The End of the World: Rise of the After Lord (The Primordial Engine)

In a broken future governed by the oppressive Technocrats and their parasitic technology, enslaved warrior Animkii's mind is a battleground for control. After an act of sabotage shatters her bondage, she faces a dire mission: ridding herself of the invasive tech implanted inside her before it consumes her remaining humanity. Seeking salvation, she forms an uneasy alliance with Mica Stone, a troubled black-market recycler, whose dreams hold the power to awaken an ancient alien god known as the After Lord.

Fleeing the bloody machinations of the After Lord's dark cult, Animkii and Mica embark on a perilous odyssey that takes them out of the dystopian depths of the undercity and into the remote and icy Witherlands. There, amidst the ruins of an ancient world, they face a force that hungers for more than just flesh and bone.

With reality crumbling and Earth's survival at stake, a battle between two worlds begins, leaving Animkii and Mica to confront the ultimate question: can they retain their humanity in a world on the brink of oblivion, or is the end of the world inevitable?

H.S. Gilchrist is a debut author whose ambitions of becoming a real-life Indiana Jones (degree in Anthropology) seeded her love for world cultures and history but conjured no realistic job prospects. So, she set aside the thrill of chasing ancient curses for the rigors of a twenty-year career in information technology, where she's worked as both a technician ("I fix broken stuff") and a data analyst ("I save management a lot of work"). Outside of work, she grooms her daughter into becoming a fellow nerd (it's sort of working) and, whenever a quiet moment takes her, writes the adventures she wishes she could live.