"Where am I?" — Rodrigo wondered as he woke, unable to open his eyes.
He couldn't feel the ground beneath his body. No weight. No cold.
It was as if gravity no longer existed. As if he were floating in a void. Motionless.
Suspended between nothingness and nevermore.
"Am I dreaming?"
The question felt ridiculous the moment it echoed in his mind.
Dreaming?
Hard to believe when, just seconds ago, he was dying.
Or rather… had already died.
A sound broke through the absolute silence.
Breathing.
Low. Rhythmic. Almost ghostly.
At once distant and disturbingly close.
He couldn't tell if it was his... or something else.
Someone. Something.
Presence and absence blurred together.
Then, once more, he tried to open his eyes.
He forced the muscles, searched for even the slightest movement.
Nothing.
As if his eyelids were stitched shut with the very threads of forgetting.
As if the world around him refused to exist.
Trying to make sense of what was happening, Rodrigo searched his mind for answers.
But all it gave him were broken, blurred fragments…
And then, the final moments.
The pain.
The hot blood.
The ropes.
The helplessness.
The bitter taste of death rising in his throat.
"Did I... die?"
The question repeated like an echo, but brought no comfort.
No peace.
Only silence.
And behind that silence, a single memory — sharper, crueler, more painful than all the others.
Lucius.
His face burned into Rodrigo's mind like a scar that never healed.
That cold gaze.
That condescending expression.
The smile.
That damned smile — crooked, cruel, as if Rodrigo's suffering were a show just for him.
Rodrigo felt rage rise within him, like embers reigniting in the dark.
Lucius staring as each stab pierced his stomach, again... and again... and again.
"Soon you'll be with your family."
Those words — spoken by Lucius before the stabbing — haunted him still.
At first, they did exactly what Lucius intended: sparked hatred. Rodrigo wanted to kill him. Wanted to watch him suffer.
He couldn't. He failed.
And now he was dead, never having fulfilled the one purpose that had kept him alive for years.
All that remained was resentment — and guilt.
Guilt for letting it all slip through his fingers, guilt for never protecting his sister, as he'd promised when he was a child.
But deep down, beyond all logic, something else stirred.
A strange feeling.
A faint, inexplicable sense of relief.
Rodrigo couldn't quite explain it — but maybe it made sense.
After all, death meant an end.
An end to the pain. The rage. The loneliness.
An end to the person he had become.
Though he had failed to get revenge, maybe now… he could finally rest.
And there was something else — something he would never say aloud.
Hope.
Small. Fragile. Almost shameful.
The hope that, somehow, he might see his family again on the other side.
Maybe death wasn't just an end.
Maybe it was the only way to get close again to the ones he truly loved.
But of course, it wouldn't be that simple.
Still lost in thought, Rodrigo tried to move his hand toward his chest.
Nothing.
He tried again.
Still nothing.
It was as if his body had been severed from his mind — as if the commands could no longer reach what wasn't there.
Time felt distorted.
He couldn't say how long it took before, with extreme effort, he finally managed to open his eyes.
And what he saw...
What he saw brought the despair rushing back.
The same suffocating helplessness he'd felt watching his family die before him.
The same panic.
The same blinding pain.
"Where am I? What is this place?"
He tried to speak, but nothing came out.
His mouth moved, but no sound followed.
Still... his voice echoed.
Not through his ears — but through space itself.
As if the environment had heard his thoughts and spat them back in a warped echo.
His eyes scanned the place, cautiously.
It was a gray vastness.
No walls. No ceiling. No visible floor.
The same color as the sky the afternoon he was murdered.
But unlike the violence of that day — the thunder, the lightning — here there was only silence.
Not just any silence...
A silence that felt devoid of life.
Devoid of everything.
A deafening silence hung over the gray space, making it harder to breathe with each passing moment.
The atmosphere was humid — but there was no water.
Cold — but no wind.
The laws he knew — physical, natural, human — didn't apply here.
No logic.
No ground.
No horizon.
It was like floating inside a nightmare with no beginning or end.
And that terrified him more than death itself.
The discomfort grew.
Fear seeped in like venom.
Slowly, despair took hold of Rodrigo's mind — greater even than the pain of dying.
"Am I going to stay here forever?" he thought, panic swelling in his chest.
"Is this Hell? Limbo? Sheol? Some kind of purgatory?"
Doubt gnawed at him.
Had he been judged and sentenced without even realizing it?
Was he already serving an eternal punishment for what he'd done?
While drowning in those questions, he felt something.
For the first time since opening his eyes, something changed.
A presence.
Not a sound, not a shape — but a pressure in the air.
A subtle, yet overwhelming discomfort.
As if someone — or something — was watching him.
