Three days after the attack on the beach, Thomas remained locked in his house under quarantine.
Dylan had been clear: no one comes in, no one goes out. It's for your safety… and for the safety of those around you.
During those days he barely slept. He watched the news with his aunt. The broadcasts turned the new Impossible City into a spectacle: new flora, new fauna, "historic breakthroughs." But Thomas could only think about what no one was saying.
The city had appeared six years earlier than expected.
And almost in the exact same place as the previous one.
Nothing like that had happened in a hundred and fifty years.
His aunt set a cup of coffee in front of him.
—They keep appearing closer —she said, without emotion.
The government car arrived on the third day.
Thomas looked at his aunt one last time before getting in. She didn't say "be careful." She simply hugged him a second longer than usual.
The hug was brief, but Thomas noticed details he never usually noticed: the smell of detergent on her clothes, the roughness of her working hands, the way she held him as if trying to anchor him to the world. As if the world had a habit of taking everything away.
He thought about saying "I'll be back," but the words got stuck. Because six years earlier there had also been a last domestic scene —a coffee, a door, a "I'll be right back"— and then the house learned to live with an empty space.
He looked at his phone. No new messages. Not from Sunny. Not from anyone. And that absence hurt for a stupid reason: if Sunny wasn't writing, it was because she was truly scared. Or because she no longer knew where to find him.
He got into the car with his stomach tight, as if he were swallowing his own neighborhood.
The trip was silent. Asterión City went on functioning as usual outside the window, but everything looked like a badly placed set.
The Academy appeared behind a row of dark trees. It didn't look like a school. It looked like a fortress.
Above the entrance arch, engraved in metal, he read:
ACADEMIA INTERNACIONAL DE EXPLORADORES
"For entering, you must first get lost."
The vestibule was enormous. Light fell from a glass ceiling. The walls were covered with portraits. All of them with the same plaque underneath:
Disappeared.
He stopped in front of one.
Dr. Alexander Lych
Impossible City No. 13
Disappeared
It was his father, young, with a focused gaze. Thomas felt a knot in his throat. For a second he had the absurd feeling that his old man was about to speak to him.
—Many people stop and stare at that portrait.
Dylan was a few meters away.
—Your father was one of the best —he said—. And the only one who ever managed to scare the entire Academy.
—Why?
—Right before he disappeared he said the Impossible Cities weren't appearing.
He said they had always been here.
The vestibule seemed to grow even quieter.
Thomas looked at the portrait again.
For the first time he thought that his father hadn't disappeared.
Maybe he had simply found something the rest of them still couldn't see.