—The other nonis told me that the bridge would be around here, but I don't see it— she continued— Do you know anything?

Vikala opened her mouth, but said nothing. She looked like she wanted to tell her, but she shouldn't. Instead, she turned to Tur, who smiled mischievously.

—I'll tell you— he promised —if you come and dance with us.

Erica gritted her teeth in rage.

—Tell me where that fucking bridge is or I'll break your horns— she exclaimed.

Vikala put a hand to her mouth, dumbfounded.

—Oh, my! Such a daring young woman— she muttered, laughing.

—I think she means to beat me up, don't think anything strange— asked the noni, and then he stepped forward and opened his arms in a defiant pose —Go ahead, princess. Let's dance.

Erica was impatient, she didn't know when the snake woman might appear from behind and grab her, so she acted immediately. She threw herself against Tur and sent a punch to his face. However, he evaded her blow with ease, grabbed her wrist and pulled her to him as if they were really dancing.

—Music!— he exclaimed. The holograms immediately reappeared and the music returned to the terrace.

Erica tried to hit him with her free hand, but then Tur pulled away, reached around her and grabbed her chest to guide her through the moving song they were playing. Erica pushed him away, her face red, a moment that Noni took advantage of to turn around and show her how he was shaking his ass.

—Fuck off! —thought the girl.

She approached to kick him, but Tur jumped on top of her and leaned on top of her shoulders face up, like a gymnast. Erica was scared of losing her balance at first, so she unwillingly played along and held him for a moment, until she realized it was just what he wanted.

—No!— she exclaimed.

She shook herself and continued her attempts to fight, but after several minutes of tossing and turning, and dancing against her will without hitting him once, she gave up. Exhausted, she fell backwards onto the hard floor and took a moment to catch her breath. Tur, off to the side, stretched his muscles as if they had barely warmed up.

—Damn noni— Erica bellowed, frustrated —Does this mean they're going to capture me and enslave me? Or are they going to execute me in public to make an example?

—Pfff!— exclaimed Tur —What are you talking about? We just danced, didn't we? Now let's go inside, I'm starving.

Víkala approached them and handed them towels to dry their sweat.

—Good idea, I was thinking of eating one of you.

Erica looked at her puzzled, but then Vikala and Tur laughed, and took her with them into the dining room. Waiting for them was a table full of meat, salads, fruit, biscuits, drinks and succulent sauces. Erica sat on one side, Víkala sat next to her and Tur on the other side.

To her surprise, Tur turned out to be very civilized at mealtime; he used services to pour food onto his plate and from plate to mouth, wiped his lips with a napkin when necessary, and made no strange noises. Erica thought that nonis would be more brutish than people in every aspect, but apparently they were only brutish in appearance.

Víkala, on the other hand, threw a whole chicken leg into her mouth and swallowed it without chewing. Then Erica understood the joke from earlier.

Tur and Víkala talked to each other throughout most of the dinner, making jokes or commenting on broad topics so that the human didn't feel left out, however she was more focused on the taste and quantity of the food, as she hadn't had a decent plate in a month. In that way, she gradually filled herself up, until she could no longer fit anything else in her stomach. Then she began to think and try to follow the conversation between Tur and Víkala. It took her a moment, but in the end she dared to ask a question.

—Ehm... hey— they both immediately turned around— Why don't you capture me like the others?

Tur swallowed what was in his mouth and wiped it with his napkin before answering.

—I assume Lucifer hasn't told you anything at all— he observed.

—My dad?— Erica wondered —What do you know about him?

Tur smiled wistfully.

—A lot, really. We're old friends, although we haven't seen each other for years.

Erica's jaw dropped.

—You and my dad?!— she exclaimed.

Then she turned to Vikala, but she shook her head.

—No, I've only seen him in pictures. We don't know each other.

Erica turned to Tur, hopeful.

—Do you know where he went? Suddenly he disappeared and I've been....

But Tur interrupted her with a wave of his hand.

—As I told you, we haven't seen each other in years— he admitted —but if he disappeared, then I'm pretty sure he went to Nudo, the world where my people and I come from.

Erica nodded, it was what she expected to be told.

—And do you know why he left?

Tur and Víkala shared an accomplice look before Víkala dared to answer.

—Not really, I just know that he had a lot of work to do, and that he had to do it urgently.

—What work?— asked Erica, curtly.

—I don't know, I thought that after twenty years he wouldn't have any loose ends in Nudo. Apparently I was wrong.

Erica stood up, somewhat irritated. Tur was leaving out crucial details. At the time she would have loved to beat them out of him, but as he had demonstrated a while ago, she couldn't. She would have to find another way.

—Where's the bridge?— she pleaded.

—Are you leaving already? Are you sure you don't want to stay and rest for a while?

—No.

—You don't even need to go to the bathroom?

Erica pursed her lips. She wanted to keep insisting, but the last time she had done so was the night before, and a slight pressure in her stomach prevented her from refusing such an offer.

—Go to the hallway, first door on the left.

—Thank you— she said reluctantly, and withdrew for the moment.

Twenty minutes later, the girl returned to the dining room, but finding neither Tur nor Víkala, she went to the terrace. They were talking about a surprise, when she appeared. The night was darker with most of the city destroyed, but the sky was beginning to look lighter after a month without light pollution.

—Are you sure you want to go to Nudo?— Tur asked her —My world is not as friendly as yours. There are huge, deadly monsters everywhere, and a lot of....

—Yes, yes, we know I'm going anyway— she interrupted him.

