Onc2022 Stories

When a young woman goes missing without a trace, the police write it off as another missing persons case. But her mother is not convinced... After the fallout from a corruption scandal forces the disbanding of her old unit, Elise Wu is transferred across the country to Corviston. She is paired with the grumpy, withdrawn Simon Brown, who she had worked with previously. Simon quickly becomes convinced that the mother is right in her instinct. A trail of clues leads to an unlikely path...

To say Amare isn't from 'around here' would be the understatement of the century. But Cynthia Orvin doesn't quite know that yet - just as she doesn't know much about the story behind her parents' demise or why her mother's family seems to despise her. What she does know is that in her nearabout eighteen years of being, this is the first ever time she has found a friend. Maybe more than a friend. But Amare has come with a ton of secrets on his back - secrets that stand to both answer all of Cynthia's questions but also destroy the trust she has in him. ◾ ◾ ◾ ◾ ◾ ◾ ◾ ◾ ◾ ◾ ◾ ◾ ◾ ◾ ◾ ◾ ◾ ◾ Lying curled up on the road before her, with nothing but his hands covering up his modesty, was a naked male. Her eyes involuntarily traced his muscled torso, the vast span of his dark olive to light brown skin which was coated with thick lumps of mud in places but seemed to carry no visible wounds. The ebony hair atop his head were coiled up in tight curls, as luscious as his thick eyebrows and the eyelashes fanned over his wide, curious eyes that housed the most brilliant cerulean irises she had ever seen. Given the youthful fullness to his cheeks and the vibrance of his coral lips, he looked not much older than her. Cynthia would have perused the individual longer, lost in her curiosity at his state, had he not cleared his throat to toss her out of her thoughts. His brow scrunched up and lips pursed down, before he opened his mouth with a sharply snapped, "I need to talk to a human." She stepped forward with a hand extended towards him. "Um. I am a human. Are you okay?" He looked her up and down, eyes brimming with amusement. Then very slowly shook his head. "No, you're not." What... on earth did that mean? ◾ ◾ ◾ ◾ ◾ ◾ ◾ ◾ ◾ ◾ ◾ ◾ ◾ ◾ ◾ ◾ ◾ ◾ ↪ 𝘰𝘱𝘦𝘯 𝘯𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭𝘭𝘢 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘴𝘵 2022 | 𝗹𝗼𝗻𝗴𝗹𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗱◂

People in the city of Straga are dying. Rumor is spreading that Olesya Volinski--the daughter of a confessed witch--is responsible. She isn't responsible. She's just another victim. Waking up in a forest in the dead of winter soaked in her own blood was not how Olesya planned to begin her 25th year. Now she's in a race against time and the Church to find the true culprit behind the murders, including her own. When a stranger appears, claiming he knows her and what happened to her, Olesya finds herself pulled into a world of vicious magic and lovely monsters. If she can't find the culprit, she risks catapulting Straga into a full-fledged witchhunt. That, she doesn't think she'll survive.

Prompt #52: Legend says only he who was fit to rule England could pull the sword from the stone. But the only one who manages to do so is a she. AUTHOR'S NOTE: I tweaked the prompt a teeny bit. I changed England to a fictional island called Moneres Islands and adjusted the setting from historical to present day (without the COVID vibes). According to ancient legend on the Moneres Islands, "He who is fit to rule could pull the sword from the stone." Is a short cute Korean girl from America fit to rule when she accidentally and drunkenly freed the decrepit blade in the dead of night? The answer is a resounding, "Oh hell no!" Except the people of the islands, including the current king, take the outdated myth very seriously and are set on crowning me - Winter Copeland, a 26-year-old photographer from Wisconsin - the queen in thirty days. While I'm safe from wearing clothes inspired by the Easter Bunny, I need to take crash course on how to behave like royalty. Apparently, queens don't joke about reverse harems, kick sleazy lawyers in the gonads, or prefer to hang out with dogs than converse with real people. With my best friend, Philomena, by my side, I'm ready to slay the etiquette classes and boring history lessons while evading my super serious and super hot personal bodyguard and the soon-to-be ousted prince with a perpetual frown on his handsome face. Some welcome the sudden royal change while others are determined to see me fail. Even I expect myself to fail on more than one occasion, but one thing I know for sure. Queens don't quit. They conquer.

