Plot Summary
Blood and Beginnings
Nicky's earliest memory of Johnny is tangled in trauma—two children pulled from a blood-soaked crisis and forever changed. Their friendship, built on the shared agony of surviving a hostage incident, shapes both their present and their futures. Nicky, sharp yet ordinary, and Johnny, a genius prodigy haunted by the inexplicable gift of intellect, navigate the world as uneasy equals, anchored together by this formative violence. Their bond deepens amidst the challenges of growing up different—Nicky as a child of immigrants and Johnny as a near-celebrity, both marked by scars invisible to others. Yet beneath their laughter, small competitions, and long-distance phone calls, the old wounds ache and the sense of being chosen—by trauma, by fate—never fully recedes.
Genius Returns, Darkness Stirs
When Johnny returns from triumphs abroad, the world is already tense—recent failed terrorist attacks have intensified divides, and Nicky's everyday life is tinged with suspicion and microaggressions. Johnny, exhausted but effervescent, is still at the center of every room, every conversation, now crowned with new scientific achievements. Yet something has changed: her latest invention, a quantum reactor fit for a shoebox, pulses with potential the world cannot yet imagine—and with it comes a subtle sense of dread. As birthday parties and paper headlines celebrate Johnny's unstoppable progress, Nicky feels his ordinariness deepen, his place at Johnny's side threatened by both her brightness and the growing sense that something else, darker, is paying attention to both of them.
Reactor Unleashed, Unseen Threats
Johnny's shoebox reactor promises limitless energy but leaves Nicky reeling, physically and emotionally. The invention stirs both awe and fear—if Johnny has again re-written the rules of reality, what else might she unleash? As the pair recover from the draining experience of demonstration, strangeness creeps in around the edges. Ominous northern lights appear where they should not, and Nicky is plagued by nightmares. There is joy in small rituals—shared meals, familiar jokes—but something is different in Johnny: a tension between hope for humanity and a private terror she cannot voice. As scientific boundaries erode, so too does the barrier between their mundane world and something vast, ancient, and predatory.
Picnic Shadows, Watchers Awaken
A family picnic intended as reunion and respite turns harrowing when a shadowy, humanoid figure appears across the creek. The presence exerts a paralyzing, voiceless dread—one that Johnny seems to understand immediately and Nicky is forced to accept without question. Johnny's quick-thinking saves the group, but the episode leaves both her and Nicky rattled. Their hasty retreat is haunted by the realization that there are threats beyond reason or explanation, and that Johnny knows more than she dares to say. In the aftermath, trust falters; they move like fugitives in their own town, and Nicky senses that their friendship, like the world, is under siege by forces far larger than themselves.
Fractured Trust and Nightmares
Nicky's nights become haunted by terrifying dreams of stones, watchers, and cosmic wrongness. Johnny admits she has been watched, even chosen, by something inhuman for years. Fallout from these confessions strains their friendship, as Nicky confronts the limits of his trust and Johnny's inability to be fully honest—burdened both by what she knows and what she's been forced to accept. Their roles shift: Nicky, seemingly the follower, realizes he is drawn ever deeper into a conflict he is ill-equipped to survive. Meanwhile, the world outside remains oblivious, and the pair—marked by their shared past and now by approaching doom—must navigate the everyday as if disaster is not already at their heels.
The Unspoken Pact
Revelations emerge: Johnny's brilliance is no mere accident, but the fruit of a supernatural bargain with ancient entities. The terms are razor-edged—years of her life traded for prodigious genius, each minute of brilliance counted down. Beneath layers of friendship, resentment, and debt, Nicky learns that this dark pact is at the heart of Johnny's isolation and capacity. Their friendship, once their refuge, is complicated by the knowledge that Johnny's promise to the powers-that-be may cost them both everything. Trust begins to erode, replaced by an uneasy alliance: two people chosen, or cursed, to witness and resist the rising tide of the incomprehensible and evil.
