All the way there, I keep expecting to fade away, to confirm that my physical death will also take my consciousness, my being. But nothing of the sort happens, and I hold firm to the hope that my body is still surviving.

I fear nonexistence, and I feel guilty for my niece's call for help—the call I neither arrived in time for nor answered properly.

Is she fading away?

Is she?

When we arrive at the hospital, my sister goes up, while I stay in the grim parking lot with my brother-in-law, who prefers that we wait here until she makes sure it's okay for me to come up.

Ten minutes later, she calls him and puts the phone to my ear.

"My love, your uncle is very sick, and it looks like he could leave us for heaven at any moment. Do you want to come say goodbye?" she asks through tears.

"Yes!"

My brother-in-law doesn't even question me, and hand in hand, we enter the hospital. We take the elevator up to the fourth floor, and once there, we walk through the hallways until we reach room 480.

I feel, and I could almost swear, that hundreds of people are crammed at the windows of the rooms along the hallway, watching us. More than that, I sense the murmurs of all the breaths that have drifted through these corridors over time, of those who have perished in these rooms filled with the weight of medical failures piling up, pressing against our steps. I can't help but think not of the rare moments of joy, of triumph over illness, but of the countless grieving relatives who have left this place, of the many bodies that have been wheeled out feet-first. And those, in fact, are the ones I feel surrounding us—watching, waiting, observing with morbid curiosity, as if trying to understand the hows that justify the why of my passage through this body that does not belong to me. Somehow, they know it, they understand it, they resent it, they envy it, they crave it. They are like shadows stretching along the hallway, marking a straight path from the elevator at one end of the building to my uncle's room at the farthest end. I don't dare turn to confirm it, terrified of what I might see—of their fixed, transgressive stares.

My brother-in-law, on the other hand, is merely a tourist in all of this. He tries to be strong enough to hold us together while my sister and I collapse.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" he asks at the threshold of the door.

"Sure."

"This might be an image of your uncle you'll never forget. Why don't you just keep the—?"

"I'm sure, Daddy."

"Okay."

We step inside and see my mother and sister at the back of the room, standing next to two solemn nurses who will allow us to say our goodbyes before they finally disconnect my body.

"He loved you very much, Dani."

"Yes, Grandma."

I see her smile at me, sorrowful, as she extends her arm toward me while my sister kisses my forehead after saying her goodbye.

"Your uncle had a collapse, sweetheart. He can't hold on any longer. I'm sure he fought as long as he could so that you would have enough strength to come and say goodbye."

I start crying. To my mother and sister, I seem like a hero, when in reality, I failed Daniela. I hadn't managed to summon the courage to go to her aid the moment she screamed for me.

"Say goodbye, Dani," my sister breaks into sobs, and my mother places Daniela's hand over the motionless hand of my body in a coma. I can feel that body with the palm of this little hand, but it's cold, with the cadaverous texture of wax on skin—it's like holding my own numb hand. That eerie sensation of familiarity and estrangement from one's own body.

"Give him a kiss and tell him how much you love him, Dani. Because they're about to turn him off."

I feel pressured, but I don't want to add more grief or confusion. I do as Mom urges and kiss the forehead of what was once my body.

At the exact moment my lips—or rather, Daniela's lips—touch my skin, my body begins to convulse violently. My mother stumbles backward as if fainting, though she does not fall, her face twisting in terror. My brother-in-law leaps forward, grabs me, and pulls me away as the doctors and nurses rush to my body, which seems to react—perhaps at sensing me nearby.

I have the sensation that a horde of shadows, of specters, gathers at the windows—all the windows—the ones outside the building, despite the height, and the ones in the hallways, to watch us, to bear witness, with utter malice, to what is happening inside room 480, at the threshold of my physical death, my eternal imprisonment in this body, or my descent into nothingness if they were to disconnect me, leaving me to die. And, of course, the spectral condemnation to the abyss of purgatory where my Dani remains—if she still exists.

The doctors try to inject something into my body while the nurses struggle to restrain it, ensuring the spasms don't obstruct their medical work. But then, my body jerks upright, its eyes wide as plates, letting out the guttural noise of a dry throat screaming with the full force of its lungs. With its arms outstretched, reaching for me, it rasps metallically:

"Let go!"

My sister screams uncontrollably. My mother collapses to the floor, this time in an unavoidable faint. The doctors are thrown back, the nurses as well, pushed away by the brutal thrashing of my body, which, writhing over itself on the bed, hisses as if desperately trying to reach me. My brother-in-law, paralyzed with fear, lets me drop to the ground as he throws himself at my body like a defensive lineman, trying to hold it back as its hands stretch toward me.

"Move!"

I start screaming at the top of my lungs, seized by a terror unlike anything I've ever felt, wetting my panties as I scramble backward on my hands and heels, dragging myself across the floor.

Whatever is inside my body—because it certainly isn't Daniela—overpowers my brother-in-law after a brief struggle. When it finally reaches me, it knocks me to the ground, presses its mouth against mine, and with an idiotic look, as if unable to fully control its own reactions, says something like:

"Kill yourself!"

Then, it sucks the air out of my lungs, straight from my mouth, leaving me breathless.

A doctor injects something into its neck, and my olive-green eyes—my eyes—begin to look at me, consciousness fading little by little, until all awareness vanishes.

They have subdued the beast.

Three nurses lift my body onto a stretcher, while I remain frozen on the floor, trapped inside my niece's body.

My sister and mother rush toward me, pulling me up.

It dawns on me—something has awakened inside me, inside my body, over there on the hospital bed.

But who is it?

What is it?

Instinctively, I turn to the window—something has drawn my attention.

Behind three doctors watching us, while some of their colleagues and the nursing staff help us get back on our feet, they stand there too—among the many amorphous, spectral shadows: the old woman and the bald man from my nightmares, from my memories in this hospital.

One is missing.

The boy.

On the bed, the doctors adjust my body while my family gathers around. My mother, now fully conscious, stirs and exclaims:

"My son, my son woke up!"

She starts crying, and my sister follows. Before I know it, even my brother-in-law—who holds my mother in his arms—breaks down in sobs.

And I realize—I am the only one here who sees the truth.

The only one who knows that this, that, is not her son.

Not her grandson.

"And the damn kid?"

I turn back to the hallway window—the bald man and the old woman are smirking maliciously, their cold gazes fixed on me.

Then, without a word, they turn and fade into the impenetrable darkness of the corridor.