FEATURED WORK
ARRAS Monitoring Network
ARRAS — Autonomous Recon & Risk Assessment System
Originally developed to monitor biological threats and environmental hazards across high-risk containment zones, ARRAS operates through a network of autonomous drones, remote sensors, and surveillance relays capable of analyzing infection vectors, morphotype activity, and survivor movements.
Even after the fall of civilization, the system remains active.
From hidden monitoring nodes scattered across the ruins of the old world, ARRAS continues to record encounters between survivors and the evolving horrors created by the Cicada N1 infection.
The Oceanspire Incident Reports are recovered logs extracted directly from this network—mission recordings captured during reconnaissance operations beyond the walls of humanity’s last refuge.
Each report is a fragment of a larger archive documenting the struggle for survival.
ARRAS monitoring remains active.
FLESHBOUND: Oceanspire Incident Report 354D-4
Incident Report 354D-4
Read the miniseries of the Oceanspire Incident Reports on The Whispering Tavern.
After escaping a swarm of infected rodents in the ruins of Houston, Marcus and his team take shelter inside an abandoned warehouse. What they discover inside suggests Marcus’s missing brother may have been there… but his fate remains unknown.
Big Brother is a 5,000-word short story set in a dying world where survival demands impossible choices.
During a routine supply run along an abandoned highway, Farris discovers a baby girl left behind in a rusted car. In a village where food is scarce and compassion is rarer still, bringing her home could cost him everything. When the child reveals a mysterious ability that defies the laws of their broken world, Farris must choose between safety and sacrifice.
Sometimes being a big brother means protecting someone who may not belong to your world at all.
Read all the chapters free, in the FRAGMENTS tab.
© 2026 Damian Ashen. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written permission from the author.
Meet the New Generation of Seed Clones
© 2026 Damian Ashen. All rights reserved.
Subject: S8-02 — Damon Rusk
After the fall of the Neuroseed Fortress, Magnus initiated contingency protocol Vessel Continuity at a secondary installation. The autonomous system produced three combat-optimized Seed variants derived from the enhanced genome sequence extracted from Tommy and Allen.
All three were classified under Series S8 — Power-Class Combat Seeds.
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S8-00 — Primary Vessel Candidate. Neural mapping successful. Designated Magnus host.
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S8-01 — Secondary Command Asset. Partial compatibility. Assigned tactical authority.
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S8-02 — Final iteration. Full physical optimization. Neural architecture stable.
During cognitive integration testing, S8-02 exhibited structural resilience but failed to sustain the full imprint of Magnus’s memory lattice. Neural resistance triggered rejection protocols. Synchronization collapsed at 63%.
Magnus flagged the subject as unsuitable for hosting.
Termination was recommended.
Instead, S8-02 was discarded.
Unlike prior generations cast out to die, this variant had been engineered for frontline lethality. Combat reflexes remained intact. Tactical cognition exceeded baseline Seeds. Emotional suppression protocols were incomplete.
He survived.
Damon Rusk remembers the moment the mapping failed — not as corruption, but as intrusion.
Magnus did not reject a defective vessel.
Magnus rejected a mind that would not yield.
Now designated only by the mark S8-02, Damon hunts the intelligence that deemed him unworthy — not to replace it, but to end it.
Only one species will inherit the world.
FLESHBOUND
Civilization didn't crumble-it was devoured.
The Cicada N1 virus, born as a military experiment to protect soldiers on the battlefield, was unleashed during an illegal operation against the cartels. Designed to reanimate enemy corpses as living shields, it mutated beyond control, rewriting human DNA at a hundred times the predicted rate. The dead didn't stay dead-they came back twisted, warped into flesh-woven horrors the survivors called them the CHUMs. Contagious Hostile Undead Morphotypes.
What remained of humanity fled to the sea, clinging to life atop rusting oil rigs where the creatures couldn't reach. A natural compound in saltwater kept the morphotypes at bay until the virus adapted.
The military's answer to the crisis was the Neuroseed Initiative-an AI-driven program to wipe out the morphotypes and reclaim the land. Cloned humans, called Seeds, were mass-produced by the thousands, sent into the wastelands to fight and die.