The First Summons
The lurking watcher, Drozanoth, finally makes its presence known and issues a chilling ultimatum: deliver the reactor, betray Johnny, or risk everything. Drozanoth's threats are both grand and intimate—the world's destruction held in balance besides the fate of Nicky's family. Both Nicky and Johnny face dire tests: Nicky survives a menacing encounter at work, while Johnny watches her beloved, magically-altered octopus—a symbol of safe science—destroyed as a warning by the Ancient Ones. The pair are beset not just by cosmic threats but by the knowledge that they, and their friendship, are pieces in a game bigger, older, and less forgiving than either ever imagined.
Monsters Among Us
The paranormal erupts into Nicky's home as monstrous agents of the Ancient Ones assault his family, forcing them into hiding. Johnny and Nicky become fugitives, hunted by authorities and inhuman agents alike. They are forced to accept the magnitude of what's at stake: not just their own lives, but the safety of everyone they care about and perhaps humanity at large. The violence that began in trauma now expands into a globe-spanning nightmare with real casualties. Each must decide whether to keep running or risk making a stand, even as betrayal and fear threaten to break what little remains of their trust and sense of belonging.
Ancient Warnings, Modern Failings
Desperate for guidance, Johnny and Nicky consult the Ssarati Society, secretive keepers of ancient occult knowledge, only to find their help is limited by self-preservation and ancient schisms. Their warnings echo: humanity's past, marked by the cycles of the Ancient Ones' rise and banishment, may be poised to repeat. The pair's journey transforms from one powered by personal loyalty and affection to one marked by moral ambiguity, as Johnny is forced to confront the unintended consequences of her genius. To close the gates, they must brave not only forbidden knowledge but their own complicity in awakening what should have stayed sleeping.
Fugitive Footsteps
On the run from mortal and immortal pursuers, Johnny and Nicky traverse airports, bus stations, and foreign cities, forced to improvise new identities. Their journey brings them to Morocco, to lost libraries and forgotten places, in hope of finding the arcane knowledge needed to contest the Ancient Ones. Along the way, anxiety, culture shock, and the seemingly endless obstacles of pursuit and betrayal harden their resolve but strain their connection further. Trust in the world, in allies, and even in each other erodes, replaced by fierce necessity and the hollow comfort of survival at all costs.
The Gatekeepers' Answers
Within Fes, Johnny and Nicky are intercepted by the ancient human gatekeepers of forbidden knowledge. They find only skepticism and contingency—the Society's help is guarded, their allegiance uncertain. Their questions provoke more mysteries, and every answer comes with the threat of personal cost. The duo's search for the spell to banish the Ancient Ones drives them deeper into danger and desperation, with Nicky's role as both anchor and possible pawn to dark forces growing more complex. Even when rescued by a member's daughter, the lines between ally and adversary blur, underlining their isolation and the magnitude of what they face.
Across Seas and Sand
Journeying from North Africa to Carthage, Johnny and Nicky cross borders literal and metaphysical—evading authorities, negotiating treachery, nearly dying in a plane crash engineered by inhuman hunters. Their path becomes one of arduous trial: unearthing lost knowledge in cryptic libraries, weathering betrayals, and above all fighting the toll of proximity to both Johnny's power and the Ancient Ones' corrupting influence. As Johnny's health and strength wane, the price of wielding forbidden knowledge becomes brutally clear. Their partnership, battered and brittle, faces not just external threats but the question of what, if anything, will be left of their selves should they survive.
The Library of Dead Cities
In an underground library, Nicky braves an otherworldly landscape to retrieve a crucial grimoire, facing a dead, forgotten god and bargaining with cosmic power without knowing the terms. The encounter leaves him shaken and changed, realizing too late the insidious bargains that ensnare even those with the best intentions. Johnny just manages to decipher the texts needed for the final spell as the world outside shudders from monster incursions and magical storms. Together, battered and haunted, they chart their course for the ancient city of Nineveh, knowing that even with knowledge in hand, hope may be out of reach.
