Deadwave

by Michael Evans

  It is too late to dodge it.

  The bullet explodes from the chamber of my gun, and in almost that exact instant I feel a sharp pain in my chest as my bullet connects with Riva at nearly the same time.

  My health quickly dives down to zero points, but it doesn’t matter anymore. It’s already too late. I can’t do anything to change it now. My vision goes black, all the sensations of the cruise ship leaving me as one word in big, bold, white letters flashes across my vision: Champion.

  My bullet connected with her first.

  I rip my helmet off, the open door of the gaming portal causing the cheers of the crowd to flood right in. Confetti falls from the ceiling as the sounds of a marching band boom over the crowd. It all feels surreal. The sudden giddy voice of the announcer calling my victory and the thousands of people who now chant my name in unison instantly give me chills.

  Multiple drones hover around me, making sure to get video of me from every angle to live-stream to the world. I know every movement I make will likely be seen by tens of millions, but that thought escapes my mind for the moment. The amount of emotion and pure joy rushing through me takes over every one of my muscles and sends me into a frenzy.

  “YES!” I scream, a horrible, twisted sound erupting from my throat as I collapse to the white glass floor of the stage. All the energy in my muscles seems to give out, and the one thing that I told myself that I would never let happen in this moment occurs: I cry.

  The magnitude of the moment hits me, and with it the weight of all the pain and grief and guilt I have been holding back for the last five years washes over me. I feel numb. I feel like this isn’t even real, and part of me at first doesn’t want to trust any of this. Part of me wants to believe that this is all a dream.

  But then I see the league commissioner, Stuart O’Brien, walk onto the stage, his shiny bald head visible out of the corner of my eyes, holding the diamond-covered medallion that has been given to the world champion each of the last five years. Never in my life have I seen something so beautiful.

  The light from the spotlights refracts off the medal, causing it to look like a smooth, crystalline star. The commissioner approaches me and shakes my hand, his fingers sending a jolt of electricity through my body.

  “Congratulations, you did unbelievable.” He has a huge grin on his face, his brown eyes seeming to pop out of his bald head with excitement. “This medal is yours.”

  I smile, wiping the tears from my eyes as he places the gorgeous medallion over my head.

  I finally did it. I finally achieved my dream. I finally won, despite everything trying to drive me into the ground. I finally made my dad proud. This wasn’t all a waste. I redeemed myself. I did it. I fucking did it.

  I won.

  But then the thought hits me as we stand there for a moment, posing for a picture in front of the crowd. I look out into the blackness, and I see nothing different than I did before. The weight of the diamonds on my neck doesn’t change anything.

  The reality that I won doesn’t save me.

  I notice Riva walk off the stage out of the corner of my eye, unable to even glance at me. Her body looks depleted even from a quick glance, and I instantly feel a deep pain hit my heart.

  I have this medal. I have the prize money. I have everything I thought I ever wanted.

  But nothing is different.

  My old problems are still here.

  I still feel the guilt over not giving the best to my mom. I still feel the pain of her death. And once this adrenaline and initial high fade, it will all return. I still have to kill my father or be killed myself. I still have to try and get my entire life, which is being held hostage by these people, free. I still have to find the truth.

  I lift the beautiful silver chain the diamond medallion is attached to off my neck. Then I drop it right at my feet, the medal hitting the ground with a soft ring. The room seems to go silent as I stare out into the audience, unmoving. Stuart glances at me, a bewildered expression in his eyes.

  His confusion only fuels my next move more.

  I walk off the stage, not taking any more time to spend celebrating amidst the thousands of strands of confetti and people. The joy of the moment suddenly disappears, and my happiness with myself and my accomplishment dwindles. I thought this would fix all my problems, but I was wrong.

  I am still the same person.

  Don’t Miss Out on the Next Books in the Conspiracy Chronicles…

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  Acknowledgements

  So, I don't know how many people read these things, but I'd first like to thank you for reading Deadwave. Or if you have skipped through the book and found your eyes landing on this page, I also appreciate you very much, and hope you continue to enjoy this story if you choose to keep reading it.

