From the moment he sat down at the table to have lunch, Alessandro did absolutely nothing that could be labeled as unusual, merely cleaning up with his usual voracity the plate of pasta all'arrabbiata served to him by his mother, and then heading to his room under the pretense that he had to study.

Over the course of the afternoon, the pain he felt in his body did not fade in the slightest, however, his firm resolve not to draw attention to himself allowed him to endure everything without ever uttering even a single moan.

In any case, even if the suffering endured had been more intense, nothing in the world would have prevented him from reflecting on what happened in the park. And that was because, no matter what doubts he might have about it, something had necessarily happened.

The sphere that crashed in front of him was an alien probe. Of that he was certain. The problem was to understand the reasons for its journey there.

What purpose could those who had sent her to earth possibly have?

Getting residents to experience the goodness of their mushrooms?

Assuming, of course, that he had not imagined the whole thing. When he had sunk his teeth into that thing in fact, his brain had suffered a kind of blackout.

He did not remember anything that happened afterwards. He only knew that he felt a heavenly taste and a moment later nothing more. Probably nothing had happened that he thought he had seen.

The metal appendage that scrutinized him.

Mushroom aroma.

All an illusion.

Part of an absurd dream he had sunk into after unintentionally slipping on the grass.

But the probe didn't. He hadn't imagined that one. Heck, he had even buried it.

That she had come to earth to gather information?

But then, who told him it had alien origin?

Then again, if both the mushroom and that sort of metal arm were the result of a closed-eyed hallucination, then it could well have been any space debris. A piece of satellite or perhaps an unusually shaped meteorite. In short, nothing to do with distant extraterrestrial societies.

Reassured by that prospect, and now certain that he had not made such a foolishly rash gesture as the one that had occurred in the dream, Alessandro's restlessness disappeared almost completely.

In fact, he was now so convinced of that theory that he even tried to temporarily shelve the probe topic so as to focus solely on studying.

Ambitious as it was, the strategy even seemed to succeed, but a couple of hours passed since he had finished lunch, each of those certainties collapsed like a house of cards.

At first he felt a bizarre tingling in his belly, then came the burning, and without hardly realizing it, within forty minutes he found himself sweating profusely under the covers.

He was cold, his forehead was hot, and his stomach burned as if he had drunk a bottle of acid.

It was then that he understood.

It had not been a dream.

That madness he had actually done.

The sound of the doorbell came to him clearly and distinctly as Elisa was still looking for the thermometer inside the bathroom cabinet, and Alice stared at it apprehensively as she stood in front of her bed.

Despite Alessandro's continued attempts to downplay the matter, neither of them seemed willing to listen to him, and with Umberto's arrival it was widely expected that things would only get worse.

Perhaps he would have been able to make it all go away if only it had been a normal Saturday, but as that was the day they had decided to visit Grandma in the hospital, his chances in this regard were almost nonexistent.

When her father crossed the threshold of his room, Alice and Elisa gave the impression of standing at the bedside of a dying man.

"So, what's going on?" asked Umberto flanking his wife.

''Alessandro is not well,'' Elisa replied worriedly.

"Do you feel sick?" asked Umberto, addressing Alessandro directly.

''A little,'' he admitted, sketching a smile.

Although he made an effort to give his voice a serene pitch, the end result left much to be desired.

''His forehead is hot and he's sweating like crazy,'' Elisa explained, completely ignoring his reassurances.

''It's not that bad, it's just an upset stomach,'' Alessandro insisted. ''If you want I can try to come anyway.''

''So we have you admitted too?" asked Alice sarcastically.

''It's my fault,'' Elisa confessed distraughtly. ''I shouldn't have let you stay out in this weather, and now you got pneumonia!''

''No, Mom,'' Alessandro retorted, shaking his head, ''you don't have anything to do with it, really.''

''Yes, Mom, he is right,'' Alice confirmed. ''Alex...''