Bargains in the Dark
At Nineveh, Johnny and Nicky unearth the tomb of a legendary sorceress who once banished the Ancient Ones, seeking the spell that could now save—or doom—the world anew. Their descent through cryptic labyrinths is harrowing as creatures—living and spectral—besiege them. Nicky is wounded and both are nearly overwhelmed. The ultimate betrayal comes not only from enemies but from within: the truth emerges that Nicky's unwavering loyalty was engineered by Johnny's original pact, robbing him of true agency. Their confrontation, under cosmic night, sets the stage for the final confrontation—damaged, disillusioned, and potentially forever estranged.
Destiny at Nineveh
With time running out and reality unraveling, Johnny and Nicky—now deeply fractured—are forced into a desperate last stand. As the sky splits and monstrous entities descend, Johnny casts the spell to seal the gate, but finds her power insufficient without a supernatural amplifier. Nicky, despite devastation, chooses to aid her, lending the remainder of his being—life, love, and hope—for a chance to save the world. Their combined sacrifice unleashes enough power to force the Ancient Ones back, but at a terrible price: the irreparable loss of innocence, trust, and the very foundation of their friendship.
Truths Revealed, Bonds Broken
In the aftermath, the old world restored yet irreversibly changed, Johnny and Nicky confront the full cost of what they have become and what they have lost. The revelation that Nicky's devotion was part of Johnny's bargain extinguishes any hope of them rebuilding even the memory of uncomplicated love. Johnny's genius has saved the world once more, but the price is the destruction of the deepest human connection she had left. Nicky returns home with the knowledge of the role he played—crafted, not chosen—and both are left to wonder if anything can still bind them beyond the shared echo of trauma and sacrifice.
Showdown Under Alien Skies
The world reels from the aftermath. Monsters may be gone and the gates sealed, but the memory of what was nearly lost lingers in physical scars and incalculable emotional wounds. Johnny, spent yet compelled by duty and destiny, continues her work, drawing awe and wariness alike from the world she protected. Nicky, changed, understands that freedom—like love and safety—comes at staggeringly high cost. Each steps away from the other, their long companionship sundered by necessity and the cruelty of old bargains. What remains is ambiguous: a world saved, and two souls marked forever.
What's Left After Survival
Life returns, but nothing is quite the same. Nicky goes home, changed irrevocably, trying to rebuild damaged relationships even as the world hails Johnny as its brightest hope. Their bond, frayed but not entirely broken, remains a silent testament to triumphs and devastations both hidden and public. Normalcy resumes, but beneath it all is the knowledge of the bargains struck and debts unpaid. Whether their story is one of love, manipulation, or something in between is unresolved—what endures is the knowledge that survival, when bought at such price, carries its own burdens and questions that may never be answered.
Analysis
"Beneath the Rising" is a significant modern intervention in the tradition of cosmic horror, reimagining the Cthulhu mythos for a diverse, contemporary world marked by trauma, inequity, and scientific hubris. Through its intricately woven plot, Mohamed interrogates the costs of genius and the complexity of devotion: gifts and friendships, the book insists, are never simple, and power (scientific or supernatural) is always purchased at real, sometimes hidden, expense. The novel is also a perceptive examination of privilege—how it is accrued, wielded, and weaponized, and how even the best intentions are dwarfed by the structures and forces (cosmic and social) that shape our lives. The core question—the price of survival, and whose agency matters most—unfolds through both cosmic peril and intimate betrayal. In the end, the author offers no simple catharsis: the world may be saved, but at a cost that cannot be quantified. Friendship, love, and even identity are left ambiguous—reshaped, perhaps diminished, by the bargains made to secure a future that remains, as ever, uncertain. The lesson is deeply contemporary: there is no victory that does not leave scars, and no genius untouched by the powers that made it possible.
Review Summary
Beneath the Rising receives mixed reviews, averaging 3.44/5. Praise centers on the complex friendship between teen genius Johnny and ordinary Nick, with readers appreciating its exploration of race, class, and privilege. The globe-trotting Lovecraftian adventure is lauded for imaginative worldbuilding and literary prose. Critics cite tonal inconsistency, awkward dialogue, rushed plot mechanics, and Johnny's "Mary Sue" qualities as weaknesses. Some found the character dynamic exhausting, while others considered the relationship's nuanced examination the book's greatest strength.
