First Love, Fractured

In the gleaming Remember Institute, sixteen-year-old Luna Remember lives a life meticulously curated, where memories are routinely wiped clean for the sake of a harmonious future—a future devoid of messy, unpredictable emotions. But this summer, the familiar hum of the memory-wiping machines feels different, a discordant echo of a loss she can't place.  Her sterile world begins to crack, revealing unsettling inconsistencies: vacant smiles on her classmates' faces, the muted ache of heartbreak swiftly erased by EmotiCon, the Institute's latest “emotional regulation” triumph.  And then there's Atlas Forget, a fellow intern whose eyes hold the unsettling familiarity of a recurring dream.
Their forbidden connection sparks a flicker of defiance in a world designed to extinguish such sparks.  Stolen glances evolve into clandestine meetings in the Institute’s dusty archives, where they unearth a chilling truth: Project First Love, a cruel experiment designed to test the resilience of love by systematically erasing it, rewriting it like lines of code. *They* are the subjects.  The metallic tang of Luna’s first kiss? Not ozone, as she'd believed, but the residue of a connection stubbornly refusing to be erased.
If her memories, her very emotions, are fabricated, what is real? Who is *she*? Panic gives way to defiance.  Joined by Brenda, a coding prodigy, and Aaron, whose untamed emotions pierce the Institute’s control, Luna and Atlas delve deeper into the Institute’s web of deceit, uncovering a conspiracy far more sinister than emotional regulation: the commodification of love itself, a dystopian marketplace where human connection is a privilege, not a right.  Their every move is monitored, the threat of complete erasure a constant shadow. Failure isn't heartbreak; it's the annihilation of their identities, the extinction of their love.
As their forbidden romance blossoms amidst sterile confines, a fragile flower pushing through concrete, Luna and Atlas must fight not only for their stolen memories but for the soul of a society teetering on the brink of emotional oblivion.  Their fractured first love becomes a weapon, a symbol of resistance, a testament to the unyielding power of the human heart.  But can they expose the truth before the Institute silences them forever?  And what price are they willing to pay to reclaim not only their past but the very future of human connection itself?