  To try and thank everyone who has helped me in the creation of this book would be impossible. The number of people who have impacted my life, inspired my stories, and helped me to hone my storytelling ability are too long to list. However, I'd like to extend a special thanks to Stephanie Henningsen, Melissa Clark, and Erin Mecca. They were instrumental in providing amazing feedback on this story in its early stages, and this story would not be the same without them. I am always endlessly thankful for those who take their time to read my work long before it is published, and to Stephanie and Erin especially, who have been there for me since the beginning, I can't say thank you enough.

  I also want to thank Nintendo Wii for helping me create this book. Yeah, I know, Wiis are not cool anymore, and I suppose it was well over a decade ago when my parents got it for me one Christmas, but being introduced to video games, which I played avidly throughout much of my childhood, inspired me to imagine the video game Deadwave that is at the core of this novel.

  Lastly, I want to thank my grandpa. I dedicated this book to him because he is, in my opinion, a real man and one of the only ones in a generation where they are dying. It's hard to identify what manhood is nowadays, or even if it exists, and this is a question I seek to explore in the Conspiracy Chronicles. My grandpa is the singular person who has led me to my answer. Unlike how manhood is glorified today, often with hypermasculine undertones, and the notion that a man has to have the biggest guns, muscles, wallet, and practically biggest everything else to be considered a "real" man, my grandpa is a living example that what defines a person is the size of their heart. And in my eyes, he is a real man because he has lived his life guided by love and has let nothing distract him from it, and that takes real strength.

  Author’s Note

  It was so much fun to write this book. This is truly the story that I needed to tell, and I'm very thankful for the opportunity and fortune to be able to bring this story to your life.

  My inspiration for Deadwave goes back a long way. Well, I guess I'm only 17 at the time of publication, so it doesn't go back that long ago, but still it goes back a solid two years. Two years ago to the day of the publication of this novel (so on October 3, 2017) my first book, Control Freakz, was published. In the following year I published a second edition of the novel, and eventually came out with the second and third books in the series, Delusional and Triggered, along with a collection of novellas entitled Memories From The Darkness.

  I had an awful lot of fun writing these books, and being able to unload my passion for storytelling, the future, and mental health onto the pages of those novels was truly a surreal experience. I am endlessly grateful to have discovered my passion for storytelling at t
his stage in my life, and I hope to have the privilege to engage in this art for the rest of my life. But Control Freakz taught me a lot, besides just showing me my passion of writing.

  Control Freakz is a young adult dystopian novel about an authoritarian government not unlike that in present-day America (and this is due to behavior on all sides) implementing Protocol 00 and taking away tens of thousands of families across the country. It follows Natalie and her two lifelong friends, Hunter and Ethan, in their pursuit of escaping government hitmen, attempting to find their families, and trying to uncover answers about what Protocol 00 is and what has happened to the country since the rise of President Ash.

  Writing this series gave me great experience to hone my craft and become a better storyteller, but it also opened up a larger vision that I have for my stories. Control Freakz is in essence an alternate dimension from ours, with a world and story so complex that three novels barely scrape the surface of what I want to share. That's why I have decided to create an alternate universe, that I call Future Realities Inked, and Deadwave is the first novel I have created with this large vision built into the fabric of the story. My goal is for this alternate universe to consist of dozens of novels, spanning numerous genres, multiple centuries, and have dozens of characters, many of which will overlap from series to series. As of right now, the Conspiracy Chronicles will be at least five books, and likely much longer, and many of the characters in this series will continue to live on in this universe and overlap with the stories of other characters. If you have already read Control Freakz, you may be happy to hear that the stories of those characters are far from over, and I plan to write another series entirely about them, and if you are excited about the future of the Conspiracy Chronicles, I will share that it will eventually overlap with the Control Freakz Series, and flesh out a lot of the background that sets up the world in that novel.

  But I'm not stopping here.

