Synth Code: Afterimage

By Arla Jones

The future called. Reality changed. She remembers both.At 3:47 in the morning, Marlene Vasik receives a phone call from herself.

The woman on the other end is calling from six days in the future.

She gives Marlene three numbers-447. Three. Twelve.-and one warning:

When the street changes, don't go home.

Three days later, the street changes.

Businesses Marlene has known for years have different names. A community garden has become a parking lot. Photographs insist the world has always been this way.

Then Marlene begins seeing two realities at once.

She discovers others like her: Echo Carriers, people capable of remembering timelines the rest of the world has forgotten. They tell her reality is becoming plural-and Marlene may be one of the strongest anchors holding the overlapping worlds together.

But the strangest part is Daniel.

He knows her.

He remembers the mornings they spent together, the conversations they shared, and the love Marlene has never experienced.

And slowly, impossibly, she begins remembering him too.

As alternate lives bleed into her own and people begin disappearing from reality itself, Marlene must decide how much of the impossible she is willing to remember.

Because somewhere inside the shifting timelines, the future is waiting.

And Marlene has already called herself from it.

SYNTH CODE: AFTERIMAGE is a reality-bending science-fiction novella about memory, identity, artificial intelligence, alternate timelines, and the lives that continue to echo after reality changes.

A standalone novella in the SYNTH CODE series. No prior knowledge of the series is required.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0HH44R2JW
• ISBN13: 9798170453559
• Release Date: August 2026
• Publisher: Independently published
• Length: 139 Pages
• Weight: 0.29 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.0" x 0.3" x 5.0"