When Paula saw her aunt return home through the little forest, she sighed in relief. She had not wanted to re-enter the house because terror had paralyzed her sense of rationality. Paula looked at the house as if the child's spirit was going out at any time through the front door.

But none of that happened. The house remained calm and quiet, innocent of everything that had happened inside but was it really so innocent?

"For all saints, honey! What happened?" her aunt exclaimed when she saw her there, worried.

When Paula heard her, she reacted immediately and watched her. At that moment she remembered all the pains in her body and understood why her aunt had been alarmed to see her.

"Oh!" she said but stopped because she didn't know whether to tell the truth or not, would Aunt Parker believe her? No, surely not. Maybe she would be more alarmed and make a big fuss believing she was having more hallucinations. So she decided to lie: "I fell down the stairs."

Mrs. Parker was alarmed anyway and, while helping her up, asked her a thousand questions that Paula answered with regret for lying.

"But what were you doing outside the house?" the woman asked as she took her hand.

"Mmmm," the girl babbled without knowing what to say.

Anyway, Paula didn't have to explain why her aunt didn't ask any more questions. The woman was really worried and only interested in attending to her. She worried that her niece had been badly hurt. She didn't want people to think that she hit her.

"I must heal that wound on your head. Oh my god. You could have killed yourself!"

When they both reached the front door of the house, Paula resisted and stopped. She looked into the hall, believing that perhaps «the boy» was in there, waiting for her to attack her.

Mrs. Parker looked at her. Paula noticed and changed her attitude immediately, before her aunt began to suspect something, but it was too late. The woman looked behind her with a little fear.

"There is no one else here, isn't it?" she babbled when she noticed the mess in the lobby.

"No, of course not," Paula said. «At least I think so,» she thought and entered the house closing the door behind her.

Dirty clothes were still scattered throughout the lobby and Paula hurried to pick it up. Mrs. Parker, still puzzled by her niece's attitude, entered the kitchen to leave the bag with the purchases on the table. The house was silent and submerged in semi-darkness. As the heat of the summer became unbearable after noon, Aunt Park kept the doors and windows of the house closed, in an attempt to keep the interior cool, but that effort was often useless.

Paula walked very carefully to the laundry room and left the dirty clothes she was carrying. Her hands had stopped shaking but she was still accompanied by fear, she only calmed down after an hour. Then, in the kitchen, Mrs. Parker healed her head wound with the help of a first aid kit. She also gave her a pill for her wrist pain while giving her thousands of instructions so that the accident would not happen again.

"I am worried about that wrist, if it continues like this; we will have to call the doctor," said the woman.

Paula knew that what worried her aunt the most was the lack of money. A doctor was very expensive and was even more so if he made home visits. That is why she responded as follows:

"Don't worry, it will heal. It has not broken."

A while later, Mrs. Parker went to her room to rest after that long day. She had not wanted to send Paula to town because she preferred to go herself, so she could go to church to pray. Although after returning home she thought it might be better to have stayed at home with her niece.

Paula began to feel fear again. She didn't want to be alone, so she went to her room. She was very tired, so she fell asleep with her clothes on. Paula felt very uncomfortable, but she was too tired to get up.

"I just want to sleep," she said to the silence and fell asleep.

She heard footsteps again in the corridor, as if someone ran through the house. That caused her to wake up immediately and got out of bed, she was alarmed. If her aunt was running like that, it was because something bad was happening. Was the house burning? There was some strange smell. Would it be smoke?

Paula went out into the corridor and then to the stairs, but there was no one there. Everything was silent.

"Aunt?" Paula asked.

No one answered. Paula took a deep breath to try to discover what that strange smell was, but she couldn't feel it anymore. She returned to her room and there she didn't perceive it again. "That's weird!" she thought. It was something sour like smoke.

At that moment she heard those footsteps again and she jumped a little. It was as if someone was running through the lobby of the house. Then, the girl went out into the corridor again. She thought maybe her aunt was out there but when she reached the stairs, she didn't see anyone on the lower floor. Of course, from there she could only see the window of the lobby.

"Aunt!" she asked this time, not very convinced.

As she didn't hear anything, and then she opened her aunt's room. There she was, sleeping, so Paula was very scared. She thought that perhaps «the boy» played again for the house.

Paula didn't want to go back to her room, so she sat in a chair, there in the Parker's room. She would wait for the hours to pass. For no reason she wanted to be alone. Of course, when Mrs. Parker woke up an hour later and found her there, sitting next to her, looking at her, she was very scared.

"God, Paula! What are you doing there?" she exclaimed, scared, removing a strand of hair from her face.

"I was... I didn't want to be alone," the girl confessed while blushing.

Aunt Parker was scared. She got up from the bed and walked to the door.

"Could you go out?" said the angry aunt.

Paula, baffled, got up from the chair and walked out of the room while the woman closed the door.

