She kicked the table towards them, but it broke mid-flight. She immediately went to the Chainer to kick him in the head, however he grabbed her foot and threw her upwards. Erica spun around and landed on her head.

Several of the chained ones lunged at her, trying to restrain her, but the girl would not let them. In a fit of rage she shoved them all off her and jumped towards the Chainer again to hit him. To her surprise and everyone else's, this time she succeeded; she headbutted him clean across the forehead. The white helmet flew through the air.

Erica backed up a step, alert for his counterattack, but the Chainer didn't bother. He only looked at her for a moment. In that instant the girl realized that he did not have the face of a human or noni or any of the other species present: his head was made up of something similar to a concentrated black cloud. It had no neck, jaw, nose or ears, nothing more than a uniform mass hovering in its space. In front, perhaps the only thing distinguishable, were its red eyes, shining like two red spotlights looking directly into her soul. From that moment on, Erica thought that maybe, just maybe, the Chainer was not mortal like the rest.

Seeing the helmet fall, the chained ones stifled a scream and kept silent, as if Erica had activated a bomb capable of exploding throughout the cave.

The Chainer recovered from the headbutt as if it had been an insect. In one swift movement he grabbed her by the chains that held her and lifted her, without a hitch.

—Everybody down!— shouted Alba.

The chained ones ducked instantly. Right after, the Chainer gained momentum and threw Erica with devastating force. The girl flew a great distance like a bullet, slammed into the rock wall and smashed through it as if it were made of cookie dough. The impact left her bruised, but not enough to make her lose consciousness. Sore, she scrambled to her feet as best she could through the rubble. She had reached a space adjacent to the great hall, she was in a tunnel. Her back hurt horribly, she could hardly breathe. Bewildered, she looked at the Chainer. She could not compete against him, he was too strong even for her.

Helpless, she gritted her teeth and accepted her defeat. She wouldn't take another blow like that. She had to run, she had to flee and get to safety. The Chainer took a step toward her, menacingly. Erica quickly threw off her chains, loosened by the blow, propelled herself to the side and broke into a run down the tunnel.

The chained ones pointed at the girl with frightened faces.

—The key is escaping!— they shouted.

Meanwhile, the Chainer stared at the hole through which she disappeared. Alba held out his helmet.

—Here you are, my lord.

The knight turned to her, who smiled at him.

—What a good looking face. You look like me when we barely knew each other.

He nodded and raised a hand to stroke her head.

—You've grown a lot since then.

Then he took the helmet and put it back on.

—You know what to do— he said.

—Yes, sir.

Alba jumped over the couch and the chained ones, landed in the middle of the room and quickly took off after Erica. The chained ones stared at their leader expectantly. He opened a bridge in the floor beneath his feet and disappeared in the blink of an eye.

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Erica ran with all her might. She wasn't sure if the Chainer could outrun her speed, she had no idea how his magical chains worked and she wasn't curious enough to stick around to ask him. She was disgusted with herself for running away and letting him treat her that way, but she had no choice, she knew better.

She ran through twisting rock tunnels for several minutes, lost. When she began to run out of breath, she let herself slow down and then stopped in a corner. She looked both ways, no one was there.

—I think I lost them— she said to herself.

But before she could catch her breath, the ceiling behind her collapsed. Out of the hole fell a white figure with long black hair: Alba. Only there was something odd about her; her left arm had transformed into a sledgehammer the size of a person, white as milk and thick as a tree.

—It's not going to be that easy, honey— exclaimed the woman in white.

Erica stared at the deformed arm of the priestess, puzzled. Even more so when the mallet transformed into a long blade like a sword. Alba pointed the blade at her in a challenging way.

—You are the key that will unlock the future of the chains. Surrender!

Erica didn't understand how Alba could transform her body into weapons, but she thought she could at least knock her out with a good punch. After all, she couldn't be as strong as the Chainer. She crouched down to lower her center of gravity, shot herself towards Alba and punch her through the stomach.

—I killed her!— Erica thought, victorious.

