AUDIOBOOK - Viator: Voices of the APOCALYPSE - CHAPTER 1

Hello, everyone, and thank you for checking out this first chapter for my novel's audiobook! "Viator: Voices of the Apocalypse" is an introspective journey to the end of the world, asking the question of what it means to really live a life.

Chapters will be posted separately, with a plan to post once a week.

Amazon link for the Kindle, Kindle Unlimited, paperback, and hardcover versions: https://a.co/d/jjpD410

Chapter 1 of 55.

Synopsis:
"There have been many extinction events throughout the eons. Five, in fact, which wiped countless species off the face of the planet. Each time, however, life bounced back. New species picked up the mantle and continued on, growing and thriving, creating new ages, and eventually leading to the human race.

We humans have gone about our lives and our existence as if that couldn’t happen to us, with anyone claiming otherwise being labeled naught but a conspiracy theorist. One day, though, those conspiracy theorists will be right.

Thanksgiving of 2042 was like every other Zeke had experienced in his 37 years. It was filled with family, food, and fun. As the night began to draw to a close, however, Zeke’s brother pulled him aside, bringing Zeke’s world crashing down in the process. His brother, Maverick, an astronomer and engineer working for NASA, had been privy to knowledge of the next great extinction event, one from which no one or thing on the planet would escape.

Viator, a rogue planet the size and mass of Neptune, had been discovered entering the solar system as it passed through the Kuiper Belt. It was careening into the planetary regions of the system, bringing with it a doomsday to end them all, and they had just six months left.

Upon hearing the news that Viator would impact Earth, destroying his home planet to a level not even bacteria would survive, Zeke couldn’t fight the meaninglessness of life that was quickly becoming debilitating. After all, if nothing was going to exist in half a year, what was the point of doing anything?

Maverick, however, was not done bearing news. On a call to Zeke for Christmas, he informed of a plan to save the human race. The Olympians, a series of 12 spacecraft, were being built for the purpose of carrying pieces of humanity to star systems with potentially habitable planets. Though no living humans would be aboard, everything from paintings to embryos and DNA would be aboard to carry on the species.

Struck by this news that humanity and the world he knew would live on, despite there being no escape for anyone alive during the end of days, an idea popped into Zeke’s mind. Over nine billion people called Earth home, and each and every one of them had their own unique stories. They may not have been someone everyone knew, someone that impacted the world, but their stories were just as crucial to the human experience and existence as any that may have shaped humanity. Maverick agreed.

Now with a newfound lease on the end of the world, Zeke set out to record those stories—the lives and fears of everyday people—in order to add their stories to the crafts’ payloads. Social workers, pilots, mothers, fathers, heroes, and villains, Zeke became determined to document as many as he could, as honestly as he could. With the crafts set to launch four months later, time was of the essence, so Zeke and his two dogs set out on a journey to save the stories of the common man, his fresh lease on his limited life carrying him indomitably to the end of everything.

"Viator: Voices of the Apocalypse" is an introspective journey to the end of the world. You won’t find the violence or action that grace the pages of other novels in this genre. Instead, Viator aims to examine the fears, regrets, and stories we would all be forced to reckon with on a planet doomed to annihilation.

"Viator: Voices of the Apocalypse" is the second novel from Aaron S. Harp. His first novel, "When the Lights Went Out", released in May of 2022, is currently available on Amazon."

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