Dead - Wayne R Bodie

A man survives the fire. That was the first lie.

Cade Mercer built his life on control. As a firefighter, he knows how to read heat, smoke, collapse, and chaos. He knows how to walk into danger and come back out. But when a reckless decision on the water shatters everything, Cade wakes to a world that feels almost real, and almost is not enough.

His wife is gone. The story keeps changing. Records don't match memory. Strangers accept contradictions no sane person should accept. Rooms shift. Voices repeat. The truth comes in fragments, each one more damning than the last.

As reality begins to split around him, Cade is forced to confront more than death. He must face the life he lived before the wreck, the warnings he ignored, the pride he called strength, and the guilt that followed him long before the fire.

Dead is a dark, atmospheric psychological thriller about memory, judgment, grief, and the terrifying moment a man realizes the world around him may not be broken at all, only truthful.

For readers who love haunting suspense, emotional intensity, and reality-bending fiction with a literary edge, Dead delivers a gripping descent into fire, conscience, and the cost of refusing the truth.