On the floor. That's where Zucker had ended up. A strange noise outside had woken him, and he had fallen out of bed. Paul Zucker got up, rubbed his eyes, and looked at the clock. It was 2 a.m.Through the window, the streetlight's glow was distorted by strange, tiny moving shadows. Snow was falling again. Zucker cleared his throat. His mouth was dry, so he slipped on his slippers and decided to go down to the kitchen for some water. He had reached the stairs when he heard another noise. Zucker stopped. The creaking sound seemed to come from downstairs, from the garage. He began to descend the steps slowly, trying not to make any noise. The creaking happened again, twice, three times... and then a loud noise, as if a dozen kitchen pots had fallen to the floor. It was definitely coming from the garage—someone had entered it.

Zucker thought about going back upstairs to wake his father but feared it might just be an animal that had taken refuge from the storm, so he decided to go down alone. Paul reached the ground floor, grabbed one of his father's coats hanging on the rack by the front door, and crossed the living room towards the stairs that connected the house to the garage. The back door of the garage was open, and Zucker was hit by a gust of damp wind. Someone had opened the garage from the street. A large SUV and a family car nearly filled the entire space and were beginning to get wet from the snow blowing in from outside. However, no one seemed to be there. Everything appeared to be in place. The vehicles were untouched, the old aluminum shelves that Zucker's mother used as a pantry were still overflowing with food, the bicycles... the bicycles! Someone had taken them!

Paul moved toward the front of the garage and noticed that the old broom closet had also been ransacked. All the old, useless junk had been thrown out. But what were they looking for? Paul wondered. There was nothing of value in that closet. On the contrary, it seemed that whoever had been there moments before knew exactly what they were searching for. Paul immediately started running because, although he didn't care about the other things taken from the closet, he couldn't afford to lose his mountain bike. So, in his pajamas and slippers, covered with his father's old coat, Paul Zucker ran up the street through the blizzard at five in the morning in search of the thief.

A few meters ahead, two figures were cycling through the dark streets of Little Norburk in the middle of the night. Duncan and Lilly were laughing and pedaling.

– Wow, that was amazing, Duncan, - Lilly said as she balanced on the back of the bike.

– He deserved it, - Duncan replied, wiping the snow off his glasses while trying to keep the bike, which he was riding standing up, from slipping on the snow. In his lap, under his left arm, he held an old, battered teddy bear.

In a few minutes, they reached the old cedar tree in Lilly's garden, which they had often turned into their base of operations when they were little. The girl got off the bike and stood looking at her friend.

– You definitely deserved this effort on my part.

– Thank you very much. This bear is very special to my brother.

– You're welcome.

– And you... - Lilly hesitated before kissing Duncan on the cheek - you're very special too, Duncan.

– What?

– Just that. I don't know how to explain it, but that's how I see it. You don't have to worry about me leaving next year. You're a special guy. One day you'll leave Little Norburk too. Maybe you'll even leave Canada, I don't know. Maybe you'll travel the world and stop being scrawny Duncan Engill, and end up becoming... a hero.

– A hero?

– A hero. Like you were this afternoon. Like just now when you entered Zucker's house. Like you always will be to me, Duncan.

And with that, Lilly gently kissed her friend again.

Duncan was speechless. He took two steps back and tripped over Paul Zucker's bike, falling into the snow. Lilly burst out laughing.

– Goodnight, - she said, and she crossed the gate to her garden, then hopped up the steps and went inside.

Duncan remained on the ground, silent. Slowly, he got up, mounted the bike, and started pedaling toward home.

Lilly took off her shoes in the hallway. It was very late, and she tried not to make any noise to avoid waking her family. Very quietly, she stepped into her brother Sean's room, who was sleeping peacefully, and placed the teddy bear beside him. Then, she went to her room, changed out of her wet clothes into a soft flannel pajama, and got into bed. It had been a very long day. It was time to close her eyes and rest. In a few hours, it would be time to go back to school.However, rest was not what Lilly found when she closed her eyes, but a new vision:There they were, Duncan and Zucker, face to face, staring intently at each other. Around them, no one else, nothing else, just empty space. Darkness. The usual cold of Little Norburk had vanished, and a new, fiery feeling arose within both boys. Zucker made the first move. He suddenly appeared next to Duncan and tried to hit him, but Duncan was no longer there. He was above Zucker, in the air. His face was a picture. Duncan flashed a half-smile, and his green eyes shone in that infinite gloom. He extended his arm, and out of nowhere, a magnificent broadsword appeared, which he wielded without hesitation, without trembling. The blade was bluish, crystalline, almost transparent. The hilt, a deep red, was covered in shiny scales with two pairs of small horns that jutted out from the sides, acting as a powerful guard ornamented with strange gems.

– Devastate like thunder, Same Kulog!!

– Noooo!! - Lilly suddenly appeared in the middle of the scene, ethereal, wrapped in a halo of light that seemed to gradually reduce the surrounding darkness - Don't do it, Duncan!! Resist!!

But it was too late. Duncan had plunged toward his opponent and impaled him with his sword. Zucker vanished, and from the spot where he had stood, hundreds of large, black feathers emerged, forming a strange cloud that once again turned everything around Duncan, including Lilly, into darkness.

She then woke up abruptly. Nervous, drenched in sweat. Something made a sound outside the room, and a shadow quickly crossed in front of the girl's window. Someone had been watching her from the cedar tree in the garden.

The next morning began with an annoying beam of light shining directly into Duncan's eyes. The boy sat up and opened the windows of his room. A bright sun bathed the entire town. The Engill grandson quickly went downstairs for breakfast. In the kitchen, Mona was preparing a delicious stew.

– Good morning, Grandma.

– Hello, dear. I made you pancakes. How did you sleep? How's your eye? Look at you, slipping on the stairs... you and snow have never gotten along, have you?

