The woods surrounding Crenshaw are haunted by the secret between life and death---a monster known only as the Reaper. For centuries, Crenshaw's Institute for the Dark and Gifted has had one rule that its students are never meant to break: stay out of the woods, or face the Reaper's wrath. Faceless and formless, the Reaper feeds off the blood of those unfortunate enough to wander into the forest, but never touches those who obey the golden rule. That is, until a body is found in the library, drained entirely of blood. With the school halls no longer safe from the Reaper's bloodlust, four gifted students are forced to team up to uncover what the Reaper truly is---and more importantly, how to get rid of it. (Prompt 16: "And into the forest I go, to lose my mind and find my soul.")

Main Prompt: And into the forest I go, to lose my mind and find my soul. When a streak of light sends paramedic Leilana Yang into the heart of Northview, Maine forest, she never thought she would find herself in the middle of harboring a fugitive alien outlaw. Between her job fighting death and her family's future matches, Leilana wants nothing to do with her new "roommate". Add attacks on her life by alien bounty hunters and her brain is more then ready to kick him out. It's too bad her heart is too busy making other plans. As for number 287, he never thought he would find himself stuck on earth with a human as a "roommate". If they were back in the arena, she would be dead in a heartbeat, feasted on by the beasts controlled by the most powerful. Yet, that doesn't seem to do much for this woman who constantly seems to dive head-first into trouble without fear; a trait that drives him insane in more ways then one. With bounties on their heads, can the two of them survive long enough to see an end to this mess or will their own conflicting feelings be enough for them to claim each other's heads?

Main Prompt: You discover that the dragon everyone fears is in danger, and you are the only one who can save it from the knight sworn to slay it. In the Empire of the Iron-ridge, humans are second class citizens. To shifters, humans are nothing more then a play toy which they can mend and break in whatever way they please to, leaving them to fend on the streets for nothing but crumbs. So when Cynder is tasked with infiltrating the palace of the grand emperor and killing the prince in exchange for a lifetime supply of her sister's medicine, she knows that this is the very moment she has been waiting for. Until the very first night is tainted with the hints of betrayal...because the moment her eyes meet Prince Aasim, something primal awakens in both of them. History is calling for a change between the shifters and the humans. The way of life between them must be rewritten, and Cynder might be the flame needed to burn down the old to make way for the new. But if she's not careful, all she's ever love will burn in the carnage left behind. .

With betrayal comes great responsibility and Mercy Evans knows all about responsibility. ⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅ Blackmail is a sinister thing. As Mercy Evans knows all too well, it can ruin your life. When an ominous letter is placed in her hands seconds before she takes the stand to exonerate her partner and best friend, Isaac Cunningham, from a life imprisoned, she does the only thing she knows how. She lies. For the sake of her withering mother, for the lives of everyone connected to the trial, and for Isaac himself, Mercy recants her witness testimony and leaves him without an alibi. But the truth has a way of surfacing even in the darkest of times and Mercy is brought into the station when new evidence unearths a twisted web of deceit so sinister, only she can make sense of it. Her, and of course, Isaac who's year in a cell has only birthed resentment. Together, they are forced into a parallel dimension where they must relive the chain of events creating a chasm between them, and only together can they return. Will they make a breakthrough... or break each other? | An Open Novella Contest Entry |

HE JUST DOESN'T KNOW WHEN TO STOP After falling asleep to a video of the "nihilist penguin", Lian Min wakes at 3 a.m. to wet footprints and melting snow in his studio apartment in a country of perennial summer. On tracing the footprints to the corridor, he discovers a world in stasis where he is the only one who can still move. That's the least of his worries, however. Various flowers begin sprouting in his living room and the footprints change trails without warning, leading him to discover things about his neighbourhood that he never knew and perhaps should not know. Then the trail goes cold.

Tayla's life should have been full of adventure and battle, and it would have been had she not failed her Crest Champion test a year prior. Now she's stuck at her aunt's herbalist shop, selling potions to the very ranks she once dreamed to join. And her town has just become a hot spot for Crest Champions everywhere. The once-bound dragon Zyrel has awakened after a century of slumber, and he draws dangerous monsters to his cage. The Crest Champions must kill him before he can finally be freed. Tayla plans to keep her head down and avoid the constant reminder of her failed dream, but that changes when an alicorn appears in her garden, claiming they must join forces and release Zyrel before it's too late. There's something wrong with the story of Zyrel's imprisonment, and to uncover the truth, Tayla must join a familiar-and loathsome-face from her Academy days. Dangers await, but the greatest threat she finds in the woods won't be the prowling beasts. It will be herself.

