What Is The Meaning Behind Rhythm Of The Dead?

There are monsters in this world. And they used to be us. Now it's time to euthanize to survive in a hospice where Emily, a woman haunted by her past, only wants to do her job and be the best mother possible. Post-infection Chicago. Christmas. Inside The Hospice, Emily and her fellow nurses do their rounds. Here, men and women live out their final days in comfort, segregated from society, and are then humanely terminated before fate turns them into marrow-craving monsters known as ‘Smilers.’ Outside these imposing walls, rabid protesters swarm with signs, caught up in the heat of their hatred. Emily, a woman haunted by her past, only wants to do her job and be the best mother possible. But in a world where mortality means nothing, where guns are drawn in fear and nobody seems safe anymore – at what cost will this pursuit come? And through it all, the soon to be dead remain silent, ever smiling. Such is their curse. It won't be long before that snow-speckled ground will be salted by blood. ©️ Crystal Lake Publishing

Alena Sabine Florence, now an aspiring drummer, was originally inspired by the young prodigy of a guitarist boy when she was a kid. Driven by the desire to play music with him someday, she chose to take on the path of a complex lifestyle and thrived hard to be as good as she could with the drums. She had never stopped hoping to meet the boy again. She thought, that as long as she kept working hard to make a name for herself, they will eventually meet again. So, when an opportunity has risen; a way to challenge her skills came, she joined her friend’s indie band. However, fate seemed to work way more twisted than she expected, because when her greatest wish came true, it didn’t bring her joy as she imagined. The boy she considered an unreachable star, was stuck in a nameless local indie band. Furthermore, his sound doesn’t resonate the joy of making music, or love for music anymore. He just sounded bland, flat, and boring. Just another typical story of a bright, hopeful girl, and the lackluster, musical genius boy. Except, it ain’t typical. Hear thy heart’s rhythm; a search for a melodious love.

Mia D’Lorne thought heartbreak would kill her but getting hit by a car did the job faster. One second she’s running from the sound of her boyfriend and sister fornicating, the next she’s standing in front of an abandoned bus station in what looks like purgatory. The bus that picks her up looks like a prop in a horror movie and she’s introduced to the world of the Soul Recycle Program. To exist, she has to compete in a twisted afterlife show where the dead fight their way through nightmare worlds for the amusement of unknown and unseen spectators. The rules are simple. Survive or disappear for good. Mia is joined by two strangers who are just as broken as she is. Axel Rivers, who has been dead for almost a century, and Bree DeBois, a control freak paramedic with more guilt than she can carry. Together they try to survive the challenges of the game. As the trio do their best to keep from being erased, they begin to realize the Game is more personal than they imagined.

When two broken hearts meet, they find their missing part in each other. Two people carrying different tragic stories met each other by fate. One who wants to cage herself in her memories, and the other one who wants to be free and bury his memories. What happens when fate starts to play with them? In a midst of chaos, Cassidy Amber found herself captivated through the beat of his drums. With every beat and every thump; she follows its rhythm. Together, they synchronized with each creating a song from their heartbeats.

Ryan is the Zombie King, the man who helped the zombies take over the human world. Now, he's on the hunt for the one human he can't forget. Lacey is on the run for her life from zombies trying to forget Ryan. She didn't know he was a zombie, and she can't help being conflicted over how she feels about him. Zombies aren’t the mindless creatures that humans thought of in their stories. They are intelligent and function like humans do, minus the human brains they need for food. Turns out that zombies come from a mutated gene that only activates after death. They have been around just as long as humans and now they rule the world. When Ryan finally finds Lacey and brings her to his kingdom their worlds collide once again and so do their feelings. Can Lacey forgive Ryan for abandoning her after using her? Can their love survive in the new world?

For twins Ethel and Elise, the line between dream and nightmare was always thin—and on Paron Island, it has been completely erased. Their idyllic gap year, a sun-soaked mosaic of beach bonfires and reckless abandon, is shattered in an instant. A "project," as the panicked news reports cryptically call it, has gone horrifically wrong, releasing a pathogen that reanimates the dead with a singular, gruesome purpose: to feed. The sisters' bond, once defined by shared secrets and sibling rivalry, is now their only anchor in a world drowning in blood. Driven by a raw, primal instinct to protect each other, they join forces with a few other fortunate—or unfortunate—souls who survived the initial onslaught. Together, this makeshift family must navigate the ruins of their former paradise, where every shadow hides a potential threat and every human sound could be a lure. Ethel, the more cautious sister, finds a hidden strength in strategy, while Elise's impulsive nature becomes both a weapon and a liability. But their fight against the decaying hordes is only the surface of the terror. Whispers of a coordinated presence, of supplies that go missing too conveniently, and of strangers who seem to know too much, point to a more insidious truth: the island's collapse was not a random tragedy. They are being hunted by something that thinks, that plans, that wears a human face. As their hope for rescue dwindles, Ethel and Elise are forced to confront the ultimate horror—that in the midst of an apocalypse, the most monstrous creatures of all are still human.