‘I feel dead, sick. I want to wake up and never sleep. How hard will it be? In this nightmare, everything goes in slow motion. Hooray! “experimental subject” is a little more broken. If only I could still change my wish that this whole world would shatter and those who live in it would burn in hell. Now I’d settle for just being able to take a bath. Yes, turn on the shower and let the water purify what these savages have done to my body. Let it cleanse me, let it burn my skin if necessary, let it wash away everything, and let it run through my bones. But I know it doesn’t matter. The stain on my soul will never go away. Oh! Now that I think better of it, it doesn’t feel so bad to be in the alienated world of my mind, where I can only hear my voice. Maybe I can call him my Prince Charming. Maybe it can’t be me, but he can kill these monsters, hold me in his hands, and make me happy once again.’

 Three months or so passed after Rebeka’s clinical death, and not being able to wake up from her nightmare was no particular cause for wonder. She had resigned herself to not even moving.

Everything became even more cloudy than at the beginning, and the investigators had no interest in her. Apparently, there was another specimen that was showing better results. On the other hand, Rebeka could not tell if she had an empty stomach.

After returning to consciousness, she could not be sure that she was alone, although she could still hear sounds that were slowly replaced by the clinking of metal, the rushing of liquids in jars, and the silence of a calm subject.

 After hovering in the air, she again heard the liquid moving inside a glass knob, which when opened had the unmistakable smell of formaldehyde.

  Using a cloth, the cold substance was rubbed over Rebeka’s body. Two fingers imprisoned her right breast and stretched the flesh without stopping or letting go. After being pinched by someone’s hand, she felt the characteristic pain caused by the tip of a needle on the skin.

  ‘A sharp object slowly digging into my skin and wounding me Groan in pain? What if I am only flesh? What right does a mind disconnected from its body have to scream for mercy?’

The individual’s hand moved and left the stitches piercing the flesh. As if he were a skilled tailor, little by little, he patched old patches all over Rebeka’s body, which was filled with embedded needles.

  ‘I don’t know anymore if what I repeat, for the sake of repeating... were once memories of a reality. Perhaps, I had the life of someone luckier than me. Someone who surely lived as a human... I can’t help but ask: Is it normal not to have to breathe? Or not to feel my heart beating, neither hot nor cold. Once in a while, it’s all pain, but now, not even that.’

  One of the subjects added:

   “She can still move.”

  “Wonderful, just amazing.”

   ‘I can see, but not focus my gaze, I can only see shadows and movements. Hearing, practically without understanding. I’ve forgotten all about that.’

  “Take out her remaining eye” said the other guy. “Lack of oxygen damaged it, it doesn’t look functional, it’s better to replace it with a prosthesis.”

 ‘Eternal darkness isn’t it?’ said Rebeka to herself.

  Tongue-less and eyeless, with a dry, broken and hopeless heart, Rebeka was still dead and couldn’t even feel her body.

  Those who had come to do the restoration work left the way they came. All that remained of the dead body was more like that of a doll.

   A shuddering sound was heard, she still had her ears and it was practically what she was doomed to perceive.

  Someone opened the door in desperation and shouted:

 “Ohhh! My precious sunshine! You don’t have to suffer anymore; I’m here for you, my love!”

The subject approached; his breathing sounded loud and agitated, and he walked with tired steps. Although the guy’s body was strong enough to carry Rebeka from the table she was lying on. 

The subject had no clothes on. Rebeka’s almost porcelain skin made contact with the sweaty, slimy flesh of the person carrying her, who soon caressed her head and sniffed her hair. But it wasn’t enough, as he ran his tongue down her neck and into her ear.

   “Yes, caramel skin, I’m the one on your side. I could hardly wait any longer, or think about what they were doing to you and what you were suffering, but it will be all right. With me, everything will be all right. Kiss me my beloved, now that we are together, after this long reunion.”

  She could hear how the mouth of such a guy covered hers, and his invasive tongue could not even enter completely.

  “Why don’t you reciprocate my kiss?” The individual’s words sounded as if he were offended. “Do you feel disgusted by my obese and sweaty body?!”

   Rebeka couldn’t see it, feel it, or realize it, she could only hear that when the guy’s arms stopped holding her, he punched her with all his strength, sending her flying until her body hit the ground.

