The Marked Ones

Vandal died betrayed. In a collapsing cave, he pushed his fiancée Sandra, best friend Darius, and business partner Harland to safety, only to hear their calm voices confirm the collapse was no accident. They had orchestrated his murder to steal everything he built. Crushed beneath rocks, bleeding and laughing maniacally, Vandal’s final moments burned with rage. Death was only the beginning. He awakens in a brutal new world as a malnourished twelve-year-old boy, chained and marked for sacrifice. His captor, Elizabeth,a deranged mother who carves power from her own children, prepares to rip out his eye. She looks disturbingly like his abusive mother from Earth. As her nails tear into his socket, an ancient, sentient horror awakens in his left eye: a vertical slit pupil that devours nightmares, stolen essence. The Eye turns her ritual against her, unleashing living terrors that allow Vandal’s escape into the deadly forest. He discovers he can absorb Echoes from slain beasts, growing stronger with every kill. But the Eye hungers endlessly, slowly corrupting his mind. Captured by slavers, Vandal plays the perfect weakling while secretly feeding his growing power. In a world where the weak perish, he must consume, and ascend…..before “it” consumes him.