by K.M. Gruchelska
Science Fiction
Date Published: 02-08-2025
Publisher: Magnetic Lion Productions
Everything is connected. Each event happens for a reason.
If you could remote view worlds beyond your own, where would you go?
How far could you reach?
And what would a nefarious organisation do with your abilities?
Tahra Mamoun has always known she was different. When she discovers powerful remote viewing abilities, the enigmatic businessman, Max Richardson, rescues her from a miserable existence to work at The Institute.
She discovers her ikigai in the form of brilliant physics professor, Dr Paul Eldridge, seizing a unique opportunity to play a major role in a mind-bending project.
Tahra must navigate worlds beyond as a chosen one, pitting her wits against aliens with agendas in a series of quests that challenge her faith and her deepest fears.
Written in the style of a TV series, Seven Point Eight has a twist of sci-fi intrigue which combines love, betrayal and ambition with psychic powers, stunning alien worlds, ancient secrets and quantum physics in a soap opera for the soul.
Excerpt
Prelude
Room 104
If there was ever a sense of being stalked, then Ava had that now. A presence lurked, giving her a feeling of being watched. Whoever that was, they were ambiguous, often fading into the shadows. The London Underground and its heady concoction of commuters, tourists and Londoners offered a safe haven though, one of sanity and normality.
Ambling through the connecting tunnels, she passed a number of people absorbed in the music that played on their Sony Walkmans. There were even a few buskers, one of which performed a superb rendition of George Michael’s ‘Faith.’ When passing the latter, she rummaged in her purse and dropped a few coins into the upturned hat on the floor.
She caught a train on the Victoria Line, finding the carriage busy. The smell of sweat and perfume accompanied the passengers, and their ignorance allowed her to feel anonymous. She hid among them, focusing her eyes ahead. While the train accelerated and decelerated, Ava tried to distract her worried mind by glancing at people’s reading material.
Just the daily news.
Just a romance.
Just a true story in a magazine.
If only life didn’t feel like a movie.
The carriage rocked and screeched in the dark tunnels, and she reached her destination after several stops. Pushing through the crowds, she slid her ticket through the slot at the barriers and exited, wondering if her stalker was still watching.
The Tube station opened onto a main road. Ava crossed a street full of terraces and traced her usual route. A woman with long dark hair was watering hanging baskets at the front of her house, and she was a familiar face on this frequent journey. She smiled, which was reassuring even though they were strangers. Once or twice, there’d been children at the door too: a few in their teens and a younger boy, who’d hidden behind his mother, cautious but curious. Ava gave her a sideways glance while she passed, returning the smile. However, due to being distracted, she bumped into a man walking in the opposite direction. Her bag fell on the floor and the contents spilled onto the pavement. Flustered, Ava bent down to pick up her belongings. The younger boy emerged, and helped her with the contents of her bag.
“Thanks,” Ava mumbled.
He giggled and ran back to his mother, while Ava zipped up her bag and continued on her way.
She walked through the local park, spotting an Afro-Caribbean man playing football with his two teenage sons. He was a regular and acknowledged her, missing a pass in the process. An elderly gentleman walked a multitude of dogs and tipped his hat, as usual. The most intriguing character was a man in his forties, and he always sat on the same bench, watching, contemplating whether or not to approach. He often hid behind a book, or sipped tea from a polystyrene cup. There was something familiar about him, but she couldn’t recollect where or when she’d encountered him. For a moment, they locked eyes and she noted the hint of affection.
It was both comforting and downright spooky that she encountered the same people each time she made this journey. She didn’t know if these people recognised her, or it was simply her imagination. After all, she was just a student majoring in science.
Ava arrived at an austere building, an architectural vampire that sucked any ounce of happiness she could muster on her journey. It amplified her sense of being watched. Every fissure, every crack in its stone structure harboured a presence or aftershock. Light possessed a life of its own, dancing a cosmic waltz with the dark shadows. She wondered if the people here, or the place itself was disturbed, whether this insane place was enough to drive sane people crazy.
She reached the reception.
“Hi, I’m Ava Kavanagh, and I’ve come to see Maria Martinez.”
She signed into the visitors’ book, and a matron with a bouffant perm escorted her to the low security wing. It sat at the end of a long corridor, illuminated by garish fluorescent lighting. Ava focused ahead, ignoring the strange activity in her peripheral vision.
The route to Maria’s room passed some unusual residents. In Room 94, a man with dark floppy hair sat on his bed, surrounded by reams of paper. Despite months of noticing his behaviour, Ava finally enquired.
“Is he a writer or something?”
Her escort gave a curt reply, which Ava didn’t expect.
“We call him The Scribbler. He writes constant gibberish, rows and rows of symbols. We have to keep a good supply of pens and paper, otherwise…well…”
She wondered if he was aware of the symbols’ meaning, or experienced eternal frustration because no one could understand them.
They passed another character, a blonde woman with an intense stare. This time, she wasn’t restrained and she crouched on the bed, teeth bared like a rabid dog. When she saw Ava, she snarled.
“What’s wrong with her, if you don’t mind me asking?”
Her escort acquiesced to her questions again.
“Schizophrenia…she hears voices, which instruct her to do evil. Because she enjoys inflicting pain on others, we have to isolate her most of the time.”
