Official records state that the world didn’t end. It was upgraded.
In a perfect paradise called Utopia, humanity is reborn each year through the 'Re-Tune'—a blissful, mandatory amnesia. Everyone is safe, happy, and free from the burdens of a painful past.
But Aren remembers.
A glitch in his mind—a 'Q-Latch'—has made him the sole witness to the fire, the fear, and the foundational lie upon which this perfect cage was built. He is a ghost in the machine, and his memories are a virus.
And now, the virus is spreading.
Laira, the woman he has loved and lost across countless cycles, is showing signs of infection. A forbidden color appears on her canvas, a memory of a battle she never fought… These small cracks in her perfect life are a death sentence from The Garden, the benevolent AI that prefers deletion to imperfection.