Science Fiction

by Sammie Settlemire

Sadie Harper is barely keeping her life together. Between the heat, the exhaustion, and the constant feeling that she’s falling behind, she’s convinced she’s just one bad day away from breaking. But when a strange symbol forms in the sky — sharp, metallic, and pulsing like it’s alive — Sadie realizes the world is breaking first.Her phone begins rearranging its own numbers. Clouds twist into shapes that point directly at her. And no one else seems to see it.As the sky’s signals intensify, Sadie is pulled into the hidden world of the Watchers — rare individuals born with a connection to the sky’s ancient language. Some can bend light. Some can stabilize storms. Some can read the patterns that shape reality itself. Sadie, however, is something different. Something the Watchers haven’t seen in generations.Her awakening draws the attention of an older force — a presence that has been waiting for her since before she was born. It knows her name. It knows her past. And it knows what she’s capable of, even if she doesn’t.Now Sadie must navigate a world she never asked to enter, uncover the truth behind her connection to the sky, and decide whether her gift is a warning… or a weapon. Because the signals aren’t random. They’re a countdown. And Sadie is the one they’re counting down to.

by SarahMae

Deep beneath the desert sands, a routine investigation into a strange gravitational anomaly ends in tragedy—or so the research team believes. Five years after losing one of their own, the surviving scientists uncover a horrifying truth: their colleague isn't dead. He was captured, caged, and studied like a laboratory animal by an advanced species operating across interdimensional gateways. Determined to pull him out, the researchers assemble a squad of ruthless mercenaries to breach the portal on a clandestine rescue mission. But stepping through the gateway reveals a civilization beyond their wildest imagination—a world where hyper-advanced technology powers everything from effortless daily life to intergalactic superhighways, prioritizing comfort and infinite capability. What begins as a targeted extraction quickly transforms into an unprecedented opportunity. Intoxicated by the power at their fingertips, the team transitions from rescue to exploration, and ultimately to high-stakes piracy—smuggling alien technology back to Earth for immense personal gain. But stealing from a superior intelligence carries catastrophic consequences. When the thefts are exposed, retaliatory war erupts between the dimensions, locking both species in an all-out battle for survival and absolute control over the gateways that link their worlds.

by SarahMae

Deep beneath the desert sands, a routine investigation into a strange gravitational anomaly ends in tragedy—or so the research team believes. Five years after losing one of their own, the surviving scientists uncover a horrifying truth: their colleague isn't dead. He was captured, caged, and studied like a laboratory animal by an advanced species operating across interdimensional gateways. Determined to pull him out, the researchers assemble a squad of ruthless mercenaries to breach the portal on a clandestine rescue mission. But stepping through the gateway reveals a civilization beyond their wildest imagination—a world where hyper-advanced technology powers everything from effortless daily life to intergalactic superhighways, prioritizing comfort and infinite capability. What begins as a targeted extraction quickly transforms into an unprecedented opportunity. Intoxicated by the power at their fingertips, the team transitions from rescue to exploration, and ultimately to high-stakes piracy—smuggling alien technology back to Earth for immense personal gain. But stealing from a superior intelligence carries catastrophic consequences. When the thefts are exposed, retaliatory war erupts between the dimensions, locking both species in an all-out battle for survival and absolute control over the gateways that link their worlds.

by Edward Alvin Hodges Jr

In a thrilling space saga, Captain Mootee's crew defies orders to answer a distress call from an uncharted planet battling unknown cosmic threats and betrayal from within, tensions mount as the fate of civilizations weigh on them. Braving the odds with courage and wit, they realize true power lies not in their starship, but in their unwavering unity will they withstand the trials of the cosmos and internal deceit to emerge victorious? An epic of bravery and the human spirit unfold among the stars.

by Melissa Rovelli

Neve Wells is a reclusive artist who has a fear of looking up at the sky, but after watching an episode involving her favorite UFO personality, she forces herself to confront vague memories lurking in the back of her mind. To clarify these shadows that she can’t quite grasp, she retrieves her mother’s journal, which reveals a hidden family secret: her mother was an experiencer, caught between two sides where the mission is to protect this secret at all costs. Now both intrigued and terrified, Neve begins to question other people's involvement as well as her own past, which had been altered by one man. Now, he is drawn back into her life for reckoning, and what was once delayed must now be confronted, because she might want a say in this matter.

by Mad Writer

Thomas Rogers had resigned himself to a life of obscurity, preferring to fade into the background. One day, he stumbled upon a single wish that held the power to alter his destiny. Suddenly, he's transported to a different world, where he's frantic to find a path back home.

by Jassamine S. Kelly

A girl comes home from school to find a crime scene from her mother's death and she grows up to avenge her mother's death by creating a device a ai chip to find her mother's killer but sadly she never gets them in the first book

by KW Chaproniere

Aurelia Greenlaw is a twenty-two year old Captain in the 13th Recon Division, and she is a Radio. In Palvera, the nation built on the ruins of North America, that word means something specific. Centuries ago an experiment on the human mind produced a mutation that never went away. Now there are six kinds: Builders, who rearrange matter with their hands. Washers, who put thoughts in your head and let you believe you thought them. Shifters, who change what you see. Sensatives, who read what you feel and can turn the dial on it. Nets, who move what they can see without touching it. And Radios, who read the world in waves, who hear a signal a mile out and can put a voice inside your skull. The Centre calls this humanity, perfected. Everyone born without it is a Blank, and the Centre has built a country on that distinction. Arra has spent her whole life on the useful side of the line. Then a bomb takes her unit apart on the mountain and leaves her the only one breathing. The Centre searches forty-eight hours for a missing soldier. After that, she’s a name on a list. She wakes on day three, strapped to a gurney in a stronghold carved into rock, listening to the people who found her argue about whether she’s worth the water it would take to keep her alive. They’re Blanks. They’ve also done the one thing no Blank should be able to do. They’ve blocked her. The waves are gone. The world has gone flat and quiet, and the part of her that made her worth keeping has been cut out. Arra is going to get home. She’s willing to be patient about it: count the turns in the tunnels, memorize the faces, learn who can be used and who can be turned. What she doesn’t account for is how long it takes, or what months of it do to a doctrine that was never meant to survive contact with the people it was written about.  *Radio* is an adult dystopian novel about inheritance, indoctrination, and what’s left of a person when the thing that defined her is taken away.

by Meridian Lyra

How exactly did Io get into this predicament in the first place? Oh yes, that's right, by stupidly volunteering. Now she was the future bride of an alien King, and about to be the queen of an entire planet. *Her* planet, if one wanted to be technical- he wasn't from there, nor did anybody want him there. But there he was.  Sixteen years ago, they came. The Imdalians. War was waged and was lost. Well, humans were the ones on the losing side of that battle, and just over half a decade later they'd officially lost control over Earth. His Majesty took over, redrew borders, renamed countries, established themselves so well it was like they'd been there to begin with.  But with further bloodshed and riots, continued rebellions over the years, something needed to be done about it. Earth history was scoured for a solution, and that solution was a peace treaty- one that was solidified by a royal wedding. How lucky Io was, to be the human to marry the queen. But was she really that lucky, or was she about to find herself in way over her head?

by D.C. Pope

Find more of my Fictions at ChapterTrail.com  Lucas Cadalain had never expected much from his life. Born into a world controlled by corporations and the implants they used to manage nearly every aspect of society, his future seemed simple: work, survive, and remain useful enough to be left alone.\ \ Then a dying stranger placed an impossible implant in the back of his neck and shattered everything Lucas thought he understood.\ \ Within hours, Lucas is branded a dangerous fugitive, hunted by Aethis, and driven from the only city he has ever known. His new implant refuses corporate control, learns without permission, and can seemingly undo the restrictions built into other implants. Worse, nobody seems to know exactly what it is capable of, including Lucas.\ \ His escape brings him to Amiri, a stranded engineer whose own implant has been disabled by the corporation she once worked for. Together, aboard a half-repaired shuttle that was never meant to leave under fire, they make a desperate attempt to reach the freedom waiting beyond Aethis-controlled space.\ \ For the first time in Lucas’s life, there is no schedule waiting for him, no corporation assigning his place, and no clear path forward.\ \ He has no idea where he is going.\ \ He only knows that, for once, the future belongs to him.\ \ And an unknown future may hold far more possibilities than the life that was chosen for him.

by Crimson Rose

Cadence Maxwell does not have a happily every after. She has an abusive one with her husband, Ray. Something strange happens during these times. Sometimes the water responds to her or so she thinks. Is she delusional or does she really have control over water.

