When she received the fresh air of the morning in the face, Paula thought about the freedom, that abstract concept that nobody understands until one is deprived of it. How much she needed that freedom! And although a little of freedom was granted to her, that breeze was the life's elixir, a life that gives to her a new opportunity.

The car was moving slowly down the road and the trip had been going on for more than two hours. Paula rubbed her neck because she had pain and she couldn't sleep. She sensed that she could not do it, even though there were still two more hours of travel. A glass panel separated her from the driver. He was a grim man with a cold gaze, but he kept looking at her out of the corner of his eye.

At first, the presence of woman had caused him fear but as time went by, he recovered his courage. He was the usual driver who moved patients to their new homes when their relatives couldn't go for them. He had to take her far away. The woman had heard when he complained to her doctor but the discussion ended when she appeared with her little bag, ready for the trip.

Suddenly her gaze was lost again in the distance of the landscape, but she did not see anything, memories invaded her mind. She remembered her arrived to the psychiatric hospital Santa Ana. What had been her diagnosis?... Post-traumatic stress disorder, dissociative amnesia, but there it had not finished everything. In her clinic history (that she had been able to read from the corner of her eye) there were another words... Strangest words for her, almost incomprehensible. She couldn't forgive those words... Paranoid personality disorder, paranoid psychosis, delirium. What did those words mean? Was she crazy? The only thing she was sure of, was that everything had been the result of the accident.

The car crossed a closed curve, stepped on the sidewalk and she woke up with a start. Paula didn't understand how could she fall asleep and when.

"Where are we?" asked to the driver.

"Soon we will arrive to «San Fernando," answered the man.

The town of San Fernando was three kilometers from their destination, so, very soon she will arrive to her new home. She settled on the seat to adopt a more comfortable posture, thinking about the accident, but the problem was that she didn't remember anything. The only thing that she remember when she tried to think about that was that light that dazzled her, and also remembered the baby's cry. That memory caused pain into her heart, so she tried to concentrate on the landscape to, in that way, stop feeling, or rather, stop hearing that scream into her head.

When Paula tried to remember the accident or the days before it, she found deep lagoons where she didn't remember anything. Her doctor had told her that she would soon recover her memory, that she had lost it because traumatic events that she suffered.

"We are arriving to the town!" said the driver, taking her out of her reverie.

Then he turned down a dusty street until they arrived to a gas station. The car needed gas. When they stopped in the middle of a lot of dust, Paula got down from the car to stretch the legs.

The place was almost empty because there was just one car filling the tank beside them.

The middle-aged blond man who attended the station, look them up and down with all impudence, causing the woman to feel uncomfortable. He had long and dirty hair, an incipient beard and a pair of broken jeans.

"I go to the bathroom, 'll be back soon," Paula said to the driver who watched her with concern.

The girl almost ran to the place where there was a faded door with a sign: «Public bathrooms» She got into there

"Don't delay!" the driver shouted while watch her until she arrived to the bathrooms. Nervously he felt his pockets of his pants and took out a small box from there. He tried to light a cigarette with trembling fingers.

"You can't smoke here!" said the blond man.

The driver gave an exclamation of annoyance accompanied by an insult and back the cigarettes to his pocket.

When the blond man finish to fill the car's tank, the driver boarded it and he parked on one side, under some rickety trees and beside a garbage container. The flies and the nauseating smell bothered more than the bearable, but anyway the driver stayed out of the car. He didn't stop watching the door of the bathrooms.

It had been hard for Dr. Rush to convince him to make that long trip. It was usually he who took the patients who had been discharged and he had never refused to do it because like the doctor told him, they pay to him for that, but this time it had been different and not because of the fact that the trip would be very long, but because of her... That woman caused him cold chills, even he was used to «crazy people» like he used to call them, but she... the driver was afraid of her, and after what he had heard in the hospital about her, nobody could reproach him.

Paula came out to the bathrooms and the driver beckoned her to get her attention, and then waited for her to get in the car to continue the road.

"This town is very small," commented the girl.

"Yes," the driver distractedly agreed.

Paula looked at him out of the corner of her eye, thinking that he was a man of few words. At the beginning, his robust body and his height much higher than normal, had distrusted her, but not anymore. In the whole trip, he had spoken so little, that the words together didn't make up a sentence. She gave up on having a conversation with him and decided to concentrate on the landscape.

The town of San Fernando was only composed of a small number of single-story houses. They were located around a square where there was a small church; its extension only had a few blocks around. Paula noticed that an old man who was seated in the front of his house looked at them out of the corner of his eye, and then Paula noticed suddenly that there were almost no trees. The dust swirled in the corners, blurring the contours of everything. Soon the sweat wet her blouse and she had to open the window so as not to suffocate.

