Holden Bairifay, a published author, denied the world he created ever really existed. His book is simply a work of fiction, except for one small thing, it's not. It's a world he had visited as a young boy, a world opened to him through the pages of a magical book. Holden clings to the idea that it was merely a haunting dream, one that ended in pulling his own lifeless body from a pond-admitting otherwise would mean he is losing his mind. Who would blame him? He was never the same after his mother's sudden death when he was a child. Still, he felt the need to keep a white-knuckled grasp to reality, or at least what he believed reality should be. That is, until he finds himself back in that world, met with a murder and a stranger who wasn't a part of his original storyline.