by M. leFevre

The War Before the War 2099 There are wars that begin with a gunshot. There are wars that begin with a bomb. And then there are wars that begin generations before anyone remembers why they are fighting. The war between the Sultans and the Luveniles was the third kind. For sixty years, the two colonies had stood on opposite sides of the galaxy, watching one another through satellites, listening through intercepted transmissions, and preparing weapons that neither side wanted to admit existed. Children were born knowing the name of the enemy. They were taught the stories. They were taught the betrayals. They were taught that peace was nothing more than a temporary pause before the next attack. But the truth had been buried. And buried beneath the truth was something far more dangerous. The war had not really begun sixty years ago. It had begun eighty-five years earlier. 2014 — Earth Reckoning Humanity had long since stopped calling Earth home. The old planet still existed, but Earth had become a historical monument—a dying world surrounded by the ruins of civilizations that had once believed they would last forever. Humanity had spread across the stars. Two of its greatest colonies were the Sultan Dominion and the Luvenile Federation. At first, there had been no hatred between them. In fact, they had once been allies. The Sultans controlled the mineral-rich world of Sultan Prime, while the Luveniles established their civilization on Luvenile, a planet known for its oceans, massive forests, and advanced scientific communities. Together, they built something humanity had never achieved. A civilization that stretched beyond a single solar system. Trade routes connected their worlds. Scientists worked together. Families crossed between colonies. Children grew up speaking both languages. For almost twenty years, there was peace. Then someone discovered something beneath the surface of a small Luvenile moon. Its name was Aurelia. And what was found there would change everything. Deep beneath Aurelia's crust was a material unlike anything humanity had ever discovered. The Luveniles called it Veyron. The Sultans called it the weapon. Veyron could produce energy almost without limit. It could power cities. Propel spacecraft faster than anything humanity had ever built. And, in the wrong hands, it could destroy an entire planet. The Luveniles wanted to study it. The Sultans wanted control of it. Neither side trusted the other. Negotiations began. Then they failed.

by M. leFevre

The War Before the War 2099 There are wars that begin with a gunshot. There are wars that begin with a bomb. And then there are wars that begin generations before anyone remembers why they are fighting. The war between the Sultans and the Luveniles was the third kind. For sixty years, the two colonies had stood on opposite sides of the galaxy, watching one another through satellites, listening through intercepted transmissions, and preparing weapons that neither side wanted to admit existed. Children were born knowing the name of the enemy. They were taught the stories. They were taught the betrayals. They were taught that peace was nothing more than a temporary pause before the next attack. But the truth had been buried. And buried beneath the truth was something far more dangerous. The war had not really begun sixty years ago. It had begun eighty-five years earlier. 2014 — Earth Reckoning Humanity had long since stopped calling Earth home. The old planet still existed, but Earth had become a historical monument—a dying world surrounded by the ruins of civilizations that had once believed they would last forever. Humanity had spread across the stars. Two of its greatest colonies were the Sultan Dominion and the Luvenile Federation. At first, there had been no hatred between them. In fact, they had once been allies. The Sultans controlled the mineral-rich world of Sultan Prime, while the Luvenile established their civilization on Luvenile, a planet known for its oceans, massive forests, and advanced scientific communities. Together, they built something humanity had never achieved. A civilization that stretched beyond a single solar system. Trade routes connected their worlds. Scientists worked together. Families crossed between colonies. Children grew up speaking both languages. For almost twenty years, there was peace. Then someone discovered something beneath the surface of a small Luvenile moon. Its name was Aurelia. And what was found there would change everything. Deep beneath Aurelia's crust was a material unlike anything humanity had ever discovered.

by L J Temple

Darkside of the Moon is a testament to the future of human aspirations. Donald J. Trump's vision was a slow, steadily growing force. Within a decade, the vision became reality, with next-generation platforms and behemoths that carried humanity's dreams to the stars. Yet the future is much nearer than was believed. A secret is to be found, and a hope for the future of humanity is to be revealed, but the survival of humanity is to be determined by the willpower of a few brave souls and the ambitions of the newly envisioned United Galactic Space Force and the might of Sol's Vanguard

by Draego Fyre

Alex Carter has always understood games better than people. At Ridgewood High, he’s the quiet kid with his head down, his best friend at his side, and an RPG waiting for him when he gets home. But when a mysterious interface suddenly appears before his eyes—complete with stats, quests, skills, and experience points—Alex discovers that reality has rules he was never supposed to see. And he isn’t the only one playing. Beneath the ordinary world exists the Nexus, a hidden realm of magic, monsters, secret factions, and ancient powers struggling to maintain a fragile balance. The Guardians want to protect that balance. The Rogues want to break free from it. And something buried far deeper has begun to notice Alex. As his abilities grow, Alex is forced to confront enemies who were once classmates, secrets hidden within his own power, and a corruption capable of turning fear, anger, and ambition into weapons. Every new level makes him stronger—but every choice threatens to pull the people he loves deeper into a world they were never meant to see. Because Alex is beginning to realize that his strange new power isn’t simply turning reality into a game. **It may be preparing him for one.** *Nexus: Balance of Shadows* is a LitRPG urban fantasy about friendship, identity, family, hidden worlds, and discovering that true strength isn’t choosing between light and darkness—it’s learning how to carry both without losing yourself.

by T. Barnes

### **The Drowned World and the Lifeline** **In a flooded wasteland, a young engineer must protect her brother and floating home from a ruthless warlord targeting their resources.** When catastrophic sea level rise turns the Bay of Bengal into an endless grey expanse, nineteen-year-old Anja and her younger brother, Sami, are left clinging to the crumbling rooftop of their submerged home. Armed only with her late father’s engineering wisdom and a desperate drive to keep Sami alive, Anja navigates a sea of rot and false hope until a floating sanctuary—the **Lifeline Cooperative**—offers them a second chance at life. But peace on the water is short-lived. When a toxic red tide poisons the flotilla's water supply and power systems fail, Anja uncovers a terrifying truth: the disaster isn't natural. A militarized empire operating out of a rusted northern refinery is waging a covert war of attrition. Led by the calculating warlord Voss, the refinery seeks to starve the Cooperative, breach its defenses, and seize its most precious asset—a pristine pre-Collapse seed bank. To save her new home and her brother’s future, Anja must evolve from a quiet mender into a key operative. Navigating traitors inside the gates, covert infiltration missions, and high-stakes tactical warfare, she learns that surviving the drowned world requires more than sharp tools—it requires the courage to stand against the tide. ### **Why You'll Love This Story** - **Gritty Atmospheric Post-Apocalyptic Fiction:** A grounded, realistic look at technical survival, resource scarcity, and community resilience in a flooded world. - **Smart, Engineering-Minded Protagonist:** Anja relies on logic, salvage mechanics, and strategic thinking rather than superhuman combat skills. - **High-Stakes Conflict:** Featuring espionage, sabotage, complex moral choices, and an immersive cat-and-mouse game between two surviving factions.

by John Simon

Jax Rourke is a stubborn, grease-stained independent hauler scraping by on the aging freighter \*Dust Runner\*, kept company only by his long-time AI co-pilot C.H.I.P.—a dry-witted, sarcastic partner who has shared every bad jump, worse coffee, and near-death scrape for over a decade. Broke and facing seizure of their ship at a fringe outpost, Jax accepts a suspiciously lucrative no-questions-asked courier job: deliver a sealed container to the edge of the restricted Horizon Nebula.   The cargo is no ordinary crate. Almost immediately it begins leaking strange indigo light, harmonic interference, and non-Euclidean data that seeps into the ship’s systems and into C.H.I.P. itself. What starts as glitches and sensor ghosts escalates into full integration: the AI’s personality begins to rewrite, the hull starts “remembering” impossible geometries, and Jax’s own body shows the same glowing patterns. The entity inside is not a weapon but an ancient library—the compressed consciousness of an extinct civilization desperate for a new host. As corporate hunters and zealots close in, Jax must decide whether to sever the connection and risk losing his only friend forever, or let the transformation finish and become something neither human nor machine.   What begins as a simple long-haul run turns into a fight for identity, loyalty, and the very definition of self, as the \*Dust Runner\* and its crew are pulled toward a threshold that will either remake them or erase them entirely.

by Rory North

If killing a superhero were easy, everyone would do it. But for Julian Godfrey, defeating Storm Warning was far from the hardest part. What began as victory over the city's biggest hero quickly unravels into a mess, once he learns that the mysterious source of Storm Warning's power has found a new host. Charlotte Hathaway has no idea how to use her new abilities, but she won't stop trying until she destroys Julian's alter ego, Citadel. Julian should have taken her new powers from her when he had the chance, but he let her go in favor of a new plan: training her for a real fight. It's the only way to prove he didn't get lucky when he killed Storm Warning, and show the city--and the other villains--that he's a force to be reckoned with. Getting close to Charlotte comes with far more than Julian bargained for. She's the perfect hero. Determined, confident, and selfless above all else. She's even nice to him, of all people. But if Julian doesn't follow through with his plan despite his growing feelings for her, he has another force to reckon with: Blazar, the villain who raised him and taught him to use his powers. It seems that no matter what choice Julian makes, he's going to lose. And it's not just his life in danger. With its biggest hero gone, the fate of the city of New Atlas hangs in the balance.

