I still hear the roar of guns when I close my eyes—an endless thunder rolling over black volcanic sand. I’m Corporal Ira Hayes of the United States Marine Corps, a Pima Indian from Arizona, and what I’m about to tell you is etched in me sharper than any rifle scar. We hit Iwo Jima on February 19, 1945. At first light, the beach looked like a nightmare—smoke choking the air, bodies half buried in ash, and cliffs bristling...

1. The First Voice Dr. Lena Rourke didn’t believe in ghosts, but there was something spectral about the new server cluster. Rows of black towers blinked with synchronized lights, as if they were breathing in a slow, mechanical rhythm. When she walked through the lab at night, she felt as if something unseen was watching her. The AI project—codename Eidolon—was funded by the Defence Ministry but built under the guise of an...

Prologue: The Calm Before the Storm October dawned cool and gray over the approaches to Cádiz. On the quarterdeck of HMS Victory, anchored off the Gulf of Cádiz, Admiral Horatio Nelson stood as if carved from bronze, cloak billowing, telescope in hand. Twenty miles to the south-west, the combined Franco-Spanish fleet under Vice-Admiral Pierre-Charles Villeneuve lay at anchor off Cape Trafalgar, their great hulls creaking...

Chapter One: Max and His Marvelous Mouth Max Puddle was the best liar in Maplewood Primary. Not just an ordinary liar—the kind who says “I didn’t eat the last cookie” with crumbs on their chin. No, Max was a professional, world-class, gold-medal liar. His lies were so outrageous, so ridiculous, that people laughed instead of scolding him. One morning, when the teacher asked why his homework was missing, Max leaned back in...

Act I: Seeds of Unease Daniel Price lived by routines. He had to. It was the only way he felt the day wouldn’t scatter itself into pieces — one more shattered thing in a life that already seemed like a junk drawer of failures. He rose at 6:30 every morning in his Queens apartment, showered, dressed, and left at 7:15 sharp, walking three blocks to the subway station. The train rattled into Manhattan, delivering him to the...

A 1970s Rural British Police Station Comedy of Errors Sergeant Edith “Edie” Punter leaned back in her squeaky vinyl chair, surveying the chaos of papers strewn across Desk B. It was Tuesday—officially “Stationery Monday,” when every constable refilled ink pads, alphabetized incident logs, and polished the wooden counter until it gleamed like a newly minted badge. Instead, PC Nigel “Nige” Brinkworth was busy tossing file f...

The city of Marnica used to be alive with conversation — street poets, radio debates, satirical magazines, open-air philosophers. Now, only the wind and the algorithms dared speak without a filter. Once a beacon of progressive ideals, the Republic of Corvia prided itself on compassion, openness, and reinvention. Its leaders welcomed waves of migrants fleeing war and climate catastrophe. They dismantled old systems, promis...

In desert’s barren, scorching light, The Tempter came in shadowed might, To Christ alone, no fruit to yield, He stood as Eden’s fate revealed. The serpent’s hiss then echoed clear, In Eden’s garden, whispered near, To Eve and Adam’s fragile trust, The taste of sin would turn to dust. Christ faced the thirst, the hunger’s sting, While Satan’s words would promise kings, A kingdom vast if He would bow, Yet Christ refused the...

Lieutenant Commander James Reed gripped the wardroom rail as rain pounded the deck above. The table before him bore Admiral Sinclair’s rough chart: Pointe Verdure—a narrow cove along Normandy’s silver coast—and, barely a mile inland, the Freya radar station at Cap d’Épine. “Last month,” Reed intoned, “five U-boats picked up convoy signatures here. Losses: over forty merchant ships. Our mission: land at 0130, breach the pe...

The last embers of the range war still glowed in Luke Corrigan’s mind as he spurred his mount down the winding trail. Dust-clogged valleys stretched behind him, punctuated by the smoking ruins of homesteads—silent testaments to a conflict that had finally died in blood. Corrigan, tall and barrel-chested, rode like death astride a roan mare, twin Colt .44s resting in polished holsters, a Springfield ’63 carbine stowed in a...

It’s hard driving a hundred miles with you on my mind It’s difficult to keep focus and leave the road behind It’s hard driving a hundred miles with you on my mind Every song on the radio just reminds me in kind. I can’t wait to hear your laughter To see that smile break through I can’t wait for the moment When I’m finally next to you. I’ll put my words into meaning As my arms pull you near But if you try to hide your joy...

Chapter Twelve: Into the Pit June 2024 – Donetsk Region, Ukraine The military checkpoint had been evacuated the day before they arrived. No warning, no explanation—just boots, tire tracks, and one soldier’s abandoned rosary half-buried in churned mud. The villagers near the trenchline wouldn’t speak to Eleanor or her team. Not even to ask why an old blind woman, five strangers, and a heavy case of ritual tools had come to...

Chapter Eleven: The Inheritance of Ash and Blood May 2024 – Eastern Ukraine / Suffolk, UK Peter stood at the lip of the yawning sinkhole in the Donbas forest, the wind whipping his collar as if to warn him away. He’d told himself he’d returned for the story—an exclusive on the frontline’s new horrors—but every dream since he had visited Eleanor had driven him here. In sleep, roots writhed beneath his skin like living fing...

Chapter Ten: The Eyes That Remain March 2024 – St. Joseph’s Residential Care, Suffolk, UK 50 years after the Belgian Spiral The world had grown quieter for Eleanor Mercer. Not silent—never silent—but quieter in the way winter muffled sound: dull, heavy, soaked in memory. She had been blind for over four decades, her eyesight gradually fading in the years after she had battled Eitar and still, her dreams were painted in vi...

The Waiting Room Rain pounded the slate roof in jagged rhythms, each drop like a frantic plea against the cold iron of the tracks. The wind shrieked through the station’s eaves, scattering puddles into froth. Yet inside the small, rural hall—its name chalked illegibly against mossed wood—a roaring fire snapped and roared, chasing back the darkness. The hearth’s lamplight danced across polished floorboards and battered lug...