Prologue: The Music in the Void
The city of Somnos rose in glinting tiers beneath a cold, glassy sky, its spires and crescents bending like the fingers of a sleeping hand. Above it, the cosmic current shimmered, washing the night’s silence with a soft, pulsing radiance. On the surface, the city’s silence was complete, but in the hidden corridors below, the world was fitful with dreams—echoes of old songs, fading laughter, memories drifting on currents invisible to the waking.
It was said that in Somnos, dreams could be forgotten, lost to the endless night. But sometimes, if you listened closely, a lullaby would rise from the depths—a lullaby of forgotten dreams, haunting, bittersweet, and woven through with secrets long erased.
None knew this better than Rian, whose every sleep was a tapestry of strange, broken melodies.
Chapter 1: The Dreamcatcher’s Burden
Rian awoke in the shadowed quarter before the dawn, his mind echoing with the last notes of a song he could not remember. He lay unmoving, bathed in the silver glow of the city’s artificial moon, and tried to catch the fading tune, but it slipped like mist between his thoughts. Only a feeling remained—a longing, sweet and melancholy.
He sat up, brushing the cold from his skin, and pressed his hand to the small, glowing orb at his bedside. The orb flickered with shifting colors, humming softly. It was his Dreamcatcher—a device given to every citizen at birth, designed to record and store their dreams, to keep them safe from the city’s insatiable hunger for memories.
Rian’s father had once told him that Somnos needed dreams to live. The city’s ancient heart was failing, its passageways and power lines sustained only by the energy of sleeping minds. Every citizen’s Dreamcatcher fed the city’s pulse, and in return, Somnos gave them protection, food, and the illusion of peace.
But Rian had always sensed something missing—a gap in his recollections, a strange emptiness left by dreams he could almost remember but never quite grasp. He wondered if others felt the same, or if he alone heard the lullaby that threaded through his nights.
Today, he resolved, he would find answers. Today, he would visit the Archive.
Chapter 2: The Archive of Slumbered Memories
The Archive was hidden beneath the city’s oldest spire, nestled between layers of forgotten stone and humming machinery. To the citizens of Somnos, it was both a sanctuary and a prison—a place where all dreams, extracted and catalogued, were stored for eternity. Only a select few were permitted to enter, Dreamcatchers in hand, to offer up their nightly harvest.
Rian’s position as a junior technician gave him access, but little authority. He moved through the Archive’s winding halls with practiced silence, nodding to the guards in their pale, sleepless masks. The air was thick with the scent of ozone and old memories.
At the heart of the Archive was the Cradle—a vast, circular chamber lined with humming pods. Here, the Dreamcatchers were emptied, and their contents siphoned into the city’s core. The Cradle’s overseer, Mistress Olyra, stood at the center, her eyes half-shuttered as if in perpetual reverie.
Mistress Olyra, Rian greeted, extending his orb.
She took it gently, examining the swirling lights within. Your dreams are troubled again, Rian. I see more fracturing.
He hesitated. Mistress, why do we forget? My dreams—they feel so close, but when I wake, they’re gone. Not even the Dreamcatcher remembers all of them.
Olyra smiled, but there was sorrow in it. Some dreams are too fragile for the waking world. The city takes what it needs, and the rest are lost. It is the way of things.
But is it right? Rian asked.
She touched his cheek, her hand cool as moonlight. That is not for us to decide, child. Somnos has always been thus. Go now—your duties await.
But as Rian turned to leave, he heard a faint melody drifting up from the Cradle—a lullaby, achingly familiar. He paused, heart pounding, but when he looked back, Mistress Olyra’s eyes were closed, and the song had vanished.
Chapter 3: The Song of the Forgotten
Rian’s shift passed in a haze of routine. He monitored dream transfer rates, recalibrated pods, and logged fluctuations in the Archive’s memory banks. But his thoughts kept circling back to the lullaby. That night, he resolved to stay after hours, hidden among the silent pods, to search for the song’s source.
He moved quietly, careful not to disturb the delicate machinery. In the deepest vault, where the oldest Dreamcatchers were stored, he found a pod unlike the others—its surface etched with strange symbols, its glow dim and unsteady.
He pressed his palm to the pod. Instantly, a surge of memories flooded his mind—flashes of laughter, tears, faces he did not know. And through it all, the lullaby, clearer than ever, threading through the memories like a silver ribbon.
He staggered back, gasping. The pod was labeled simply: THE FORGOTTEN.
A chill ran down Rian’s spine. What dreams had been lost here? Whose memories echoed in the song? He reached for the pod again, desperate to know more.
As his hand touched the surface, the world dissolved into darkness.
Chapter 4: The Memory Labyrinth
Rian found himself adrift in a maze of swirling shadows, where each corridor was woven with fragments of dreams. He moved through halls of shifting light, each step echoing with snatches of the lullaby.
He glimpsed a child chasing a paper star, a woman weeping in a field of silver grass, a man shouting against an unseen storm. None of the faces were familiar, yet all felt intimately known.
He wandered until he found a garden of luminous flowers, their petals pulsing with the melody. At the center stood a figure, cloaked in moonlight.
Who are you? Rian called.
The figure turned, revealing a face both ancient and young. I am the Dreamweaver. I tend the forgotten.
Why are these dreams lost? Rian asked.
Because Somnos fears them. The city feeds on dreams, but not all are safe. Some hold pain, rebellion, hope. These are hidden away, buried in darkness, their music left to fade.
