Beneath This Lonely Ground [ ONC2020 ] - absterak - Wattpad

Beneath This Lonely Ground [ ONC2020 ]

Reads 457
Votes 125
Parts 15
Time 1h 58m

Reads 457
Votes 125
Parts 15
Time 1h 58m

"We shouldn't dig here."

"Why...not?"

"Because what's buried here is not what you think it is."

• • • • • • • • • • • • 

[ inspired by prompt #54 and #4 of the Open Novella Contest 2020 | ONC2020 LONGLIST ]

Taylor Sloan has spent the last decade digging up priceless treasures, uncovering lost empires, and discovering ancient civilizations, all due to her uncanny ability to know what's buried beneath her feet.

Taylor's fiancé Riyad Banks went missing two year ago, lost at sea among the many remote Alaskan islands. Now Taylor and her charge, Riyad's teenage son, are headed for an island to join in an excavation headed by Taylor's archeologist cousin.

But some secrets are better left buried, and Taylor wonders if facing the truth is worth having their hearts broken all over again.

• • • • • • • • • • • • 

• Completed Novella [ about 25,000 words ] on March 13, 2020

• Copyright absterak 2020

• Cover Photo from UnsplashAll Rights Reserved

Table of contents

15 parts

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Flesh & Ghosts

The world ended in silence. Five years after civilization collapsed, Finn wanders through what's left, a lone survivor in a world where the dead once roamed freely. But something is changing. The undead are vanishing, and those that remain are deteriorating-collapsing, failing, as if something is draining the last remnants of their existence. After finding temporary refuge in Wake Forest with Shane, Eli, and Charlie, Finn begins to feel something unfamiliar: a sense of belonging. But tensions rise, emotions grow complicated, and unable to face the weight of it all, he leaves. On the road, he meets Noah and his small group of survivors, who share disturbing accounts of the dead dropping without warning. Marie, one of Noah's group, reveals that she was cornered by a herd of undead-only for them to collapse around her. And in the moments after, she saw something move. Something unnatural. Something not human. Now, Finn faces an impossible choice: return to the people he left behind or push forward and uncover the truth about what's happening before it's too late. Because whatever force is at play, it isn't just wiping out the dead-it's reshaping the world itself.