  I already have three more series planned and a standalone novel. These will span genres from steampunk (with ultra-futuristic technologies set in the 1980s) to political thriller to cyberpunk and many more. These novels will continue to have elements of romance, science fiction, and some heavier on comedy, while others heavier on some darker, more poignant subjects. And I am constantly thinking of new ideas, and letting the universe of Future Realities Inked expand in my mind.

  I know you might be wondering when you can expect all these stories to be released into the world, and I'm happy to say kind of soon. Future Realities Inked and the universe I am building is something that I suspect will take me decades, and something I may be working on well into my thirties and forties. However, at some point in my lifetime I will finish it, even if it requires me bringing on other writers and artists to help me finish this grand project. No matter what, I will do justice to its audience, characters, and world, while leaving a healthy amount of questions left to speculate. Notice how I say "it.” With these stories, I am seeking to build something bigger than me, and something that can transverse mediums. Although Future Realities Inked may exist in a few books today, in the future I'd love to see them as movies, as television shows, as video games (if they turn out anything like I picture Deadwave, I'll be a happy man), and exist in any other mediums that rise to prominence in the future. I've designed these books with these mediums close in mind, and as much as I love books, stories are what I truly love, and in my mission to become the greatest storyteller I can be and tell the story of this universe, I intend to explore these mediums in the future as opportunities arise.

  But enough about the future. I love the future, but I will talk about the now. At the time of writing this, I am currently taking a gap year between high school and college where I am taking the time to write a ton, work at a resort, make YouTube videos, all while continuing to learn a lot about my passion for storytelling. As a result, I plan to release seven books this year, three which will be released in 2019 and four coming in the first half of 2020. Unless I get super excited about one of those other series in the Future Realities Inked Universe, five of these books should be in the Conspiracy Chronicles (but likely all seven will), and in the coming years I plan to continue exploring the projects I have planned and release those stories into the world. I won't make any promises on how many books I will release per year, but I will say that I will keep my output as high as it can be without compromising the quality of the stories, and as such in the near future, although Future Realities Inked will be far from complete, we should all be taking a deeper dive into the place where my mind spends most of its time.

  Control Freakz was the first novel that opened up my mind to the possibilities that storytelling can bring, and I hope that with all my stories, by telling an alternate version of our own reality, I can shed light on some telling lessons that we can all take to fix problems in our own world and our own life to be happier, healthier, and more loving people.

  Whether you are reading this a day after I wrote this, or a thousand years, I know that no matter what, as humans our minds always gravitate towards the future. Unlike all other animals (as far as we know), our minds have the ability to attempt to predict and plan for a whole host of possibilities in the future. It is that exact ability that makes us innovative, that makes us creative, and that makes us the wonderfully awesome, yet awfully destructive species that we are. I love the future. I am obsessed with it, frankly. But it's important to not fear what could be, no matter how dark the road ahead may seem, and likewise it’s important to remember that no matter how bright something seems, it always casts a shadow somewhere on this Earth.

  In short, nothing will ever be perfect. The future, the past, or the present. All that matters is being grateful for the moments at hand and working with every single person around you to help spread joy and love to advance towards an even better future.

  Together we are boundless.

  All the best,

  Michael Evans

  About the Author

  Michael Evans is the author of the Control Freakz Series and the Conspiracy Chronicles. He is the Main Coordinator of YEW Clubs for the Young Eager Writers Association, which seeks to help young writers build sustainable careers as storytellers through their network of clubs, their annual conference, and their podcast called the Young Eager Writers Podcast.

  He recently graduated high school and is currently taking a gap year from his studies in Charleston, South Carolina, but is originally from Long Island, New York. Some of his hobbies include hiking, running, urban exploring, going to the beach, watching and taking artsy pictures of sunsets (it’s honestly a very enlightening activity to partake in), and walking his ginormous, fluffy goldendoodle underneath the stars.

  To find out more about him or his work, you are welcome to visit here: www.mevansinked.com. If you ever have any questions for him or business inquiries, feel free to contact him at mevansinked@gmail.com or @mevansinked on Instagram.