I’m more than halfway through Novel November, and I haven’t told a soul what I’ve been working on.

So… here it is.

I’m writing a novel. A dark, quiet, fungal thriller about memory, erasure, and a scientist who becomes a living archive.

This excerpt is from my writing Day 22 — the moment the story fractures.

Welcome to The Hum in Her Bones

Director Rhys stepped inside the observation room like someone entering a cage she was sure she owned.

“Tess Myra,” Rhys said crisply. “You will undergo sedation within the hour.”

Tess felt the hum spike like a live wire in her ribs.

“No,” Tess whispered.

“Yes,” Rhys said, voice flat. “For your safety and ours.”

“It will kill her,” Nayra snapped. “We don’t even know what sedation will do to the archive.”

“We know what remaining conscious is doing,” Rhys countered. “Your blackout nearly compromised half the region. You are not stable.”

The insult hit like a slap Tess didn’t have skin thick enough to ignore.

She stood.

“I am stable enough,” Tess said.

“No,” Rhys replied coldly. “You are dangerous.”

The hum flared — a pressure building like heat under glass.

Nayra stepped forward instinctively. “Director—”

“Remove yourself from this decision,” Rhys bit out. “You’ve compromised objectivity.”

That was when Tess felt it:

A sliding inside her vision

A ripple in the room

A doubling not of sound, but of perspective

Her breath caught.

“Nayra,” Tess gasped.

Nayra turned toward her, but Tess wasn’t looking at Nayra.

She was staring at the observation window.

And Nayra followed her gaze—

—and froze.

Because in the glass

standing where Tess should be reflected

was a second Tess.

Not a perfect duplicate.

Not delayed.

Independent.

The real Tess trembled, one hand clutching the cot.

The reflection Tess stood tall, calm, expression almost curious.

And then—

Rhys saw it.

Her face went slack.

Her breath hitched.

Her pupils blew wide.

Because the reflection Tess did something the real Tess didn’t.

It turned its head —

—slowly

—smoothly

—directly toward Rhys.

Not toward the room.

Toward her.

Rhys stumbled back so hard she hit the wall.

Tess heard her whisper: “What—what is that—”

The hum shot up like it had been waiting for this exact break in Rhys’s composure.

Tess felt the archive lean forward inside her, curious, analytical, attentive.

Then the reflection blinked — a beat too slow — and its lips parted just barely, as if tasting the air around Rhys’s fear.

“Tess,” Nayra breathed in horror. “Pull back. Pull back—”

Tess tried. God, she tried.

But the archive had seen something it wanted.

And a new voice unfurled from Tess’s throat.

Not hers.

Not alone.

Layered.

Harmonic.

Human and not-human together.

Tess’s voice — with a quiet echo beneath it like a second mouth speaking an inch behind her own:

“You fear losing control.”

Rhys’s entire body jolted.

She stared at Tess with raw terror — the kind that came from recognizing something that saw her more clearly than she saw herself.

Tess tried to clamp her mouth shut, but the next line slid out like silk:

“You intend to erase what you cannot understand.”

Nayra swore, stepping between them even though she knew it wouldn’t stop anything, couldn’t stop anything.

Rhys pressed herself harder against the wall, breath shallow, eyes shining with fear she couldn’t mask fast enough.

Her voice cracked.

“What did you say?”

Tess shook her head violently, tears springing to her eyes. “That wasn’t— I didn’t— I’m not—”

The reflection Tess smiled.

Not warm.

Not cruel.

Just knowing.

Rhys made a sound Tess had never heard from her — a soft, involuntary gasp of someone seeing the edge of a cliff they hadn’t realized they were standing on.

Nayra turned back to Rhys, voice low, controlled, lethal:

“Director, listen to me. If you sedate her, this—what you just saw—this will be the gentle version of what happens next.”

Rhys didn’t answer.

She couldn’t.

Her eyes were locked on the window, where the reflection Tess still stood, watching her.

And then —

like a breath leaving a body —

the reflection blinked out.

Gone.

The real Tess collapsed to her knees, shaking violently.

Nayra caught her with both hands this time, consequences be damned.

Rhys slid down the wall, still trembling.

Silence pooled around them for several long breaths.

Then Tess lifted her head, voice ragged:

“Do you understand now?”

Rhys didn’t speak.

Didn’t blink.

Didn’t breathe for a moment too long.

Finally, she whispered:

“…Dear God.”

⸻

If you want to be added to the waitlist for the full book once it’s ready, please fill out this form.

I didn’t expect this story to take me by the throat.

But here we are.