  ‘What was that? Maybe my skin doesn’t feel much, but my bones remember something familiar. Memories... The sound of broken bones is quite ugly to hear.’

   Lying on the ground, as if she were a doll, Rebeka could hear the same guy approaching. She was crying, gasping for breath and trying to contain herself.

  “Oh! Yuno. I’m sorry, I did it without realizing it,” he said, as one who was apologizing while at the same time lying on the ground next to his belongings. “It’s not my fault that you were a bad girl, that’s why I had to beat you, kidnap you and let these cold and emotionless people experiment on you. But if you behave well, from now on, I’ll give you all my love without hurting you anymore, I promise I’ll forgive you? Aaah! Yes, this body of yours, your face, your pink hair, your skin, your tits, everything is wonderful. You’re perfect, not like that three-dimensional model, disgusting and pathetic.”

 The guy burst into tears again. For some reason, the image of a fat, disgusting walrus crying over her and wrapping her hands around his neck came to Rebeka’s mind.

‘So, my name is Yuno?’ She wondered after ignoring the words of the guy talking to her.

“No matter how much you want, your perfection will not be maintained; time goes by, and no matter how much I take care of you, you will become ugly... That’s why I allowed you to be mummified, because the experiment to achieve immortality turned out unsuccessful. Yes! Let’s stop time, so you will never have to change, and you will remain as beautiful as you are now and forever. Please live for me; I will be here for you.”

   Rebeka’s heart pounded a few times. That was not supposed to happen; her body was already dead, but it was as if that organ had memories and reacted to the words spoken to it.

   “Oh!!! I’m a horrible person! I don’t think there are any words sicker than those. Please forgive me. You are crying, and definitely, that blow I gave you hurt you. My private surgeons will come and fix you up and make you as good as new today, so tomorrow I will love you and make up for every nasty thing I did to you today. I’ll make you want to go on living,” said the guy between moans.

 ‘How long? I don’t know; even so, this body refuses to die. Another day, and again. This time it’s different; open the door carefully, like someone depressed...’

 “I can’t believe it! Even if they told me, I couldn’t believe it,” said the guy. “But now that I see it, it all makes sense, and I know the reason why your belly has been growing non-stop and you’ve become ugly. You’re expecting a baby. Oh my god! It’s not mine, because I can’t have children since I cut off my genitals over ten years ago to end these invasive desires that come over me when I look at a beautiful, young girl like you were. I have investigated, and no one else has been able to impregnate you in these five months. No one has been able to contaminate you with their seeds, nor have any of those who touched you when you fell into this nest of love and passion. However, I saw when you misbehaved, and even if I decided to leave the past behind, you know I don’t like girls who don’t listen, much less girls who are ugly. You still have time; I can help you, can we share the absence of our genitals?”

  ‘Baby’ thought Rebeka, whose heart was beating again ‘I’m pregnant! Five months have passed, I had a life, I was someone’s wife, it has to be so.’

Absorbed in her thoughts, Rebeka felt how, from one moment to the next, something invaded her vagina. Perhaps all over her outer skin, there were not many nerve endings left because of the embalming, but it was different on the inside, as she felt something tearing at her insides, which she could not describe as being cold and solid.

Despite not being able to move, as she was like a doll, she tried to fight to make herself heard. ‘My baby! My baby! I don’t want to lose my baby!’ But she could not speak, for she was still dead.

On top of the glass sarcophagus in which she lay, Rebeka writhed and opened her mouth.

In her mind, she screamed at the top of her lungs, writhed, and even tried to bite in order to defend herself.

‘You will not take my baby from me! No, anything but that,’ she tried to say, but only a stream of cold air came out of her vocal cords.

The subject saw tears of blood, eyes that opened and closed, and a mouth that wanted to scream but could say nothing.

  “I can’t believe you could always talk! You were always conscious all this time and you never did it for me! So, you love your baby more than me?! I don’t have to feel guilty for you anymore, you slutty, ungrateful bitch. You know, we had a good time, I have to admit, but good riddance.”

  The guy shoved the thing he had set out to put deep inside Rebeka and stopped holding the body that was trembling all over.

  Rebeka felt how, right in her pelvic area, a violent punch hit her, as powerful as any, then another and so on, until she had had enough.