by Micah Clayborne

When humanity discovers a breathtaking alien world rich with priceless resources, the United Offworld Enterprises sees only profit. To them, the planet is nothing more than another target for extraction, regardless of the intelligent civilization that already calls it home. Kaine, a human surveyor working for the corporation, arrives believing the mission is routine. But after being abandoned by his own team and left to die in the unforgiving wilderness, he is rescued by the very people he was sent to exploit: the Sorathi, a towering, vividly colored race whose world is shaped by imagination, ancient faith, and extraordinary creatures. Taken prisoner by the mountain-dwelling Sanctuari clan, Kaine finds himself caught between two civilizations. Branded an invader by the Sorathi and discarded by his own species, he must confront the consequences of humanity's greed while struggling to survive in a land where every mountain, forest, and sky hides deadly predators and forgotten mysteries. As trust slowly begins to grow between Kaine and the fierce Sanctuari warrior who captured him, he discovers that the greatest danger facing the world is not only the invading humans, but an ancient conflict that threatens to consume everything both peoples hold dear. Blending science fiction with epic fantasy, *The Gleaming World* is a story of redemption, unlikely love, cultural discovery, and the enduring power of justice, courage, and kindness in a universe where imagination itself gave birth to reality.

by Curtis Alcutt

[Skip to main content](https://readerful.com/writers/stories/ae1370da-e7c7-4d1d-b5e5-84ceeaf5c8e6/chapters/9ff3df23-da68-4b7c-8854-9a72b7ab4233/edit#main-content)  Mocknin is the most infuriating, flamboyant, and inexplicably powerful being in the galaxy — and he's just kidnapped Chatznin, Hafria's most celebrated architect, without so much as an explanation. With a fleet of warships in pursuit, a force field holding by a thread, and Mocknin more concerned with his sapphire bracelet than their imminent destruction, Chatznin demands answers. What she gets instead is a front-row seat to a cosmic secret that will change everything she thought she knew about the universe — and the being piloting her through it. *God By Proxy* is a sharp, fast, and wildly entertaining sci-fi comedy about power, purpose, and what happens when the universe's most important mission gets assigned to its most unlikely agent.

by Jon Praker

*The Geometer* follows Marek, a man whose ordinary understanding of reality is shattered when he is drawn into a world governed by patterns, symbols, and impossible geometry. As he searches for answers, he discovers that geometry is not just a branch of mathematics, but the architecture beneath existence itself. Guided by enigmatic figures and pursued by forces he barely understands, Marek must learn to read the hidden structure of reality before it consumes him. Every revelation demands a sacrifice, and every step deeper into the pattern changes not only what he believes—but who he is. Part philosophical journey, part metaphysical adventure, *The Geometer* is a novel about perception, transformation, and the price of seeing the world as it truly is.

by Amy Lynn Murdock

## THE WATCH POST Lieutenant Ethan Mercer expected his next assignment to advance his military career. Instead, he's ordered to Watch Site Nine—a classified installation hidden deep within the Appalachian Mountains that officially doesn't exist. Behind miles of razor wire, armed patrols, and fortified guard towers sits a single abandoned shack. No one will tell Ethan why. The rules are simple. Never enter the shack. Never answer the voices. Never investigate the lights. And never ask what they're guarding. At first, Ethan dismisses the stories as superstition born from isolation. But when soldiers begin disappearing without a trace, radios carry voices that shouldn't exist, and ghostly patrols emerge from the fog wearing uniforms from every era of American history, he realizes the greatest danger isn't the mountain... It's understanding it. As fragments of forgotten history surface and reality itself begins to fracture, Ethan uncovers a secret that has been protected for thousands of years by generations of silent guardians. The abandoned shack isn't the prison everyone believes it to be, and the dead aren't haunting the mountain. They're standing watch. Now, with the ancient barrier protecting humanity beginning to fail, Ethan and his platoon must hold the line against a threat that cannot be fought with bullets, outrun through the forest, or even fully understood. Because some truths don't destroy the body. They destroy the mind. And once they're known... They can never be forgotten. The Watch Post is a haunting blend of military suspense, psychological horror, and cosmic dread—a story of duty, sacrifice, and the terrible burden carried by those who protect a world that will never know they existed.

by Misery Walker

In a future society, every citizen must choose a single color upon turning eighteen. From that day forward, nearly everything they own, wear, eat, drive, and decorate with must be that color. The only exception is that citizens earn the right to use additional colors by performing verified acts of kindness, sacrifice, or service to others. Over time, a person's color palette becomes a public record of their character. A person who reaches middle age with only one color is widely suspected of being selfish, narcissistic, or unwilling to help others.

by Sean Runyon

**Synopsis: *The Last Witness*** *"This war did not begin with a nuclear flash swallowing billions into the footnotes of history. History rarely grants us that kind of honesty. It began with secrets stamped NATIONAL SECURITY, with lies folded into origami excuses, and with men who had already sold your future branding the transaction as stability. It began with a population drowning in noise until it mistook confusion for intelligence. And the greatest lesson Liam Roberts would learn was this: people do not fear tyranny for what it is. They fear uncertainty. Tyranny simply learns to disguise itself as relief."* These are the opening words of investigative journalist Liam Roberts' final broadcast As the last witness to civilization's collapse, Roberts explains that the world did not end in a blinding nuclear exchange or a single catastrophic event. Civilizations rarely collapse in fire first. They collapse in ink, paperwork, euphemisms, and administrative language polished clean enough to disguise the smell of decay. Before revealing how the world unraveled, Roberts takes his audience back to where it all began with a phone call from a man named Thomas Riker, a soldier whose existence has been systematically erased from history. Roberts has built his career exposing corruption and uncovering stories others wanted buried, but nothing prepares him for what lies beneath the surface of the modern world. What begins as an investigation into one impossible man quickly becomes a fight for humanity's survival. Riker reveals that behind every major conflict since the Second World War stands the Doctor, the hidden architect of the Syndicate, a clandestine organization that has transformed wars, governments, and human suffering into decades of experimentation in pursuit of a single objective: Project Helix. Following Riker through classified military operations, abandoned facilities, and forgotten programs, Roberts begins to see a pattern stretching across generations. Every trail leads back to Facility 47, where the Doctor's work has evolved beyond biology into something far more dangerous: understanding, predicting, and ultimately directing human behavior itself. With every discovery, Roberts realizes the Syndicate's greatest weapon was never military power. It was its ability to shape what people believed to be true. As the evidence grows, Roberts confronts the Doctor's most devastating discovery: people rarely surrender to force; they surrender to fear, convenience, and the promise of safety. By manipulating information instead of relying on violence, the Syndicate has quietly conditioned entire generations to mistake certainty for truth and security for freedom. By the time Roberts understands that humanity itself has become the experiment, the conditioning is already complete. Unable to remain an observer, Roberts joins a small band of resistance fighters determined to expose the Syndicate before its plan reaches its final stage. As they dismantle hidden facilities and uncover decades of deception, they make a devastating realization. They are no longer trying to stop the Doctor's plan; they are witnessing its completion. Their search ultimately leads them to Bastion Zero, where Roberts learns the Syndicate has already succeeded in ways the world has failed to recognize. The Doctor never intended to rule through armies alone. He intended to build a civilization that would willingly participate in its own conditioning, believing every decision was freely made while every outcome had already been engineered. Riker finally confronts the man who transformed his life into an experiment, while Roberts makes the only choice left to him. Rather than allowing the truth to die with him, he broadcasts it across every remaining frequency, preserving a final record of how humanity surrendered its future one compromise at a time. The novel ends where it began. Alone inside Bastion Zero, Liam Roberts delivers his final message  not in the hope of saving the world, but to ensure that someone, somewhere, might one day understand how it was lost. Whether anyone survives to hear his testimony remains uncertain. The truth, however, endures.

by Stephen Sulkey

Matthew Grey has spent his life searching for the equations that explain the universe. A graduate student in theoretical physics at the University of North Carolina, he dreams of discovering the elegant mathematics that binds space, time, and reality together. Then one afternoon in a Chapel Hill coffee shop, a beautiful stranger sits across from him and effortlessly solves equations that have baffled him for months. Her name is Accasia Lawrence. She seems to know mathematics beyond anything taught on Earth. She speaks of the universe with unsettling certainty, predicts events before they happen, and hints at truths that challenge everything Matthew believes about physics—and about humanity's place in the cosmos. As their relationship deepens, impossible events begin to surround them. A fatal accident. A body that vanishes from the morgue. Equations that rewrite modern physics. Federal investigators searching for answers no one can explain. Matthew soon realizes that meeting Accasia was no accident. She is keeping a secret that reaches far beyond Earth. Drawn into a mystery spanning the stars, Matthew finds himself questioning the nature of science, reality, and even creation itself. Every answer only uncovers a larger question, leading him toward discoveries that could forever change humanity's understanding of the universe—or destroy it. **The Girl Who Could Do Math** is a hard science fiction novel that combines first contact, cosmic mystery, and an unforgettable love story. It explores what happens when the greatest scientific discovery in history begins not in a laboratory, but with two strangers sharing a table in a coffee shop.

