German Santiago Benítez was sitting, playing with his Rubik's cube. A smile that was a mix of gentleness and joy was plastered across his face. The room he was in was entirely white, furnished with two black seats; he occupied one. Across from him, a reception desk, empty and silent.

  The clock above the counter read eleven o'clock in the morning. He had notified his family, and Candado, that he would not be attending the guild’s usual meetings that day. As he hummed a soft melody, the door opened.

  A bald man in an immaculate suit entered the room. His expression quickly shifted from astonishment to discomfort.

  "Benítez? You're already here," he said with a certain tension.

  German looked at him with serenity.

  "Why the long face, sir?" he asked casually.

  The man sighed.

  "I have a son your age. Seeing you here reminds me of him... You shouldn't be in this place."

  German maintained his smile, though his tone grew firmer.

  "Look, Mr. Nazar, I'm not interested in what you think when you see me. You have a job; focus on it," he replied, with a passive-aggressive calm.

  Nazar opened his mouth to reply but stopped when another man entered. It was Red.

  He wasn't wearing his usual suit. He wore a blue, short-sleeved shirt with white flowers, dark trousers, and brown boots. His body was covered in scars; his coffee-colored eyes reflected an ancient weariness. His head was shaved, and he had a black beard on his chin.

  He said nothing. He looked at German, who returned the gaze with a friendly smile.

  "Mr. Murray, we were expecting you," Nazar said.

  Red nodded and turned to German.

  "Greetings, sir. Thank you for helping a friend of mine escape the corrupt hands of P.U.R.A... the so-called ‘Agents.’"

  He pulled a green pen from his pocket and gestured with it.

  "That's right. Her name is Hammya. She is well, thanks to you."

  Red closed his eyes for a moment, took a deep breath, and then approached the counter to sign some papers. He wrote his full name: Redwin Murray.

  Then he looked up at German, awaiting an explanation.

  "Oh, I'm here to see the captive Agent, Sid," German said calmly.

  Red looked down at Nazar.

  "I advised him not to come. This place is not for children," the bald man explained.

  German sighed again, without losing his smile. He took a step forward, watched Red closely, and asked:

  "Do I look like a child to you, Mr. Red?"

  Red held his gaze. He saw no spark or innocence, just an unsettling calm. There was something in those eyes that produced a profound discomfort, almost fear.

  Without a word, Red left a sheet of paper on the side of the counter. He didn't hand it directly to him; the gesture was clear: he did not agree with his presence, but he wouldn't stop him either.

  "Very wise," German commented with a brief smile.

  He took a pen and signed with his initials: B.G. "Benítez German." Nazar sighed, resigned, and allowed them to pass.

  The corridor that followed was narrow and gray, with a metal-grate elevator at the end. Red was already inside, waiting for him. When German entered, he greeted him with elegance and a smile that seemed more like a mask than a sincere gesture.

  "Good day," he said.

  Red pressed a button, and the elevator began its descent. Through the grates, the concrete walls slowly changed: first to rough blocks, then to pure stone.

  The air grew heavy.

  Kanghar. A society that bordered on perfection: no money, no hunger, universal education, and an almost utopian equality. The world powers watched it with suspicion, as if they feared its example. However, beneath that luminous surface, there was a darkness impossible to ignore.

  Because as the elevator moved away from the white room's perfume and the sunny breeze, the sound and color began to change.

  "AHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" a human scream echoed from the depths.

  German raised an eyebrow.

  "Oh, wow... they're working hard," he said sarcastically.

  "PLEASE, NO! STOP! NOOO!" another voice clamored.

  German smiled.

  "That must have hurt. Where did they hit him?" he joked, nudging Red with his elbow.

  The man did not respond.

  As they descended, the landscape opened up: thousands of cells carved into stone, lined up on endless levels beneath the white light of a single, colossal floodlight.

  It was like looking into the interior of a hollow mountain, where the artificial "sun" bathed scenes of horror.

  Men and women in white uniforms, shaved heads, and a number marked on their chests suffered endless punishments. Guards, their faces hidden behind masks, beat them, mutilated them, broke their bodies, only for a healer to instantly mend them, and for the whole cycle to begin again.

  The elevator stopped. The screams were part of the air, a habitual sound, almost structural in that place. The walls smelled of iron and damp.

  This was Las Cuevas (The Caves): hell beneath the city of the children.

  Few knew of its existence... I correct myself: few knew what truly happened inside.

