Chapter 1 Summary

Brief Lives is the seventh volume of the Sandman series, but it picks up where the fourth volume left off. Dream's relationship with Nada has just ended, and she has decided to be reborn into a new human being, forgetting everything between them. Dream is holed up in his castle, brooding, and it has been raining in the Dreaming, his realm, for days. Delirium, the youngest of the Endless, who was very close to her brother Destruction and who has at times expresses a desire to see him again, will arrive with a proposition that Dream hopes will help put Nada out of his mind.

An old man named Andros scales the rocky shoreline of a Mediterranean island. He reaches the top where his grandson Kris stands with an assault rifle, guarding a small sanctuary. Andros enters the sanctuary, where the head of...