In the dark part of my room where the light doesn't reach, a white lion stares at me and daydreams about death and destruction. The noise of the fight wakes me up. If I weren't so sleepy, I would tell them both to shut up, but I don't want to get involved in problems that aren't mine. Whether they're serious about me or my parents, or whether they're just having another childish fight, it doesn't matter. Every day is the same, and I've stopped trying to make sense of them. I touch my feet to the floor. I ignore the creature watching me, cover my eyes with a blindfold to limit my visual acuity, and pick up the beads on the desk next to my bed. I pray. Once, twice, three times. I bang my hand on the table when the whispers reach me until they disappear. Then I get up. My night's sleep was horrible. I heard a growl outside, and I also heard a blow. When I got up, my brother was dragging the body of something I couldn't see, so I went back to sleep. The mirror shows a young man with long black hair, a pointed nose, and eyes pulled back by genetics and sleep. I wipe the sleep from my eyes and ignore the demon behind me, and then I shower and put on clean clothes.

  Melindor is the name I was given. A rare type of sorcerer who has two manifestations. One of them increases my perception of the supernatural, while the other increases my power related to the concept of Chaos, which, by pure chance, is also the metamagic concept of my existence. Good days have become miracles. Chaos gets worse every moment. I thank the Light for cursing me with such a low output, or my body would be crumbling under its own power.

  Without further ado, however, I leave my room. The old wooden floor creaks. The fighting had turned into happy laughter, partially contained so as not to disturb me. It was no use. I always heard them. Waking up in the midst of a sea of constancy, they freeze under the weight of the air on their shoulders. My father wears a red coat; his axe is by the door. His name is Rhodum, son of someone I don't care about. Seras is my mother, Mell is my sister, and Lerat is my brother. They tried to make their names fit in with the local community. The problem is that we always move. It was time for another one.

  I join them and grab my bean stew. I start eating, accompanied by the strange silence at the table.

  “...The clothes were filthy,” Seras says. She has black bangs in the middle of her face and a small burn on her right forearm from an accident with the oven. “You guys need to behave better!”

  “It's Lerat's fault,” says Mell. She has long hair like mine, but genetics made her a little more boring and didn't give her a nose as perfect as mine. “He keeps bothering us!”

  “That's a lie,” replies Lerat. He's the oldest of the three. He takes after my father, being red-haired and big. “You're the one who won't leave us alone.”

  They're both lying.

  “It doesn't matter whose fault it is or who started it,” Seras says. “You're siblings and almost adults. Stop this childishness and find yourselves a good job so I can rest in peace. Right, honey?”

  Rhodum nods. He agrees with her to make her happy, even though he knows she will still work to occupy her mind with anything she can fix. His animosity covers his coldness. I used to think he was crazy to marry such an energetic woman, but over time, I began to understand that it can be cute.

  “Lerat defended our pigs from a wolf yesterday,” Rhodum says. “Our dogs took care of some of them, but one of them was trying to sneak away. Tell us, son, how did you do it?”

  “I hit him on the head with a stick. He fell hard on the ground.” He laughs. “If he wasn't full of parasites, he would have gone into the feijoada too.”

  My father laughed. “Melindor killed a wolf too, didn't he?”

  The table falls silent. They look at me.

  “... Yes. I turned him to dust with a spell.”

  Lerat raises an eyebrow. “I didn't see any fur.”

  “... Yes. I just told you why. I turned him to dust.”

  Lera nods. “Oh, yes. I forgot.”

  They remain silent.

  “What's wrong?” I say. “You can't make feijoada with him either.”

  Rhodum laughs. “Yeah, yeah, you can't. Well, eat quickly. We need to work today. We're moving again. Winter will be dangerous in these areas, and we need as much security as possible.”

  “I'll take care of the animals,” Lerat says. “I'll take another swing if a monster shows up.”

  “Mell will help me prepare everything for the trip,” Seras says.

  My sister shrugs. Lerat tells her not to frown and then says he forgot that's her normal face. They fight again. Then I get up and go to the second and more difficult shift of gathering with my father. He gives me some advice on how to hunt and cut wood better. My carelessness makes me sloppy, and even years of experience begin to rust with neglect. Rhodum reminds me that this cannot continue and that when we do something, we must do it right.

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  And so we do this until nightfall, replacing all the resources in the house and making others to maintain our reserves. I return home, have dinner, take a shower, lie down, sleep, and dream of death and destruction.

  I wake up to the noise of my brothers, go downstairs, listen to bad jokes, and go to the forest, and the process repeats itself. Again and again, again and again.

  We are at the lunch table. Soup again.

  “Hey, Melindor...” my mother says. “Why are you crying?”

  “...”

  “Don't cry!” Seras says. “Hey! We're here. We're here, okay?”

  She stares at me. Sweet, worried eyes.