  There were currently twenty prisoners: nine women and eleven men. Only two had survived more than ten years in that abyss, still subjected to daily tortures.

  The staff was small: thirty people, ten of whom were automatons.

  How did someone end up here? Six crimes sufficed.

  First: being a serial killer.

  Second: using forbidden spells, especially the first ten, considered cruel and dangerous.

  Third: violent sexual assault against minors or adults, the former being serial in nature.

  Fourth: depriving others of freedom and torture (the most ironic of all).

  Fifth: war crimes.

  And sixth: Being an active member of P.U.R.A. or being an Agent.

  Thus, Kanghar, the perfect city, maintained a monster beneath its foundations.

  One that breathed, screamed, and bled in the name of justice—a macabre and bloody justice.

  German separated from Red with a gesture of elegant impatience and walked quickly toward the source of some distant screams, sounds that he recognized. Red, for his part, put on his impeccable service uniform, nodding to some staff members coming off or going on shift. He watched as German's youthful figure walked away and, driven by a pang of professional curiosity, decided to follow him at a prudent distance.

  German arrived at what could barely be considered a room. It looked more like an improvised torture chamber, where an individual was being subjected to a brutal process of accelerated healing: the bruises faded and deep wounds closed completely, only to be inflicted again. The subject was Sid, the captured agent. Upon entering, German caught the attention of the individual who played the role of executioner.

  "Evening, Tex," German greeted him with a familiarity that bordered on insolence.

  Tex, a corpulent man with a vacant gaze, turned slowly.

  "Back again, kid?"

  "What can I say? I'm terribly curious," German replied with a smile as wide as it was empty.

  "Yeah... would you mind clearing out? I'm about to start working," Tex said, lifting an iron hammer with a chilling casualness, as if it were a gardening shovel.

  A dull groan came from Sid.

  "They're animals. That's why they're just cattle to us..."

  The metallic sound of a knife plunging into Sid's leg interrupted his sentence, eliciting a guttural scream. German, however, remained unperturbed.

  "Shut up. I'm talking," Tex ordered with a brutal calm that amplified the torture.

  Sid coughed up blood but raised his gaze.

  "Filthy pigs... all of you. You don't know who you're messing with."

  "Wow, the little rat got brave," German commented with icy sarcasm, tilting his head.

  Sid stared at him.

  "I see you like to bring well-dressed children to contemplate these macabre acts."

  "Selective morality? I love it," German retorted, grabbing a metal chair and sitting down as if he were in a theater box—"I suppose kidnapping children and experimenting on them must be very moral."

  "Ah, you're a dirty beast... They are not human! They are the danger to humanity. We control the plagues so that the filthy locusts don't eat man's crops."

  German smiled, a gesture that seemed to tear his face.

  "Locusts... it must be fun to crush and dissect them," he commented with a disturbing glint in his eyes, tilting his head even further.

  "You are a..."

  Tex signaled to Red. Red rushed to cover German's eyes with a hand, quickly, but surprisingly gently.

  "Oh, the light went out," German said in a mocking and carefree tone.

  Meanwhile, Tex took a smaller mallet, focused, and struck Sid's mouth with painful precision. The blow echoed, followed by a muffled scream.

  "Ahhhhhhh!" Sid screamed, more from shock than from the pain he knew would be fleeting.

  Immediately, Tex activated the accelerated healing machine, and Sid's shattered face regenerated until it was intact. German removed Red's hand with a soft but firm push and continued observing Sid.

  "I don't want to interrupt your laborious workday, Tex, but I'd like to speak with him alone."

  Tex shrugged with relief.

  "Oh, good. I need a breather. Take over, Red."

  Tex set the hammer aside with a dry thud and left the room to grab a cigarette.

  German approached Sid slowly, his face now serious.

  "Well, well, well. Now we can talk like civilized beings. How do you feel, Sid? Comfortable?"

  Sid burst into laughter.

  "Did I say something funny?" German asked with a hint of genuine curiosity.

  "You're more than a monster, kid. I see it in your eyes..."

  "Oh, really? Maybe so, but we're not here to talk about me, sir. I'd like to know if you know Ricardo Benítez."

  "Ricardo Benítez? I admit I heard his name, but I don't know him."

  "What a shame. He's a P.U.R.A. agent, but headquarters had no information on him. I thought you would know; you seem to be high-ranking."

  Sid narrowed his eyes, looking at him more closely.

