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✨️ ONC Longlisted Story ✨️ I didn't know when we met that I was picking my partner for the apocalypse. In fact, when I first met Dec I wasn't even looking for love. Then he swept me off my feet. Literally. We collided as he was chasing a suspect who knocked me off my bike in his effort to escape. As soon as Dec had him detained he was back and apologising to me. Declan Kirkman was everything I wasn't. Strong, confident and the ultimate ready-for-anything boy scout. I was dreamy, distracted and would forget my head if it wasn't screwed on. The day the world ended I wasn't ready for my 3pm presentation, let alone zombies. I never expected us to be fighting for our lives and each other, but if anyone can stop me from becoming an all you can eat zombie buffet it's him! Based on prompt 32 of the @OpenNovellaContest One of the scouts has spotted a large herd that is heading directly for your settlement. How do you deal with the threat?

No one has seen the real world in centuries. Since the creation of Dreamworld, humanity has transported permanently into the digital realm. The only ones who even know that Earth was-and is-a real place are the members of the Embassy, Dreamworld's sole government power. Tom Tolmafin, the last human to remember Earth, has hacked the aging process to prevent himself from dying before he finds his son, who was by the agency just before Dreamworld became operational. Now inside the digital realm, Tolmafin has created the catalyst to the Embassy's destruction and the only hope to finding his son-an android. Ace Raven, the most sarcastic AI known to man, has two objectives. Find Drake Tolmafin and shut down Dreamworld. When he meets a band of rebel teens attempting to break out of the system, he finds his chance to face the most lethal virtual landscape that will lead him to his goal. If they survive the Zones, they can hack the program and complete their objective, returning humanity to the real world. Failure is not an option. Failure means death. Prompt: In a dystopian world where technology controls every aspect of life, a group of rebels must navigate through a virtual reality landscape to hack into the mainframe and take back control from the oppressive government. {ONC2023 Shortlister}

60 bullets 59 58 57.. The countdown to 17 Bullets begins now. Eleanor was prepared for the zombie apocalypse, not a completely different planet with werewolves, dragons, and viper-fanged skunks! She will have to use all her survival tricks if she wants to stay alive. How will she react when she meets Thann, a handsome alien and learns that he and all men are werewolves and there hasn't been a woman on the planet for a hundred years? How will Thann react when he realizes that she is the woman his mother told stories of a century ago? How will they even find out when they don't speak the same language? As Eleanor's pocket full of bullets decreases, she gets closer and closer to becoming the werewolf queen. Complete. Word Count: 105,000 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ He turned slowly back, dreary eyes meeting mine. The towering man was nearly seven feet tall and all bulging muscles. His hair was dark and cut long skimming his smooth angled jaw. Brows watching me with the same intensity as I was watching him. Very lovely rich tan color. Shirtless and barefoot, but wearing simple leather pants, with some kind of pack hanging to his hip. Stomach raw with some deep gash and body littered with cuts. The entire picture of him was genuinely mouthwateringly handsome, but with the dagger still held in one hand entirely too deadly. "Stay right there Dothraki!" I called, my rifle finally having something in the crosshairs again. I'd never watched the popular show, but the videos I saw sure had him looking like he could play one of the built characters. The dagger dropped to the ground and he fell to a single knee after it, though he didn't bend to pick it up. He bent to ...bow? His head stayed inclined as he bent and spoke. His voice was smooth and husky, deep and baritone. Exceptionally beautiful. "Earth female safe." 1st in Aliens: 09/21

Everyone was born with a power, you're considered lucky if you get two. A group of four, called Frouse, were that lucky people. They were YouTubers, just having fun and messing around. Zombies were always myths, a story, a joke. Until, in 2034 a power plant exploded, sending a green, acid looking liquid down the streets of North Dakota. That's relatively far from Texas, except what the group doesn't know, is that the said liquid has turned everyone who touched it into zombies. Their power is, fortunately, taken away from them as they become brain eating zombies in the course of a week. Now, they are making their way around the U.S.A, slowly approaching the other states. And by just one week, enough people have been affected and have made their way into Texas. And now, they are banging through every door.

All Beck wanted was to take his first vacation alone with his girlfriend of nearly three years. No nagging parents, no interruptions, nothing. Things didn't last a day. A freak accident at a science museum leaves Beck hospitalized. He should be dead, but is not only injury-less... but has somehow walked away discovering he has obtained electrical superpowers. Beck never wanted to become a superhero. He's never wanted fame, money, or even praise. He just wanted to settle down and continue life with his girlfriend. She's the only person who knows of his powers, and it's bonding them closer than ever before. For Beck, it might just mean starting the next step of their lives together, even if it's super early. What's in the way? His overbearing mother, his girlfriend's aggressive father, and his own paranoia of being discovered. Could he really continue to live a private life if another's life was at stake?

