A scream was lost in the nocturnal melody of Florence, but no one heard that desperate cry also because whoever shouted had no mouth to do it.

On the terrace of a building under construction, ignored by the blissfully sleeping people, a man fled from a reflection that did not belong to him.

Riccardo had literally become the shadow of himself, a simple black silhouette with no human connotations whatsoever.

He cried desperately as he tried to rip the new skin from the rubbery and slimy texture to get back its true appearance, if the fingers did not slip away continually it would be covered with scratches. Exasperated, he curled up on the ground in a fetal position. What a terrible nightmare he was living.

> exclaimed a familiar voice.

Riccardo raised his head, next to him Fear looked at him indignantly.

"What you did to me?!" he wanted to tell him, but without his mouth he couldn't even.

Furious he threw himself at him, beat him with such ferocity that he could have killed him if he had another human in front of him; instead he just tickled that being. He let him let off steam until he was so tired he couldn't raise his arms.

>

Riccardo thought of a whole series of insults, so Fear could not read his thoughts.

>

Gift?

Was that a gift?

Being turned into a monster wasn't a nice surprise at all!

Fear walked poised on the parapet of the building, from his eyeless face you could tell that he was enchanted by the world of humans. Who knows what exactly fascinated him? A normal person would surely have focused on the panorama of the city, but someone like him who knows ...

>

Fear went on to list various "positive sides" of Riccardo's new appearance, not paying attention that this had taken the recourse to knock him down. His new golden eyes gleamed as if they really had fire inside, the small and almost indistinguishable black pupil swaying in the eyeball without iris giving the impression of being able to explode.

Fear made a graceful pirouette just before it pounced on him, even though he hadn't seen him that didn't mean he hadn't sensed his intentions. He could have let it fall down under the momentum and instead grabbed him by the neck with only three fingers, preventing it: the skin on the nape of the neck stretched abnormally by 10 centimeters as if it were elastic and Riccardo was able to feel every centimeter stretch.

>

His feet were anchored to the edge of the raised floor of the future open-air apartment, but it was the thin strip of leather that kept him safe; below him the exoskeleton of another part of the building with its steel bones pointing upwards.

At one point the Fear said:

>

Having said this he let go, causing him to fall.

Riccardo had always wondered what it felt like to jump from a considerable height.

He had asked himself the question after being offered to sign up for skydiving - he had never dared to try. Now, as he fell, he regretted this curiosity; as if that had been the cause of his present situation.

He instinctively laid his hands forward when the earth appeared, he had time to worry about how he would shrink when it shattered.

Contrary to his expectations, the solid age-old stone did not stop the fall, on the contrary it passed through it and experienced a sensation similar to that of diving into the water. It became black again, but not completely, this time the darkness was adorned with fragments of known places in Tuscany: the city of Siena, the Palazzo Strozzi in Mantova and even the tourist baths of Marina di Grosseto. It didn't take him much to recognize those places, which he knowed his entire life.

He was "flying" in the midst of hundreds of fragments of landscapes belonging not only to his beautiful Tuscany but also to the rest of Italy, and if he looked closely he could also find glimpses of foreign streets or monuments such as the bazaars of Cairo, the hot beaches of Hawaii or the glittering skyscrapers of the city of Tokyo.

It was a mystical experience, the whole world was flowing around him; he could also hear its sounds and smells.

The magical spectacle ended with a sudden hard impact against a brick wall.

Now he saw only stars and planets for the pain, he squeezed his face trying to stop the pulse of the shock that gave the impression of making his brain explode; perhaps he no longer had his jaw and yet he had the sensation of feeling something broken inside.

He looked around, in front of him stood a high scarlet wall of a large building with large windows blocked by bars as thick as prison bars, around him vans parked in a narrow street and lower buildings pierced by steel pipes . To his right he could see extinguished chimneys emerge from afar, the air stank of strange stuff and at the moment there was no sign of life coming from the place.

It was most likely a factory, perhaps for the creation of chemicals. Riccardo couldn't understand how he managed to get there.

> his Fear asked him, appearing next to him.

Riccardo tried to make him understand with gestures how they had managed to get there.

>

A test? He didn't like that word.

The Fear whistled, drawing the attention of the guard dogs placed there to defend the territory: three Rottweilers came running with a mad look, the smallest drooling so much that he left behind a white trail.

Riccardo liked dogs, indeed; he adored them to the point that (quoting one of his father's repetitive jokes) if he met a person with his puppy on the street, he greeted first that one and then the owner. But if a dog ran to meet him with the obvious intention of jumping at his throat, he was certainly not so stupid as to go and hug him.

So he escaped from the small herd, at least until one of the three jumped behind him, landing him with his own weight, biting his shoulder that he tried to detach by shaking his big round head, the other two instead concentrated on legs and arms. The demon watched without lifting a finger as the beasts attempted to devour him alive.

> he said bored.

Easy for that asshole to talk, he wasn't the one who was under the jaws of those beasts.

At one point Riccardo was so irritated that he managed to get up and shake off the dogs, in his head he yelled "Enough!" angry. Surprisingly the animals responded to the command by stopping, barking at him and trying a couple of times to jump on him to continue biting him, but in a few minutes they calmed down ... and as if nothing had happened they ran away whining with their tail between their legs.

