A New Descent Begins: WHISPERS Is Now Free to Read on Royal Road

I've spent a lot of time writing about Hell.

Corporate Hell. Technological Hell. Demons with contracts, departments and business plans.

This time, I wanted to do something very different.

I wanted to strip Hell down.

No corporations.

No technology.

No comfortable mythology explaining exactly how everything works.

Just ordinary people, trapped somewhere impossible, with everything they once used to define themselves slowly being taken away.

I'm very happy to announce that WHISPERS, Book One of my new series THE DESCENT OF SELF, is now available to read for free on Royal Road.

Welcome to The Descent of Self

The story begins with Bob Adams.

Bob managed a warehouse. He had four thousand dollars still owing on his truck, an ex-girlfriend he had never quite finished being with, and four tequila shots he had told himself he wasn't going to have.

At two in the morning, on a country road, Bob dies.

Then he wakes up.

Face down.

In a tunnel.

And the tunnel is slowly closing.

Hell Is Not Fire

The Hell I wanted to explore in Whispers isn't built around flames, pitchforks and traditional images of eternal damnation.

It is seven levels of rock under enormous pressure.

Everything is coming down.

And the only direction that remains open is the one that takes you further down.

Bob isn't alone.

There's Victor Hale, who spent a decade building a defensive personality on top of being nine years old and bullied.

There's Noah Ellis, who had eight months to prepare for dying and somehow still arrived unfinished.

And there's Ruth, a librarian looking for her dog.

They are ordinary people.

That's important.

Because Whispers isn't really interested in what happens when superheroes, soldiers or chosen ones go to Hell.

I wanted to know what happens to people like us.

And Then There Is the Whisper

Something has been whispering to them since the first hour.

It has been down there for a very long time.

And it isn't lying to them.

That turns out to be the problem.

I won't tell you anything more about it.

You'll have to descend with Bob and the others to discover that for yourself.

What Is Whispers Really About?

At its heart, Whispers is about identity.

We construct ourselves from things.

Our jobs.

Our homes.

Our relationships.

Our possessions.

Our reputations.

The way other people see us.

The version of ourselves we perform at work, at home, around friends—and sometimes eventually begin to believe.

So I wanted to ask a fairly unpleasant question:

What remains when all of that is taken away?

Take away the job.

Take away the flat.

Take away the money.

Take away social status.

Take away the people who remember who you were.

Then keep taking things away.

Eventually, something has to remain.

The Descent of Self is about finding out what that something is.

The Horror Isn't the Thing in the Dark

There are things in the dark.

Of course there are.

This is an A. Craine novel.

But they aren't what interests me most.

The horror is in the choices.

What will an ordinary person do when every good option has disappeared?

What part of themselves will they sacrifice to survive?

What happens when survival itself begins changing the person who is trying to survive?

And if you keep stripping pieces away...

At what point are you no longer the person who entered?

Those are some of the questions behind Whispers.

I'm not promising comfortable answers.

A Warning Before You Descend

I want to be very clear about what kind of book this is.

Whispers is a very dark supernatural thriller, and it does not soften.

It contains violence, death and sustained psychological pressure applied to people who cannot get away from it.

Characters are taken apart deliberately, by things that are better at it than they are.

Being likeable does not keep anyone safe.

Being important does not necessarily keep anyone safe either.

If you're looking for a comfortable fantasy adventure, this probably isn't it.

If you enjoy dark supernatural fiction where the psychological journey matters as much as the physical one, then you may feel considerably more at home down here.

Not for the faint of heart.

Read WHISPERS for Free on Royal Road

This is the beginning of an entirely new A. Craine series and a new world I'm looking forward to exploring with readers.

THE DESCENT OF SELF — BOOK ONE: WHISPERS is now available to read for free on Royal Road.

As always, Royal Road gives me something particularly valuable: the opportunity to experience the story alongside readers.

So please comment.

Tell me what you're thinking.

Tell me who you trust.

Tell me what you think is happening.

And if you enjoy the book, please consider following the story and leaving a rating or review. Those reviews help new readers discover my work and give me invaluable feedback as I continue building the series.

A new series begins.

Seven levels.

One direction.

And something waiting below that has been whispering for a very long time.

Welcome to The Descent of Self.

Keep going down.