Paula didn't know what to think and. Apparently her aunt was afraid of her and maybe she thought Paula was waiting for the perfect moment to attack her while she slept.

"Aunt, excuse me. I heard footsteps and since I didn't see anyone outside my room, I got scared," Paula said from the other side of the door. She didn't want her aunt to believe she was doing something to hurt her.

The door suddenly opened.

"Footsteps?" said the woman, bewildered.

"Yes, as if someone were running."

"And why didn't you tell me before? An intruder could have entered the house."

Paula felt silly. She had not thought it could have been a thief, but had believed that it was a ghost child who was running around the house.

Mrs. Parker didn't conformed to check the entire house, but was about to wake her husband because they found no one or anything strange, but Paula managed to dissuade her.

"Could it have been an animal?" Paula didn't really believe it, but when she saw that her aunt agreed with that statement, she said nothing more.

The whole day passed normally, although the atmosphere seemed tense between aunt and niece, more than anything because Paula was scared of any loud sound. The house was silent and nothing strange happened. At night Mr. Parker arrived in a very bad mood.

Paula sensed that this bad mood had to do with the doctor's visit would her uncle have called him again? According to what Paula remembered, he would have to come the next day. However, she couldn't find out anything because his uncle refused to speak in front of her.

Then Paula went up to her room and heard the man shout from there.

"He told me not to call him anymore he says he will come when appropriate. Who does he think he is?"

"Won't he come tomorrow?" asked Mrs. Parker in surprise.

"No!"

There was a brief silence.

"Maybe you shouldn't have called him... You call him every day," the woman said shyly.

"I want that he come to do his job! I don't want that girl in my house even one more day! She gives me the chills. She is crazy! Crazy! I told that doctor that we couldn't keep taking care of a crazy woman! She... she sees things."

"We're not sure about that..."

"She has hallucinations! She believes there is a child in the house!" the man shouted without listening to his wife.

"She probably had a nightmare. You can't blame her for that."

"You know perfectly well that that is nothing new in her. She has always believed that there is a boy here! She wanders at night, goes into the basement, and screams for anything! She makes my hair stand on end."

Mrs. Parker said nothing. Maybe she was thinking about the moment she found Paula looking at her that morning.

"Honey, I know she is a little weird. I've also seen everything that has happened since she arrived, but we must not judge her because what she lived with her family was something terrible."

"But she was who..."

"You know what the doctor said! We must help her remember. I think when Paula does it, everything will change for her. You and I are her only relatives. She has no one else. I will not abandon her. At least I owe that to my sister," the woman said firmly.

Paula refused to continue listening to that conversation. It was obvious that her uncle didn't want to see her at home anymore because he was afraid of her. Paula did not understand why and didn't know what the doctor had said to them. Perhaps they had the same prejudice that everyone had regarding people who had been admitted to a psychiatric hospital. Maybe her uncle believed she was a dangerous madwoman.

Then Paula was sad because she knew she could never tell her relatives about what was happening to her in that house. However, she felt a lot of gratitude towards her aunt for her attitude and her words of support.

That night Paula really was afraid of the loneliness and darkness of the old house. She locked the door with a chair although she didn't think that would help much and, for the first time, left the lamp on. Anyway that night she would have peace because she soon fell asleep. She had taken a couple of sleeping pills.

Soon the next day came and with it new problems. Paula got up late that morning. She felt better anyway because she had regained the lost forces. She unlocked the door and then walked to the bathroom. That day she felt more optimistic.

When Paula finished showering, she went to the kitchen. Mrs. Parker was there, cooking a stew.

"Good Morning! Why didn't you wake me up? It's late," said the girl.

"I didn't want to bother you," said the woman without looking at her face. "You looked tired last night."

The conversation ended up diverting to other topics. When Paula got up from her chair to start her daily work, her aunt made an exclamation that caused Paula to jump.

"What do you have on your back?" she asked with concern.

"What? What do I have there?" she said as she brought her hands back to see if she had any nasty bug there.

"Wait! Let me see," the woman said, lifting her niece's blouse to observe better.

Suddenly the woman dropped the blouse and screamed in terror and she took several steps back. With her elbow she hit a glass that fell to the floor and broke.

"What happens, aunt?"

Mrs. Parker looked at her in horror, and then Paula ran to the hall where there was a large mirror. She turned around and with trembling hands lifted her blouse. On her back were three deep scratches that bled.

"Holly God!" she exclaimed, terrified.

"How did you hurt yourself that way?" said a voice behind her.

"I don't know. I didn't do it."

"Maybe it was while you slept," Mrs. Parker said but Paula realized that she didn't really believe that she had hurt herself while sleeping.

Paula got angry. She doesn't hurt herself!