  "Oh, it's you. How could I forget! The scar on your face... it's striking, but now I remember. You're one of the test survivors."

  "I see you know about the incident."

  "Yes, German Benítez. The sole survivor. Marked for the failed cattle. I see you survived that."

  "Bingo," German said, snapping his fingers with a smile.

  Then he approached, and with a premeditated slowness, he touched Sid's hand.

  "I just want to thank you."

  "Thank me?" Sid asked, confused.

  "For a long time, I wondered what was wrong with me. I didn't know what to do, or how to feel. But now..."

  German applied a minimal, but perfectly calibrated, pressure, and Sid's hand fractured with an awful snap. Sid let out a sharp, suppressed groan.

  "Thanks to the Universal Project for Anomaly Regulation, I can finally unleash the violence I harbored... toward you."

  As he said this, German's body began to change. His clothes stretched as he grew and deformed, reaching an imposing seven feet and seven inches (2.30 meters). He had transformed into his "inner animal," the lobizón (werewolf), displaying brilliant yellow eyes, sparse black fur, and a thin, but incredibly muscular body, topped with a jaw full of sharp fangs.

  "Relax. I won't kill you," German said with a voice that was now deep, terrifying, and roared in his throat.

  Red rushed toward him, but it was too late. German bit Sid's shoulder with such brutal force that it made the agent scream, a cry of pure agony, which now did exceed the threshold of tolerable pain.

  Some time later, German was in a bathroom, washing his hands while whistling a light melody.

  "Wow, what good fabric, I'll have to thank Candado for the tailor he recommended, and the tailor, of course," he said, laughing to himself.

  Red stood in the doorway, motionless. His uniform was stained with blood.

  "Sorry about the mess," German said, looking at him in the mirror with a smile.

  If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  Red tapped his wristwatch.

  "I'm coming, I'm coming," German said with absolute tranquility.

  German was accompanied by Red to the exit. The agent kept his eyes on him the entire time, and it was obvious that he had noticed something more than just anomalous about German. Upon reaching the White Room, Nazar was still there, managing paperwork.

  "That was quick," Nazar commented without looking up.

  "Thank you, and good day, Mr. Nazar."

  "Have a good day," Nazar sighed in farewell.

  They both arrived at the facility doors. German stopped, inhaled the fresh air deeply, and turned to Red.

  "Thank you for accompanying me, Mr. Red. I hope you have a magnificent day and rest of your day," German said, with his big boyish smile that suggested he had just broken not a toy, but a person.

  As he walked away, an unusual response was heard:

  "...Likewise."

  The voice was deep and raspy, as if it hadn't been used in years. German stopped dead and turned around. His smile faded slightly; even he hadn't expected that. Red simply nodded, with no visible emotion, and closed the door behind him.

  "Haha, that was weird," German mumbled to himself, resuming his walk with renewed energy.

  German got into the carriage without a word and asked the coachman to take him straight to the hotel where he was staying. The journey was brief, wrapped in the rattling of the wheels and the distant murmur of Kanghar awakening. When he arrived, he crossed the lobby with his quiet stride and imperturbable expression.

  Approaching the main lounge, he saw her: Ana María Pucheta was asleep on a table, her head resting on her arm and a small string of drool sliding onto the polished wood. German watched her for a few seconds with a mixture of bewilderment and contained repulsion.

  "Disgusting," he murmured to himself.

  He looked towards the counter and ordered two bottles of soda. The receptionist, accustomed to his eccentricities, handed them to him without asking questions. German took one of the bottles and placed it with a dry thump in front of the sleeping woman.

  The noise was enough to wake her. Ana María sat up with a start, her disheveled hair covering half her face.

  "Good morning," she mumbled, pretending to be perfectly awake.

  "Yes, good morning," German replied in a neutral tone, maintaining his usual smile.

  Realizing her appearance, she hurried to fix her hair and the collar of her shirt. German uncapped his drink and took a sip, without looking away.

  "I clearly told you I didn't want you to be here."

  "And I told you I was going to wait for you, kiddo," she said, as she also drank her soda.

  German raised an eyebrow.

  "Kiddo? God... that sounds awful."

  "So?" she asked with a shrug.

  "So what?"

  "Let's explore."

  "You explore if you want. I'm going home."

  Ana María slid across the table with a mischievous smile and approached him, invading his personal space as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

  "Here we go again?" German asked, letting out a tired smile.

