Everything Comes To the Light
Choose Your Own Adventure Short Story Series
Welcome to the Gateway
Starting July, I’ll be launching a brand-new interactive short story series right here on Substack. It’s called Everything Comes to Light, and it’s part sci-fi, part metaphysical mystery, part psychological mirror maze.
How It Works
Each week, I’ll release a new chapter from the branching narrative. At the end of each post, you’ll be given a choice—just like the old choose-your-own-adventure books, but with more existential dread and glowing biomatter.
You’ll vote. They’ll vote.
At the end of the week, we tally the results, and the most popular path becomes canon. And I will post the majority ruled direction. Is the group wiser than the individual? Or will the majority run us straight into chaos? We’ll follow the thread wherever it leads—into the dark, the light, or something stranger in between.
At the end, I’ll post the entire project online for those who want to see where their choices would’ve taken them. *The whole project will be paid, but voters who are subscribed will receive a free pass to read the entire story.
What You’re Stepping Into
In this story, you wake up already running. Your hand is glowing. Your memory is fractured. And something is watching from just outside the visible spectrum. This is a story about identity, memory, recursion, and the strange technologies we carry inside us. Every path leads somewhere, but not all of them lead back.
Bookmark This Post: This page will serve as the story hub, updated with links to each published segment as they go live. You can always return here to catch up and or re-read.
Rules of Engagement
Voting closes 1 week after each chapter drops
Majority rules: whichever path wins is where we go next
The FULL VERSION will be published at the end, so vote (and subscribe) to receive a free pass to the full story—including all branches—especially for whose vote didn’t win.
Latest Update:
We have enough interest to proceed! I will Drop the first Section on Tuesday July 1st, and every Tuesday after that for 3 months. Subscribe so you don’t miss the first chapter. Your choice might determine what comes to light, or what gets buried.
PREVIOUS SEGMENT - LINKS:
ACTIVE SEGMENT:
2. The Mirror Takes You
·You reach for the mirror, and it yields. It’s warm, like a living body. There’s a brief resistance, like pushing through a thick web—until it pulls you in. You’re threaded through like silk. For a single heartbeat too long, you are little more than sinewy organics than complete person.
Thanks for reading. —NJ
Awesome 😎