Intrigue

William Fawl, a downtrodden high school teenager with a troubled past, is sucked into a world of fear when a mysterious horrific creature begins to follow him after a near brush with death. William's world becomes a macabre spiral of murder and self-mutilation as he digs further into his mind to find the truth behind the creature and his own waking nightmares.

William Fawl is an only child with an overbearingly strict recovering-alcoholic father whose mother was killed in a car accident by his drunk father when he was very young, and he carries that pain with him still. William's girlfriend Janice and best friend Gator both come from troubled and abusive households as well, forming a sort of black sheep club of misfits. Janice, who is a year behind William in school, clings to William as her sole source of love in an otherwise loveless life. She acts as a measure of warmth in his life, but ultimately is still another anchor that keeps him weighed down in the small town he desperately wants to escape. Gator embraces the darker aspects of what he considers a Nihilistic world, and often tries to coach William to follow his deadly train of thought. Not one who is afraid to speak his opinion or stand up for his friends, Gator frequently smuggles pain killers from his home to provide solace for William when his migraines (a side effect of his childhood car accident) resurface. Due to Gator's protective nature, he finds himself standing between William and the school bullies, but between mental attacks at home and physical attacks at school, Gator's already dangerous mental state becomes increasingly more violent. The unraveling of William's small-town world begins first when his nightmares begin to plague his waking consciousness, and a voice that's not his own leads him off the edge of a local hangout bridge. When he awakens, his nightmares have merged with his reality, and a horrible creature begins to follow William. This new Doppelganger haunts William's perception, teasing a coming conflict in which William will find himself at a crossroads, where he must choose between a tortured existence to watch as his friends and family begin to spiral down a path of murder, decay, and self-mutilation, or let the town he wishes to escape so badly take his soul forever.