  The sound she had heard with each blow, was characteristic with that of breaking glass. What she had inside her birth canal was an empty bottle, and after breaking it into pieces, you could hear the shards of glass weeping inside as her flesh shattered.

  ‘Now yes, I have nothing, all that’s left for me to do is die. If there is a hell, I hope to go with them, just to see them suffer. A whole eternity will not be enough for me.’

  ‘I feel, I feel cold...’ Rebeka said to herself.

After staring into the darkness, unable to sleep, she was doomed to listen as the subject shrieked and ran off. Rebeka’s eyesight was even beginning to fail her in the darkness. Her heart continued to endure the pain of broken glass for months, and the bottle remained embedded in her flesh as a permanent reminder. None of the surgeons or medical staff dared to remove it on orders from the boss.

  Eventually, the guy seemed to remember that Rebeka, despite her sad and unforgivable behavior, was a valuable member of his collection, and as much as he wanted to, he could not treat her like an adulteress. Like the good collector of human dolls that he was, in the face of the situation, he managed to endure the disgust and conform.

With the absence of her belly and memories, Rebeka also lost the desire to live forever. Her heart, dry and dead, pounded every time a tear sprang from her prosthetic eyes. However, as if in compensation for the mistreatment and lack of attention she had received, in the mornings, the servants would open the door of the glass sarcophagus to let the sun and the wind shine in. Lying in the darkness of a world absent of senses and unseen by anyone else, Rebeka changed the expressions on her face because, thanks to the elements that made contact with her porcelain skin, she could see her whole family eating at the table. 

   Naturally, although these were dear people, she could not recognize them. They looked contrary to how she felt; they were animated, talking about things she could no longer understand, but for some reason, she remembered. They were events in which a girl named Rebeka had lived in her own way, and they provoked a certain nostalgia.

Amidst the wailing of the wind, she felt that most of the time, in the scenes she saw, time never passed in silence, for all was joy. In the house, after the glorious dinner, the father always fell asleep rocking in his armchair, and the mother would pick up something so that she could sit on her favorite sofa to read, under the light of a night lamp, to the little black-haired girl. If not in the living room, the little girl would spend entire evenings reading a book in her room, adorned with starry lights reflecting on the ceiling. I could already see how Rebeka, the curious little one, would slowly doze off, trying not to keep her eyes closed and forcing her body to stay up. All this until the mother would come upstairs and gently remove the book the little girl was reading, replacing it with a doll. When the mother would turn out the light and say goodbye with loving words, the little girl, who finally gave up her desire to stay awake, would sink deeper into the comfortable bed.

  “Good night, mom,”

  “I hope you’re dreaming of little angels, my beautiful girl.”

  “Better with a prince... with my own prince.”

After hearing the little girl’s last words, the mother would quietly leave.

After such pleasant memories, Rebeka realized that her body was being less exposed to the sun and wind and spent more time without experiencing memories. Sometimes she thought that the next time she was allowed to make contact with the environment, she might run away.

  The boss and the clerks no longer took the glass sarcophagus out very often and left it in the dark for quite a while.

  Rebeka was thrilled to hear as if she was being moved, but this time it was not just the sun and wind that awaited her, but also the laughter of friends and the sound of waitresses and waiters serving food and guests and commenting on how business was going. Among them, she could identify a familiar voice.

 “Beautiful creation, my friend, you have taste,” said a man.

“No, of course I don’t. If you hadn’t played the role of “anonymous” this moment surely wouldn’t have happened. By the way, how is your daughter, Lizandra?”

“She’s still in her rebellious stage, looking for her lost friend. But well, changing the subject, he also contributed to getting Jharol out of jail at the right time. I thought the intelligence at the hotel would be heavier, but my guys managed to make sure someone else did the job for them.”

  Rebeka could identify that they seemed to be blending into a familiar environment, but the name Lizandra made her heart pound. For some reason, the conversation she overheard made her feel relieved. After that, she was no longer in the mood to listen to further bureaucratic commentary, only beginning to feel anger at not seeing the images that brought her so much warmth. She knew that perhaps she was the object of admiration, but she could not imagine anything that would make her feel better than receiving the wind and the sun alone.

