It's my mother, standing at my doorway, screaming.
Her silhouette is outlined by the light behind her, contrasting against the darkness of my room.

"Holy shit!" my brother-in-law exclaims as he reaches her at my bedroom entrance.

"What?" I murmur, fear gripping me.

"Don't move, honey."

"What?" I say again, my voice trembling with panic.

With a swift motion, my sister's husband switches on the light in my room just as they both start kicking away the countless rats scurrying frantically across the floor of Dani's bedroom.

I scream.

After a bloody battle against the rats—using broomsticks, rat poison, traps, and whatever weapons we could find—they decide that, for tonight, we will all sleep together in their room. While Dad sets more traps and spreads poison in every corner, I discreetly pour holy water at the doorway and on the windows.

My parents—or rather, my sister and brother-in-law—invite me to sleep between them, but I refuse and claim the chaise lounge at the foot of their bedroom window instead. Even though they try to convince and even force me, I am resolute.

As I try to fall asleep, the room's lights are off, and the television hums softly, lulling the couple to sleep. Lying on their backs, arms wrapped around each other, they begin to breathe in the slow, rhythmic cadence of slumber after the harrowing night. I, however, stare out into the cold night beyond the window. It calls to me—it beckons with its bizarre silence, its tacit roar into the darkness of its mysteries.

I know I won't sleep. Instead, I will fall into a deep trance that might, perhaps, help me understand what the hell is happening. My thoughts are consumed by Dani, who must be somewhere lost in the void, without me, without his body, with nothing but his own memories for comfort.

The phone in the room rings.

"Now what?" I think.

It rings again, and my brother-in-law groggily answers.

"Yes. Yes, ma'am. Here she is."

He nudges my sister's arm, urging her to wake up. She jolts upright in an instant, as if some invisible spring had launched her into action.

"Hello?"

It turns out my mother was calling to inform them about an alarming call from the hospital. Something about me. About my body, to be precise.

At first, neither my sister nor my brother-in-law want to go. There's no one to leave me with, and after the night we just had, neither of them wants to leave the other behind, at the mercy of whatever might happen next.

"Baby, get dressed. We're going to the hospital to see your uncle."

What?

"What do you mean, to see my uncle?"

My sister looks at me, and she has no choice but to tell me the truth—the only truth she knows—hoping that my childish mind will understand and accept it.

"Apparently, he had a crisis, some kind of seizure, and they gave him a medication that had a negative effect. It weakened his heart so much that now all we can do is try to get there in time... to say goodbye."