Spotlight on ERASED (Sebastian Kilex), Excerpt & Giveaway ~ US Only!

When he isn’t writing, Sebastian enjoys gardening, thru-hiking, paddle-boarding and anything that allows him to be at one with nature. He lives in Australia, southeast of Melbourne, with his daughters, where he enjoys listening to morning songs of magpies.

The fall should have killed nineteen-year-old Lucy. Instead, it broke her Skelyx—the device that controls every human emotion and memory.

Now she feels what she was never meant to feel. Remembers what was meant to stay buried.

When her best friend is abandoned in Cyclopia’s wasteland for being “too human,” Lucy uncovers a terrifying truth: being broken might be the only way to survive.

But uncovering the truth about their world means infiltrating The Oracle, wearing the enemy’s face—and making an impossible choice.

That choice will determine the fate of two worlds.

LUCY

HELLLP! HELLLP!

Lucy’s desperate gasps echoed through the putrid underground well she’d

plummeted into. The stench of rotting fish saturated the toxic air, while

rubbish floated in the murky water surrounding her.

Disoriented and immersed in darkness, Lucy thrashed her arms and legs

frantically as her heavy suit filled with fetid water. The emergency lights

inside her astronaut-like helmet flashed chaotically, strobing against the

void. She pounded the side of her helmet to stop the maddening flashes,

but to no avail. Her breathing grew increasingly erratic; her lungs burning

for clean air as the ringing in her ears intensified from the impact of her

fall. The right side of her head hurt so much, she feared she had cracked

her Skelyx.

“No, no, no, no, no, no,” she screamed, her voice trembling with despera-

tion. “Can anyone hear me? HEEELLLLPPPP!”

Panic crept in. A warm, tingling surge of adrenaline coursed through her

until her legs became nearly numb and disconnected from her body.

Through the crackling static of her helmet’s damaged speaker, Isa’s voice

suddenly emerged: “Where are you?”

Lucy’s helmet was now filling with water at an alarming rate.

She sputtered on a repulsive mixture of contaminated water and fetid air. “I’ve slid into the bottom well,” she choked out. “I’m drowning: rats are swarming toward me!”

A distant voice echoed in Lucy’s helmet. “We’re coming. We’ll be there in

two minutes.”

“I’ll have drowned by then,” Lucy muttered to herself.

Thirty agonising seconds dragged by, each feeling like an eternity. She tried

lying on her back to stay afloat, but the crushing weight of her suit,

combined with the relentless swarm of rats, kept pulling her feet toward the

depths. One particularly bold rodent scrambled onto her helmet, perching

upright as if claiming her as territory in this subterranean wasteland.

Lucy’s voice diminished to a hopeless mantra: “I’m not going to make it. I’m

not going to make it. I’m not going to make it.”

Meanwhile Isa, Tegan, and 9 raced through the tunnel maze above, leaping

between wagons, dodging drones while pushing aside any droids or

robots that came their way. They risked their lives at each moment to rescue

their friend below. They had never run so fast in their lives. Losing Lucy was

not an option; they knew they would save her.

Isa kept repeating to herself, “We’ve got you; we’ve got you.”

Then, noises and voices pierced the darkness from the edge of the well

above. The rescue team would need to descend twenty meters on ropes

before reaching her—if she could last that long. Isa hurled flares into the

abyss, temporarily breaking the oppressive gloom, while 9 prepared the

ropes. They rappelled downward, but could barely discern the weak flicker

of Lucy›s helmet through the murky depths.

“Lucy, can you hear me?” Isa shouted. “Lucy, CAN YOU HEAR ME?”

As the feeble reverberations of Isa’s voice faded, the void fell into menacing

silence. “LUUCCYYY!” Isa’s voice shredded the stagnant air once more.

Far off, as if a mirage, the faint outline of Lucy taunted them.