"This is a world of black and white and grey. Let's show them the blue of our loss, the red of our anger, the orange of our determination! All these years, we have allowed them to suppress and silence us, to mute our colours, to win. Today, that stops. Today, we will show them our colours, so bright they'll be blinded! Today, we take back our lives, our towns, our city and our country!"- Hero Pax, First Battle of The Intrinsic
Hero Pax is a young girl trapped in the town of Conformity, doomed to an arranged marriage and a micro-controlled life, forced to bow to the reign of a tyrannical government. She has accepted her fate when a series of kidnappings plague the capital of her country, the city in which she lives. Coming face-to-face with these kidnappers, she realised that perhaps they aren't as evil as she was lead to believe. Sucked into a world of outlaws and rebellion, Hero Pax is forced to choose between the life she has always know or the strange, new freedom offered by the outlaws. But war is on the horizon, and, like it or not, Hero will find herself at the centre of the conflict...
Geoff and Naomi are dead, and they're depressed, but when Geoff's cat Bernie dies as well, they embark on a wild journey to find it in the underworld.
*****
When Geoff dies, alongside his girlfriend Naomi, they end up sharing an apartment in the Underworld as skeletons. But after a few years, Geoff starts suffering a mid-death crisis. What's the purpose of going through the motions as a skeleton if you can't really live? Then he gets word that his cat, Bernie, just died and he can collect him and bring him home! Geoff and Naomi hurry to get Bernie only to discover that, due to a clerical error, their cat has been lost. With the hunt for Bernie giving new purpose to Geoff's un-life, he and Naomi begin a quest to get back their cat. Battling skeleton pirates, climbing the sky ladder and facing off against the villain who took Bernie, Geoff is determined to find his purpose - or die a second time trying!
[[2018 Wattys Winner - The Originals]]
[[word count: 30,000-40,000 words]]