C/W: minor horror, implied offscreen death

“This is not the first time we’ve been forced to leave our homes behind. Nearly fifty years ago – before most of us were born – we lived in a different place, way to the west. There, on an island blanketed in colourless fog, our parents and grandparents lived in a town called Brisal. They didn’t need to wear veils, their eyes perfectly suited to the shifting shades of mist.”

– an excerpt from the letters of Jeddah Assum

“Beginnings are always hard. There’s never a perfect place to start a story. The moment we pick is a choice that says as much about us as it does the history we tell.”

– Avyn Fiir Vorunt

“I kept a record of every day, overwrote each one the next. Not the normal practice, but the days all seemed like one: a heavy pause, a stutter. I replaced all of our yesterday’s like I could erase this endless hesitation, as though the village wasn’t there at all.”

– Belka