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What would you do if you found out that God has not been born yet?

For thousands of years a creature has lain gestating among the remains of the dead.

The demons fear it.

The witches hunt it.

The ghosts feed it.

And a teenager has just found the one object that can bring it into the world.

When it is born, the universe will not end. Something far worse will happen. It will be replaced.

Follow the work

The question

For thousands of years, the souls of the dead have been feeding something. No one knows what it is. Not even the demons.

Dark fantasy of metaphysical horror

The Apocalypse is not the end of the world. It is a birth.

The whole saga fits into a single image: humanity staring at something unfathomable and mistaking the shadows it casts for reality itself. The conflict is not good against evil, but understanding against incomprehension. And the feeling it goes after is not fear — it is awe.

For readers of Lovecraft, Clive Barker and Borges. For anyone who finished Berserk and kept thinking about it months later. For anyone who returns to Bloodborne and Elden Ring for the world, not the boss.

The visual novel

The novel is becoming a visual novel: all eighteen chapters, illustrated and voiced, beginning to end.

The reading is kinetic — the book is the book, and it does not branch — except for one single choice, at the very end, that decides how everything closes.

  • 18 chapters

    The whole novel. Nothing cut, nothing summarised.

  • Shared reading

    Two people reading the same book at once, in sync, deciding together.

  • Challenges

    Three difficulties and a pact you sign before you begin.

  • A little ghost

    It comments, it cheers, it interrupts. It never decides for you. And it can be switched off.

  • Four languages

    Spanish, English, Chinese and Brazilian Portuguese.

Its international title will be announced once it is settled. There is no release date, and there will not be one until it is real.

The books

The novel came before the game, and it is still the work.

  • Hecatombe: Posesión

    Spanish · published 2022

    The first book of the saga. ISBN 978-9942-40-174-8, SENADI registration no. 059922. A revised author edition is in preparation: same text, new presentation.

  • DOOM: Possession

    English · Community Edition, in preparation

    It will be released as a community edition at a price you choose: find a mistake, fix it, and your name goes in the credits. The revised version will be free for anyone who bought it earlier.

  • 《劫：附身》 · Português

    Chinese and Brazilian Portuguese · in progress

    The Chinese text is complete and waiting for a native pass. The Portuguese is moving with its community. Neither has a date.

Built with the community

The text is human

The novel was written between 2016 and 2020 and published in 2022, with an ISBN and a copyright registration, before the age of generative AI existed. Not even the art of that edition was generated: it was freely licensed stock and a few hours of Photoshop. All of that can be checked, which is why it is said out loud.

The AI art is scaffolding, and it is declared

Four thousand six hundred images, two thousand six hundred voice lines and a hundred and sixty-seven music tracks: that is what it costs to illustrate and voice an entire book. One author alone cannot pay for it. AI has been the only way I had to let the work be seen and heard — and this campaign exists precisely to retire it and replace it with paid human work.

About the AI, in detail and without decoration: the entire art side — sprites, backgrounds, interface, illustrations and voices — is generated with AI under my own art direction, with one approved master image per character. The original version with that art is called the Kitten Edition, and it will never be deleted: when the funded human art arrives, both will stay there, selectable, so that anyone can compare them and have an opinion.

The original Spanish text is human from beginning to end. The English, Chinese and Portuguese translations were produced with AI directed by me — frozen glossary, automated judges and chapter-by-chapter arbitration — and they are under community review. While they are, they are described exactly that way: AI-assisted translation, under review. Presenting them as revised native prose would be a lie, and it shows.

And yes: the voice acting is kittens too. Go easy on them, they are learning.

Ten per cent belongs to the kittens

Ten per cent of the net income of everything this project sells — game and books — goes to helping abandoned kittens, and there will be a separate donation channel where every cent received is theirs. With photographs, video and published accounts. A charitable promise nobody can verify is worth nothing.

How to help right now

By reading, and by saying what is wrong. Every correction that arrives is logged, traced back to the exact line of text, and credited by name in the book and in the game, if whoever sent it wants to be named.

The author

Xavier Mariño Yanouch

Clinical psychologist. Researcher in training. Author of the Hecatombe saga.

I write horror about what I watch at close range: guilt, trauma, identity and madness. The saga has several more books ahead of it; the second one, Sombras Eternas, is written and unfinished.

Write to me

There is no newsletter yet and I would rather not pretend there is. If you want to hear about the revised edition, the English Community Edition, or when the game opens up, write and I will let you know. If you have found a mistake in any of the translations, write as well: that is exactly what I am looking for.

Send an email

Or join the Discord: everything is announced there first, and it is where readers talk about the book.

Join the Discord