  I can't do this anymore.

  Rhodum stands up and touches my shoulder. “My son, it's okay. It's not your fault. You're a good boy.”

  I press my eyes and almost pull my hair out.

  They will keep changing. They will pack their bags and leave for another place. But instead of leaving me behind, so that the beasts attracted by their master's fragment can find me and finish me off, they will take me with them.

  They will fight for me.

  They will kill for me.

  They will say it's a wolf for me.

  “Enough.”

  And from now on, they will say nothing more.

  How many times have I relived this scenario?

  The reconstruction of memories has failed again. That's not what they said. That's not how my father reacted. I skipped something. I forgot something. Chaos distorts my memory faster than I can control it. The final speech was the only one that remained intact. This one, perfect, passes through my brain crystal clear. The sweet, worried eyes. The comforting touch on the shoulder. Good boy. This isn't the last memory I have of them, but it's the most important one. After that, we moved, we got used to it, and more monsters appeared. We killed them. We pretended everything was fine. We carried on. We planned to do this for the rest of our lives. Chaos didn't agree. Destiny didn't agree. I needed to do something different. Ascend, transcend, or whatever the Light's plans were for a worm like me. From flaws to qualities, I loved them too much to carry on with my duty. I didn't want to hurt them by abandoning them.

  No, that's not the whole truth.

  I didn't want to be alone with those things. I was afraid. I didn't trust that the Light would protect me. How could I? How could I be sure it wouldn't abandon me?

  I thought my family wouldn't abandon me. I chose the creature over the Creator. All warnings to follow my own path were ignored, and the consequence came like a wolf far stronger than they could have handled. I thought, then, that the Creator doesn't care about a creature's opinion. At least, that was the excuse I used to shake the hand I shouldn't have. But no matter how many scenarios I repeat or how much I try to deceive myself with solid dreams, I cannot overcome the Imutable Laws and bring their souls back. I will never hear them again. I will never feel their touch again.

  A world of illusion would not help me in this.

  “But you already knew that, didn't you?”

  He stretches out in front of me. Hundreds of hands together, rotten and stuck to each other, formed the deformed face of a man. The one in the center of his face is open, and his fingers serve as the points of a crown. One of the kings and generals of the underworld.

  “What will happen at the end of time is that a mortal has decided to free himself from the fate to which he is a slave.” The demon says with a multitude of different voices. “I can still make him achieve that goal through the Rift. Sacrifice your life to me, and I will make your dream come true.”

  “...”

  The Rift. Yes. Turn the imaginary into reality and simulate the situation of the Islands outside of them. An eternal illusion that, for all intents and purposes, is concrete. We would only need a few mountains of dead bodies for that. That's all. Just...

  "...No," I say.

  The demon frowns. “I don't understand. What are you saying?”

  All possibilities of this plan end as soon as the world comes to an end. Sooner or later, whether now or a billion years from now, everything will return to dust. I thought I could alter the course of history enough to justify myself to myself. That I could escape and somehow benefit. I thought I could have at least one last moment where I didn't complain about the taste of the food or the smell of the cooking, where I didn't fight with my brothers without knowing it was the last time, and where I talked more with those I didn't even say good morning to. But my time was up. I knew the despair and didn't want to go back. I didn't believe I could, nor do I think I can. Still, I face my mother's face, even without remembering what her whole face looked like. I observe the imperfections of fatigue, and I feel her gaze on my soul more deeply than any demon could.

  I'm sorry. I wasn't a good son. You would give me more than a few mere scoldings if you could see me now. I understand your disappointment. I wouldn't expect anything different. You didn't raise me that way.

  I hope you're watching me now.

  "Answer me." The demon says. “What do you think you're doing?! We will be great! We will conquer this world!”

  “I refuse.”

  Wide eyes and cracks in the air.

  The world breaks.

  Gray clouds surround me, covering the purple sky and forming tornadoes that unite heaven and earth. Now, they are broken and unstable because of the destruction of my mental Palace. The rain hasn't stopped yet. The air pressure pushes my back as I fall from the titanic height. My death is certain, but it does not worry me. I beg for the forgiveness of the divine, knowing that I do not deserve it, while my senses are infested by the demons that I have kept in my chest. I breathe in the fresh air, even if the exhaustion tears my lungs. Mountains destroyed, mountains that have risen on the horizon. The sun sets in a shade of pink while the blue of the evening blends into purple. He is there, followed by his black robe and scars that our battle has left him with. He holds the fainting jester in his arms as his soldiers fight for the salvation of their lives and what exists out there. Struggle to follow what is expected. Swim towards the current, praying you don't hit any rocks in the middle of the way. How silly. But maybe that's also the reason why it works.

  I won't have my answer or several others.

  The impact approaches, so I close my eyes, take one last breath, and-