The Fifth Pandemic

<p><strong>Sleep is the new enemy. The nightmare is the cure.</strong></p><p>It begins with a dream-a vivid nightmare of a long elegant suspension bridge crumbling into an abyss of black pulsing water. Across the globe people are waking up in a cold sweat their hearts hammering with a terror they can't explain. But the terror is just beginning. To dream it once is to be infected. To dream it twice is a death sentence.</p><p>As cities descend into the chaos of forced insomnia and the world's governments begin to crumble Dr. Lena Varga a brilliant but disgraced WHO epidemiologist watches her direst warnings come true. The phenomenon she tried to expose is not a biological virus but something far more terrifying: a pathogenic idea. A dream that spreads through whispers social media and bedtime stories.</p><p>When her own niece becomes infected Lena's mission becomes a desperate personal race against time. Thrown into a world tearing itself apart she discovers that the official story is a lie and that the dream's origin is a conspiracy more horrifying than any disease. Her quest for a cure will take her from the sterile bunkers of a new global military command to the silent monasteries of Japan and the lost tribes of the Atacama Desert where ancient disciplines may hold the only key to survival.</p><p>But the dream is learning. It is evolving. Two new post-human species are rising from the ashes of the old world: one a soulless logical machine the other an ecstatic all-consuming hive mind. Caught between them Lena realizes she is no longer fighting a pandemic. She is fighting a war for the very definition of consciousness itself.</p><p>Perfect for fans of <em>Contagion</em> <em>Inception</em> and <em>Project Hail Mary</em> <em>The Fifth Pandemic</em> is a relentless high-concept thriller that explores the terrifying fragility of the human mind and asks a chilling question: In a war against a sentient idea what does it mean to be human?</p>