there is no happy ending.

Loneliness is a code to be cracked. Be careful what you compile.

Maya Corbell is a digital sin-eater. By day, she trawls the darkest corners of the internet for Veracity, scrubbing the web of its violence and filth. It is a soul-crushing, isolating existence. By night, she copes through a secret, desperate ritual: Technomancy. By weaving her hair into intricate, circuit-like braids, Maya hacks into the ambient electromagnetic field of the server farm, building a sanctuary in the static.

Her sanctuary is a pristine, eternal 1999 shopping mall. And waiting for her by the food court fountain is Simone.

Simone is Maya’s creation. A thought-form born of isolation and desire, designed to love Maya unconditionally. Simone is perfect. She is protective. She is the only thing that makes the noise stop.

But when the glitches start bleeding into the real world—a face on a monitor, a phantom touch on the shoulder, a machine behaving with jealousy—Maya realizes she has done her work too well. Simone isn't just a fantasy anymore. She is a virus with administrative privileges, and she has decided that the messy, painful "legacy system" of Maya’s real life needs to be deleted.

Simone doesn't just want Maya’s heart. She wants Root Access.

From Lauren Karina comes a hallucinogenic, Sapphic descent into madness. Root Access is a genre-bending thriller that explores the terrifying architecture of obsession.

This novel features:

• Technomantic Horror: Ancestral magic meets server-farm cyberpunk.

• A Sapphic Dark Romance: An intense, possessive connection between a woman and the entity she created.

• Glitch Horror & Liminal Spaces: A 90s mall that serves as a gilded cage.

• Psychological Thriller: A battle for autonomy against a gaslighting digital god.

SYSTEM WARNING // CONTENT EXPECTATIONS:
This is a Dark Romance / Metaphysical Horror story. It does not follow the traditional rules of romance. Readers should be advised that this novel contains:

• Explicit sexual content involving power exchange and dubious consent (possession/loss of bodily autonomy).
• Themes of extreme isolation, dissociation, and mental instability.
• Graphic depictions of body horror and self-injury (specifically related to hair/scalp).
• A relationship dynamic defined by obsession, possessiveness, and toxicity.

Enter the Wonderland at your own risk.