85,000 words
When Lara Paine, pregnant and looking forward to her wedding, learns her fiancé, Michael Sands has a deadly form of skin cancer, she urges him to use an experimental UV serum while on his Pro Surfing trip to Australia.
But when the serum’s developer, geneticist Patrick
McCormick, enlists Lara’s help to hide a woman encrusted in a chrysalis-like shell,
she realizes the UV serum is an experiment gone unspeakably wrong.
Incensed, she rushes home to find Michael collapsed on her
doorstep, a grotesque crust already forming on his body. She drives him to Patrick’s laboratory, hoping
to find some kind of antidote, but Patrick isn’t there. Frantic to save her
love or at least destroy the serum so it can’t be used again, she smashes a
glass cabinet. A shard of glass from a broken bottle marked “UV” slashes her
hand, inoculating her with a massive dose of the serum. She awakes to find herself in a familiar but drastically changed world. She is covered in a fine white dust without a hair on her body, she learns she is not alone. More disturbing, she learns her unborn child is the source of a legend.
Confused and afraid, Lara puts her trust in a young Spirit Leader who sees her as the answer to her prayers. But what help can she be in a world gone wrong? The answer lies within her womb.
Confused and afraid, Lara puts her trust in a young Spirit Leader who sees her as the answer to her prayers. But what help can she be in a world gone wrong? The answer lies within her womb.
