One Man's Treasure || ONC 2026
- Reads 69
- Votes 7
- Parts 21
Complete about 3 hours ago3h 19m
The town of Dogwood in Cross County, North Carolina is a picturesque seaside community with a sordid past swimming in piracy. Smoking Beard, aka Edward Hollingsworth, was the terror of the colonial coast in the 1600's, and one of Dogwood's founding members, before his descent into illegal privateering and eventual decline into madness.
Four hundred years later, Bertha Rodriguez, romance novelist, resides in Dogwood along with her best friend Camilla Goldstein, Dogwood's chief of police. Every year the town capitalizes on its founders' past with a week long festival in June. The Founders' Festival brings much needed tourism and a break from the monotony of living in a small town.
This year will be different, a huge storm hits the coast two weeks before the festival begins and someone uses it as an opportunity for murder. With their town cut off from the rest of civilization, it falls to Bertha and Camilla to solve the murder before the weather clears and the villain is able to make an escape.
Written for the Open Novella Contest 2026
The prompt which inspired this story was number 22:
Your book never found much success, but on a train ride you spot a stranger reading it with the biggest smile you've ever seen.
No part of this story may be used to program AI.
If you see this story anywhere besides Wattpad please make me aware. This is the only place I post stories. I don't have multiple accounts on this site, so this is the only profile this story should be posted on.
Thank you, readers.
All Rights Reserved
#19
questions
Join the largest storytelling communityGet personalized story recommendations, save your favourites to your library, and comment and vote to grow your community.
You may also like
RIDA : Heartbeat Of Eternity
𝐑𝐢𝐝𝐚 𝐱 𝐏𝐫𝐚𝐤𝐡𝐚𝐫 "𝘏𝘦 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘵𝘰𝘳𝘮 𝘴𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘯𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳 𝘮𝘦𝘢𝘯𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘴𝘶𝘳𝘷𝘪𝘷𝘦.𝘚𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘩𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘣𝘦𝘢𝘵 𝘩𝘦 𝘵𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘴𝘪𝘭𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦.𝘉𝘶𝘵 𝘥𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘺 𝘩𝘢𝘴 𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘯𝘴" 𝙍𝙞𝙙𝙖 𝙏𝙝𝙖𝙠𝙪𝙧-mature & heartbreakingly kind.She spent her life trying to survive the ghosts of past she never asked for.With amber eyes that hold storms & silence & a heart full of warmth, she's everything he refuses to believe in.She has been called curse yet she still chooses love over hate. 𝙋𝙧𝙖𝙠𝙝𝙖𝙧 𝙎𝙞𝙣𝙜𝙝 𝙍𝙖𝙩𝙝𝙤d-Cold.Calculated.Dangerous-a storm in human form.He was never supposed to be hers.Yet, fate bound them in a marriage built on misunderstanding, bitterness, and secrets.He's vowed never to fall for illusions like love.Especially not with the woman tied to the darkness that destroyed his family. ~ He believes she's the reason behind his family's ruin. She's the girl who watched hers fall apart-powerless to stop it. 𝘏𝘈𝘛𝘌 𝘐𝘕𝘎𝘕𝘐𝘛𝘌𝘋 𝘛𝘏𝘌𝘐𝘙 𝘑𝘖𝘜𝘙𝘕𝘌𝘠. 𝘓𝘖𝘝𝘌 𝘔𝘐𝘎𝘏𝘛 𝘉𝘌 𝘛𝘏𝘌𝘐𝘙 𝘙𝘜𝘐𝘕. 𝘈𝘕𝘋 𝘗𝘈𝘚𝘛 ? 𝘐𝘛 𝘏𝘈𝘚 𝘚𝘞𝘖𝘙𝘕 𝘛𝘖 𝘕𝘌𝘝𝘌𝘙 𝘓𝘌𝘛 𝘛𝘏𝘌𝘔 𝘍𝘐𝘕𝘋 𝘗𝘌𝘈𝘊𝘌. But when buried lies begin to surface & past enemies rise again.Will the masks finally fall?Will the truth set them free or destroy them both? Two souls. One destiny.A history soaked in blood, betrayal & love that refuses to die. Step into the world of Rida-where every heartbeat hides a secret,glance is a war, and love might just be the deadliest thing of all.
