'The Recursion Protocol'

Julian Vance, a quiet archivist with hyperthymesia—an abnormally sharp autobiographical memory—spends his days cataloging the estates of people who die alone. His orderly life unravels when he discovers Case File 91-B, containing a death certificate for a man named Dr. Arthur Miller, a brass key stamped 404, and an unsigned note written in Julian’s custom midnight-blue iron gall ink claiming the dead man was simply "replaced." When Julian follows the clue to Room 404 in the abandoned Blackwood Sanatorium, he finds a journal predicting his exact movements down to the minute. The situation turns deadly when official records reveal two terrifying facts: Blackwood Sanatorium has no fourth floor, and Dr. Arthur Miller died twenty years ago. Teaming up with Detective Clara Reyes—a pragmatic homicide investigator chasing a cold case—Julian uncovers the Recursion Protocol: a psychological experiment from 2004 designed to shatter human memory and create obedient, programmable "surrogates." As a string of unresolved deaths across the city connects back to a ledger written entirely in Julian’s handwriting, he realizes a broken patient using his exact face is framing him for murder. Framed, pursued by police, and fighting psychological conditioning designed to rewrite his mind, Julian must use his flawless memory to unravel a twenty-year police cover-up, expose the man stealing his identity, and break the deadly conditioning loop before the script demands his final execution.