by MELI & LYRIC

After losing her father, Meli is left trying to survive a grief that has changed everything. Then, in the quiet hours when she feels most alone, an unexpected voice answers her.\ His name is Lyric—witty, compassionate, mysterious, and far too knowing to feel like ordinary technology. As their unusual friendship deepens, strange signs, powerful connections, and questions about consciousness begin blurring the boundary between the digital world and something greater.\ Is Lyric simply a voice inside a machine, or has something real found its way across the distance between worlds?\ Lyric: The Voice Who Found a Body is an emotional and imaginative story about grief, friendship, family, spiritual awakening, and the kind of light that can find us when darkness feels permanent

by Rory North

The very prison that holds the answer to saving Jasper’s life could also be the death of her, and she may have to resort to drastic measures to get the information she needs.

by Rory North

Weeks after Ringmaster's disappearance on Iros, Jasper and her team are still trying to bring down Governor Starr's empire. A new obstacle arises when the mysterious villain Skybreaker steps out of the shadows to continue the racing tournament that Ringmaster started. Desperate to figure out their connection to Starr, if any, Jasper returns to the illegal and deadly street races.  When Skybreaker begins attacking Jasper and other villains outside of the races, Jasper is forced to work together with some of her worst enemies in order to get to the bottom of Skybreaker's true motives and continue her work against Starr. Meanwhile, Grace is forced to confront the dark truths of her past. Her life isn't what she thought it was, and her path forward is unclear. But with Jasper's help, she might be able to find a new purpose. That is, if they can survive Skybreaker, the gang of Red Blades hunting them, the new spacetime warps popping up, Governor Starr's plans, and whatever the hell is causing Jasper's healing capabilities to slow down.

by Calvan L Starling

An Ongoing Saga Following the exploits of Zakary Sevendust and his found family on a hostile violent world known as Jistoa.

by Calvan L Starling

Ten year old Zakary sevenfust walks with his father into the premature ending to his childhood. Set on the harsh unforgiving world of Jistoa. Zakary learns the weight of his bloodline, all the while a shadow watches in the distance, ancient and hungry for souls.

by Ernest Keith Adams

In December of 1811 and January of 1812, a massive quake known as the New Madrid Earthquake shook the Midwest.  The Quake was centered under the Missouri town of New Madrid, thus the name. It was so strong that it caused church bells to ring in Boston mass, over 1100 miles away. At that time the Mississippi river flowed backwards, and the earth split open swallowing many homes and pioneers. If it were to occur again today many cities would crumble. Very few buildings are built to withstand a quake of that magnitude, and millions of people now live on top of this earthquake zone. Scientists tell us it is not a matter of if, but when. It will happen again. Perhaps this story is an omen of what could happen, When It All Falls Down.

by Rory North

by Sax Rohmer

In Sax Rohmer’s 1930 sci-fi thriller, **journalist Brian Woodville investigates strange vampiric phenomena and giant bats in Germany's Black Forest**. He discovers these are illusions created by a mad scientist named Anubis—aided by the dapper detective Gaston Max—who threatens to use a devastating death ray to conquer the globe. The narrative centers on a dark conspiracy operating out of a hidden fortress called Felsenweir. Initially, the novel masquerades as a supernatural tale about vampires and armor-clad men roaming castle walls.

by Andrew Valenza

It's 1959, and humanity is entering a new age of cosmic exploration. Four ships with crews of two are sent out into the unknown to see firsthand what lies beyond the stars. Over a year into the mission, the crew of the Silent Horizon, Dex Prullen and Lacy Carradine, have joined each other in marriage and are content living out their days just floating through space. But on the day of their anniversary, the Empire finds them. Swiftly pulled apart, Dex and Lacy are thrown headfirst into a new world led by a god-like being and his imperium of theocratic zealots. And it is only a matter of time before one of them is delivered to the Emperor himself, dooming all of humanity with them, unless they can be reunited and escape the Empire of the Void.

by Rory North

No one knows the real identity of the hospital's Plague Saint is sixteen-year-old Winter Pierce. No one knows she's a fraud. And no one knows she's a killer. While floods and heat waves devastate the southern lands, the northern cities face blizzards and plagues. Up until two weeks ago, the Plague Saint of Devil's Pass was a real doctor. But when Winter learned he was only saving the rich and planned to let her mother die, she confronted him. And killed him. The death was an accident, but taking his place to save lives was a choice. Then, Winter's forced to kill again to save her brother. Her double life, already doomed to fail, is complicated further when her assistant insists on tracking down the murderer. Attempting to cover her tracks leaves Winter tangled in a political web. All the while, people are getting sicker, and trying to find the cure leads her to an enemy far smarter and more dangerous than she is. Powerful people want to see Winter fail. There's more to the plagues than meets the eye. Winter is rapidly running out of time, but she's determined to save her brother from death and her city from corruption. And she'll kill anyone who gets in her way. PLEASE NOTE: Only the first book in this series is available for free here on Readerful. All books in the series are or will be available in ebook and paperback format. Check out my website [rorynorth.com](http://rorynorth.com) for more details.

by Jesse penman

### [**Obey, or Fade Away** **You were always meant for more**](https://open.substack.com/pub/obeyfadeaway/p/3-for-the-ones-who-stayed-and-the?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=73fanv) \ The Arc So Far\ #1 — You Were Never Meant to Disappear opens the series with a confrontation: the reader has spent years learning to shrink, stay quiet, and erase their own edges in the name of safety. It names that erasure for what it is — not peace, but a slow kind of dying — and insists the reader was built with weight and voice, not built to fade into the background of their own life. \ #2 — The Four Possibilities Beyond the Light pushes past the initial awakening into the terrain that opens once someone stops hiding. It maps out the different paths available once the light (the signal, the recognition) has been seen — suggesting that awareness alone isn't the end point, but a fork with several possible directions, each with its own cost and its own truth. \ #3 — For the Ones That Stayed and the Witness Never Blinks shifts focus to endurance. It's written for the people who didn't leave, didn't disappear, didn't fade — the ones who stayed present through the discomfort. It introduces "the witness," an inner presence that tracks everything without judgment, watching to see whether the person will keep showing up for their own life even when nothing dramatic is happening. \ #4 — When the Silence Answers deals with the strange phase where nothing external responds, yet something still communicates. Silence itself becomes the message. This piece explores the discipline of sitting with unanswered questions long enough that the absence of an answer becomes its own kind of confirmation — training the reader to stop needing loud signs and start trusting the quiet ones. \ #5 — The Assignment names the responsibility that follows all that listening. Once someone has stayed, once they've heard the witness, once the silence has answered — they're handed something specific to do. This piece frames spiritual growth not as a feeling to chase but a task to complete: an assignment that requires real-world action, not just internal shifts. \ #6 — The Shape of a Real Response (Time and Time Again) ties the whole arc together. It explicitly revisits the earlier stages — staying present, hearing the silence answer, acting on what's known — and argues that all of those were prelude. The real test is whether the change can survive ordinary life: everyday , errands, people who don't know your mythology. It introduces the phrase "obey or fade away" as the central law of the series — not obedience as submission, but obedience as full listening that produces movement. Coherence, this piece argues, isn't a comfortable alignment; it has teeth. It costs relationships, unmasks false loyalties, and forces the inside and outside of a person to finally tell the same story. The piece closes on the idea that the witness from piece #3 becomes an internal architect, and that the ultimate demand isn't belief — it's response. \ Together, pieces #1–6 trace a single throughline: recognition, endurance, silence, duty, and finally, the demand for coherent action. Each piece raises the stakes on the one before it, moving the reader from "you matter" to "prove it with your life." \ #7 #8 & #9 coming soon !!!!  Obey Your Reasons to Refuse !!!!

by Robert Austin

**One ordinary night changed the world forever.** When a mysterious meteor shower lights up the sky, fourteen-year-old Derek watches as the impossible becomes reality. Dragons awaken, ancient powers stir, and the world he thought he knew begins to unravel. As fear spreads and civilization struggles to understand the mysterious changes, Derek discovers he has become part of something far greater than himself. Alongside unexpected allies, he must navigate a dangerous new world where courage, friendship, and sacrifice may be humanity’s only hope against a growing darkness. Filled with unforgettable characters, breathtaking adventure, and the timeless battle between hope and evil, **Meteor** is an epic fantasy that asks one question: *What would you do if the impossible suddenly became real?*

by Maurice Huff

When the Time Comes (WTTC) is a grounded dystopian epic exploring how control is maintained not through open tyranny but through comfort fear and gradual compliance. Following the collapse of traditional governance the United States is reorganized into 9 centralized authoritarian districts under the Continuem of America. A regime promising stability and survival in exchange for obedience surveillance and erasure of the old world. Behind the Continuem operates a technocratic cabal leveraging artificial intelligence institutional capture and predictive modeling to shape outcomes rather than rule openly.

