After a year spent healing at St. Francis Mental Hospital, Neillah must piece together the life she was forced to leave behind without getting caught. ⠂⠄⠄⠂⠁⠁⠂⠄⠄⠂⠁⠁⠂⠄⠄⠂ ⠂⠄⠄⠂☆ When Neillah Thomas is released back into society she expects her family and friends to have moved on--not believe she's dead. Convinced it was for the best, her mother assures her temporary grief was better than long drawn hardship that could only end in pain, keeping her wellbeing a secret from everyone, but also single-handedly cutting off Neillah's entire support system. Sworn to secrecy, she attends college at her dream school only to find her former friend group in shambles. Between the cold stares, scathing retorts, and literal evasion, Neillah is shocked to find her first crush is a loner and that hot-headed best friend of hers? He seems to be staring in her direction a little too long. Clinging to her promise to remain out of sight, Neillah stubbornly fights for the closure they all deserve and answers she never got, no matter the cost. | An Open Novella Contest Entry | | Cover by the Amazing @Caralogues |

When Brie lands a spot on Cheese Whiz, a cheese-themed cooking competition, the last thing she expects is to run into Colby Jackson, the man who left her heart with more holes than Swiss cheese. ~~~ It was supposed to be simple. Enter the contest, win the prize money, open her own restaurant. Easy peasy, extra cheesy. So of course Colby freaking Jackson and his smug, entirely too sexy face just had to come back into Brie's life like an extra stinky wheel of limburger cheese. Surrounded by fierce competitors and legendary amounts of dairy, Brie and Colby exchange barbs sharper than any cheddar. Yet, as the competition heats up, Brie quickly discovers the mozzarella isn't the only thing melting. Against her better judgment, Colby is once again worming his way into her heart. Will Brie find a whey to make things work between them, or will he leave her feeling bleu? 🧀 Rivals to lovers 🧀 Second chance romance 🧀 All puns are fully intended Using prompts 29 and 89 for ONC 2026! Cover by @-DeeIsDead-

#ONC2026 Entry One last assignment to buy her freedom. The final phase of the mission was supposed to be straightforward: slip into the Spanish Royal Palace during the midsummer gala, incinerate the marked documents, and eliminate the crown and its heirs. It was supposed to be easy. At least, it would have been if Elizabeth hadn't arrived twenty-four hours too soon. Forced to play a role her lethal training never prepared her for, the Royal Nanny, Elizabeth must use her supernatural abilities to navigate a world of silk and secrets while protecting the very heirs she was sent to kill. But she isn't the only one on a mission. Thomas, an assassin from a rival organization known as The Pendulum, is already embedded as the palace's head of security. In their battle to outspy each other, they realize they share more than just a job description. Two assassins. One royal secret. A lullaby of steel and secrecy. ~~~~~~~~~ Main Prompt: 32. Two assassins from rival organizations are sent on the same secret mission, only to realize the assignment hides a much bigger truth. Sub Prompt: 33. It doesn't take long before everything in your life spins out of control. One moment you're a secret assassin, and the next, you've somehow been hired as a nanny and you're not entirely sure how it happened. Cover photo from Unsplash, edited in canva. Started: 1st February 2026 Completed: Rated: Mature Exclusively on Wattpad.

Delilah Daine is the most ordinary girl in existence. At least that's what she wants everyone to believe desperately. After spending years in a residential treatment center as a pre-teen, she wants to be normal and fit neatly into the popular mold society creates for girls her age. She has a social media account, so she isn't considered too closed off, but she only posts nature photos and shares cute animal videos. She works as a librarian surrounded by people every day, but after work, she prefers to stay home and be alone. Her carefully curated existence shatters when she receives a letter from someone every doctor insisted never existed - a person who was supposed to be nothing more than a figment of her childhood imagination. Nathaniel Fitzpatrick knows he must leave Europe, especially after spending years caged in a delusional scientist's basement as a test subject. Only one thing keeps him from boarding the ship to America and disappearing for at least a decade - Delilah. A talkative little girl who once showed him he shouldn't spend the rest of eternity hidden in dark caves, only coming out for food. He decided weeks ago it would be best to write her a thank-you note before his departure and forget about her, the way he assumes she forgot about him. But now that it's time to board, he realizes a simple letter isn't enough. He needs to know if she's even alive and what kind of person she has grown into during the years he was imprisoned. People change, and he has to find out whether the only good person he has ever met managed to retain her kindness and compassion - or if she lost that battle the moment she grew up, the way most humans usually do.

** 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐭𝐨𝐰𝐧 𝐢𝐬 𝐛𝐮𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠, 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐠𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐨𝐰 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐝 - 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐧𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐛𝐞𝐥𝐨𝐧𝐠𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐛𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐭𝐬.** In the dirty mining town of Dragon's Creek, no one believes in heroes. People trust in alcohol, guns, and the fact that death is faster than any prayer. The mountain is rich, the whiskey cheap, and life worth less than a bullet. Madame Scarlet's world consisted of booze, her saloon girls, and the art of making drunk men and penny-pinching dwarves understand where their filthy hands had no right to be. Then the damn mountain collapses. The mine swallows most of the men, spits out gold, and buries any form of order. What remains is grief, greed, and a mining town that is suddenly open to gold diggers, fanatics, and all kinds of scum. Along with the new scum arrives a priest in town - and Preacher Solomon Knight comes not only with his dogs, but also with his own ideas of mercy and order. As he speaks of salvation, he uses dark magic and drowns people in holy water. As if that weren't enough, the nights suddenly no longer belonged to the living. All that can be found are the leftovers: corpses torn apart, disembowelled, and picked clean to the bone. The mountain was sacred. Now it is hungry. Welcome to Dragon's Creek. Those who pray will die on their knees. Those who survive better load their guns.

** 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?

When her office burns down a successful editor must share a workspace with the most infuriating man alive or risk the promotion she's been working her entire career for. **** Chielozonam 'Elo' Williams is thriving. Not only does she have the job of her dreams she's about to make Acquiring Editor of PerfectRomance, the publishing imprint she's been working at for the past five years which would definitely prove to her judgmental father once and for all that he was wrong about her wasting her life away at a dead end job but she's also determined to enjoy the prime years of her youth. Endless fun and casual romps in the sheets are the name of the game. That is until the unthinkable happens. After Elo's building catches fire and burns down she has no choice but to share an office with the one person that makes her blood boil: Connor Price. Archenemies since their days at college Connor makes getting under her skin an art form with his well-timed scathing remarks and contemptible behavior. It's not long before they're locked in a battle of wits, neither willing to back down or give up. When they have to work together to acquire a potentially lucrative manuscript, they are forced to put aside their long-standing animosity for an adventure that will change everything they thought they knew about each other. PEOPLE WE MEET ON VACATION meets ANYONE BUT YOU meets THE HATING GAME in this contemporary rom-com about resilience, self-discovery and two sworn enemies who can't decide whether to kiss or kill each other. An ONC 2026 story inspired by prompt 40. You and your greatest enemy are struck by a curse that binds your lives together. The only way to survive is to share a kiss, but you would both rather face death than each other.

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.