However, something clung to her arm tightly and pinned her down. Looking up, Erica noticed Alba's face, smiling confidently at her.

—Silly girl.

Then, Alba's chest transformed into a guillotine that severed Erica's arm. Erica screamed, horrified. She jumped away, fell backwards and pressed her severed arm against her chest. She reached her hand to her elbow, forearm and wrist in frustration. She looked at her severed arm...and realized she still had it.

Puzzled, she looked at Alba, who downplayed the whole thing with a wave of her hand.

—It felt real, didn't it— she said —Did you dream I cut off your arm? How cute.

Erica stood up. She wanted to ask her what she had done to her. She looked at Alba's white chest, only to realize that it was intact, as if he had never touched her.

—We don't need to be enemies, you know— the woman in white continued —We can cooperate. Come with me and I'll stop tormenting you.

Erica turned around and ran at full speed. She had been wrong, Alba was as dangerous as that Chainer. The two of them, Tur and Vikala, suddenly there were too many people too strong for her. She was beginning to understand why her dad looked so worried the last night she saw him.

Without stopping she ascended slopes, descended inclines, rounded twisting corners and suppressed her noisy breathing as best she could. After several more minutes she reached a large room, where she stopped to catch her breath.

—There's no way they'll follow me here— she thought.

But then, she heard the crackling of a chain on one side. When she turned to look, a giant, raging monster, shattered the twenty-foot wall of pure rock. It was a demon with completely white skin, two goat-like legs, four knife-sharp claws and four twisted horns. Its roar rumbled like thunder that shook the room and nearby tunnels. The monster entered screaming and demolishing everything in its path, straight towards Erica.

The girl was paralyzed for a moment, stupefied by the mere existence of such a creature. Suddenly the monster noticed her and lunged at her to lash out. Erica barely had time to jump away and dodge it. The monster's claws removed the solid rock as if it were a flan and left a mark half a meter deep.

—One hit and he'll kill me— she thought.

Then she heard a squeak from somewhere else. When she looked, she found a long, white, blue-eyed animal running in circles at the entrance to one of the tunnels. It was the same little animal she had seen before she was captured by the Chainer. It was calling out to her.

Fearing for her life for the first time in a long time, the girl jumped to dodge the monster's second lunge. She fled in a hurry, as the beast tried to kill her from behind. She quickly entered the tunnel indicated by the animal and they escaped.

The giant thrust one of its claws furiously behind them, too big to fit. It missed them, but completely collapsed the entrance. Erica dared to look back, thinking for a moment that they had lost him. Then she felt a tremor that lasted an instant, followed by another, and another, and another. Those were not tremors, they were the pounding and stomping of the monster against the rock. With no intention of staying to watch, the girl took off at full speed, even after leaving the tremors behind.

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The lanky animal ran ahead, leading her. It turned at intersections with complete assurance, as if it knew the way by heart. They advanced without rest, until, in one of the tunnels, they began to feel the air lighter, fresher.

—The surface— wondered the girl.

They continued their way down a steep slope. At the end they came out of the tunnel and found themselves at the top.

There they stopped, Erica put her hands to the back of her neck to expand her lungs and breathe better. Her nose burned inside and her legs felt like rocks, but they were fine now.

She took a moment to contemplate the landscape: a violet sky with a big blue sun shining at low intensity. It was like the moon, but several times bigger. At that moment she realized that she was truly in another world.

The animal called out to her with squeals to keep moving, which she did. Finding herself there made her feel calmer, for she did not believe that a monster living in the caves would come to the surface. The small mammal guided her through an irregular surface, full of holes of varying sizes, slopes and tunnel entrances. Looking out to the horizon, Erica noticed that they were in an elevated area, one of the many ridges of the surrounding mountains. The elevations were tall and thin, like rocky towers or huge spines jutting out of the earth. The top of each tower would be barely a hundred meters square, enough to rest, but not enough to hide.

For a moment, she felt only silence. This was a new world, she could not believe that a day before she had not even known of its existence.