  Without thinking about what Rebeka might like, once the party was over, before the cleaning staff left, they hurriedly closed the glass sarcophagus. They cleaned the sarcophagus with haste and carelessness. So much so that, over time, swaths of dirt, dust and cobwebs spread through Rebeka’s hair and her skin cracked. If she could speak, the girl would surely reproach the cleaners for the dirt that was there. But surely, behind the boss’s back, the employees saw her as trash, an outlandish and exotic piece of art, which no one liked. 

  Rebeka overheard one of the maids complaining about the fact that she, being new, was obliged to take care of the doll room. “Sometimes they move and seem to cry. Those things have to be alive,” were the words she once managed to hear.

Eventually, another person would come in and seem to act with little patience for her work. So much so that, with a bucket of water, he did his cleaning job, not knowing that the humidity was not good for the porcelain skins of the dolls, which lay embedded and immobile inside glass sarcophagi.

The imperfections in the skins of his works were noticed by the boss, who, as punishment for the negligence, had the perpetrator’s hands cut off. Even with blood in his hands, the man, wounded in the depths of his feelings, screamed and ran without being able to do anything to remedy his sea of tears. Shaking off the snot, the “boss” sent for the restorers as soon as possible, after hitting everything, kicking the walls, and shouting angrily at everyone in sight.

It didn’t take long before the exhausted voice of the “doll” restorer appeared on the scene. Apparently, he had had enough of taking care of and satisfying the demands of the guy who called him, as he had other experiments to do.

“Who is that?” asked the boss, to which the voice replied:

“As a new assistant, the truth is, I get tired of explaining my work to young people who do not learn. He is an old widower and a family morgue worker. He is trustworthy. I swear to you, he is trustworthy. He does not feel any repugnance for bad smells, nor does he ask more questions than he should. Besides the twenty-two poorly accomplished pieces, it’s not a job he can restore alone. It was also raining this morning; spring is approaching, and the maintenance has to be done as soon as possible.”

  Convinced by the restorer’s words, the boss nodded his head, so the assistant, weakly and slowly, opened the glass sarcophagus and began to touch the body of the first doll. The boss followed the assistant’s movements carefully, as if he was afraid that he was inexperienced and might break the work of art more than it was.

“Yuno, isn’t it?”

“How do you know?” The boss asked with a smirk, something Rebeka couldn’t see, but from the voice, she could imagine.

“My son’s a fool; he has a similar doll, but in comparison to this model, my son’s is a piece of junk.”

“Ahh!” shouted the boss, "Sure, it is. I congratulate you on your assistant; he is a good connoisseur of art.”

Amidst the darkness that surrounded her, Rebeka managed to awaken his attention. Not by hearing again the name that had been mentioned to her, but by the voice that sounded very familiar.

After a while, the assistant was able to dismantle the body very delicately, as his hands were being followed by the meticulous eye of the boss. Because of the carelessness accumulated for so long, the boss began to scream, especially because of the dust that reigned in the unseen parts of the sarcophagus, which was so much that the dirt covered its mantle. Rebeka’s uncovered back and flew around the place as soon as he had the chance.

As much as the boss screamed and cried, neither of the two elders paid any attention to him. They were both absorbed in all the work they had to do and, at the same time, in dealing with the tantrum of a small child. On the other hand, the employees, who were trying to listen from afar, seemed to panic at the behavior the boss was demonstrating.

Carefully, the assistant placed the light body on the work table in a way that kept the doll’s head in place so that it would not break.

“Give me a sign that you still have the will, Rebeka,” said the assistant, who leaned forward, taking advantage of the carelessness of the boss and his partner.

The subject’s voice was familiar, to the point that, without much effort, she could remember, next to her name, who was speaking to her. It was the same one who helped her get off the elevator, showed her the evacuation path, and was there when her beloved fell in front of her.

Tilting his head even more, the official of the authorities rested his ear on the young woman’s bare chest. He took a deep breath through his nose, so much so that it made his eyes roll.

“You pathetic old man!” shouted the boss, as soon as he noticed something that was not part of the restoration process.

The restorer, instead of reprimanding his assistant, deemed it more necessary to reassure the employer because he knew the blood was going to flow. However, the elderly widower was not nervous at all.

