a world where a parasitic virus has taken control of the population, only a cure can end the tyranny, but finding it may be impossible.

***ONC 2025 entry*** Prompt #127: "I've got a long list of ex-lovers, they'll tell you I'm insane." May Tomlinson is a hopeless romantic-she always has been. Starting at age seventeen, she got her first girlfriend, and her love life only got crazier from there. As May starts to date womanizers, players, cheaters, and even "the one that got away," she starts to lose hope in true love. Will May fine "the one"? Or is her love life truly hopeless?

Entry-level magic professors aren't supposed to be responsible for fixing the generations-long problems that come from a library haunted by fae. But when the administration sweeps the dangerous situation under the rug, Constance Wylf sets out to expose the truth. Armed with logic, a cart of books, and her personal-companion fairy, Constance is ready to storm the long-abandoned shelves. What she isn't prepared for is a tavern-keeper who's madly insistent on tagging along, especially since he seems convinced she's unravelling along the edges. Which is impossible. Unravelling, as everyone knows, is for people with emotions. And Constance Wylf is absolutely determined to keep any emotions she might have tied up tight. ~ * ~ Longlister in ONC 2025 Prompts 65 and 102 Main: What is science, if not magic governed by laws instead of emotions? Secondary: In a world where books are feared for their power to possess readers, one Scribe enters a haunted library full of cursed stories. The question is: will they leave the same person?