Richard Meyers
When Skeletons Live
language
( Dec. 22, 2016)
From the moment a young woman falls out of a portal, the Void, with no memory and nothing to show for herself other than a necklace, she longs to discover where she came from. She emerges into a decrepit city in the dark bowels of a crater. Since the world was destroyed, two hundred years ago, the sun dares not show its face here. The city is inhabited by twelve living skeletons who rule over thousands of Denizens, small humanoid creatures, who are numbered, have masks sewn onto their faces and are put to work to their death.
However, one of the skeletons, The Bounty Hunter, a friend of the Denizens, offers the young woman his protection. He disguises her as one of the Denizens and sends her to work where he can keep her safe. Each day, she witnesses the torture and death of these creatures, her fellow captives. She grows to love their innocence and sweetness and abhors the violence used against them. News of a human in the city spreads fast, and The Surgeon, the self-appointed leader of the skeletons, needs her for his twisted experiment. It doesn't bode well for her.
Over time, and exasperated by living in constant fear, she realises that if she doesn't do anything to stop the oppression, no-one will. After discovering that she possesses supernatural abilities, there is hope of escaping this purgatory. But first, she'll have to learn how to kill the skeleton overlords. With every movement being watched by an artificial intelligence monitoring the city's security cameras and reporting directly to The Surgeon, even survival is not guaranteed. Will her abilities, a rag-tag team of Denizens, and The Bounty Hunter, be enough to liberate the Denizens from their oppressive skeleton masters?
When skeletons live ...