Anna is the kind of girl people look straight through. At school, on the bus, at home - she exists quietly in the background, where asking for anything comes with a price she learned long ago to stop paying. Even with her best friend, Alice, she never fully steps into the world. She just survives it, carefully and without being noticed. Her life was supposed to stay bland, colourless, manageable. Nothing was supposed to change that. Then she runs into Sophie. And something shifts - not all at once, and not enough to understand, but just enough that it doesn't stop. Anna finds herself pulled toward something she can't name, something her body recognises before her mind can catch up. And the worst part is, she doesn't want it to stop.

Nicole Brenner has been missing for three years. Sort of. Trapped between worlds and bound to a cabin deep in Pennsylvania's western mountains, Nic has spent every day since keeping an ancient evil locked behind the door at the end of the hall, and trying not to lose her mind. She's got a grimoire she's memorized cover to cover, a weepy cryptid named Pierogi, and exactly two weeks of corporeality per year to shore up defenses against the monsters called to kill her. Then Cal Muir walks through her front door - ex-Navy SEAL, ex-almost-something, and the last person she ever expected to see again. He's here to find out what happened to her; he doesn't know she's standing right behind him; and he's wasted no time dismantling her meager defenses (and she cannot stress enough how much of a problem that is). Now Nic has six days to figure out how to save a man who can't see her, from monsters he doesn't believe in, before Halloween night blows the door open for good - all while reckoning with the fact that the magic she once told him wasn't real might be the only thing that saves them. A second-chance paranormal romance steeped in Penn Dutch folklore, veteran mental health representation, and the kind of magic that challenges both fate and faith.

25-year old Lee still hasn't figured out why they could not form any long-lasting relationships, even friendships for that matter. Aside from family members, which they are obligated to talk to, there is no one else Lee had even come close to calling a friend. Well, maybe except for one. -------- Submitted for ONC 2026 @OpenNovellaContest Using the following prompts : 29. You will meet many people in your life. Many will come and go, but some will leave footprints in your heart. 104. While wandering in the woods, you dismiss the rustling behind you as nothing more than wind through the trees until you turn around and realize it isn't the wind at all. 106. After waking at 3AM to a freezing room and a door you're certain you closed, you find wet footprints and melting snow leading from your bedroom into the hall. Realizing someone or something is inside your home, you follow the trail to uncover the truth. ------------- © 2026 J. Lee Kennedy. All rights reserved. Cover design © 2026 J. Lee Kennedy. Images used in this work belong to their respective copyright holders and are used under license or in accordance with applicable Creative Commons terms. Edited or altered images are copyrighted by the author in their final form.

Death has watched countless souls pass through his hands. None of them stayed. Until Alex. An immortal cursed to walk the edge of Death's domain, Alex is an anomaly-untouchable by fate, yet surrounded by it. Wherever he goes, death follows. Not by chance. Not by time. By curse. Death - or Thanatos as he called himself, has seen every kind of ending. This is not one of them. Drawn to the man who should have died in his hands, Death begins to watch more closely. Curiosity becomes fixation. Fixation becomes something far more dangerous-something he was never meant to feel. As he entered Alex's life, the world around Alex has begun to fracture. People die without cause. Shadows take form. And something is wearing Death's face. This is no longer curiosity, but a threat. Because Alex is not just cursed, but being hunted. And Death does not share what he has claimed. ------ Content Warning: This story explores themes of death, suicidal ideation, and emotional trauma. ------- Based on ONC 2026 prompt: 114. An immortal being, worn down by centuries and cursed so that anyone they touch dies, starts searching for a way to finally end their endless life. But Death, who has grown possessive and infatuated with them, refuses to let them go.

