A cold sensation was running throughout his body, like if he was inside a bathtub full of ice. He was utterly damped, but it wasn’t water; it was his own sweat. Dripping down from every single pore of his skin, the secreted liquid had soaked the entirety of his pyjama top. His skin was warm, but his sodden t-shirt was colder. That combo had made the fabric get stuck against his body, making him feel both suffocated and chilled. There were no words to express how uncomfortable he was feeling, sensing all those immovable-sticky folds. It was distressing and forced him to twist his body until his back felt loose.

John had been awake for a while just staring at the ceiling; trying to remember the nightmare. He couldn’t. The only thing he was able to recall was the anxiety and impotence the bad dream had provoked him. All the events, the faces… Everything had faded away; disappeared, like footsteps on the sand wiped out by a wave. If he would have tried harder to remember, he would have definitely been able to do so —at least part of it. Probably, he would have even been able to note down something useful; like a trail of clues he would have interpreted next morning. But it was already 4:00 am, and the only thought of waking up to do that made him feel extremely lazy. At that moment he had only one desire: to keep sleeping. That’s why he decided to close his eyes and turn himself to the left, so the first thing he could see in the morning would be Angela.

The following hours were peaceful, or at least that’s how they felt to John. No nightmares, no more sudden sweat… Just a quiet and delightful rest. He slept like a log, and it was Angela the one waking him up. Otherwise, he would have spent lying in bed for twelve more hours. When he opened his eyes, he could barely remember he had had a nightmare, let alone its intrinsic peculiarities. Everything that had happened last night had been deleted from his mind, thrown into the depths of the nothingness. The next time he would go to the warehouse, those memories would be a déjà vu —but only once exposed to the right stimuli. For now, he was just a happy man that had woken up in his fantastic new house.

Angela was smiling at him. She had prepared some coffee for both of them and was sitting on the side of the bed, waiting for him to come next to her. John pushed aside the blanket and used his hands to weakly lift himself and go by her side. When he did this, he displayed the stump he had on his right leg, just above the knee. It was a «memory» of the time he spent in the Marines.

—Good morning, love —he gently kissed her on the chick.

Angela couldn’t stop looking at his dark brown eyes, gloriously shining with the sunlight. It was a spectacle worth seeing —like everything about him. He was gorgeous, and his only presence made her feel something in her stomach was flourishing. She always had felt that way since they started dating as teenagers. For Angela, nothing had changed, she was in love like the very first day. The grateful husband was also staring at her. He had an impeccable smile, and so were his teeth, ideally aligned. Angela used to joke and tell him he could perfectly be the face for a toothpaste advertising campaign —which he agreed. His face was square-shaped, and his robust and well-defined jaw enhanced his charming smile even more. An almost inappreciable stubble made him look quite young, almost like a teenager. No one would have said he was about to turn thirty. The last thing that exalted his good looks was his hair, short on the sides and with a long quiff. He had had that hairstyle since he quit the Marines almost nine years ago. Usually, it was carefully styled, but not when he woke up. Early in the morning, his head looked like a poorly made nest, having every single strand of hair pointing to different directions. It looked hilarious.