Although it had not lasted for more than a split second, the glare with which Alessandro glowered at her proved enough to make her correct her course.

Mom and Dad were not supposed to know about the beating.

''Alex told me that already last night he was not feeling very well,'' she concluded vaguely. ''Maybe he caught some virus at school.''

''And why didn't you tell me?" blurted Elisa in remorse. ''Is that why you were walking funny this morning?''

''Yes,'' Alessandro lied, nodding.

''Oh, my baby,'' Elisa commented desolately.

He took a seat on the edge of the bed and stroked his son's cheek.

''Do you want us to postpone?" asked Umberto. ''We can go to Grandma's tomorrow.''

''No, you go,'' Alessandro immediately objected. ''If I were to be sick again tomorrow I would have only put you off for nothing.''

"Are you sure?

''Say hello to Grandma and apologize to her for me,'' Alessandro replied, straining to smile.

Umberto and Elisa exchanged worried glances.

''It doesn't seem right to leave you alone in this condition,'' Umberto announced, shaking his head. ''I think it's better to postpone it.''

''Instead, you don't have to worry,'' Alessandro reiterated. ''I will be fine, I just need to rest by staying warm.''

His parents crossed their eyes again, and Alice decided to use that moment of distraction to do the same to him.

In response to the questioning expression his sister gave him, Alessandro imperceptibly shook his head.

Now Alice knew what to do.

''Alex is right,'' she exclaimed, breaking the silence.

Elisa and Umberto turned in unison toward their daughter, but Alice did not lose her composure.

''In my opinion we should go,'' she explained quietly. ''Besides, in case of emergency you can always give us a ring, can't you?''

Troubled by those words Elisa stroked Alessandro's cheek and then turned to her husband.

''I don't know,'' she confessed uncertainly. ''What do you say?

Umberto bit his lip and lowered his head. From the way he scratched his beard while keeping his eyes fixed on the floor, it was clear that he was busy thinking.

Looking up again after about ten seconds, the first thing he did was point his finger at Alessandro.

''You-don't-have-to-exit,'' he scanned in a firm voice. ''It doesn't matter if it's only been ten minutes or two hours. In case you start to get really sick, call us right away, okay?''

Alessandro nodded in assent.

''All right.''

The deep sigh Umberto let out made him realize that he had succeeded.

"All right. He pulled the jacket zipper up to the top. ''Then let's go.''

Upon receiving Elisa's fifth kiss of speedy recovery, her father fetched him a box of Aspirin and another of Tachipirin from the bathroom and then placed both on the desk next to the Smartphone.

At that point they took their leave.

Although he was waiting for nothing else, Alessandro did not act immediately, forcing himself to wait until he was absolutely sure that no one could hear him

The countdown he had forced himself to keep began at the exact moment he heard the latch of the security door at the entrance click.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight...

Fear got the better of him well before he got to the agreed upon thirty seconds.

Ignoring the pain he jumped out of bed, and running out of the room burst into the bathroom pushing the door with his shoulder. By the time he knelt on the toilet mat he had his finger in his throat.

The urge came almost immediately, so much so that Alessandro felt his trachea contract in spasms as he tried to push up the stomach contents. Nevertheless, eventually all that came out of his mouth was a long trickle of drool.

Terrified that he was running out of time, he retched again and continued to do so for the next ten minutes but failed to get anything more than a few drops of saliva.

Neither the lunch, let alone the mushroom came into the open. Although he could not believe it, his stomach seemed to have sealed itself.

Confused and frightened he returned to his feet and leaned against the sink. The moment he saw his own reflection he struggled to recognize himself.

He was as red as if he had just returned from a hundred-degree sauna and was sweating profusely. The digital thermometer his mother had been looking for lay in the cabinet under the sink, hidden behind the hot water bag, and he spotted it after a hasty search.

Sticking it into his right ear, he did not have to wait more than a handful of moments before a resounding beep announced the completion of the measurement. At the sight of the value shown on the display Alessandro's eyes widened in panic.