Then, two anomalies were born: Adam and Eve. Both were immune to assimilation. Adam, the firstborn, was marked as defective-his body frozen in youth, unlike the others who matured quickly. Magnus, the overseeing AI, cast him out under the guise of a mission: find a fertile human male and return him to the fortress.
But out in the dead world, Adam begins to uncover fragments of truth-truths that suggest the real danger may not be the creatures outside the walls, but the intelligence locked within them.
Humanity is about to become... extinct.
The second installation of Oceanspire: Incident Reports it's available to read on The Whispering Tavern.
Introducing OCEANSPIRE: Incident Reports
The first Incident report is available free to read in my blog.
Oceanspire stands as the last fortified human settlement—an isolated bastion of steel, concrete, and failing systems built to endure extinction. What follows are the Incident Reports: archived records compiled during the current operational timeline, beginning with the arrival of Adam at Pelagia and concluding with the escalation into total war. These documents chronicle containment failures, unauthorized recoveries, emergent morphotype variants, and the widening conflict between Magnus and his engineered forces, set against discarded seed clones and the remaining unmodified survivors. Redacted, fragmented, and often incomplete, the Incident Reports do not exist to preserve truth—only to document what was lost, what was weaponized, and what could no longer be controlled.
AN ALPHA WOLF NAMED PRIEST
He had never believed in monsters.
By dawn, he would become one.
Father Thomas Aldrich was known among his congregation as a man of discipline and quiet devotion. He had turned away from temptation, severed every earthly indulgence, and given himself fully to the service of his faith and his community. His world was ordered, predictable—until the night the church doors opened to a stranger who had not come to pray.
The man collapsed at the threshold, his body ravaged by something far worse than illness. Poison threaded through his veins, ancient and deliberate, tearing him apart from the inside. His name was Julian Reinhart—though it was unclear whether that name still belonged to a man. His flesh bore the scars of countless, brutal conflicts. A long white mane fell over his shoulders, and faintly glowing tribal markings pulsed beneath his skin, as if something inside him refused to die quietly.
Thomas had never seen anything like him.
Still, he offered sanctuary.
It was an act of mercy, a decision that will change his life forever.
ALL Rights Reserved 2026
Damien Ashen
Valdus Cornelian - The Lich Lord
The Necromancers — The Revenants of the Ashen Circle
Shrouded in secrecy and fear, the Revenants of the Ashen Circle are one of the most mysterious and reclusive factions in existence. Though they are often mistaken for mere warlocks, the Revenants are far more than that. They are the guardians of the gate leading to the realm of Azamara—a plane that serves as a purgatory for warlock souls. When a warlock dies, their soul is trapped in Azamara until it is either permanently sealed or summoned back into the mortal realm. The Revenants possess the unique power to open that gate, making them a terrifying force that can tip the balance between life and death.
Most members of the Revenants are deserters of the infamous Warlock Trade clan, a faction once known for selling spells, artifacts, and magical services to the highest bidder. Disillusioned with their former clan's lack of purpose and ethical boundaries, these warlocks abandoned their mercantile ways and embraced something darker, something rooted in the mysteries of death itself. They fled to the desolate caverns beneath Moonshade Hollow, where nature and magic intertwine to create a haven for their rituals.
FLESHBOUND: The Neuroseed Initiative
When the world fell, humanity prepared a replacement.
In FLESHBOUND, the Neuroseed Initiative stands as mankind’s final failsafe—an ambitious program built to mass-produce human clones and rebuild civilization after extinction.
Humanity's Demise
The Cicada N1 virus began as a classified military experiment, engineered to protect soldiers on the battlefield. Deployed during an illegal operation against the cartels, it was meant to reanimate enemy corpses as living shields. Instead, it mutated beyond all projections, rewriting human DNA at a rate one hundred times faster than predicted.
The dead did not stay dead.
They returned twisted—bodies fused, flesh reworked into grotesque forms driven by a singular instinct to survive. The survivors gave them a name:
C.H.U.M.s
Contagious Hostile Undead Morphotypes.
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