🏆 LONGLIST - OPEN NOVELLA CONTEST 2022 🏆 When the walled city of the gods, Dansarun, opens its doors for trade, Xuijae's ruling clan sends its perfect representatives: the troublesome prince, Kai-Se, who wants nothing to do with palace life, and Nao-Zai, the stern soldier from the warrior clan assigned to protect him. With them stuck in a royal tour neither of them wants to be in and with Nao-Zai's near-perfect track record hanging in jeopardy, Nao-Zai and Kai-Se must settle their differences before their mission takes a difficult turn. Along the way, Nao-Zai discovers there's more to Kai-Se than he let on and the secret the prince is hiding may spell their doom once they reach the gods' Imperial City. When Kai-Se's mistake erupts into a full-blown rebellion, Nao-Zai is faced with a choice to save himself from the gods' wrath or save Kai-Se who is caught at the worst end of it. From the author of the award-winning novella, 𝘒𝘰𝘭𝘪𝘣𝘳𝘪𝘦, and the high fantasy series, 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘊𝘩𝘳𝘰𝘯𝘪𝘤𝘭𝘦𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘍𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘢𝘴𝘪𝘭𝘪𝘢, comes a tale of adventure, friendship, and love, where every road to freedom is as dark and twisted as the last. FIRST BOOK OF THE PIPER OF MIRCHAEK TRILOGY ˜"°•.˜"°•˜"°•.˜"°•˜"°•.˜"°• © 2022 (First, Second Edition) [35,000 - 40,000 words] [All graphics are made by @Exequinne] 🏆 ROUND 2 QUALIFIER - OPEN NOVELLA CONTEST 2022 🏆 ROUND 1 QUALIFIER - OPEN NOVELLA CONTEST 2022

🏆 LONGLIST - OPEN NOVELLA CONTEST 2022 🏆 Mersem Wess, a town boy in the wintery kingdom of Solon, is content with his life collecting timber and admiring Leara Madris, the darling Lady Knight, from afar. His sister, Silke, a girl with a short fuse and way too much time on her hands, thinks otherwise. When a plan to raid the palace's armory goes awry, Silke may just get the adventure of a lifetime...with Mersem in tow. Now that all the Palace Knights, the lone mercenaries, and even the bounty hunter guilds are out for Silke's head, Mersem must ditch his rural lifestyle in favor of adventuring in the harsh lands to get to his sister before everyone else does. He must survive the great unknown, get Leara Madris to fall for him, and bring his sister back home before fate, duty, and truth catch up to him. From Exequinne, the author of the high fantasy series, 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘊𝘩𝘳𝘰𝘯𝘪𝘤𝘭𝘦𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘍𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘢𝘴𝘪𝘭𝘪𝘢, comes a story of adventure, buried secrets, and a bond flowing thicker than blood yet as fragile as frozen thorns. ˜"°•.˜"°•˜"°•.˜"°•˜"°•.˜"°• © 2022 (First Edition) [25,000 - 35,000 words] [All graphics are made by @Exequinne] 🏆 ROUND 2 QUALIFIER - OPEN NOVELLA CONTEST 2022 🏆 ROUND 1 QUALIFIER - OPEN NOVELLA CONTEST 2022

A duo of gamers... An invisible portal... A gameworld of magic... Overnight, a wimpy kid got teleported and transformed into a foolhardy game character who would stop at nothing to find his friend and get back home in a perilous gameworld. But there's more than just finding his friend: Finding a Sphere. Finding himself. Then finding his way back home.

Nine-year-old Sarah and seven-year-old Xavier were siblings who loves adventures but also were always into different kinds of trouble. That's why the people in their street decided to call them, The Menacing Duo. There was only one thing the siblings ever wished for, and that was to have a feline pet of their own. On Easter Sunday, during the egg hunting adventure in their neighborhood, they found something more than the eggs. It was a furry animal named Mr. Cuddles. Because of this, they were sent off to stay with their grandma for the whole summer. Grandma Norma used to tell a story about a train that goes to Dreamland. The siblings never believed this until one night they heard a whistle and they could not resist hopping on a new adventure. And on that ride was Mr. Cuddles, too, their new furry companion. *An Entry to Open Novella Contest 2022. Based on prompts #8 and #9.

Vincent Bauer lives by the motto, "curiosity is the lust of the mind". So when he notices a loose brick in the chimney of the job site he was working on with his dad, he naturally has to unravel the mysteries inside. He discovers Auriferous, an ancient book filled with riddles and a map leading to buried treasure. Will he be able to find the treasure, or will he follow the fates of those who discovered Auriferous before him? ~THANK YOU @Aptionia FOR MAKING THE COVER!~ -ONC 2022 Entry -Work in progress -PROMPTS: When reading a book, you find it's more than just a story. It consists of clues, some hints and a hidden map to a hidden treasure. Assemble the clues together, find the map and head towards an adventure in search of the hidden treasure! While cleaning out the chimney, you notice a loose brick. When you pull it out, you find something unexpected.

As the world recovers from its zombie apocalypse, Maurice is thrust into a lifestyle that is neither welcoming nor fit for his presence. What he considers was a rather good zombie life suddenly leaves him a victim to the hunters who believe otherwise. For the ONC 2022

A sorcerer, a genie, and an outlaw - three individuals pulled together by fate through a winding tale of magic, curses, and arrows. Jafar is in search of power. As a sorcerer with the world at his fingertips, there isn't much that Jafar wants for in life but when a long-lost relic from his past emerges once more, he will stop at nothing until it's back in his hands. Karim is in search of freedom. As a genie who has been cursed as a slave to man, granting three wishes to each of his masters for over a thousand years, it's been a long time since Karim has been able to make choices for himself. But all that is set to change when he meets one legendary outlaw. Robin Hood is in search of a way back home to Sherwood. As an outlaw and a thief, Robin is no stranger to sticky situations but when a robbery gone wrong landed him in a foreign realm a long way away from the forest he knows and loves, he's desperate for any way to get home. When a sorcerer hires Robin to retrieve a cursed oil lamp, the legendary outlaw has no choice but to accept or risk never returning home to Sherwood ever again. Three men whose lives have been long fated to intertwine collide in this epic fairytale retelling. *** An ONC 2022 submission with prompt #43: click your heels together three times and say "there's no place like home". You did just that. But where you found yourself next...it was most definitely not home

