I wished I could say things had changed.
But even after more than a year, everything looked exactly the same. The flashy clothes. The megalomaniacal architecture, raised by those with too much money and too little common sense. If there was anything that had truly changed, it was the looks — because the nobles certainly knew how to recognize the clothes I was wearing.
Probably, I was like a firefly in the dark.
A point of light that announced, to whoever knew how to read it, that there stood someone who had been through the torture of the Oasis and come back to tell about it. And coming back was rare enough for that to be worth something.
"The ceiling is still as high as ever. But now it looks smaller."
Maybe encountering creatures the size of buildings had shrunk all of that in my perception.
What once seemed colossal to me was now just big. When I reached the center of the hall, another group was gathering — and the same woman with the scar on her face seemed irritated, herding recruits like cattle. I knew exactly what that was. The endless cycle of people who went and came back, or rather, who went and never came back, ceaselessly feeding the Oasis with blood and flesh.
It was tragic. And no one there seemed to notice anymore.
✦ ✦ ✦
"Very well. What do I have to do now?"
While I was still thinking about the next steps, a man appeared at my side.
"Welcome, sir. I believe you've just returned from the Oasis."
He had gotten close enough without my noticing the approach — which, in itself, was strange.
After a year sharpening my instincts against things that wanted to devour me, it wasn't easy to get close to me without my noticing. But the man seemed more interested in staying on my good side than in anything else, so I simply ignored the detail.
"I just got back and I'd like to know what I need to do to return to my home, which is at Farm 22."
And it was then that I saw it.
The man's gaze changed.
For a fraction of a second, upon hearing the name of the place I came from, something crossed his face — and it wasn't the surprise I expected. Returning from the Oasis was already rare even for a noble. A commoner from a farm returning should have been quite an event, worthy of astonishment. But that wasn't astonishment. It was something else. Something more contained, more cautious — the kind of reaction of someone who recognizes a name they didn't expect to hear, and would have preferred not to have heard.
And the few seconds of silence stretched too long.
"Ah… sorry."
He recomposed himself quickly. Very quickly.
"Of course. As someone recently returned from the farms, you must not know the procedure. Actually, you just need to exchange your nectar stones for money. Unfortunately, if you don't want to exchange them all at once, they need to remain in this building. Apart from that, you have a car at your disposal and can come and go whenever you want."
I stored that reaction in a corner of my mind.
There was something wrong there — something connected to my name, to my farm, maybe to the same reason my data simply no longer existed in the system at the hive. They were loose pieces of a puzzle I still couldn't put together. But I would keep them. All of them. For when they made sense.
✦ ✦ ✦
For now, I was relieved there wasn't any kind of restriction.
I had the feeling there was something I should do, or identify — but, apparently, being a returnee was too important to waste time tying me up in petty bureaucracies. Before heading to the stone exchange, I observed once more the woman with the scar leading the new group.
It was strange to see that from the outside. Nostalgic and uncomfortable at the same time — like looking at an old photograph of a day that almost killed you.
The exchange of value occurred without problems.
I kept some higher-quality stones, but even so — I had never seen so much money in my life. Fortunately, there was a bank where I could leave the amount, and which worked even inside the farms.
"With this amount, you can buy an apartment in the surrounding area, to stay close to the hive. But, as you must have noticed, the return can't always be made through the same place you entered. This book will help you better understand how transport between the Oasis and here works. Can I help with anything else?"
"No. Thank you."
As a returnee, I knew I would have other obligations soon.
There was always an incentive for a returnee to go back to the Oasis — and, honestly, I myself was already beginning to worry about having left my kingdom alone for so long. But, in that moment, there were things more important than duties and incentives. Things I had been postponing for too long.
✦ ✦ ✦
Another thing that made me happy was discovering that, even without knowing where the car I had arrived in was, a new one was made available to me.
And this one had a much more evident advantage.
"Well… according to the manual, I just need to choose the location and click here…"
As soon as I pressed the button, the car began to float.
It rose, reaching a great height, and headed in the direction I had marked.
"I could get used to this."
It was funny. With an autonomous automobile, I had total freedom — I could even read the book I had been given, since there wasn't even the rattle of an ordinary car on the road. But the anxiety wouldn't let me take my eyes off the landscape. Maybe it was normal, as a first experience, to be as nervous as I was — after all, the human being wasn't made to fly.
Fortunately, I didn't need to stay tense for long.
Soon, I managed to spot the enormous dome with the number 22 — still as clear as the first time I saw it. And, being in the sky, I didn't need to stop to cross the barrier as I was forced to do on the way out.
