'Shit! Shit! Shit!'

  Glenn ran à full speed, not stopping for one second, reminding him of the times he spent in the cave. Shaking his head, he pushed the thoughts from his mind and sped up.

  Since his father's death, his mother had stayed home alone, with no desire to have anyone who take care of her. Glenn, who lived nearby, would visit her from time to time to see how she was doing.

  So far she seemed to be doing well. But because of him, something terrible was going to happen to her, something she didn't deserve.

  A few minutes of fast running later, without understanding how to go so fast and so long, he found himself in front of his mother's house.

  'There's... nothing?'

  The house was quiet, lifeless, as usual. The door wasn't kicked in, the windows weren't broken, and everything seemed in order as if nothing had happened.

  'Phew… maybe nothing happened after all. '

  Glenn walked slowly from the doorway, the abundant dead plants littered the floor. They looked even more dead than the last time he had been here.

  With some nostalgie, he knocked on the door. After a while, he heard slow footsteps behind the door. Then the door opened.

  There was only his mother. No big, muscular, armed guys, just his mother, dressed in black with an indifferent look on her face.

  'Phew...' Glenn let out a quiet sigh. "How are you doing Mom?".

  His mother watched him for a moment before sighing loudly.

  "Come on in."

  Glenn complied, entering the small house where he had grown up and walking through the familiar hallways. Then he sat down on the couch in the living room.

  He looked around at the different parts of the living room that he knew by heart, the wallpaper, the broken machines, and the furniture. Nothing had changed.

  His mother entered the living room and put a coffee on the table.

  "Why did you come to see me, Glenn? Do you have something to tell me?"

  Her tone was cold, all these trials had broken her. Glenn could only curse two things: His own actions that led to this situation and human frailty.

  Some of his friends were psychologists or had studied psychology, so he had learned from them the concrete characteristics of the human mind, only on the surface though.

  He understood that the smallest trauma could destroy a person's life, and he could never recover. His mother had experienced several powerful traumas already, the disappearance of Glenn and her absence when her husband died.

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  Since that time, the relationship between her and Glenn had deteriorated to the point where there had to be a valid reason for one to travel to see the other.

  Glenn scratched the back of his head, he had come because he was convinced that the government had come, to use his mother as bait or persuasion.

  'It looks like the government wasn't that smart!'

  Seeing that his silence lasted, Glenn made up an excuse as quickly as possible.

  "Ho, Haha...uh, I...ha yes! I had something important to ask you." Glenn took a heavy breath, giving his mother the impression that he was about to say something completely crazy. "I...I found love."

  A deathly silence settled over the room.

  'Fuck! Why did I say that?' That's the worst excuse someone like him could have given. Indeed, Glenn had never had a girlfriend in his entire life, not even a friendly relationship with that gender really, despite all these years of existence.

  Before he disappeared he was what you might call, an antisocial or sociopath, he didn't follow the codes, so absolutely no girl would socialize with a dead-looking boy like him. After he came back, well, he didn't grow up anymore, no girl of his real age would want a boyfriend who looked so young, well, nobody wanted to be called a pedophile.

  Bitterly regretting his words, he glanced at his mother, who for some reason seemed particularly shocked.

  'Oh, what?! Is that so shocking?'

  His mother was silent for a moment, which seemed like an eternity to Glenn, she closed and opened her mouth several times, as if she didn't know what to say.

  "Well...good for you...I guess."

  Glenn remained silent for a few seconds, what he had told his mother was wrong, but...it was still hurtful that his mother would react in such a way.

  It's a good thing it wasn't true, otherwise, I would have taken it very badly. I mean, what kind of mother reacts like that?

  To support his point and try to make his story even more true, he added a few details.

  "Yes, we didn't meet long ago, but we've already spent a lot of time together and decided to date."

  His mother, who seemed to have slowly come to her senses, leaned forward as if to listen more carefully.

  "Ho...and what is her name, what does she do for a living?" Despite her previous shock, her look and words seemed suspicious.

  "Her...her name is Lucy and she is a researcher like me, we met at work."

  Glenn was careful not to add any details to keep the story from sounding too false. But he cursed himself inside for using the name of that damn woman who had tried to catch him earlier in the day.

  He bent down to take his coffee and drank a sip, to hide the unease that was written on his face.

  Despite this, his mother counterattacked in force.

  "And... do you plan to introduce me to her at some point?"

  Glenn almost spit out his coffee, introducing her? He'd never planned to do it, because there was no one there in the first place.

  "Um... sure! I'd love to but, you see, it's pretty new, so I think we'd have to wait a bit for us to meet our respective families, but I'll definitely do it, as soon as we're ready."

  Praising his perfectly timed excuse, Glenn took another sip of his coffee, this time with a smirk. His mother, meanwhile, was watching him intently, before her gaze was drawn to something.

  "Uh, Glenn, what exactly does this Lucy look like?"

  Glenn, always confident thanks to his previous answers thickening the lie, gladly answered the question asked.

  "She's have brown hair, tending towards chestnut, her eyes are the same color, she also wears dark glasses and has the annoying habit of wearing a white coat all the time."

  Despite his polite smile towards her mother, she, herself, was not smiling, not at all even. It seemed as if her eyes followed or saw something unusual.

  "Well, indeed, she is as you described."

  Glenn didn't understand what his mother meant, so he lifted his head and met her gaze, his mother was looking at him behind her son. A cold shiver ran through Glenn's entire body before slowly following his mother's gaze.

  At that moment, his whole world collapsed, behind the window that overlooked the living room, the same one that had helped him confirm that this was his home when he had returned from the caves, outside was the researcher, Lucy, with a terrifying smile on her face, who was watching Glenn greedily.

  They had found him.

  Lucy was surrounded by her cohort of men too tough to be considered real humans. Who seemed ready to return at the woman's command.

  "She must be up to something bad to bring so many bodyguards with her. Maybe she's a celebrity?"

  Glenn looked at his mother, then at Lucy, Lucy opened and closed her mouth to articulate the words that were impossible to hear from the inside, so Glenn's mother had a confused expression on her face.

  Glenn, however, who could read lips, opened his eyes wide and suddenly stood up. His mother, still in confusion, blinked several times before asking:

  "What are you doing?"

  Glenn turned around for a moment, then gave the most serene look he could muster, he had long since decided never to worry his family again, he had said a fist of honor, it was now written in him.

  "Oh nothing, I'm going to see her to ask her why she's here. She had told me she wanted to wait a while before coming to see you, and yes she is a celebrity of sorts, she is always surrounded by bodyguards, but never that many."

  His mother nodded slowly, as she did so, Glenn walked forward and arrived at the front door of the house.

  He understood exactly what she had said, and although he didn't let it show, he was terrified, if what she had said was true, then his mother was in great danger, and so was he.

  Remembering what she had said, Glenn opened the door and walked out of the Little House. He closed the door and walked to the window, still thinking about the woman's words, words he couldn't get out of his head.

  "If you don't come right away, the house will explode."