
by Wistful_Willow
After a strange, ritualistically desecrated corpse opens the door to a cybernetically augmented cult, Detective Lana Walker’s endurance is tested. The dead leave behind half-truths, liminal spaces, and questions they can no longer answer. Her team fills in the missing pieces in their place. Together they follow the breadcrumbs to the darkest corners of humanity. A fanatical cult leader, a vanished girl, and a serial killer who refuses to let Lana forget all mirror some fragment of herself. In this city, justice doesn’t come cheap. Ugly truths mixed with beautiful lies make the sane waver and the insane flourish. Unwilling to stand idly by, she peers into the darkness because someone has to. As a witness to those who exist on the margins of society, she must now learn to witness herself. Every bullet, loss and longing pushes her to redefine her place in the world and decide whether she's willing to pay the cost her work demands. Shattered Glass is a slow-burn psychological crime thriller about trauma, obsession, and the cost of bearing witness. It is about the stories people tell themselves to survive and what happens when those stories begin to crack. What to expect -A quiet, character-driven crime thriller focused on emotional fallout rather than easy victories -Morally complex characters, including villains who have strong motivations -Intimate, restrained moments of connection between damaged people -Exploration of identity, family, and what it means to be human -A mixed-race protagonist of Asian and Caucasian descent -Three interwoven case arcs that reflect and build on one another - Chapters between 2,000-3,200 words. - Updates every 2-3 weeks.
No streak history
Rank updated 13 Aug 2026, 14:28 UTC
Overall Rising Stars shadow rank
deep field · ~#2465 of 7,531 · 2415 below #50
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By genre
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Hidden gem — exposure is the bottleneck
Readers who find this story follow it at a high rate; there just aren't enough of them. In our cohort data, near-daily posting lifted the odds of reaching 25 followers from ~0% to 17% — more chapters, shoutout swaps and ads buy the eyeballs this conversion deserves.
Benchmarks: 8,060 active Royal Road stories, percentiles within the 50–149 chapters band, cohort of 2026-07-02. Conversion is measured as followers gained per 1,000 views over the recent window.
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