Ashes to Ashes: (Black & White) (Dust to Diamonds) by Sheley Rayne

Number one: Monsters are real… And sometimes, the boundaries between good and evil, love and hate, freedom and captivity are blurred. Sometimes scars run deeper than flesh. Sometimes the biggest monsters we face, are the ones in our own thoughts. For Deuce, a self-proclaimed piece of shit and loner, being a recluse in an empty world is not all it’s cracked up to be. Against his own self-loathing, he becomes the reluctant leader of five banished survivors. Like him, they are mentally and physically scarred, and have no idea how to play nicely with others. The World is a lonely place when one is appointed to save the human race. For the Banished it’s rough terrain, become a madman or go insane. Scarred by life, saved by faith… the biggest challenge they face? To conquer the demons within, not the demons that chase. Number two: The Seize has steeped the Earth in ash and imprisoned the souls of all humankind in the Deep, leaving a colorless world behind, where the boundaries between good and evil, love and hate, freedom and captivity are blurred. For Deuce, a self-proclaimed loser and loner, being a recluse in an empty world is not all it’s cracked up to be. Against his own self-loathing, he becomes the reluctant leader of five banished survivors. Like him, they are mentally and physically scarred, and have no idea how to play nicely with others. Plunged into a horrific world, where the best they can do is choose between nightmares, they fall victim to man-eating cornfields and transporters that turn their bodies inside out, flinging them through alternated dimensions. Attacked by Vacants, Trolls, Gargoyles, and Suffering Demons, nothing compares to being pawns in a perpetual war between two Eternals. To save the souls of humankind, the Banished must drop the masks they are hiding behind and decide if there is a difference between being human and being humane. The biggest challenge they face… to conquer the demons within, not the demons that chase.