My sister wakes me up the same way she's always woken her daughter—walking straight to the curtains to open them and then the window. She gives me a kiss and, stroking my hair, gently tells me to wake up.

Once I'm awake, she reminds me:

"Grandma and your uncle are coming for lunch today. Behave."

"Yes, Mom."

She looks at me disapprovingly—she hates when I call her "Mom." But I do it because I can't risk calling her by her name or the nickname I've always used. If that slips out, there'll be no turning back. If she doesn't realize I'm her brother—because that's incomprehensible to them—she would, at the very least, know I'm not her daughter. There's no way I'll let the nickname slip, because then all hell would break loose. So, I cling to "Mom"—the same way I used to call our own mother.

"You're wearing the red dress with the white bow."

"Okay. Hey, Mom," she huffs, "can Uncle talk properly now?"

My sister's face twists into something like a smile, but she quickly regains composure and sits beside me on the bed.

"Oh, honey," she hugs me, "I can't imagine how you must be feeling about all this. But you've seen he's getting better, right?"

"Yeah," I lie.

"We just have to be patient. The hardest part, like the doctors say, is over."

"Mom, do you think he'll talk normally again?"

"Well, sweetheart, the doctors say there's no physical impediment; it's all in his mind. He just needs to reconnect with his body."

"I hope he does soon, Mom."

"I hope so too, princess. I really do."

I go into the bathroom and, after using it like any little girl would—sitting down—I turn on the hot water and let it run until it warms up. Almost immediately, steam begins to fill the bathroom. As I undress in front of the foggy mirror, trying to give my little niece as much privacy as I can under these circumstances, I step into the shower, letting the hot water run over every fiber of the body I inhabit. As I lather shampoo into my hair and soap onto my face, I hear the light flickering—the bulb, turning off and on in erratic bursts. But I don't open my eyes because, honestly, I'm terrified to confirm what I already know—that the bulb has gone out and I'm standing here in complete darkness. Normally, I wouldn't be so easily spooked, but lately, with the infestations around me, the hidden messages appearing in the steam on the shower screen and mirror, the shadows, the figures, the night terrors, the voices, the sounds in the dark, and my mind trapped in this body—I don't know how much more I can take.

The flickering continues, and I've already finished rinsing. I have to open my eyes. My face is turned toward the acrylic shower door, which points straight at the mirror over the sink.

I think I'll count to three before I open them.

"One. Two. Three."

I open my eyes and, to my relief, the light is on. There's nothing scary.

I blink. The light goes out, and I feel a breath behind my neck. I spin around, but there's no one there.

I blink again. The light comes back, and there's nothing behind me. I glance back at the acrylic screen, and that's when I see it—etched all over the sliding shower door, in letters of all sizes and written backward as if scrawled from the other side—"DANIELA."

Dozens, maybe hundreds of times.

And that's when I realize something even worse. Between the acrylic and the mirror, there are silhouettes—shadows. But they aren't dark; they're translucent, ghostly figures of people huddled together as if waiting on a subway platform for a train to take them away. There are children, elderly people, men, and women of all ages, and they mutter incomprehensible words that I struggle to decipher: "Let go," or "Get out," or "Kill yourself."

I freeze, my breath caught in my throat, and that's when I see something I've seen before—the bald man from the hospital. He begins to move toward me, fast, screaming with a spectral echo, filled with fury, with terrifying desperation, as he throws himself at the sliding door and rakes his hands across the acrylic.

"GET-OUT-OF-THERE!"

I stagger backward in terror, slipping on the soapy floor of the shower, falling onto my back. My head smacks against the wall, and I let out a scream filled with unearthly terror. I barely manage to see how the bald man lunges toward my face, pressing his grotesque mouth against Dani's—against mine—as if performing mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, but instead of breathing into me, he's sucking with all his might. And it's not air he's pulling out—it's my soul.

As I lose consciousness, I glimpse the water beneath me—not the soapy runoff of the shower, but dark, murky water, writhing with hundreds of worms wriggling against my borrowed skin. A burning, itching sensation crawls over my niece's body—but I'm the one feeling it.

Downstairs, in the distance, my sister's terrified scream rings out, followed by the sound of something crashing and shattering into pieces.

"GET! - OUT! - OF! - THERE!"

I don't know how much time passes, but I get up immediately, as soon as I can, and, staggering, step out of the bathtub, leaning on the sink.

I turn to the tub and notice how the remaining worms slither down the drain.

I turn on the sink faucet and confirm that it's just water. I rinse my body, wrap myself in a towel, and run down the stairs, two at a time, until I reach the kitchen, finding it empty. But when I look outside, I see my brother-in-law and sister in the front yard, picking things up off the ground and throwing them into the trash bin. When they see me, both gesture for me not to come out; but it's as if they're inviting me to go to them, and I step outside without hesitation, only to find the yard crowded with birds, twitching in their final moments.

Out of the corner of my eye, I spot a silhouette watching me with malice, and the three of us turn toward the house's entrance, where my body stares back at me with a stupid, depraved smile just as my mother sees the birds on the ground and faints, letting out a "Jesus, Mary, and Joseph."

