After pulling an all-nighter on his thesis, graduate student Lu Zhao woke up after drinking a cup of instant coffee to find himself lying in an unfamiliar forest. A boy who called himself the “Guardian of Eden” told him that this was the Garden of Eden, and it was being consumed by a corrupting force known as “Corrosion.”
The boy had no name and no companions. He had guarded this collapsing paradise alone for who knew how many years. His hands trembled, and a hideous scar marked the back of one. When he said, “Don’t be afraid,” he was the one most afraid of all. Lu Zhao had not been chosen because he was a hero or the chosen one, but simply because someone alive was needed to remember that this place had ever existed.
Something watched them from the shadows across the lake. The boy said, “That’s not human.” And the beings who had chosen corruption were slowly awakening in the darkness.
Lu Zhao had thought he was merely a spectator forced onto the stage, but he soon discovered that his connection to this land ran far deeper than he had imagined. What was hidden in the boy’s eyes? What was the ever-growing darkness in the deepest part of Eden? The answers lay buried in the memories he had forgotten.