Forty-three and a half was not a symptom of malaise. It was a death sentence.

Dragging himself out of the bathroom without even turning off the light, he therefore made his way back to his room where he retrieved both the cell phone and the medicine packs before panting his way to the living room.

It was pouring rain outside, but although the rain was beating incessantly on the window panes he did not even notice.

Dropping the entire load on the kitchen table he immediately tried to dial his father's number only to find that the Smartphone was turned off.

Cursing aloud, he turned it on, and while he waited for the biblical time required for the home screen to appear to elapse, he pulled a couple of tachipirin from the packet, then attempted to down them with a glass of tap water.

Alessandro barely had time to feel the two pills going down his throat before a sudden gag forced him to spit the whole thing out onto the floor, where the empty glass slipped from his hand and shattered into many tiny shards.

Coughing and gasping for air, he tried to lean against the nearest chair, but the twinge that pierced his stomach while he was still stretching out his arm proved so painful that it caused him to collapse to the ground as if he had been stabbed.

Unfortunately for him, that was only the beginning.

Radiating from his sternum with inexorable slowness, the pain felt just before began to spread like wildfire to his entire chest until it had completely gripped him.

Before then Alessandro had never felt anything like this. It almost felt like he was being tortured by putting out dozens of cigarettes on him simultaneously, the difference being that the suffering did not stop at the superficial layer of skin, but proceeded far beyond it, through muscles, tendons and bones.

With his heart beating wildly Alessandro cried out for help, but what he was undergoing had now rendered him completely unable to think straight, and the only sound that escaped his lips was a long, unintelligible wail.

Being unable to get up he stretched out his arm toward the remaining Smartphone on the table, only to watch helplessly as a sudden spasm caused it to fall abruptly back to the floor.

The cell phone remained in place, distant and unreachable.

The pain meanwhile continued to advance. Millimeter after millimeter. Ruthless and unstoppable, like hands on a clock. Seconds, minutes, hours, everything became blurred and surreal.

The sun outside the window set behind the horizon, plunging the living room into darkness, but Alessandro did not notice.

His tear-drenched eyes stared at the kitchen ceiling as he lay there on the floor, his body shaken by convulsions.

His mouth twitched following the rhythm of the spasms without, however, a single cry or plea for help rising from it.

The gruesome screams echoing in his head were forced to remain confined there, because the suffering he endured seemed to have torn even his vocal cords.

By now there was only pain for him, and the only thoughts he remained able to conceive all revolved around this single concept.

End that torment at any cost. Life, death, nothing mattered anymore. Let everything disappear if it had to be. Anything was fine as long as the agony ended.

Let someone kill me!

That desperate plea had just enough time to echo in his mind for a few moments before it was completely overpowered by the heartrending cries that followed.

Every cell in his body burned as if it had literally caught fire from within.

If only he had been able to make it stop. If only he had not been so crazy as to eat that mushroom. If only he could have at least said goodbye to...

The frightening pang that ripped through his chest ended even the faint gasps he still managed to emit. After hours of exhausting battle, Alessandro's heart had given out.

An involuntary spasm made him arch his back as his arms snapped forward. With his mouth wide open in a vain attempt to inhale oxygen, he grasped at the void clenching his fists in midair, as if he were trying to hold on to the life he saw slipping away from him.

Pain, remorse, regret, panic, fear of death and desire to escape from it, every emotion he was experiencing mixed with the others in a terrifying spiral from which there was no escape.

Appealing to his last remaining strength Alessandro tried again to scream, but once he was deprived of even that tiny supply of oxygen his vision became blurred, and after falling back he hit his head on the floor.

The whole world went black.

***

Darkness. An impenetrable darkness within which nothing could be seen.

Only absolute darkness and the feeling that a rushing wind was raging relentlessly around him. Yet somewhere, hidden in the darkness, his instincts told him there was something. Like unseen presences. Silent creatures before a blind man. Creepy, evil and hungry.

