I WILL DIE IN THIRTY DAYS
I WILL DIE IN THIRTY DAYS
An original psychological mystery thriller from Madness Originals.
I WILL DIE IN THIRTY DAYS is an original psychological mystery thriller developed by Madness Originals and published as a web novel on Royal Road.
The story follows Simon Keller, a homicide investigator trapped in a thirty-day time loop.
Every cycle begins again.
Every cycle gives him thirty days.
And every cycle ends with his death.
To survive, Simon must investigate a murder that hasn't happened yet.
His own.
Thirty Days to Solve Your Own Murder
What would you do if you knew exactly when you were going to die?
For Simon Keller, that question isn't hypothetical.
His life has become a repeating thirty-day countdown. Each time he dies, he wakes up at the beginning again, carrying the memories of everything that happened before.
The people around him don't remember.
The city doesn't remember.
Simon does.
But the loop isn't simply giving him another chance to survive. Something is happening beneath the surface of Norhaven, and every new cycle reveals another piece of a much larger mystery.
People who shouldn't be connected begin to intersect.
Impossible events follow rules Simon doesn't yet understand.
And somewhere inside those thirty days lies the answer to the question that matters most:
Who kills Simon Keller?
A Mystery Built Around a Time Loop
Time loops are often about repetition.
I WILL DIE IN THIRTY DAYS is about investigation.
Simon doesn't become invincible because time resets. Knowledge becomes his greatest advantage, but every answer creates new questions.
A conversation can be approached differently.
A crime scene can reveal something that was missed before.
A person who seemed irrelevant in one cycle can become essential in the next.
Death itself becomes information.
The thirty-day structure turns the story into an evolving investigation where each cycle allows Simon—and the reader—to understand a little more about what is really happening.
But information comes with a cost.
Because some things begin to notice that Simon remembers.
Welcome to Norhaven
The story takes place in Norhaven, a city where homicide investigations, unexplained deaths and seemingly impossible events slowly begin to overlap.
At first, the world appears familiar.
Detectives investigate crimes. Witnesses lie. Evidence contradicts testimony. People disappear for reasons that seem entirely human.
Then the rules begin to break.
At the center of those events are anomalies: phenomena governed by principles, actions and anchors that can alter what should be possible.
They aren't superpowers.
They aren't magic without consequences.
In the world of I WILL DIE IN THIRTY DAYS, every anomaly follows a fundamental idea:
An anomaly is not a power. It is a debt.
And eventually, every debt must be paid.
Simon Keller
Simon isn't trying to save the world.
At least, not at first.
He is trying to stay alive.
As a homicide investigator, his instinct is to treat the impossible like any other case: observe, question, reconstruct and find the connection everyone else missed.
The problem is that Simon isn't standing outside the investigation.
He is the victim.
The deeper he goes, the more his own death becomes connected to other people, other crimes and forces operating far beyond what a homicide detective should ever have to understand.
And through every cycle, one certainty remains.
The clock is running.
From Creative Production to Original Worlds
Madness has spent years creating visual stories, commercials, characters and fictional worlds for brands.
Madness Originals was created to take that experience in the opposite direction: instead of building worlds around a brief, we could start with the world itself.
I WILL DIE IN THIRTY DAYS is part of that exploration.
The project combines original IP development, long-form storytelling, worldbuilding, character development and visual development within a story designed to grow beyond a single format.
The web novel is the beginning.
The larger goal is to build original intellectual property capable of evolving across publishing, illustration, animation, film and other forms of entertainment.
Technology and AI-assisted creative workflows can accelerate parts of that process, but the foundation remains the same as it has always been:
a story worth telling.
An Original Web Novel on Royal Road
I WILL DIE IN THIRTY DAYS is being released in English on Royal Road, the online fiction platform known for serialized fantasy, science fiction, progression fiction and speculative storytelling.
Publishing the story serially allows the world of Norhaven to grow chapter by chapter while readers experience Simon's investigation as it unfolds.
New clues.
New deaths.
New anomalies.
New pieces of a mystery that becomes larger with every cycle.
And always the same countdown.
Thirty days.
HE HAS 30 DAYS TO SOLVE HIS OWN MURDER.
Read I WILL DIE IN THIRTY DAYS on Royal Road.