When her office burns down an editor must work together with the most infuriating man alive or risk the promotion she's been working her entire career for. **** Chielozonam 'Elo' Williams is doing great. All things considered. It doesn't matter that the job she loves as editor at PerfectRomance, the publishing imprint she's been working at for the past five years has started to feel more like a chore these days. It doesn't matter that her judgemental father might be right about her wasting her life away by not using her full potential. What really matters is getting her dream promotion and enjoying the prime years of her youth. That is until the unthinkable happens. After Elo's office building burns down overnight she's forced 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. He's brash and rude and irritates her like nobody else can with his scathing looks 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 blur the line between hate and desire until neither of them can tell where the fighting ends and the falling begins. 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 tell the difference between wanting to kiss or kill each other. An ONC 2026 story inspired by prompt 40. THIS NOVEL IS ONLY AVAILABLE ON WATTPAD AND INKITT. IF YOU ARE READING THIS ANYWHERE ELSE, PLEASE INFORM THE AUTHOR VIA WATTPAD, AS YOU MAY BE READING FROM A MIRROR SITE WHERE IT HAS BEEN PLAGIARIZED AND YOUR DEVICE MAY BE SUBJECTED TO A MALWARE ATTACK.

Cursed to never find love, Sandhya steals a forbidden spellbook and breaks every rule of magic to rewrite her fate before it gets sealed on Valentine's Day - only to discover that the magic answering her might be the same magic destroying her.

As the head women of The Wilting Society, we welcome you to our sanctuary. Here, we will heal the broken and wilting petals of your tainted soul, but before we are able to heal those petals - you must sacrifice everything for us. ••• Braelyn's life is thrown into an endless spiral of worry when her older sister, Macey, doesn't come home one night, but that one night quickly blends into days, and then trickles into weeks. But the fragments of her life remain untouched, as though she never left; she took nothing with her, she vanished, leaving zero reasons as to why. Braelyn knew something was deeply wrong, her sister wouldn't do something like this; her sister wasn't some runaway, and she knew had to find her. Since macey's disappearance, Braelyn had only been given one trace to her sister on the night she went missing, she had gone to a travelling psychic in the dark alleyways of their quaint town, Bronwick. When braelyn later left that tattered, over-hanging tent, she also left with an invitation. Welcome to The Wilting Society. Will Braelyn be able to track down her sister within the society, or will she stumble across something more sinister? ••• Prompts used - 80. "Monsters don't live under our beds. They live in the recesses of our minds." + 46. "We love broken, beautiful people. And it doesn't get more obviously broken and classically beautiful then you." ••• cover designed by forgettablewords

In a world full of monsters, sometimes you have no choice but to become one. The kingdom of Aspera is in disarray, and its queen, Julia Semel, fears that she may lose everything. She's losing popularity with the royal court, her cousin rightfully contests her claim to the throne, and invading armies threaten to ravage her homeland. The chaos is a prime opportunity for the enemies to strike. If she fails to unite her people, it's the end of Aspera as they know it. However, there seems to be nothing she can do, especially with Melinda Bellerose, the ruler of a world power, vying for the throne. There may be one solution, though. In a dark forest, under the light of the full moon, Julia makes a great and terrible decision. After all, there appears to be no other choice. Making a deal that could cost her everything, she turns her citizens into an army of unstoppable monsters with the promise of them being able to turn back after the conflict is over. Still, this does not remain secret. Hearing of this immediately, Melinda, along with all her other enemies, plots to counter her risky move, and the possibility of her defeat becomes more real by the minute. Will she win, or will she perish? And can she handle the price of her actions? *** Based on Prompt 96.

"Come here, Daurius! We need you." I woke up after hearing a female voice. As, I was taking heavy breaths I felt something. A presence of power beyond natural. The stories of Gods were quite famous since ancient times. However, as modern world started reshaping this same Gods were forgotten by civilizations. It could because the society became more scientific or so I thought. Being an archeology student always had me interested in this stories as it gave a direct history of humanity. But, that night changed everything. A temple was suddenely discovered on the outskirt of the city only to be opened by me. It didn't end there because I bought something with me from that temple. It was none other than God of Mischief.