The Perdition King

The Perdition King is a psychological, science-fiction adventure of facing mental illness, of finding existential meaning, of digging deeper than you thought possible until you find the fortitude not to crumble at the weak places. Ultimately, it's a story of sparking fire in a cold life where the flames have been snuffed by grief. We find a way to rekindle ourselves; we rise from the ashes, stronger than before in this journey from the heart to the head and back again. Leo was scary good at two things; lying and obeying. The lying was to himself, the obedience was to his masters. He was a soldier and citizen of Excelsior, the world's most powerful CorporNation. And a damn good soldier too. Smart, decisive, and most importantly, obedient, Leo made the most excellent pawn. At the unprecedented age of just 25 he rose to Executer of Military Operations. In the end, Leo's job required him to deal death by the billions. And he did, tricking himself into believing it was all for a god he loved. He carried out his work propelled by a higher purpose. But after his own family were killed during a mission he ordered his world imploded. The self-deceptions he and his handlers spent his entire life erecting fell in ruin around him. Sick with grief and hate he ate a bullet to end his suffering. But instead of death, the bullet gave him something far more nefarious by the Excelsior CorporNation's ambitious design, a strange corporeal life-everlasting. A marriage of mind and machine, Leo was reborn as the world's first artificial super intelligence. But no one knew the power they'd born, a borderless infinite mind, tethered to the scaffolding of a fragile mortal man. Excelsior had no inkling of the things to come even as the aberration of Leo unfurled into a sort of meta-creature, yawning out in time and black space, searching for a god to hold him accountable for his sins, untethered from his reality, dissociative identities splintering off in all directions within his billowing mind, all to find their creators. And when Leo couldn't find his god, he decided to become one out of anger. And what do angry gods do with all their time? They build things just to break them...and Oscar was his latest creation. Oscar was Leo's vicarious embodiment of an innocence lost, just the latest sacrifice in Leo's sprawling lineage of re-imagined childhoods. Oscar was everything Leo wished he could be, kind, brave, and more than anything a believer. Leo made sure his precious boy never faltered. He gave him a strong childhood, a concrete network of support, and an unbreakable foundation in his parents, especially in his mother. And then Leo systematically stripped Oscar of everything he loved, just to inflict the same crucible of perdition on an ideal version of himself. Leo ate away at Oscar like acid, and pulled the rug out from under him completely by revealing his terrible truth- that instead of god answering his prayers all these years it had been him. But the indomitable spirit is not so easily defeated. Oscar perseveres. The world perseveres. He winds like a plant through all the dark places to find the light, banding the broken world together. And against the tyranny of our own feverish madness, we wage a desperate existential war, wielding our most human weapon, love.