I came to a place where our feelings exist physically. Here, there are no dogs or birds, or any other animals at all, but beings created by our dark and wicked minds. They are called Sycons. Elements of our consciousness that go hand in hand with us. My name is Kurtus and my Sycon manifested itself from my most touched feeling, loneliness. How did I get to this mad world? Well this is my story.

I grew up in an orphanage, where I got used to seeing everyone around me being chosen by decent and loving families. Where I got used to being left behind and increasingly losing hope of having a normal childhood. With each passing year, I discredited myself more and more. I knew the chances that an older child had of being adopted. I spent most of my time locked in a broom closet reading a book about a distant place, where my mind could escape to. I had already given up on having friends. It was always the same, when we became close they left, with a father, a mother and a big smile on their face. They always promised to come back to see me, but they never did. I didn't blame them. If I ever left that place, I wouldn't even consider going back, even for a day.

The only time of day when I felt comfortable going out and walking a little was in the middle of the night, while everyone slept, where the long, empty corridors of the orphanage brought me a strange comfort. Where I knew I was alone, with my thoughts, with myself ... alone.

That was when I first saw it. I thought I was dreaming, sleepwalking. I scratched my eye more times than I can remember, just to make sure I wasn't crazy. And what did I see? I saw a little creature passing in front of me, not a cat, not a mouse, not anything that I had ever seen. It looked like a black fur ball, with two red eyes and big pointy ears. I just stared at it. I wasn't scared, I can't say why not, I just wasn't. After a while I understood, it wanted me to follow him, and I immediately felt the need to go after it. Again without knowing why, it just seemed right. I ran, trying as hard as I could to make no noise. I followed the creature until it entered a room. The door was open. It shouldn't be, no door was open like that in the middle of the night.

The room was strange, even for me who had already explored that orphanage from head to toe over the years. It was a place where I had never been before. All the furniture was covered with old and torn sheets. Except for one, a big mirror, much bigger than me, and my teenage body. As I approached, my reflection asked me.

"Does loneliness scare you?"

I fell on my back, tried to turn to run, but I was grabbed by hundreds of black hands that pulled me inside, making me enter the mirror, where I was swallowed by shadows, without being able to run away, scream or cry. I felt my body breaking into a thousand pieces and being rebuilt again and again and again and again and again, until I lost consciousness.

When I woke up I was already there, where your feelings go to live and fight for you, where the Sycons reign. The creature then introduced itself.

“My name is Solitude, welcome Mr. Kurtus”.

. . .