Are You Dead?: A Novella

By Jax Karter

They turned real work into a game. The prize is a future. The cost is everything else.

Maya Torres is a night-shift nurse and a single mother whose daughter needs air she can't afford. When a global hit show called Are You Dead? announces a new season-ten "ordinary workers" racing through lethal, real-world jobs for a life-changing payout-Maya signs up. She tells herself it's just one more shift. Just filmed.

It isn't.

Under the stadium lights, nurses harvest lettuce until their lungs burn, climb power lines in storm winds, and drag their bodies through a rotting landfill while millions watch from the safety of their couches. Viewers can live-tip contestants in real time, vote to "extend the pain," or switch channels when the blood gets boring.

Behind the cameras, the show's creator-known only as the Patron-truly believes this is justice. If the world sees the cost of invisible labor, it will finally change. Producer Elyse Park isn't so sure. Every time the ratings go up, the safety lines move.

As conditions tighten and bodies break, Maya has to decide what her life-and other people's lives-are worth when survival itself has become content.

Are You Dead? is a slow-burn, razor-sharp horror about work, visibility, and the price of being seen in a world that would rather watch you suffer than help you breathe.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0G37MCKRP
• ISBN13: 9798274885768
• Release Date: November 2025
• Publisher: Independently Published
• Length: 122 Pages
• Weight: 0.38 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 6.0" x 9.0"