My idea for the track list:
Life in Technicolor ii
Atlas
Moving to Mars
Ghost Story
Christmas Lights
I Ran Away
Crests of Waves
Things I Don't Understand
Glass of Water
Postcards From Far Away
Prospekt's March/Poppyfields
See You Soon
Gravity
Life is For Living
The Escapist
And for the story (I apologize, it's a little long):
A young man, Prospekt, is living a life that he doesn't want. He feels he's stuck, having never chased his dreams, and now the world is on the tipping point of another major conflict. There's a Cold War, and society is on the brink (Life in Technicolor ii). A few days before Christmas, and suddenly, his town is invaded. The war has begun. He hears the gunshots (Atlas), but he's never been a fighter, and is overwhelmed, and in the fray, he meets a girl. She's beautiful, bold, daring and courageous; everything he's not. Despite this, they develop an attraction to each other while holed up in hiding. On a starry night, where there's been a lull in gunfire and bombshells, they have a moment together, and fantasize about leaving the wreckage of the war behind and moving to another planet (Moving to Mars). Xyloto says she'll leave with him as soon as they win the war.
A few days later though, on Christmas day, things have changed. They're losing the battle, and Xyloto is focusing more on the war than on Prospekt. The've been speaking less and less, and Mylo feels like he's not even there (Ghost Story). Prospekt finally tries to convince Xyloto to abandon the town and escape so they can be together, but she refuses to budge. She wants to stay and fight for their town. They argue (Christmas Lights), and reluctantly, Prospekt flees, walking the streets still lit by the Christmas lights that were put up before the fighting started. He only realizes then that he loves her, and wishes he could go back, but it's too dangerous (I Ran Away). He makes his way to the seaside, where he joins a group of refugees escaping on a boat. They set out, (Crests of Waves) and he regrets his decision more and more, because "nothing matters except life and the love you make".
They make it away from the town, to a relatively safe coastline, and hole up in abandoned buildings by the sea. Prospekt is distraught at this point, and questions every decision he's made to get him to this point (Things I Don't Understand). One of the elderly refugees sees the pain he's in, and shows him an old fortune telling trick with a glass of water, telling him if he spends his whole life living in the past, he'll go nowhere fast (Glass of Water). This finally snaps Prospekt out of his gloom, and he vows to become stronger. He trains with the other refugees and becomes a true soldier. Soon after, a courier finds their camp and gives Prospekt a postcard, with no writing on the back, only a picture of Mars on the front (Postcards from Far Away). He instantly knows that it's from Xyloto, a message of some sort, and sets off on foot to return to their town to help or rescue her.
Along the way he passes by other war-torn towns, and sees the horrors that the survivors have endured. It all seems strange, though, that with all the destruction, they're surrounded by beautiful, untouched poppy fields (Prospekt's March/Poppyfields). As he camps one night in the poppy fields, he writes his own message to Xyloto on the back of the postcard, in case he doesn't make it there himself (See You Soon). At last, he makes it back home, and after battling enemy soldiers and searching for hours, finds Xyloto alone in a bakery near the enemy's camps. She's badly injured, and lost a lot of blood, but at the sight of Prospekt's face, lights up. They embrace and Prospekt tells her how he received her message and confesses his love (Gravity). Xyloto explains that they've lost the town, and that she was the last of the resistance. She had given up hope, and crawled to the enemy's camp to set off a bomb and sacrifice herself to slow down their advancement to the other nearby towns. She tells Prospekt to leave and save himself. He refuses, and tells her he was wrong to leave her, and how much his heart ached when he thought of the things he shouldn't have done (Life is for Living). He tells her that life is for living and she comes to understand. He sets off the bomb's timer, and carries her (as he promised he would do in Atlas) and makes it to the safety of his camp in the poppy fields. The bomb goes off, but they don't hear it. They're lying beneath the stars, finally together and at rest, dreaming of their escape from the war (The Escapist) Dreaming of maybe someday settling down (or moving to Mars) Dreaming of how maybe someday, they'll finally be at peace.
(First time doing this sort of thing, let me know what you think!)