Upon crossing the dome, the same semi-arid environment took over everything.
It was nostalgic in an almost painful way. My kingdom, in the Oasis, was in a place surrounded by trees of all sizes — green, alive, humid. Returning to the dry and familiar land of my childhood was strange, like putting on old clothes that no longer fit the same way. And, suddenly, I caught myself feeling a flutter in my stomach I hadn't felt in a long time.
✦ ✦ ✦
"Where am I again?"
It was funny how, seen from above, the city looked different.
Sometimes I recognized something — a corner, a roof, a curve of the road — only to lose myself soon after in the labyrinth everything became from that height. I passed the bar where I had a fight shortly before everything changed. By several places that had always been there, but that I had never valued, because I never imagined I could lose them. That's how it works, I think. We only learn the weight of the small things after almost not coming back to them.
[ Arrival expected in 2 minutes ]
As I observed, I began to recognize the places with more familiarity.
They were the surroundings of my house. Each street more familiar than the last, each detail pulling a memory I had locked away to manage to survive out there. When I finally arrived, the vehicle began to descend.
And my whole body began to tremble.
I was home.
[ Arrival complete. Awaiting new route ]
✦ ✦ ✦
The door opened, and I got out.
Outside, the same yard as always — with the same toys scattered across the ground, silent proof that there was still life there. My stomach sank into a knot of nervousness. But, even so, I began to cross the yard, taking care not to step on any of the toys.
It was a useless care.
Because the house door opened — and three small Shih Tzus shot in my direction, an avalanche of fur and paws and pure happiness.
I crouched down, unable to hold back the tears.
And I didn't try to hold them back. Because I knew it wasn't sadness — it was the exact opposite of it. It was the kind of crying that only comes when something you thought you might never have again returns to your hands.
"Sam… Clover… Alex… I'm back."
I sat right there, on the ground of the yard, stroking each of their fur.
They smelled me, licked me, climbed over one another to get closer, as though they wanted to confirm with their snouts what their eyes didn't believe. I had forgotten what it was like to be received like that — without suspicion, without calculation, without any of the defenses the Oasis had forced me to build. Just love, simple and total.
And then a broken voice reached my ear.
"Brother?"
That voice brought everything back.
All at once. Every drop of blood I spilled. Every wound, every broken bone, every night I didn't know whether I would see the dawn. Every offspring of Arachne that died, every scream, every impossible choice. All of it — all the war, all the horror, all the unpayable price I had paid — had been for a single reason.
For that voice.
I raised my eyes. And there she was.
A woman who had clearly fought against her own nightmares while I fought against mine. Deep dark circles marked her face. She was thin in a way that hurt to see — too thin, worn in a way that a year shouldn't be able to wear someone. The voice I had sworn to protect now sounded smaller. More fragile. As though she too had crossed her own hell, in silence, on the other side of the universe.
And even so, she was the most beautiful thing I had seen in more than a year.
"Yes… I'm back."
She said nothing more.
She didn't need to. She just ran — and threw herself into my arms with such force that she knocked me backward, the two of us falling onto the ground of the yard while the three Shih Tzus piled on top of us, barking, spinning, completing the chaos of a reunion neither of us was sure would happen.
I hugged her back. Hard. Feeling how much she had shrunk, and promising myself, in silence, that I would do it all again if I had to.
Every battle. Every loss. Every piece of me.
All over again, without hesitating.
I had come home.
✦ ✦ ✦
"Ow, ow, ow… could you stop hitting my head?"
"I'll stop when you apologize for asking the most idiotic question I've ever heard in my life."
We were in the kitchen, and Lena insisted on filling me with knuckle-raps.
Part of the blame, I admit, was mine — the question I had asked moments before kind of ruined the mood of the reunion. It's just that, amid the tears and the hug, with the Shih Tzus still spinning around us, the first coherent thing that came out of my mouth was about my car.
"How was I supposed to know you'd get irritated just because I asked about the car?"
The problem is that it wasn't just any car.
It was my 4x4, 16-valve, turbo. A relic. I was probably one of the last in the world to still have a combustion-powered one, in a city where even the simplest cars were already electric. I had spent years caring for that machine as though it were a third sibling. But, come to think of it, maybe asking about the car at the exact moment of the reunion tears wasn't my most brilliant decision.
"I'm sorry. Anyway… I'm glad you took care of it."
The knuckle-rap I expected didn't come.
