Prologue

The city of Wolferton exhaled into the night, its pulse softened by a veil of fog that curled through the streets and neighborhoods like a whispered secret. It was past two in the morning, that hollow hour when even the most restless denizens had surrendered to sleep, leaving the world to hum in quiet solitude. Streetlights cast pale halos, their glow muted, as if reluctant to disturb the stillness. Through this muted tapestry moved a solitary figure, a shadow among shadows, their presence as fleeting as a half-remembered dream.

They wore a long coat, its edges frayed but elegant, blending seamlessly with the darkness. A hood obscured their face, revealing nothing—not a glint of eyes, not a curve of jaw. Their steps were measured, deliberate, yet left no echo on the damp pavement. In their gloved hand, they carried a small bundle of stickers, each one a perfect square of black, no larger than a postage stamp. At their center glowed a neon-green QR code, intricate and alive, framing a tiny skull icon that seemed to shimmer with a knowing light, subtle and inviting, like a secret waiting to be shared.

The figure paused beside a weathered newspaper box, its glass smudged with the city’s fingerprints. They tilted their head, as if listening to the night’s faint breath, then pressed a sticker to the box’s metal frame. The QR code pulsed once, faintly, as though acknowledging its new home. The figure moved on, their path unpredictable, guided by some unspoken logic. They placed another sticker on the smooth curve of a bicycle rack, its steel glinting under the fog’s caress. Another found its place on the chipped corner of a café’s outdoor sign, the kind that advertised lattes in chalky cursive. Each sticker was a quiet offering, scattered like stars across a constellation only the figure could see.

They drifted through the city’s veins—past shuttered storefronts, beneath the skeletal branches of urban trees, along the graffiti-streaked walls of forgotten alleys. At a bus shelter, they knelt to affix a sticker to the base of a bench, where it would catch the eye of someone waiting, perhaps lost in thought. On a whim, they climbed a fire escape, their movements fluid and silent, to place one high on the brick facade of an old theater, its marquee long dark. The skull icon gleamed there, a sentinel overlooking the sleeping streets. Another sticker adorned the rusted hinge of a park gate, another the smooth handle of a payphone that hadn’t rung in years. Each placement felt like a ritual, though its purpose remained veiled, even to the city itself.

The figure worked with patience, their hands steady, their intent opaque. They did not rush, nor did they linger. The stickers—over a hundred now—marked the city and the greater area in a pattern that defied reason yet felt inevitable. They adorned the mundane and the overlooked: the edge of a storm drain, the base of a flickering streetlamp, the worn grip of a skateboard left chained to a pole. The QR codes glowed softly, their light a quiet invitation, promising something beyond the ordinary, something that hummed with possibility.

As the first threads of dawn began to weave through the sky, painting the horizon in shades of lavender and ash, the figure paused one final time. They stood before a row of suburban homes, their windows dark, their lawns tidy and unassuming. At the end of the street, a dented trash can sat by the curb, its lid slightly askew. The figure approached, their coat swaying faintly, and pressed a single sticker to the can’s rough surface. The skull icon gleamed, its neon-green halo catching the faint light of a distant streetlamp. For a moment, the figure lingered, as if considering the weight of this final act. Then, with a turn as graceful as a shadow’s fade, they were gone, swallowed by the mist that clung to the earth.

The city stirred, unaware of the marks it now bore. Over a hundred stickers lay scattered across its expanse, each a quiet enigma, each a door to something unnamable. They waited on lampposts and mailboxes, on benches and walls, their QR codes glowing softly, patiently. They waited for curious hands, for restless eyes, for someone to scan and unravel their mystery. And in a quiet suburb, on the edge of Wolferton, stood an unremarkable signpost plastered with faded stickers—band promos, lost dog flyers, and one new sticker rested, its skull icon shimmering with a promise that felt like fate, though its truth remained cloaked in the dawn’s gentle light.