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had been dragged to that place where they would be tormenting her, exactly as she had foreseen in her drawings.
    ‘How can this be happening to me; I don’t even believe in God, and I’ve never had faith in anything that I couldn’t see or touch.’
    Every night began the same verbal attack, and every night he had to submit one half of himself to a questioning by the other; the more thorough and pragmatic side of him, that always kept his feet firmly on the ground, and resisted laughing freely at an explanation bordering on an insanity of the most profound and uncontrolled variety.
    ‘Is all this really happening? Did I really speak with my father? Have I really met a psychologist called Marta? Isn’t it possible that I’m just trapped in a swirling confusion of dream and reality created by my own mind...’
    And then everything would start happening again, during which hours and hours went by, and he would spend the entire night without a wink of sleep, right up until the break of dawn. And this is how he passed the time that he longed to speed up, and make almost anaesthetic. But the final conclusion was always the same: it was all real, his daughter was in Hell, and she urgently needed his help.
    XXIV
    Bzzzzz... Fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii... Bzzzz...
    That sound again; that sound that made his blood run cold no sooner than he heard it. He waited, alert.
    Bzzzzz... Fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii... Bzzzz...
    ––––––––
    Y et again, the radio alarm dial began to speed through from one station to the other, on a search for what he feared would end in the same way as it had done on the previous occasion. And then came the voice he had been expecting: the voice that was hers, the voice of his precious daughter:
    “Daddy, Daddy... Help me... I’M IN HELL!”
    He jumped right up in bed, turned on the light, grabbed the radio-alarm clock and with great suddenness, he tore out the batteries. He left the device on the bed, and it lay there, as if defenceless. Carlos breathed with difficulty. He was still shocked, still full of rage and violence.
    ‘I’m mad, I’m mad, I’m mad!’
    And then he turned his stunned gaze back towards the radio which, incredibly, was working once more; searching tirelessly with the dial once more; and, once more, there came the anguished and uncontrollable voice of his daughter:
    “Daddy, Daddy... Help me... I’M IN HELL!”
    XXV
    Marta’s voice sounded almost broken on the other end of the line. She no longer knew what to think, and she no longer knew how she had even come to know this man, how she had got to this situation, how she had found herself involved in such an extraordinary predicament.
    “Carlos, calm down, you’re very nervous.”
    “How can I not be?! What am I supposed to think? Marta, I’m listening to my dead daughter, talking to me through a radio that has no batteries in it!”
    Carlos pressed the phone against his face, as if trying to bring Marta closer to him.
    “I’m going to call Elena, my parapsychologist friend. She’ll be able to help you.”
    “Listen... Marta... I need you to do me a favour...”
    Marta was silent for a moment, considering her answer long before finding out what the question would be.
    “What kind of favour?”
    “I need you to prescribe me some sort of sleeping pill. I want to rest, I want to sleep at night.”
    “You won’t go and do something stupid...”
    “No way. Honestly. All I want is to be able to get some sleep. All I want is for the night to be a mere transition point that passes by without me noticing, and for me to be able to wake up to the light of the following day.”
    Once more, Marta felt compassion for this man who had lost all faith in himself and his sanity.
    “Can you last one more night?”
    “Yes... I think so.”
    “Tomorrow, I’ll ask Elena to come to your house. She’ll bring you some pills.”
    “Thank you so much, Marta, thank you.”
    Marta held the phone in silence. She did not know if Carlos was paying