Jayson Crothers

Alarum (2025) drops you right into a world that’s just a hair off from our own—close enough to feel familiar, but man, something’s not quite right. Jayson Crothers steers this one, and you can tell he’s got a thing for atmosphere. Think dark corners, rain-soaked city streets, and a low hum of paranoia that sort of vibrates underneath everything. The story centers on Mara, who wakes up one morning with a weird, gut-churning sense that something’s off. Not aliens-in-the-sky off—more like the kind of off where you start noticing tiny details out of place. A missing photo. A neighbor who acts like they’ve never seen you before. That kind of creepy. As Mara pokes around, trying to piece together what the hell’s really going on, reality keeps slipping through her fingers. She’s got flashes of memories that don’t add up, and people she trusts turn cold or just vanish altogether. Paranoia starts to spread, and you’re left wondering if she’s cracking up or if something much bigger is happening underneath the surface. There’s this running theme of memory and identity—can you trust what you remember, or is your mind playing tricks? Crothers pulls a few bold moves with the timeline, so you find yourself as lost as Mara, and honestly, it works. Twists hit hard, and the ending leaves you chewing on what’s real and what’s not. Not exactly comfort food, but for anyone who gets a kick out of unraveling psychological puzzles, Alarum delivers.