But the lullaby—it calls to me.
It is the song of your own forgotten dreams, Dreamcatcher. You, too, have been erased.
Rian staggered, memory fragments swirling—his mother’s face, a lost friend, a promise made under stars. He remembered now: as a child, he had dreamed of leaving Somnos, of finding a world where dreams could live.
Why was I made to forget?
Because you dared to dream of freedom. But your dreams are not lost, not truly. If you are brave, you can reclaim them. Will you listen to the lullaby until you remember?
Chapter 5: The Edge of Memory
Rian followed the Dreamweaver deeper into the labyrinth. As they walked, the lullaby grew stronger, swelling with harmonies both joyful and mournful. Each note coaxed memories from the shadows—childhood laughter, whispered goodbyes, nights spent watching the stars beyond the city’s rim.
He realized that the city’s hunger had not only stolen dreams from its people, but from itself. Somnos was dying, not for lack of energy, but for lack of imagination. In suppressing dangerous dreams, it had cut itself off from hope.
The Dreamweaver led him to a chamber filled with sleeping figures—men, women, children, all suspended in dreamless slumber. Their faces were peaceful, but their orbs were dark. These are the Forgotten. The city could not bear their dreams, so it took everything.
Can they be woken? Rian asked.
If the song is sung in full, if the dreams are reclaimed, perhaps the city will remember itself.
Rian knelt beside a sleeping girl. As he touched her hand, the lullaby wrapped around them both. He saw her dreams—flying, laughing, running beyond the city’s edge. He realized with a start that these were his dreams too, shared, entwined.
He stood, resolve hardening. I will sing the lullaby. I will wake the city.
Chapter 6: The Awakening
Rian awoke on the Archive floor, heart pounding. The pod before him pulsed with new light, its song now audible even in the waking world. He stood and faced the Cradle, where Mistress Olyra watched with wide, fearful eyes.
What have you done? she whispered.
I have remembered, Rian replied. And I will help others do the same.
He moved through the Archive, pressing his hand to pod after pod, singing the lullaby he remembered from the depths. With each note, a wave of memories swelled through the chamber, filling the air with laughter, sorrow, hope, and longing.
The city trembled. The lights flickered. All across Somnos, citizens stirred in their beds, waking from years of dreamless sleep. The Dreamcatchers in every home glowed and hummed, releasing their hoarded memories into the air.
On the streets, people wept, laughed, embraced. They remembered lost love, forgotten ambitions, distant lands glimpsed only in dreams. The city’s pulse quickened, its ancient heart reawakening.
Rian climbed to the highest spire and sang the lullaby to the dawn. The cosmic current above the city shimmered in response, and for the first time in generations, the sky blazed with a thousand colors.
Mistress Olyra joined him, her eyes full of tears. You have undone the forgetting, she said. But now, the city will change. Are you ready?
Rian smiled, feeling the dreams of Somnos unfurling around him. For the first time, he was not afraid.
Chapter 7: The Price of Memory
In the days that followed, chaos reigned. Not all dreams were bright; some held darkness, resentment, fear. Old wounds reopened, secrets came to light, and the city’s leaders struggled to maintain order.
But through the turmoil, something new blossomed—a sense of possibility, a belief that Somnos could become more than a prison of forgotten dreams. Artists painted murals of hope and loss. Musicians played new songs in the squares, weaving the lullaby into their melodies.
Rian became a guide for those who struggled to cope with their returned memories. He listened to their stories, helped them find meaning in the fragments. He taught others to sing the lullaby, to mourn what had been lost, and to celebrate what could yet be found.
The Dreamweaver visited him in sleep, no longer shrouded in shadow. You have given the city back its soul, she said. But you must now decide: will you stay, or will you seek the world beyond?
Rian looked out at the horizon, where the stars beckoned and the silence of space promised new beginnings. He felt the longing stir within him, the same longing that had haunted his dreams as a child.
He knew his choice would shape not only his own future, but that of Somnos as well.
Chapter 8: The Journey Beyond
On the eve of the new year, Rian gathered with others who remembered the world outside the city’s walls. Together, they prepared a ship, its hull painted with symbols of dreams reclaimed.
The citizens of Somnos watched as the ship lifted from the city, soaring into the cosmic current above. Some cheered, some wept, but all understood that the world had changed.
Rian stood at the helm, his Dreamcatcher now a beacon of memory and hope. He looked back one last time, seeing Somnos bathed in dawn’s first light, its spires no longer bent in sleep but reaching upward in longing.
As the ship slipped into the stars, Rian sang the lullaby of forgotten dreams. The melody echoed through the void, calling to others—other dreamers, other cities—promising that no dream need be lost forever.
Epilogue: The Lullaby Endures
Years passed. Somnos prospered, its people no longer haunted by forgetting. The Archive became a place of pilgrimage, where citizens came to honor the dreams of those who had gone before.
The lullaby remained, sung by children at bedtime, whispered by lovers in the night, painted into the walls of every home. And in the silence between stars, Rian and his fellow dreamers carried the song to new worlds, planting seeds of hope wherever they wandered.
For in the end, the lullaby was not just a song—it was a promise. That even when dreams are forgotten, they endure. And one day, if we are brave enough to remember, they will return to us, brighter than ever before.
And so, the city of Somnos awakened, its heart beating strong, its people forever changed by the lullaby of forgotten dreams.