Izan woke with a start, drenched in sweat.

He looked around, searching for answers, but found only the desolate landscape of his reality.

Flies buzzed above the bodies of those who had been his classmates not long ago.

Beside him lay Clara's body, her face wearing an immaculate expression of peace.

He saw the cut on her arm that he had made himself, and when he noticed the missing piece of flesh, his stomach churned.

With his mind still confused, he tried to piece together what had happened.

Had he really seen his friend's memories because he had eaten her flesh? It had all felt so real.

Trying to regain his composure and reconstruct what his mind had experienced, he searched for other familiar faces.

Farther away, he spotted Bruno, whose body seemed to have landed in a sitting position against the earthen wall of the pit. One of his arms was missing, and he had a horrible wound on his jaw that left his mouth permanently open and dislocated.

That was when Izan thought of his old friend, Alex.

He didn't remember seeing him among the bodies.

"Wasn't he with us?" he wondered.

"No."

Izan turned desperately toward where Clara was. He had heard her voice, but her body lay motionless.

"I think I'm going crazy."

"You were always a little crazy," Clara replied.

Izan startled again. He moved so quickly that his broken legs sent an unbearable wave of pain through him.

Once he had gotten used to the pain, he inspected their condition.

He lifted the fabric of his pants and saw that his legs had turned purplish-green. The swelling had increased, and from his knees down, he could barely feel anything. All the pain was concentrated in his knees.

"I don't think I'm going to make it even if I try to survive, Clara," he said aloud, this time waiting for an answer. "My legs are completely wrecked."

"They'll have to cut them off. At least you'll be able to watch TV shows all day," his friend's voice joked.

Izan narrowed his eyes and looked at Clara's body.

"Are you really the one talking?"

"Yes, dummy," she replied affectionately. "You're not that crazy."

"Am I not? You're dead beside me, and you're still talking to me," he said. "I even ate a piece of your arm."

"... Are you serious?"

"Yes..."

"Well, I never thought that stupid thing we talked about that day would actually happen," Clara said before beginning to laugh. "But I'm glad you kept your promise."

Izan smiled sadly. His friend's corpse had yellowed and swollen, but somehow, she still managed to retain the same peaceful expression.

"Anyway... If I'm not crazy, how are we talking?"

"I'm not entirely sure about that either," she admitted. "But it's as if I'm inside your mind."

"That's not much different from being crazy."

"It's not that," she replied angrily. "I'm in a room, and I'm not entirely sure how I know this, but I know this place is inside you."

Izan hesitated for a few moments as he watched the light in the pit grow brighter. He had awakened after sunrise, and now the sky was a mixture of yellow and blue. The clouds had finally disappeared.

"Could this be your power?" Clara asked him.

The young man frowned. Ever since he had awakened in the pit, he seemed to have forgotten much of what had happened before, but her words brought back blurry images of the expression of the god who had chosen him—an expression of disappointment.

The god, thin and pale, with honey-colored eyes and curly black hair, had awakened Izan's abilities so that he could become one of the Heroes chosen by the gods. But after doing so, he looked at him with contempt and disappointment and told him:

"You will be of no use."

Then, without any explanation, he sent Izan to that new world, where he would find despair.

"I don't know," he replied to Clara. "The god never explained anything to me."

"We were supposed to have each been given a divine gift," his friend explained. "So this should be yours."

Izan remembered the feeling of adventure and happiness he had experienced when the magic of that new world had taken him there, but now there was nothing but contempt.

"I know," Clara told him. "I feel the same way."

"What are you talking about?"

"Being here, I can feel all your emotions. The anger, the pain, and the fear... and also a little bit of happiness."

"That last part is because you're here," he admitted. "I still don't understand it. I don't know what any of this is about, but I thought I'd never be able to talk to you again."

Izan couldn't see her, but he felt his friend smile. He felt warmth in his chest, as if he were sharing his body with her.

That feeling guided him toward awakening the instincts his gift held.

Calmly, he sighed, closed his eyes, and let his thoughts flow.

He saw a green river carrying him through a cavernous landscape. He couldn't feel the water. Instead, it felt as though hands were pushing him and guiding him through the current.

The cave widened in the distance, giving way to a huge, dark Gothic-style palace.

Concrete spires rose from its walls, pointing toward a blood-red sky speckled with stars.

The palace had four floors and a tower on the right wing that stood alone above everything else.

The green river did not end there. It continued, disappearing into the darkness, but the hands guiding Izan through his thoughts pushed him toward the edge of a broken stone bridge.

The boy realized that the bridge had once crossed the river, but now only a fraction of it remained.

Although everything seemed like a dream, something inside him knew it wasn't. He even felt that this was a familiar landscape, despite this being the first time he had ever seen it.

Swallowing hard, he advanced across the bridge toward the enormous carved entrance that led into the palace.

When he placed his feet in front of the entrance, it opened on its own, as if welcoming him.

The door slowly opened with a faint creak, revealing a great hall with a white-tiled floor, black glass windows, and marble columns rising to the ceiling.

The hall lacked decorations and furniture, but it wasn't empty.

There, standing and gazing at the shapes formed by the columns as they reached the palace's ceiling, was Clara.

Taken by surprise, Izan remained standing at the entrance, unable to understand what was happening.

It was his friend who, upon noticing the boy's presence, turned around and said with a smile:

"See? You weren't that crazy."