Prologue

"But our love, it was stronger by far than the love

Of those who were older than we-

Of many far wiser than we-

And neither the angels in heaven above,

Nor the demons down under the sea,

Can ever dissever my soul from the soul,

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee."

-Edgar Allen Poe

-…They say you never forget your first love…-

I've never given much thought to memory.

I've always known it to be a cumulative process, building and building and intertwining with other fragments of thought and reality.

Sometimes that reality is distorted by our daydream fantasies, and after a time we begin to remember the fantasy rather than the actual fact. It becomes so intertwined with our true memory of the event that we can have trouble telling the difference between our dreams and our daydreams. Of course, with enough effort, the details reluctantly unravel from their intertwined places in our thoughts, and it becomes painfully clear what is the truth and what we want the truth to be.

Sometimes it's more enjoyable to remember the fantasy. To forget our reality.

But what if you had neither?

What if all you had left was a new fantasy… one so surreal that it couldn't possibly be reality. It couldn't possibly be true. Too fantastic, too unimaginable, too terrifying for it not to be all just a dream.

And that's what really scary.

Because you can't tell the difference.