Things go into the East Hook fog and come out transformed.

Ellis, an art student inspired by his eerie hometown, finds things have changed for the worst when he returns for what should be a quick weekend before his final project is due.

But the tide pulls him further away from the life he was told he should want, past former friends, local criminals and towards monsters waiting in the deep.

Like his father used to tell him, before surrendering to the deep itself: don’t go in the water, you don’t know what’s down there.

They were the closest friend group in college, and remain the entirety of each others social lives into their thirties, until Chester, the most successful one (but who’s counting?) falls off the roof of his townhouse when they are all together.

Or was he pushed?

Hale, the least successful of the group, decides to investigate, he tells himself as research for an upcoming audition for a detective role in third rate streaming series. Lacking the knowledge, attention to detail, and grit of a real detective, the only thing he uncovers is how unsuccessful & unhappy each of his friends actually are.

But is one of them so far gone they’re capable of murder?

Humanity is a problem for the Empire.

In the fifty years since joining as a probationary member, the race has used its most unique attribute, brutality, to try to bend the sovereign citizens and their planets to their will. Whether to give humans more of the rights they are demanding will be the most important decision the winner of the upcoming Ascension Contest, how the Empire chooses it’s leader.

The Young Assistant Contest Master seems to be the only one who understands the stakes as the Contest preparation speeds to completion.

A down-and-out cockroach detective takes a case above his expertise.

A human mercenary and his young daughter try to fight their way out of the middle of it all.

It’s the only thing they know how to do.