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Characters
Johnny Chambers
Johnny is the luminous center of the story: a scientist-prodigy whose boundless inventions reshape society, yet who is deeply, painfully human. Gifted with impossible intellect through a childhood bargain with the Ancient Ones, Johnny's genius exacts a covert, excruciating price—her brilliance consumes her years, and she must literally buy every minute of her intellect with her own life. This Faustian cost isolates her: admired yet fundamentally alone, even among supposed friends. Her relationship with Nicky is fraught with history, need, and codependence; in him she finds not only an anchor but a bulwark against her own unraveling. Yet her drive to save the world is both selfless and selfish—the result is a person torn between using her gifts for a greater good and the fear that everything she loves is merely a byproduct of her dark pact. She is a force of will, but always shadowed by regret, self-loathing, and the knowledge that even the best intentions can open the doors to hell.
Nicky Prasad
Nicky is the unremarkable half of the duo, the anchoring, sometimes embittered observer caught in Johnny's blinding orbit. Marked by multicultural roots and a history of trauma, his self-worth is shaped by comparison—always second to Johnny, always slightly less. His loyalty is both genuine and, in the story's most shattering revelation, engineered by Johnny's supernatural deal; his friendship, and perhaps his love, are not entirely his own. This knowledge devastates him, retroactively coloring all he thought was choice as predestination. Yet Nicky is also the vessel for the reader's conscience and empathy; he bears witness to events beyond human ken and continues to make hard, sometimes heroic, choices. His struggle is not just against monsters, but for a kind of existential autonomy—a right to be more than a sidekick or tool. In the end, he emerges as both victim and reluctant savior, asked to pay the price for others' bargains.
Drozanoth (The Watcher)
A monstrous, ancient intelligence lurking behind every pivotal event, Drozanoth is simultaneously a harbinger of apocalypse and a puppeteer, capable of immense destruction but preferring manipulation. It offers dark bargains—rewards for betrayal, threats for defiance—but is above all interested in opening the door for its masters. To Johnny it is the voice of old compacts; to Nicky, the whisper in the dark, promising him escape or revenge. It is patient, inexorable, and always tempting its enemies with the illusion of agency. Its presence is felt as a corrupting force—dreams, nightmares, atmospheric disturbances—wherever Johnny and Nicky go.
Rutger
Rutger stands as Johnny's long-term assistant, organizer, and—at times—reluctant surrogate parent. He is competent, deeply reliable, and quietly resentful of any distraction, especially Nicky, whom he sees as an unnecessary risk to Johnny's mission. Rutger's loyalty sometimes places him in roles that betray others for the greater good, which makes him both a sympathetic and ambiguous figure. He illustrates the costs and complications of living in the orbit of greatness—a safe, meticulous life given over to serving another, never quite belonging. He is instrumental in protecting Nicky's family and managing the fallout of Johnny's choices, yet his trust is fragile, and the story exposes how easily that trust can be used or broken.
Nicky's Family (Mom, Carla, Chris, Brent)
Nicky's family is the emotional clarity of the tale: ordinary, harried, occasionally fractious, but deeply loving in their own, survivalist way. They represent the normal life and belonging always at risk of being devoured by Johnny's world—and by the monsters she has attracted. Their vulnerability raises the stakes for Nicky, who must choose between their safety and his loyalty to Johnny. Ultimately, the family's endurance and attempts to heal embody the aftermath of trauma and the yearning for something like home in a changed world.
Helen and Tariq
These human gatekeepers of occult knowledge embody both hope and failure: committed to monitoring potential incursions, yet paralyzed by the weight of history and fear. They serve as cautionary figures—those who survived past visitations by the Ancient Ones only by learning the survival value of neutrality, compromised action, or inaction. Their guidance helps Johnny and Nicky but comes with limits; their strengths are also their greatest weaknesses. They are a mirror to Johnny: keepers of wisdom, but not power.
