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.

Aira, a soft and funny girl, is broken by the people she trusted, loved, and genuinely cared for. Everyone expects her to crumble, but instead, she makes a powerful glow-up and an unforgettable comeback. A teen, funny, and relatable story about love, friendship, and finding yourself. Sometimes pain is the only way to find your true strength. This is my journey through heartbreak, hardship, and self-discovery, and how I became stronger than I ever imagined. "This Story is Participating in ONC 2026" Main prompt - #78 Other prompt - #28

🏆 ONC 2026 ENTRY Main Prompt: 52 ⋆♱✮♱⋆⋆♱✮♱⋆⋆♱✮♱⋆⋆♱✮♱⋆⋆♱✮♱⋆⋆♱✮♱⋆⋆♱✮♱⋆ After Dark is supposed to be just another dating app. For Amelia, a museum curator exhausted by one bad date after another, it feels like a final attempt before she gives up on romance entirely. For Alexei, it's never been about dating at all; he's been sent to get close to her because of an artefact tied to something old and dangerous. But as their meetings turn strange and violent, Amelia realises the city she thought she knew is hiding secrets far darker than a failed love life. And somewhere in between, Alexei finds himself losing control of the one thing he was meant to keep in check: His distance from her. ⋆♱✮♱⋆⋆♱✮♱⋆⋆♱✮♱⋆⋆♱✮♱⋆⋆♱✮♱⋆⋆♱✮♱⋆⋆♱✮♱⋆ Tropes: Paranormal Adventure, Slow-Burn Romance, Forced Proximity, Are they or Are They Not Together?, Morally Grey MMC 💋, 1/3 Body Horror, 1/3 Gore and 1/3 Sexually Explicit Inspirations: DMC, JJK, BB, Dante's Inferno Fun things (16/3: Ranked #1 on demonology) COVER DONE BY CANVA PRO, ARTWORK BY PINTEREST © 2026 by eleeyjs (EJ Chow). All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means-including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods-without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations used in critical reviews or scholarly work.

Prompt #109 A professor realises a student's mystery stories mirror real missing persons cases in town and the newest one points to them. ****** A record-breaking winter shuts down Massachusetts. Classes move online. Roads ice over. And people begin to disappear. Emma Remington studies narrative ethics at an elite college where crime is discussed as theory. Her professor encourages all students to be creative. Emma delivers until her writing starts aligning too closely with real events unfolding beyond campus. What begins as an academic exercise becomes something else entirely. As missing persons cases multiply and the storm isolates the town, Emma is forced to confront a question she's spent her life avoiding: when does observation become complicity? And what happens when the wrong person is paying attention?

Keywords: romance | haters to lovers | hollywood | mutual pining | murder mystery | time travel | inspired by a song You time-travel back to 2012, only to be cornered by a wildly famous celebrity who insists you're "the key to saving their future," and they're determined to take you with them. "Because, you know, there's no end to the hypocrisy of the human heart." © 2026 EmmaJD This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

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.

A counterfeit claim against a legendary wine ignites a high-stakes investigation in which a neurodivergent restaurateur and a forensic wine analyst must navigate forgery, deception, and their own unexpected connection to save a century-old legacy. Luc, owner of London's prestigious Le Rêve restaurant, faces a devastating crisis when a valued patron declares a prized vintage a fake. To protect his family's century-old reputation, he enlists Izzy, a brilliant but socially unconventional forensic wine analyst, eager to prove her mettle. Their shared autism initially creates an unexpected but undeniable spark of attraction, challenging their focus. But as they delve deeper into the complex world of wine fraud, they suspect a widespread conspiracy that threatens to destroy Le Rêve. Together, they must harness their unique abilities to expose the truth, safeguard the restaurant's legacy, and navigate their intensifying relationship, even as they battle their own internal worlds.

"Old crushes don't just disappear, Amari." Amari used to like him - the weird, funny boy her friends wouldn't stop shipping her with. It was a harmless crush, something she eventually outgrew and left behind. At least, that's what everyone thinks. What she doesn't know is that while she was moving on, he was quietly catching feelings of his own. He never said anything, never acted on it, never gave her a reason to notice. To her, it's just an old joke. To him, it's something he never managed to shake. But lately, things feel different. A look that lingers. A joke that hits deeper. A moment that shouldn't matter... but somehow does. And suddenly, the "old crush" she swears is dead doesn't feel so old anymore. Some things don't stay in the past. Some things come back when you least expect them. And this might be more than something old.

Are you wondering what prompts we've used in past ONCs? You can find them in this book as we gathered all the prompts used in the past installments. You may use these prompts as inspiration for any story you want to write - no credits necessary! Have fun!