  "Look, Fido, we're in Kanghar. Let's explore... or better yet, let's fight."

  "I don't want to," he replied, taking another drink—"And it's not interesting at all."

  "Come on, it's like riding a bike."

  "What does that have to do with anything?"

  "Without wheels."

  German sighed.

  "Pucheta, say something that can be understood with that poor vocabulary you have."

  "Buenos días, mi loco."

  "Por favor, habla en inglés"

  "What did you say?"

  "Nothing."

  "Let's do something," she insisted.

  "How about nothing?"

  "How about a race?"

  "And you're going to ignore me. Great," German muttered.

  "Race, then," she said, taking it for granted.

  "Pucheta, I don't want to..."

  He didn't manage to finish. Ana María grabbed his arm and dragged him out of the hotel.

  "And there goes my peace," he murmured, resigned.

  They arrived at a beautiful, almost empty plaza, with flowering trees and a temperate air that smelled of earth and new leaves. Ana María was stretching and making small jumps to warm up, while German stood still, hands in his pockets, wearing his typical skeptical smile.

  "Are we going to run in these clothes?" he said, pointing to his attire. "An elegant suit against a skirt and a white shirt... very useful for a race."

  "Stop being sarcastic. I didn't have time to pack my things. You were already leaving."

  "That’s why I told you to stay put."

  "And I said no," she replied, crossing her arms with a proud smile.

  "Do you know that if you run, you'll get dirty with the soil and end up sweating? And, as a bonus, you'll have to bathe... if you feel like it."

  "Hey! Of course, I bathe."

  "Good, I'm glad to know that. What are you going to wear?"

  "I hadn't thought about it."

  "Great. Let's go back to the hotel."

  "Too late."

  "Why?"

  Ana María playfully punched his arm.

  "You bring them."

  "What?"

  Without giving him time to process the phrase, Pucheta took off running, laughing.

  "Weren't we going to compete?" German muttered with a sigh. "Seriously... why do I bother?"

  He put his hands back in his pockets and started walking, following her from far behind, without rushing or running.

  German had lost sight of Ana María among the trees, but he tracked her footsteps with the determination of a hunter. It was curious how he always managed to find her, as if something inside him couldn't stand not knowing where she was. He finally found her, lying on the grass, gazing at the sky with her hands crossed behind her head, so peaceful she seemed part of the landscape.

  "Oh, you made it," she said, without taking her eyes off the firmament. "Lie down."

  "Weren't we supposed to be competing?" German asked, raising an eyebrow.

  Ana María let out a soft chuckle, and without letting him respond, she took his arm and pulled him down until he fell beside her.

  "Great," he mumbled, dusting himself off a bit. "My clothes are dirty."

  She laughed harder, that clean, carefree laugh that he found absurd and, at the same time, strangely necessary. For a moment, both were silent. They looked at the sky. She with peace. He with his usual smile... but with empty eyes, devoid of reflection.

  "Isn't it beautiful, German?" she asked.

  "The sky? Oh, yes. Very pretty," he replied, as if speaking of something distant, detached.

  "What were you doing?" she asked, turning her face to look at him.

  "Things."

  "What things?"

  "Marvelous ones."

  Pucheta laughed.

  "What color?"

  "Red," he said, smiling maliciously.

  "Seriously now. Where were you?"

  German smiled, that smile of his you never knew if it was genuine or a mechanism to hide something.

  "Believe me, you don't want to know."

  "I know you," she said playfully, though her words carried a deeper truth. "I know nothing you do can be good."

  "I don't know whether to feel flattered or stalked."

  "Which do you prefer?"

  "Both."

  "Then, let it be both."

  They laughed together. But silence soon returned, like an inevitable echo. German sighed, without erasing his smile.

  "I went to the Caves," he finally said. "That's all I'll say."

  Ana María tensed slightly.

  "Oh... that place."

  "There are people who deserve to be there," German continued, with a disturbing calm. "And it's my guilty pleasure to watch them writhe in pain. To see them scared, begging for mercy, wondering why they are there."

  He laughed. At first, barely a mocking breath; then, a burst of laughter that sounded out of place, overwhelming, as if he had truly been told a brilliant joke.

  "To see the regret in their eyes... the terror... to know that their bodies are so fragile, so insignificant," he said between laughs. "Ha, ha, ha, ha..."

