What if every breath you took came with a price?

Ark Debt is a YA dystopian thriller set in a frozen near-future where climate collapse and AI control force humanity into a single underground Ark. Inside this fortress of steel and ice, survival is not a right but a calculation. Every calorie, every drop of water, and every breath of air is measured and taxed under an unforgiving EcoDebt system. Those who cannot pay are forced into brutal labor or cast out into the wasteland above.

Blending the intensity of The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, the suspense of Silo by Hugh Howey, and the realism of Dry and Scythe by Neal Shusterman, as well as Legend by Marie Lu, Ark Debt explores themes of AI control, environmental collapse, generational debt, and resilience against oppression. It is both a chillingly plausible thriller and a deeply emotional coming-of-age story about daring to believe in hope when everything is built to crush it.