The System - Introduction
I've spent the last year working on a speculative fiction novel called The System. These opening chapters are my invitation to visit Laurel Gap to meet the people and the mystery that started it all.
The seed for The System was planted in the mid-1990s. I wrote a few early chapters back then, but the story never quite worked the way I wanted it to. The idea stayed with me for nearly thirty years before the world became connected enough for me to tell it the way I imagined it.
The novel is being shared in serialized form on Wattpad, but I also wanted to share the opening eight chapters here with my PoetrySoup friends. I welcome any feedback and hope you enjoy it.
~Simultaneously published on Wattpad and Royal Road.
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THE SYSTEM
Description:
When an unexplained die-off devastates salamander populations in the southern Appalachian Mountains, federal amphibian specialist Dr. Anna Mercer is sent to investigate. What she finds is a pattern of unexplained human deaths. As she and local Sheriff H. R. Hollis dig deeper, they uncover an entity capable of influencing minds and reshaping human connection. What begins as an ecological mystery becomes a reckoning with how intimacy, loneliness, and human interference in fragile systems blur the boundary between human behavior and something new.
"A slow-burn speculative thriller where ordinary observations gradually reveal an extraordinary pattern." — The Author
This is a work of fiction. While inspired by real ecological concepts and places, all characters, organizations, events, and situations are fictional.
@ 2026 Mark Toney. All rights reserved.t
PART ONE -- SIGNAL
It began as something too small to matter.
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"In a dataset, the relevant information or pattern formed is referred to as signal. The irrelevant information or pattern is called noise. We filter out the noise so only the relevant pattern emerges. The more signal we have, the tighter the pattern gets." — Anna Mercer, PHD / Federal Amphibian Specialist
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