Where It Leads Us

Seventeen-year-old Lauren Sanders in drowning in grief. After losing her parents and sister, Elise, she's left alone with a pain no one understands—and a diagnosis she keeps hidden. To the outside world, she's just a girl struggling with loss, but the voices in her mind and the shadows at the edge of her vision whisper of something far darker.

Then she finds a note—one that suggests Elise's suicide wasn't what it seemed.

Desperate for answers, Lauren follows a chilling trail of cryptic messages, uncovering family secrets buried beneath years of silence. With the help of Aaren, a boy haunted by his own demons and drawn to untold stories, she pieces together fragments of a dark puzzle. But with each revelation, the line between truth and delusion begins to blur.

Some secrets are meant to stay hidden. And as Lauren inches closer to the truth, one question haunts her: Will uncovering it bring her peace, or destroy her entirely?



Joy started writing stories on Wattpad at 13, convinced words were the best kind of therapy. After 13 years in Qatar, she returned to the Philippines, pursued Creative Writing, and pivoted into freelance life—writing copy, web articles, and still squeezing in stories when she can. Now in her early twenties and based in Metro Manila, she writes about mental health, family secrets, and self-discovery with humor and heart. Follow her on Instagram @joy.pepito_