From the series: The Hidden Corridor - The Darkwell Files

THIRST: A Darkwell Files Investigation (The Hidden Corridor - The Darkwell Files Book 2)

About

THIRST

Elena works inside a system designed to contain monsters.

It logs every movement.
It records every interaction.
It believes control is the same thing as safety.

Then one of its most dangerous subjects escapes — not through violence or chaos, but through procedure. Through trust. Through the quiet absence of alarms.

Elena survives the encounter.
That is the problem.

What begins as an unreported breach becomes something far worse: a transfer.
A change that doesn’t announce itself as power, but as hunger, distortion, and silence.
As the system closes ranks around the wrong explanation, Elena’s body becomes evidence — and her existence a liability.

Victor Darkwell is the only person who understands what has happened.
To protect Elena, he breaks protocol.
To preserve the truth, he lies.

As brutal killings spread through the city, the system hardens its certainty against the wrong monster. The real predator disappears into the noise, patient enough to let the world choose the lie it can live with.

And Elena, no longer fully human and not yet anything else, realises she is no longer outside the hunt.

She is part of it.

THIRST is a dark psychological horror-thriller about coercion, control, and what happens when institutions mistake compliance for consent. It is a story of monsters contained, monsters unleashed, and the far more dangerous systems that decide who is allowed to survive.

Perfect for readers of intelligent horror and techno-thrillers that favour dread over spectacle, THIRST is the first step into a world where containment is never permanent — only postponed.

THIRST is the second novel in The Darkwell Files—a series of recovered investigations into institutional failure, procedural violence, and the cost of responsibility shared too widely to be owned.

This work is a piece of original fiction. Names, characters, organisations, locations, and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or to actual events is purely coincidental.

THIRST is a transformative work of fiction inspired by themes and public-domain source material associated with Dracula by Bram Stoker (first published 1897). This novel is an original narrative and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to any film studio, publisher, estate, or copyrighted adaptation.

The Darkwell Files and The Hidden Corridor are original fictional concepts created by the author.

Artificial intelligence tools were used in a limited, supporting role during the development of this work. All creative direction, narrative decisions, and final responsibility for the content rest solely with the author.

First published in 2026.