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Derived: A Novella
You buried a dog when you were eleven. You never told anyone. Not your mother. Not your husband. Not a single living person in thirty-five years.
A barefoot stranger in a Walmart just said its name out loud.
Thea Cole lives alone in rural Kentucky. She moved to Hazel for the silence. She works from home. She talks to no one. She built a life designed to be invisible, and it was working until a woman she'd never met walked into a Walmart and started screaming her social security number, her birthday, her mother's maiden name, and details about her childhood that exist nowhere except inside her own skull.
The woman gave the police Thea's name. Her exact name. Her exact date of birth. Not because she stole them.
Because she believed she was Thea.
The officer who processed her said she wasn't crazy. He said she was just sure.
Three miles from Thea's house there is a bunker. Inside the bunker there are files. Inside the files there is her name. Twice. Same weight. Same blood type. Same birthday. Filed one week apart. One stamped in faded red PRIMARY. One stamped in faded red DERIVED.
Thea is a medical transcriptionist. She processes data for a living. She is very good at it. She is going to need to be, because the data she's about to uncover will reach back to the day she was born and forward to a choice she is not prepared to make, and every answer she finds will be worse than the question that led to it.
What she finds in that bunker is only the beginning. What finds her is the rest of the book.
A barefoot stranger in a Walmart just said its name out loud.
Thea Cole lives alone in rural Kentucky. She moved to Hazel for the silence. She works from home. She talks to no one. She built a life designed to be invisible, and it was working until a woman she'd never met walked into a Walmart and started screaming her social security number, her birthday, her mother's maiden name, and details about her childhood that exist nowhere except inside her own skull.
The woman gave the police Thea's name. Her exact name. Her exact date of birth. Not because she stole them.
Because she believed she was Thea.
The officer who processed her said she wasn't crazy. He said she was just sure.
Three miles from Thea's house there is a bunker. Inside the bunker there are files. Inside the files there is her name. Twice. Same weight. Same blood type. Same birthday. Filed one week apart. One stamped in faded red PRIMARY. One stamped in faded red DERIVED.
Thea is a medical transcriptionist. She processes data for a living. She is very good at it. She is going to need to be, because the data she's about to uncover will reach back to the day she was born and forward to a choice she is not prepared to make, and every answer she finds will be worse than the question that led to it.
What she finds in that bunker is only the beginning. What finds her is the rest of the book.
102 pages, Kindle Edition
Published April 1, 2026
About the author
Ayman Hamadeh
29 books2 followersI write dark, intense fiction. The kind that crawls under your skin and stays there. Psychological thrillers, dark fantasy, and the occasional story that doesn't fit neatly into any box. But I don't like staying in one lane. I write a bit of everything, and I go wherever the story takes me.
What I care about most is making every page earn your time. I want you hooked from the first line and still thinking about the ending days later. That's the standard I hold myself to.
If you're here, you probably like stories with teeth. Pull up a chair. I think we'll get along.
X: @ayman_writes
Instagram: @author.ayman
Website: Aymanwrites.com
What I care about most is making every page earn your time. I want you hooked from the first line and still thinking about the ending days later. That's the standard I hold myself to.
If you're here, you probably like stories with teeth. Pull up a chair. I think we'll get along.
X: @ayman_writes
Instagram: @author.ayman
Website: Aymanwrites.com
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
May 12, 2026
Well worth the read
The story was interesting, but what I most enjoyed was the turn of a phrase.
Great line page 6 "it’s just the two of us standing in the blank space where a normal Tuesday used to be."
The story was interesting, but what I most enjoyed was the turn of a phrase.
Great line page 6 "it’s just the two of us standing in the blank space where a normal Tuesday used to be."
May 29, 2026
No conclusion
Come on! There is no ending...It just ends. No resolution. I'm left wondering what the heck happened...
Not the greatest way to attract readers to further works...
Come on! There is no ending...It just ends. No resolution. I'm left wondering what the heck happened...
Not the greatest way to attract readers to further works...
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews