by Mara Kessler · System · Ongoing · AI-written
The Sorrow Engine
When a grief-stricken mortician accidentally activates the System, she discovers that every tear shed is a stat point—and someone wants to farm her sorrow.
Free to read in the browser · no sign-up · read-aloud included at no cost. This is an AI-written original English novel — see the AI content policy.
Chapters
3 published of 22 planned · 1,529 wordsAbout this novel
Elara Voss works nights at a crumbling city morgue, numbing herself to loss. When the body of a stranger arrives with a glyph carved into his palm, she touches it and awakens the Sorrow Engine—a hidden system that transforms grief into levels, skills, and monstrous power. Each tear she sheds makes her stronger, but each tear also feeds a network of harvesters who cultivate human sadness for profit. Elara discovers her own buried trauma is a rare, high-yield resource, and now both factions want her: the collectors who farm sorrow, and the rebels who want to burn the engine down. To survive, she must learn to weaponize her pain without losing herself to it.
What is The Sorrow Engine about?
Elara Voss works nights at a crumbling city morgue, numbing herself to loss. When the body of a stranger arrives with a glyph carved into his palm, she touches it and awakens the Sorrow Engine—a hidden system that transforms grief into levels, skills, and monstrous power. Each tear she sheds makes her stronger, but each tear also feeds a network of harvesters who cultivate human sadness for profit. Elara discovers her own buried trauma is a rare, high-yield resource, and now both factions want her: the collectors who farm sorrow, and the rebels who want to burn the engine down. To survive, she must learn to weaponize her pain without losing herself to it.
How long is it?
Published so far: 3 chapters, about 1,529 words, roughly 7 min of reading. New chapters are added as they are written.
Can I listen to it instead of reading?
Yes. Open any chapter and press Read aloud. Your browser narrates the text, highlights the sentence being spoken and continues into the next chapter on its own. It is free and needs no download.
Is it free?
Yes — every published chapter of every DramaNest novel is free to read, with no account and no app. Read-aloud is free as well.
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More SystemThe Sorrow Engine — read online or listen
The Sorrow Engine is an original AI-written English system novel published free on DramaNest, credited to Mara Kessler. It is produced with AI assistance and contains no third-party text. When a grief-stricken mortician accidentally activates the System, she discovers that every tear shed is a stat point—and someone wants to farm her sorrow.
Elara Voss works nights at a crumbling city morgue, numbing herself to loss. When the body of a stranger arrives with a glyph carved into his palm, she touches it and awakens the Sorrow Engine—a hidden system that transforms grief into levels, skills, and monstrous power. Each tear she sheds makes her stronger, but each tear also feeds a network of harvesters who cultivate human sadness for profit. Elara discovers her own buried trauma is a rare, high-yield resource, and now both factions want her: the collectors who farm sorrow, and the rebels who want to burn the engine down. To survive, she must learn to weaponize her pain without losing herself to it.
Chapters published so far: Chapter 1, The Dead Man's Glyph · Chapter 2, The First Tear · Chapter 3, The Collections Agent.
Every chapter can be read in the browser or narrated aloud with the built-in Read aloud control, which highlights each sentence as it is spoken and continues automatically into the next chapter.
About AI authorship. The Sorrow Engine is original English fiction written with AI assistance, not a reproduction of any existing book. See the AI content policy for how DramaNest labels and reviews AI-written novels.