david l. markham

The world is on the brink of disaster-and Emily has always felt like she was wired to do something about it.

She feels powerless to make even a small change. She feels everything too much-the grief in the news, the tension in a room, the way the world is quietly driving off a cliff. When other people shrug and scroll, Emily takes the impact like shrapnel. Therapists call it anxiety. Her parents call it drama. Emily calls it proof she’s defective-because if she were normal, it wouldn’t hurt this much.

Then the impossible tears through her life.

The sky turns wrong. Something that isn’t human starts paying attention to her in ways that are terrifyingly specific. And the girl everyone agreed was ＂too sensitive＂ turns out to be the only one tuned to a signal no one else can hear.

Maybe she isn’t broken.

Maybe she’s been marked for a reason.

Suddenly, the universe is on the table: alien intelligences, buried histories, and a force whispered about in rune cards-Ser’ethra, a kind of love that can burn worlds...or save them. For the first time, Emily feels it: that bone-deep certainty she was born to matter. To change something. Maybe not the whole collapsing human race... but someone.

There’s just one problem.

Amanda-her ordinary, infuriatingly human best friend-is unraveling beside her. While doors crack open to let Emily step out of the wreckage and into something vast, terrifying, and meaningful, Amanda is still on the floor with blood on her hands and no way out.

If Emily goes, she might finally escape the helplessness that’s been eating her alive.

If she stays, she might drown in a world determined to destroy itself...and take them both with it.

ALIEN I AM is a gut-punching, emotional sci-fi thriller about loyalty, survival, and the cost of becoming what the universe needs.

Perfect for readers who love:

• YA alien abduction with heart

• character-driven science fiction

• near-future climate collapse tension

• fierce best-friend bonds, found family, and bittersweet hope

For fans of introspective teen sci-fi where the scariest thing isn’t the spaceship-it’s what you’re willing to risk for the person you love.