It was like waking up from a nightmare, or perhaps stepping into one.
It was like opening her eyes only to find herself a squatter in her own body.
Elena lowered her gaze. Her fingers were clutching the thin stem of a crystal flute, half-filled with a golden liquid that, by the smell of it, was an overly pretentious vintage.
Beyond the glass, she saw midnight-blue silk sliding over her like a second skin, clinging to hips she didn't remember wanting to show off, ending in the sharp point of a pair of black pumps.
The social event shoes. The ones that bit into her heels.
"Damn it. Not again."
She looked up, meeting her own reflection in a baroque mirror hanging on the opposite wall.
Red hair, soft waves studied to look casual.
A "clean girl" makeup look that lied through its teeth, hiding hours of contouring behind a facade of naturalness.
It had happened again. The blackout.
Her brain was a parliament in permanent revolt.
Extrovert against Introvert. Hare against Crow. Fire against Ice.
Every voice screamed conflicting orders, taking control in turns, without warning. Simple clicks. Not personalities, exactly. Just... operating systems.
A few hours ago, the Extrovert had dragged her here.
Now the Introvert had seized command in the middle of the party, not giving a damn about the social disaster she was about to cause.
Elena scanned the crowd.
A perfectly oiled machine that fed on empty chatter.
She judged them with a ferocity that rose from her stomach. But a moment later, she betrayed herself: she didn't hate them. She envied them.
She wished she could be like them.
She wished she could navigate that white noise effortlessly, on autopilot, without feeling the weight of the mask scratching at her face.
She wished life was that simple straight line, devoid of the constant struggle between her internal factions slaughtering each other for the throne.
And besides, going out was objectively stupid.
Milan, in those days, was whispering stories that killed the appetite for champagne.
There was talk of a broken mechanism in society, a predator out of control.
Someone who didn't kill for robbery or passion, but who dismantled victims for pure aesthetic pleasure.
No logical link, no discrimination of social class or gender, no vigilante justice. Just common humans.
The only grotesque thread, bounced around in terrified whispers, was the victims' last meal: lamb.
"Stupid, reckless, arrogant," hissed the Introvert, blaming the Extrovert who had dragged her there.
"Oh well," replied that reckless, exuberant party girl, like two enemies forced to share a cell. "Milan is a minefield anyway. One danger more or less doesn't change the statistics."
Her brain fell silent, exhausted, seeking a truce. Elena looked back at the room, searching for an escape route.
And that was when she saw him.
Or rather: that was when he saw her.
It took her a moment to recognize him, not because of the grogginess of the awakening, but because those eyes were different from the ones she knew. They weren't the eyes of the man she met at friends' houses or social events.
It was as if, for a split second, his mask had slipped off.
He wasn't watching her.
He was looking through her.
He was the only one in that room full of people who didn't see the blue dress or the perfect makeup.
He had witnessed her internal debate, he had seen the changing of the guard between her personalities, and he was amused.
His eyes were laughing with a dark, ancient laughter.
Elena blinked.
When she opened them again, the click in her head was audible.
Click. The Hawk.
Vittorio: the highest-paid lawyer in Milan. The man the guilty turned to when they wanted to become innocent.
He was impeccable in his tailored suit, control personified. Methodical, orderly. A surgeon of the law.
An architect who sees the building collapse before the first stone is even laid and knows exactly where to place the pillar to save it.
That blink had been enough for him, too.
Click. The Actress.
The mask was back in place, hermetically sealed.
He gave her a nod with his glass, a gesture of perfect worldly courtesy.
She responded in the exact same way. Nothing more, nothing less. A mirror of conventions.
They had known each other since university.
Vittorio was a constant in her life: close enough to be useful, distant enough not to let herself be vivisected by his obsessive control.
He started walking toward her.
Elena felt the air shift. It wasn't the air conditioning.
It was the chill she had perceived in that "naked" gaze a moment before.
She braced herself for something profound or terrible.
"The weather's gone mad, hasn't it?" Vittorio said, with a warm, reassuring, banal voice. "There are no seasons anymore."
The disappointment was physical.
