Moonflower of Ash

In the prosperous town of Rivercrest, fourteen-year-old Virel Ernest Mayfloy survives each day trapped between grief, suffocating expectations, and the ghosts of a past he cannot escape. Haunted by a tragedy he blames himself for, Virel drifts through life like a shadow in his family's gilded home - medicated, isolated, and slowly unraveling.

To the world, he is a well-mannered boy from a respectable home - the kind of child expected to grow into something refined, controlled, and perfect. But behind closed doors, Virel's days are anything but ordinary. His nights are fractured by guilt he cannot explain, memories that refuse to stay buried, and a grief that clings to him like a second skin.

His only steady presence is his golden retriever best friend, Leo Ashernov Fletcherman, who refuses to let him suffer.

But something is wrong in Rivercrest.

There are gaps in his memory he cannot trust. A past incident involving a girl, a rabbit, and a moment he doesn't want to piece together. And beneath the surface of his carefully maintained routine, something is beginning to watch him back.

Then there is the world beyond what he understands - a world that does not stay hidden forever.

And Virel, who has spent his entire life trying not to fall apart, is about to discover that some truths do not wait for permission to be seen.

Moonflower of Ash is a gothic coming-of-age story about trauma, depression, teenage mistakes, memory, and the fragile line between reality and something far older waiting just beneath it.

Read at your own risk.
Updates frequently.