Prologue: The Fog-Dark Torrent
Mira, a silent girl with light green eyes, remembers her mother’s last words all too well. Where once red tulips stood, there’s only the Charred Road. Out past her broken home sprawls the Marrowlands, a shadowed host of shacks and poisoned ponds. Do you ever wonder if she senses things we can’t?
Luka, Mira’s stoic older kin, leads her through byways thick with stray bones. The ground leaks cold fog and mournful lights dance between rotted trees. None in Hel’s quarter leave after dusk—except them. Mira tucks a lock of hair behind her ear, then whispers, “I hear it breathing tonight.” Luka frowns. “Forget it,” he says. “We just survive, alright?” There’s no clear path, only hints of hope in dust-green moonlight.
They reach the scrapyard. Wren, Mira’s reluctant friend, waits amid twisted wheel rims. “Seven more missings this week,” she says. It’s less fact, more plea. Mira’s proud: she hasn’t lost hope like Wren or Luka. They slip under the skin of the world, climbing debris to a lookout where broken power lines sizzle over black water. The moon wanes. Beyond rotten land, a dome-shaped ruin looms and pulses, wrapped in veins of faded gold. Mira points: “That’s where it waits for us.” Are you scared to go nearer?
The Curse Revealed
The cursed world snuffs memory itself. Every year, faces blur. By thirteen, kids start forgetting names, places—sometimes their own. Wren reels, unable to tie her shoes one morning. Luka hangs mirrors in every makeshift corner. Each surface is a struggle. Mira scrapes words into old beams: LUKA. WREN. HOME.
Something dark skims their thoughts just before sleep. Dry wind howls. Mira sits near a puddle, watching purple flickers crawl on its face. “How long till—” she stops. Luka rests a hand on her shoulder. His touch says what words won’t.
Inside the ruined dome, legend says, they might find the source—or reset. It takes, or so people say. Or maybe it just weighs you down until you lose everything you were. But Mira clings to an old drawing: her late mother as a living girl, sun behind, tulip in hand. She dreams if she touches the heart of this land, things might grow again. Isn’t that odd hope? 
Creeping Into the Heartlands
That night bleeding into dawn, the air turns sharp. The trio slips out masked in brown coats stitched tight with buttons and luck. Hedge willow clangs in the bleak wind. Mira and Wren clutch hands. Luka heads first, jaw tight.
Each step snaps twigs, makes heads spin. Relics from others who crossed before—scorched shoes, cracked portraits, a doll pressed flat—line the road. Shadows twitch. Ghost voices fret. Who would you trust here?
Twice Luka stops, waving back. “Wait… Hear that?” It’s like water babbling under stone yet echoing some half-forgotten song. Wren hugs herself, lips blue. Mira quietly chants her name.
The Echoing Throne
In the core, they find the throne: ancient, shot through with fungus and sparkling leaves of glass trapped in roots. Symbols mutter on the seat’s plinth. Mira tries to sound them out: “Eggat ish ti errors,—no, mirrors…” The dome shudders. Green light blooms over the three kids, craving names, wafting soul fragments.
Suddenly, Mira’s voice cracks louder than she knows: “We are more than what’s been taken!” Her body wavers. Are you feeling dread yet? Luka yells, “Don’t let go!” Mira clings to the drawing, presses it to her heart. Then the ground dissolves and each falls, spiraling deeper into the throne’s hollow heart. 
Lost Paths / Splintered Minds
Dark visions grip each. Luka sees himself as a gray old man, alone in the yard. Wren runs in endless fog, hands reaching for faces she can’t recall. Mira stands with her mother knee-deep in red tulips, breeze sweet, but petals dry and crumble—her mother’s eyes melt away, faceless, arms forever out of reach.
The curse gnaws, hunched, clawing to snuff each scrap of memory. Even language begins splintering—the world becomes just cold shadow and sound. Do you believe memory makes us real?
Holding to Names
Mira claws through the blank. Her scraped word—MIRA—burns in the darkness. She remembers the promise, the hope for morning, thin and fragile but alive. Luka finds her; their hands meet just before forgetting pulls him under. “Don’t leave again,” he whispers. Wren coughs from further off, sobbing. Somehow, their linked names kindle warmth where cold ruled. 
The light inside the dome pulses. If names alone can curtail the curse, could they restore the rest of the world or only keep themselves from fading? Mira grabs the old drawing and, above it, their three names burn like lanterns in dark. She screams them, not in despair, but fierce hope: “Mira—Luka—Wren! We are here!”
A wind lifts the kids and their patchwork names blaze. Old marks from others mean nothing—yet, on the dome’s rim, a ripple moves. Maybe they’re not alone after all.
Cliffhanger: Memory for Morning
They wake outside—the sky clear for once, sick moon gone. But the world hasn’t changed, only their nerves feel raw, names shakily steady on their tongues. The gate to home creaks open. Bystanders stare uneasily at the group. Old scars from the trip burn on Mira’s hand: three letters, tight pressed by her own nail.
“Did we make it?” Luka asks. Wren steps ahead, shaky, yet grins. “Looks new. Maybe tomorrow we remember more,” she tries weak hope. Mira stares at the ruined dome—was that a flicker of another face in its depths or just another lost memory playing tricks?
Something breathes through the land’s soft soil, slick and mournful. It feels like promise. Or a warning.
