Chapter 4

No one reacted to that question, only Diego, who froze for a moment, afraid to turn back. His ears became hot, while his legs trembled and his hands tingled.

A primitive feeling, like that of a fawn that feels the hunter's heavy gaze on the back of its neck, but cannot see him no matter how hard it looks for him. That's how Diego felt, with the difference that he didn't take his eyes off the front while his friends were slowly getting ahead of him.

Suddenly, as if something had perched on his neck, he felt an immense weight on his shoulders and then a loop encircling him and tightening it tightly, like a scarf wrapped around him. He tried to get whatever it was off him, but to no avail, although he felt it he could not touch it and only managed to scratch his neck hard over and over again.

The most basic instincts awoke, and several internal screams that only he could hear begged him to run "Move! Move! Run, you idiot! He's going to kill us!", but his legs did not answer him, it was as if he had been put in shackles. At that moment it would have been easier to push the most stubborn mule, the heaviest ox, it would have been more practical to push the pillars of Plaza Cubierta, than to try to move Diego from his place.

His body had become heavy, as if tons and tons of concrete had been placed on his shoulders. And yet, supernaturally, his leg moved, but not to the front, as Diego intended in order to catch up with his friends, who were not looking back, no, he moved to the left and then turned the rest of his body, resting his gaze on the Cloud Shepherd, the iconic work of art that so many graduates had seen as they left the Aula Magna... at the foot of the sculpture a doll was waiting for him.

Diego could not believe what he saw, what he felt, believing himself in a lucid dream that he was unable to control. His body moved at a slow pace and continued until he reached the sculpture and, without a second's hesitation, without being able to recognize if the movements he was making were of his own free will or not, he bent down and picked up that doll full of details, a kind of clown.

It was twelve inches tall and made of wood, with a contoured face, carefully painted and decorated with rouge, intense green eyes and a big smile that went from ear to ear. He was dressed in delicate clothes, with diamonds and stripes interspersed with bright and intense colors, red, green and yellow. A simple hat over his aquamarine hair, a quirky tie around his neck, in his right hand he held a colorful cane and in his left a red handkerchief.

Diego gazed absorbedly at that fine doll until he heard faint whispers. Innocent, he thought it was his companions, but no, it was the giggles, the prelude to the voice. This time, although it had not changed its soft and melodic tone, it said to Diego a few words that sounded like frightening shouts. A simple phrase, but one that made him shake hard, an ultimatum.

—We will play the ladder game.

"Am I unconscious, did I pass out in training? I'm hallucinating, this is a nightmare, I have sleep paralysis or something" He repeated to himself as he tried to turn towards his companions.

He made it with difficulty, watching them walk away, passing right next to the nameless Fernand Léger murals. He tried to call out to them in a hoarse voice, stretched out his hand in vain, as if that were enough to stop them.

—Don't go, it will be fun —the voice was firm and crisp... even somewhat familiar. He analyzed it carefully, it was as close as if there was someone in front of him.

"Who are you?" he tried to ask, but he couldn't make a sound, as if his mouth had been sewn shut with thread and needle. Also a strange smell, caramelized and cloying, enveloped him, making him dizzy and turning his legs to jelly; they began to tremble with every step he took in the opposite direction of his friends.

—Follow the masks, let's have a good time..... Diego.

"Who's talking to me... I think the one talking to me is the doll?" he wondered as he looked carefully at the clown he held in his right hand.

—Follow the masks —he insisted.

"It can't be, it was... It was me! What is this?" he wondered desperately, trying to make sense of what he had just experienced.

He spoke, he could recognize his own voice, but his words were not his, the intention to speak did not come from him. A strange feeling, absurd and implausible as everything that was happening, let him know that this doll had transformed him into its puppet.

Dominated by that mysterious will, his desperate gaze detached from the back of the others and rested on the base of a column to the left. There, hidden in plain sight, a garish red rag mask awaited him. He walked toward it, leaving the Cloud Shepherd behind. He held it in his left hand and then, not many meters away, he saw another mask of a garish color near a wall that led him out of Plaza Cubierta, through a nearby exit that went back to the Hall of Flags.

Her heart began to beat faster than it already did and she wanted to stop, but it was impossible. He almost burst into tears when he was near the exit, between long shadows, a white hand peeked out subtly, scratching the wall with long yellow nails. A decrepit silhouette, too thin to be human, saw him with a black-toothed grin. Diego's internal scream was intense, but it was stifled by the will of an invisible entity, which forced him to obey.

—The ladder game began... follow the masks —she ordered him, making him step into the darkness.

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