Aninsa woke with a start, her heart pounding wildly in her chest. The air was cold and heavy, like a damp shroud enveloping her completely. She opened her eyes and saw that she was no longer in her small, sunlit room, but in a place she did not recognize. The sky above was a profound black—no stars, no moon—just a dark expanse that seemed ready to swallow her whole. Towering, strange buildings rose around her, their empty, dark windows like dead eyes watching her every move.

  Aninsa cleared her throat, but the words choked in her neck. "Where am I?" she asked herself, her eyes wide with terror and confusion. She couldn't remember how she had gotten there. The last thing she recalled was lying down in her bed, preparing for another day of school. And now... now she was trapped in this strange place, in this Dark City.

  The streets were deserted, yet they were not quiet. A subtle hum, like a murmur of distant voices, drifted through the air. Aninsa stood up, feeling the ground beneath her shift slightly, as if she were on the deck of a ship at sea. The surrounding buildings seemed to change, to warp; some vanished completely within moments, while others materialized out of thin air. It was as if the city were a living organism—breathing, pulsing, shifting its shape in a chaotic rhythm. She began to walk as fast as she could down a street that opened up to her right.

  On the street, the traffic lights almost always showed red—sometimes blue or orange—but never green. Aninsa suspected that green was the sign of hope, the sign that an exit might exist. But the green never appeared.

  Aninsa paused for a moment, looking around with wide eyes. In the distance, a small figure dressed in black quickly crossed the street, melting into the darkness before they could be recognized. From the shadows, faint voices began to whisper, some calling out, others weeping. She felt these voices trying to pull her in one direction or another, but she managed to ignore them, focusing on the rhythm of her own footsteps.

  After a few minutes, Aninsa stopped abruptly, looking around with a growing sense of panic. The street she had been following no longer looked the same. What had once been a straight, simple path now curved to the left again and again, like a loop that refused to end. The buildings to her left and right had shifted positions; some were now much closer, while others had vanished entirely. The air was heavy and damp, and with every step, she felt herself being pulled deeper into a dream from which she could not escape.

  "It’s not possible," she murmured, trying to remember what the street looked like when she first entered it. But her memory was slipping away, as if the city itself were erasing her thoughts. In their place remained only vague impressions and distorted fragments of reality.

  "I must calm down," she whispered, closing her eyes for a moment. "If I give in to fear, I will never find my way out of here."

  She summoned her courage and tried to turn back. She took a few steps backward, but the street behind her no longer led where she thought it would. Instead, it had transformed into a narrow, dark alley, filled with shadows contorting against the walls. Aninsa stopped again, feeling panic seize her. She no longer knew if she was moving forward or backward. Space itself seemed to be playing with her, trying to lead her astray.

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  "Why am I here?" she asked in a whisper, looking around with wide eyes. "What am I looking for?"

  She tried to focus, to bring something to light—anything—that might offer a clue. Perhaps she needed something exact, she thought, something like mathematics. Yes, exactly; a little math was what she needed. From what she remembered, math was always the embodiment of order, a science capable of imposing structure upon chaos.

  She began to count, hoping that the sequence of numbers might bring her peace and clarity.

  "One... two... nine... six... eight... three... five..." She stopped abruptly, feeling confusion wash over her. "And then two again, or three? No... it makes no sense."

  Numbers had lost their order in this place. They were like living entities moving chaotically, refusing to submit to the rules she knew. Aninsa felt her heart beat faster, and her breathing grew heavy. In this city, not even mathematics—one of the world's most solid certainties—made sense anymore.

  "Where do I come from?" she wondered. "Did I ever exist? Or maybe... maybe I’m dead."

  The thought froze her in her tracks. If she were dead, was this heaven or hell? But it didn't seem to be either. The city wasn't bright and full of peace, but nor was it a place of eternal torment and suffering. It was just... empty. A dark space without beginning or end, where everything changed constantly, yet nothing remained stable long enough to become familiar.

  "Or maybe I’m sleeping," she murmured, raising a hand to her face as if to reassure herself that she was real. "Maybe it’s all a dream."

  But even this idea troubled her. If it were a dream, then who was dreaming? Her? Or was someone else dreaming her? And if it were a dream, why did she feel the pain and fear so intensely? Weren't dreams supposed to be light, like shadows that pass and vanish? And above all, why wasn't she waking up?

  Aninsa examined her clothes carefully, hoping to find a clue that might offer a piece of the past she had lost. Every detail of her clothing seemed to be the only tangible link to someone—or something—from before the city.

  She was dressed simply: a light pink blouse that looked as though it had been worn far too often, and a pair of blue jeans, slightly frayed at the knees. On her feet, she wore a pair of light grey shoes, which didn't seem made for walking the harsh streets of this strange place. The clothes were ordinary, with nothing remarkable about them, yet they were there, on her, and that had to mean something.

  With trembling hands, Aninsa began to search her pockets. First, those of her blouse—empty. Then, those of her pants—also empty. Not even a key, a ticket, a coin, or a hastily written note was to be found. It was as if she had appeared in this city without a single trace of the world she had come from.

  "Nothing," she whispered, furious. "Absolutely nothing."

  She felt frustration begin to take hold, but she tried to calm herself. If she had nothing physical to bind her to the past, perhaps the answers lay elsewhere. Perhaps the answers were hidden within the city itself—in the shifting buildings, the whispering voices, or the shadows moving slowly through the streets.

  She looked down at her grey shoes and felt a surge of guilt. The shoes were not suited for these hard, cold streets. They seemed more like the choice of someone who had left in a hurry, without thinking about where they would end up. Perhaps she hadn't had time to choose. Or perhaps she no longer needed sturdy shoes in the place she came from.

  "Who was I?" she asked again, looking up at the dark sky. "What have I forgotten?"

  A comet slowly crossed the sky, its pale light reflecting in her eyes. Aninsa paused to watch it, feeling her heart race. For a moment, she thought she saw a faint image in the comet's light—a little girl with long blonde hair, staring fixedly at her. But when she blinked, the image vanished, leaving her only with questions.

  "I have to keep moving," she said, her voice almost firm now. "If I stay still for too long, I’ll lose the last piece of myself I have left."

  And with those words, Aninsa set off again, her heart full of questions and the fear that every step was bringing her closer to an answer she wasn't sure she wanted.