Ground Zero by Crystal Avilla — Signed Paperback

$20.00

The living may not stay human for long.

Five men wake up in a strange basement laboratory. Naked. Scarred. Their memories erased. They don’t know who they are or how they got there. All they know is they’re in danger.

The surviving members of Hogan’s Zeroes, an elite military unit, barely escape the clutches of an armed security force and find themselves hunted in an unfamiliar city. With no supplies, no answers, and no one to trust, they realize their only hope lies inside Lazarus Corporation itself—the secretive biotechnology firm famous for resurrecting the dead.

But their search for the truth leads to darker secrets.

When new employee Brynn Garland is tasked with salvaging the company’s tarnished reputation, she discovers evidence of grotesque experiments using the controversial Serum Vitae to manipulate life itself. Lazarus isn’t just raising the dead—they’re experimenting on the living with catastrophic consequences.

Forced into an uneasy alliance, Brynn and the Zeroes fight to expose the corporation’s twisted plans and uncover a government conspiracy. But the serum is mutating, and none of them are prepared for the disturbing truth: the dead at Lazarus don’t stay dead . . . and the living may not stay human for long.

Lazarus Corporation

Give Your Loved Ones

a Peaceful Forever

Our student author retains all rights and royalties to her novel. Ten percent of her book sales is donated to Project: SAFE, a victim advocacy nonprofit in Oklahoma.

BONUS: Each book order comes with a Crime & Compassion silicone bracelet that says “SHOW COMPASSION. CHANGE LIVES.” and two stickers.

The living may not stay human for long.

Five men wake up in a strange basement laboratory. Naked. Scarred. Their memories erased. They don’t know who they are or how they got there. All they know is they’re in danger.

But their search for the truth leads to darker secrets.

Lazarus Corporation

Give Your Loved Ones

a Peaceful Forever

Our student author retains all rights and royalties to her novel. Ten percent of her book sales is donated to Project: SAFE, a victim advocacy nonprofit in Oklahoma.

BONUS: Each book order comes with a Crime & Compassion silicone bracelet that says “SHOW COMPASSION. CHANGE LIVES.” and two stickers.

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Project: SAFE and Ground Zero

Giving Forward: A Promise of Healing
When you hold this book in your hands, you are not simply holding a story. You are witnessing a bridge built on transformation, compassion, and solidarity. Our courageous student author—writing from within the walls of confinement yet reaching beyond them—chose to give back. A portion of every copy sold will support Project: SAFE, the Oklahoma-based nonprofit that provides advocacy for safety, empowerment, healing, and freedom from abuse.

About Project: SAFE
For more than forty years, Project: SAFE has upheld the vision to advocate for victims of abuse, to raise awareness of violence, empower survivors, and create a community that stands against domestic violence, sexual assault, stalking, and dating violence.

In 2024 alone, Project: SAFE reached over 1,700 clients. They guide survivors through chaos: crisis hotlines answered, protective orders filed, safety plans devised, community training delivered. Their work plants seeds of resilience.

Why the Contribution Matters
This partnership signals more than generosity—it signals justice. With each copy you purchase, you become part of a larger movement: the movement toward freedom, restoration, survival, and dignity. The funds you contribute help keep shelters open, advocates trained, safety plans activated, and healing real.

When You Read These Pages
Remember: you are holding more than words. You are holding a promise. A promise from a woman who transformed her story and invited you to transform with her. And a promise from Project: SAFE, to the thousands who find themselves unseen, unheard, and desperate. Through you, through our author, through Project: SAFE . . . hope is delivered.

Thank you for believing. Thank you for turning the page. Thank you for standing with survivors.

Learn more at projectsafeok.com.

Crystal Avilla is the author of many poems, short stories, and journalistic works that have appeared in a variety of publications. She has spent the last twenty-six years in Mabel Bassett Correctional Center in McLoud, Oklahoma, writing and honing her craft. Her second novel, Ground Zero, is currently available on Amazon, and she is hard at work on the next.

Crystal is a founding editor for the national award-winning Mabel Bassett Balance, the facility’s first-ever newspaper, as well as a proud co-facilitator for Writers Guild Advanced & Beginners, where she helps aspiring novelists. She is also the 2025 winner of the Axley Creative Writing Award from Rose State College—her white whale—where she kept taking classes long after graduation just so she qualified for the honor.

Her short story, “A Home for the Nooni,” is featured in Unbound Ink: Of Mercy and Madness, Volume I.