  He covered his eyes with a hand and continued laughing, as if something inside him were breaking. Ana María, uneasy, placed her hand on his chest. His breathing was irregular. For an instant, he stopped laughing. He lowered his hand. He sighed. And he smiled again.

  "It's not good to have those thoughts," she said, her voice quiet.

  "Now you sound like Hector," German replied, rolling his eyes.

  "I'm not him. I'm me. We may think alike, but we are not the same."

  "Now you sound like Candado."

  She pouted and gently punched his chest. He let out a feigned groan.

  "It's not a game, German," she countered, with a seriousness that contrasted with her usual tone. "If you act like this, you'll end up taking everything as a game. Even what shouldn't be. You shouldn't enjoy the suffering of others."

  German let out a short, ironic chuckle, almost a breath.

  "You think I like watching them suffer? Not at all. I like making them suffer. It's different."

  "German..."

  "Besides," he added, his tone changing, becoming darker, "there's one person I wish I could have all to myself."

  "Who?" Ana María asked, though she feared the answer.

  "A scumbag I once called 'uncle'."

  His words hung in the air. Ana María looked at him, unable to decipher if he spoke with rancor or desire. But on his face, there was something more than hatred: there was calm. That unsettling calm that precedes the storm.

  German closed his eyes. His mind took him back, a few months ago, when Hammya had confronted him in front of Sara from Holy Truth. That day he had understood something he could no longer forget.

  A few months ago.

  "Had you been here before?" Hammya asked.

  "Yes. I don't like it, but yes."

  "I'm surprised you say it like that."

  "Having a bad attitude complicates things a lot for everyone, it leads us to make wrong decisions, therefore, annoying decisions."

  "But..."

  "Yes?"

  "You never stop smiling. Why?"

  "Who knows? Smiling is what has given me strength."

  "Strength?"

  "Or maybe laziness, I don't know. I don't have a tragic backstory," German said, picking up a newspaper from the table.

  Hammya observed a scar on his face and was about to ask, but stopped herself. She always wondered why he had such a striking scar—why it looked like a four.

  Present.

  The truth was that for German, it wasn't a lie. For others, it was.

  In his head, still a child's, with a voice broken by innocence, reality was not made of the same pieces as it was for others. In his game, the pieces could be spun, rearranged, or broken. And if something broke, he simply put it back together in a different way.

  He was six years old when it happened. He was the seventh son of the Benítez family, and that night, a full moon Friday, his body tore itself apart from the inside. He transformed into a beast.

  The Lobizón (Werewolf).

  That morning, he devoured livestock, tore horses to shreds, and at dawn, he was found asleep in the grass, naked and covered in mud, his clothes in tatters. His paternal uncle promised he would take care of him, that they would "cure" him. The family, caught between fear and shame, handed him over. It was a decision they disguised as love.

  But it was not a cure. It was a handover.

  German ended up at a P.U.R.A. Agents headquarters, a windowless concrete complex. There, Ricardo Benítez, his uncle, left him in the care of the doctors. The boy never forgot the superior's words when that man begged for help.

  "What you are doing is what humans do," the agent said. "We don't deny those who wish to purify themselves. Who want to be pure again. You're doing well."

  He was six years old when the experiments began.

  Pain, hunger, cold. He didn't understand anything. He believed it was a punishment, that he deserved it for being "bad." He promised himself to behave, to obey, and then they would let him go. But days turned into weeks, and weeks, into an endless fog.

  There were ten children. Ten numbers.

  He was Number One, marked on his cheek with burning ink. The only "privileged" one.

  His uncle never returned.

  The food was a sour paste, the water tasted like metal. One by one, the others disappeared.

  Six and Two died without a word. They only cried before sleeping, until one day they stopped moving. German watched them without blinking. Something in him had been extinguished long ago. He felt nothing. No sadness, no fear. Only emptiness.

  Only one child ever spoke to him: Franco, Number Four.

  He was the opposite: kind, persistent, luminous. He would give him his food ration, tell him stories, ask him questions.

  "Want to play?"

  "With what?"

  "Riddles."

  "No."

  "I'll start."

  That's how the days went. Between the rot and the metallic voices of the doctors, Franco was the only human sound.

  Until they took him away.

  He returned without teeth, his mouth covered in dry blood. German came out of his cell to see him. He helped him drink water. Franco smiled at him with effort.

  The next morning, he was dead.

  German watched him in silence. He closed his eyes with a delicacy he didn't remember possessing. And then something inside him broke again.

