The Continuity Protocol

Did dying make you better?
I still do not know how to answer that.
Of course it did. I can hear it in my own voice now. The patience. The calm. The way I let people finish speaking before I decide what they mean. Everyone sees it. My therapist. My family. The woman I love. They look at me and feel something very close to relief.
I died, and I came back changed.
What I cannot tell you is whether the change is mine.
I remember the crash. I remember the hospital. I remember being told, in language so careful it barely felt like language at all, that what was happening to me was necessary. That it was humane. That there were procedures for this now. Thresholds. Protections. Continuity.
I survived the accident. I survived the procedure. I survived whatever came after.
Now I am living inside a life that fits too well.
That is the problem.
How do you return to the people who love you when they are grateful for the version of you that came back? How do you sit in front of your therapist, try to explain what you remember, and ask the only question that still seems to matter?
What did they need to change in me to make survival possible?
The Continuity Protocol is a psychological science-fiction horror novel about identity, power, and the private cost of a system built to defeat death. It is the first novel in The Continuity Series.