Instead, Lena hugged me. From behind, her too-thin arms tightening around me with a strength that didn't match how much she had lost weight.
"I missed you."
"I missed you too."
We stayed like that for a few seconds, without saying anything, while she hugged me from behind.
And it was a good silence. The kind that only exists between two people who spent their whole lives side by side and who, for a time, weren't sure they would see each other again. I had crossed wars thinking about that exact instant. And it was even better than in the memory.
That was when I remembered what I had brought.
"Hey. I brought something for you. Close your eyes."
✦ ✦ ✦
The advantage of having a storage ring was being able to walk around carrying almost nothing.
While she closed her eyes, eager as a child, I took the bottle out of the ring — still cool, as though it had just come off the shelf.
"You can open them."
"My God… a wine! I thought you'd bring something more… I don't know, more you."
While she admired the wine, I took out the second item.
The one that, even more than the drink, I was absolutely certain she would love.
"That's just the appetizer. Here's the real gift."
In my hand, a golden card with black stripes.
And that achieved exactly the effect I expected.
"Wait… you're kidding. Is this what I think it is?"
I puffed out my chest, vain.
"Of course it is. You think I went to the end of the universe just for fun? Now I'm a renowned client of the ban—"
Before I finished, Lena snatched the card from my hand and raised it up, against the light, like someone checking whether a jewel is real.
"I don't believe it… wait. How much is in here?"
Before she got more confused, I took from my pocket the paper that had been handed to me along with the deposit.
"I split the money into two cards. But what's on that one is this."
She grabbed the paper quickly, her eyes running over the numbers.
"Wait… this looks more like a social-security number than an amount. How much is this, in God's name?"
I could see her breathing become labored as she tried to process the number.
Honestly, even I had had difficulty calculating the exact amount when I first saw it. And, looking at her there, holding that paper with trembling hands while the wine — which had cost a small fortune — lay forgotten on the table, I even felt a little bad. That bottle she had set aside in half a second was worth more than everything she and I together had earned in our entire lives.
"I need to remember never to buy anything in that place again."
"Did you say something?"
"No. Actually… the amount on that one is almost ten million dollars. I was thinking we could buy a new house. And a car for you, since I—"
"MY GOD, I can buy so many clothes and so much jewelry!"
I was taken aback.
I had imagined she would think of practical things — security, stability, a future. But seeing the genuine smile on her face, the first real smile I'd seen since I arrived, I realized it didn't matter. She deserved to want silly things. She deserved, after a year alone, to think about clothes and jewelry instead of thinking about surviving.
And then, suddenly, she lowered the card.
And looked at me seriously.
"You sit here. Now. And tell me exactly everything you went through to get this."
There it was.
She had understood. She had probably realized, with that intuition she always had, that nothing came for free — and that an amount like that meant much more than a peaceful stroll. I looked at her, and honestly I didn't want to tell everything. Not the blood. Not the deaths. Not the sleepless nights. So I chose to tell only the lighter parts.
Who would have guessed that even the lighter parts would leave her jaw on the floor.
"Shut up, you faced a wendigo?! Do you know a wendigo would kill anyone in this city in seconds?!"
"No need to worry. I was very lucky to be born in a place with few dangers. Honestly, apart from the Purge, nothing interesting happened."
"Even so! Aren't the Burmans one of the strongest races in the Oasis?!"
Unfortunately, I couldn't escape her questions for nearly an hour.
That was how long the interrogation lasted — each of my answers generating three new questions, each "light" part revealing itself, in her eyes, as a nightmare of death I had crossed as though it were an ordinary day. She only left me in peace when she finally ran out of breath to ask more.
✦ ✦ ✦
"That card is yours. But I'd like to give you mine too."
The mood grew heavy at once.
Because she knew what that meant.
"You're going back… I mean, we already have so much now."
It was true.
We had, overnight, the ability to live a good life. Actually, an excellent life — worthy of the nobility that always looked down on us. We could buy a real house, leave that farm, forget the Oasis existed. But it wasn't the money that moved me. At least, not in that moment.
Knowing she was safe was already more than enough to make me happy.
But I had a responsibility. Something she perceived as I spoke — as I told her about the creatures, the kingdom, the lives that depended on me on the other side. It wasn't about me anymore. There was an Arachne mourning her children. There was a Griffin caring for two young ones. There were Morgana and Livina holding everything alone. I couldn't simply abandon them to live off clothes and jewelry.
"How long will you be away?"