She set out to follow the little animal. Suddenly, a mound of earth in front of them exploded and let a great white mass pass by. It was the giant monster, which pursued them even on the surface. Its claws passed through the rocks as if they were nothing and its four arms fluttered around it until it widened the hole enough to climb up. Finding itself at the top, it took a breath and roared with all its might at its prey, who did not stop to wait.

Erica and the little animal fled, barely dodging the beast's claws. They tried to head towards the only available path: a thin mountainous line, but they did not even manage that; the monster took a long jump, landed in front of them and with its weight and the edge of its claws, demolished the thin path that joined the mound with the rest of the towers. There was no way out.

Without much thought, the girl and the little animal turned to one side to continue their escape. They ran at full speed, so focused of the monster on their backs that they almost didn't realized when the path ended abruptly in front of them. After less than ten meters, Erica stopped dead in her tracks, for if she had continued running she would have fallen into a giant abyss. It was so deep that the light could not reach the bottom.

The little animal jumped on her and clung to her shoulders, frightened.

The girl turned around to admire the white four-clawed monster, which was approaching with ferocious haste. There was nothing she could do; the monster was stronger and faster, there was nowhere to run and no way to protect herself. At that moment she realized that she could easily die, and at such a possibility a nervous smile crept across her face.

—Good life— she mused to herself, although in truth she was somewhat disappointed with what had transpired to her so far.

There was no other way, she would lose whatever her decision was, so she decided to face the creature. She quickly assumed a combat pose and prepared for the monster to attack her. It raised its four claws. She saw an opportunity and quickly stepped forward and ran towards it. The monster attacked her with its powerful claws, but Erica dodged the first, jumped over the second, ducked to evade the third, and soared toward its face to counterattack. However, with the fourth claw the monster swiped her away.

Erica was thrown back several meters. As she landed on her back, she saw the edge of the cliff and realized that she was already far from safe ground: at that moment she was falling over the abyss. She saw the little white animal jumping after her. At the same time, the giant stopped at the edge. At the last second it transformed into two silhouettes before Erica's eyes; a man in white armor and a woman in priestess garments. The latter was waving her off with one hand, as if wishing her a happy death at the end of that cliff. Erica and the little white animal fell into the dark abyss.

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She stuck her head out of the water to breathe.

The water was freezing cold. She needed to get to shore. She didn't know where she was. All around her was pitch black. The current was pulling her and carrying her away faster than she could react. She couldn't hold on any longer, she felt she was going to lose consciousness at any moment and drown.

—Damned Chainer— she thought, immensely frustrated — Damned Alba, damned chained ones. Someday I will kill them!

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After a long struggle and after hitting a hundred rocks, Erica found herself on the shore. She could see the sand under her hands, the river running calmly behind her. She ached all over and still felt like she was going to die, but she was all right now. She was safe.

Exhausted, she collapsed helplessly.

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She woke up with something licking her nose, something with a little tongue the size of a pistachio seed.

She opened her eyes. She realized it was the little animal that had guided her through the tunnels. He was still wet, but he was fine.

She sat down, very sore. She gazed at the violet desert on one side. On the other, the mountainous group towered like a titan high above. She had fallen into the river from there.

She put her hands to her head, surprised that she had actually run away from them. She wasn't used to encountering people stronger than her, the only one had been her dad, and out of nowhere four appeared: first Tur and Víkala, then Alba and the Chainer, and to top it off they were after her dad. She kept that idea in her mind for a long time; the Chainer was the reason why her father left without explanation, he was the one to blame for separating them.

She was tired and sore, but she stood up anyway. Her fists were clenched, her eyes fixed on the ground. What she wanted most in the world was to see her dad again, but it was looking difficult. If even he couldn't defend himself against those madmen.

—Then what difference can I make?— she thought, discouraged.

It seemed impossible, truly impossible. But she shook her head and forced herself to put it out of her mind. There was no other way: she wanted to see her father again, for that she would have to face the Chainer and his vassals, and defeat them. For that, she would need strength, a lot of strength.

—Someday, Dad— she said to herself —Just wait, I'll come for you.