The Gate appeared as they crested the highest hill Hoppy had seen so far.
It was not a door in the way he understood doors. It was a ring of pale stone, perhaps twice his height, standing alone on the cloud surface with nothing around it and nothing behind it. The stone looked smooth from a distance, but as they drew closer, Hoppy could see that it was covered in carvings, patterns that spiraled inward toward the center of the ring. They were not letters or pictures, but something in between, shapes that suggested movement and light and the slow passage of time.
Inside the ring, there was no stone. There was only a shimmer, like heat rising off a hot surface, except there was no heat. The shimmer was silver and gold, shifting slowly, and when Hoppy looked into it, he felt the same pull he had felt when he first saw the Ember. Something on the other side, waiting.
The Fluffbunny on his knee stirred, opened its eyes, and hopped down. It landed on the cloud and looked up at the Gate, its small body tilting from side to side as if it was considering something. Then it looked back at Hoppy, chirped once, and hopped away toward the other Fluffbunnies that were gathered nearby.
Hoppy watched it go. He had not realized until then that he had been holding onto it, that its warmth had been something to anchor himself to. Now it was gone, and he was standing in front of a hole in the air that led somewhere he could not see.
"The Gate will take you to Starburst Carnival," Monna said. She was standing a few steps behind him, her paper coat rustling in a breeze that did not seem to touch anything else. "It is the second planet of the dream worlds. Many Dreamers go there after Cottonia."
"What is it like?" Hoppy asked.
"It is a place of light and sound. An eternal carnival, or so the inhabitants call it. There are games and rides and music that never stops. The creatures there are different from the Fluffbunnies. They are friendly, but they are also more complicated. They have their own rules, their own ways of doing things."
Hoppy looked at the shimmer inside the stone ring. It moved like water, but slower, as if time itself was thicker there.
"Do I have to go?" he asked.
Monna shook her head. "You do not have to do anything. You can stay on Cottonia for as long as you wish. Some Dreamers stay on the first planet for weeks, learning to understand the Embers, getting comfortable with the way the dream worlds feel. Others step through the Gate within moments of finding it. There is no right or wrong."
Hoppy looked back at the cloud hills behind him. The Fluffbunnies were scattered across the slopes, some hopping, some sleeping, some just sitting and looking at the sky. It was peaceful here. Simple. He understood Cottonia. It was soft and warm and nothing asked anything of him.
But there was something in his chest, something that had not been there before the Ember. It was not pushing him, not exactly. It was more like a quiet hum, a vibration that resonated with the shimmer of the Gate, with the stars above, with something he could not name.
He turned back to Monna.
"Will you come with me?" he asked.
Monna smiled. It was a gentle expression, but there was something in it that looked like sadness, though not the kind of sadness that came from pain. It was the sadness of someone who had seen many things and knew how they went.
"I cannot," she said. "Stargazers have their own paths, their own places we must be. But I will not be far. If you need me, you can find me on Cottonia, or on other planets if the Tide carries me there."
Hoppy nodded slowly. He had expected that answer, though he had not known he was expecting it until she said it. She had been here when he arrived, had shown him the Ember, had walked with him to the Gate. That was what she did. She helped those who first arrived. Then they went on, and she stayed.
"Will I see you again?" he asked.
"If the stars choose it," she said. "And even if they do not, you will meet others. The dream worlds are full of Dreamers and inhabitants who will walk with you for a while. That is how it works. We are all connected, even when we are apart."
She reached into her paper coat and pulled out something small. It was a piece of folded paper, no larger than his palm, and it glowed faintly with the same silver light as the writing on her coat. She held it out to him.
"Take this," she said. "It is a map. Not a complete one—no one has a complete map of the dream worlds—but it will show you the planets you have visited and the Gates you have passed through. When you collect more Embers, it will show you more."
Hoppy took it. The paper was warm in his hand, and as he unfolded it, he saw lines of light spreading across its surface. There was a circle labeled Cottonia, and another circle labeled Starburst Carnival connected by a line that pulsed gently. The rest of the paper was dark, but he could see faint outlines in the darkness, shapes that might be other planets, other Gates, other places waiting to be discovered.
