In the aftermath of a cosmic event, Barry Smithfield claws his way out of a collapsed Kentucky coal mine to find the world eerily silent and fundamentally changed. Cities lie abandoned. The air shimmers unnaturally. Ravens gather in unnatural numbers, watching. Something is wrong.Across a fractured America, Barry searches for answers-and others. He meets Tricia Blackfoot, a fierce intelligence officer altered by the very chemical exposure that drove the rest of her team mad. Together, they forge a fragile alliance, battling their way through alien-infested ruins toward the last known military strongholds in Montana, Colorado, and Texas.But the enemies stalking them are not just alien. They are designed. Mechanical symbiotic beings, part metal, part flesh, hunt them with strategic precision. The deeper Barry and Tricia push west, the more they realize they're part of a twisted experiment. Whispers invade their dreams.A raven's cry becomes a warning. And in a forgotten tech facility in Houston, they glimpse the impossible: themselves, reflected in the faces of their creators.Are they real? Are they simulations? Or are they something more?As the line between reality and code blurs, Barry and Tricia must fight not only for survival but for the right to exist.Because something is watching, and it's not done with them yet.Survival - both physical and existential, as your characters endure a decimated Earth and evolving truths.Revelation - through hidden creator dialogues and shifting layers of reality.Resistance - not just against alien machines, but against manipulation and fate itself.Simulation - the deeper meta-structure that haunts and defines the story's framework.Transformation - of Earth, the characters, and the very rules of their world.Betrayal - especially with Miguel, and the manipulation by unseen powers.Destiny - what Tricia and Barry forge through free will in a controlled environment.