The following manuscript is a piece of supernatural fiction set in the suburbs of New Jersey, with the exception of industrial areas, in the late 2010's. Deified is a character study of a first-person narrator with a retrospective view and nostalgic, curious voice. The narrator, named Forrest, is a Puerto Rican, teenage middle-schooler who analyzes the meaning behind the human voice and its potential, whether said potential is dormant due to familial strain or released with the discovery of self-confidence. The theme of finding one's voice is formed with mystic beliefs, which help the story advance with inspired, out-of-the ordinary occurances caused by a voice that, against the laws of known nature, can create physical changes in Forrest's world and be passed down his family tree as an inherited gift. Forrest's discovery of his voice is remarkable, but it also brings him closer to death the more he uses it willingly or not, and he must learn whether or not unlocking his power will be good for him, after all.

Deified began as a fourteen-page story written in Professor [Alena B.] Graedon's Seminar in Fiction course in the fall semester of 1919, my first full graduate semester in Monmouth University's Five-Year-Program for English Majors with a concentration in Creative Writing. Deified is my third attempt at starting a manuscript, and it has since been drafted numerous times outside of the typical workshop environment. My goal is to extend this novel past the one-hundred-page mark over two more semesters in Monmouth University's recently created M.F.A. program.