ONC 2022 Longlister! After years of dreaming of a different world and being visited by a bird that defies identification, Miriam Rogers embarks on a mysterious quest to repair something she doesn't understand. Along the way, she meets the crown prince of her dream world who claims she is his soulmate, the prophesied key to saving his world and her own from destruction. Can they reverse the curse from his land and find love for themselves, or are they doomed to watch their worlds disintegrate along with their fledgling bond?

a young Dragon-Shifter, a Vampire Rockstar and a once in a Blue Moon opportunity... EXTENDED SUMMARY INSIDE ~~~ ONC 2022 Entry Prompt 27 (every blue moon, the pack holds a festival to honour the dead. this year's festival ends up far more chaotic than usual)

She is light. He is smoke. While growing up at the orphanage, Anya and Kieran built a strong friendship through each other's differences. Until the day Lord De Vous and his wife arrive at the orphanage and things suddenly turn to the unexpected. With their lives diverged along separate roads, each must come to terms that time has passed and changed them. And while Anya doesn't want to betray those now closest to her, Kieran can't abandon his people, people who were also close to Anya. With powers and feelings colliding, which will defeat the other? Can love be stronger than justice or can friendship dissolve anger? Anya must make a decision and she knows, no matter what, someone will end up hurt.

When a 24-year-old construction worker poses as the fiancé of a comatose Cuban supermodel, she must find a way to renege her lie after falling for his firefighter cousin. * * * * * When 24-year-old construction worker, Molly Simpson, witnesses an accident on a busy Miami street that puts the handsome man she's been fantasizing about into a coma, she poses as his fiancé in order to hitch a ride to the hospital. But when her deception is passed onto the man's close-knit family - including his adorable firefighter cousin - she must decide between following her heart, or continuing her lie. Warning: this story is heavily influenced by '90s rom-coms and these ONC Prompts: #99: It's always who/what you least expected that blows your mind away. #51: Life hasn't been easy, but it has taught you about all the different variations of what family can really mean. Longlisted for ONC2022! Cover made on Canva Pro. THIS THING CALLED LOVE Copyright © 2022 Darly Jamison All Rights Reserved Notice: This document is not authorized for upload or use with artificial intelligence systems or platforms. Any attempt to upload, analyze, or process this content using AI technology is strictly prohibited.

This is a book club specifically created for ONC 2022 entries. We aim to help you make your entry the best it can be through peer review and feedback.

∘∘ ©┋𝗞𝗜𝗧𝗧𝗬 𝗗𝗘𝗩𝗔𝗡 ❍Graphics ❍Narration ❍Plot ●▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬● Seeking Infinite life is not unusual. But, being immoral to others in this process is debatable▬Seeing the difference is not so easy. ═─────── ꗄ ───────═ Cassandra Wood is a 12 and half years old charming girl, living with her parents and two-year-old sibling in the UK. Curious Cassy never stops to ask out her doubts. Nanny-ma is the credit to Cassy's love for stories. Her fantasy lives in those characters who were misunderstood. Always has soft spot for them even villains are included in that list. Her Brilliant plan is to read her favorite series which has published its third book in 1999 on the Christmas Holidays. Yet, she just begin the 1-2* books ╮ Visiting her countryside Grandma's house▰ ❛ Will be her boon or bane? ❜ Holidays passed merrily but her plan is at stake on the last day. ⌕ Does every Grandma's story have to be ╼ fictional ╾ ? ═─────── ꗄ ───────═

Elizabeth Grayson was still caught on Christopher Milton. The one that got away. Her childhood friend; her first crush and the unrequited love of her life. When he suddenly gets back in touch, Elizabeth knows this is it: her chance. Only things don't go quite to plan when Chris turns up at a reunion dinner with a new fiance, and the announcement that he's getting married in a month. With her second chance gone, and a month's worth of activities planned for the wedding party, Elizabeth has to decide whether to keep pinning her hopes of happiness on Chris or to take a chance finding it somewhere she'd never thought to look before. One thing is for certain: this month is definitely going to be interesting. Prompt (89): You thought you still had a chance with your childhood friend, but it turns out they're getting married in a month.

1405. Anne de Mortimer lost everything. Her parents, her brothers, and her future. Others have toyed with her family for their own power and it has left with her nothing. Anne refuses to be a pawn in someone's game ever again. When she travels to the court of her enemy, she encounters Richard, son of the Duke of York. His family used hers and left the Mortimers to pay the consequences. She swore never to trust a York, but his kindness and loyalty surprises her. Despite the opposition to their relationship, she refuses to lose her chance for happiness. She is going to win. History forgot her. But she changed everything. Cover by moonkissedgirl