X: Thresholds
Chapter Guide
A Psychological Horror Serial
Chapters:
Chapter 1: Am I Losing My Mind?
Chapter 2: What My Friends Didn’t Tell Me
Chapter 3: The Astronaut and the Mummified Hand
Chapter 6: Save me / The Dog Man
Story in progress.
What’s X: Thresholds About?
Enzo Milstein, a hearing-impaired man, agrees to house-sit his friend’s place on an island in the Tigre Delta. What seemed like a refuge to overcome the loss of his ex-girlfriend, Sook-jae, transforms into a labyrinth of disturbing surprises.
His only companion is Psy-7, his phone’s AI developed by Riviera Corporation, to whom he recounts each day’s surreal experiences.
The island hides secrets. When a teenager claiming to be dead knocks on his door one night, Enzo’s reality begins to crack. Relying only on Psy-7, he must uncover the truth about the cult his friend founded and the enigmatic figures prowling the property.
Is he delusional, or is the horror real? X: Thresholds is psychological horror with elements of folk horror and tech horror.
Case No. 2284
The following texts were recovered from Enzo Milstein’s mobile device. They correspond to responses generated by an artificial intelligence assistant (Model: Psy-7) during his stay on an island in the Tigre Delta.
The user’s inputs were not stored in the system.
The responses are published as part of the Case No. 2284 investigation.
Author’s Note
X: Thresholds is a psychological horror novel told through an unconventional device: we only read the AI’s responses. The protagonist’s part—his questions to the AI, which serve as a diary—must be imagined by the reader. It’s like a “reverse diary.”
This story stems from my personal experience. I live with a hearing disability (clinically diagnosed as bilateral sensorineural hearing loss). Without hearing aids, I hear little and poorly. It’s like being trapped inside a refrigerator while others are talking. Tinnitus (ringing in the ears) is a daily challenge.
I was diagnosed late, at 32, and I thought I had come to terms with my condition. But during a recent period of sadness, I found myself revisiting my past, trying to understand how growing up without a diagnosis or hearing aids affected me.
I began asking various AIs for studies on the psychological impact of late-diagnosed hearing loss. That’s when the narrative device for X: Thresholds came to me. What if we only read the AI’s responses? What effect would that have on the story?
Every word is written by me.
Psy-7, like the android in Diary of a Broken Android, is a creation of Riviera, a tech company that frequently appears in my novels and short stories.
The chapters are presented as a recovered file from Case No. 2284.
– Adrian Fares