Mystery incorporated
Yn ln entered crystal cove as Yn meets Scooby and the gang as they solve mysteries as Yn joins them on there journey but there's a dark secret in crystal cove the more Yn and the gang keep searching the more dangerous it gets
حجرة التهميش
حيثُ الصخب وفي زاويـةٍ منسيـةٍ من العالم تُكمن الاسرار بين الجدران ويولد الرمـاد من قُعر الصمود هُنـا لن تقرأ كالمُعتـاد بل ستكتشف حكايات لا يعرفها الا من عاش على الهامـش .. و رأى بعينهِ التهميش الحقيقي للأســف هُنـا لا توجد حروفُ تصفها أكثـر !.. تقدم ، وغامـر ، وادخُـل في تلك الحجرة المَنسيـة لتعلم ما يحدف فيها من خفايا.. " حُجـرة التهميـش " الكاتبـة أسـاور حسيـن
مّل قلب الشاعر اللي ماجفت بحورة
البدايات لربما تكون قاسيه متسلطه على البعض ليست كل البدايات جميله ، وليست كل النهايات سعيدة سرقة الحق في الحياة عقابها ندم يجهله المرء ، ليس كل من استفاق في يوم جديد يعني انه على قيد الحياة من الممكن ان تكون استفاقته روتينية فقط وهو غارق في وحّل الرحيل ، الاجبار احيانا حياة اخرئ تسطر النجاة من الغرق المُريع ، والكرة في البداية تغرز حُب عميق صعب تجاوزه ، كـايد بـن متعب ابن المانيـا اقرب الاحفاد لـ ثـاني صاحَب بـراقة الـغامض مُتخذ القرار رفيق الخيـام ، نغـم بنت مساعد لفظـيّ فقط طفلة الرياض زهرة الليلك صاحبة القوة الجبرية . بطّلنـا : كـايد بـن متـعب الاقرب لـ ثـاني من احفاده صاحب بـراقة ، قليل الكلام مُحب للبر والخيـام ، ٢٦ سنة ، الابن الاكبر لـ متعب بن ثـاني ، الخـافي اعظـم . بطّلتنا : نغـم بنت مساعد او بالأصح حفيدته ، زهرة الليلك صاحَبة القوة الجبرية ، عنادية كارهّه لنطق بنت راجـح ، ١٩ سنة ،المُتخلئ عنها منذُ الولادة ، البنت الثـانية لـ راجح بن ثـاني .
كسرة ظهر
تحتُّ الركام أصواتٌ انقطع أنينها ودقاتٌ توقف نبضها فرحةً لم تكتمل وأحلامٌ أجهضت قبل المخاض تحتُ الركام قصصٌ لم تكتب لها النهاية وحكاياتٌ رحل من كان يرويها ألعابٌ لطخت بدماء الأطفال تحتُ الركام أسماءٌ تساقطت من السجلّ المدني مثل تساقط الأوراق من الأشجار فأصبحت في سماء النسيان تحتٌ الركام وجوهٌ تغيرت ملامحها فأنكرها الزمان والمكان فشيعت أجسادهم لمقابرٍ في الجنان تحت الركام ارتجف الأطفال خوفًا فغادروا الحياة ولم يجدوا الأمان وصايا خُطت بحبرٍ من الخذلان وأمنياتٌ غادرت عالم الخيال تحت الركام حيث يشهد الظلم والقهر
အလောင်းကောင်နတ်ဘုရား မြု့စ်(Completed in Paid Group)
Gongက လူသားမဟုတ်ဘူးနော်... ပိုင်ဆိုင်ချင်လာရင် ဘာမဆိုလုပ်မယ့် ကြမ်းတမ်းထက်မြက်ပြီး ပိုင်ဆိုင်လိုစိတ်ပြင်းတဲ့ evil god သူ့ချည်းသာလော... ရည်းစားလုမယ့် နောက်တစ်ယောက်ကလည်း ပိုင်ဆိုင်လိုစိတ်ပြင်းတဲ့ အင်အားကြီး ထဲကပဲနော်... ပန်းချီဆရာလေး ချင်းရန် သူ့ပင်တိုင်မော်ဒယ်လေး သေဆုံးသွားလို့ စိတ်ပြေလက်ပျောက် ခရီးထွက်ရာက ကားအက်ဆီးဒန့်ကြောင့် ထူးဆန်းတဲ့ ရွာလေးတစ်ရွာကို ရောက်သွားပြီး သူအရမ်း စိတ်တိုင်းကျတဲ့ အလှလေးနဲ့ တွေ့ရာကနေ အလှလေးကို ပန်းချီဆွဲခွင့်ရဖို့ ဘယ်လိုပိုးမလဲ.... ရွာထဲက လူတွေက အလှလေးကို ဘာလို့ ဒူးတုန်အောင် ကြောက်နေရတာလဲ... ထူးဆန်းတဲ့ရွာလေးထဲက ရွာသားတွေရဲ့ သရုပ်မှန်က ဘာလဲ... အလှလေးကို မြို့ကို ခေါ်သွားမယ့် ရန်ရန်ရဲ့ မဟာစီမံကိန်းကြီးကရော အောင်မြင်မှာလား... အလှလေးက လူမဟုတ်ဘူးဆိုတာ သိပြီး
Famine Survival: Helping my family and became leader Stepmother Villainess
