AfterF¤rm

In a world where every person eventually undergoes a mysterious Metamorphosis, humanity has learned to fear the moment when the body disappears into a cocoon and the mind enters an unknown realm called the Interior. Some people return within seconds. Others remain trapped for years. Those who awaken emerge with an Afterform, an ability shaped by what they endured inside. Twenty one year old Ren Ishida has spent his life avoiding conflict, burying anger, and becoming whatever other people need him to be. When his own Metamorphosis begins, only forty seven seconds pass in the outside world. For Ren, seven years unfold within the Interior. He returns with an ability no one fully understands and memories that should not be possible. As disturbing evidence suggests that the Interior is more than a private psychological experience, Ren is drawn into a specialized unit investigating unstable Afterforms, missing cocoon victims, and violent breaches between reality and the world hidden inside every Metamorphosis. Each case brings Ren closer to the truth behind humanity’s transformations, but it also forces him to confront the parts of himself he has spent years suppressing. The deeper he ventures into the mystery, the clearer it becomes that the Interior remembers him, something followed him back, and humanity’s evolution may never have belonged to humanity at all.