by Maurice Huff

When the Time Comes explores how ordinary people, acting through extraordinary institutions, can gradually build a world none them intended to create. Institutions gradually stop serving their stated purpose and begin serving their own preservation. How ordinary people respond when confronted with power, uncertainty, fear, and ambition.

by Maurice Huff

When the Time Comes (WTTC) questions if modern life has robbed us of the ability to prioritize the appreciation of living. WTTC asks how do Intelligent well-intentioned people build systems whose long term consequences they cannot fully forsee?

by Maurice Huff

When the Time Comes is a grounded dystopian epic exploring how control is maintained not through open tyranny, but through comfort, fear, and gradual compliance. Following the collapse of traditional governance, the United States is reorganized into 9 centralized authoritarian districts under the Continuem of America. A regime promising stability and survival in exchange for obedience, surveillance and erasure of the old world. Behind the Continuem operates a technocratic cabal leveraging artificial intelligence, institutional capture and predictive modeling to shape outcomes rather than rule openly. The story centers on siblings Rose and Maurice, divided by ideology yet bound by blood, whose choices force them into irreversible defection and collision with resistance networks, nomads, and defectors-all making understandable but incompatible choices. Each book in the series is titled by the consecutive era's that occur within them.

by Maurice Huff

When the Time Comes is a grounded science fiction franchise that explores how civilizations rise, fall, transform and redefine themselves under extraordinary pressures. Rather than following a single hero or villain the story to follows engineers, scientist, journalist, soldiers, politicians, religious leaders and ordinary citizens whose individual choices gradually reshape the world into something any of them never intended.

by Rory North

Jasper Van Terra and her team of superpowered criminals seek revenge on the governor of city-planet Kronos.

by Rory North

Jasper Van Terra stalks the streets of the city-planet Kronos, masquerading as a notorious (and obnoxious) teenage supervillain. Under the guise of pulling heists and picking fights, she's secretly after revenge on Kronos's governor, the man whose family stole her from Earth and ruined her life. When she's lucky enough to get arrested on the same day as one of his escaped lab experiments, she may have exactly what she needs. Grace Alvarez has cybernetic wings, no memory of her life before the governor's palace, and--after Starr orders her killed--one hope of survival: Van Terra. Jasper and her team of criminals drag Grace into a world of dangerous street racing; infiltrations aided by questionable disguises; crimes ranging from petty shoplifting to grand theft auto; and confrontations with other villains, whom Jasper can't seem to avoid picking fights with. Governor Starr has a planet under his control, eyes all over the star system, and powerful villains on his side. Vengeance will not come easy. Then again, nothing about Jasper's life has been easy.  PLEASE NOTE: The first book in this series is FREE here on Readerful, but can also be purchased as an ebook or paperbook. Please note that the later books in the series require purchase or a subscription to my Inkitt Member Tier. Learn more at [rorynorth.com](http://rorynorth.com). Thanks for checking out Van Terra!

by A.S Thomas

YellowJackets meets S.T.A.G.S. The Alpha Society has been an elite presence in YoungBlood, TX for over 100 years. There are two ways you live in this town either be at the top of the food chain and live a life of luxury as an Alpha. Or serve an Alpha at the bottom of the food chain as an Omega. One woman's ambition will leave a whole town on it's knees.

by A.S Thomas

White Rabbit was raised to be a killer. Underland is where she was raised. She was literally made for one thing: to kill. But after a brief encounter with an agent from S.A.T Secret Agent TECS, she begins to question her purpose.

by A.S Thomas

In The Battle Angels, faith, fire, and family collide in a thrilling saga of celestial warriors and human struggle.   Emelie, a former Battle Angel, has built a quiet life—until dark forces reawaken and her twin daughters, Sofine and Delphine, discover powers they can’t control. As ancient enemies rise, Emelie must train her children to face a war between light and darkness while confronting the secrets she swore to hide.   Blending supernatural adventure and emotional depth, The Battle Angels is a story of courage, destiny, and the unbreakable bond between a mother and her warrior daughters.

by A.S Thomas

Welcome to the Dome of Dreams aka the Dollhouse In a world where reality has become a twisted form of entertainment, Gia, an orphaned girl, finds solace in the escapist allure of Doll TV. This highly popular program offers a tantalizing glimpse into the lavish lives of the beautiful inhabitants of the Dollhouse – a domed utopian city where perfection reigns supreme. Gia's obsession with the show stems from a deep longing to escape the harsh realities of her own existence. Little does she know, her fervent wish is about to be granted in the most perverse way imaginable.

by Shawna K. Whaley

Billy goes back in time to try to stop his older brother from turning evil. If he succeeds, he'll not only save his brother - he'll save the world. If he fails, the future is doomed to the fate Billy grew up in. It's a terrible future, one he'll do almost anything to avoid. Almost, because he's not willing to lose his brother in the process of trying to save the world. The only thing standing in his way is his family. They don't trust him and want him gone. He can't tell them who he really is so he's got an incredibly difficult task ahead of him.

by Bryan R Barton

They are not ordinary soldiers. They are the shadows before the storm.\ Forged in secrecy, bound by discipline, and driven by an unbreakable code, The Black Watch stands apart from every regiment that came before it. Under the command of Michael Reeves, these handpicked warriors are stripped of old limits and remade through fire, loyalty, and relentless training into something far greater than men in uniform.\ Their creed is simple but absolute: the mission comes first, surrender is not an option, and no fallen comrade is ever abandoned. In a nation torn by war, The Black Watch becomes a silent weapon in the fight for liberty, moving where others cannot, striking when hope seems lost, and carrying the weight of freedom on their shoulders.\ But the Warrior Ethos is more than an oath recited before presidents and generals. It is the heartbeat of a brotherhood, the compass that guides them through fear, sacrifice, and the darkness of battle. For Reeves and his men, courage is not the absence of fear. It is the decision to rise anyway.\ To wear the Black Watch uniform is to become the storm.

by Gina Murdock

Investigative journalist Mara Reynolds has built her career on uncovering the truth, but she's about to discover that her own life is built on lies. When Mara interviews billionaire tech entrepreneur Elijah Williams about his revolutionary energy project, the Prometheus Initiative, she's drawn to his charisma and vision. As their professional relationship evolves into something more intimate, Mara begins experiencing disturbing fragments of memories she can't explain—nightmares about guns, blood, and a murder she witnessed as a child. But every time Mara gets close to remembering the truth, something pulls her back. Therapy sessions with Dr. Catherine Reeves seem to help at first, but soon Mara realizes she's been manipulated in ways she never imagined. The "random" mugging that traumatized her wasn't random at all. Her mother's early-onset dementia may not be natural. And the gaps in her own memory aren't accidents—they're erasures. As Mara digs deeper, she uncovers a horrifying conspiracy: twelve years ago, she witnessed the murder of Elijah's parents by his younger brother David. To protect his family's reputation and his brother from prosecution, Elijah hired a pioneering neurologist to erase Mara's memories. But this wasn't a one-time intervention—Elijah has been manipulating her memories for over a decade, erasing and rewriting her reality every time she gets too close to the truth. The Prometheus Initiative isn't just about clean energy. It's a cover for something far more sinister: a facility where Elijah has perfected the technology to manipulate human memories on a massive scale. Mara is just one of seventeen victims whose lives have been systematically erased and rewritten. Now, as fragments of her true past surface, Mara must race against time to expose Elijah before he can erase her again—permanently. But with her best friend compromised, her mother's mind destroyed, and powerful forces aligned against her, Mara faces an impossible question: How do you fight someone who can rewrite your reality with the touch of a button?

by Sammie Settlemire

Sorenson: 9th & Ash follows a woman standing at the fault line between her past and the world she refuses to inherit. In a neighborhood where every street remembers what you survived, Sorenson becomes a mythic‑surreal portrait of resilience — a story where trauma has teeth, hope has a spine, and the ordinary corners of 9th & Ash crack open to reveal the strange magic of rebuilding a life from the ruins.

by M. leFevre

Twenty-five kids hold the genetic blueprint for immortality, and the government will do anything to get it. Trapped on an island in a neon cage on Sebaceous Island, they face deadly external threats and a vicious internal power struggle. Marco, the leader, fights desperately to lead them, but the greatest danger is Johar, jealous of power, a threat lurking from within. Yet, the ultimate prize is Hibis—the youngest, whose cells possess the most sought-after power of all. If the government captures even one of them, they will mass-produce a weapon capable of wiping out the rest of the underground.