She ran past her aunt, climbed the stairs and went into the bathroom to wash her wound. There she realized that she had stained the blouse with blood. But when she dried the wound with the towel, Paula saw no blood on it. If Paula had hurt herself during the night, the towel would have been stained with blood just like the blouse, so what was happening? The wounds could not have suddenly appeared while she was awake or else she would have noticed. She remembered the incident on the stairs the day before and then she was filled again with panic. The boy had attacked her again.

Suddenly, Paula heard a noise behind her. The bottle of alcohol that she had to heal her wounds fell to the ground. She turned to look but there was no one behind. However, some footsteps were heard approaching the bathroom.

"Aunt!" she exclaimed.

"What happens?" the woman said when she saw her niece's panic face. "I scared you?"

"No," she replied, but she could not hide the relief she felt.

Paula picked up the bottle of alcohol from the floor and set it on the shelf. She was trying to calm down because she was very upset. Then she heard some whispers.

"Did you talking to me?"

"No," the woman answered and immediately she changed the conversation. She pointed to the bottle of alcohol and said: "I was going to ask you if you wanted me to help you heal your wounds."

Paula was distracted, she kept hearing whispers and her hands were shaking.

"Do you listen to them?" she asked and her aunt got scared.

"What do you mean?"

"Those voices..."

"What voices? I do not hear anything," said the woman with a strange expression on her face, then looked behind her.

The volume of the voices increased, as if they were approaching them, but Paula could not distinguish what they said.

"Oh my God! What is that?" Paula whispered starting to pale.

"I don't know what are you talking about, honey. We are alone in the house."

The woman looked at her with pity and Paula suspected that she might not believe her. Would her aunt think she was crazy?

Then Paula was silent and left for the corridor. There, of course there was nothing, but she kept hearing those voices as if they were sprouting from the walls.

"I need to get out of here," Paula said, scared and ran until she left the house.

Mrs. Parker reacted late but she soon followed her.

"Wait, Paula!" the woman shouted when she reached the hall.

Paula was standing next to the fence that limited the house with the road and she was looking towards the upper floor of the house in horror. Mrs. Parker left the house and looked up too. There were two windows there: one belonged to the corridor and the other to her own bedroom. But there was nothing there and nobody strange. Then, Mrs. Parker looked at Paula and was scared to see that she was running again, this time towards the little forest.

"Paula! Where are you going on? Paula!" the woman shouted at her but the girl did not listen to her.

Mrs. Park watched her go as she thought... what if her husband was right? What if Paula needed medical attention because she had worsened?

Paula didn't see or hear her aunt, she simply ran because something she saw in the window of the house disturbed her too much. There in that window was a little boy, looking at her, and behind that boy was a tall dark shadow, probably that of an adult. The shadow placed his hand on the boy's shoulder and then Paula could see his bony and disgusting appearance. She ran terrified because she felt she should get away from that horrible thing.

Paula stopped, tired in the middle of the forest. She had tears of fear and anguish in her eyes and felt invaded by horror. What was she going to do now? They had attacked her. What was that horrible thing? She touched her back automatically.

"No! This is not happening!" she told herself. The hysteria of her voice as she left her throat surprised her.

She let a minute pass while she caught her breath.

"I must be imagining everything. This is not real. It cannot be possible!" she said softly. She refused to accept what she had seen.

A gust of wind swept the leaves of the trees, producing a strange sound that brought Paula back to reality. She remembered that near there, one day not so far away, she had seen the child. Then, Paula decided to keep walking until she reached the town. She remembered the church and thought that it would be much better in there.

That day, the town seemed more empty and silent than usual. Paula walked the streets, looking back from time to time because she feared they would have followed her. Paula was not afraid that the entity would attack her aunt, because she knew that her aunt had never seen it.

Paula arrived at the church and stopped at the door with her hand on the handle before entering. That place, somehow reminded her of the psychiatric hospital. «That's silly», she thought. Paula entered: the church was empty and submerged in semi-darkness. She noticed that there the air was purer and lighter, so she sat on one of the benches near the altar.

A few minutes later Paula felt calm and safe, but that feeling would not last long...

She felt a breath on her left side. She turned her face and then she saw a nun sitting on the bank of that same bench. The tunic covered the nun's face, but there was something strange... Her face seemed sunken. Paula was startled with fright because she never felt her approach. Paula kept watching her. That nun looked a lot like the one she had seen in the hospital. Paula started walking backwards to get away but still looking at her.

The nun didn't pay attention to her; she didn't even seem to notice her presence. Suddenly, the sleeve of her robe uncovered one of her hands and then Paula could see her bony hand with yellow nails. That image reminded her of the tall, ghostly figure she saw in the window of the house, so she ran and shouted from the church.

On the street, Paula kept running aimlessly, looking back from time to time. She was so terrified and so distracted that she tripped over a woman in the corner.

"Paula!" Daiana exclaimed surprised.

Paula looked into her eyes and began to cry in her arms.

"Daiana please help me!" she begged.