Kindle Edition
Amazon
Amazon.co.uk
Category:
Science Fiction
Publisher: John Newton
ISBN-10: B0FK2HYZ5T
Type: Fiction
Pages: 115
Copyright: 17 July, 2025
ISBN-13: 9871234567890
Price: $6.50 (eBook)
What if the world you knew was only a simulation—an illusion crafted by an alien intelligence?
The Portal Wars is a science fiction series about survival, deception, and the fight against an enemy who doesn’t just conquer worlds—they rewrite them.
In Book One: Simulation, Samantha, a former soldier, wakes to find humanity replaced by grey, shifting creatures and a barrier that traps her inside a dying town. With the help of unlikely allies, she uncovers the horrifying truth: Earth is gone, and she’s trapped inside an Overlord construct. The only way out is through the portal.
When Samantha wakes, she thinks she's alone. The town stands empty. The sky hums with unnatural stillness. And in the distance, shifting grey creatures roam. Watching.
A former soldier with nothing to lose, Samantha is determined to find answers. She finds others like her, survivors with gaps in their memories. Together, they begin to unravel horrifying truths. Their only hope lies beyond the portals scattered across the land. Gateways to other dimensions, guarded by deadly machines and mindless soldiers.
Time is running out. The fabric of reality is breaking down. The price of resistance may be more than just their lives.
Excerpt
Samantha crouched beneath the cracked window of the dilapidated garden shed. A spider crept across the glass, weaving its silent web. She scanned the overgrown back garden for any movement. She was sure she’d seen them earlier—shadows slipping through the house—but now the light was rising, and she couldn’t tell if they were still there.
They couldn’t be seen in daylight. That much she’d learned. But daylight didn’t mean safety. She could still feel them—watching. Always watching.
The silence crushed her ears—so complete it bordered on violence. No birds. No cars. No voices. Just the faint, low hum of something not from this world. It had been twenty-three days since she’d last seen another human being. Each sunrise without contact felt like a countdown to something she couldn’t name.
She peered out again. The dawn light crept across the grass, and a silvery frost coated the lawn—strange, she thought, for this late in April.
Her supplies wouldn’t last much longer. Two days of food if she rationed it, maybe three. She’d have to move soon. But not into one of the houses. The things were always inside them, slipping in and out like they were searching for something. She didn’t know what. Nothing made sense anymore.
Only her military training—those hard, bitter years in Kandahar, Syria, and Somalia—kept her grounded.
She wouldn’t move in daylight. Just because she couldn’t see them didn’t mean they couldn’t see her. No, she'd move under cover of night, when at least she had a chance of spotting them before they spotted her.
She eased back into the corner of the shed onto a pile of old sacks and newspapers someone had conveniently left behind. She’d wait here. Quiet. Still. Until the sun went down again.
Samantha rubbed the scar on her forearm—a clean slice from broken glass, earned the night everything changed. She remembered waking up alone, sprawled on the living room floor, the TV hissing static into the dark. No memory of falling asleep. No sign of a struggle.
Just gone. Everyone.
Her parents’ house was empty. Phones dead. No blood, no mess, no bodies—just an unbearable wrongness in the air, like the world had been tilted off its axis.
She was a soldier. Trained for chaos. Trained to survive.
But nothing in her training had prepared her for this.
Why had she been left behind?
Was it luck? A cruel mistake?
Or something worse?
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