Death was waiting for him in the shadows. Lurking within that eternal storm.

Everything was different now. Sun, light, a blue sky.

Slender faded figures fled on a stone floor. They were screaming. Theirs were desperate screams. Very strange screams. Not human.

Something would snap forward and then snap back. A scream grew in intensity and a second later ceased. In the background could be heard clattering of jaws.

The landscape changed again.

He was running. He ran as fast as he could. In front of him was a long corridor with gleaming walls. Behind him someone else was following at a short distance. No threat, however, came from there.

Suddenly the shimmering of the wall blocked the passage. Blocked.

A sharp sound made his ears ring as everything vanished, swallowed by an explosion of white light.

Then, darkness came.

The roar that rumbled within the darkness made his skin crawl. It was a monstrous cry and utterly unlike any he had ever heard before.

Something sinister, eerie and alien.

In an attempt to trace its origin Alessandro looked around, but despite his efforts he just could not figure it out. In fact, absurd as it was, it almost seemed as if the source was everywhere around him.

It was the darkness itself that was roaring at him.

Suddenly the cry ceased abruptly, and an instant later, before he was even able to metabolize that abrupt change, a mysterious creature began to run toward him.

Of course he could not see her, but he still understood what was happening.

He felt it.

The sound of his footsteps grew closer with each passing second. He was advancing with a speed that was simply frightening.

Like a bullet train hurled at insane speed down the tracks.

A huge creature made invisible by the darkness in which it was enveloped, but whose intentions were clear to him from the moment he sensed its presence.

Killing. Whoever that being was wanted to kill him.

He had to run away. He had to run away! He had to do it right away, otherwise....

Too late.

In the time it took to formulate that intention, the distance separating them had already shrunk to a few meters.

The creature had reached him.

For a terrible and fleeting instant he almost seemed to catch a glimpse of its gruesome silhouette as it was about to descend on him. Soon it would all be over.

Death breathed in his face.

Rising up sharply, Alessandro screamed with such intensity that his voice echoed throughout the living room. Several seconds had to pass before he realized he was safe, but eventually he managed to calm down enough to stop the screaming.

Panting in anguish he continued to sit on the floor, his eyes fixed on the wall behind the sofa, his muscles tense as violin strings.

Nightmare. It had only been a nightmare.

Yeah, a bad dream...

But how come he was on the ground?

The shards of glass from the glass scattered on the floor helped him regain his memory of what happened the night before.

The pain, the fever and then that excruciating agony that lasted for hours on end.

He had died. He had felt it. The twinge in his chest, his breath catching, him gasping for air, and the darkness that followed.

All the fault of that damn alien fungus. It had poisoned him. It had killed him.

No, not that one.

Caught by a sudden doubt he felt his face, as if he wanted to make sure he had not become a ghost. Having ascertained that he still possessed a physical body Alessandro heaved a sigh of relief and stood up.

It was morning, although judging by the intensity of the white light filtering through the fog outside, the sun must have recently risen. The clock hanging on the wall read 7:42 a.m.

7:42 a.m.! How was it possible that the parents and Alice had left him helpless on the floor strewn with shards

Unless.

Being careful not to step on the shards of glass from the glass, he headed down the hallway and then into Umberto and Elisa's room.

The double bed was empty and the sheets still perfectly in place. Apparently they had not yet returned.

That something had happened to Grandma?

No, she was being discharged. They could have been stuck in traffic, though. However, it seemed unlikely that this would go on for so long.

An accident then?

Perhaps he should have called them to make sure they were okay.

First, however, he had to clean up the mess on the floor. He didn't want them to find out that he had broken a glass.

Having retrieved his broom and dustpan, he then got busy picking up all the shards scattered all over the place. As he finished throwing the last shards into the recycling bin reserved for glass, he could not help but notice how lucky he had been not to injure himself after slipping on the floor.