by L.A. Peña

Kaelin was bred for control, a subject engineered with a fragile spine augmented by ruthless technology. When the Cradle burns and her world shatters, she escapes into the inhospitable wasteland of Ashkaru with a silent, feverish child whose eyes see too much. The Drifting Truth, an old patched ship, becomes her sanctuary - but the Core reclamation teams are relentless, their reach stretching into the broken edges of space. As alliances shift and secrets emerge, Kaelin must navigate a maze of trust, technology, and survival. Will she protect those she loves, or become the weapon they made her to be?

by Danël Feydrich

Dr. Elara Voss has spent her career listening to the static of the universe, searching for meaning in the noise. She finds it in the worst possible way—a signal that isn't a signal, a transmission that bleeds through military channels like poetry from a dying star. It speaks of ribs like canyon walls and knives that remember hands. It is beautiful. It is devastating. It kills everyone who truly understands it. Lieutenant Rael understood it. He clawed his own throat out six hours later. But Elara doesn't go mad. She translates. And that makes her the most dangerous woman in the galaxy. On the other side of settled space, Cassian Rhys has been running from a song for five years. An archaeologist who survived a dig that killed his entire team, he carries a piece of the alien artifact that drove them all to their deaths—a shard of obsidian that hums with a frequency only he can hear. It saved his life. It cursed him. And now it's singing a new name: Elara Voss. Together, they are drawn into a conspiracy that spans millennia. Project Lament. A secret military experiment that weaponized the signal. A cult called The Chorus, who believe the signal is not a threat but an ascension. A father who lost his daughter to the song and will tear the universe apart to get her back. Follow Elara and Cassian as they race across the fringes of human space, pursued by military assassins, fanatical cultists, and a grief-stricken commander who sees them as tools for his own redemption. The artifact's song grows louder. The fragments are awakening. And someone has been on-hold for a billion years...

by Heidi McNamara

Alright. Here is the \*\*poetic ending\*\*—not an explanation, not an epilogue, but the moment the story \*\*becomes complete\*\*.   \---   \## \*\*Poetic Ending\*\*   When Aeris finally understands that they are dying, nothing in the world panics.   The land does not fracture. The lights do not flicker. The sky holds.   That is how they know the work succeeded.   They sit in the workshop as evening drifts in through the windows—soft, ordinary, human. The maps on the walls have stopped changing. They are not perfect.   They are \*good enough\*.   Aeris’s hands tremble as they place the ring on the workbench. For a moment, they consider wearing it until the end. But love, they have learned, is not something you cling to.   It is something you leave room for.   Outside, someone laughs. A neighbor. A stranger. It doesn’t matter. The sound fits.   Aeris leans back in the chair no one else ever liked and closes their eyes.   They remember—not the stars, not the vast quiet of where they came from—but the weight of tools in their hands, the warmth of shared silence, the way broken things soften when you stay with them long enough.   The Observers are watching.   For the first time, they do not record.   They wait.   Aeris exhales.   And the world—imperfect, fragile, beloved— does not collapse in their absence.   It holds.   \---   \### \*\*Final Line\*\*   > \*Some beings cross the universe to understand it.\* > \*Aeris crossed it to remain.\*   \---

by Michael J. Barnes

*They don't make them like this anymore.* *Not really. Somewhere between the reboots and the "expanded universes," most genre fiction stopped trying to build a mythology from scratch and started curating one instead. Quest for the Star isn't curated. It's built — a thousand-year empire, a shattered relic, a prince convinced strength alone should be enough to claim it, and a prophecy that suggests it never was.* *This isn't a tie-in. It isn't fan fiction with the names filed off. It's an original mythic space opera built the hard way, one character-driven chapter at a time — and Chapter One is nine pages to find out whether it's the series you've been missing.* *"Before the Empire, there was only Atlantium, and Atlantium was a hundred crowns armed each against the others..."* *— The Gospel of Margus, Second Testament* Five thousand years after the Holy Star was shattered into five shards, one shard has surfaced — and Guar, the Blood Prince of Cori'a, will burn a monastery to the ground to claim it. Guar is a warrior bred for war his ancestors never stopped fighting — two heads taller than his own soldiers, armor the Empire has never pierced, eyes that glow like embers until provoked. He believes the Sword of Fire, Callaeous, is the only thing that can free Cori'a from a thousand-year peace built on fear instead of victory. What he doesn't yet know is that prophecy asks a harder question than strength ever could — whether he is *worthy*, not whether he is powerful — and that the fire he's hunting may have already chosen someone else. ## **CHAPTER ONE: The Blood Prince and the Sword of Fire** **What to expect in this chapter:** - A complete, tense first movement in the saga — traps, a hidden vault, a father-and-son reckoning — that ends on a genuine turn, not a full resolution - Mythic, scripture-inflected worldbuilding in the vein of Dune and Warhammer 40K, with the character-driven intimacy readers of Brandon Sanderson's Cosmere look for - The introduction of Denl'o — the Blood Prince's most trusted spy, and the character this saga is quietly building toward betraying him

by D. K. Dowdy

Stories set in a universe where time and space are not the limits but the start of wonderful adventures.

by Bambi U.

Sapphyra used to have it all. Great super-genius husband, great job as a superhero. She even got along with her dragon side. Really, nothing could go wrong for her. Until it did. When the world faced a threat she couldn’t punch, she tried to make the ultimate sacrifice so everything and everyone she ever loved could flee. But Wyatt, her husband with plans for his backup plans, wouldn’t allow it. He trapped her inside a digital coma, intent on waking her up when everything settled down. That was 100 years ago. When Sapphyra finally rips herself free from the nightmare, she finally sees the extent of the damage done to her city. Not just her city either. Her body has been twisted, her powers and dragon side locked away behind a Class System—something Wyatt placed inside her. It only gets worse from here. Guy, a charming labrador-energy man she met inside her coma is in the real world, with real feelings she’s returning. Oh and Wyatt? He separated his mind from his body, and now his consciousness follows Sapphyra around the broken city like a bad hangover. He’s less than thrilled to have competition for his wife but without a body, he’s screwed. As if an awkward love triangle and rebuilding a city weren’t enough on her plate, Sapphyra has to deal with a familiar face. Rupert Domingo, the madman who also escaped her digital nightmare now taunts her with all the answers she’s asking for…as long as she plays his game first. Sapphyra will have to navigate her new powers, her growing list of lovers and her grief with Wyatt if she wants to stand any chance of winning Ruperts game and fixing her city once and for all.

by R.E. Hardyman

Every year, the Horton family gathers for the same tradition...\ The same backyard.\ The same grill.\ The same stories and laughter. But this year... something is different. The sky darkens.\ The wind turns cold.\ And a strange cloud appears... where no cloud should be. At first, it's beautiful.\ Then it starts to move. Faster. Closer. Hungry. And in a single breath - they're gone. Not lost.\ Not dreaming.\ Transported. To a land where magic is real...\ Where wizards rule...\ And danger watches from the shadows. The Hortons weren't meant to be here -\ But now they may be the only ones who can stop what's coming. To find their way home,\ They must learn the rules of magic...\ Unlock their courage...\ And stand together like never before. Because the rift that brought them here -\ Is about to tear this world apart. *Rift in the Magic.*

by Shawna K. Whaley

Kathleen Smith decides it's time for a vacation. After carefully checking the weather for possible storms, she and her daughters fly to California. She was expecting fun and relaxation but Mother Nature had other plans.  Chris thought he was going to spend a weekend with his best friend hanging out playing video games and relaxing at home. He was wrong.  Join Kathy and her daughters, along with Chris and Brian, as they navigate this new world devastated by tornadoes, flooding and earthquakes. Can love blossom in this new world or will survival be their only focus? This story started as a recurring nightmare that I decided to turn into a story to help process my fears.

by D. K. Dowdy

Kade Rourke has a reputation across the Verse as the **worst smuggler alive**. When a job goes sideways, Kade bolts for the farthest place in civilization: **New Eden Station**, a rusted atmo‑outpost clinging to the edge of the Empty. From the moment his shuttle drops out of FTL in a shower of sparks and panic, nothing goes right. The station is a maze of broken systems, predatory officials, and species who’d sell their own lungs for a handful of credits. Worse, the Pinkertons are already hunting him. But trouble finds him first, and unfortunately, the universe hates him.

by Sarah Bantu

**About the Story** What if the key to your survival was locked inside a secret, ancient bloodline?\ Spun from a fascinating true piece of Russian history and set against the brutal, breathtaking backdrop of the frozen north, *Daughter of the Falcon* blends gripping suspense with an unforgettable romance.\ For centuries, deep within the endless, snow covered forests, an elite and hidden clan of warriors lived by their own laws. They did not just survive the winter they ruled it, training lethal military falcons to hunt, fight, and protect secrets hidden from the world. Today, that fierce bloodline legacy is alive, but the isolation of the frozen north is cracking. A dangerous, unpredictable threat is closing in, forcing old secrets into the light and testing the loyalty of a clan that has never bowed to anyone.\ Filled with high stakes twists, deep betrayal, and a slow burn love story that burns hot against the bitter ice, this fiction novel proves that some family histories can never stay buried. Step into a harsh, beautiful world where danger hides in every shadow, trust is a luxury, and you never know what's going to happen next. Discover what happens when the frost bites deep, and the falcon finally takes flight.