He folded the map carefully and tucked it into the pocket of his jumpsuit. It made a small bulge against his thigh, a reminder that he had something now, something that was his.
"Thank you," he said.
Monna nodded. "Walk well, Hoppy. And remember what the Ember showed you. The light does not disappear just because the star is gone. It becomes something else. It becomes stories, memories, worlds. You are part of that now."
She did not wait for him to respond. She turned and began walking back across the cloud hills, her paper coat rustling behind her, and within a few steps she seemed to become part of the landscape, a figure of silver and white against the pink and purple, growing smaller and smaller until she was gone.
Hoppy stood in front of the Gate for a long time after that.
The Fluffbunnies went about their business around him. One of them hopped up to his foot, bumped against it, and hopped away. Another sat a few feet away and watched him with its small black eyes, its body tilting slightly as if it was curious about what he would do.
He thought about his room on the station. He thought about the tools hanging on the wall, the narrow bunk, the faint smell of recycled air. He thought about the dreams he had stopped having, the years of grey sleep that had given him nothing. He thought about the warmth in his chest, the memory of the star, the way the clouds had felt under his back when he first woke up.
He stepped forward.
The shimmer in the Gate was cool against his skin, like walking through a curtain of water that was not wet. For a moment, he felt nothing at all. No ground beneath his feet, no air in his lungs, no light in his eyes. There was just the sensation of moving, of being carried, of something passing through him that he could not hold onto.
Then there was sound.
It was not loud, but it was everywhere, wrapping around him from all sides. Music, he realized, though it was not like any music he had heard before. There were melodies that rose and fell like the calls of birds, rhythms that clicked and hummed like machines working in harmony, harmonies that seemed to come from the air itself. It was joyful, but not simply joyful. There was something underneath it, something older, a sadness that had been smoothed over by time until it was just another note in the chord.
He opened his eyes.
He was standing on a path made of light.
The path was wide enough for three people to walk side by side, and it glowed with a soft yellow that pulsed in time with the music. On either side of it, there were structures that looked like buildings made of spun sugar and polished glass. They twisted upward into the sky in spirals and curves, their surfaces reflecting the light from a thousand sources. Some of them had lights strung between them, strings of tiny bulbs that flickered in patterns, and some of them had flags that fluttered in a breeze that smelled of spun sugar and something else, something like the air after a storm.
Above him, the sky was dark, but it was not empty. There were stars here too, but they were different from the stars over Cottonia. These stars moved. They traced arcs across the darkness, some slow, some fast, and they left trails behind them that lingered for a moment before fading. A few of them were not stars at all, but lights attached to structures that rose higher than the others, structures that turned slowly, carrying small carriages up and around and down again.
A Ferris wheel, he realized. But not like any Ferris wheel he had seen in old videos. This one was shaped like a star, with five points instead of a circle, and each point held a cluster of carriages that glowed with their own colors. As it turned, the carriages rose and fell in a rhythm that matched the music, and from somewhere inside them, he could hear laughter, high and light, like bells.
He took a step forward. The path of light held his weight without shifting, and he could feel the warmth of it through the soles of his boots. It was not the gentle warmth of Cottonia. It was brighter, more active, like the warmth of a machine that had just been switched on.
A figure appeared at the edge of the path.
It was small, no taller than his waist, and it was wearing a mask. The mask was shaped like a star, with points that flared out around the figure's face, and it was painted in gold and red. Beneath the mask, the figure wore a suit of many colors, patches of fabric sewn together in patterns that did not quite match but somehow worked together anyway. In one hand, it carried a small lantern that swung gently as it walked.
The figure stopped a few feet away and tilted its head, the star mask catching the light from the path and throwing it back in tiny reflections.
"A new one," the figure said. Its voice was light, neither male nor female, and it had a musical quality that matched the background music without quite being part of it. "A new one comes to the Carnival. How long has it been? Three cycles? Four? The stars do not tell us these things."
Hoppy was not sure what to say. On the station, he rarely spoke to anyone except to give or receive instructions. Conversations had purposes there. They solved problems or coordinated work. This was not that kind of situation.
"I am Hoppy," he said. "I came from Cottonia. Through the Gate."