Paula had lived all her life in a town called Juan Manso it was called like that

In honor to its illustrious founder, but that was a name that made Paula's friends in the city laugh. When she was old enough to go to the college, she moved to the big city called Pico Alto, to a small apartment that she rented with a friend and classmate, and there in the city, she lived the years that followed, then Paula lived there with her boyfriend and her baby until everything went to hell...

Everything went to hell , she thought depressed.

That was an expression that one of the women in the psychiatric hospital liked to use and that brought to her mind, the memory of her careless clothes and the smell of chicken soup. Dr. Rush had asked that woman in a group section what she had thought when she attacked her husband with a knife and she had responded with a frightening coldness: «I thought everything had gone to hell, doctor» After this sentence, she burst into laughter. This caused fear to all those present in that session.

The girl shook her head to shoo the memory, she didn't like to think about what she had left behind. The psychiatric hospital Santa Ana was not a good place to be, and she was happy to left it, although the incident happened the night before, it had disturbed her a bit, but she didn't want to talk about it with nobody because she was afraid that her story would change Dr. Rush's decision and then she had to stay longer in the hospital.

That night in the hospital, she was awakened by a noise, the door of the room had opened and a nun was there, looking at her from the doorway. She had a lump in her lap, as if she were carrying a baby, but this was not what disturbed Paula, after all, the nuns were in charge of caring for the patients often. The problem was that the woman with the dark tunic seemed to float half a meter from the ground. Paula was terrified; she flinched on the bed and wanted to wake up her partner that was sleeping in the next bed...

"Flavia! Flavia, wake up! My God, Flavia!"

"What happened?" asked the other woman, still sleepy.

"Do you see her?" asked Paula pointing towards the door with a finger, terrified to look over there.

"What are you talking about?" said the woman taking her glasses from the bedside table. "There's nothing there"

Paula turned her gaze to the door, so she notice the nun was not there already.

Her roommate grumbled and then, turning her back, she fell asleep again.

Paula was about to tell her what she had seen, but she restrained herself, she was afraid that nobody believed her, since nobody had believed what she had said before, that other that was related to the accident.

We are already arriving, informed the driver.

Paula looked through the open window; they had taken a dusty dirt road that extended through a small forest of stunted trees that nevertheless added freshness to the place. She felt the temperature change instantly. Soon the trees began to spread and the dirt road ended in front of a large wooden two-floor house, with faded white paint on the facade.

The place seemed deserted and as abandoned as the houses of San Fernando. A large tree on the left covered it with a shadow. The iron grille painted with a faded green color that separated the road from the front yard, was shaken by the wind hitting the frame and producing an annoying sound.

The young woman got out of the car and looked discouraged at the house, she had finally arrived.

"Is here?" asked to the driver.

The man, as surprised as she was, nodded as he got out of the car

"So it seems."

Paula shrugged and got into the car again to look for her belongings that were very few. She took the small bag that accompanied her and, looking again at the house, she saw the face of a woman peeking out of a window. Scared, she jumped and her head hit the frame of the door.

For a moment she had a creepy idea, she thought that only she could see her, like the hospital nun until she noticed that the driver was signaling to the woman, but that woman disappeared immediately in the dark.

"Well... Good bye," said the driver and made the gesture of greeting her with his hand but he seemed to think better and climbed back into the car.

"Good bye," whispered Paula, a bit confused.

The man gone raising dust with his car and was lost by the dirt road, while the woman watched him go away with nostalgia. Soon he disappeared among the trees. The man was her last contact with her old life. A life that she left behind.

With a sigh of nostalgia, Paula turned around, and she saw a tall man standing in front of the grille. She boggled because; she had not seen him before.

"So, you are Paula," said the man.

She nodded, thinking she should control herself; she could not be scared always by everything.

"I'm Mr. Parker... your aunt is waiting for you inside the house," said the man with a serious and unfriendly expression. He opened the iron grille that squeaked even more and allowed the young woman in.

Paula made the gesture of greeting him, but the man didn't move. An expression of dislike appeared on his face as he observed what her niece was wearing; he turned around suddenly and went into the house. The young woman, surprised by the attitude of the man, looked at her clothes, too obviously modern for her uncle, so she felt uncomfortable about it: she wore a low-cut blue blouse and tight jeans.

"Thank you for having me at home," she began to say, but the man didn't even hear her. Paula hurried to reach him, because he had left her behind.

Inside the old house was so dark, that her eyes took some time to get used. In the small hall there were two doors: one on her right and another on her left. In front of her a steep staircase ascended towards the upper floor and was lost by that strange semidarkness. Next to the door was a heavy piece of furniture that served as a coat rack.

