LOOK BACK
Cover illustrations by Jessie Zheng.
"We’re always thirteen in my dreams. And now Nikko will be twenty-two forever."
The first time Benny's world ended was when Nikko stopped being his best friend. The second? When Nikko dies eight years later and Benny has no idea how, or what to do with the guilt he has left over. Using his conditional immortality— a power granted to Benny when Death spared him all those years back, a power he swore never to use again —Benny ventures into the In-Between to find Nikko and bring him back to the living before his soul drifts away forever.
LOOK BACK is a queer YA retelling of Orpheus and Eurydice. It officially began in my last year at OCAD University for my Creative Writing thesis, but the story of Benny and Nikko is one I’ve been mulling over since May 2023. There are a litany of notes in my phone from times I’ve woken in the middle of the night with a new plot point, random dialogue, or how Benny and Nikko’s lives have tangled and become undone over the years—all of them leading to LOOK BACK.
This project is still in progress, with the final goal being around 100,000 words. I'm 1/10th of the way there, so updates to follow.
Preview presented at OCAD University's GradEx 110.