The figure nodded, the star mask bobbing up and down. "Cottonia. Yes, yes. The soft place. The place where Dreamers learn to breathe. We know Cottonia. The Fluffbunnies send us their greetings sometimes, though how they send them, no one knows. They do not write. They do not speak. But the greetings arrive anyway."
The figure stepped closer, and Hoppy could see that the mask was not just a mask. It was attached to the figure's face, or perhaps it was the face itself. There were no eye holes, no mouth hole, but the figure seemed to see and speak without them.
"I am called Jester," the figure said. "That is not my name. No one knows my name. But Jester is what the Dreamers call me, and it is what I answer to. I am the first face of the Carnival. I welcome those who arrive and show them the way."
"The way to what?" Hoppy asked.
Jester laughed. It was a light sound, like a string of bells being shaken gently. "To everything! The Carnival is not a place you arrive at. It is a place you move through. There are games to play, rides to ride, lights to see. There are creatures to meet and stories to hear. And there are Embers, of course. There are always Embers."
The figure turned and began walking down the path of light, its lantern swinging. After a few steps, it looked back at Hoppy.
"Come, come. You cannot stand at the Gate forever. The Gate is for passing through, not for standing at. That is what my grandmother used to say, if I had a grandmother, which I do not. But it is good advice anyway."
Hoppy followed.
The path of light curved gently through the carnival, and on either side, the structures rose and fell in patterns that did not quite make sense. A building that looked like a carousel from one angle revealed itself to be a line of food stalls from another. A tower that seemed to touch the stars turned out to be a slide when they passed it, with creatures sliding down its surface in a cascade of color and sound.
The creatures were as varied as the structures. Some were small like Jester, wearing masks of different shapes—circles, crescents, diamonds. Some were tall, their bodies made of light or smoke, shifting and changing as they moved. Some were animals, or looked like animals, with feathers that shone like metal or fur that trailed sparks. They all moved through the carnival with purpose, but their purposes were different. Some were playing games at booths that lined the path. Some were riding the moving structures, their laughter drifting down from above. Some were simply walking, like Hoppy and Jester, moving from one place to another with no apparent destination.
"Where are we going?" Hoppy asked.
"To the Memory Game," Jester said. "It is the first thing new Dreamers do at the Carnival. It is a tradition, you see. A game that is not quite a game. A test that is not quite a test. It shows you what the Carnival has to offer, and it shows the Carnival what you have to offer in return."
"What if I do not want to play?"
Jester stopped and turned. The star mask was unreadable, but there was something in the way the figure held itself that suggested surprise, or perhaps amusement.
"You do not have to play," Jester said. "No one has to play. The Carnival does not force. But everyone plays, in the end. Not because they must, but because the game is there, and it is beautiful, and it is a little bit sad, and who would want to miss something that is beautiful and a little bit sad?"
Hoppy did not have an answer to that. He followed Jester in silence as the path curved again, leading them toward a structure that stood apart from the others.
It was a tent, but a tent larger than any building he had ever seen on the station. Its fabric was deep blue, the color of the sky just before night, and it was covered in stars that moved across its surface like the stars above. The entrance was a simple opening between two flaps, and above it, a sign written in light read: THE MEMORY GAME.
Jester stopped at the entrance and gestured with the lantern.
"Inside," the figure said. "I cannot go with you. The game is for Dreamers only. But I will be here when you come out. Unless I am not. In which case, someone else will be. That is how the Carnival works."
Hoppy looked into the tent. The interior was dark, but not empty. He could see shapes moving inside, shapes that were not quite solid, and he could hear sounds that might have been voices or might have been the music playing somewhere else.
He stepped through the opening.
The tent closed behind him, and for a moment there was nothing but darkness. Then lights began to appear, small at first, then larger, until he was standing in a circle of soft illumination. The shapes he had seen from outside resolved into booths, a dozen of them arranged in a ring, each one different from the others.
One booth was covered in mirrors that reflected his image back at him in a dozen different ways. One was hung with curtains that moved in a breeze he could not feel. One was made entirely of light, its edges shifting and changing as he watched. Behind each booth, there was a figure, some masked like Jester, some not, all watching him with eyes he could feel but not see.
A voice spoke from somewhere in the darkness above him.
