The Ink of Our Souls|ONC2025
#ONC2025 Third Place Winner (Finalist)
#ONC2025 Short List
#ONC2025 Round 3 Ambassador's Pick
#ONC2025 Long List
#ONC2025 Round 2 Winner
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After spending 30 years in another world, Ariana wakes up in the life she left behind, only to find echoes of the love she lost in a stranger. Was this fate, or just a cruel trick of her grieving heart?
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When Ariana opened her eyes in a hospital bed, the world she had known for the past thirty years had vanished. There was no elegant hanfu, bustling marketplace, or warm smiles from her children and grandchildren. Instead, she found herself back in her original life-the life she had lost in a car crash, the life where her fiancé, Paul, had betrayed her with her stepsister, Julie.
Her best friend, Tina, is the only anchor in this cold, unfamiliar reality, helping her navigate a world that has moved on without her. But Ariana cannot forget the lifetime she lived in another world, the love she had discovered, the husband she had mourned for a decade before she was ripped away. And then she sees him.
A stranger with familiar eyes. A man whose presence tugs at something deep within her, inscribed into her soul. Is he the reincarnation of the man she loved beyond the boundaries of time, or is her grief distorting reality, causing her to chase the shadows of a dream?
As Ariana struggles to regain her place in a life she no longer wants, the lines between fiction and fate blur. The past is written, but love might find a way to reshape destiny.
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A novella inspired by the ONC prompt 129: "The ink of our souls binds us beyond the pages of time," The Ink of Our Souls tells a story of love, loss, and the unbreakable ties that transcend worlds.