"It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change." - Charles Darwin Amidst the nuclear war, popularly known as World War III, mankind had also been struck with a weaponized viral disease, decimating what's left of the human population. With his memory lost under the perilous fallout, Gabriel was saved by two other survivors. And together, they strived in a modified nuclear shelter away from the heavily infested cities. They thought they were living a safe and well-sustained life. Until one day, they found out the most shocking discovery, the truth that pushed Gabriel in a heart-stopping journey of his life. He would travel hundreds of miles of the post-apocalyptic world lurking with unknown dangers, including the hordes of infected and bandits alike. He would then come across other survivors, struggling to preserve their lives and ideals. However, as pieces of his memory came rolling back, conflicts of priorities defied even the most basic rules of their survival. Will Gabriel, and the people he have come to cherish, outlive the apocalypse? Or will they perish, and go through... extinction?

"We used to be the dream team but now we're just a dream." Broken promise, Civil war. Something amiss, Five to four. A shattered heart, To fight or to flee? Forced apart, Five to three. Saddened eyes, Lost without a clue. Time truly flies, Five to two. No return, From a pointed gun. Unfurling like a fern, yet, Five becomes one. Everything goes downhill from here. (I own my characters, what they say, do, and how they act. I also own my storyline and I spent a lot of time coming up with all of this so if you steal it, it's illegal and I will throw you into the sun :) :)) (I DO NOT OWN ANY OF THE CANON CHARACTERS IN THIS BOOK, WHAT THEY SAY, DO AND HOW THEY ACT. THAT BELONGS TO MARVEL.) (Book 2 of 2 in the ELEMENTALS Duology) (copyright amy_h_rose as of March 27, 2019)

The city never saw it coming. A magnitude 8.7 earthquake shattered its foundations, tearing open the land and swallowing entire districts in a matter of minutes. Buildings collapsed, streets cracked apart, and the survivors who crawled from the wreckage were left in a world they no longer recognized. But that was only the beginning. In the chaos that followed, scientist Herard Brasicus and his team attempted to create a medicine to enhance human survival instincts. Their goal: to strengthen reflexes, boost endurance, and sharpen cognitive abilities, ensuring mankind could endure future disasters. Instead, they created a virus. At first, the symptoms were mild-elevated adrenaline, enhanced strength. But within weeks, the infected became erratic, aggressive, inhuman. As months passed, the virus evolved. The infected transformed into grotesque monsters, some retaining fragments of their former intelligence, while others became mindless, ravenous creatures that preyed on the uninfected. Humanity had fallen. Two years later, the remnants of civilization clung to survival in underground cities. The military, now divided into twelve specialized divisions, acted as both protectors and scavengers, tasked with defending the last of the survivors and searching for a cure.

In the future, everyone who's bitten by a zombie turns into one... until Diane doesn't. Seven days later, she's facing consequences she never imagined. * * * * * As civilization collapses under a relentless wave of zombies, Diane and her friends take shelter in a military base. However, while she's rescuing another survivor, Diane gets bitten by one of the monsters. She hides it and runs away, knowing she only has days left to live. But she soon discovers she isn't turning into a zombie - she's turning into something else. --------- Excerpt: I looked up and stared. My reflection looked back at me in the mirror of the dark room. My eyes were literally glowing, there was no mistaking it. It was not a reflection of light, or any of the other excuses I had used or others had assumed. They were glowing a light sapphire blue color. It was not a bright glow, but it was definitely a glow. Glowing eyes were not normal. Okay, at this point I had to admit it, I was no longer normal. What was I then? For that, I had no answer [[Word count: 495,000]] Copyright August 2016. All Rights Reserved. Readers may not copy, alter, or steal this story. Fanfictions are allowed to use my *world* and *zombie rules* as long as credit is given. Cover was lovingly made by JimenaVivancoo.

*Prologue* To be entirely honest with you, I never really considered my future. It's not like I needed to...right? Why would you care about jobs and your educational success when you could be scavenging for food, perhaps? I mean what use is your academic future in the apocalypse? Dramatic right? As I sit here, writing this down, I feel a little pathetic. Although the chance that someone would read my story is incredibly low, I can't help but feel a small glimmer of hope that someone will find it. It would become an instant best-seller! Who wouldn't read the first-hand account of a zombie apocalypse survivor? Even if that day were to arrive, I can guarantee that I won't be alive to see it. The world is a complete and total mess and we are the only ones to blame. Why do you ask? Well, why don't we take a trip down memory lane? First, people alone destroyed the earth with pollution, making it the ultimate playground for the undead. Second, we created the virus that single-handedly destroyed 97% of the human population. Wonderful, is it not?