Borrowed Sight Trapped by a debt that cost her sight, Elodie is sold into marriage to the powerful man who "saved" her. A week before the wedding, a vision reveals her true soulmate is the man destined to murder her. When her fiance hires her fated executioner as a bodyguard, Elodie must navigate a dangerous game of trust and desire, where the only man who can save her may also be the one to end her. [This novella is being written for the Open Novella Contest 2026! Prompt: #101 You have a vision of your soulmate but it's of the moment where they end your life.] Copyright © 2026 V.K. Thorn ​ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author. ​The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. This includes, but is not limited to, the uploading of this work to "mirror" sites or its use in the training of generative artificial intelligence models without the author's explicit permission. Criminal copyright infringement is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000.

Fall, 2022: On the Bayou of Southern Louisiana. Ozzy, a 14-year-old artistic honors student, is looking forward to starting high school and the talented theater program. But a whirlwind trip to the ER and an MRI reveals Ozzy has a brain tumor - and later, a pediatric cancer diagnosis - changes everything. During a year-long fight for a cure in the hospital, hope comes to Ozzy and their Mama through art, music and letters from friends, family and even strangers. There are so many that some remain unopened, collected in a box that goes home with Ozzy after they are discharged from the hospital a year later. The box sits in Mama's closet for over two years. Neither Ozzy nor Mama have opened the box as they struggle to return to "normal" life when "normal" is no longer possible. Until today, 2026: when what begins as spring cleaning turns into opening the box, reading its letters, and finding a mysterious adventure in one that neither Ozzy or Mama ever saw coming. And it just may be the adventure 17-year-old Ozzy and their Mama need to reveal the unexpected, ordinary magic that can help them heal, move forward- and live. ONC 2026 Prompts Used: #79 (Main) - Additional: #16, #28, #69, #104. Stacie Eirich @spacetodream

The Winter People 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 is at her hometown to complete her dissertation in peace, hardly expecting anything surprising to happen. Her life is muddled 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 a mental institution, 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 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? For Julia Brown had unearthed a secret that humanity must not know, and now her family must pay its dues... *** An ONC 2026 entry

"The Golden Boy has a secret. The Troublemaker has a soul. And the code is about to break them both." At the Lunar Space-Ops Academy, Elian Vance is the future of the fleet. He's the perfect cadet, the tactical prodigy, and the quiet star of every simulation. But when the sun goes down, the mask comes off. Elian is a technophobic burnout who finds his only peace in the illegal, neon-drenched chaos of the planet's underground rave scene. Kae Thorne is the Academy's resident nightmare. A "Belt-rat" with a rap sheet of unauthorized hacks and a total disregard for military discipline, everyone assumes he's one more mishap from being expelled. No one knows that Kae is a deeply spiritual teetotaller who views engineering as a divine art-and he's lonelier than he'd ever admit. Everything changes with The App. An unauthorized, dark-web matchmaking algorithm pings them both with a terrifying reality: they are a 100% match. To get close to the "perfect" Elian, Kae decides to do the unthinkable-he starts acting like a model student. But as Kae transforms and Elian's carefully curated life begins to unravel, a forgotten ghost wakes up in the deep sectors of the moon. A vengeful cyborg cat is seizing control of the Academy's systems, and the only thing standing between the cadets and a total atmospheric collapse is a handwritten letter from the future and a "Zombie" server that hasn't been touched in forty years. When chaos ensues in a world of rigid protocols, Elian and Kae must decide: will they cling to the masks they've built, or will they learn to command the chaos. Featuring: 🚀 Dual POV (M/M Romance) 🐈⬛ A Vengeful Cyborg Cat (Yes, really) 💾 Low-Tech "Zombie" Servers

Celia Jones can talk to the dead, but getting on with them is a different story. She always has at least three spirits following her around, complaining about their relatives, or the inadequacy of their funeral arrangements. The latest is a murdered actress, Maude Domby, but she's less interested in denouncing her killer than in accusing the understudy of stealing her favourite pearls. When the charming but utterly fraudulent medium Stanley Winter holds a séance to contact Maude, Maude insists she and Celia should attend, to see people mourning her 'properly'. But the séance ends up implicating an innocent woman, and now Stanley Winter is banging on Celia's door, begging her to help him find Maude's real killer. Unfortunately, helping Stanley Winter could lead Celia to confront her other power - the one that's both lighter and infinitely darker than talking to the dead. ONC Prompt: 72. A real necromancer sits in on a fake séance.

ONC 2026. Prompt 19. "When you accidentally spill coffee on someone, the moment that should have been ruining your day becomes the beginning of surprising and life-changing friendship, in our case, romance." She remembers every time they've met. He remembers none of them. She is immortal, as long as she does not interfere. He is human, and without knowing it, he is changing everything. One meeting altered their destinies forever. She has spent lifetimes turning back time to save him, losing pieces of her immortality each time she fails, becoming more human with every loss. Every version of his story ends the same way. Him dead. This is her last chance. To save him, she may have to attempt the one thing she has never tried before: let him go. Because loving him might be the very thing that kills him.

ONC 2026 entry, prompt 5. Every day at the exact same time your cat slips out of your home. One afternoon, curiosity gets the better of you, and you follow, only to discover it's living a secret life you never imagined. My take, cats save the world as a backdrop to a romcom.

What if you woke up with no memory but just a name? What if that name belonged to a dead man who left you a voicemail from beyond the grave? What if a scar on your palm opened doors to a magic library where memories are currency and you have to trade pieces of yourself just to learn who you used to be? What if everyone wants something from you, some to save you, some to erase you, some because they loved you in a life you can't remember? And what if the only person with all the answers is dead? Waiting for you to find him. This is Kang Yeorim's story. And it starts with a dead man's voice in her ear, "I loved you more than the sky loved the dawn." --- [A huge thank you to the artist for this stunning Taehyung painting used as my cover art. No copyright infringement intended, this is a non-profit fan work made with love. All credits to the actual artist.]

My entry for the ONC 2026.

Park Jimin had grown up living a rather normal life. He had loving parents, great friends, and enjoyed fun school activities. Now he's living life as a well loved member of the band BTS. On his 21st birthday, he receives a letter. A letter that begins to shatter everything he thought he knew about himself. The more secrets that are revealed, the harder it is to answer the question... Who really 𝘪𝘴 Park Jimin? -- A Jimin Mystery/Thriller TW: Strong Language Angst Open ending - Writing for ONC 2026 Combined prompts: 78. You begin to realize that nothing is quite what it seems. 79. A letter arrives addressed to you, written by someone who shouldn't exist.