Ava rested her fingertips on the window.
“Like Maria’s original diagnosis?”
Her escort tried to smile in sympathy, although she said nothing. The intense character behind the door glared at Ava, those fierce eyes like daggers.
“She reminds me of the girl from The Exorcist,” Ava said, averting her eyes.
They turned the corridor, passing Room 101. An Afro-Caribbean couple lived there, and usually talked to an invisible crowd of people. Sometimes Ava caught them in the act of giving a speech, or trying to tend to non-existent children.
“Lost in their own little world, aren’t they?” she said.
“We call them The Time Travellers because they insist they’ve visited the past and future.”
Further down the corridor, where a broken fluorescent light flickered, Ava looked through the next window. A man with fair hair stood in front of a wall. Without warning, he extended his fist and punched it, although he didn’t react to the pain. He remained oblivious to their presence and Ava’s gaze.
“What’s he doing?”
“He believes he can walk through walls, although sadly, the bones in his hand have disagreed with that belief many times. I don’t know what’s worse: his wall or book obsession.”
All these residents had a back story: why they became mentally ill, why they were doomed to spend the rest of their lives scribbling, snarling, punching walls, or acting out another reality.
She followed her escort through double doors to enter the next corridor. They soon found Room 104, and Ava paused outside.
“Why did you tell me about those patients? Isn’t that confidential?”
The matron patted her arm and answered, “Don’t you worry about that.”
Looking through the door’s small window, she asked, “Has there been any change in Maria’s condition since I last visited?”
Her escort turned a key in the lock.
“She’s still in a persistent vegetative state, exactly the same as the day she arrived.”
Ava gazed at the solemn figure in Room 104.
“She’s the only living relative I have. I hope one day I’ll discover where we came from, who our parents are, and if our father is still alive. Did you recover the file from her previous institution?”
“I’m sorry, it’s still missing.”
“Does anybody else visit her? They may be able to offer some clues to her history…why she ended up in this institution, when and why she cut her wrists…”
“We don’t have that information, I’m afraid.”
The matron opened the door and Ava entered, determined to present a face of hope to Maria, her sister.
787878
It was a relief to turn the key in the front door of her flat and collapse on the sofa. Ava closed her eyes, trying to dissolve the day’s frustration, but she didn’t succeed. The institution always tainted her with a feeling of hopelessness. There were too many questions and no answers.
She decided to grab a takeaway, but when she opened her handbag, Ava noticed something strange. It hadn’t been in her bag before she left the flat. She pulled out a red silk scarf. It looked vintage, like it had lived and been loved by some unknown woman. Ava recalled dropping her bag earlier, but that still made no sense. Someone would steal something from her bag rather than put a scarf in it. With the fabric wrapped around her fingers, she wandered over to the bay window and gazed at the twilight sky.
“What’s happening to me?”
10 Things You Didn’t Know About K.M. Gruchelska
- The name ‘Gruchelska’ is Polish and it’s the nationality of my husband. I actually double-barrelled my family name, although I only use my full name in my professional life.
- I met my husband on a train to Warsaw. I was travelling to St Petersburg, but the first stage of the journey was the Polish leg of the trip. I had a ridiculous amount of luggage and he helped me load it onto the train. It turned out we had reserved seats at the same table, and the rest is history!
- I’ve visited 24 countries so far and favourites include Turkey and Jordan. Egypt had its quirks and difficulties, while Saudi Arabia also had its challenges for living and working.
- I’m currently based in Uzbekistan, which is in Central Asia. It’s not the third world country people imagine. I live in the capital, Tashkent, with my husband. It’s actually a modern and highly liveable city with friendly people.
- I work as an academic coordinator and teacher in a university. My students are very polite, and most are hard-working and ambitious.
- When living in Saudi Arabia, my husband and I rescued a street cat and brought him to Uzbekistan. My husband was sceptical at first, but now he loves our fluffer.
- I have two adult children. The oldest is my daughter who’s a personal trainer and digital nomad, while the younger is my son and he’s a data scientist based in London.
- As a child, my special interest was space and I was also obsessed with Star Wars (the original trilogy).
- I also write children’s books under a different pen name, Kitty May Gruchelska.
- I’d love to buy a forever home in Italy or a similar place, where we can have many cats, I can write books and even teach English.
About the Author
K.M. Gruchelska is a speculative fiction writer who travels extensively, having lived in Europe, the Middle East and Central Asia. Her career has been varied and exciting, from a stint as a fitness instructor, to working abroad teaching English as a Foreign Language in schools and universities.
She is currently based in Uzbekistan, where she coordinates a centre for academic writing.
She is a child of the world, full of conjecture and imagination, and she regards herself as a global citizen. Her characters and situations reflect the diversity and wonder that she experiences during her travels, combined with a philosophical flavour and human drama.
In everyday terms, she enjoys different cuisines and making bougie tea, and has a cat that she adopted from Saudi Arabia. She considers the cat to be her soul animal because she hates water but loves tuna. Her secret dream is to own a pancake bar and an English school.
Contact Links
Purchase Link
Note: Some posts may contain affiliate links. Should you choose to purchase a product, we will receive a small commission for the sale at no additional cost to you. Chapter Break is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.
