I still have a lot to draft to finish my first book, but in the meantime I’d like to share from the beginning of book 1. The prologue may change before publication, but here it is in its current ‘finished’ state.
I remember the day that Earth lost its freedom as if it were yesterday.
I remember the BC world (Before Conquest) clearly. I tell stories around the campfires of what we had accomplished and what we lost, all those years ago. They think I am mad: once we had great technologies like the Overlords? Then why did we lose?
Why indeed. A more important question, one I dare not share aloud at the campfires—the Overlords are ever listening—is how do we regain what we have lost?
The Overlords declared me winner and Queen of Earth because I was the last to die out of 700,000. That’s no victory. After reviving me, they changed me, chained me, and sent me to the dungeons to lead their chosen participants. I no longer age, but the AD years (After Dungeons) weigh more heavily with each passing day.
I am one of their Select—altered to endure, standing witness for those who perish. This grief-bound duty is for my people and their future. The Overlords do not care, so long as tribute flows and damn rules are obeyed.
For me it has been over a century of service in the dungeons. I lead, I strategize, I mourn, I watch others live and die in the dungeons’ harsh reality. There is no blessing in living a long life in this place.
I was Bellamy Brooks back then in the BC world. Now I am Voice, Queen of Earth, keeper of memories, and of the faint dream that someday we may escape this slavery and regain what we have lost.
You can endure much pain when you have hope.
—Voice’s Century Diary, page 2
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