It was bizarre, he had done nothing special except get angry. He realized that slowly the whole turmoil of fear accumulated inside him, which until then had gurgled in his belly with the growing instinct to make him vomit, was changing. Something in him was no longer the same, the animals with their very fine instincts had immediately felt it and were terrified.

Fear was very disappointed, tapping her chin with her fingertips.

>

Fear proved stingy with information, but above all a terrible tormentor.

Until the night was alive, it subjected him to the most terrible tests that the human mind (or in this case the demonic mind) could conceive: jumping off a bridge, walking in the midst of a nest of poisonous snakes, being buried alive and even staying in hovering on the pylons of a light pole. It took courage and patience to accomplish those inhumane feats, not that Riccardo had alternatives since being forced him in one way or another to do them, always repeating the excuse that he had to make sure he had the right skills to bear the job.

But which job?

What kind of job required having to go through leaps and bounds and such oddities?

He had not yet deigned to give him an explanation, that damned.

Then at some point, when a faint yellow glow of the morning had colored the sky, the Fear decided that they could finally stop.

>

Riccardo, calmly, remained to listen; now he wanted to know more.

>

"Privileges"? What else could he do with this absurd new existence?

>

Suddenly they both heard the ringing of a bell, very strange that there could be a church where they were now, that is, among the mountains of who knows what part of the world; the sound, however, was quite out of tune and the fading echo seemed to almost distort into a sinister laugh.

>

And having said this, the Fear disappeared like a puff of smoke and Riccardo broke up into many pieces. He tried to pick them up but in the end there was nothing left of him.

****

The floor was hard, cold, and smelled of ammonia.

He sat up rubbing his face, squinting so that he could focus well on the hospital room he had returned to, identical just as he had left it. He felt his face immediately, the reflection on the glass of the window gave him the good news of having every parts again like before, complete with an overgrown beard and sweaty hair.

He laughed happily, but for a few moments: he had dreamed everything, or not?

The surreal experience he had sustained made him shiver ... as he tried to reflect on what he had seen, heard and felt it was dissipating between memory lapses and faded images no longer recognizable as always happens with dreams.

Yet his head demanded a little in stating that he had really done things, and the most important question remained: Had he stopped feeling fear?

No, it was just a dream. He answered himself.

Two days later, at noon, the doctors let him go, amazed by the incredible recovery of his health.

A miracle they called it, whatever that mysterious disease had been there was now no trace, not a symptom or an imbalance in the exams, and as far as the doctors knew there was no disease with a similar course in the world.

The relatives wanted to celebrate, knowing that he was no longer in danger of death was wonderful news, Riccardo could not more than agree: how beautiful life was now that he had risked losing it. So here is the start of a party with a New Year's flavor among rivers of wine, panforte and all that good food you can find in Tuskany; and endless music and laughter.

After that, the week that followed was marked only by normality.

His bosses made him do office work for a while with the paranoia that they could tire him too much, at least until he convinced them that he could get back into action (i.e. get people out of elevators and put out fires), still leaving him a lot of free time that he spent between zapping on television and car rides outside Florence. He spent whole afternoons in the midst of nature, he felt the need, so without necessarily having a reason.

He repeated the routine on Sunday as well, but a rain front forced him to return earlier than expected. When dinner time came back he was in full swing, from the landing he smelled the aromas of the dishes coming from the neighbors' apartments in which he recognized delicious fried bacon, roast chicken and sautéed vegetables, just enough to tickle his stomach. He didn't waste a single second, he prepared a triumph of carbohydrates and fats that would have made any dietician in the world scream in horror, while the low voice of conscience (with the features of his doctor) reminded him that he would have to stay on a light diet. He thought about it for a second, just long enough to get rid of the guilt.

He was about to inaugurate his fat dinner when he suddenly tripped and found his face dipped in oiled lettuce and lemon slices (the only "healthy" thing prepared), while a familiar laugh mocked him.

>

No, it's not possible, thought Riccardo.

The nightmare came to life, the incarnated Fear was really a reality.

He cleared himself of the mess as the unwanted guest strolled around the apartment browsing every room and opening every ornament, including commenting on everything that was interesting enough to intrigue him or too boring to be insulted, a way of doing things that irritated the poor man whose sanity quickly faltered. The lights of the house, albeit bright, failed to reflect on the black body that seemed to have the consistency of leather, only the teeth sparkled ... more threatening than he remembered.

>

>

>

>

>

>

>

Riccardo was about to reply when he decided not to do it, not to waste his breath. He put his hands to his hair and pulled it back, hoping it would wake him up. He couldn't believe this monster was real, he tried to ignore it but the petulant guest wouldn't stop talking. He tried to give a logical explanation to what was happening: a hallucination, the brain that no longer worked well, the mysterious illness that returned ... any interpretation, even the most tragic.

>

>

>

>

>

The cold, almost icy hand; of the dark being grabbed Riccardo, pulling him to the ground; sinking into the floor like when you fall into the water.

It was time for Riccardo to take up a new job and in the meantime the dear and precious mirror given to him by his mother shone ominously.