When the guards first took us off the boats, they take great pride in telling us that ancient Leichforster sailors named this place Oongloomda Droommar. Those who understood the name cried tears that turned to frost. It was a name from the fairy tales that did not end happily ever after, and great warriors and great heroes did not return from. Nobody sentenced to here ever returned. It was the Island of Forgotten Dreams.

The ancient Leichforsters named it wrong. It should have been Oonstulna Droommar. The Island of Stolen Dreams.

"Hell" was what Jero called it. "Iceshit" was the name Telas gave. "Glacial Heartbreak," "A Sick Joke," "End of the line," "Castle Iceman," "Deep Freeze," "The Long Goodbye." The list went on and on.

But Antoine Spicer felt the modern name to be good enough: Forlorn. A place where all hope had frozen and died long, long ago.

There was no love here. No happiness. No profit. No freedom. There was no protection, because there didn't need to be. There was no mercy, because the island did not forgive. There was no redemption, because it was impossible.

Once you came here, you did not leave. You weren't forced to work, but those that didn't work would eventually lie down and sleep their last when to cold took them. You weren't forced to eat, but people here tended to eat less and less until they withered away. It was a prison unlike any other. You were left here, alone, with others that had been forlorn. There was no hope of returning, no point of fighting, no fleeting chance of escape, no new desperate flutter of hope. Nothing.

It was a ruthless cycle.

Antoine sat in his little cave. He'd dug it out himself. He let other men come in his cave several times, but they'do all embraced the cold now. Once he even had a little snow Bartoparte in here, but that depressed him ever so much. He killed Bartoparte, his friend.

Was Bartoparte his friend? He couldn't remember. From what he could recall, they barely ever spoke. But he could only recall that bloodied corpse on the ground.

That was nearly 40 years ago. Antoine Spicer was the oldest inmate here. He hadn't embraced the cold yet, but he'd seen every stage. He wrote about it in his book, to keep himself sane. He paid for food with kindness, and promises that he'd remember his friends.

Icey, hollow, empty promises. Forgotten promises. Broken promises. Just like all promises at Forlorn.

One by one, all promises were broken here. Prisoners would come first, and think that things will get better. Not long after that do they promise each other that they will escape. Antoine Spicer wrote of that stage a lot, but he passed through it quickly. That promise was broken for him when he watched Jero's makeshift canoe capsize, and take Jero to his death. He felt nothing then, just the cold wind. Perhaps he should've helped Jero refine his canoe, but it was hopeless. The promise would be broken anyways.

Then people would ask promises from the guards, who brought inmates. Curios back from the mainland. Some wine, in exchange for some choice sealskin, or wooden toys soldiers. They'd made their own economy in Forlorn, but never traded among themselves. Their target audience always broke their promises in the end though - guards only ever do things out of convenience.

Then people would finally find the promise of the divine. Something greater. Maybe Glim, maybe Achtinya, maybe a flamboyant dragon. Maybe it was their principles they worshipped. Perhaps it was a core belief. A single word.

It made no difference to Forlorn. That promise, like all others, would eventually be broken. There was no god, there would be no salvation here, nor anywhere. There were no dieties, nothing more. Just broken promises. They had all been Forlorn here, desperately hoping, praying, clinging like a dying man holding onto one last shred of blessed warmth that someone would help them.

That was the hardest promise of all, to Antoine. It almost made him want to embrace the cold.

But he made one last promise.

He did what he had to survive here. He promised himself.

Nothing was forbidden here. There were no moral principles to break. There were no laws to break. There was nothing, just nothing. No cold, no warmth, no heart, no sorrow. Certainly no god. Nothing but Antoine.

And from nothing came strength.

His sentence was up. He did not commit the crime, but even though the court sent him here, even if he came to realize that he took the fall so someone could ignore a problem that should not be ignored, even as he weathered through bitterness and bile and hopelessness and heartbreak...

He did not care. There was no court. There was no problem. There was no cold. There were no rules. There wasn't anything. Just him, and what his strength could let him do.

He carried himself. His writings of twenty years held in his hand. He carried them for they were of him. If he lost them, he'd break his promise.

This island had stolen his dreams, stolen his heart, and stolen his god. It stole everything, and brought Antoine Spicer to the lowest that anyone had ever been. But Antoine Spicer was the only person to ever complete his sentence in that horrible, horrible place.

Forlorn had stolen everything from him. And it was from there that Spicer drew strength.

[M]: Happens in 951, invented Nihilism as a social tech.