The red streak he only then saw poking out from under the cuff of his pajamas made him realize he had spoken too soon

Pulling back his sleeve in fact, he discovered that he had made a long, deep cut on the back of his right hand. In all probability he had gotten it while struggling on the floor in convulsions. It did not hurt, and by the way, he had also stopped bleeding, nevertheless he still decided to go to the bathroom to medicate himself.

He cleaned the cut, and after disinfecting the wound he placed a band-aid over it. While he was at it, he also decided to take his temperature.

Thirty-six and a half. When he read the value Alessandro felt as if a boulder had just been removed from his stomach. The fever seemed to be gone, and in fact it was not the only thing that was.

The pains that had plagued him throughout the previous day were now completely imperceptible, as if the beating had never happened.

He had gone from the most agonizing agony to perfect health in the span of a single night. In addition to the poison that had given him the impression that he was dying, that mushroom had to possess some kind of medicinal virtue.

Absurd. Completely absurd. And the more he thought about it, the less he understood.

Since he was unlikely to come to terms with it by standing around staring at his own image in the mirror, he decided to check if he had received any messages from his parents.

Back in the kitchen he picked up his cell phone, but even when he found it in his hands he still did not have a chance to enter the password. The battery was dead.

Cursing cell phones and batteries he was about to go to put it on charge when a vigorous grumbling did not jolt him. Realizing that the culprit was his stomach he calmed down, although it was of no help in solving the problem of which he only then seemed to become aware.

He was hungry. A terrible hunger.

In the meantime that the smart phone was turning on, he ran to get himself something to eat breakfast with, and after placing the necessities on the table, he went back to check his cell phone.

Nothing. No incoming messages. The whole thing was very strange.

He tried to call his father by selecting his father's name from the phonebook, but the only voice that came in reply was that of the answering machine, announcing that his credit had run out. Since two weeks had passed since the last call, he did not understand how on earth it was possible that three Euros had been burned without him doing anything at all.

Having come to the conclusion that filing a complaint, heaping insults on the unknown CEO of the phone company, or yelling at the Smartphone, had roughly the same weight he simply let out a sigh of resignation and then went to breakfast.

Anyway, if there really was an emergency, surely they would have sent him at least a message, right?

They had probably stumbled upon a car breakdown on the way home, and believing him still affected in bed, had preferred to let him sleep without disturbing him. And in any case he was too hungry to think about it.

Brushing two bowls of muesli with milk, he then switched to brioche, but once he finished both those and the jar of orange marmalade, he realized he was not at all full. Since it was still a long way to lunch he ate a couple of bananas, several tangerines, and also the cooked apples left in the refrigerator, but did not get much improvement this time either.

He was still pondering whether or not to open the can of peaches in syrup that Mom kept in the pantry when he heard the sound of a lock clicking.

Leaping to his feet in shock, Alessandro hurriedly tossed the peels he had accumulated on the tablecloth into the garbage can, just in time to reach the front door just as it began to turn on its hinges.

''Hello,'' Alessandro said simply, the moment his parents crossed the threshold of the house. ''So what happened? Car trouble?

Elisa gave him a look full of sadness, but apart from shaking her head imperceptibly she did not utter a word. As for his father, Umberto merely proceeded in the direction of the hallway keeping his eyes downcast, while his wife comforted him by squeezing his shoulder. Being the last of the trio to enter the apartment, it was Alice who took care of closing the door.

From the first moment he saw her, Alessandro had no doubt whom to go to for information.

''What the...''

His sister did not let him finish the question.

''Grandma died,'' she revealed dryly.

As the news hit him as violently as a shotgun blast, Alessandro seemed to petrify on the spot. His eyes remained fixed on emptiness and his mouth stiffened in the exact same position he had only moments before. All traces of joy or serenity had disappeared from his face.

Without adding anything else, Alice walked toward her own room, leaving her brother standing at the front door.