Kailani and Annaliese Jade (AJ) have known each other for nearly twenty years. At age eight, they became best friends. At sixteen, AJ left Kailani heartbroken when her family moves away. Before AJ left, Kailani wrote her a confession that she burned in their childhood hideout with the hope that AJ would never find out. Now twelve years later, AJ is back in their hometown for the summer and, from where Kailani is standing, hasn't changed a bit. While their time together may be short, Kailani can't forget what she's been hiding for all this time. Even the ocean waves seem to remind her of her secrets. Friendship is safety, but now that she has the chance to rekindle what they could've had twelve years ago, Kailani is panicking. When she learns that AJ has the letter that burned all those years ago, things change-and Kailani can only hope it'll be for the better. --- Logline: Two long-time best friends rekindle their friendship in their beachfront hometown after twelve years apart, but the safety of friendship might just be hanging in the balance when old feelings rise to the surface and the burn of secret confessions ignites the spark of romance in the air. --- Prompts: #7: One morning, the ocean washes up a message. One you've been waiting your entire life to hear. #24: Staying as friends feels safe, but that doesn't mean it's the path you're meant to take. #85: You thought you'd burned that letter years ago, the one with the confession no one was ever meant to read. But somehow, it's back and in their hands. --- Copyright © 2026 KC_Han_writes ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. All plot concepts are my own. Characters are of my own imagination. I do not own any real-life locations or inspired locations. This book should not be copied or reproduced in any way. Exclusive to W a t t p a d.

** 𝑺𝒑𝒂𝒓𝒆 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒉𝒐𝒓𝒔𝒆 - 𝑹𝒊𝒅𝒆 𝒂 𝒄𝒐𝒘𝒃𝒐𝒚 𝒊𝒏𝒔𝒕𝒆𝒂𝒅 - 𝑭𝒍𝒆𝒆𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒉𝒆𝒓 𝒄𝒉𝒆𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒉𝒖𝒔𝒃𝒂𝒏𝒅, 𝑨𝒍𝒊𝒄𝒆 𝒉𝒆𝒂𝒅𝒔 𝒕𝒐 𝑾𝒚𝒐𝒎𝒊𝒏𝒈-𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒆𝒏𝒅𝒔 𝒖𝒑 𝒊𝒏 𝒂𝒏 𝒆𝒎𝒐𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏𝒂𝒍 𝒓𝒐𝒅𝒆𝒐 𝒘𝒊𝒕𝒉 𝒘𝒂𝒚 𝒕𝒐𝒐 𝒎𝒖𝒄𝒉 𝒉𝒐𝒓𝒔𝒆𝒑𝒐𝒘𝒆𝒓. ** After her husband not only cheated on her but also took her best friend for this little ride, Alice digs up her past, packs her bags and heads straight for the one place he's sure not to follow her: her hometown Grandfalls in Wyoming. What awaits her there is her parents' run-down ranch, dusty roads, stubborn horses - and cowboys who throw her good intentions out the window with a smile. Shortly after her arrival, Alice stumbles upon the charming cowboy Blake at a town festival and straight into a hot one-night stand that turns out to be a load of horseshit the next morning -because Blake turns out to be working at her parents' ranch. As if that weren't enough, Blake turns out to be a charming mess with a talent for chaos, while his gruffy brother Cole criticises her every idea as if it were his personal mission in life. And then there's Byron Carter: dashing, influential, and clearly too interested in the ranch... and in Alice. Between bankrupt finances, broken high heels, old enemies, and way too hot cowboys, Alice quickly learns that a heart is harder to tame than a wild ranch horse. In the end, she is faced with the all-important question: does she trust her feelings, or does she save the ranch before everything goes down the drain?

Mari thought that coming home to a ghost town was bad. It turns out it's worse having to attend her estranged father's wedding and letting her childhood best friend break down the walls she carefully built. ***** Mari Chasey's life is suspended. She returns to her hometown in a cold November day following her mother's death, after years of studying abroad in Europe. Pinewood is sleepy in the bitter cold, the deserted shoreline stretching further than she can reach, but that's okay. Mari is good with temporary things and at not lingering. She's not planning to stay for long, just enough to sort out her mother's affairs without poking at open wounds. Then her father returns. Jack Chasey, former renowned superstar, absent for most of her childhood, is getting married to a woman Mari hardly knows. He gets to begin again, build something new, while Mari grapples with a fractured life and all the scattered pieces of herself. Her mother was supposed to live forever; Jack was mercurial and always at arm's length. But now he's here to stay. Enter Kinney St. James. Once Mari's closest friend, then another person that passed by like a comet, she still knows Mari and all the shards of her. Even the sharper ones. In the stillness of winter, Mari reconnects with the quiet life Jack always wanted for her, the softer parts of her that only Kinney can tap into, and what it truly means to be her mother's daughter. ***** Open Novella Contest -- prompts 24, 29, 46, & 77 © 2026 caterina george // all rights reserved

Not all corpses are as dead as they seem. Ivy knows she found her ex-boyfriend, Kayson, in a pool of his own blood within Hollowmyre: her uncle's historic village. The issue? No one believes her, because Kayson's body is nowhere to be found. Until he shows up in her bedroom with fangs, a bloodthirsty new appetite, and no memory of his transformation into something less than human. All he knows is it had something to do with Hollowmyre Village, a hotspot destination for vacationing families... and a site where bodies have piled up for weeks. Not all of them have been found. Together, Ivy and Kayson must reluctantly team up to find the creature who turned him before the entire village falls prey. __________ MAIN ONC PROMPT: 90. You receive a voicemail from someone you love, recorded one hour after their confirmed death. __________ ©️2026 Wrenna Stone "Hollowmyre" is posted exclusively on W a t t p a d . c o m. If you are reading this novel on another platform or website, please inform the author via W a t t p a d, as you may be reading it from a mirror site or any other platform where it has been plagiarized.