Anna lives a deliberately colourless life-one spent in the background, where asking for anything comes with a price she learned to stop paying long ago. At school, on the bus, at home, her world has been built on silence, routine, and the certain safety of going unnoticed. It's a balance she maintains meticulously, because being seen has never ended well for her. Then, one day, that balance fractures after a brief moment of accidental acknowledgement-small, meaningless, fleeting, and completely impossible to undo. Now, Anna is forced to confront the quiet life she's built. She begins to question whether survival is the same as living... and what it might cost to want more. She finds herself wondering whether the price is too low-or far too high. Because once you're noticed by someone, the world doesn't always let you disappear again. Highest ranking: #1 literaryfiction 01/03/2026 - Ongoing.

Destiny just simply couldn't love, her love was lost with the wind since her sixth birthday when her father slammed the divorce papers on her mother's face when she was in the hospital. Her boyfriend married another woman after seven years of knowing each other from childhood ,her broken....... and wounded heart couldn't love anymore .

In a world where death has found a voice, the living cling to survival behind the walls of Stillwoods. Outside, the Eaters roam-zombies driven not by instinct, but by the cunning of ancient, mind-controlling beetles. Aria never imagined, in her first ever battle, her only weapon would be a rusty trumpet... or that one note could turn the tide against a Prime, a lethal zombie unlike any other. In this fight for survival, sound becomes power, and every choice could echo through life-or death. #ONC2026| Prompt #36 #35 ‼️ Content/Trigger Warning: Contains gore, violence, some strong language. All rights belong to the author and no reproductions are allowed without the permission of @Renaissance111. Please respect the author's copyright. 😊❤️ 2026 C.S. Marie

When everything is stopped with a big old full stop. What would life be? Where there is no birth nor death, simple because everything seemed to be frozen in time. You wake up one day, and this is the reality you face; everything around you is frozen in time. The clouds hang motionless in the sky. Cars are suspended mid-crawl. Birds remain trapped in the air. The world has stopped but you haven't. Or have you? Are you truly the only one still moving... or is your mind playing tricks on you? This is what happens to Penny Ming, an ordinary office worker, when she wakes up one seemingly normal morning, only to find that time itself has abandoned everyone but her. (First Draft) . Open Novella Contest (ONC 2026) Prompt: 42. One morning, time simple refuses to move forward and you're the only one who can still move while the ret of the world stands frozen. . If you see this elsewhere, please let me know.

A desperate author. A midnight train. A story that was never just fiction. This story was entered as part of the Open Novella Contest (ONC) 2026 Prompt used: Your book never found much success, but on a train ride you spot a stranger reading it with the biggest smile you've ever seen.

This Short story is based on something real that I'm going through right now though most of the facts have been changed

Elias Thorne did not fall in love with me. He corrected me. The way I locked my door. The way I apologized before finishing sentences. The way I arrived two minutes late and pretended I wasn't. I mistook it for attention. Everyone else warned me there was something wrong with him. But Elias never shouted. Never chased. Never begged. He simply watched. And somewhere between being noticed and being measured, I began adjusting myself without being asked. I thought that was love. I didn't realize I was being calibrated. By the time I understood the difference, there was nothing left of me that hadn't been adjusted. I still believed I was the one changing him. Elias never corrected that assumption. New chapters weekly. Follow for updates.

The town of London was covered in a heavy snow storm.There had been reports of a wolf howl at Midnight. One evening a woman was just at home reading a book when there was a knock on her door she opened it and she saw a man stained in blood, looked injured, and exhausted.

𝑾𝒉𝒆𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒎𝒖𝒔𝒊𝒄 𝒓𝒆𝒒𝒖𝒊𝒓𝒆𝒔 𝒕𝒘𝒐 𝒉𝒆𝒂𝒓𝒕𝒔, 𝒄𝒂𝒏 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒇𝒊𝒏𝒅 𝒉𝒂𝒓𝒎𝒐𝒏𝒚 𝒘𝒊𝒕𝒉 𝒚𝒐𝒖𝒓 𝒈𝒓𝒆𝒂𝒕𝒆𝒔𝒕 𝒆𝒏𝒆𝒎𝒚? Sydney Holloway is done with her party-girl image. Jonas Armstrong, a star athlete, hides his passion for music from the world. Neither is looking for a partner, let alone a rival, but a mysterious app called Seekr has other plans. Their forced encounter spirals into something far stranger: a cryptic message that leaves them breathless and haunted by visions of a crime yet to come. Bound by a glowing mark and a fate they never chose, they uncover a hidden world of ancient wardens and forgotten histories. With Sydney's linguistic talent and Jonas's rhythmic intuition, they begin to piece together the truth. As danger closes in and their connection deepens, every step forward reveals more questions. Who controls Seekr, and why were they chosen? Can their growing bond survive the weight of the truth, or will it break under the pressure? And if they fail, who will stop the disaster hurtling toward them? ~ Imagine if 𝑹𝒆𝒂𝒅𝒚 𝑷𝒍𝒂𝒚𝒆𝒓 𝑶𝒏𝒆 took place on a college campus in Boston, but instead of a headset, everyone played the game through a sinister app that forced 𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑯𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝑮𝒂𝒎𝒆 rivals to unlock a magical instrument before a 𝑭𝒊𝒏𝒂𝒍 𝑫𝒆𝒔𝒕𝒊𝒏𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏-𝒔𝒕𝒚𝒍𝒆 catastrophe strikes. ~ ONC 2026 prompts: 60, 49, 58, 111, 78, 62, 1, 24, 28, and 29 ✧ 𝐂𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐦𝐩𝐨𝐫𝐚𝐫𝐲 𝐅𝐚𝐧𝐭𝐚𝐬𝐲 ✧ 𝐑𝐢𝐯𝐚𝐥𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐋𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐬 ✧ 𝐎𝐦𝐧𝐢𝐬𝐜𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐏𝐎𝐕 ✧ Copyright © 2026 Lily Mitchell Exclusive to W A T T P A D, under the profile of OnceUponALily. Cover by author

At some point, we all step into a forest without realizing it. For some, it is a season of doubt. For others, it is loneliness, responsibility, faith, identity, or the quiet weight of becoming who we are meant to be. This is not a story about perfection. It is a story about confusion. About growth. About losing certainty and discovering something deeper in its place. Inspired by the idea that sometimes we must lose our way to find ourselves, Brief Flames follows a journey through expectation, leadership, faith, rejection, and the quiet battles no one sees. Into the forest I went - not knowing I would leave different. Submitted for the Open Novella Contest 2026 Prompt 16 - "And into the forest I go, to lose my mind and find my soul." #ONC2026 #ONC16