Frozen in Time | ONC 2026

When everything is stopped with a big old full stop.
What would life be?

Where there is no birth nor death, simple because everything seemed to be frozen in time.
You wake up one day, and this is the reality you face; everything around you is frozen in time. The clouds hang motionless in the sky. Cars are suspended mid-crawl. Birds remain trapped in the air. The world has stopped but you haven't.
Or have you?

Are you truly the only one still moving... or is your mind playing tricks on you?
This is what happens to Penny Chan, an ordinary office worker living an unremarkable life until one she woke up one seemingly normal morning, only to find that time itself has abandoned everyone but her.

She was scared, lonely. And most of the time, confused.

But as Penny struggles to make sense of her strange new reality, a deeper truth begins to surface: the world hasn't simply stopped, it's waiting. Waiting for her.

Because if Penny can't figure out who she truly is, or what it really means to live, the world will never move forward again. With everything hanging in quiet limbo, Penny must confront herself in a way she never has before. Because this motionless world depended on her, Penny must face the one thing that she had been avoiding her whole life:

Herself.

(First Draft)
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Open Novella Contest (ONC 2026)
Prompt: 42. One morning, time simple refuses to move forward and you're the only one who can still move while the ret of the world stands frozen.
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