  His skin covered with hair, his muscles stretched.

  He transformed.

  But this time, he didn't lose consciousness. The lobizón breathed calmly. He looked at his claws, looked at Franco... and turned back into a child.

  That night, he understood something: he could control it.

  And he began to practice.

  The next day, they sat him on a metal gurney. They were going to "cure" him. They talked about multiplying energy in the "brainstem." Words he didn't understand.

  While the doctor prepared the anesthesia, German looked him in the eyes. And he smiled.

  A clean smile. Too clean for a child. The man paused for a second, confused.

  It was the last second he had.

  A claw tore through his neck from side to side. The others screamed, trying to restrain him. There was no time.

  In a few seconds, only bodies, blood, and silence remained.

  The boy walked among the corpses. One of the doctors was still crawling toward the door. German reached him, picked up a pair of scissors from the floor, and stabbed him in the back. One, two, three, ten times. He didn't stop even when the body was still.

  Then he looked at the broken mirror on the floor. Number 1 was still marked on his cheek.

  "We'll go home," he murmured.

  And with the same scissors, he cut open the skin on his face. The pain made him tremble, but he continued.

  The one became a four. Franco would be proud, he thought.

  Then the alarm sounded. And the gunshots.

  The door was kicked open.

  Soldiers stormed the room. Among them, a young man with a tense face: Keller.

  "My God... What the hell happened here?"

  The men looked at the disaster: blood on the walls, mutilated bodies, a child covered in red sitting in the middle of the floor.

  One of them, Red, the one with the flamethrower, pushed Keller aside and approached. He dropped his weapon, crouched down, and carried him in his arms.

  German looked at him with empty eyes.

  "I want to go home," he said.

  Red took a white cloth from his pocket and pressed it against the wound on his cheek. He carried him outside.

  In the hallway, German saw his cell. Guards were covering Franco's body with a blanket.

  He lowered his head. He didn't cry.

  German was held captive for sixty-three days.

  He was taken to safety, treated by doctors, and thanks to the information he provided—who he was and how he got there—his family was contacted within hours.

  And his family came to get him.

  When they saw him, they hugged him through tears.

  German smiled. A blank, perfectly executed smile.

  "I missed you so much," he said.

  A shiver ran down his mother's spine. But that didn't stop her, or his family, from hugging him and promising that everything would be alright.

  A year later, they moved to Chaco. German repeated first grade. That's when he met Candado and Hector.

  On the first day, he arrived dressed in a black suit, an amiable smile, rehearsed manners.

  He planned to become friends with the two of them. And he succeeded.

  With Candado, he played chess—German never won—and riddles. With Hector, he talked about the sky and the future, and also played chess, and no, he didn't win against him either. With Lucas, he shared absurd inventions: a ball that followed him, a square-wheeled motorcycle. He barely exchanged words with the twins, Erika and Lucia, but treated them politely.

  Everything seemed normal. Until the small gestures began.

  One day Lucas said he needed chalk for an experiment; German spoke to the classroom teacher in measured phrases, with that politeness that doesn't ask permission; when the teacher left, he re-entered and "found" a package of chalk, which he then gave to Lucas. It was not a mistake; it was a staged performance: the calculated glance, the exact wait, the public return of the favor. The twins, who were teased for not having a father, cried one afternoon; German, who knew where a nearby dog was, took some objects from the children who bothered them and threw them to the animal.

  Small thefts followed with the same logic. When Hector said he wanted a Batman figure and his parents wouldn't buy it, German brought it to school the next day, with a triumphant smile. It was a gesture that generated debt and surprise, and which, for him, served a purpose. Another time, Candado confessed that he wanted sweets but didn't have any money.

  And that afternoon, German broke into the closed kiosk to steal some sweets. But that's where he found him: Candado, sitting and eating some sweets.

  "I knew you'd come," Candado said, chewing.

  "What a surprise, Candado," German replied, as if the surprise came from the outside, not within.

  Candado looked at him, and in that exchange, something sharpened. He noticed small things: the strange synchronicity between his smile and words, the lack of blush when he spoke of things that would shame anyone, the voice that didn't break in moments when it should.

  "What are you doing here? Everyone's gone."

  "I could ask the same."

  "I'm going home with my sister, but I told her to wait."

  Candado finished eating, threw the wrapper in the trash, and left the money on the counter, with a precision and respect for the rules that contrasted with German's presence.