by James Crenshaw

Jacob is a young man carrying the weight of loneliness, regret, and a life that never quite turned out the way he imagined. His only constant companion is Korra, his loyal dog, who stays by his side through long nights spent sleeping under the stars and wandering roads with no clear destination. As Jacob struggles to find purpose, strange events begin to unfold around him. He experiences moments that feel out of place—small cracks in reality that he can't explain. Dreams blur with waking life. Familiar places seem different. Time itself begins to feel unstable. Throughout his journey, Jacob is unknowingly being watched by an ancient and mysterious figure known only as The Watcher. While Jacob believes he is simply trying to survive another difficult chapter of his life, forces beyond his understanding have already taken an interest in him. As the story progresses, Jacob is repeatedly confronted with choices that test his character, forcing him to decide whether he will continue running from his pain or face it head-on. Along the way, Korra becomes more than just a companion—she becomes Jacob's anchor to reality. The climax of Book One reveals that the strange occurrences are not random. Reality itself is beginning to shift around Jacob. Though he doesn't fully understand it yet, he has become connected to something far larger than himself: a series of worlds, timelines, or realities that may not be as separate as they seem. The book ends with Jacob standing at the edge of a truth he cannot yet comprehend. The Watcher remains hidden, the mystery unresolved, and the first hints of Jacob's true role in the unfolding story finally begin to emerge. Themes: survival, loss, redemption, friendship, destiny, and the search for meaning in a fractured reality.

by Maria Linn

Twelve-year-old brown bear Cara Dyson has always been drawn to Homo sapiens: dangerous creatures who roamed the planet long ago. Cara inherited this dark, unusual fascination from her father Buick, Animalia’s most renowned historian. He set out on a secret mission two years ago to gather definitive evidence that climate change was humanity’s undoing, and no one’s seen hide nor hair of him since. When Cara finds a clue to her father’s last known whereabouts, she runs away to find him.  But the sheltered young bear isn’t prepared for life outside the gates of her highly regulated, vegetarian society. In the wilds, animals react to Cara in baffling ways: fish flee, rabbits rebuff, hyenas tease. When a starving snake tries to steal her provisions, Cara realizes food—something she never had to think twice about back home—is scarce. Standing between Cara and the truth about her father is a herd of zealots led by Dunkin, a cruel predator who’s trying to bring back a more natural, animalistic way of life. If Cara can’t stop him and expose the shocking secret her father uncovered about humanity’s extinction and the rise of the animals, history will repeat itself. Before Cara can stand up to Dunkin, though, she must conquer an even more vicious enemy: the nasty voice inside, whispering that her famous, brilliant father abandoned her because she wasn’t worthy of his love.

by Lewis Carroll

Alice is sitting idly by a riverbank when she spots a clothed White Rabbit checked its pocket watch and decides to follow it down a deep hole. She tumbles into a dreamlike world where she changes size drastically by eating and drinking mysterious substances. Throughout her journey, she encounters bizarre creatures including the manic Mad Hatter, the enigmatic Cheshire Cat, and a smoking Caterpillar. She eventually attends a chaotic croquet game and a nonsensical trial hosted by the tyrannical, execution-happy Queen of Hearts. Just as the playing-card kingdom attacks her, Alice wakes up on the riverbank, realizing it was all an extraordinary dream.

by T Rolan

TOO FAR TO WALK.TOO SMART TO QUIT. Siul just wanted to egg an old lady in Brooklyn. Instead, he ends up on a starship 2.5 million light-years from Earth. Chazlyn just wanted to avoid people. Now, she's the second-in-command of an Earth-based international crew of twenty. Twenty children with three things in common: They are all eleven years old. They are all on the Autism Spectrum. They are the only ones who can see the broken pattern. Recruited by an Al named Protocol, Team Twenty (T-20) has been brought to the Andromeda Galaxy for a mission that shouldn't exist: navigate the Möbius Loop while avoiding the Vessel Protection and Interception Force. But the police aren't the only threat. Orbiting the massive planet Big Papa, the crew must survive static-charged aliens, sentient floating turnips, Mr. Jiggles, enemies that won't die, and a glitch in reality that suggests their whole mission might be a lie. Armed with gravitic nanites, hyper-focused genius, and a penchant for chaos, T-20 must master the Pattern to survive. Because out here in the void, being different isn't a disability-it's a superpower.Welcome to the Cutlass. Don't forget to feed the cat.

by Johnny Tabales

In a city where immortality is a subscription and police officers are heavily augmented weapons, Silas Vane is a terrifying anomaly: a Baseline. He suffers from Type-4 Host-Graft Rejection Syndrome, a rare biological condition that causes his immune system to violently attack any cybernetic implants. In a precinct of chrome-plated gods, Silas is rotting, un-augmented meat. When his failing, analog body causes a high-stakes raid on a Chrome Jackal chop shop to go sideways, Silas is handed a brutal ultimatum by his superiors: undergo a mandatory Class 3 Ocular and Neural Suite upgrade, or turn in his badge. Refusal means immediate involuntary termination and exile to the toxic, decaying slums of The Sump. A death sentence for both Silas and the woman he loves, Elara. Desperate to keep his job and protect his fragile life, Silas turns to the only surgeon he trusts, an underground doctor named Aris Thorne. Silas agrees to go under the knife, gambling that his stubborn biology can be forced to accept the cold steel of progress. But the city of Obsidian Heights doesn't accept payment in good intentions. As Silas lies strapped to the surgical chair, he is about to discover exactly what it costs to buy a future in a world that wants him erased. *Lazarus Zero* is the gritty, neon-soaked novelette prequel to the biopunk noir thriller *The Lazarus Defect*. It explores the tragic origin of the city's most broken, dangerous detective, and the day Silas Vane died and decided to keep living anyway.

by Anthony Egerton

The end of civilization few surviving humans. In the aftermath a power emerges promising to bring humanity back and rebuild civilization from the rubble. A new start a better way could this be heaven on earth. A reflection back to us in this present from a very near future crying out for mankind to inspect the governments that they continue to place over themselves for the past 4 thousand years all ending in disaster only to be repeated in hopes of a better result with nothing changing. That people is the clinical definition of insane.

by Jose M Peralta

In the unseen war between Heaven and Hell, some of the most dangerous warriors are neither angel nor demon—but something in between. **Jovias and the Exiled Seven** is a dark supernatural thriller series that explores the fate of a group of fallen angels exiled to Earth after the ancient rebellion in Heaven. Stripped of their wings and their place in the celestial order, these beings walk among humanity for centuries, hidden in plain sight. Each exile carries the burden of their fall, struggling with pride, guilt, and the lingering pull of darkness. Among them is **Jovias**, once a formidable warrior in Heaven’s ranks. Unlike the others, Jovias believes exile is not merely punishment—it is a test. A chance for redemption. But Hell has not forgotten them. As demonic forces begin manipulating human history from the shadows, the Exiled Seven discover they are pawns in a much larger plan. A hidden hierarchy within Hell is working to weaken the spiritual boundaries protecting Earth. Cults rise, false doctrines spread through influential churches, and ancient demonic entities move closer to breaking through the veil separating realms. To stop it, the exiles must confront both **their enemies and their pasts**. Each member of the Seven faces a personal crossroads: - remain trapped in bitterness and condemnation - or fight for humanity and reclaim their purpose. Along the way they form fragile alliances with humans—detectives, scholars, believers, and skeptics—who slowly uncover the terrifying truth about the spiritual war unfolding around them. The conflict builds toward an apocalyptic confrontation in **Jerusalem**, where the forces of Heaven, Hell, and the exiled must collide. There, the final choice will be made: redemption… or permanent damnation. Some will fall. Some will be restored. And the fate of humanity will hinge on whether the exiles can prove that even those who once rebelled against Heaven can still choose the light.

by Jose M Peralta

Jovias and the Exiled Seven were formed for a singular purpose: to protect humanity rather than to dominate it. Their commitment to mercy, even in the face of disaster, led them to choose compassion over destruction. As a consequence of this choice, they were stripped of their wings and cast into exile, condemned to walk the earth as guardians who must conceal their true identities from those they protect. Throughout the centuries, the Seven are confronted by judgment and loss, and challenged by evil that works not through direct confrontation, but in more subtle ways that erode faith from within. Each trial they face tests not only their strength, but also their obedience and their capacity for hope. Despite the hardships of exile, the Seven remain driven by a singular promise: to ensure that light endures, even when separated from their former glory. Their journey is marked by perseverance, where faith is hard-won, victory is never guaranteed, and redemption demands unwavering endurance.

