The Fractured Lantern

By M.P. Sloane

Some truths don't stay buried. They glow.
Rowan Vale, a quiet archivist with a talent for noticing the wrong details, inherits a dented lantern from his missing father-a device that reveals the truth the city has worked hard to erase. When a forgotten file glows under its light, Rowan uncovers a list of citizens who vanished from the records... including his father.
Across the city, courier Leah Narin watches a coworker disappear-not in the streets, but from every database, every directory, every memory except her own. When an unmarked flash drive appears in her delivery bag and a man in a gray municipal coat begins following her, she's thrust into a conspiracy she never asked for.
Together, Rowan and Leah discover a covert division known as The Meridian Office, guardians of a decades-old program called Lanternfall, capable of rewriting identities and reshaping the city's memory. As entire districts begin to glitch and shift, the truth threatens to collapse under a coordinated rewrite-Phase Two.
To stop Meridian, Rowan and Leah must descend into the city's forgotten tunnels, unearth Rowan's father's hidden research, and reach the Master Index before the city decides they never existed at all.
But the lantern holds a deeper secret-one that could resurrect the past, burn the present, or fracture the future forever.
A gripping, atmospheric thriller about memory, identity, and the cost of truth-perfect for fans of Blake Crouch, S.A. Barnes, and dark urban mysteries.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0G34DSF48
• ISBN13: 9798275271652
• Release Date: November 2025
• Publisher: Independently Published
• Length: 88 Pages
• Weight: 0.28 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.2" x 6.0" x 9.0"