"Welcome, Dreamer. You stand at the Memory Game. Here, you will be shown something you have forgotten. Not something you lost. Something you have forgotten. Do you understand the difference?"
Hoppy thought about it. Lost things were things that had been taken away. Forgotten things were things that had simply been left behind, pushed aside to make room for other things.
"I think so," he said.
"Good. Then we will begin."
The lights shifted, and one of the booths—the one with the mirrors—brightened. Hoppy walked toward it, his footsteps silent on the tent floor. The figure behind the booth was tall and thin, its face hidden behind a mask that was also a mirror, reflecting his own face back at him.
"Look," the figure said.
Hoppy looked at the mirrors. At first, he saw only himself. The same grey jumpsuit, the same messy hair, the same tired eyes. But as he watched, the reflection began to change. The jumpsuit softened, became looser, became something a child might wear. His face grew rounder, his eyes wider. He was younger. Eight years old, maybe nine.
The mirror showed him running through a corridor on the station, but it was not the grey corridor he knew now. This one was bright, lit with strings of lights that his father had hung for a celebration he could not remember. There were people in the corridor, mechanics and engineers and hydroponics workers, and they were all smiling, all laughing, all reaching out to ruffle his hair as he ran past.
He was holding something. A toy, he realized. A small toy made of scrap metal and wires, something his mother had built for him. It had lights that blinked in patterns, and it made sounds when he shook it, sounds that were supposed to be music but were just noise, beautiful noise.
The image faded. The mirror showed him again, the older him, the one in the grey jumpsuit with the tired eyes.
"What did you see?" the figure asked.
"A corridor," Hoppy said. "On the station. A long time ago. There was a celebration. My father hung lights. My mother made me a toy."
"And when was the last time you thought of this?"
Hoppy tried to remember. The toy had been lost somewhere, during a move to a different section of the station, or maybe it had broken and been thrown away. The celebrations had stopped after his parents died. There had been no reason for them.
"I forgot," he said quietly. "I forgot all of it."
The figure nodded, the mirrored mask catching the light. "That is what the Memory Game shows. Not what you have lost. What you have forgotten. The Carnival holds many memories, just as Cottonia does. But here, we do not give them to you. We show you what you already have, hidden in places you no longer look."
The lights shifted again, and another booth brightened. This one was hung with curtains, and behind them, Hoppy could see shapes moving, shapes that might have been people or might have been something else.
He walked to it, and the curtains parted, revealing a space that was not a booth but a room. A small room, with a narrow bunk and a workbench and tools hanging on the wall. His room. The room he had woken up in before he found himself on Cottonia.
But it was different. The walls were not grey. They were covered in drawings, sketches made with whatever had been available—grease from the workshop, ink from broken pens, the ash from burned-out fuses. They were not good drawings. The proportions were wrong, the lines uneven. But they were everywhere, covering every inch of the walls, and they showed things that did not exist on the station. Trees with leaves that were not green. Animals with wings that were not birds. Skies that were not metal or void.
Hoppy stared at them. He did not remember drawing these. He did not remember wanting to draw them. But the hands in the images were his hands, smaller, younger, the fingers still learning to hold things.
A figure appeared in the room. It was a woman, her face turned away, but he knew her by the shape of her shoulders, the way she held her hands. His mother.
She was looking at the drawings. She was smiling. She reached out and touched one of them, a drawing of a tree with silver leaves, and she said something he could not hear, something the memory did not hold.
Then she was gone. The room was grey again, the drawings faded to nothing, and Hoppy was standing in the tent, his hands pressed against his sides, his breath coming faster than it should.
"What did you see?" the figure behind the booth asked.
"My room," Hoppy said. "When I was younger. I drew things. Things that were not there. My mother looked at them. She liked them."
"And when was the last time you drew something that was not there?"
He could not remember. Somewhere between his parents' death and the routine of work and sleep, the drawings had stopped. The images he had once put on the walls had retreated to somewhere inside him, and then they had faded too, leaving only grey.
"I forgot," he said again. "I forgot I did that."
The lights shifted for the third time. The third booth was made of light, its edges shifting, and Hoppy walked toward it without thinking. His feet moved on their own, carrying him forward, and the light wrapped around him like a warm hand.
