WHO SAID DEATH IS EASIER THAN LIFE?
Sebastian Jane Thomas is dead.
And yet, somehow, his story is far from over.
In the afterlife, Sebastian drifts through a half-lit world filled with old lovers who won't let go, shadow men who never explain themselves, and the unsettling comfort of talking cats that seem to know far too much. Memories bleed into the present. Progressive rock hums in the background like a half-forgotten heartbeat. It's strange. It's intimate. And it feels dangerously familiar.
Death was supposed to be quiet. Instead, it's noisy with regrets.
As Sebastian is pulled deeper into this twilight existence, the life he thought he had left behind presses in from every side. Mistakes resurface. Fears sharpen. Love—in all its complicated, unresolved forms—refuses to stay buried. The boundary between reflection and reckoning begins to blur, and the question of who Sebastian was becomes inseparable from who he still might be.
Penumbra: A Posthumous Autobiography is a darkly intimate, quietly philosophical novella exploring identity, guilt, longing, and the fragile line between holding on and moving on. Wry, reflective, and emotionally candid, it is a meditation on what lingers after death—and whether release requires courage even when life is already over.
Approximate length: 18,000 words (novella)