Gravenhurst City isn’t kind to monsters—or to the men who make them. In the labyrinth of fog-drenched streets and rain-slick neon, Julian Falk carries the weight of his father’s legacy like a curse stitched into his blood. Once the heir to the infamous Dr. Falk’s research, Jules turned his back on the obsession that destroyed their family—on the laboratories, the reanimation chambers, the corpses that whispered. But not everything can be abandoned. Not when it breathes.

Orren was his father’s greatest triumph and his final mistake: a being pieced together from death and dream, brought to life by lightning and grief. Unlike the monsters in stories, Orren feels everything too deeply—loneliness, wonder, the ache of being almost human. To Jules, he’s not a creation; he’s a loved one, a friend, the only thing left worth protecting. To the world, he’s a nightmare with a heartbeat.

Together, they scrape by in the city’s forgotten clock tower—half apartment, half sanctuary, hidden from those who would dissect what they don’t understand. Jules is the caretaker, the voice of caution and exhaustion, constantly fixing Orren’s mistakes before the world notices. Orren is the heart of it all, curious and restless, always wandering too far, breaking things he never meant to, frightening those he only wanted to greet.

But beneath the static of city lights and the ghosts of their past, something stirs—rumors of new experiments, of others like Orren being built in the dark. And as the shadow of Dr. Falk’s legacy creeps back into their lives, Jules and Orren must face the question they’ve both been avoiding: Are they still running from the monster… or becoming it?