‘MUL’

music unlocks love

Elevator Pitch

MUL is a 9+ YA fantasy adventure about creativity, healing, diversity and the power of connection. It explores what happens when seven troubled teenagers from diverse backgrounds are invited into a dreamscape world, unlike anything they have ever seen before. In MUL, they discover that healing themselves may also give them the power to heal the broken dystopian world. Guided by Muso, an avatar created by retired composer Lennox Zingerman, they discover hidden abilities and uncover a mission far bigger than themselves; stop Krytun, a damaged alchemist whose loss of identity is fuelling him to slowly drain colour joy and creativity from Earth itself.

Think Minecraft meets the Metaverse with a London-Multi-cultural street vibe and a villain who is creating chaos, but who isn't exactly evil; just lost.

SYNOPSIS

Seven troubled teenagers from diverse backgrounds across London struggle with bullying, gangs, grief, anxiety, prejudice, disability, obesity and isolation, unaware they are all living beneath the influence of the same hidden force: Krytun, an ancient alchemist whose damaged mind drains creativity, joy and colour from every living thing around him. As imagination slowly fades and fear tightens its grip on society, humanity drifts toward a grey and disconnected future. Nobody understands why.

Nobody, that is, except the Creators.

Centuries earlier, an advanced civilisation attempted to control the weather and triggered a catastrophic chain reaction that devastated the Earth. In a desperate attempt to save the planet, the Creators called upon Krytun, the most powerful alchemist in existence, to stabilise the Earth's core. He succeeded, but became trapped and suffered a devastating injury that severed him from his own identity. Lost, damaged and desperately hungry, Krytun eventually discovered that he could survive by absorbing the creative energy of living things. Over generations, humanity unknowingly began living beneath what the Creators came to call The Krytun Effect.

To stop the decline, the Creators turn to an unlikely ally: Lennox Zingerman, a retired composer, artist and eccentric recluse living in an old London manor house. Reluctantly drawn out of retirement, Lennox creates MUL, a dreamscape world bursting with music, colour and imagination, designed to help children reconnect with the parts of themselves the world is causing them to lose.

Through his vibrant avatar Muso, alongside his former bandmates who he recruits to become Creature Teacher mentors, Lennox plants dream lights in the minds of seven teenagers and waits for them to dream.

Inside MUL, the teenagers create their own avatars and begin a series of extraordinary dream experiences that challenge them to confront their fears, heal emotional wounds and rediscover hidden strengths. As friendships deepen and confidence grows, they begin transforming not only inside the dreamscape but in their real lives as well. The more they heal, the stronger they become.

As their connection grows, so does MUL itself, evolving into something far more powerful than anyone imagined. But as the teenagers begin restoring creativity and hope to the world around them, Krytun becomes aware of their existence.

When they finally come face to face with him, they discover that defeating him was never the Creators' true intention.

Krytun is not a monster. He is a wounded soul who has forgotten who he is.

Joined by Muso and the Creature Teachers, the seven teenagers willingly share their own creative energy, memories and love with Krytun, helping him reconnect with the parts of himself that had gone silent. Through music and human connection, the lost memories within him begin to awaken.

As Krytun remembers who he truly is, colour, creativity and hope begin returning to humanity once again.

MUL

Prologue

In this dystopian world, the people have forgotten how to dream,

Even though they all see dreams nearly every night, they just don’t remember them anymore.

But what if they could remember?

What if their dreams weren’t just random noise; but messages worth listening to?

Before the current dystopia, even the smallest child’s dream were heard, shared, and taken seriously by the whole community.

What if that idea matters even more today?

MUL is a world that lives in the dreamscape; part virtual reality, part magic, part something that doesn’t have a name yet.

Seven very different teenagers in London are about to receive an unusual and unexpected invitation to go there.

They don’t know each other.

They don’t know what’s coming.

And they definitely don’t know that the changes they make inside MUL.world could help change everything on Earth.

Mul

Chapter 1

a Special Delivery

As night falls over a quiet London suburb, the rain mists down turning the streets shiny and black. Every house seems to huddle closer together, trying to keep warm, as the flickering street lights struggle to lift the cloak of darkness;

High above the rooftops, something mysterious stirs.

Suddenly, a low hum can be heard as a rainbow of glowing lights shoot through the sky like speeding comets; red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. Each one, the size of a tennis ball, smooth glass-like orbs, sparkling with tiny inner lights. The violet one looks slightly larger than the rest.

