Sonder

In a world where everyone compresses their inner chaos into a stable, visible form called an Artifact, Ren Vashar is broken. At seven years old, while other children manifest glowing orbs and repeating melodies, Ren produces a dozen different shapes in seconds—all unstable, all wrong. He's classified as Defective. Low Contour. Something to be fixed. But Ren isn't broken. He's occupied. Centuries ago, the man who created the Artifact system did something unthinkable: he tore out his own inner self to become pure, stable form. That inner self—all the chaos, emotion, and contradiction that makes a person human—didn't disappear. It found a host. Now Ren carries something ancient and cold inside him, something that wakes when he touches another person's unfiltered soul. In a society built on emotional walls, he's a door that can't stay closed. And somewhere, the hollow man who started it all is still alive. He wants back what he lost.