The power that brought the world into existence is fading. The world begins to fray under the pressure of a cavalcade of apocalypses. Four children, with four largely incompatible world-destroying destinies, come together in the house on Doom Lane and take up the motto: "You don't have to die just because some people think your existence is evil." Also, there are some wolves.

If a storm sees itself, it can become a person. That's how people are made, after all—-they notice themselves. They become aware of their own existence. Then they're really alive! Storms can do it. Wolves can do it. Evil puppets can do it. Humans . . . almost all of them do! But is it really such a good idea? To be a person is to be an unrefined thing. People are like raw ore—-one thing, mixed with a thousand different things. And they're pulled in a thousand different directions, too! Once you see yourself, you start to notice that. Sometimes you see yourself wanting one thing. Sometimes you see yourself wanting something completely different! Sometimes you're one way. Sometimes you're another! It's all very self-sabotaging and gets in the way of just being the one pure thing that you are. So Tom made a hat to fix that. He made a hat to take a person and turn them into something purer, something more refined. He made a hat to take all the scattered pieces of the self and align them to point in a single direction. It's a hat that can make you into one thing, one pure thing, perfected. What would a hat like that make out of you?