Sofía
Sofía, daughter of a Ssarati Society leader, embodies the next generation of would-be defenders—eager, brave, prone to mistakes but untainted by the paralyzing caution of her elders. She risks herself to save Johnny and Nicky in Morocco, but is ultimately rebuffed—a sign that, while help is available, it is often unwanted or misunderstood. Sofía's presence underscores both the potential for collective action and the dangers of mistrust.
Namru
Namru is a relic of a time when lesser deities were entangled in the same bargains that now ensnare Johnny and Nicky. Trapped as a guardian of forbidden knowledge, he offers Nicky a moment of almost-redemptive choice: to remain behind as custodian, to accept a devil's bargain, or to claim the book at real risk. Namru is both tragic and ominous—a reminder that alliances with dark powers almost always end in a kind of damnation.
The Ancient Ones (Azag-Thoth, Nyarlathotep, others)
The Ancient Ones are the story's invisible gravity—entities both bigger and more alien than humanity can understand. They act through intermediaries, pulling strings both subtle and devastating. Their hallmark is the horror of scale: they have visited destruction before and will do so again. They are not villains in any human sense, but hungers, antithetical to life as we know it. Compromise with them is never free; interaction with them necessarily pollutes, warps, and leads to ruin.
Nuphel-Don
A legendary sorceress whose story is uncovered at Nineveh, Nuphel-Don once banished the Ancient Ones at great personal cost. Her buried spells and warnings become Johnny's last, desperate hope, representing the faith that even when good cannot triumph, it might at least endure. Her figure illustrates both the futility and necessity of resistance: even victories require fresh sacrifices and are, at best, temporary.
Plot Devices
Dual Protagonist Narrative
The story unfolds primarily through Nicky's grounded, emotional perspective and Johnny's scientific, often emotionally distant point of view. This duality stresses contrasts in class, ability, trauma, and agency—and allows the reader to inhabit both awe of Johnny and sympathy for Nicky. Their divergent viewpoints heighten tension, create ambiguity, and let the narrative question itself from within.
Cosmic Horror and the Everyday
Premee Mohamed's world is one where cosmic horror seeps into grocery stores, family picnics, and living room arguments. Supernatural threats are juxtaposed with microaggressions, sibling squabbles, and school anxieties, dissolving the boundaries between the mundane and the incomprehensible. This blend makes the terror visceral; the horror is not abstract but immediate, ever-present, and fraying the fabric of ordinary life.
The Unbreakable Bargain
At the heart is the ancient device of the diabolical bargain—Johnny's genius is not pure luck but purchased at a steep, irrevocable cost. The use of this trope is given fresh weight as the narrative peels back the psychological effects not just of the genius herself, but on her closest friend—culminating in the reveal that even Nicky's love and loyalty are the result of supernatural manipulation, not free choice.
Knowledge as Weapon and Poison
The narrative subverts the typical "chosen one solves the riddle" trope by making knowledge itself perilous and limiting—arcane spells require blood, years, collaboration, and never guarantee safety. Libraries are both havens and traps, and forgotten gods the keepers of terrible alternatives. Mohamed uses ancient ciphers, occult societies, and the unreliability of translation as concrete obstacles, dramatizing the idea that knowledge can only ever be partial, always shaped by what is left unsaid or unwritten.
Betrayal as Destiny
From the opening, the past haunts the present—early trauma, survival at another's expense, the lingering question of who owes whom, and for what. Foreshadowing is not just literary but metaphysical: ancient powers have already written much of what will occur. The story's reveals, when they do come, are devastating not because they seem unexpected, but because they were inescapable; the path was set from the first drop of blood.
Apocalypse as the Fulcrum of Relationship
Every major plot point is mirrored in Johnny and Nicky's friendship—betrayals, bargains, and self-sacrifice are not just world-saving acts but the foundation, and possibly the end, of their bond. The fate of humanity and the fate of their relationship are inextricable, raising the question of what survival—or victory—ultimately means when all trust is lost.