Tur shrugged and walked down the dance floor to the end. Erica followed him and surveyed the landscape at his feet; the noni settlement stretched for a few kilometers. The wall at the end was well away, and beyond it was something odd that she hadn't noticed before: a kind of hole in the ground that swallowed and regurgitated everything nearby. It was hard to see it because it was all so dark, but once seen it was hard to ignore.

—That's the bridge— Tur told her —You have to jump in and let it drag you to the bottom. On the other side is Nudo.

Erica nodded, ready to continue her journey.

—But before you get there, you have to pass a test.

—Yes... What?

Tur snapped his fingers, and with that, the dark space between the palace and the settlement's boundary wall was illuminated by large spotlights, revealing thousands of nonis standing at attention on Tur.

—What is this?— she bellowed.

Tur pulled a microphone from somewhere and turned it on.

—Soldiers, this is the First Noni speaking— Tur greeted. His voice echoed loudly across the conquered terrain —and I called you here for a simple game. Tell me, we have been in this world for some time now, haven't we? We came prepared with all kinds of weapons to wipe out whatever monsters there were and dominate the land, but all we saw were tame animals and uncivilized people with obsolete technology. I don't know about you, but I was a little disappointed.

A chorus roared through the audience and let him know he wasn't the only one. All the nonis were disappointed by the lack of challenge in this new world.

—At least that's what I thought, until I heard that our good commander Cromo was defeated by a simple little girl— continued Tur, and the audience shouted again —Haha, who would have imagined it, a brika in an unknown world! Don't you want to see her and fight her with all your might?! Well, wait no more, because I present to you the one and only, the incomparable: Erica Sanz!

Then Tur pointed a hand at Erica, and several spotlights focused on her. The girl just stood there, not knowing what to do or what to say in front of so many people cheering her on simply for being her. To continue, Tur asked the nonis to calm down with hand gestures and a more or less long pause.

—My friend Erica here...— he put a hand on her shoulder —she has a problem: she lost an important person. We think he must be in Nudo, most likely, so this lady is going there to look for him... —Tur squinted, leaned forward and used one hand to cover the light in his eyes— Wait, is that a bridge to our world I see there? But what a coincidence! She just has to walk over there, through this entire crowd! Who can be so kind as to guide our dear Erica to the bridge?

The audience erupted in cheers. Erica looked at Vikala, but she was already waving goodbye.

—What are you planning, Tur?— she pleaded, not sure if she wanted to participate in the game.

—Just having fun— he said, playing it down.

Then, to her surprise, Tur grabbed her arm and thigh, lifted her over his head and with a strong movement threw her into the air. Before she knew it, Erica was flying, at the complete mercy of wind and gravity, as fast as a cannonball. The sky was dark, the excited voices below her chanted war cries, and the bridge ahead spun in a double spiral, unperturbed.

She rolled for a moment, confused, until she shook her head and looked down to see where she was going to land. The nonis crowded near the landing zone, but Erica was not going to be intimidated. On the contrary, she was filled with excitement at the sight of all those big guys trying to outrun her.

In the blink of an eye her body fell straight to the ground, but instead of crushing under her own weight, she landed on a noni. She quickly got up and ran at full speed. To reach the bridge before the nonis caught her, that was her goal.

She dodged arms reaching out to grab her, kicked away the hands that grabbed her ankles and slapped away those who dared to jump on her. In the midst of the race, she realized that Tur was narrating the events as if it were a sport. He spoke so fast she could barely understand him, but nothing slower would have served the fast pace of the situation. Nonis were throwing themselves at her from all sides, and she had to react fast to evade them.

She jumped over some tanks. She noticed that a group wanted to block her way further ahead, so she got in between, kicked a noni who jumped in front of her, slid under the legs of another, pulled the hand of a third to avoid a punch, and climbed over the fourth to run over their heads. That's the way it went, between soldiers, dirt and crates with weaponry and supplies, until she caught sight of the wall that demarcated the noni's territory.

There was the largest concentration of soldiers she had ever seen, but instead of stopping, she picked up her pace and ran across the ground with everything she had. The nonis who made up the last blockade also set off toward her at full speed, fearful and excited at the same time. The crowd and the brika collided with the force of a meteor crashing to the ground. Erica used her momentum to hit the first noni and send him flying into the crowd behind. She leaned on him and jumped over the red soldiers, but others calculated her landing place and prepared to receive her. Unable to maneuver, she prepared to take their blows. The nonis attacked as they had her in range, but she deflected their punches, landed and continued to run between them. She went through the line of nonis like a shooting star, dealing blows left and right. Finally, she knocked down the last noni, and after him she saw no one else, only the wall. Without pausing, she crossed the remaining distance, jumped the wall and paused for a moment on top of it.

There she was, right in front of the line that demarcated the beginning of the spiral that swallowed and regurgitated everything. She had made it. Proud, happy and agitated, she turned back.

—And Erica goes through! Erica smashes through the barrier and reaches the bridge!— narrated an excited Tur, while the nonis chanted the girl's name —She did it, ladies and gentlemen! Against an entire army, she did it!

It was then that she realized that it had all been a game. She gasped, hardly anyone had ever made her gasp before. The nonis cheered and whistled encouragement to give her a warm send-off. No one was chasing her, no one was wishing her ill or treating her like a demon, they were just celebrating her. It felt like a dream.

Excited, she burst out laughing. At last she had found people who treated her well. Maybe Nudo wouldn't be such a bad place after all.

Smiling, she waved goodbye to the strange Tur, Víkala and the nonis that invaded her world. Then she turned around, advanced toward the bridge and took a dive toward the spiraling earth.

—Good luck, little princess— Tur said goodbye, after leaving the microphone —And clench your fists tight.