They travel in a straight line, then suddenly dive down as if they are on a mission, stopping dead at Number 1 Park Road. They hover, silent and still, outside a first-floor window.

The red one breaks away from the others. It gently pushes against the slightly open bedroom window, slips inside like a soap bubble and the window clicks shut behind it.

Inside, the red bubble hovers above the bed.

Bernie lies on his back, mouth open, snoring softly. His dark curls stick up in every direction, and one red football sock lies stranded by the bed. He snorts, rolls over, and kicks his duvet onto the floor with a soft thump.

Outside the six remaining orbs hang in a line, as if they were attached to a string; the larger violet one pushes to the front, lands on the narrow windowsill, and begins to bounce.

Up… down… up… down… a little higher each time. Boing… boing… boing…

It bounces once too many, wobbles on the edge, and falls nearly tumbling into the dustbin below. At the last second, it loops back up, spinning in relief.

Just then, a bright, clear sound rings out from inside the house.

Tring! A vibrant flash of red light escapes around the edges of the blind.

The remaining orbs shoot upward, streak across the sky, and vanish into the night.

Moments later, the orbs reach a parade of shops on the other side of town. The orange orb nudges an open bedroom window in the flat above ‘The Cosmic Soup Café’, it wrestles through the curtains, and slips inside. Soon, a higher musical note rings out.

Tring! Along with a warm orange burst of light.

Instantly the yellow orb takes off so fast the other orbs have to hurry to catch up. Then it stops so suddenly, it causes a pile up, as the trailing violet orb crashes into the middle of the group, sending them spinning in all directions like pool balls.

“Eee! Eee!” Squeaks, eeks and huffs fill the air as they tumble.

The yellow bubble spins away from the chaos with a flashy zigzag, darts over a tall fence, and sails into a house through an open skylight, passing a smiling statue of Ganesh.

Tring! A sunny yellow flash follows.

Four orbs continue on at speed.

The green and blue orbs break away and race side by side toward a pair of neighbouring houses. At the last second, they split; green to the right, blue to the left, and slip in through slightly open windows at the same moment. Two notes ring out almost together.

Tring! Tring! followed by bursts of green then bright blue.

Only indigo and violet remain. They circle an imposing Victorian house that has security bars on colourful stained glass windows. The indigo orb squeezes down an old, sooty chimney. It bowls out of a white marble fireplace across the polished wooden floor, skids on a Persian rug, and circles a mahogany harp, making it sing soft chords. Then, it bounces up the stairs two at a time, leaving round sooty smudges on the cream carpet.

It peeps in bedrooms until it finds a sleeping teenager with unruly blond curls poking out from beneath his quilt. Parked next to the bed is a sports wheelchair and sitting proudly in a large bay window is a huge telescope pointing skyward.

Tring! The sixth note echoes through the house, in harmony with a deep indigo glow.

Back on the roof, the violet orb hears the note and takes off across town, straight back to Number 1 Park Road. It circles the house looking for a way in. Every window is shut tight. No skylight. Chimneys capped.

It makes a doubtful sound as it checks out the narrow letterbox.

It tries anyway, whoosh! —> it shoots forward. Thud! It bounces off the door and bowls over two glass milk bottles. They smash on the path with a loud crash.

“Uh oh!” the orb sighs backing away.

It tries again slowly and more carefully this time.

It squeezes, squishes and squashes itself, huffing and puffing, until…

pop! It shoots through with a triumphant high pitched “Whoop!”

“Shhhh!”

Inside and a little flattened the orb bounces up the stairs, reforming it’s orb shape with a final boing! It peeks into the door marked ‘Jeeni’s Room Keep Out!’ and enters carefully, lighting up the room with it’s sparkling violet light.

Jeeni lies wrapped in her pink duvet, a pretty girl with brown skin and a faint white ice-cream moustache left over from a secret midnight snack. Her desk is buried in books and crumpled drawings. The orb hovers above her, then grows bigger and bigger and impossibly bigger still, until…burst! It explodes in a flash of violet sparkles, and the final musical note rings out.

Tring!

The sparkly lights shower down, dividing again and again until they form a glowing mist that floats over the bed and gently streams into Jeeni’s nose as she breathes in. Its job is simple, to invite her to dream.

Far away, seven notes seem to echo together for a moment; a tiny, hopeful harmony against the broken world.