Bronhini, the storm queen, sends out her pet dragon to turn the skirmish her men are losing. A lone warrior stands up to the beast - a brave, but useless act. When Laiàn learns about the courageous last stand of her brother, she is devastated. But not everything is as it seems... Based on the prompt #29: "You will meet many people in your life. Many will come and go, but some will leave footprints on your heart."

When a killer feral hog invades Verity State Park, Officer Rylee Harding quarantines the entire area until the threat can be eliminated. She soon discovers doing the right thing isn't easy, because summer has just begun, and the livelihood of Verity's residents depends on the seasonal flood of tourist dollars. Facing opposition from town officials, her neighbors, and even members of her own family, Rylee stands firm in her decision and risks her life and the life of her unborn child to face down the remorseless monster. This story is written for ONC2026 using prompt number 78: You begin to realize that nothing is quite what it seems. Jowls, Copyright ©2026 by Dennis Royer, @dennisroyer All Rights Reserved. Cover art by Deviant Art / ArtVixen0520. Used by permission.

Jareth Coppersmith and Pol Flynt have one thing in common. They kill for a living. One works for GAME, the powerful Guild of Airship Mechanics and Engineers and the other, for the Royal Spymaster. But what happens when they are unknowingly sent on the same secret mission? At best they are rivals, at worst, mortal enemies. SciFi / Thriller/ Steampunk/ LGBT

She is sent to kill the dragon. Instead, she might become his only salvation. *** In a world swallowed by the Ever-Dark, Iva Vernigora is nothing more than a lowly servant in the house of the cruel Voivode Yakub Ivanov, Duke of Highroot. But when Voivode blackmails her with the lives of her parents, Iva is forced to pretend she's his daughter, as she infiltrates the royal academy of magic - Kolegium. Voivode Yakub's order is absolute: poison the Prince Konstantin Veliki. Prince Konstantin is the heir to the throne, the last of the line of Dragons - a Zmey warrior of light, who was blessed with a dragon-shifting gift. At a first glance, he is nothing but a smug, pompous royal, and everything Iva is supposed to hate. Yet every touch, and every shared lesson at Kolegium blurs the line between the enemy she must kill and the man she is beginning to crave. While Iva stalks her prey as a knife in the dark, waiting for the chance to extinguish Konstantin's light, she discovers that the dragon everyone fears is the only thing standing between humanity and the void. As the Ever-Dark Shades rise, Iva must make an impossible choice. Will she carry out her sinister orders and secure her parents' freedom, or will she stand by the Dragon in the battle for the world's last light? *** The Shades are coming. The Dragons are falling. And the Eternal Spark is waiting for its host. © 2026 EvelynHail Exclusively on Wattpad Based on prompts: 97. "When the world slips into endless darkness, something begins to move in the shadows and you must find a way to survive in a night that never ends." 4. "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 ."

Nakeeta has spent her entire life training to enter the healer division of the army, but when initiation day comes around, she is assigned to the hunters; an elite group of fighters that are gifted the ability to shapeshift in order to fight the spreading corruption. Left with no other choice, Nakeeta must either adapt, or die. This is an entry for #ONC2026.

The rowdy troublemaker and the quiet, almost-invisible nerd. The retired professional athlete and the burnt out professor. Everyone hides their true intentions, and the only way to figure someone out is to peek at their heart. Some silently hope for better days. Some journal. Some send texts to no one in particular. But Kato Minori makes a wish from the bottom of her heart that startles her when it comes true.

The daughter of the most powerful priestess is nothing like her mother. The Oracle of Delphi has always been the most influential and powerful woman in Greece. But Pythia is dying inside everytime she channels the god Apollo because she is the only one who knows that all of the prophesies are false. Until one day a stranger comes seeking their fate and Pythia gives them a very different kind of answer.

|| ONC 2026 Round 1 Winner || Martin Marvingale lives by two rules: work hard and put others first. So when a baby dragon rips a hole in reality above his freshly planted petunias and the desperate fairytale land inside begs him to step in as their king, he says yes. Turns out, their old king got cursed with zombie-ism, and now a horde of undead nobility are ravaging the countryside. The castle is suffering from a bad bout of slime, the peasants are one more cancelled festival away from revolting, and none of the local lords (who aren't brain-eating monsters) seem to be interested in lifting a finger to help. His only hope at putting things back to rights is to make nice with a princess who hates his face -- and the fact that he might have accidentally just stolen her job. Undeterred, Martin plans to win her over by being the best king anyone could ask for. Which would be a little easier if he knew what a fairytale king was supposed to do exactly. Or how he was supposed to look. Or... anything about his kingdom, really. In retrospect, maybe he should have asked a few more questions before taking the job. ____________________ Cover © 2026 Avadel Ink

Kitchen maid Rima wakes up chained in a cave as a sacrifice to the Dread Dragon Cyclone, along with two goats and gold and gems as tribute. If she escapes, the Guardian of Beltonia will pay a grand reward for her return, dead or alive. Cyclone arrives late and wants more than making her a meal. They flee, but Sir Roger Tallego, the knight stuck with the fatal quest to destroy the dragon, and his squires are after them. They must quest until Sir Roger succeeds or dies honorably, true to his chivalric code. Sir Roger drinks too much since the death of his wife. His squires, Beau and Franz, and his page, Pen, keep perilous secrets. But Roger honors the quest. Prompt 4: 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 save it.

Edmund comes to the remote village of Black Thickett to escape the life grief has carved out of him. He wants silence. Distance. A place where memories can't follow. But Black Thickett is wrong in quiet, unsettling ways. The broken road becomes perfectly smooth the moment he crosses the boundary. The cottages are too neat, too deliberate. And on a noticeboard full of dry flyers, only one poster is wet. A missing boy, smiling as if he doesn't know he's lost. The villagers won't talk about the disappearances. The forest at the edge of the village seems to breathe, and the deeper Edmund goes, the calmer he feels... dangerously calm. The forest can quiet his pain. It can ease his grief. It can make him forget. But not everything that heals you wants you to survive. Welcome to Black Thickett, where you'll find my entry into the ONC 2026.