In a colorless city where the sky is hidden by towering concrete, sixteen-year-old Julia Wright drifts through life as a nobody. Anxious, quiet, and haunted by childhood traumas as a subject of human experimentation, Julia drifts through each day with little more than her worn backpack, her memories of a boy named Teddy, and the wish to just be a normal girl.

School offers little comfort, but Julia’s monochrome world begins to change when her astrophysics teacher, Ms. Fujiwara, offers up an opportunity to babysit her young daughter, Miyoko. As Julia watches Miyoko dance in a colorful world full of dolls and magic, she simultaneously discovers the childhood she never had and finds that there are still beautiful things in the world.

Yet Julia’s past—marked by glowing veins, Teddy’s soft voice in her dreams, and a sister who loathed her to the bone—floods back as her powers draw the attention of a secret agency. In the quiet moments between polluted city streets and silent apartment walls, Julia grapples with memories of what was done to her, who she is today, what it means to be a hero, and what it means to exist in the world.