The first thing Adam felt, once he realized he was in a completely unfamiliar place, was a huge avalanche of information in his mind. Something abrupt, which caused a dull ache in his temples and which finally made him understand—with a stark clarity he had never had on Earth—what had really happened.

  "So I'm a mere spiritual fragment of what I once was," he said quietly to himself, then fell silent, contemplating his hands and body as if they were foreign objects. "From the little information I can make out, that means I'm someone... special."

  A sinister smile curved his lips. "Does this mean my life had meaning? That my skills are needed in this strange world?"

  "Not at all," a voice then answered, with an old, lively timbre that seemed to come from nowhere and, at the same time, its origin seemed to emanate from within his own body. “It simply means you have an extremely strong mind, capable of enduring the journey from Earth's reality to this place. You are special, yes, but not in the way you imagine.”

  Adam frowned. The familiarity in the tone sent a flash of memory through him, making him look at the medallion hanging around his neck. "I take it you're the Ashoka guy," Adam muttered sarcastically. "The perverted monk who likes to watch Joel use the bathroom... In my glory days, I would have gouged your eyes out and then shoved them up your ass."

  "You seem to be a rather irrational individual, and very emotional as well," the voice in the medallion commented with a calmness that was unbearable for him. "You don't seem like someone suitable to control Joel's body."

  Adam's face showed immediate offense, a twisted grimace that further accentuated his emotions. "And who made you the leader of the spirit fragments? I do whatever the hell I want."

  Roughly, he tried to pull the medallion from around his neck. His fingers curled tightly in the air, but they never touched the object. Every attempt was futile: his hands glided past as if through a mirage. The medallion was no mere ornament; it behaved like another part of his body, as if it had adhered to his skin.

  "You can't get rid of me," the voice said, with great seriousness. "My connection with Joel is far greater than anyone could imagine."

  Adam's jaw tightened, and his eyes burned with frustration. Just hearing that voice was becoming a kind of torture. "Shut up for God's sake," he growled, pressing his fingers against his ears, digging them in until they hurt, as if by doing so he could avoid hearing the voice.

  Silence enveloped him for a second, and Adam was about to smile in relief… but the illusion was immediately shattered. Ashoka's voice emerged, not from thin air, but from the depths of his own head, vibrating clearly in his mind.

  "You can cover your ears all you want, but you can't escape me," Ashoka whispered, closer now, more intimate, as if he were sitting inside his skull.

  Adam opened his eyes furiously, gritting his teeth, feeling a mixture of rage and many other feelings that were impossible to hide. He seemed to try various ways to avoid hearing the monk's voice, even resorting to speaking out loud in an attempt to drown out what he heard. But nothing worked, as Ashoka's words seemed to overpower every other sound.

  He couldn't help but put on a face of resignation when he realized there was nothing he could do about it. He remained motionless for a while longer, listening to the voice piercing his head, and then got out of bed with the cold calm of someone who has already decided to adapt to a new cage. He dressed in Joel's clothes with automatic movements, touching the fabric, feeling how each garment settled on a body that didn't belong to him. The two pistols on the nightstand caught his attention.

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  "So .44 Magnum, the most powerful handgun in the world," he murmured with a grimace that mixed technical curiosity with a hint of sadistic approval.

  The words flowed with the rhythm of someone acting in some kind of comedy or satire. Each gesture also showed the consequences of having a voice speaking to him constantly: he would pause for long periods, frown, and touch his forehead, as if the inner pressure physically hurt him. The monk's presence in his mind forced him to deal with the problem in the only way he could: by forcing himself to ignore it.

  He approached the mirror in his room and stared at his reflection for a long time. He went from one expression to another: clinical curiosity, disapproval, a kind of suppressed aversion. "I don't like this face," he said softly, and his fingers searched, almost by inertia, for the areas where his scars had been on his previous body. "I have a terrible urge to fix it."