There was no figure behind this booth. There was only a point of light, small and steady, floating in the center of the space. It looked like the Ember he had found on Cottonia, but it was different too. This one was not warm. It was cool, and it pulsed with a slow rhythm, like a heart that had been beating for a very long time.
"This is for you," a voice said. It was not the voice from before. It was softer, more distant, like something carried on a wind. "You have shown us what you forgot. Now we show you what we remember."
The light brightened, and Hoppy saw—
He saw a star. Not the star from the Ember on Cottonia, with its oceans and cities and people telling stories. This was a different star. It was smaller, quieter, and it hung in a sky that was not dark but deep purple, the color of the clouds on Cottonia. Beneath it, there was a carnival. Not the one he had walked through outside the tent, but an older one, simpler, with rides that turned by hand and games that were played with stones and sticks.
There were creatures in the carnival, masked like the ones outside, and there were Dreamers too, humans who walked among them, laughing, playing, holding lights that matched the star above. The star pulsed, and each pulse sent a wave of light down to the carnival, and the carnival pulsed back, light rising to meet light.
Then the star began to fade. The pulses grew weaker, the light dimmer, and the carnival below grew quieter. The rides stopped turning. The games stopped being played. The creatures stood still, their masks turned upward, watching the star that had given them light for so long.
The star died. Its last pulse was a sigh, soft and long, and when it was gone, the carnival was dark.
But only for a moment. One of the creatures raised its lantern, and the light caught the mask of another creature, and then another, and another, until the carnival was lit again, not by the star above but by the lights they carried themselves. They began to move again, to play again, to laugh again, and the music started, faint at first, then stronger, and the carnival that had almost ended became the carnival that would never end.
The light faded. Hoppy was standing in the tent, and in his hand, there was something warm. He looked down and saw a small point of light, like the Ember from Cottonia, but this one was gold instead of white, and it pulsed with a rhythm that matched the music outside.
He had not reached for it. He had not opened himself to it. It had simply come to him, as if it had been waiting.
The voice spoke one last time.
"You have played the Memory Game, Dreamer. You have remembered what you forgot, and we have given you what we remember. The light of the Carnival is with you now. Carry it where you go. Show it to those who have forgotten their own lights."
The tent opened. The light from outside spilled in, and Hoppy stepped out into the carnival again.
Jester was there, waiting, the star mask catching the light from the tent. The figure tilted its head.
"You played," Jester said. There was satisfaction in the voice, or something like it. "Everyone plays. I told you. The game is there, and it is beautiful, and it is a little bit sad. Who would want to miss that?"
Hoppy looked at the Ember in his hand. It was still pulsing, still warm, and he could feel it connecting to something inside him, something that had been sleeping and was now waking up.
"What is this?" he asked.
"That is the light of the Carnival," Jester said. "The memory of the star that was here before. It is yours now, to keep, to share, to let grow. That is what Dreamers do, is it not? They carry the light from one place to another. They show it to those who have forgotten."
Hoppy closed his hand around the Ember. The warmth spread up his arm and into his chest, joining the warmth from Cottonia, and for a moment he felt like he might burst with it, with something that was not quite happiness but was close, so close.
He looked up at the carnival around him. The lights, the music, the creatures moving through the paths with their masks and their lanterns and their laughter. It was not like Cottonia. It was louder, brighter, more demanding. But it was also warm, in its own way. It was alive.
"What now?" he asked.
Jester laughed again, the bells ringing.
"Now you explore. You play the games, if you want. You ride the rides, if you want. You meet the creatures and hear their stories. You find more Embers, if they find you. And when you are ready, there is another Gate. There is always another Gate."
The figure pointed with its lantern, and Hoppy followed the gesture. Beyond the tents and the rides and the lights, he could see a faint shimmer in the distance, the same shimmer that had marked the Gate on Cottonia.
Another planet. Another world made of memory and light.
He tucked the new Ember into his pocket, next to the map. It was warm against his thigh, a small sun that he carried with him.
He took a step forward, into the carnival, into the light and the music and the laughter.
He was not sure what came next. He was not sure what any of this meant, or why he was here, or what he was supposed to do. But for the first time in a very long time, he did not need to know. He was here. He was walking. He was holding light in his hands.
That was enough for now.