The Serpent in Concrete

ebook Voice of the City / ...Chronicles of the Conduit

By Maksym Chepurnoi

cover image of The Serpent in Concrete

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The Serpent in Concrete is a mythic urban thriller woven with threads of metaphysics, memory, and myth. Set in a post-Soviet city that feels both ancient and impossibly modern, this story traces the descent of a nameless man into the subconscious of the city itself — a city made of stone, steel, and forgotten names.

He wakes without memory, surrounded by concrete walls and silent buildings that seem to watch him. There are no answers — only fragments: a voice whispering beneath the asphalt, a symbol etched into brick, a dream of a serpent coiled under the city's spine. As he walks deeper into alleys that fold in on themselves and staircases that lead nowhere, he begins to sense a presence — something older than civilization, something sacred and buried.

This is not just a search for identity. It's a confrontation with the very architecture of truth. The deeper he goes, the less the laws of reality apply. Gravity shifts. Time folds. Meaning becomes sound. And the serpent begins to speak — not in words, but in memory, urging him to remember what was lost when the first stone was laid.

The Serpent in Concrete is a psychological labyrinth, a meditation on the unseen logic of cities, and a poetic elegy for things we forget to mourn. For readers who appreciate the dark enchantment of Mark Z. Danielewski, the philosophical resonance of José Saramago, or the atmospheric dread of Jeff VanderMeer, this novel offers a descent worth taking.

The Serpent in Concrete