"I don't know yet. If I had more money, I could buy a Pod. But until then…"
In the little time the anxiety left me in peace during the flight, I managed to read some things about Pods and how they worked. And it was there that I discovered there was a way — expensive, but that many Lords used to stay close to their own families.
Acquiring a private Pod. It was extremely expensive, with maintenance that bordered on unviable, but it offered advantages the free Pods would never have. The main one was the capacity for guaranteed return to the original Pod. With the free ones, upon returning, I could try to use the same point I left from — but it wasn't a rule. If it was occupied, I would end up reappearing anywhere, as had happened this time.
"The next time I come back, I promise to bring a Pod. Then I can stay in the kingdom and come home whenever I want."
It took many hours to convince Lena that I would in fact return.
She knew I was stubborn. But she knew, too, that I wasn't stupid — and that, if I had said I would return, it was because I had a plan to return. In the end, that was what reassured her: not the promise, but the fact that I never promised what I couldn't deliver.
"Unfortunately, I'm still going to have to use your Tag. It's still registered in my name."
"Don't worry. Now that I have this card, you can keep it forever. After all, I'm officially retired, hahaha!"
We laughed.
And we talked nearly the whole night, while the wine that was worth one of my kidneys ran out before I even noticed. We talked about everything and nothing — about childhood, about the dogs, about the silly things she wanted to buy, about the plans that now, for the first time, were possible. Until she got so tired that her eyes began to close on their own.
"Lena… I'm going to need to go back. There's a mission."
She looked at me sadly. But she knew that what I was doing was for the good of us both.
"Promise you won't stay away so long this time? Besides, there's no point in having all this money if I don't have an idiot brother to help me spend it."
Helena had a way of seeing things that left me surprisingly at peace.
"Don't worry. When I come back, you can hire some cooks to make decent food."
"Hold on. Are you saying my cooking is garbage? Why, you…"
She still gave me a few more slaps before finally no longer being able to stay on her feet.
I carried her to bed, laid her down carefully, and gave a kiss on her forehead — the way she did with me when we were children and I was the younger of the two.
✦ ✦ ✦
I went to my room.
Small, as it had always been. And it was exactly as I had left it — the same mess, the same untidy corners, as though someone had taken care to keep everything neither too right nor too wrong. Lena had preserved the room. The way one preserves the hope that someone will come back.
"Thank you, Lena."
"Zeus, how long do I have until the test?"
[ 3:23:12 ]
I placed my hand on the door, running my fingers over the old markings.
Those same marks that measured our height when we were children, year after year. I had stopped marking a long time ago. But the marks were still there, frozen in a past that seemed from another life. I sat on the bed, and the three Shih Tzus asked, as always, to climb up.
"Let's stay together a little."
It was nostalgic to be there.
I could almost smell the coffee, the eggs, and the bacon early in the morning. I could almost convince myself that none of it — the Oasis, the war, the blood — had been real. I wanted to close my eyes and stay there forever. And the worst, or the best, part was that I could. I had money. I had a house. I had a living sister. No one was forcing me to go back.
That was when I finally understood something.
Many who returned from the Oasis never went back again. The reasons were various — but there were those who said the most common of all was simply this: that it was too hard to return after feeling again the warmth of a familiar bed and the affection of those you love. I had always thought it nonsense. Weakness, even. Now, with my body sinking into the mattress and three warm snouts pressed against me, I understood perfectly. It wasn't weakness. It was the most human thing in the world.
My body begged to lie down, close its eyes, and wake up the next day to repeat it all over again. Forever.
I shook my head. And stood up.
"There will be time for that. Just not today."
The three Shih Tzus looked at me with a clear sadness in their eyes, as though they understood.
I smiled.
"I'll come back. I promise."
✦ ✦ ✦
I advanced to the car.
I felt that, if I had to say goodbye to my sister face to face, I wouldn't be able to. And I felt, too, that she would never let me go if she saw me leave. Maybe that was why neither of us had touched on the subject of farewell out loud. Some things are easier when left unsaid.
"Back to the place we left from."
[ Understood. Calculating return. ]
The door closed.
And I observed the house for one more instant — just enough to see her through the window. Lena was there, looking back at me through the glass, without waving, without saying anything. The two of us knew that was the only kind of see-you-later we could manage. Not a goodbye. Never a goodbye. Just the silence of two people who trust they will meet again.
The neighbors finally came out of their houses — but they seemed much more shocked by the flying car landed in that forgotten neighborhood than by anything else.
I didn't mind.
I just raised my hand, to her, to the house, to the life I was leaving behind once more.
"See you soon."