Ascendant

A Tale of Stolen Memories, Manufactured Peace, and the Courage to Feel

By: Esther Pia Cordova

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

He promised peace.
She remembers the cost.

After the fall of OmniJoy’s virtual-reality empire, seventeen-year-old Maya Thorne becomes the world’s most wanted terrorist.

The world she tried to free has surrendered to a new creation—The Mesh, a system that links human minds into one collective consciousness, erasing pain and conflict to create perfect, lasting peace.

It promises unity—and it works.
But peace built on forgetting has a price.

When Maya’s capture thrusts her into the heart of the program, she faces a haunting choice: embrace the collective bliss of the Mesh or risk everything to defend the fragile, painful truth of being human.

But as Ethan -the boy who still loves her- fights to bring her back—and destroy the system from outside—Maya must decide how much of humanity she’s willing to sacrifice to save it.

At the center stands Alexander Vance, a visionary who believes he can end all suffering by reshaping what it means to be human. His dream is not tyranny, but transcendence—and that’s what makes it dangerous.

A haunting sequel to Convergence, Ascendant is a YA dystopian thriller for readers who crave the moral tension of The Hunger Games, the intellect of 1984, and the emotional depth of Black Mirror.

Ascendant doesn’t just tell a story—it asks a question:
If pain could be erased forever, would you let it go?