Mortality: Part One

by Cege Smith

How far would a person be willing to go to escape an inevitable death? Laney Grey is about to find out. After battling a terminal illness for the last two years, Laney has only a few weeks to live. With her body betraying her and her hope snuffed out, she's left alone to face the reality of her mortality. Then Victor Franks, President and CEO of Leeds Pharmaceuticals, appears and offers her the the cure to her disease and the promise of a long, healthy life. Laney thinks she understands the price she'll have to pay to get her cure, but in the end, she finds it’s even higher than she ever imagined possible. ********************************** The Mortality Serial is a science fiction suspense serial novel that unfolds over 4 installments which are all available now.(This story was originally published under the title " Episode 1". Changes and additions to the story have been made from the originally published title.)

42 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 28, 2014

About the author

Everyone loves a good origin tale. Cege's started when she was eight years old. She snuck out of bed late one night and into the living room to watch TV. Flipping through stations with the volume turned down low, she came across a rerun of a movie called The Exorcist. She was terrified yet mesmerized.

Cege wasn't unfamiliar with the idea of the battle between good and evil. She attended Catholic school in a small town in rural Wisconsin, and at the time knew the 'age appropriate' stories from the Bible. Nothing in those stories prepared her for the visual onslaught of watching the battle between the priests and the demon for the soul of the young Linda Blair. Cege was deeply disturbed by the movie, but nonetheless a seed was planted that night. That seed grew into a rampant fascination with all things supernatural.

Sleepovers turned into B-rated horror film marathons. Her library card was used to bring home piles of books about ghosts and vampires. She still isn't quite sure who she loved first, Stephen King or Freddy Krueger. By the time she was twelve, Cege took a turn at penning her own spooky tales. That love of things that go bump in the night and scare you to death has only grown stronger throughout the years.

The paranormal and supernatural take center stage in all of Cege's stories. Over the years, she has crafted her own origin stories about vampires (the Bloodtruth series), zombies (the Twisted Souls series), and ghosts, angels, and demons (the Shadows series). She's also taken on the folklore around the Fountain of Youth (the Immortal End series beginning with Ageless). There is something for every reader of the paranormal in Cege's books.