When a strange object lands on a high school football field, a young journalist investigates and vanishes without a trace, propelling Azalea Bluff into a speculative sci-fi mystery that's as relevant as today's headlines.

Olivia Claven lives in the North Carolina beach community of Azalea Bluff. She's trying to regroup from a flood-tide of setbacks. Michael Starling, the love of her life, died in a mysterious accident. Saddled with debt like many millennials, she moved back to her parents' house after losing multiple media jobs. Now, the local news website she runs could fail at any time. Then she gets a tip that could turn things around.

Authorities have sealed the area around the crash and cut off communications, but she can sneak through murky swampland without being seen. She gasps as she views the odd, bell-shaped object that sits near the 50-yard line. As she moves closer, she vanishes without a trace, triggering a relentless and dangerous search by her father, Jim Claven, to find answers as his daughter fights madness in captivity. He's blocked by the local sheriff, an ambitious politician with his own agenda, and secretive federal agencies as he gets closer to Michael Starling's secrets and mysteries from the closing days of World War II.