The Calling
A Visionary Story of One Woman's Impossible Gift

What if your exhaustion was evidence of invisible work? For three years, Alice has been waking up in strangers' bodies. Not in dreams. Actually inhabiting someone else—feeling what they feel, seeing through their eyes, living their crisis. Sometimes while they sleep. Often while they're wide awake, going about their day, with no idea she's there.She drives to a 24-hour gym parking lot at 3 AM, locks her car doors, and falls asleep because she can't make it home. She's lost friends, relationships, and any semblance of a normal life. She thought she was losing her mind.Until she receives a text from an unknown number:You're not going crazy. You're a Mapper.\Alice discovers a hidden community who share her ability—people who slip into others' consciousness to help them through their darkest moments. They're drawn to people in crisis. They save lives by inhabiting someone else's body, sometimes for minutes, sometimes for days, always unseen.She isn't cursed. She's called.But when Alice and the entire group feel an unprecedented pull toward the same person—a grieving high school principal planning mass violence—Alice must do the impossible: Inhabit his consciousness for forty-three minutes while he's awake and aware. Experience his grief, understand his rage, and find a way to stop him before dozens of lives are lost.Or lose herself forever trying.A grounded story about:Finding purpose in what feels like a curseDiscovering you're not alone in the impossibleThe exhausting, beautiful work of helping othersWhat happens when consciousness isn't as fixed as we think