Rodrigo froze.
He was no longer alone.
On the horizon of that gray void, something emerged.
A silhouette.
Coming from where there should have been nothing, it slowly formed, breaking through the emptiness with an eerie, unsettling presence.
Rodrigo recognized it instantly.
The owl.
The same one he had seen at the window seconds before dying.
The last thing his eyes had seen before darkness claimed him.
It appeared once more — but something was different.
As it approached, its body grew.
From small and delicate, the bird began to expand unnaturally, defying all sense of scale.
Its eyes — black, deep as abysses — stayed locked on Rodrigo, as if they could see past flesh and mind... straight into the soul.
Instinctively, Rodrigo tried to move. To run.
But again — nothing.
His body was anchored, frozen in that unreal place.
He couldn't flee.
He couldn't fight.
All he could do was watch as the figure drew near.
Still in the same spot.
The same place where he had awoken.
As if the space itself was not just a location —
But a sentence.
Then, like everything obeyed an invisible snap of fingers, the owl stopped.
Just a few steps away — if that place even had distance — the owl stared at him.
But it was no longer just a bird.
Not the one that had landed silently at his window before death.
Now, before him, it was majestic. Almost divine.
Its eyes glowed gold — bright as pure molten metal — as if each gaze could reveal secrets even Rodrigo didn't know he held.
Its feathers were no longer ordinary.
White, red, and black blended harmoniously, forming a hypnotic, ancient pattern.
And above its head, a golden crown floated.
Not resting — but suspended, defying gravity, rules, or logic.
Fear swelled within Rodrigo like a storm.
It was instinctual. Primal.
He knew this being wasn't just an animal.
Not just a creature.
It was something much, much greater.
In reflex, he tried to scream — "Stay back! Don't come any closer!" — but his voice failed.
His mouth opened. His throat tightened.
Nothing.
Silence.
Only the sound of his own ragged breathing — or what remained of it.
Once again, he was trapped.
Not just in body, but in fear itself.
But what Rodrigo felt wasn't just fear of the image before him.
Not the golden light in the creature's eyes.
Not the floating crown.
Not even the unnatural size or the red-black-white plumage.
It was what each of the owl's steps awakened inside him.
With every approach, a memory surfaced.
As if this being had the power to drag memories from the deepest parts of his soul.
Not just flashes —
But vivid moments, complete with smells, sounds, textures.
The first memory was of his eleventh birthday.
By then, the family was already struggling. Bills piling up. Food shelves growing emptier.
But his parents never let that show.
Never let him or Luciana carry that burden.
Rodrigo remembered it clearly.
Like any boy his age, he was obsessed with superheroes.
And above all, one symbolized justice and strength: Batman.
His parents knew that.
Even with no money, even in debt, they did the impossible.
They threw him a themed party — improvised, yes — but made with love in every detail.
The cake had the bat symbol, drawn by hand.
Cups and plates were simple, decorated with stickers his mom had glued one by one.
The gift? A cardboard mask, cut and painted by his dad, who'd stayed up late just to finish it in time.
That night, Rodrigo smiled like never before.
And for a moment — just that moment — he felt invincible.
That same smile came now, involuntarily, as he relived it.
But it was brief.
Fragile.
Because he knew what came next.
The owl kept approaching.
And with it… other memories would return.
The birthday was sweet… but one memory towered above the rest.
Luciana's birth.
That was, without a doubt, the happiest moment of his childhood.
Rodrigo remembered when his parents told him the news: he'd have a sibling.
His eyes lit up.
His heart raced.
At six years old, he dreamed of all they would do together —
Fly kites, trade cards, run barefoot in the street.
Then came the reveal:
It was a girl.
They expected disappointment. Even his parents hesitated.
But that's not what happened.
Instead, Rodrigo felt something strange — and at the same time, deep — bloom inside him.
A warmth in his chest.
A sudden urge to protect someone he didn't even know.
An instinct.
He didn't know what to call it back then.
Later, his father would say:
— Now that you're going to be a big brother, you have to protect your little sister.
But the truth is — he already wanted that before hearing the words.
Not out of duty.
Not from obligation.
But because he wanted to.
He wanted to see her grow.
He wanted to care for her.
He wanted to be her hero.
More than that —
He wanted to be the wall between her and all pain.
And for a long time, he was.
Luciana, a baby, holding his finger with fragile hands.
Luciana, learning to walk, always running back into his arms.
Luciana, laughing, fearless — because she knew her big brother was near.
Was this the protective instinct people speak of?
He never really knew.
He only knew one thing:
She was the most important part of his life.
And he had sworn, silently, to protect her at any cost.
But he failed.
And that failure...
Destroyed him — every single day.