"Black Hollow is a Town with a Dark Secret."
The Chaos Cycle is a horror Urban Fantasy duology by A.J. Vrana.
The town of Black Hollow has a dark, mysterious legend of an entity known as the Dreamwalker, which lures away unsuspecting young women from the town where it possesses them. The legend may have more truth to it than initially suspected, as young women consistently go missing in Black Hollow only to return and end up killed, often by their own loved ones.
A werewolf named Kai finds himself being haunted by a mysterious, malevolent spirit/demon called Abaddon, which may be behind these disappearances. His path crosses with that of a young university student who's suffering from mysterious dreams that could put her on the path of becoming the Dreamwalker's next victim. Meanwhile, a young oncologist named Mason arrives in Black Hollow and begins investigating the town's history.
The three will end up having to unite their talents as they attempt to unravel the mysteries of Black Hollow and put a stop to their cause before it claims new victims.
The duology consists of the following:
- The Hollow Gods (2020)
- The Echoed Realm (2021)
The Chaos Cycle provides examples of:
- Agent Mulder: Miya is very accepting of the supernatural that is in her town, and even accepts immediately that she helped save someone from the entity known as The Dreamwalker and is proud of it.
- Agent Scully: Mason acts as a "realist" due to his job as a doctor, and tries to find rational and sane reasons for the supernatural events going on in town. To his credit he does accept at the end that these events are real.
- Ancient Evil: The main villain Velizar/Abaddon has existed since prehistoric times. He linked his essence with the prehistoric community of Hollow (later called Black Hollow) and used it to manipulate the townsfolk into murdering young girls by preying on their fear of the Dreamwalker.
- Animal Motifs: The supernatural entity known as The Dreamwalker is associated with ravens, with a raven even following and helping the heroes under its sway.
- Arch-Enemy: Velizar is the archfoe of the Dreamwalker. Since prehistoric times the two have reincarnated to feud with each other, with the Dreamwalker's present incarnation Miya being his latest target.
- Big Bad: The main villain of both books is the demon Abaddon who has been manipulating people into killing young girls as part of a twisted eons old revenge.
- Brooding Boy, Gentle Girl: Kai is an angsty loner and werewolf who falls in love with, and starts a romance with friendly Nice Girl Miyu.
- Cain and Abel: Velizar the God of Creation and Sendoa the God of Destruction are brothers and mortal foes. In a twist from the norm, it's Velizar the God of Creation who's the wicked sociopath who plans to dominate his brother into his patsy and tried to kill him when he went against Velizar's evil orders, while Sendoa the God of Destruction is the more moral of the two.
- Control Freak: Velizar cannot stand the idea that people will go against his twisted ideas of forcing people under control. When even the idea his brother could be meeting a friend who would take him away was apparent, Velizar decided to kill his brother.
- The Corrupter: Demons prey on the emotions of humans in order to get them to kill others. The demons use their prey's insecurities or feelings and then amplify them with manipulation to get the prey to cause death and destruction.
- Dark and Troubled Past: Kai the werewolf has a terrible past, as he reveals. Due to his mother's Tartar heritage, he and his family emigrated from Russia to Canada due to fears of prejudice. His parents eventually died and he ended up with a guardian who passed away later as well, leaving him alone and with a very antisocial personality.
- Evil Is Petty: Velizar's plan to murder his brother came from the fact that his brother Sendoa had possibly found a friend after meeting a girl once. After Sendoa kills Velizar as a result, Velizar's undying hatred and sense of self importance means he corrupts his own reincarnations to constantly mess with his brother Sendoa's reincarnations. So deep is that hatred of his brother that eventually the combined malice of countless reincarnations who he corrupted allows Velizar to become the demon Abaddon.
- Demonic Possession: The malevolent spirit Abaddon has the ability to take over a human host and force them to do what he wants.
- Forced Euthanasia: The family members of the women that go missing in the woods of Black Hollow are often the ones who kill these women. They believe that they've become possessed by the entity known as The Dreamwalker, and that they are performing an act of mercy by killing them while they're possessed. This turns out to be a delusion that they've concocted to make themselves feel better, as the women are harmless.
- Genki Girl: Miyu is a very excited and cheerful university student who is ecstatic about helping save someone's life at the beginning of the book.