Novel Rating:10/10 #1 - space #1 - travel #1 - drama One moment, she was battling zombies in the apocalypse. . The next, she found herself transported to an ancient era, becoming the so-called wicked stepmother of two children in a poverty-stricken household. She initially thought the heavens had sent her here for a peaceful retirement, only to realize she was meant to endure countless trials instead. . Rebellions, famine, countless dangers-she fought her way through one crisis after another. Just as she finally arrived at a safe place, she was met with plagues and war. Fortunately, she had her golden finger (cheat ability), and none of these obstacles could truly stop her. . . But can someone please explain why the long-dead father of these children suddenly came back to life? Not only was he alive and well, but he was also thriving in the capital. And to top it all off, he seemed to be... pampering her? "Fleeing Famine + Strong Male & Female Leads + Sweet Romance + Dimensional Space + Farming + Hero" Apocalypse Overlord vs. God of War Prince Original Title: Transmigrated into a Vicious Stepmother and Led the Whole Village to Escape Famine Author: 茗芫 Translator: Alfarcy
𝑯𝑬𝑹 𝑳𝑰𝑭𝑬 𝑯𝑰𝑺 𝑹𝑼𝑳𝑬𝑺.| 18+
They says his name in whispers. A man with no mercy no weakness. I was just a mistake_ a girl who got in his way He is cruel, controlling feared by all He says he will ruin me He rules her world... will she survive? "I hate you," I told the most dangerous man of the country. He only smirked, like my fear amused him. "Hate me all you want," he said. "You still belong to me." "Let me go!" His eyes darkened. "Never." ZAVİYAR SINGH RATHORE - ZSR Feared. Ruthless. Untouchable. His name alone makes men tremble and women whisper. He is power. He is danger. And now, he wants her. IRHA KAPOOR _ Alone. Broken. Stronger than she knows. Escaping a past filled with lies, abuse, and betrayal, she thought she could run. But fate has a way of bringing the hunted straight to the predator. Top ranks ❤️ March 30, 2026 #1st enimiestolovers #2nd feared #6th controlling #8th. lovehate 26 April 2026 1st Rank #escape ❤️❤️
Apocalypse: After Rebirth, Stockpiling Supplies in my Space
Novel Rating:10/10 Typhoons, storms, extreme cold, heatwaves, acid rain, plague... Yu Xifeng was kicked out by her stepmother and struggled for seven years in the apocalypse, then was reborn before the disasters began. Her scumbag dad tried to squeeze her for all she's worth by setting her up with a rapist rich second-generation heir. She broke off the matchmaking! She took the lead and claimed ownership of the space. Yu Xifeng started wildly buying and stocking up! While everyone struggled to survive the disasters, her scumbag dad and stepmother's family fell into poverty. Yu Xifeng lived leisurely, eating well and living a stable life.