Mr. Parker gestured for her to follow him through the door on the right, and Paula, after leaving the small bag on the wooden floor that creaked with her footsteps, followed him. There was the kitchen: it was small and It was decorated in the style of fifty years ago. Disgusting and discolored wallpaper covered the walls. In the center there was a small old table with four chairs. Sitting in one of them, was Mrs. Parker, her aunt.

The woman got up hurriedly to see her and gave her a kiss on each cheek.

"You are so big!" that was his only comment accompanied by a forced smile.

"Hello, Aunt!" said Paula not knowing how to behave in front of that woman. She didn't remember her. She always knew that her mother and aunt had not been very close.

"You have the same gray eyes of your mother!" she said with a twinkle of nostalgia in her dark eyes.

Paula smiled, her hair and gray eyes were from her mother, but otherwise she was very different from her. Her personality was more like her father's. Both had already passed to a better life.

In a short time Paula discovered that her aunt was much friendlier than her uncle. When she sat down, her aunt gave her a comforting tea and she began to talk to her about how small she was the last time she saw her before to get married, when they all lived in Juan Manso.

Mrs. Parker was a plump woman with gray hair and a smile that showed that she was missing some teeth but she did not seem worried about that. She was wearing a faded checkered red and green apron and a black skirt.

Mr. Parker left the kitchen as soon as Paula sat down, he didn't change the serious and disturbed expression of his face. Looking at his blue eyes gave the impression of being before an abyss. He was a tall and thin man with an incipient beard and in his head there were only a few gray hairs. He was as grim when he talked as the driver who had brought her there. The girl had heard that Mr. Parker came from some far north country and that by marrying Mrs. Parker he had pushed her into poverty.

Paula knew, thanks to a coincidence, that her uncle and aunt had refused to receive her at home. Shortly before starting the trip, while she was walking through one of the corridors where the offices were, she heard Dr. Rush when he was talking to one of the nurses. He had forgotten to close the door and when Paula heard the name of her uncle and aunt, she stopped nearby, careful not to be seen. She knew that the doctor had not released her before because her relatives did not want to receive her at home. Her aunt was the only living relative she had left, and one of the conditions of the doctor to let her go, was that she went to live at a relative's house until she considered her «cured»

Why Mr. and Mrs. Parker had refused to take care of her, she didn't know but it didn't surprise her. Her mother never talked about her sister and she almost always pretend that she wasn't exists. She was sure that she had not seen her before, but Mrs. Parker said she had seen her when she was a baby. Paula suspected that there was some serious problem between her mother and her aunt, when her aunt decided to marry Mr. Parker.

"Come on! I'll show you your room," said the woman getting up from her chair. "I hope you like it, although it's a bit small."

"I'm sure I'll be fine," Paula said and followed her to the lobby.

She took the bag that was still on the floor and followed the lady towards the stairs. Suddenly the woman stopped almost at the end of the stairs.

"Be careful with that step, it is a little loose and creaks," said the woman showing her the penultimate step, then she continued.

The stairway ended in a narrow and long corridor. Mrs. Parker crossed to the right, ignoring two doors and then stopping in front of one that opened gently because it crunched.

Paula entered the room and, although it was small, she liked it.

There was an old iron bed against the wall, in front of it, was a dark closet with a mirror in the middle, and next to the bed there was a small table. The room had only one window but the light entered like a torrent, giving warmth to the place. The girl smiled.

"It's very pretty!" she approved while turning around, but the woman was no longer there.

Paula frowned with bewilderment and crossed the room until the corridor. In the place where the stair began, she saw the tip of her aunt's skirt. Definitely that woman and Mr. Parker were weird people —she thought. Sighing, she closed the door of the room and leaned back on the bed closing her eyes, she was tired and things there were not as she had expected.

She was there, still reclining, when I felt the sound for the first time... Little and delicate footsteps that moved down the corridor, they stopped in front of her room door. Paula, her heart beating fast, looked at the door of her room waiting... but... nobody got in. She listened attentively to any noise but she didn't perceive anything else. Then she got up from the bed, crossed the room and turned the knob to open the door violently... There was no one there, so she looked at the narrow corridor but it was empty. Then she closed the door again. Paula was very confused. Those seemed like little footsteps of a child and she knew that Mr. and Mrs. Parker lived alone in that house ... or at least that's what they said.

A minute later she thought she had imagined everything. That house was old and the noises were going through the walls. She leaned out the window to see the back garden. The place was surrounded by an old wooden fence, and in the middle there was a large apple tree projecting its shadow. Under the apple tree, her uncle was again. He was smoking. Mr. Parker was staring at her. Paula felt a little nervous and stepped back a couple of steps. That man was beginning to give chills. Then she sat on the bed thinking that things were definitely not what she had expected.