Chapter 1: The Gate and the Gaze

Avery stumbled through the tangled edge of the forest, his camera slung across his chest like a talisman, its lens twitching with hunger. The land smelled of myrrh and salt, dense and strange, as if the earth itself exhaled through damp leaves. Up ahead, Lunara’s Veil rose from the underbrush like a mirage: a forgotten amusement park, its silhouette more temple than carnival. Rides stood half-devoured by vines, their rusted frames creaking in the wind like bones that remembered laughter.

He hesitated at the gates. Ivy coiled around the iron like fingers closing over a secret. He lifted his camera, but the lens fogged instantly, blinded by the heavy mist that clung to his skin like breath. Fireflies swirled around him—hundreds—forming a living halo. Their light pulsed in rhythm with something beneath the ground, a soft thrum that matched his heartbeat too precisely.

He knew this story. He’d lived it in shame—years of smothered sketches, a kiss with another boy beneath the churchyard elm, the preacher’s scalding sermon still etched behind his ribs. The park whispered of all he’d buried. And it was calling him.

The Tunnel of Love beckoned: an archway of ivy and collapsed roses, its waters flickering with iridescent light, alive and whispering. He stepped forward. The mist tightened, coiling up his spine in slow, deliberate tendrils. The fireflies flared and dimmed, tracing symbols in the air that dissolved before he could read them. From somewhere deeper in the park, a low hum began—half chant, half moan, as if the earth itself were remembering touch.