Start with the First Chapter or pick up where you left off using the Index.
Sincoke is the definition of a flyover city. Economically and culturally stagnant and geographically isolated by an endless prairie, its crushing averageness is its only distinguishing feature. Even the air is oppressive–dry and still. Its citizens are poor and listless, rife for exploitation by all manner of villains: megachurch doomsday preppers, white supremacist militias, crooked tech entrepreneurs, fracking barons, and police gangs.
The Avia Investigative Detective Services (AIDS) is an organization of grizzled detectives who take on missing person cases pro bono. They’re lead by Dallas Avia, a former gang leader. He’s out to redeem himself–sometimes by helping others, mostly by torturing himself.
The Unfuckers are a rag-tag group of spirited young people who want to ‘unfuck’ their fucked up city. They’re lead by Ellis Avia, a young man who grew up under extreme instability and neglect. His passion for helping people is infectious–but his righteousness frequently leads to danger.
Suave professionals and meddling kids conduct parallel investigations into horrific crimes, unbeknownst to one another. Their methods differ but their goals are the same: to pick up the slack where Sincoke has failed and serve people who fall through the cracks. Meanwhile those cracks deepen. Sincoke’s failures–economic, political, cultural, and structural–grow worse by the day. Something is coming to Sincoke. There have been more windy nights, creating a susurrus in the eerily quietly prairie.
CW: Mass Hysteria grapples with mature subject matter. There is violence, depictions of mental illness, and human trafficking. .
If you’re put off by this warning, I still encourage you to give Mass Hysteria a try. I intend to treat these topics with the weight and gravitas they deserve, always with respect to suffering. I believe art can help us grapple with real world horrors, and exposure to triggers through media can be cathartic and healing.
Mass Hysteria is a work of fiction. All resemblance to real world people or events are purely coincidental. 😉 😉 😉