His Innocence Wife
Saanvi Verma lost her mother the day she was born and her father when she was only six. Since then, her life became a silent battle. Raised in a house where she was blamed for everything, she grew up hearing cruel words instead of lullabies. Soft, fragile, and innocent, she learned to survive without affection, without protection, and without a voice. Ashvik Rajvanshi is the complete opposite of her world. A 29-year-old ruthless CEO, powerful and feared, with eyes as dark as his secrets. He doesn't believe in weakness. He doesn't believe in love. He only believes in control. But fate has strange plans. When the most innocent girl becomes the wife of the most dangerous man, will she finally find the love she never received? Or will she lose herself in his world of power and darkness? A story of pain, possession, secrets, and a love that was never meant to be... yet impossible to escape. Let's read and see what happens between them. 🖤🌸
𝐑𝐢𝐝𝐚 𝐱 𝐏𝐫𝐚𝐤𝐡𝐚𝐫 "𝘏𝘦 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘵𝘰𝘳𝘮 𝘴𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘯𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳 𝘮𝘦𝘢𝘯𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘴𝘶𝘳𝘷𝘪𝘷𝘦.𝘚𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘩𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘣𝘦𝘢𝘵 𝘩𝘦 𝘵𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘴𝘪𝘭𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦.𝘉𝘶𝘵 𝘥𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘺 𝘩𝘢𝘴 𝘰𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳 𝘱𝘭𝘢𝘯𝘴" 𝙍𝙞𝙙𝙖 𝙏𝙝𝙖𝙠𝙪𝙧-mature & heartbreakingly kind.She spent her life trying to survive the ghosts of past she never asked for.With amber eyes that hold storms & silence & a heart full of warmth, she's everything he refuses to believe in.She has been called curse yet she still chooses love over hate. 𝙋𝙧𝙖𝙠𝙝𝙖𝙧 𝙎𝙞𝙣𝙜𝙝 𝙍𝙖𝙩𝙝𝙤d-Cold.Calculated.Dangerous-a storm in human form.He was never supposed to be hers.Yet, fate bound them in a marriage built on misunderstanding, bitterness, and secrets.He's vowed never to fall for illusions like love.Especially not with the woman tied to the darkness that destroyed his family. ~ He believes she's the reason behind his family's ruin. She's the girl who watched hers fall apart-powerless to stop it. 𝘏𝘈𝘛𝘌 𝘐𝘕𝘎𝘕𝘐𝘛𝘌𝘋 𝘛𝘏𝘌𝘐𝘙 𝘑𝘖𝘜𝘙𝘕𝘌𝘠. 𝘓𝘖𝘝𝘌 𝘔𝘐𝘎𝘏𝘛 𝘉𝘌 𝘛𝘏𝘌𝘐𝘙 𝘙𝘜𝘐𝘕. 𝘈𝘕𝘋 𝘗𝘈𝘚𝘛 ? 𝘐𝘛 𝘏𝘈𝘚 𝘚𝘞𝘖𝘙𝘕 𝘛𝘖 𝘕𝘌𝘝𝘌𝘙 𝘓𝘌𝘛 𝘛𝘏𝘌𝘔 𝘍𝘐𝘕𝘋 𝘗𝘌𝘈𝘊𝘌. But when buried lies begin to surface & past enemies rise again.Will the masks finally fall?Will the truth set them free or destroy them both? Two souls. One destiny.A history soaked in blood, betrayal & love that refuses to die. Step into the world of Rida-where every heartbeat hides a secret,glance is a war, and love might just be the deadliest thing of all.
More detailsContent Guidelines