Welcome back to Authors & Allies, where we explore the intersection of storytelling, strategy, and art. Today, we are stepping into the chilling, genre-bending reality of the Dark Index Universe with author and filmmaker Billy Caldwell.
Billy is the creative mastermind behind the cosmic horror and speculative fiction novel, PERSISTENT: An Origin Story of the HUM. Seamlessly blending government conspiracy, simulation theory, and existential dread, Billy’s work traces the arrival of an ancient, fear-feeding entity called Sog Ruth’. But Billy doesn’t just write these nightmares—he films them. His connected short film HUM was nominated for Best Sci-Fi Short at the LA Fantasy Film Festival, and his other visually striking projects have racked up awards and nominations across the indie film circuit.
Grab a strong cup of coffee—or maybe something a bit stronger to steady your nerves—and let’s plunge into the perceptual overlay!
Interview with Billy Caldwell
Designing the Perceptual Overlay
Willy: Let’s dive right into the good stuff. PERSISTENT: An Origin Story of the HUM acts as the origin document for your Dark Index Universe. You trace the arrival of an ancient entity called Sog Ruth’ and the construction of a perceptual overlay over human reality. Where did this terrifying concept of a “perceptual overlay” come from, and how did it evolve into a full-fledged cosmic horror novel?
Billy: It started as an evolved concept from my first short film, HUM. That one followed a comedian who accidentally intercepts intel on a hum sound that’s been heard for decades, connected to people with heightened perception, all of them tied back to the government’s G.A.T.E. program. When I made that short I didn’t really have an answer for where the hum came from, I just dropped the audience into the middle of it.
I sat on that question for a while. Around that time I joined the H.P. Lovecraft 72-hour film challenge and made Dead Exposure, which ended up being the first piece of HUM‘s origin story, even though I didn’t fully know that yet when I was making it. It’s about a fringe photographer who lures aspiring models to his house for photoshoots, then feeds them to a cosmic monster living in his shed. That’s where Sog Ruth’ came from, an entity that arrived on a meteor and needs to feed. What it actually feeds on is the question I couldn’t stop circling.
That’s what pushed me into writing PERSISTENT, the book that puts the bigger story in context: where the creature and the overlay actually came from, and how the government found out about it and has been trying to control it ever since.
Grounding Cosmic Dread in Found Footage
Willy: You’ve compared your work to House of Leaves and the SCP Foundation archives, and you tackle themes like the “architecture of fear.” How do you balance the vast, existential dread of simulation theory with the grounded, gritty paranoia of government secrecy without losing the reader in the void?
Billy Caldwell: That was the real challenge, how do you keep something this cosmic grounded. It’s why I went with found footage.
The question was how a cosmic entity legitimately enters the story world of PERSISTENT. What I landed on: Sog Ruth’ stumbled onto this planet while traveling inside a meteor that acted almost like a protective egg. It crashed into the world, maybe eons ago, and Sog Ruth’ realized how easy it was to manipulate the population by building an overlay, almost a simulation, but closer to a lucid dream. It fed off people’s fear and built a loop to feed on forever.
Mol Dyer/Sable Nox enters the story from there. A witch from the Salem witch trials, heightened perception of reality, maybe not truly magic, definitely neurodivergent. She finds the entity at a rock that turns out to be a piece of the meteor. When she runs her rituals, Sog Ruth’ presents itself and makes her its first disciple, someone who can move in and out of the overlay and help run the populace from the inside.
Dead Exposure is where the government gets pulled in. An investigation into missing girls leads back to a meteor story on a property from years before, except it’s a different entity, one that can alter the overlay Sog Ruth’ already built. The government turns it into a black ops operation to figure out how to control that. That’s where Director Vance comes in, and he eventually goes into the simulation himself. We showed that in The 3:33, where the overlay runs a train that recycles souls back into the loop.
None of that works as a straight narrative. Found footage let me ground it: you’re going through internal government documents, the redacted kind, piecing together what they were actually doing. The weirder the mythology gets, the more it needs something that concrete underneath it.
From Screen to Page: Visualizing the Dark Index
Willy: A lot of our readers are multi-passionate creators. Your connected short film, HUM, was nominated for Best Sci-Fi Short at the LA Fantasy Film Festival. How did your experience in filmmaking and visual storytelling influence the way you wrote the novel? Does seeing your universe on screen change how you build it on the page?
Billy Caldwell: Honestly, without making the films first, I don’t think I would have finished this book. I think visually, so having the shorts already made gave me a way to see the bigger picture, where things needed to go next. Watching Dead Exposure on screen, I started seeing how the pieces fit together, and I knew I had to keep building it out.
It makes a huge difference having the end goal be more than just a published book, something people can actually watch and get pulled into. Dead Exposure won Best Trailer at the Calgary Film Festival, and both Dead Exposure and Howling Fields, both part of the Dark Index series that started with HUM, were finalists for Best Horror at this year’s LA Fantasy Fest. People are starting to catch on to the story, and I’m hoping that keeps growing.