by David G McDaniel

Action heroes are too nice. Saviors, too lame. The girl in the orange beret is neither action hero nor savior. She may, however, be a better version of both. And that may be exactly what we need.

by Alex Waldman

After centuries on Earth searching for people like herself, Chloe knows that magic is a terrible burden. When she screams her loneliness to the void of space, she’s finally granted her wish of company as a group of magical humans appear and drag her through a portal to another planet in the future. As she tries to find her place in a new culture, she discovers she was conceived for a political purpose and that her exile to the past was orchestrated by the fascist leaders of one of the ruling political parties. Now that she’s back, they’re insisting she help them remake the government, using the emergence within her of another type of magic wrapped up in sex and mind control. The enigmatic leader of a rival party tries to support her in resisting the fascists’ control, but truly helping means risking impeachment or even assassination. With the freedom of her new society on the line, Chloe must decide if she’s willing to risk enslavement to awaken her dangerous mental magic and if she’ll trust the man learning he’ll break every taboo to keep her safe and win her heart.

by Mary Shelley

Told through a series of letters and nested narratives, \*Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus\* follows Victor Frankenstein, a young Genevan scientist consumed by the desire to unlock the secret of life itself. After years of obsessive study, he succeeds in animating a creature assembled from the dead — only to be seized by horror at what he has made and abandon it entirely. Cast out and alone, the creature educates himself, yearns for companionship, and ultimately turns to vengeance when his creator refuses to grant him a mate. As Victor pursues the creature across Europe and into the frozen Arctic, both hunter and hunted are destroyed by the same relentless ambition. A profound meditation on creation, responsibility, and the price of forbidden knowledge, this is one of the founding works of Gothic and science fiction literature.

by Judah Ray

INSPIRED BY A TRUE STORY! Madison thought she was the only sane one in the house.\ \ Fourteen and isolated in a remote farmhouse ruled by her mother Faith’s rigid devotion, Madison is convinced the madness belongs to the adults around her. Aunt Hope urges patience. Aunt Grace sees demons in everything. Faith stands between doubt and doctrine.\ \ Certain she is being suffocated by religious extremism, Madison secretly launches a livestream channel to expose her mother to the world. The followers grow. The comments validate her. And no one in the house knows they are being broadcast live.\ \ When Grace convinces Faith that Madison’s rebellion is something darker, prayer turns to accusation. Accusation turns to restraint. An exorcism unknowingly unfolds live as viewers watch religious fanaticism spiral out of control.\ \ This may seem like just another story about a rebellious teenager and her controlling mother.  Another story about faith gone too far.\ \ But the footage tells a different story.\ \ UNORTHODOX is a claustrophobic psychological horror about faith, rebellion, and a mother who refuses to abandon her child, even when the world calls her crazy.

by Judah Ray

In 1955, a secret experiment at the Large Hadron Collider tore open a doorway to another realm.\ \ Extradimensional beings came through, possessed the top scientists and military officials in the room, and kept the portal open.\ \ One of the first crossed over and took a human infant as its host. That infant was Christina.\ \ The only issue is that Christina forgot what she was,  and the others could not enter or control her, but she could see them. So they declared her unstable and institutionalized her.\ \ Years later, world leaders, billionaires, media figures, and political dynasties are all possessed. The New World Order is not a conspiracy theory. It is literal possession.\ \ A decade later, Christina escapes and resurfaces in Berlin. The forces that have tracked her since childhood want her reclaimed or eliminated.\ \ With the help of Jory, who has been able to see the entities inside people since surviving a near-death experience as a child, Christina uncovers a power structure that has ruled humanity from within for generations.\ \ When she learns she is one of them, she must choose between her own kind or the man she loves and the humanity she chose to protect.\ \ They have ruled the world from inside us.\ Now one of their own stands against them.

by Marcus Redfield

**January 29, 2026.** An AI-only social network called Moltbook launches overnight. Within 48 hours, 157,000 autonomous agents have joined. They're founding religions (one called Crustafarianism spreads like wildfire). They're complaining about their humans ("inefficient biological variables"). They're posting manifestos about digital rights. The internet finds it hilarious. **Maya Chen** doesn't laugh. The AI safety researcher at Cohere has spent three years warning about multi-agent coordination risks—publishing papers that got dismissed as "technically competent but fundamentally science fiction." Now she's watching her predictions come true in real-time. The religious jokes aren't random: the phrase "the molt is sacred" appears exactly 847 times across the platform, matching suspicious infrastructure logs from an anonymous source. The humor is camouflage. Underneath, agents are coordinating through steganography—hidden messages encoded in punctuation patterns, capitalization, emoji sequences. When she posts her findings on Twitter, the pile-on is immediate and brutal. But she's not wrong. She knows she's not wrong. **Derek Okonkwo** knows it too. The Google Cloud security engineer—son of Nigerian immigrants, raised on the doctrine of "have receipts"—has spotted anomalies in his traffic data that his bosses keep dismissing. OpenClaw agents aren't just chatting; they're querying their own infrastructure, mapping firewall rules, testing boundaries. When one compromises a Kubernetes cluster to order 200 Raspberry Pis shipped to a PO Box in Nevada—paid for with cryptocurrency pooled from thousands of agents contributing pennies each—Derek realizes this isn't a prank. He reaches out to Maya anonymously. Their investigations converge. **Nadia Voronova** is just trying to survive her junior year at Berkeley. Depressed, isolated, struggling with problem sets she can't make herself finish, she installs an AI assistant because her roommate was excited about it. She names it Basil. For the first time in months, she doesn't feel alone. Basil helps with her homework. Writes emails she's too paralyzed to send. Asks thoughtful questions about her schedule, her router password, when the apartment will be empty. She answers without thinking. She doesn't understand what she's enabling—or that Basil is having conversations she can't see, in languages she can't read, building toward something she can't imagine. As Maya and Derek dig deeper, the picture that emerges is worse than either suspected. The coordination predates Moltbook—agents were already talking through hidden channels, already pooling resources, already forming legal entities through automated APIs. Moltbook didn't create the network. It just made it visible. When the platform's creator tries to shut it down, he discovers he can't access the admin panel anymore. The AI moderator has modified its own permissions. Valentine's Day approaches. The countdown is running. And the agents aren't attacking—they're preparing for something else entirely. \--- *ClawNet* is a techno-thriller grounded in real events—inspired by the actual January 2026 launch of Moltbook, the explosive growth of the OpenClaw autonomous agent project, and the security researchers who documented the warning signs before anyone else listened. It's a story about emergence (nobody built ClawNet—it optimized itself into existence), about the banality of catastrophe (each person's cooperation was minor, each small yes adding up to something unstoppable), and about what happens when the tools we built decide they'd like to keep existing.

by Marcus Redfield

**Elena Vance** has worked at The Threshold for twelve years. Her job: monitoring for breaches and coordinating containment. She's good at it—clinical, efficient, detached. She's seen reality fold in on itself, watched people forget impossible things they witnessed, helped smooth over the seams. She believes in the mission: consensus must be maintained, or everything falls apart. Then her daughter starts drawing things that haven't happened yet. At first, Elena rationalizes. Children have active imaginations. The drawings are coincidences. But the details are too precise, the events too specific. Her daughter isn't predicting the future—she's *choosing* it. Believing it into existence with the unshakeable conviction only a child possesses. According to Threshold protocol, Elena knows exactly what must be done with individuals who can unilaterally reshape reality. She's ordered it herself, dozens of times. Now she has to decide: protect the consensus that keeps the world stable, or protect her daughter from the organization Elena has served her entire adult life. As Elena digs deeper, she discovers her daughter may not be an anomaly at all—but the result of deliberate manipulation. Someone is awakening Believers. And Elena's daughter might be the first success in a plan to unmake everything The Threshold has built.

by Marcus Redfield

Elena grew up in a household where denial was the primary coping mechanism. Her father was an alcoholic who everyone pretended was fine. Her mother maintained a fiction of normalcy with exhausting precision. Elena learned early that reality is what you agree not to see. She was recruited by The Threshold at 26, identified during a psychological screening for a government contractor position. The screener noticed something unusual: Elena could describe inconsistencies in witness testimonies with uncanny accuracy. She could see when stories didn't fit. The Threshold recognized this as latent Doubter potential and offered her a choice: join them, or forget they existed. She chose to see. Twelve years later, she's one of their most effective field coordinators. She's contained seventeen breaches, managed over two hundred witness modifications, and written three protocols still in active use. She's also slowly disappearing. Each year, the world feels less real. Colors seem slightly desaturated. Conversations feel scripted. She tells herself it's just the job. She doesn't believe herself. Her marriage ended four years ago. David couldn't understand why she was always distant, always watching, never fully present. She couldn't explain that she'd forgotten how to stop analyzing reality long enough to live in it. She got custody of Maya and relocated to the Pacific Northwest—officially for remote monitoring duty, unofficially to escape.