– Yes, I admit I'm pretty clumsy, - he chuckled, thinking that the excuse Thomas had told was working - where's Grandpa?

– He left early this morning. I think he wanted to buy a new wire mesh for the chickens. He's been hearing strange noises the last few nights and fears there might be a predator lurking around here.

At that moment, there was a knock at the door. Mona stepped out of the kitchen, and a few seconds later, she returned accompanied by Lilly.

– Good morning! How's that eye?

–Mnghrmmngh - Duncan responded with his mouth full of pancakes, spitting out some pieces onto the kitchen floor.

Lilly burst out laughing, and Mona's face turned furious. Her small wrinkles disappeared instantly. She was about to explode, like a teapot just before it starts to whistle. Duncan knew how much Mona valued her kitchen, order, and cleanliness, so he decided that after this blunder, escaping was the best option. Lilly grabbed Duncan by the arm, he took his backpack, and they both ran out laughing on their way to school while hearing a thunderous "Howard Philip Duncan Engill, you better behave!!" behind them.

– That boy... – Mona muttered to herself, looking at the ceiling, her expression shifting from anger to a worried frown. - One day, he's going to give us a real scare.

The school day was exhausting. Classes began with math, followed by geography, language, and philosophy, which for Duncan translated to "a real drag." His only amusement was watching Paul Zucker doze off in every class, earning the inevitable scolding from the teachers, and seeing his anger grow as he recounted to his friends how someone had broken into his house the previous night. Apparently, they had found his bike hanging from a tree in the morning.

Duncan detested those boys. His hope was to move on to the next grade quickly so he could choose classes that suited his tastes and that they would never pick, like literature. Now that was a great subject!

In the meantime, he had to wait and endure "bores" like biology. The teacher who taught it, an old paleontologist, was obsessed with evolution, the origin of the Earth, genetic drift, the Big Bang... That day in particular, Duncan had biology last period, and despite everything, the class was unusually interesting. Professor Atkins focused on a new hypothesis about the origin of the universe known as the multiple Big Bang.

– This hypothesis suggests that our universe was created from a flow of a compound of dark matter and quarks from a parallel space, through interdimensional quantum holes, - Atkins explained. - This couldn't have happened in a single point but occurred everywhere in the universe simultaneously...

Duncan was well aware that those words might sound like science fiction and were beyond his understanding, but they suggested something very interesting, something that undoubtedly fascinated him. The boy loved thinking about the origin of things, about "where we come from." Duncan had never known his parents. He didn't remember the day he lost them and started living with his grandparents. He was unaware of his origins beyond what Thomas and Mona had told him. Duncan liked to think that the same unknowns about himself could be attributed to all of humanity, which believed it was close to understanding where it came from, yet was still so far from the answer.

After class, as usual, Lilly was waiting for her friend. The girl seemed more distracted than usual. Lilly was pale by nature, but that day her skin seemed especially colorless. A moonbeam in the night.

– I'm just tired, that's all, - she replied to Duncan, who was concerned about her mood. - I guess I've had an exhausting day.

– We didn't sleep much last night.

– Yeah, maybe that's it.

– Did you dream about the floating island again? - Duncan suddenly asked. - Is that it?

– No... actually, I didn't.

Lilly wanted to tell her friend what she had felt when she went to bed. That she had seen him wielding a sword. Mad with rage. That she had sensed a presence in her garden, watching her from the window. But she couldn't. For some reason, she couldn't. She knew Duncan would worry about her, and that was the last thing she wanted. It had just been a dream. Just a feeling, a nightmare brought on by exhaustion and the events of the previous day.Together, they started on their way home.

– Hey, Lilly...

– Yes?

– I was thinking that maybe, when summer comes, perhaps... well, you're going to England, like you said yesterday, and I... I don't know, I could ask my grandparents to let me go with you, even if just for a vacation.

– To England?

– Yes, well, that way we could also break out of the routine... I don't know, it's just that lately, I feel kind of trapped in Little Norburk, like I need to get out of here, see other places, or...

– Yes, I understand, Duncan.

– Really? It's just that I don't get why you didn't tell me before. Come on, Lilly, you're my best friend. My only friend.

– Well, it's a feeling I've had for a long time, so long that I don't even remember when it started. It's like I want to go back home. I grew up in Bristol, I had my friends there, and I miss them, it's true. The idea of going back is unsettling, and there are days when it attracts me, I admit. It's just that the years have passed, and I don't want to leave. I wouldn't want to be far from my parents, from Little Norburk, from you.

Lilly's gaze lingered on Duncan's eyes for a few seconds, then turned to the sky.

– Although maybe... yes, maybe getting out of here would be good.

– Seriously, Lilly, are you okay? - Duncan asked very slowly, tilting his head in a funny way and bringing his index finger to his mouth. - You're worrying me, you look strange today.

Lilly snapped back to reality.

– Strange? But what kind of words is Mr. Duncan Engill using now? I think Zucker's punches yesterday are starting to affect you.

– Oh, come on, don't be silly.

And they both burst out laughing. The conversation lasted another fifteen minutes, but neither of them mentioned the near future that awaited them again. Perhaps out of fear, perhaps because it made them unhappy. Instead, they didn't stop laughing, gossiping about the teachers, making fun of each other, and mocking Paul Zucker and his cronies.

Finally, they reached the point where their paths diverged. Although still within the town limits, unlike the Engill cabin, Lilly's house was the farthest from the center of Little Norburk. Duncan was sure that in such a boring place, nothing could happen, but he wouldn't stop accompanying his friend. At least to that point on the path. The kids gave each other a big hug and continued separately. Every evening, Duncan felt like a piece of himself was being torn away when he said goodbye to Lilly. That day, the feeling was even more intense.