That’s really where PERSISTENT came from. I wanted a bible for the Dark Index Universe I was building, something that ties it all together, HUM first, then the PERSISTENT origin story, Dead Exposure, Howling Fields, and The 3:33. We’re developing a full-length PERSISTENT feature now too, that will revisit the first stories and lead up to the next book and film release.
If you’re ready to be seen, heard, and celebrated—this is your moment for an author spotlight.
Navigating the Indie Horror Landscape
Willy: You are already making massive waves—on top of the film festival nomination, the book snagged a rare 10/10 review from Anthony Avina back in April 2026. What has it been like seeing this incredible response to the Dark Index Universe from the speculative fiction community, and what is your marketing strategy for launching such an unconventional, genre-bending book?
Billy: I wouldn’t call it massive waves, but it’s incredibly satisfying, and I’m genuinely grateful people are giving it a chance at all. It means a lot when someone takes the time to acknowledge anyone’s work, a book, a painting, a film, whatever it is. So first, thank you to anyone who’s paid attention.
It’s a strange time for art in general, honestly. My approach has mostly been using the films I’ve already made to push the book, and letting the book push the films back. Since it’s such an unconventional story, my audience is probably smaller than a traditional drama or comedy crowd, or even traditional horror, since what I’m doing leans psychological rather than the gore-heavy end of things.
Marketing through social media is its own dicey project. You’re opening yourself up to direct criticism from people who might not connect with the genre at all, and there’s always the risk the story’s just too far out there for people to meet you halfway. I’m still building. Hoping more people find their way into it, so that if we get to make the PERSISTENT feature, there’s already an audience there waiting for it.
What’s Next: MKUltra and the GATE Program
Willy: Our readers love to know what’s next. As the “origin document” of the Dark Index Universe, where do we go from here? Are we going to see more of those humans who “refused to reset cleanly”?
Billy Caldwell: There will always be humans who refuse to reset cleanly. That’s kind of the whole point of the story, that there’s always a divergent, no matter how planned or constructed the reality is.
The story wraps up with a PERSISTENT film that closes out this beginning chapter of the Dark Index Universe. The film and book I’m developing now cover how the government first found agents to work with this new entity to take down Sog Ruth’.
The new film will center on the GATE program (Gifted and Talented) from the late seventies to mid-eighties, tied directly to the MKUltra projects.
They were looking for kids, possibly neurodivergent, ADHD or autism, who could communicate and enter the experiments with Sog Ruth’ and the new entity. Younger minds handled the stress better than adults, mostly because their brains were still malleable enough to assimilate what the experiments put on them, entering the simulation from a different angle entirely.
It focuses on Director Vance’s early years running one of these GATE programs, how he finds and recruits future candidates, and how the government moves in the shadows around fringe subjects like this. That’s hopefully the next continuation, and I’m aiming to have it done by next year.
I’m also working on a second book, a different conspiracy angle, called Worlds Fare (spelled W-O-R-L-D-S F-A-R-E, a play on the actual World’s Fair, meaning what was the price paid for what happened). It follows our protagonist, Edmund Ashworth, and his elite family, one of the families who controlled the founding of these great cities and hid it behind the illusion of a World’s Fair, when really it was the start of control points, elite families working themselves into every part of human society.
Willy: Billy Caldwell, thank you so much for bringing the brilliant, terrifying lore of the Dark Index Universe to the blog! Readers, be sure to check out PERSISTENT: An Origin Story of the HUM and keep an eye out for his award-winning films. See you next time on Authors & Allies, where the ideas keep sparking!
About Billy Caldwell
Billy Caldwell is a multi-talented author and filmmaker who masterfully blends cosmic horror, speculative fiction, and gritty government conspiracy. He is the creative mind behind the Dark Index Universe, a sprawling multimedia narrative that began with his short film HUM, which earned a Best Sci-Fi Short nomination at the LA Fantasy Film Festival.
Billy recently expanded this universe with his highly-reviewed novel, PERSISTENT: An Origin Story of the HUM. The genre-bending book utilizes a “found footage” style of redacted government documents to ground vast existential dread, exploring simulation theory, MKUltra-tied government programs, and an ancient, fear-feeding entity known as Sog Ruth’. His other connected indie film projects include the short Howling Fields and Dead Exposure, which won Best Trailer at the Calgary Film Festival. Looking ahead, Billy is currently developing a full-length feature film for PERSISTENT alongside a new conspiracy-driven novel titled Worlds.
– instagram.com/bucketlistcuts (Dark Index Universe)
– instagram.com/morbsmedia (Production Studio)
– youtube.com/@morbsmedia (Production Studio)
– facebook.com/morbsmedia (Production Studio)
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GQ78WL88
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