(ONC 2026) ꒰ঌ·✦·໒꒱ "Broken vows shan't remain unpunished. Mend the errors of yore, less blood be spilt upon thine hands." ꒰ঌ·✦·໒꒱ Evanora is tethered to a forbidden doorway between worlds. Her role is to guard and to safekeep. And yet, it calls to her. To break the rules. To give in. Every night she loses sleep, her mind weakens, and she steps closer to its enticing aperture. In an effort to ignore the mystical lure, she ventures around her family's antique manor, only to uncover ancient blood feuds festering through the house's foundations. (Commissioned cover by Kalesbug)

MYTHOLOGICAL MYSTERY-ROMANCE [𝐑𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐝 𝟏 𝐀𝐦𝐛𝐚𝐬𝐬𝐚𝐝𝐨𝐫'𝐬 𝐏𝐢𝐜𝐤] In the old city once called Kaharba, an archaeologist uncovers a worn scripture. Its ink thinning, its meaning barely holding on. He reads it aloud without reverence, without belief. Just habit. Just sound. That night, something changes. His phone begins to behave strangely. Uncanny things happen. Voices echo where there should be silence. A name keeps trying to surface. Some things don't need faith to return. They only need to be remembered once. And whatever has awakened is running out of time. (𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐦𝐩𝐭 𝐧𝐮𝐦𝐛𝐞𝐫 𝟎𝟔 : "𝐖𝐡𝐢𝐥𝐞 𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐜𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐦𝐲𝐭𝐡𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐚 𝐥𝐨𝐬𝐭 𝐜𝐢𝐯𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐳𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧, 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐝𝐢𝐬𝐜𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝐚 𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐠𝐨𝐭𝐭𝐞𝐧 𝐠𝐨𝐝 𝐨𝐟 𝐦𝐢𝐬𝐜𝐡𝐢𝐞𝐟. 𝐀𝐟𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐞𝐱𝐩𝐥𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐢𝐫 𝐚𝐧𝐜𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐭𝐞𝐦𝐩𝐥𝐞, 𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐢𝐧𝐜𝐢𝐝𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐮𝐧𝐜𝐚𝐧𝐧𝐲 𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬 𝐛𝐞𝐠𝐢𝐧 𝐭𝐨 𝐟𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐨𝐰 𝐲𝐨𝐮. 𝐒𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐝𝐞𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐡𝐚𝐬 𝐭𝐨𝐮𝐜𝐡𝐞𝐝 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐥𝐢𝐟𝐞, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐧𝐨𝐰 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐦𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐟𝐢𝐠𝐮𝐫𝐞 𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐢𝐭 𝐰𝐚𝐧𝐭𝐬.") ONC 2026 entry. Copyright © ipsita 2026

In a dark Benedictine Abbey, high in the cold mountains of Helvetia, where stone and earth remember older laws than kings, a legendary weapon rests in silence. It lies within the Kloster Einsiedeln, a mountain abbey sworn to the Cantors of the region of Oath Fellowship, its fresco painted walls with tales of a history that is much different than the truth it conceals. For generations, the weapon has slept beneath legend, its purpose misremembered, its history softened into a heroic myth. But weapons do not forget. When the lies that bound it begins to unravel, and the abbey's sealed records stir, old borders awaken. Wolves who once feared only the glint of steel begin to fear something else as the weapon reveals what it was never meant to be. Not an instrument of slaughter, but a measure of law. What rises in its wake is neither hunter nor monster, but something the world has not known for centuries. The Wardens of the Limes. Some weapons are forged to kill. Others are forged to decide. This weapon requires HEIRS. And Miteinander; working together. Or it won't work at all... The surprising heirs of the weapon, rivals since childhood, staunch upholders of the lies believed throughout family generations, must now overcome, to step into their chosen destiny. "They stand at the Threshold." ✠ ✠ ✠ ONC26 Prompt # 1. Two rivals discover they're the chosen heirs to a legendary weapon that will only activate if they work together. Some Historical references: The Kloster Einsiedeln Abbey was first founded as a Benedictine monastery in 934 CE on the site of a former hermitage. Its origins, however, date back to approximately 835 CE, when the hermit monk Saint Meinrad first established a small cell in the "Dark Forest" of the region. LIMES definition: Latin. Originally meaning a path or boundary line. A limes (plural: limites) was a fortified border or frontier system of the Roman Empire.