- Good All Along: The Dreamwalker, the seemingly malevolent being who is luring young women away and then "possessing them", causing the their family members to seemingly "Mercy Kill" them, turns out to be the leftover spirit of the previous reincarnation of the women it talks to and which is trying to get them to reconnect with the new incarnation of their reincarnated lover.
- Hate Plague: Abaddon is a malovolent spirit with the ability to bring out the worst in people and is seemingly behind the fact that the townsfolk for centuries have been killing any young women that go into the woods. However, it's revealed that while Abbadon does occasionally influence people to be the worst, he's not actually controlling them, but instead their murders are often not even his fault and just due to their pent up paranoia about the unknown coming out.
- Indirect Serial Killer:
- Abaddon is a twisted demon who can influence people's insecurities and paranoia and uses it to manipulate them into killing their loved ones.
- Rusulka is a demon who targets men in happy relationships with women. She possesses the women and helps to manipulate the men into snapping and killing the women by preying on their minds.
- Journey to the Center of the Mind: The characters all combine their will so they can help Miyu journey into the mind of the evil spirit Abaddon, and find out his Unfinished Business so it can resolved, he can rest and the curse the town is under can be broken.
- Kill the Ones You Love: The demon Rusulka manipulates men into killing their beloved significant others by preying on their feelings. This is because as a human Rusulka had the same happen to her and as a result became a demon and cannot move on till her killer is brought to justice.
- Mind Hive: Abaddon, the evil spirit and antagonist of the first book The Hollow Gods, is actually a collection of minds in one form. Since ancient times, Abaddon has constantly made the same evil mistakes over and over again so many times through all of his reincarnations that he's become a combined entity of sorts with the mind of each of his past lives exerting some control but led by his original incarnation, known as "The First".
- More than Mind Control: The reveal of the first book is that Abaddon, the evil spirit who is apparently influencing people to turn on the women who go into the woods and murder them, isn't the one responsible for them going crazy like that. He can exert some influence to increase peoples' negative emotions, but ultimately the reason the townsfolk become hysterical and murder these women is due to their own fear and insecurities causing them to lash out.
- My Greatest Failure: Mason is an oncologist racked with guilt over the loss of a patient. She was terminally ill with leukemia and his superior told him to let her down easy and tell her to live the last six months of her life to the fullest. But he ended up feeling guilty, so he convinced her to try an experimental treatment which didn't work, but instead left her in intense pain till she passed. He's now blaming himself for it and is in Black Hollow to get away from the guilt and take his mind off it.
- Nightmare Weaver: The Dreamwalker starts to appear in Miyu's dreams and causes nightmares for her. Ultimately this ends up subverted as The Dreamwalker turns out to be Miyu, or at least the shadow of her past life memories trying to help her break the curse her reincarnations have been experiencing.
- Our Demons Are Different: Demons are twisted spirits whose Unfinished Business has kept them trapped in the material realm. They can influence humans into killing others by preying on their emotions to make them take violent actions. They can also only be destroyed for good in the spiritual plane.
- Our Ghosts Are Different: Abaddon is a ghost whose Unfinished Business has trapped him on the mortal plane. He's actually a collection of minds of an individual who has reincarnated over and over again but always ends up making the same mistakes over and over again, leading to his demise. This has resulted in Abaddon being stuck in the mortal realm where he functions as a collection of minds of all the people he's reincarnated as with the single focus of hurting his enemies who also reincarnate.
- Our Gods Are Different: Gods in the series aren't omnipotent beings but instead spirits with magical abilities that can take human bodies as their forms.
- Our Werewolves Are Different: Werewolves here are called Wolves and can shift from Human to wolf at will. They posses greater strength and longevity than humans and can heal from even devastating injuries. Their blood, when analysed, is also revealed to be pure wolf blood rather than human.
- Reincarnation Romance: Miyu and Kai have repeatedly reincarnated as each of their past lives always ends in tragedy whenever they attempt to get together.
- Town with a Dark Secret: Black Holllow is a quiet rural Canadian town which holds a long history of women seemingly being taken away by a mysterious being known as The Dreamwalker and ending up murdered by their family members as a result. The secrets mean the townsfolk don't wish to reveal what's happening to the outside world beyond it being a legend.
- Witch Hunt: The town of Black Hollow has a nasty tendency to kill girls who venture out into the woods due to the town superstitiously viewing them as "possessed" or "unholy". They have also held actual Kangaroo Court trials where innocent women are put to death for being believed to be witches.