  Without hesitation, he raised his hand and conjured a small knife—an act so automatic that it barely took a few seconds. He pointed it at one of his cheeks with the calmness of someone who doesn't seem to gauge the danger. "Why are you surprised? I'm someone who learns too quickly," he said to himself, though the phrase was directed at the monk in his head. Then he pressed the blade against the skin, clearly intending to cut it, to mark it, to impose the signature of his past on that face.

  But reality responded with something unexpected, as the blade couldn't do any damage on first contact, as if his skin were an immune layer or made of something as hard as metal. The more force he applied, the more the blade gave way until it became useless, twisting like a piece of tin. The result seemed like a mockery of him. "I don't know if this is good or bad," he muttered in frustration, with the air of someone unused to encountering obstacles of this nature. The helplessness wasn't just physical: it was the realization that in this new world, the rules are different.

  He stood for a moment longer in front of the mirror, staring at the bent blade in his hand and the motionless reflection of his face. A sinister smile reappeared: he liked the irony.

  Adam dropped the knife and began pinching his cheek with his fingers, squeezing so hard that blood soon trickled down his chin. Then, with a brutal yank, he managed to tear off a small piece of flesh, leaving a red, wet hole in what had once been a perfect face.

  But there was no satisfaction in his gaze. For he watched impassively as the wound closed before his eyes: the skin regenerated with grotesque speed, stopping the bleeding and sealing the flesh until there was no trace left in the course of less than a minute.

  "I have to admit it," he said aloud, with a mixture of annoyance and recognition. "You were right when you said I can't harm this body... But then what do I do to hide this too-perfect face? It disgusts me."

  He wiped the blood from his chin with the back of his hand and remained silent for a few more moments, thinking. Then, as if the idea had been waiting in some corner of his creative hunger, a narrow smile curved his lips. And with a gesture, he conjured a strange leather object, which instantly took the form of a mask. Very similar to those lifelike models used for Halloween.

  "What? You're asking what it's made of?" he said in answer to the monk's apparent question in his mind, as he put the mask on in front of the mirror. "Of course it's made of real skin. They were some of my most evil victims... Let's just say I couldn't help but make it after watching a rather memorable horror movie."

  The mask, despite its artisanal origins, was extraordinarily well-made: it covered the entire head and simulated a bald spot riddled with scars and stitches, with textures that mimicked taut skin and stitched patches. When he put it on, his appearance changed completely, transforming him into a kind of monster who couldn't possibly have good intentions.

  "It's not ideal, but it's better than nothing," he murmured, adjusting the strings that held the mask together and checking the angles from which his new face could be observed in the mirror. He felt, for the first time since waking up, that he had regained some control over his own identity.

  Adam walked with firm steps toward the bedroom door when he suddenly stopped dead in his tracks, tilting his head with a crooked smile.

  "Where am I going?" he wondered aloud, as if speaking to the air. "Well, for a walk. Maybe I could also see what the children are doing."

  But just seconds after finishing his sentence, his expression changed abruptly. His brow furrowed, and his voice became harsh, laced with suppressed fury.

  "Since when do I have to follow your orders?" he spat, clearly responding to Ashoka. “There's nothing you can do to stop me from doing what I want... you damn monk son of a...”

  But he didn't have time to finish, because suddenly, an unbearable pain ripped through him, so intense and focused that it rendered him instantly speechless. An invisible, brutal force began to squeeze his testicles, as if an iron fist were crushing them mercilessly.

  Adam let out a ragged gasp, his face twisted in a grimace of agony, and he immediately fell to his knees on the floor. His eyes opened wide, almost bulging, while his hands instinctively clutched his groin in a futile attempt to stop the torment.

  Sweat ran down his forehead in a matter of seconds. The mask he had just put on looked grotesque beneath the distortion of his expression: a kneeling monster, reduced to utter helplessness.

  Adam realized then that he couldn't ignore the monk, an extremely powerful being capable of controlling his movements without any problem.