Growing up on the reservation, Trae and his cousin Asija played together and acted out stories from the history of their people. Asija eventually left the reservation to find work as a steel walker in New York City. After his mother’s death from cancer, Trae and his father moved into the city. Trae hoped he would get to reconnect and spend time with his cousin, but his father had other ideas. It seemed all his father wanted was to get as far away from the reservation as possible, forgetting their life there and the heartache of his wife’s death. Sometimes, it seemed to Trae, his father would like to forget him, too. As his father dealt with his grief by disappearing into his work, Trae’s imaginary play gradually left behind the stories of the reservation and became filled with video game characters such as the Forlorn, toy soldiers, powerful monsters, and cage fighting. As Trae slipped more and more into his fantasies, he was unable to stay out of trouble and keep up on his school work. He eventually ended up in a special school geared towards youth with learning and behavioral problems. There, he and his best sometimes-friend-sometimes-enemy often provoked each other into trouble, resulting in multiple episodes of timeout and repeated phone calls to his dad. He spent so much time being grounded that it seemed a normal state of affairs. When he was not grounded, he was left to his own devices outside of school hours. Trae often spent his time exploring the city and playing in Central Park. He fought imaginary battles with the Forlorn. He watched the people in the park and made up stories about their lives. He envied children playing with their mothers. He told himself he was fine alone and could keep himself company. And then he saw eyes in the bushes. He had been told by some of his old teachers that he was “crazy.” He had never believed them and had always told himself they just didn’t understand him and were too lazy to get to know him. After coming face to face with Ela, one of the Little People of legend, Trae started to believe maybe he was as crazy as they had always accused him of being. Ela took Trae to a village that could not possibly exist, they played games with Ela and the other villagers, and were told stories of their people. As Trae’s friendship with Ela grew, his imagination became plagued by visions of burning rivers and a decaying world. He sought out his cousin, Asija, for reassurance but was unable to come clean about what was really bothering him. Left to deal with it on his own, the lack of answers began to scare him even more and his fear turned to anger and acting out. Is it an active imagination trying to come to grips with the death of his mother? Madness? Or an ancient prophecy coming to life?