Click. The Asocial.
He had no intention of playing. Or perhaps, he was playing so well he was denying the evidence.
Unfortunately for Vittorio, banality wasn't powerful enough to wake the Extrovert, and the Asocial didn't need excuses to be rude.
Elena didn't answer.
She gave a curt nod, turned on her heel, and headed for the cloakroom without looking back.
The only part of her that wanted to stay was nowhere to be found.
At least two others were screaming to leave.
She walked out, and the silence of the street decapitated the music, leaving her alone with the sound of her steps.
The Milan night was a slab of dirty ice.
Elena walked calmly, coat pulled tight, thoughts as gray as the asphalt. The silence of the alleyways was preferable to the chatter of the party.
That was when she felt it.
Not a sound. A vibration. The hairs on the back of her neck standing up, a shift in air pressure behind her.
A rustle.
Click. The Warrior.
The body reacted before the mind. Years of Tai Chi weren't just gymnastics; they were muscle memory.
Fluid as water, Elena sidestepped, rotating her torso.
A black-gloved hand struck the air where, a millisecond before, her trachea had been.
She didn't stop to look.
That hand attacked again. A sharp, targeted blow. Not from a robber, but from a soldier.
Elena deflected it with her forearm, feeling the impact vibrate down to the bone.
Her brain calculated the odds in a nanosecond: Total disadvantage. Inferior physical strength. Enemy technique: lethal.
Click. The Hare. Run like the devil is biting your ankles.
With a furious gesture, Elena kicked off her pumps. The contact of bare feet with the freezing cobblestones was an electric shock. The icy asphalt bit into her raw flesh, a sharp pain that made her feel omnipotent.
She sprinted.
She silently thanked every kilometer she had ground out to escape her thoughts.
She ran like a hare, fast, light, desperate.
She didn't look back. She heard his steps behind her - heavy, rhythmic, inexorable.
He wasn't running to catch her; he was running to bring her down.
She veered right into an alley, then saw a recess to the left.
A construction site.
She knew if she ran in a straight line, he would catch her sooner or later.
She had to change direction; she had to elevate.
Click. The Crow.
With an effort that tore a groan from her throat, she jumped onto a dumpster and from there scrambled up a masonry ledge, a canopy jutting out over a closed shop.
She flattened herself against the freezing stone a second before her pursuer turned the corner.
Silence.
Only her heart hammering against her ribs like a closed fist.
Below her, the man stopped.
Elena held her breath until her lungs ached.
He looked right.
Then left.
His breathing was calm, too calm for someone who had just sprinted.
While the attacker decided which direction to take, the neon light of a flickering sign hit the shop window across the street.
Elena saw the reflection.
She saw the black figure, the tight balaclava.
He lifted the mask for just one second to wipe away sweat. A quick, lightning-fast gesture.
Click. The Hawk.
The neon flashed, and for an instant, in the glass, those eyes shone.
There was no mask. They were the same eyes that had looked through her at the party. The eyes that laughed at chaos.
"Vittorio? Is it possible?"
The questions exploded in her head.
She stayed there, curled up in the shadows, for what felt like an eternity, even after his footsteps had faded toward the park.
She was shaking, but not from the cold. She was shaking with excitement.
She grabbed her phone with numb hands and called an Uber.
She climbed down from the canopy only when she saw the car's headlights illuminate the street corner. She slid into the back seat, curling into herself.
At home, the night was a sentence with no appeal.
She stared at the ceiling while chaos reigned inside her.
Click. The Rabbit.
"Call the police! You were attacked! You saw him! He's a maniac!"
Click. The Sloth.
"That would be a useless hassle. Besides, do you have proof? You saw a reflection in a dirty window."
Click. The Fire.
"You enjoyed it. Those eyes have a story. And you want to hear it."
Elena pressed her hands over her ears, pressing hard, as if to physically crush those voices. Was it possible she couldn't silence them?
Exhausted, she stopped fighting.
Morpheus took her just like that, dressed in torn silk and with feet black from asphalt, dragging her into a dreamless sleep until the merciless light of morning came to collect the bill.