Author:
Corey McCullough is an independent copy editor, proofreader, ghostwriter, and author. He lives in western Pennsylvania with his amazing wife Vanessa and their two beautiful daughters. His favorite pastimes are reading, writing, playing video games, spending time with his best friend (Vanessa), and, most of all, being a dad.

A teenager’s wish to escape his stressful life just came true — with otherworldly consequences.

Nothing is going right for Justin Holmes. Like many seventeen-year-olds, he sometimes wishes he could just run away and leave everything behind. But he gets more than he bargained for when he storms out of the house after an argument with his father and accidentally steps into a parallel universe of swords, shields, magic, and monsters.

Suddenly, Justin is desperate to find a way back to his ordinary life in small-town America. His search for answers takes an unexpected turn when a strange old man and a powerful mercenary recruit him to rescue a kidnapped princess. But their rescue mission quickly takes a disastrous turn and becomes a life-or-death flight deep into the unknown wilds. Justin and his unlikely allies are on the run from dark forces wielding deadly, arcane power — demonic beings that seem to have suddenly arrived from somewhere beyond this world . . . just like Justin.

Justin may not be a fighter, but he is intelligent and strong-willed. He soon realizes that nothing in this world is what it seems. Even his allies’ mission may have all been a ruse . . . to get to him.

Ancient secrets are revealed that could shake the foundations of this alternate world . . . and might unlock Justin’s portal home.

The Fallen Odyssey is a contemporary portal fantasy novel for college and “new adult” audiences. It is the first of a trilogy but can be enjoyed as a stand-alone novel. If you like epic, serious fantasy about dangerous quests in magical worlds, check out The Fallen Odyssey.

The Fallen Odyssey

Ducked low in the underbrush alongside the creek that flowed into the Esthean crater, Justin watched as half a dozen cythraul raised their hands, summoned blacked spheres of daemyn energy, and launched them down into the crater. The demons were not invading Esthean. They were bombing it.


Coblyns at the cythraul's feet jumped up and down, giggling with delight. To Justin's regret, he realized that there were some humans standing alongside the coblyns, too. Some fired arrows into the crater. Others threw rocks. To think that men and women were actually fighting for these creatures, killing their fellow human beings, made him sick.


Every so often, a blast of aurym power-flame, lightning, or other varieties-came up out of the crater directed at the demons, sometimes hitting a few coblyns. The Ru'Onorath were fighting back. But it wouldn't be enough.


"That hidden ladder is behind the waterfall ahead, right?" asked Justin.


Chapter 159: Cythraul