Later that night, Glenn finally got home. His house was a complete mess; the tables had been turned over, hundreds of leaves were strewn across the floor, some of the furniture was broken, and the people who had come had probably been looking for something.

  And hadn't found it.

  Too tired to tidy up, Glenn went straight to bed. As he crossed the house, he could see the extent of the damage; everything was wretched, even his bed.

  Picking up the mattress, he moved towards a spot that was more or less in good condition, and after finding a corner that wasn't too badly damaged, he placed the mattress there.

  As he sat on it, he thought back to what had happened after his mother's death: the moment when he had taken her corpse out of the house, everyone's shock, his discussion with his sister, and then his departure.

  He didn't want to think about it any more; that day had probably been one of the worst he'd ever experienced. He'd lost the only thing he really cared about in this world. He no longer had anything to live for.

  Taking a deep breath, he settled into bed, trying as best he could not to think about what had happened.

  Soon enough, he closed his eyes and entered the world of dreams.

  "Ah?"

  Glenn was surprised; he felt that he was there, but at the same time he wasn't; he couldn't move, speak, or make the slightest sound. All around him, at least as far as he could see, it was very dark. He was in a room made of oval pieces of wood.

  The room was moving in all directions, and the sound of lightning exploded every few seconds. Glenn was lost; he didn't know where he was, and above all, he couldn't do anything.

  'Am I in a dream?'

  There was a strong smell of alcohol and rotting wood all around him. The objects in the room were flying in all directions; sometimes he caught one or two of them, but fortunately, everything in the room seemed to pass right through him without hurting him, as if he were a ghost.

  Even so, he felt sick; he'd always had motion sickness, so to be in a room that moved so much without being able to move and therefore just endure it was pure torture for him.

  Without being able to act on this thought, Glenn heard a noise different from the lightning; right in front of him was a door. It was bent as if on the other side it had to support a considerable weight. Dreading what was about to happen, Glenn stared at the door, ready to explode.

  A few long seconds later, feeling the pressure building up inside him, he swallowed, and the door exploded, accompanied by two men who looked like they were in the middle of a fight.

  One was blond and young, while the other was older, more muscular, and had dark blue hair. They were shouting at each other and fighting at the same time, and Glenn couldn't understand anything except that it was serious.

  They were fighting efficiently without showing any signs of fatigue. At that moment, he realized something: the room he was in, the smell of rotting wood and alcohol, the room swaying violently, and the strange accoutrements of the two men—everything matched.

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  'Are they pirates?'

  Before he could think of anything else, the scene changed. Glenn was on top of a cliff; he still couldn't do anything; he was still stuck. Next to him was a young man with electric blond hair and ocean-blue eyes who suddenly raised his hand and shouted something that Glenn, of course, didn't understand.

  Below the cliff, however, there was an army of a thousand men heading straight for a wall…Dark? Glenn didn't understand what it was all about as if he didn't have the authority to see what it was.

  Just before the army came into contact with the black mass, the scene changed again. This time, he could only see a distant silhouette without really understanding its contours or seeing any information other than the fact that the silhouette was human.

  This dark silhouette passed through a large luminous portal, and that was all. There was nothing else, and Glenn stood there for a few minutes before the scene changed again.

  This time, he saw a man sitting on a stone throne, entwined by vines. The person on the throne exuded a powerful aura—very powerful—not a raw power that would bring anyone to their knees, but a gentle, calm power.

  The figure did not move; it looked like a statue of a god who had stood there for hundreds of thousands of years or more. The figure wearing a strange mask gave Glenn a strange sensation, and he felt particularly strange in front of it, but this time he couldn't understand the sensation; he'd never felt it before.

  In front of the throne stood dozens of people, and Glenn noticed that each of them looked very much like the fresco he had seen in the cave years ago; they were all wearing rather futuristic armour, with weapons hanging all over their bodies: firearms, daggers, and even mini-missiles.

  Despite the helmets covering their heads, they seemed particularly serious and solemn before the god sitting on the throne, resolute and respectful.

  As Glenn took in all the information, he noticed a card in the hand of the so-called god that looked very much like a tarot card, both in shape and design.

  On it, Glenn could see a planet that strongly resembled the Earth; ironically, there were two inscriptions on it: the number nine was written in large letters at the bottom of the card, followed by the word 'planet'.

  Glenn couldn't understand. Then, as he began to think about what was happening, the world around him sped up, and in a second, he entered the map. Instantly, Glenn entered a library.

  With a loud sound, a book fell in front of him and opened. Immediately, his head began to burn, and he could no longer think as the pain intensified. He nearly went mad.

  Fortunately, this time he was able to move and quickly remove the book from his field of vision.

  Stumbling to his feet, he looked ahead and saw a man dressed in a suit from the 1800s. He watched Glenn for a second before saying something that Glenn didn't hear.

  Before Glenn could respond, he was suddenly startled. The scene changed abruptly with horrible noises, and space seemed to be tearing apart. From one of these tears, a black, slimy tentacle emerged, followed by another, again and again.

  After a few seconds, a terrifying being emerged from the tear, and when Glenn saw it, he was so terrified that he couldn't even move.

  "Haa!"

  With a start, Glenn jumped off his mattress.

  It was just a dream.

  The dream, or rather, the strangest nightmare he had ever seen.

  Sweating profusely, Glenn got out of bed, if you could call it that, and went to the kitchen, where he took a large glass of water and drank it down as if he hadn't drunk in ages.

  He had seen that abominable creature from the fresco again, and it was a very bad memory.

  His nightmare had been horrible, and he breathed out loudly before sitting up again in bed, feeling unwell and wanting to vomit.

  Now that he could no longer sleep, he thought about his future. What was he going to do now that he had lost everything? Even he didn't know.

  Slowly, his body calmed down, gradually forgetting the dream he had just had, and then, as if a door had opened in his heart.

  He wept at his mother's death with all his soul; the day he had just lived had taken him through every emotion. So much so that when his mother died, he hadn't shed a single tear.

  But now he couldn't help it.

  After a few minutes of mourning, he lifted his head.

  Strangely enough, this nightmare had been the signal that had allowed him to let his emotions flow in this way for the last time. Now that he had lost everything, he could lose nothing.

  So he was going to live his life as he wished without worrying about anything ever again.

  From that moment on, a new Glenn was created.

  He had left behind all the emotions he had felt over the last few years. He felt...free.