Glenn's world fell apart as he looked at the man in front of him with surprise, disgust, and anger. His eyes opened wide, unable to close, and his mouth was unable to make a sound.

  He was just standing there.

  His mind was lost and twisted, and he could no longer articulate a single thought, as if a black veil obscured his mind. He was present and absent at the same time. Then the old man on the ground, still sweating profusely and pale, suddenly stood up.

  "How did you get out of the cave? "How can you be alive?"

  Quickly, the old man pulled a gun from a holster on his belt and pointed it at Glenn.

  "What kind of abomination are you?"

  Even at gunpoint, Glenn didn't care; he felt it wouldn't do anything to him, like some kind of primal instinct. With a last hint of hope, he slowly approached the pile of papers on the desk and then grabbed the pile the old man had been reading.

  Moments after he laid eyes on it, any hope he had held within him was brutally shattered into a thousand pieces. The information inside proved what the man had said, and there was no questioning it.

  [Glenn Hanta]

  [ age: 17 ]

  [disappeared on July 8, 2035, at 11:02 a.m.].

  [Note: The young man was searched for 15 days after his disappearance; at the insistence of the victim's family, the search continued for another 15 days, but no trace of him was found, and his footprints stopped dead after about 8 minutes of walking.]

  A few more pieces of information were present, but they were far less important. As he put the leaves down, he slowly turned back to the old man with an indifferent look. Strangely, Glenn was very, very calm. As if his mind refused to believe what was happening.

  "What is today's date?"

  The old man gave him a questioning and surprised look, probably because Glenn remained indifferent despite the threat of the weapon in front of him. Then he wondered who the young man in front of him was.

  "It's August 15, 2078."

  Glenn let out a long, heavy, strangely ancient sigh. His eyes were closed, trying to digest all the information he had been given. Then he realized that something was wrong; he was calm, very calm. The only anger he had felt since he had come out of the cave was at the old man's belated answers.

  'Well, the first thing I have to do is find my family. Despite appearances, all my family is still young; Cassia and Mom are probably still alive, but Dad... It's better not to think about it; I have to find them as soon as possible.'

  Looking at the old man, he bowed respectfully. Who looked at him strangely.

  "I'm sorry to have bothered you; I don't know what's happening to me either. But please, I beg you to take me home or introduce me to someone who can; I need to see my family!"

  Faced with Glenn's sincere request, the old man didn't know what to do; he was lost. For him, a monster capable of taking on the appearance of the people lost in the cave had come out. But faced with the young boy's sincere request, he didn't know.

  But with his long and rich experience as a guard, he could clearly sense that Glenn was sincere. As a result, he lowered his weapon and sighed deeply.

  "Haaaaa...okay kid... I'll walk you home tomorrow; it's my day off."

  Despite his most sincere request, Glenn didn't expect the old man to agree to his request; he was sure he would refuse and was already prepared to insist as much as possible or run away.

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  "Thank you very much, sir!"

  The next morning, Glenn was on a boat and crossed the river for the second time since yesterday—well, since fifty years ago. Compared to the last time, the lush nature and the colourful fairy-tale scenery of the river crossing had disappeared, replaced by grey, monotonous, and dreary stone. As if the place had been abandoned long ago.

  "What happened here?"

  His question surprised the old man, and then, as if he remembered something, he replaced his surprise with a sympathetic look.

  "Fifty years ago, everything was just as it was when you came; the place was breathtakingly beautiful, and thousands of people came and went on this very river, happy, excited, and smiling."

  At this point, a grim look graced his face, and then he took on an equally grim tone.

  "But everything changed fifty years ago, for a reason that remains a mystery to this day. When the tremor was over, everyone was relieved; no one had anything, no injuries. But after a while, the situation became strange and degenerated. "All the people who were in the caves at that time disappeared."

  Despite the shocking news, a hint of hope lit up his heart.

  "Are there people who, like me, have reappeared?"

  The old man frowned and then bit his lip, a hint of sadness in his voice.

  "No, no, you're the only one who has reappeared, at least in that state. But the fact that they disappeared wasn't the worst thing; it was even the beginning of the chaos. Sometime after their disappearances, a few weeks or months later, the victims came back to the surface, but they were different. Not like different personalities, but literally different.

  The old man's dark tone took on an even more serious air.

  "Most of them had become infamous monstrosities, with extra arms, eyes bulging, flesh showing, crawling, chopped to pieces, running around full of madness...and the more time passed, the more of them there were until they exceeded the number of missing."

  He struck a pose, then continued.

  "The government then decided to fight them since they were ravaging the world, and then they noticed that some of them looked totally alike until they realized that they were actually multiplying very quickly. After some time of fighting, some researchers were able to study the case of these monstrosities and noticed that they were just humans, but with some parts of their DNA modified, or rather, as if they had not endured these modifications too much to bear."

  Glenn was shocked by all the information the old man gave him, even if he wasn't present for the past fifty years, he didn't expect that much will happen.

  'Did I miss all these things?'

  After his speech, there was silence on the quiet river. Then, about thirty minutes later, they passed under the bridge from which the lake of Sainte-Croix and the Verdon Gorges could be seen, but this time there was no one there. A few minutes later, they landed on the edge of the large lake and headed for the parking lot next to it.

  When they reached the old man's car, he stopped and turned to Glenn.

  "We'll go to my place first so you can wash up, get dressed, and we can get some stuff ready to go; we should leave early afternoon, okay?"

  Glenn looked at him too, then admired his own condition: his clothes were partially torn, there were blood stains, and he was dirty, very dirty, and he hadn't even noticed it before, yet it should have been obvious after sleeping for fifty years.

  "Okay, no problem; I'm fine with it".

  A few hours later, they were ready. Glenn felt like a new man, clean and fresh; he had no more dark circles under his eyes and even felt like he was handsome.

  Shaking his head, he got into Paul's car—the old man he had come to know over the hours. Both ready, they set off for Glenn's house, the place he'd been waiting patiently to get to since he'd woken up in the dark, cold cave. The place where he had felt very, very uneasy and afraid

  'Here we go.'

  And so two days passed.

  The journey itself had gone well; they had no trouble getting to Glenn's house. The old man parked at the end of the street and glanced at the young man in front of him.

  "Good luck, kid, and well done for getting back in one piece from those deadly caves."

  The old man's speech was soft and warm; they had gotten to know each other after spending a few days together, going from pointing a gun at each other to being friends despite the age difference. Though today he must have been about the same.

  "Thank you very much! I hope you do well and live a long life!"

  As Glenn got out of the car, he turned to look at the old man one last time. The man met his eyes and held out his hand to wave. At the same time, the flashback of a little boy waving to Glenn the day he and his family entered the gorge resurfaced in his mind. And this time he waved again.

  'Did he know all this time?'

  Without further questioning and hoping that this would not be the last time they would see each other, Glenn walked briskly towards his house. After a minute or two of walking, he arrived in front of the same building as the last time he had been there. This time, however, it had changed.

  It no longer had its warmth around it, full of colours and flowers. Today it looked empty and lifeless as if a grey veil covered it; even the flowers were mostly dead.

  Looking around to see if it was someone else's house, Glenn caught a glimpse of the interior through a window. He saw his mother's record player. This was it.

  This was home.

  Taking a deep breath, he knocked on the door, and a few seconds later he heard small, quick steps approaching the door, followed by a small, high-pitched voice.

  "I'm coming!"

  Just then the door opened to see the head of a very small girl who couldn't have been more than five years old pass through, but the most shocking thing was definitely her appearance. Long, silky black hair that was particularly recognisable.

  "Cassia?"