#ONC2026 PROMPT 120. You survive a werewolf bite because your blood carries a rare, deadly condition that poisons them, and now you hunt werewolves by letting them bite you. Edwina Dawley, a rational wildlife biologist, enters the forest to study wolves and emerges with her reality shattered after surviving an attack by a massive wolf that transforms into a man. This encounter fractures her belief in the ordinary world, leading her to the ancient Order Sapientae Antiquae, which tracks her blood anomaly-an obscure condition lethal to werewolves. She becomes a hunter, using her body as a weapon, but as her reputation grows, so does her isolation. Her closest friend, Graham, begins to see the Order's hidden violence, while Darnell Key, the Order's mentor, recognizes Edwina's potential as a stabilizing force. Everything changes when Randolf, an ancient werewolf, chooses her and bites her, binding their fates together. Their intense connection ignites a love that challenges everything Edwina thought she understood. Caught between the safety of her old life, the allure of order, and a forbidden love, Edwina must choose her identity: scientist or myth, weapon or woman. As the Order tightens its grip and the world approaches exposure, she navigates a new role-neither prey nor predator-rewriting the rules with blood, choice, and consequence.

Rue Domínguez, a twenty-seven-year-old unemployed woman struggling to cure her boredom and at the same time earn some good amount of cash, learns about an app 'ZombieRush' which on winning, promises to reward with $10.5 million. That seemed too good to be true, but with a competitive streak to beat this almost impossible game, Rue decides to test her fate. After conquering the game, she realises it's only the 1st half of the game, and 2nd half is still waiting out there. Rue won $10,000 on completing the 1st half, winning the rest of $10.5 million after completing the 2nd half---now that seemed not too far. But willing to participate in this game that appeared too easy before would have such a horrific result, that Rue never expected. Being forced into a zombie apocalypse while attending a high school reunion and learning that the apocalypse might just be the next half of ZombieRush, Rue realises she very much is 'cooked.' And now she is officially a player, with no way out. * * * Total Word Count: 21,045

The Winter Folk by Jennifer McMahon meets The Haunting of the Hill House (the Netflix series) in this tale of paleoanthropological terror that plays with the famous theory of the uncanny valley by Masahiro Mori. *** PhD student Giselle Brown returns to her childhood hometown to complete her dissertation in peace, hardly expecting anything surprising to happen. It already muddled her life as it is; she doesn't need more trouble to spice it up. But when the bones of a human cadaver are discovered by the local anglers, which turn out to be the remains of her long-lost mother, Giselle's life is thrown into a tumult. Twenty years ago, Giselle's mother, Julia Brown, had disappeared from their house, leaving behind a trail of heartbreak and despair. The police never found her mother, which drove her father to suicide, her older sister to turn mute and to be admitted in an asylum, leaving the full onus of raising Giselle on her grandmother. Her mother was more a legend in their house than a person who haunted their every action and Giselle's most haunting thoughts. Somewhere deep down Giselle had always sought answers to what happened to her mother and the disturbing facets of the last week she was with their family. Now, with the corpse recovered and identified, the investigation that had once gone cold resumes upon Giselle's insistence. Yet things get stranger as the police uncover the most bizarre facts about the cadaver and the details about the last days of Julia's life. Giselle is plagued by reflections that are not quite hers, shadows that stretch too long, figures appearing at the edge of the woods close to her home and a lingering sense of being watched. Giselle doesn't know what to do. Can she really trust her mind? Or is nothing as it seems?

When Jane decides to follow a black cat into the woods, she does not expect it to lead to her meeting a Grim Reaper named Stormy who needs her help to stop a catastrophic event that may end the world. Unable to bring herself to turn down such an important mission, Jane soon finds that things may be harder than she anticipated. This is an ONC 2026 story! It is based on the following prompts: 98: You never imagined the end of the world would begin with a one-eared black cat showing up at your door. 65: On the way to collect a soul, the Grim Reaper is distracted by a stray puppy. Instead of completing the task, they decide to find the puppy's owner, much to the frustration of their assistant. 72: A real necromancer sits in on a fake seance. The cover art is by Anne Stokes.

Cassandra Shaw, the heir to the renowned Shaw estate, has finally become eligible for marriage, allowing her to take over her father's clan. The monster-hunting clan is in distress due to his recent demise, and they need a brave and determined leader who'll take over. Unfortunately, she keeps refusing the advances of every single suitor, waiting for her true love. As time goes by, she starts believing she'll never find him, and eventually, she starts giving up, ready for any prospects that will enable her to preserve the future of her clan. Then, she remembers a prophecy in her dreams - a prophecy that might just help her solve everything - and two men, different as night and day, come to her like they were ordered. Hyacinth and Edmund Lawrence. Two brothers with a growing distance between them. A brooding rebel and a natural socialite. Both speak to a side of her she's connected to deeply. Both fascinate her from the day she meets them. Both seem destined to be the love of her life. Yet one will save her, and one will ruin her. The question remains: Which is which? *** 45. "Kings have honor, soldiers are brave, poets have heart, and all I have is rage!" (Sound by Naethan Apollo) 46. "We love broken, beautiful people. And it doesn't get more obviously broken and more classically beautiful than you." (A slightly modified quote from "Daisy Jones & The Six" by Taylor Jenkins Reid) 115. A prophecy claims you will love two people. One destined to save your life and the other destined to destroy it. The trouble is, you have no idea which is which.