Between code and broken dreams. [A prequel to "The Amazing Digital Circus"] ENG

Chapter 1 The circus curtain rises!

That young boy was always afraid of the dark, and look at him now.

He tries to open his eyes, but it's useless; the eternal gloom has enveloped him completely.
He tries to move, but his whole body is paralyzed, like in one of the worst nightmares.
He tries to gather his strength, but it's no use; the air struggles to reach his lungs.
He tries to scream... but at this point, it seems as if his mouth has been sealed forever.
The voices around him fade little by little, like a flame yielding to the icy breeze, like someone who has sunk into the abyss.

And suddenly, there is silence.

And suddenly, he no longer feels cold.

And suddenly, there is no more pain.

There is nothing more; he is nobody, he is nothing.

Just when he stops thinking, just when he stops feeling, that's when, without warning, he touches solid ground. A dream, perhaps? That electrical current the brain sends out instinctively often plays cruel tricks on us, but... No. This time it's different.

The young man gathered his strength, trying to open his eyes once more without much hope. His surprise was enormous when he discovered not only that the darkness that had surrounded him moments before had vanished, but also that he was now in a completely different place.

"What... is this place?" he questioned, sitting on the ground, putting a hand to his head. His vision was still quite blurry.

It took the boy a few minutes to regain his senses. It was at this point that he began to feel truly intrigued by this mysterious and new environment.

To begin with, the place where he had fallen appeared to be a small, well-carved wooden stage, quite meticulously maintained at first glance. The next thing that met his eyes was a perfectly symmetrical floor divided into a pattern like a chessboard, that is, black and white squares, which extended for a considerable distance until reaching a surface comparable to the canvas used for circus tents.

"A circus? But how... did I end up here?" He tried to get up, but it was a completely foreign sensation, as if he'd suddenly lost all coordination with his body. Even so, his surroundings prevented him from focusing on this for the time being.

Throughout the space, objects of different shapes and sizes could be seen. Colorful cubes joined together to form picturesque towers, spheres here and there, as if it were a test environment for a video game, or even a lobby.

He couldn't tell how long he'd been observing this environment in the same position. It felt extremely abstract, and yet, not long enough to be considered random, assuming that behind all of this there was human work.

"A dream," he repeated to himself. What other explanation was there? "I just need to wake up, I just need to open my eyes, and everything will be normal again."

The human mind is unique, special in many ways, even operating under concepts we ourselves cannot understand. In a situation like this, we cling tightly to ideas that bring us peace, like an automatic defense mechanism against an invisible predator.

The boy takes a deep breath, closing his eyes and searching for that gentle current that runs through us from head to toe, the signal that we've left the dream world, a cold, gentle caress that brings us back to reality. But... it's no use.

"A nightmare?" he wonders.

Then comes the second attempt, with added intensity. He squeezes his eyelids shut, trying to force the sleep out of his wake. Seconds tick by, but he finds himself unable to go any further. Now he shakes his body from side to side, a sudden jerk that has always worked during sleep paralysis, but... cruel fate, this seems to be an exception.