“You damned freeloader, don’t you dare continue to dirty my most precious piece of art with your filthy head!” shouted out of his mind the boss, who, by the sound of his footsteps, seemed to rush towards the subject who was ignoring him.”

Faster and faster, the footsteps and the constant shouting of the enraged boss could be heard. Rebeka also heard the movement of several garments and the sound of a powerful gunshot that was repeated four times. At the thunderous sounds directed against the boss, he fell to the ground, and so the noise momentarily stopped.

“Aaah, how good it is to shoot until my life ceases to feel in danger. What a lovely law, much more so when I have someone who presumably can’t die,” said the widowed fellow from across the table where Rebeka was lying.

“I feel sorry for this little girl, but for there to be a criminal, a crime must be committed, and she was my only bait. You are under arrest for clandestine, unethical, and moral experiments against humanity.”

  “What are you saying you bastard!” asked the boss, short of breath. “Are you out of your mind, you shot a high official for a work of art? Yes, it’s from human remains, but there is no law preventing the ownership, sale, or distribution of human remains.”

  “So now she is considered a human, when as an “experimental subject” she was not. Well, I want to tell you that this body has a beating heart, and until proven otherwise, you are charged with human trafficking. I advise you to put your hands where I see them; otherwise, I’ll keep shooting.”

  “Beating of a heart...that’s a very easy accusation to justify,” said the restaurateur.

  “I have more to say,” added the guy who worked for the authorities. “Of course, even if they remove the brains of the experimental subjects, because they are making genetic crosses with the oldest lineage of creation, from day one, these bodies keep a copy of their memories and life elsewhere. It is not as perfect as the originals, but they react if they can hear information to which, if exposed, they become sensitive.”

  Just to make his point, the guy with the gun in his hand, continued to argue: 

   “Omar is still alive; he has never let you go; he is your prince.”

On the metal bed, Rebeka opened her mouth and started screaming at the top of her lungs. She raised her hands and, turning over, threw herself on the floor as if she wanted to come back to life.

“Fucking bitch!” shouted the boss, who could not stop becoming aggressive, despite the warnings given by the guy carrying the gun.

In the face of the burly boss’ aggressiveness, other shots were heard, along with a request for reinforcements from the older man. After the call, the deployment of uniformed personnel proceeded with their task of invading the place in a well-organized manner. After gaining access through windows, holes in the roof, and doors, the authorities proceeded to point their guns at the employees, the restaurateur, and the guy they called “boss”.

Rebeka was writhing on the floor, her eyes had fallen out, and her skin was peeling. The personnel in charge of protecting the hostages and giving first aid if necessary were afraid to touch the body and remained silent in the same place until, perhaps out of exhaustion, Rebeka stopped moving. 

  ”Lieutenant!” said someone who arrived, and it was the same person who caused everyone to stand at attention after clicking his heels on the spot. “How could this be possible? Did you act on your own and violate moral and ethical codes?”

  The guy they called “boss” showed a smile of triumph on his face because someone he knew had personally come to save his skin.

 “Yes” replied the guy, who was earlier called an assistant by the restaurateur. “But I did it for a good reason.”

  The high-ranking uniformed man in the command line of the authorities, showed his anger, raised his hand in the air with an accusing finger and in the middle of the operation, said the following: 

  “Good reason?! For insubordination, you are stripped of your rank. Someone imprison this deserter! Assuming command of this insubordination, I order the weapons to be lowered.”

Before the orders of the one who had entered shouting, no one moved from the place.

“No, commander. I did not do this for the recognition of anyone; I did it for corruption, not to let things go on like this. If humans like us, imperfect, ambitious, and contaminated by the blood of sin, attain immortality, not only the world but the universe will come to its doom. If my companions did not realize it, I could see it. Look who is before your feet; that beast is trying to pronounce the name of his beloved, just as I am trying to pronounce the name of my wife. Ahh, it’s impossible, but I have to try to make a difference before something happens that no one wants. Until that time, I will do everything, as much as humanly possible, to protect the future. They don’t move because they agree with me, and I didn’t fire all my bullets on that guy to prove one last point.”

Another shot rang out, right in the head of the one who intended to give the orders. The body did not move, nor did it fall to the ground; it only began to laugh out loud. Before the eyes of those present, the "commander” also belonged to the organization investigating immortality.

