There were no maps that led to the continent of the sky. It was just a legend, a whisper in drunkards' taverns. But I no longer needed maps. I had spent years learning, building, and understanding. I made my own way.

  I spent a whole year in an abandoned workshop, working on "Lagan." I was no longer repairing it; I was rebuilding it. Using all my knowledge of ancient technology, I modified its energy core, installed massive metal wings, and transformed the heavy construction machine into a vehicle capable of defying gravity.

  On the day I finished, I climbed into the cockpit, with 404 standing in the cargo bay behind me. And with a massive energy hum, we rose. We broke through the clouds and left the earth behind. For the first time, I saw the world from above. The continents were just green and brown spots in an endless blue sea. I felt a lightness, a freedom that not even the power of "Lagan" on the ground had given me. I was flying.

  After a long journey above the clouds, we saw it. It was exactly as the legend had described it. Floating islands of white rock, from which clear waterfalls cascaded and disappeared into the clouds below. The bridges between the islands were made of frozen moonlight or of intertwined silver tree branches. The air was pure and cold, and the whole place radiated a peace and tranquility I had never known.

  Here, I was no longer the explorer Dream. I was no longer the fighter who pilots "Lagan." I left all that behind. I found a small, secluded island and built a simple hut. And there, I lived.

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  The years passed like a dream. In this place, my red hair was not a curse, but just a strange color. My hazel eyes were not empty, but a mirror for the sky of this place. There, I met her. A woman from the people of the sky, her hair as white as the clouds, her eyes clear. She didn't see in me a devil or a monster. She just saw a man who carried in his eyes the sadness of an entire world. We fell in love. We got married. We had children.

  For the first time, I understood that scene I had seen so long ago in the cavern of the dwarves. I understood the meaning of holding a small body in your arms and feeling that you are ready to burn the whole world to protect it. I would tell my children stories about my travels, about monsters of rock, about sorcerers and sages, and about a silent companion who never changes.

  404 was always there. He would watch my children as they grew, help me build the house with his immense strength, and sit with us in silence by the fire. He was part of the family, the steady rock in my changing life.

  My children grew up, got married, and had children of their own. I became a grandfather. My red hair, which I had hated for so long, turned into strands of silver, then into a pure white, as if it wanted to blend in with the clouds of this place.

  I was an old man now, sitting on the porch of my hut, looking at my grandchildren playing in our floating garden, and 404 sitting beside me in the same spot, unchanged, not grown up, not aged. The eternal friend. I had lived a full life. A happy life. A life I wouldn't have even dared to dream of.

  "It was a beautiful dream," I whispered to my silent companion, my voice weak and trembling. "And now... it's time to wake up."