SamTawashe
ANOMALY: VILLAGE OF SHADOWS
Book One of the ANOMALY SAGA
In the village of Lilian, survival is not earned-it is paid for.
A glowing barrier called the Line protects the village from the forest beyond. Every year, the people gather to pray, to obey, and to offer what is required so the Line will hold. No one asks where the chosen go. No one remembers those who don't return.
Until Nolan Vale crosses the Line-and survives.
Marked by a living symbol burned into his flesh, Nolan becomes visible to a system designed to erase its mistakes. What begins as suspicion turns into pursuit as he uncovers the truth beneath Lilian: a hidden dungeon, an ancient Heart sealed beneath the village, and a ritual that doesn't kill its victims-it uses them.
As Nolan fights to understand why he was chosen, those closest to him are pulled into the machinery of control. Rose, defiant and observant, is swallowed by the Tower that governs Lilian and reborn as something nameless. Juliette, a healer with secrets of her own, walks a dangerous line between resistance and survival. And in the shadows, unseen forces begin to move-forces older than the village, older than belief itself.
Anomaly: Village of Shadows is a dark fantasy thriller about control disguised as faith, systems that consume their own people, and the cost of being seen in a world that survives by erasing its sins.
The story blends psychological horror, ritualistic fantasy, and slow-burn rebellion, building toward a revelation that changes the rules of the world-and the nature of the war to come. Zzz