“You are also included by covering up these experiments for your own benefit, as long as you get your cut,” said the lieutenant, proving his point.

“You’re right,” said the commander, who seemed to be engrossed in determining his next words. He stood up even straighter, drew his fingers to the hole between his forehead, and stated, “It’s not like they can stop us.”

  “If they were still human, then it would be possible to come to an agreement between us, but, since they are not... The agreement is with those who are on their level” said the old man who had no more shots left in his gun.”

  ‘They talk too much,’ thought Rebeka, who didn’t mean to have frightened the paramedics, let alone behave the way she was behaving. She just wanted to get up on her legs and be free, to go back to where her beloved, whom she loved so much and just remembered, was waiting for her.

  Between the two subjects, they helped Rebeka to her feet, though the sickly state of her body gave a different impression to those watching, with bones snapping and dismounting from the spot, flesh spasmodically quivering, and grotesque sounds to be heard as the neck turned on the spot. She was getting up again and again, hitting the ground with each fall, without even realizing it.

   Rebeka’s intentions were noticed by those watching, even those who were at a difficult time in their lives, who stopped to look at her, sad and silent.

  ‘For it is so laborious to reach into this mysterious depth. Where am I going, who am I, and where do I come from? I am in the shadow of the memories of the past, where I can no longer see memories passing by,’ thought Rebeka, who struggled to go on with her activity.

  Amidst the silence of several stares, no one considered her alive or dead; maybe that’s why they let her move and do whatever she wanted.

 ‘And now, where are the answers?’ Rebeka asked herself, as if she could look around without even having eyes.

  In between questions, out of the darkness a figure emerged. It was a tall, slender fellow, and from the aura he radiated, one could tell he was long-lived.

“Oh, little lost rose of this garden, do you want to live on?”

"Yes,” replied Rebeka, without even thinking twice, and although she was left wanting to ask ‘who are you’, the answers came.

  ”No one in particular. I am a father, nothing more. As it would be rude to use your body without letting you know, all I can tell you is... my name is Brenk Priom. Rest easy.”

 Rebeka could no longer move her limbs, she felt calmer and did not hear the sound of bones, tendons, and cartilage thundering. The situation did not worry her at all. Now that she thought about it, it seemed more worrisome to her to have moved as she had. If she got where she wanted to go, what would she look like? She didn’t know, and for some reason, the guy’s words made her feel better. It was true that her body was broken; she still didn’t know who she was or where she came from, but it seemed to her as if those worries became weaker and weaker until, in the end, they disappeared completely.

  In the world of darkness, amidst the dance of bodies and bullets, Rebeka barely felt the pain of her rotting skin. Once again, she was able to see the door to the world of dreams, and there, after opening the handle and pushing, she could see how her family was waiting for her with love and emotion. Between Soe and Jharol, there was Omar.

   In a peaceful and slow state, as if floating in space or at the bottom of the sea, Rebeka did not see again the girl she always saw with them, but saw herself in a mirror, standing in front of them. The wind and the sun were there too, along with the open-armed family who ran to embrace her. Still processing the moment, Rebeka used all her strength to return the embrace to those in front of her. With a smile and tears, she collapsed her head into the lap of her mother and boyfriend. In real life, the heart whose chest had been left open gave a final beat.

Rebeka remained on her knees, staring at the hole in the ceiling, over the dismembered bodies of the boss and the general.

  The old widower, once a lieutenant, now a general and representing the authorities, stood at the foot of the doll, who was manipulated by someone else and made victorious in an almost impossible battle. With the intention of closing the curtain, intoxicated by the triumph and the power of seeing an epic combatant, he decapitated the body that still remained raised and made the head with pink hair roll on the ground, at the feet of the few survivors.

  Early in the morning of a day like any other, the work staff arrived. The world was still a world, and people were still people, so much so that, out of selfishness, they did not care about others, only about working and making money. Although the sick and dying tried to rest and spend their last days in peace and quiet, the nurses rushed around as if there was no tomorrow, moving from one side to the other, shouting repeatedly, so much so that they seemed to do nothing to avoid it because they did not care. From the moment the day was rising, it was already impossible to sleep anymore, but it wasn’t as if Rebeka could sleep.

