Fate and Other Lies

Sign your name, and the yearbook decides your fate. Some are forgotten. Most become ghosts. But Zarael Vaneheart? She was never meant to survive-and now, she's rewriting the rules.

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At Virell High, the cursed yearbook doesn't just capture memories-it seals fates. Every senior who signs their name in its pages meets a mysterious end. Some disappear. Some die. And all of them become ghosts, trapped within the school's halls forever.

Zarael Vaneheart never believed in curses. She's the golden girl, the cheer captain, the perfect girlfriend. But when her best friend signs the yearbook and goes missing the next morning, Zarael's reality begins to unravel. Memories slip through her fingers, shadows whisper her name, and when she turns nineteen, something even more terrifying happens: nothing. While everyone around her awakens to their supernatural abilities, she feels empty. Powerless. And when the ghosts of Virell High start whispering her name, she realizes why.

The yearbook has rewritten her story before. And now, it's trying to erase her again.

Desperate for answers, she turns to Ruvain Silvermire, the school's resident ghost whisperer, and Orlan Ashthorn, her picture-perfect boyfriend who gradually feels like a stranger. Together, they uncover the truth: the yearbook doesn't just curse students-it rewrites them. And Zarael? She was never meant to exist.

With graduation looming, the yearbook is trying to fix its mistake. If Zarael doesn't break the curse in time, she'll vanish like the others-erased from history, doomed to haunt Virell High forever.

But this time, fate doesn't get to decide.

Because Zarael is done being a story someone else wrote.

She's taking control.

And she's not going down without a fight.

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Written for the onc 2025 contest.
Prompts are 21, 95, 24 and 25.