TORIN Orphaned as a child, I've relentlessly carved out a name for myself in the Royal Naval Academy. Now I serve as the youngest lieutenant aboard the HMS Dartmouth. Then I received the bittersweet news that I have an uncle who is still alive...and he's sentenced to hang for piracy. I, Lieutenant Torin Damaris of the Royal Navy, is related by blood to a pirate. It's disgraceful beyond words. To make matters worse, my uncle left me a treasure map, of all things. And X marks the spot where a wealth of riches have been hidden, on Dead Man's Isle. I'm convinced it's nothing but pirate nonsense, tall tales brought on by rum. But the promise of so much gold is impossible to resist. It haunts me. And I'm hungry for it. As I set sail, guided by the map, there's a nagging worry in the back of my mind. This doesn't make me a pirate...does it? - - - BRYNN That map belongs to me and I want it back. I won't let some stuck-up, spoiled sailor boy claim it for himself. There's more than gold hidden on that map. The story goes that Poseidon himself buried a vial of his tears on the island and anyone who places a drop of that precious salty water on his tongue will rule the tides. But Dead Man's Isle earned its name for a reason. It's treacherous sailing in the rough shallows. Many ships have been gutted on the jagged rocks, or smashed to pieces by the powerful waves. And if that wasn't enough to deter any man of sound mind, legends abound of monsters that roam the island. With a ravenous appetite for human flesh. Can Torin and I work together to claim the treasure and split it amongst ourselves? Or will we become one more set of bleached bones on the shores of Dead Man's Isle? - - - #ONC2026 Prompt 34: You will have to sail the seven seas to find the lost treasure. But treasure means different things to different people, what treasure will you find at the world's edge?

The creator of a 26th century matchmaker is anti-romantic, but when an analyst challenges her views, she relives painful memories, exposing her technology's flaws and threatening her identity. ｡ ✴︎ ⋆⚛ 🤖 ⚛⋆ ✴︎ ｡ Kayla Lacson believes that love is a biological equation that can be solved. She is the brilliant mind behind Dorothea, the most advanced AI dating application of the 26th-century, designed to calculate compatibility with extraordinary precision. Kayla's world is crafted in data, logic, and predictable outcomes. That is, until Mathew Matel, a Behavioral Analyst whose brilliance matches hers, joins her team and challenges her views. When Dorothea's latest revision loses public trust and corporate pressure mounts, he becomes the catalyst that forces Kayla to confront buried trauma, uncovering the flaws of her creation and fracturing her carefully structured reality. Despite Dorothea's calculation of their incompatibility, Kayla finds herself drawn to Mathew. Flashes of his face begin to haunt her as she tries to unravel his unexplainable familiarity. And when her very identity is threatened by tangled feelings, she must decide whether love is something to manipulate or something to surrender to. ｡ ✴︎ ⋆⚛ 🤖 ⚛⋆ ✴︎ ｡ ONC 2026 Round 1 Winner and Ambassador Pick ｡ ✴︎ ⋆⚛ 🤖 ⚛⋆ ✴︎ ｡ Genres: Romance SciFi Speculative Fiction Unconventional SciFi Hard SciFi Slow Burn Romance

#ONC2026 |🏅Round 1 Ambassador Pick | Speaking to the dead is permitted, but raising the dead is forbidden. After discovering an unlikely copy of The Necrotic Guide, budding necromancer Emelie is both delighted and disgusted by the powers the book promises. Will it be enough to speak to her lost love again?

#ONC2026! Kalila Karam has it all. Beauty, smarts and a promising career at Stillwater Research, a secretive risk analysis and special operation firm based in Washington D.C. She also has a past that few know about, one that's left her with physical and emotional scars from the bombing of a civilian bunker in Iraq. She's made her way to Stillwater for one thing: revenge for the death of her family. Seth Stillwater has a double identity. The scion of a ruthless family business, most people know him as a former soldier turned freelance operative, Ax Antonov. He's summoned to take over the family business, the very same corporation where Lila has been recently hired. When Lila and Seth meet, grand-finale style fireworks go off for both of them. Seth's overwhelming attraction to Lila has only one problem. Lila's out to kill him.