My father—my brother-in-law—immediately jumps up, runs to my mother, lifts her in his arms, and carries her inside, while my sister, with a compassion I hadn't known she possessed, continues picking up the dying birds. I join her to help. Once we've gathered all the broken-necked birds, she sweeps up the shards of glass from the kitchen window facing the yard. Again, we notice the piercing yet vacant gaze of my body, staring at me with a dumb grin that chills my blood. Seeing myself looking at me is terrifying; it's worse than the eerie sensation of looking into a mirror and feeling like the reflection has a mind of its own.

My sister shouts when she sees him.

"Joaquín!"

He doesn't respond.

"You're going to scare us to death. Get inside."

He doesn't respond.

He smiles.

He locks eyes with me.

She steps outside, grabs him by the shoulder, and takes him into the house, where my mother, now conscious, is being attended to on the living room couch by my brother-in-law. My sister sits my body on the sofa while I, standing at the doorway, try to analyze my options and understand what's really happening here.

Now all of us are at the dining table, trying to recover from this chain of terrifying events that keeps unfolding around us.

The table is already set, with some dishes served as if for a Christmas dinner. But we are not at the table to eat; we are sitting there, straight-backed, facing each other, trying to make sense of what's happening.

But my body—the body that belongs to me yet is controlled by something I don't understand—is eating. Eating with its hands. It grabs a fistful of mashed potatoes and stuffs it into its mouth; picks up the bowl of tomato soup and drinks directly from it. It looks at me, grabs the roasted beef ribs, and, with its teeth—which are actually my teeth—rips the meat apart while grinning at me. And no one notices that it's eating; it's as if they're all trapped in some sort of collective stupor. He and I—or I and I—or it and I—we lock eyes.

The body smiles at me, and I stare back, challenging it.

The body picks up on the challenge, looks at me, and its grin fades into a blank expression at first, then morphs into tightly pressed lips, seething with rage. Its eyes bulge, its mouth opens, food still inside, and it screams, spewing saliva and chewed-up bits:

"GET OUT!"

Everyone immediately turns to look at us, their gazes shifting from the body to me, from me to the body, but no one moves, no one reacts. Not even when it suddenly stands up, knocking over its chair, not when it climbs onto the table with its right knee first, then its left foot, nor when it strides across the table, knocking over plates of food, advancing toward me, lunging at me again with closed fists, throwing punches.

I defend myself.

I hit back—I hit myself. But the dull blows disorient me, knock me off balance. I try to defend myself, to block the strikes, to cover myself, while out of the corner of my eye, I see everyone watching—but they don't move. They're frozen, and my sister and mother stare at us, paralyzed with tears streaming down their faces, their expressions contorted as if trying to move yet incapable of making any action, utterly locked in place.

I kick the body in the groin, again and again, but nothing happens. I flail, my hands flapping wildly, but it grabs me by the throat and starts choking me.

"GET! OUT! OF! THERE!"

I flail and hit him in the face, but I can't stop him. A dizziness overwhelms me, and I'm about to lose consciousness when my right hand finds a knife on the floor. I manage to stab him, sinking it in until it hits bone or something. He turns, stunned, and releases my throat. He stares at the knife's handle protruding from his body. His eyes widen with unparalleled terror, and he lets out a terrible scream.

Dozens upon dozens of rats begin pouring out of the drains, toilets, any pipe, hole in the walls, or unnoticed burrows in the garden. Swarming into the dining room, they attack us without mercy.

My sister is the first to react, and at this point, I'm not surprised; I assume that some maternal and protective force catalyzes her reactivation. She rushes toward me, embraces me, lifts me effortlessly, and raises me above the colony of rats at her feet that bite at her like starving piranhas in a deadly lake. My father is the second to react; he runs to my mother, lifts her in his arms, and carries her to the truck where his wife and I are.

"My son, go get my son..." my mother pleads.

"But, ma'am—"

"Go!" my sister shouts, and my brother-in-law charges back inside like a firefighter plunging into unimaginable flames to retrieve my body.

He emerges with it slung over his shoulder and throws it into the truck as well.

The body groans, babbles, and wails, and my mother screams at it to shut up.

"We should take you to the police."

"No, darling; it's because of the coma."

"Ma'am, this man is not your son; he needs to be institutionalized."

My mother breaks down into childlike sobs, utterly distraught.

My body groans, wails, and screams in pain as blood stains everything.

"Where are we going?" my brother-in-law asks.

"To my mother's house," my sister requests.

"Aren't we taking him to a hospital?" she asks.

On the way, the body doesn't stop suffering, moaning, screaming. My mother begs my sister to take him to a hospital, and my brother-in-law hurls every profanity imaginable while restraining the body by force.

All of this unfolds in the back of the truck. Up front, my mother drives, and I sit in the passenger seat in total, sepulchral silence. In utter turmoil.

She looks at me.

I glance at her first out of the corner of my eye, then turn my head fully toward her.

"Are you okay?"

I nod, and she gives me a nervous smile. Then her gaze drifts to the corner of the street, following a path along the pedestrian lines until she ends up staring straight ahead, her face contorted in shock.