   On the routine, a brief visit to Rebeka by the nurse who had to take care of her, nothing stood out of the ordinary. She lay there, as motionless as she had always been since her admission. She had no missing limbs or scars, and although her eyes were open, no brain activity had been confirmed. In the medical records, the patient was a brain cancer survivor, something that justified the lack of hair and the absence of that organ.

But no one knew that from time to time, Rebeka, who could not see, could hear the intermittent sounds, feel the world, see the colors, and enjoy its essence.

  “Help me change her. A relative will come to pay her a visit,” someone said.

  The sound of machines could also be heard.

   “Jharol isn’t it?” said the person who seemed to be a doctor. “It’s a pity. Your daughter, despite all our efforts, is never going to come out of the vegetable state; she has no brain. It’s a miracle she’s still alive. We’ve done everything that could be done, and it’s unfortunate.”

“Yes, I understand,” said the father in a worried voice as he walked over to where his daughter was lying to place a kiss on her forehead and whisper something to her so that no one could hear him: “Rebeka, my daughter... it’s me, your daddy. I swear to you, I will make amends for my faults. I’ll see you on the other side.”

After looking at the dressed body of his daughter, with the dark circles under her eyes of someone who had not slept for a long time, Jharol reproached himself for how skinny she was and the suffering she had gone through. For the media, who had been kidnapped, tortured, and killed, there was a girl named Yuno, but he always knew it was his daughter. Without taking his eyes off the little face, he found more and more reasons to convince himself. Then, clenching his fist and raging his expression, his eyes a little teary, Jharol got up from the side of the bed and turned around.

“Did you hear the news? The mayor was killed by a suicide bomb attack. They say it was your patient’s father, but they haven’t identified the body for sure yet.” mentioned one nurse to another at the bedside.

“Stop talking,” said who appeared to be a doctor. “Why don’t you do something useful and take the patient out into the wind and sun on the roof? It’s good for her rehabilitation; don’t leave her lying there in bed, doing nothing.”

“Today it seems that Lizandra is also coming to visit her, and I don’t want her to complain again. It’s better if we take her out, so we can change the bed sheets,” said a nurse.

Between the two of them, they moved Rebeka from the bed to a wheelchair. There was a third person there who did not want to speak or say anything but took charge of moving the chair from one side to the other. After riding what appeared to be an elevator to the top floor of the facility, Rebeka could hear the bustle of people going about their routine lives.

Once on the rooftop, the sun was warm, the air was fresh, and the sunset could feel more pleasant than ever. For some reason, in that nostalgic moment, everything reminded her of Omar, so much so that her eyes could see him sitting in front of her.

From inside her, Rebeka spoke for the first time in so long, though no one could hear her because it was the voice of her heart.

  “Oh, I feel you... I can feel you next to me. I see you; I can see you.”

 Miguel approached Lizandra and put his hand on her shoulder while he lowered his head to the ground, as long as those who were around did not see the blonde-haired girl crying. Neither of them were surprised that Rebeka could move, but they were surprised by what they remembered. Legend had it that the rooftop of the medical center was a special place, connecting the past with the present, and there, on that very spot, next to the two of them, Omar had died a good while ago.

   Tears fell from Rebeka’s open eyes, over the meager flesh that encased two bones on the verge of breaking.

  “Omar...”

  A warm, gentle voice from the turning face answered:

  “Yes, my love...” and held out his hands. “Look at those of us who are gathered here for you, waiting for you.....”

 “Daughter!” said Soe and Jharol.

  “Mom!” said a small creature.

  From far away on the same rooftop, stood an old woman who was reading a book and could see things that others could not. ‘True love is in misfortune, and I was wrong to believe that I did not have the qualities to be the heroine of your own story.’

  “Code blue! Get a defibrillator and a stretcher!” shouted the medical staff as Lizandra and Miguel took a step back and laid Rebeka’s body on the floor so that she could be resuscitated.

‘No matter how hard you try to resuscitate the body, it is too late when the soul has already found a better place...’ said the old woman, who stood up looking at the sky to greet the wind and the sun. ‘The end of one story is the beginning of another, or so say the demons who will destroy this world. It is a blessing not to live to suffer such an event.’