  "I started observing you when that trio of idiots was chased by the dog," he said calmly. "Not because of the act of cruelty, which is common in other children, but because of the punishment, which was so disproportionate and indirect. What are you doing at the kiosk? Were you planning to steal for me?"

  "Me? How could you think that? No, they just asked me to check some things."

  "Without a key?"

  "I lost them, that's why I had to force the door."

  "Oh, are you talking about these keys?" Candado asked, in a slightly sarcastic but emotionless tone. He showed the keys. "Being friends with the owner has its benefits. Curiously, she didn't mention you."

  "I'm new, I didn't tell her my name, that's normal."

  "Uh-huh," Candado said, balancing the keys.

  German, cornered by logic and with his plan dismantled, resorted to his last tool of manipulation: superficial affection.

  He abruptly dropped the smile and began to cry, a sudden, theatrical sob.

  "I... I just wanted them to like me. Don't be mean to me, don't tell anyone."

  Candado observed him with a serious, analytical gaze. His lack of emotional response was a mirror to German's lack of true affection.

  "Are you done playing the clown?"

  German continued with the forced crying.

  "Why are you so mean? I just wanted to be friends."

  Candado remained silent, watching him. German waited for the empathetic reaction to do its work.

  "Your fake tears don't bother me, they only impress me with the technique," Candado finally said. "A person who cries genuinely has a voice that breaks, they stutter, their phrases are cut short by their breathing. You, on the other hand, complete entire sentences of supplication. The crying is theatrical, clean. Achieving tears at will is incredible. A round of applause."

  Then he walked up to him and placed his hand on German's chest.

  "A normal little heart," he murmured. "Without the slightest alteration from threat or lie. As if nothing had affected you. Fascinating."

  German, knowing his emotional "mirror" wasn't working, adjusted his mask and returned to his calculated smile.

  "Too bad. I thought I had you."

  "Yeah. I'm sure Hector would have bought the story. But it doesn't work with me. I don't see fear or guilt. Only the evaluation of failure."

  "Yes, I see it. So? What are you going to do?"

  "Me? Nothing. Just one question: What do you want from us?"

  "From you? Just one thing: your friendship seems interesting to me. I'd like to participate."

  Candado pondered for a moment, weighing the utility and the risk.

  "You can stay. I won't say anything, and this remains between us. But if you ever use our friendship as an instrument without my knowledge, I will accuse you."

  "Now that's scary," German said, laughing with a sound that lacked true joy, accepting the new power dynamic.

  From that day on, the gestures stopped. Candado resolved the problems German had caused, and German, intrigued, began to take an interest in him. He was the only one who had seen behind his mask, and that's why he began to follow him. Not out of need, or affection, but for mere pastime: for him, Candado was an interesting human being.

  Suddenly, German felt a hand on his chest and returned to reality.

  He had fallen asleep. He was still lying down, looking at the sky. Ana María was nearby.

  "Are you okay?" she asked.

  German sighed and, without abandoning his smile, replied:

  "I'm wonderful, Ana. How about we go home?"

  "Of course, let's go," she said, with an authentic smile.

  German observed that genuine expression. In that instant, he remembered the day Candado lost his sister, and how he, instead of withdrawing, saw an opportunity there. He wanted to contemplate the most intimate and intriguing facet of human grief: the way someone could fall apart and rebuild themselves. That which he had never felt. He watched every stage, up to the slow and incomplete "repair."

  He whispered, almost to himself, as Ana María got to her feet:

  "With Candado, I learned that even ice has flaws. Maybe... just maybe, if I watch him, if I study him, if I copy him... perhaps someday I'll experience that feeling. Maybe I'll feel, by osmosis or by leisure. If I fake it enough, maybe something will fail in me."

  "Did you say something?" she asked, looking at him.

  "No, I didn't say anything."

  German got up and watched Ana María walk on again, carefree. He smiled upon seeing her, with a strange, fleeting warmth. He paused for a moment and said:

  "Pucheta."

  She stopped and turned around.

  "Yes?"

  "If I ever get lost, I want you to find me. If I ever harm innocent people, I want you to stop me. And if I ever cry... I wish you would hold me."

  "Do you think I'm your babysitter?" Ana María laughed, but noticing the seriousness in his gaze, she added softly, "Yes, of course. I will, don't worry."

  German returned to his usual laugh.

  "Good, let's go. My clothes are dirty."

  "I'll follow you, brother," she replied, as they started walking together under the twilight.