I try to direct my gaze toward whatever has stunned her, but my attention is yanked away as if by an invisible gravitational force—the laughter of the body and the resounding silence of the other two in the back of the truck.

I turn.

The first thing I see is my grandmother—my mother—her neck twisted at an unnatural angle, her head snapped backward. Dead on the vehicle's floor.

I choke on a childlike, feminine scream.

Then, as a jolt of terror surges through me, I see my brother-in-law's mangled body on the floor, gasping for air like a fish out of water. Instinctively, my little niece's body recoils as far as it can, but the body does not react, does not move—it simply stares at the same point where my mother fixates her vacant, absent gaze, forever lost. And then he begins to laugh. First, chuckling, then breaking into a raucous, shrill cackle.

I have to turn.

I try not to take my eyes off the body that was given to me and that I now lack. But I have to turn, and against my will, amidst the grotesque laughter echoing in my own voice, I turn—slowly, dreading an unbearable revelation—toward the avenue's intersection and find five stray dogs standing still in front of the truck.

At first, I am bewildered by this sight, when a slight movement in the opposite corner catches my eye. A dog is trotting toward the rest, but its eyes are fixed on my sister's face; it doesn't watch where it's going but stares directly into her eyes, even as its body moves in another direction. Then, from another corner, another stray dog does the same. And from the opposite side, another. And another from behind a taco stand. And another from the crosswalk.

All of them lock eyes with my sister.

A screeching of tires rings out as a half-dozen dogs from different directions position themselves in front of the truck.

Then, after the screech, a loud thud, a crack of bones, and that same sound cars make when they speed over a speed bump—like something inside the trunk bouncing around.

A car has run over a dog.

I flail and hit him in the face, but I can't stop him. A dizziness overwhelms me, and I'm about to lose consciousness when my right hand finds a knife on the floor. I manage to stab him, sinking it in until it hits bone or something. He turns, stunned, and releases my throat. He stares at the knife's handle protruding from his body. His eyes widen with unparalleled terror, and he lets out a terrible scream.

Dozens upon dozens of rats begin pouring out of the drains, toilets, any pipe, hole in the walls, or unnoticed burrows in the garden. Swarming into the dining room, they attack us without mercy.

My sister is the first to react, and at this point, I'm not surprised; I assume that some maternal and protective force catalyzes her reactivation. She rushes toward me, embraces me, lifts me effortlessly, and raises me above the colony of rats at her feet that bite at her like starving piranhas in a deadly lake. My father is the second to react; he runs to my mother, lifts her in his arms, and carries her to the truck where his wife and I are.

"My son, go get my son..." my mother pleads.

"But, ma'am—"

"Go!" my sister shouts, and my brother-in-law charges back inside like a firefighter plunging into unimaginable flames to retrieve my body.

He emerges with it slung over his shoulder and throws it into the truck as well.

The body groans, babbles, and wails, and my mother screams at it to shut up.

"We should take you to the police."

"No, darling; it's because of the coma."

"Ma'am, this man is not your son; he needs to be institutionalized."

My mother breaks down into childlike sobs, utterly distraught.

My body groans, wails, and screams in pain as blood stains everything.

"Where are we going?" my brother-in-law asks.

"To my mother's house," my sister requests.

"Aren't we taking him to a hospital?" she asks.

On the way, the body doesn't stop suffering, moaning, screaming. My mother begs my sister to take him to a hospital, and my brother-in-law hurls every profanity imaginable while restraining the body by force.

A few meters ahead, the driver stops, gets out, and approaches the poor animal lying in the middle of the street, crushed. But suddenly, the dog struggles to its feet, its bones exposed, blood gushing in torrents, its jaw dislocated, its twisted tongue hanging out as it limps toward the pedestrian lines, never taking its eyes off her. She is terrified, in shock.

From a couple of cars, dogs leap through shattered windows, joining the others. More arrive from all directions, and soon, they're not just strays—now German Shepherds, Dobermans, Bulldogs, and all sorts of breeds are joining in.

At that moment, my body stops laughing and grabs my sister's face, snapping her back to reality.

The body tries to dig its fingers into her eye sockets, but she reacts, slamming the accelerator just as the dogs hurl themselves at us, trying to stop the car. My sister plows through at least ten of them in one go, and it feels like some of the animals are trapped beneath the car or wedged between the wheels and fenders. The splattering sounds, the barking, the howling, the snarling against the windows are unbearable. My sister keeps accelerating, and the cacophony of crushed animals is deafening until the vehicle finally gives out.

That's when a white car stops in front of us. A man gets out. One of them aims and shoots my sister. He walks slowly toward me and fires at the door handle. My body laughs victoriously.

The man opens my door, and amid the now-calm dogs and the pools of blood, the hitman drags me out of the truck. I manage to glimpse my body waving and, in a stupid voice, saying:

"Bye, bye."

With terrifying strength, the man throws me into the trunk like a sack of potatoes and lands a brutal punch right between my eyebrows, knocking me unconscious.

"Break free."